Working to See More Clearly

"Take up the way of meeting others on equal ground." --Buddhist precept as discussed by Diane Rizzetto in her book, Waking Up to What You Do.

In her book, Waking Up to What You Do, Abbess Diane Rizzetto writes on the precept of meeting others on equal ground. She quotes the writer Dag Hammarskjold, Markings: 

"To be humble is not to make comparisons. Secure in

its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, 

than any thing else in the universe. It is nothing; at the same time, 

one with the universe." 

What are the obvious and not so obvious ways that we regard ourselves in light of others? Do we gain self-worth in measuring ourselves against others? Do we consider our own thoughts, our own way? Do we praise ourselves at the expense of others? Or while not praising ourselves, abuse others?

What keeps us from meeting others, from meeting the stranger on equal ground? What about competition--are there winners and losers in the world? How does anger, insecurity, fear, shame and blame block the way of meeting others on equal ground? 

Why must we meet equally? Despite our sometimes fearful and anxious experiences of meeting others with pounding heart and cold hand, adrenaline flowing making us feel like ice, meeting others on equal ground is important.

Even so, there are many ways we either subtly or overtly avoid our feelings and perceptions of unease with ourselves; we measure, we criticize, blame and shame our way through life. Putting others down will pull us up, it seems--maybe. By learning more about the reality of inter-being we come to find that this isn't so.

 Making you dirty, makes me dirty; disrespect to you is disrespect to myself. I am the doing, the making of it all, the dream of self. Considering this perception, we find it isn't limited to speech. Behavior is also a means of competition and measuring ourselves to others.

We may ignore, exclude or avoid others in our activities with the intention to demonstrate a perception of superiority. Sometimes we even think we are more sophisticated, more enlightened than the others. 

In history we learn that the Buddha was enlightened in a simple way, under a tree, no posh hotel or vacation spot for him. The Christ was hung ultimately on a cross, no limousine or finely dressed mourners at his death. 

Gandhi was shot to death, there were no bowing supplicants before him; rather, it was the end of a gun. So too for Martin Luther King. 

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta had no exemplary education beyond courage and will. These figures are burned into our consciousness; they were both humble and great, simple and wise.

Do not admire them; be more like them. Diane Rizzetto writes, "When we speak or act in these [other] ways, clarity, discovery and true dialog [understanding] are lost. 

Even if we don't consciously place ourselves above others...if we're in the game of competition by watching our reactions when we make a mistake... Do we blame... find excuses... jump in defense?"   
Do we say what it is; that is, do we say, "I forgot, I lost it, I didn't understand?" In being humble, speaking truthfully, we are neither better nor worse.

However, when our focus is to maintain ourselves in a perception of better than others, above them, then we close ourselves, we cut ourselves off; separation from the world and others occurs. We then choose to live in division. 

There is now just the dream, that dream of self. Working to see more clearly, vispayana, the ways we judge others, and the ways we place so much of our energy in covering up ourselves due to fear, anxiety, shame-- the same energy is always available to help us to see more clearly and compassionately our own, true selves. Neither better nor worse than others. 

"Whether we place ourselves above or below others, we are substituting an idea about who we are, or who others are, or should be for the simple truth that as human beings we are good at some things and not so good at other things. We fail and succeed; we know and we don't know; we accomplish some useful things in our day, and we mess up some other things. This is what it means to be human..." to be humble, to be neither better nor worse, to be oneself." paraphrased

"Take your practiced powers and stretch them out until they span the chasm between contradictions... for the god wants to know himself in you."
-- Poet Maria Rilke

Garbage and Roses

"What is real remains."

A principle text of Buddhism, the Prajnaparamita "Heart" Sutra, perhaps the principle text for all practitioners on the way is also called "the Heart of Understanding." This text is central to many and universal in its wisdom. It traces its roots within the Buddhist Canon back 2,000 or more years. Surely other traditions at that time had some access to it, and other like teachings.
Technology may have changed over that time, but the Heart, or Perfect Understanding Sutra in its reflection of human nature and practice has not. Despite the passage of time, it remains a reality.

For me a student of the Way, and a learner of the teaching, I have used other study texts to understand and learn more; however, the best one I have used whether in Zendo or on my own, is the 1988 translation and commentaries written by Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of Understanding.
 It is written with emphasis to make the teaching more accessible to the Western mind. By writing the commentary on Garbage and Roses, he seeks to further our understanding of emptiness. "To be empty does not mean nonexistence... Emptiness is the ground of everything... if I am not empty, I cannot be here [in this moment] writes the philosopher, Nagarjuna... Empty is quite a positive concept... because you are there, I can be here."

"Neither defiled nor immaculate"

"Defiled or immaculate. Dirty or pure. These are concepts we form in our minds... A beautiful rose is pure, immaculate." A garbage can is dirty, evil, rotten. These are experiences that may fill our mind with the idea of the word.
Looking more carefully, more deeply, you will see that the rose is born out of the garbage. The garbage is composted, and forms the base of humus for the soil that the rose needs to survive. Organic gardeners know that in a few months, plant matter, and natural things, decay into compost. Thus roses and garbage inter-be.
They need each other! Likewise, the Buddhist teaching of the human Genesis is very short and simple, yet it is very deep:

This is, because that is. This is not, because that is not. This is like this, because that is like that.

Meditate a while upon this and you will see more clearly the inter-being of things. Sometimes, we in our lives, are like that because this is like that. We all inter-be. So, "we must be very careful. We should not imprison ourselves in concepts. We can only inter-be. We cannot just be." Only through the eyes of inter-being can we be freed of suffering, can we find forgiveness and blessings.

For example, many of us want to "be good." But we forget that part of good is evil. For without evil, what then is the good? "You cannot be good alone,' Thich Nhat Hanh states, 'you cannot hope to remove evil, because thanks to evil, good exists and vice versa...
So Buddha needs Mara to take the evil role so Buddha can be a Buddha. Buddha is empty; Buddha is made of non-Buddha elements... Buddha needs Mara in order to reveal himself... When you perceive reality in this way, you will not discriminate against the garbage for the sake of the rose."

Saint Paul needed Saint Matthew to become Saint Paul, who himself initially was a vicious persecutor of Christians, yet through a vision, and contacts with the disciples, with Saint Matthew the Evangelist, Paul (Saul) became transformed into one of the early Fathers of the Christian Church. Without Saint Matthew and others to open his eyes, like Mara and Buddha, he would not be Saint Paul of the Bible.
 Clearly that is because this is; it is the work of inter-being that we may look deeply to perceive that. The Feast of Saint Paul is June 29 in the Roman Church Calendar.

"So do not hope that you can eliminate the evil side. It is easy to think that we are on the good side, and that the other side is evil. But wealth is made of poverty, and poverty is made of wealth." And if we look very carefully into the world, into ourselves, we may see that we suffer, we bear the pains of all.

The Moon is Always the Moon

"There is neither increasing nor decreasing" --The Heart Sutra

Writing on the essential topic of the Prajnaparamita, the Heart Sutra, Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, notes in his commentary, The Heart of Understanding, that there is neither increasing nor decreasing. He says we, for example, "worry because we think that after we die, we will not be a human being anymore, we'll be a speck of dust."

We think that in terms of increase and decrease--to live or to die. But this is not so; Hanh teaches us that rather, the sutra means to say that big and small are concepts in our minds; they may not have any reality in the world, because everything depends upon everything else by the Buddhist principle taught as interpenetration, or inter-being.

Thus everything contains everything else. In the sun is contained the rain; in the moon is contained the moon herself, and everything that makes up the idea of the moon. It then cannot be destroyed, the idea alone is too small, too insignificant.
Mara, when in balance, is no danger any more than the Buddha. So, "when they assassinated Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., they hoped to reduce them to nothingness", Hanh writes. But no thing can be reduced to nothing.

Existing is matter within the elements of other things, of other persons, in the very molecules that constitute form. These molecules, persons and others in history, exist and continue to exist, perhaps more greatly than before, precisely because "they continue in other forms."
We, ourselves, continue their being. So let us not be afraid of decreasing. It is like the moon. We see the moon increasing and decreasing, but it is always like the moon." Suchness.

Does God Need To Be Famous?

"We can still remain a free person. Free from what?" Going Home by Thich Nhat Hanh

Writing in his book, Going Home, Buddhist Monk and scholar Thich Nhat Hanh writes, musing about the fame of God, God the Father, as he calls it. He says, "there is another dimension of life that we may not have touched... it is very crucial that we touch it... the dimension of the sky, heaven, God the Father...looking again at water and waves... if we are able to touch them both, you'll be free from all these notions."

Water is not separate from the wave, insists Hanh. We are born into our "spiritual life' when we are encouraged to touch the other dimension, God, the Father. Now this father is not the usual notion of a father; rather it is used by Hanh to point to another reality. "We should not be stuck to the word 'father' and the notion 'father.' So then he writes, "Hallowed be his name,' does not really mean  a name, a mere name."

Lao-Tsu wrote that a name which can be named is not a name at all. Therefore it is important that we be careful with names. They may cause us to become trapped into notions. "Enlightenment means the extinction of all notions." So back to the water and the wave: if the wave should believe in the notion of a wave, then it will not recognize the water. Trapped into the notion of 'wave,' it can never be free because water and wave need one another to be free.

In the same way one must be very careful about the name, Buddha. Hanh observes that,  "use[d] in such a way that it helps the other to be free. Sometimes we think, "I can't really do this..." Yet we can. We really can! We can still remain a free person. "Free from what? Free from notions, free from words. God as a Father does not need fame. Does God need to be famous?" Thinking of God in this way, says Thich Nhat Hanh, is dangerous.

He concludes his talk with a discussion of the Holy Spirit. "The Holy Spirit, the energy of God within us, is the true door. We know the Holy Spirit as energy, not as notions or words. Wherever there is attention, understanding, the Holy Spirit is there. Wherever there is love and faith, the Holy Spirit is there. All of us are capable of recognizing the Holy Spirit when it is present... All of us are capable of doing so, and then we are not bound by, or slaves to notions and words; we know how to cultivate the Holy Spirit."

True Love From the False

"Love gives itself; it isn't bought." Henry W. Longfellow

As we move through our lives, one hears and learns by experience a simple truth as the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote. Love is free, it cannot be bought or coerced. Nor can it be captured or restrained, like a pet canary, adored in a golden cage.
Loving persons come together by desire, by free will, in giving. Lovers cannot be used, one blind to the motives of another. 'Love,' as the Bible tells us, 'sees all, knows all, tolerates, is patient and forgives'. In the book of Corinthians it is written:

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."

The conclusion of this passage is also simple enough:

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now-- faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love." --1Corinthians-NSB translation

For those whose life experience has been without the experience of love's purity, innocence, freedom, or patience, the foundation of relationship as adults may easily turn to an experience in which there is a transaction of "confusion between winners and losers in a game of competing needs," writes Deepak Chopra in his book, The Path to Love.
 Instead of weaving together in friendship, in desire, in love, individuals concentrate on what will benefit me. "How many couples bond by forming a "we" that is just a stronger, tougher version of "me"? muses Chopra.

"Undoubtedly," he continues,  "mutual ego needs have a place in every relationship... however when they obliterate the tender growth and life of love in the Spirit," love is replaced with something that is false. He notes that "acquiring an ally to fulfill them [needs] isn't the same as getting free from them. 
Only love can free us."
"The reason that ego and love are not compatible comes down to this: you cannot take your ego into the unknown, where love wants to lead. Ego craves control, certainty, and power alone. As practitioners on the Way, looking carefully, we see this is false notion. By life experience, we have found that the world is not static, it is not every man an island. Rather the world is as the Buddha preached: a world of change, impermanence; a world that survives because of the inter-being of all. One depends upon another.

Think about your morning habits, for example. The dwelling you awoke in was quite possibly built by another, the electricity you used was wired and made safe for you by others. The food you eat was grown and delivered by others; the water you drink, and the road you travel-- all made safe by others. A truth of love versus ego, then, is that "Uncertainty is the basis of life," writes Chopra.
And inter-being is the way.
Allow yourself what you deeply desire.  In love, in spirit, there are no ulterior motives. While acknowledging another's needs or wants, "Spirit neither takes responsibility for that need nor opposes it." In this way, the person and their love is seen as real, because whatever your true need is, is your reality.

The Human Self, One, Irreplaceble

"I would know you in order to know myself."

The word person has great significance. "Today our way of thinking about people is defined in quantity...so many thousands, millions...yet there is always one, human person indivisible." That person is unique, irreplaceable, the creation of which remains a metaphysical mystery.
Persons may be described and regarded as form, physical bodies, not unlike other bodies, both animate and inanimate. However in the individual a development takes place. The development of thought, knowledge and intellect takes place on a deeper level in the person.
All are on the developmental plane as persons. Even the least gifted person whom we may meet belongs to this great human reality of the person in development.

Is each human person really created in the image and likeness of God, the Creator? While man may not deny his link to nature, and resemblance to the world known in past times as the animal world, it is not possible to integrate all that a person possesses without recognition of the "something more" that defines him.
The something more which defines him may be called the conscience. A person is, in the view of theologian and philosopher, Karol Wotjyla in fact, conscience. The conscience provides the definitive structure which differentiates the person from other elements in the created world. It is the basis of the definitive and unrepeatable I.

A story that comes out of the World War II era, one from a Polish concentration camp, recounted by Max Kolbe regarding his own execution by a camp executioner. Both he and the executioner were human beings, each presumably with a conscience. On one hand, one is one admired and esteemed for his faith and courage in horrible circumstances; the other is a person to be rejected by others of every faith, scorned and repudiated.

The greatness or smallness of a person is first developed within his conscience. When considering this notion, we must look to the ends of its development, that is in death. Is then death the full ends of a person? Is it in fact a defining reality? The materialism of the world sees death as an end, so much so that a person's life is a steady progression towards its inevitable end in death, beyond which there is nothing.
The Judeo-Christian tradition teaches in the Tanakh or Old Testament book, Genesis, "You are dust, and to dust you will return."
But if death is really the final end, then what happens to lead one to a final heroic act of faith and courage, and another to play the part of executioner, halting a life?
What about good and evil?
The French thinker and writer, Jean Paul Sartre wrote that man aspires to that which he defines as God, "even if this is an empty word, so that it is a useless passion." Yet persons are multidimensional. They develop slowly, unevenly; they develop judgment and wisdom over time. That development is the beginnings of eternal life.
In the course of a person's development he comes to know that there is a tree, if you like, of good and evil; he finds that at any turn he may choose good or evil. This knowledge, these decisions, and actions are of value. They present a person with either the good, or the evil as value.
Indeed human life is lived between good and evil. Human beings are great because they can freely choose, they possess what Augustine of Hippo called, free will.
 Despite the will and the ability to choose, man, in knowledge, has chosen evil; he has played the executioner. In a certain sense, the ability to choose evil testifies to man's greatness in freedom.

Yet freedom calls, requires something of the chooser. It exacts a price. In evil we are cut off from the source of life, from love, from co-union with the Creator. The created are then exceeded in the bounds of the "tree."
The God of the Bible remains steadfast in regard to his creations. He does not cut himself off from them; he is more like the story of a lover seeking his beloved, the Song of Songs, his lost child. He looks everywhere for him.
His first and last thoughts are for the Beloved, his creation. The precepts of the Bible, of the Buddha, have come into the world to lead the Way to our redemption, our enlightenment, to our peace, our joy, our rest in the One.
--paraphrased from The Way to Christ by Karol Wojtyla

Jim Elliot, Waiting On God

"Surely God is good to his Israel." Jim Elliot

In 1945 with the world war now behind, the nation turned herself to other matters; a young man, Jim Elliot commenced his studies at Wheaton College, an esteemable Protestant Christian bible college located in Wheaton, Illinois. Apart from Bible scholarship, Wheaton is perhaps best known for its conservative views, prohibiting drinking, dancing and smoking among its students.
As a protestant, Christian institution it offers a solid education in bible learning, Greek, Latin and other modern languages as well as subjects which support christian missionary activities and ministries. His education prepared him well for the experiences which were about to come to him.

Against this backdrop, Elisabeth Elliot edits her husband's journals, including their chronicle of his later work in South America in the high Andes, The Journals of Jim Elliot. She writes in the foreword that what becomes most prominent in these journals is his dedication to his Lord, his ministry and his "consuming thirst to do what he saw as the will" of the Creator.
He reminds us not to "bind down the word of God... it's (the Spirit of the Lord) free to say what it will." He also makes it clear that quiet and solitude are important to develop ones' spiritual, inner life.

While his life was cut short, in his 29 years, he demonstrated a remarkable young faithfulness and other character traits such as determination and sensitivity to the working of the Spirit as he recognized them.
Indirectly, he asks the questions of trust or mercy, faith or belief which many before and many after him have also pondered.
And he addresses the great question of love.
Like many others before, he met his end steadfastly and ignominiously as a Christian, martyred in the wilds of the Andes by members of the Auca Indians, natives to the region in which Elliot felt called to minister.

Contrasting the sincere devotion of Elliot there are those persons, past and present who represent a different face of Christianity. Some may come to accept their particular views, while others may not.
Recently this Simple Mind had the occasion to hear the speech of a radio preacher.
Clearly a person involved in a segment of the Protestant Christian tradition as opposed to the Orthodox-Catholic Christian traditions, he was in the midst of espousing the abhorrence of "meditation as an evil" due to its apparent complicity with the evil spirits and demons of the world.
Using a bible verse and applying an interpretation of said verse, this man claimed that the Bible was clear, that meditation was evil due to its tendency to free the mind of extraneous thoughts, thereby giving evil the opportunity to enter and possess a soul.

Now, is one to accept this thinking because "we say so," or is one to further study its source or implication to determine true motive? Will Relativism or political correctness accept his thinking because it's his thinking, thus one can't judge, or are we to act to discern the meaning and intention of such a claim?

If this claim is true for the limits of the particular individual, then it is not unreasonable to presume that this person is also contemptuous against all denominations of Buddhism, much or all of the mystical Judeo-Christian tradition and Hinduism, for starters. Well, what's does that leave off the list? His speech sounds like an exercise in Calvinism, possibly or Puritanism, also related to Calvinists.

The take away for this Simple Mind is that truly there are those of many different stripes; the prime commandment for the Christian is not to demonize but to "love your neighbor as yourself, to love one another -- even your enemy." Anything less falls short of the disciples which the Christ called for and commanded. A Simple Mind questions this preacher and his (lack of) education. Ironic, isn't it?

Mani and His Ideas, Heretics and Empresses

While many think that Mani and his followers were concentrated largely in the West, others encountered his teachings in the East, just as well. It is often surprising in the history of ideas to learn those which were concurrently in force. Most readers are familiar with the term Manichean as having to do with heresy, but who was Mani? What were his ideas? How were they transmitted from East to West? And Buddhism--what's with that?

Of all places, this interesting discussion came up in a book about the history of vegetarianism. Colin Spencer writes in A Heretic's Feast that Mani is thought to have been Persian and that his ideas spread via the ancient Silk Road. Here enters the story of the Empress Wu, who admitted one Manichean devotee to her court in about the late seventh century C.E. The man, Mihr-Ormuzd, presented the Empress with a book titled, Sutra of the Two Principles.

Along the trade route, the ideas of Mani flourished in many places; it was much influenced by Buddhism and took on some of its features. Today certain Buddhist sects are thought to trace at least  some of their practices back to these earlier ideas.  As for the Empress, she was much impressed that within the Manichean realm she could take a central role, unlike Confucianism which sidelined women. Mani taught about "the four attributes," a reference to purity, light, power and wisdom.

Under successive regimes, the Mani went underground, as it were, in reaction to oppressive regimes which distrusted foreign ideas. Their followers took on local customs and came to be regarded as sorcerers and exorcists. Many took up residence in Taoist held lands. Under Mongolian rule, they fared better and were more open in their practice. They were identified at that time as "Nestorian Christians" and referred popularly as, the Religion of Light.

In the West, more famously, they attached themselves to the major faiths; over time, their teachings were successively denounced. Manicheans were proclaimed heretics by Christians, Muslims and Jews, yet they persist most curiously within the faith systems of major religions, even today.

Precepts: Living Awake and in the Truth, Part 1

Simple Mind is away from the computer. The following is a favorite which appeared here last year, December 31, 2008.--SimplemindZen

Taking up the precept of the Way of Speaking Truthfully is often a first precept encountered and one of the most obvious, yet not always to ourselves. Many of us have finely developed defenses to what would otherwise intrude upon our dream of self. Some have referred to this as being fond of, or attached to our "favorite sins."

In truth we find the ability and power to break away from our usual thought habits and self destructive practices-- practices that act to keep us separated from our true selves, from our peace and our joy. Yet as practitioners of the Way, we see there is only just this moment, that it arises from other moments, and that this moment now leads the way to every other moment. In the Simple Mind, there then is awareness that "where ever you go, there you are now."

Truth is expressed as only just this. Truth turns us towards the realization that our assumptions of permanence are just that, assumptions. Thus living in awareness of truth causes us to look carefully, and to see that practice in this instance is to challenge those assumptions of what it is that makes the world real to us. What is truth, what is "such"?

Here our true self lies, and in the freedom of the truth is our strength.

Satan is an Angel

"Innocence is a mystery greater than evil." --James Hillman

There is a long tradition in human history of Satan, or an entity with similar characteristics called by another name. Tradition holds that Satan, also known as Lucifer, the Deceiver or the Devil, is indeed an angel; a very powerful angel who exerts great energies into the world. Some would like to suppose that angels are all goodness, that they are without their own will, that they only perform the will of the Creator, of gods. However this simply is not so.

Many presume this force which is exerted by the angel, Satan to be a negative one. Yet like Mara, the evil one of Buddhism, Satan is a much needed energy in the world. Why so? Because without the Evil One, the Buddha would not know his goodness, the good would be without a name. One cannot know by experience the way or the good without being tempted; one cannot exercise his free will or be whole and complete without an awareness of the world in its entirety. All things are present in the world at all times.

And angels have, and do indeed, tempt and corrupt. The Bible in 1Corinthians11 for example says, "a woman should have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels." Revelations claims that the angel, Satan, must be "seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, which is the Devil or Satan, and tied up for a thousand years."

Also interestingly the name Lucifer means "Light Carrier." And in Judaism, the Devil is an angel who causes not only mischief, but disorder; he is an adversary. Tradition going back to Judaism unto the present declares the Devil to be:

"the Devil and the other demons were created by God, good in their nature, but they
by themselves have made themselves evil... Here it is clearly thought that the
Devil and the other demons are spiritual or angelic creatures created by God in
a state of innocence, and that they became evil by their own act. It is added
that man sinned by the suggestion of the Devil." --www.thenewadvent.org


Tradition further teaches that as angels, demons are:"the Devil, and the other demons are but a part of the angelic creation, and their natural powers do not differ from those of the angels who remained faithful. Like the other angels, they are pure spiritual beings without any body, and in their original state they are endowed with supernatural grace." The choosers of darkness for light, of evil for good, and while it would seem that [these choices] can only be accounted for by some ignorance, or inadvertence, or weakness, or the influence of some overmastering passion. But most of these explanations seem to be precluded by the powers and perfections of the angelic nature.

The weakness of the flesh, which accounts for such a mass of human wickedness, was altogether absent from the angels. There could be no place for carnal sin without the corpus delecti(the physical body). And even some sins that are purely spiritual or intellectual, seem to present an almost insuperable difficulty in the case of the angels."--www.thenewadvent.org

As well, it is false to suppose as already mentioned, that the Judeo-Christian tradition alone largely holds well developed views of devilry. In the world, as we experience it, there are many traditions, some already mentioned holding strong conceptions of an evil doer. From the teachings of the Bon to the Tao, to the Hindus multiple creatures of mal, the Muslims, indigenous spiritualities around the world, the Zoroastrians and many others. Why is it so? What is there to learn about life as it is--suchness by learning of an evil doer? What are our assumptions, our notions? Do we hold a belief that my faith isn't involved with that, that I am better or above such notions?

It seems to be a facet of human nature, of ego, of deficit, to not countenance the face of ill will, to suppose that angels are only for the desire and bidding of gods, or that they can do no evil. The everyday world tells us other-wise. Many transgress the precepts, fall short of the teachings of their acknowledged faith, or simply live in a lower, darker state, more than an animal and less than an arhat or a seeker of the Way. Like the angels, there is only a difference in the choosing. We often seek to substitute our own will and ego for that of the Creator, the unknowable One. And then we suffer. Innocence and evil, as Hillman writes, are indeed a mystery.

The Light That Reveals: I Am There for You.

"...the energy of the Holy Spirit is in us, we are truly alive." --Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, intimately familiar with spiritual traditions beyond his own, from both study and long experience, writes competently in his book Living Buddha, Living Christ, about the indwelling, or incarnation of the Spirit within the Christ.

He writes in the essay The Light That Reveals, "When John the Baptist helped Jesus touch the Holy Spirit, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and entered the person of Jesus." When mindfulness is born in us, we need to continue to practice. "Children have little difficulty recognizing the presence of the Holy Spirit. "When the Spirit is in us, we are truly alive, in love with life itself; capable of understanding, we desire to be of help and service to others.

Approaching God through the Holy Spirit "seems to be a safer way to approach the [Holy] Trinity." When the Spirit rests within, we are "living mindfully, touching the light of our awareness in everything we do, we touch the Buddha, and our mindfulness grows."

"I am There For You," writes Hanh. "The most precious gift we can offer to others is our [simple] presence. When our mindfulness embraces those we love... they bloom like flowers. If you love... and rarely make yourself available... that is not true love... Mindfulness relieves suffering, anxiety and worries... by doing that, you already offer some relief. Mindfulness is filled with understanding and compassion.

When you are really there, the energy of the Holy Spirit is in you." In Hanh's words, the Holy [whole, unified, One] Spirit is very much about mindfulness; both help us to touch the ultimate dimension of reality.

The I, the Me, Meets the West

"We have the concept of a "two story" psyche in the west."
--Joseph Campbell

In the view of Joseph Campbell, there is a very divergence of thinking between the East and the West. The thought of a 'Self,' or its absence in the East is possibly the heart of the matter in his view. The subconscious and the unconscious is what Campbell asserts constitutes the idea of the psyche, or the self in the Western mind. "Down below lies the unconscious, while the conscious individual is above." According to others, the I or the Ego is that function which relates an individual to reality as an empirical measure. Ego relates in terms of personal judgments and opinions.

In terms of spirit, traditional churches in the West emphasize personal responsibility for one's own actions; in the East, the focus of Asian religious training tells the adherent to cancel the ego. Why? In simple terms of a society, Asians are to behave in ways dictated to them; there is a strong sense of a dharma, or doing what is one's life work or destiny. "When you turn to Asian systems, and read law books, from India or China for example, it is startling to the Western reader what is proscribed for those who don't follow the rules. Sun-Tzu in The Art of War said, for small faults, there should be great penalties; then there will be no great faults."

Thus the idea of a punishment " fitting the crime" is largely lacking. Since the development of an Ego, or an I is not encouraged, Asians come to adulthood often with a different sense of responsibility. The value of the community is ever important, and individuals often wish not to be singled out for either praise or punishment since this differentiates them from their group.

Like many Asian faith ideals, the Judeo-Christian instruction is towards canceling out the ego, the I. The Christ exhorts his followers to give up all of their personal possessions to come follow him. In doing so, they join into a community that likening to Asian ideals, demands and values obedience to a authority outside of, and higher than the individual self.

The fundamental ideas of a Heavenly Order should be the model for what is life on earth, and that the society is to reflect that same celestial design, may be thought of as the "Great Harmony." If this organization, this society, is successful, then all comes together in one great unit of wholeness. In this system says Campbell, "the sun should not wish to be the moon."

Each person born into the heavenly design has a role, and should not wish to be anything else. His birth is the determining factor for his character, his role, his duty and all other social actions which he may undertake as a member of the community which sustains him. On this point, Asians are often told, ordered, commanded; education is to train one to his proper role.

Alternatively in the West, there are thought to be moments of personal discovery, personal choice and learning. These make conditions for choices which individually and collectively affect individuals in many of life's most intimate moments such as choice of housing, marriage, child bearing, or leisure. Asians do not always make these choices as mature adults. "Responsible citizens in these places are those who perform their jobs perfectly." The society is already defined for them. The ego is erased.

When the buddha said to cancel the ego to cancel suffering, when the Christ exhorted his disciples to believe as he did about the rightness of your Father in Heaven, both are pointing towards an absolute truth, an absolute, transcendent reality based not upon values of the everyday, realities of the world--East or West.

Thus the mere accident of a self, an ego or a psyche is secondary and quite incidental. All that matters is that which supports the Kingdom as the community sees it. "Identity with the transcendent is one's essence."

Precepts: Living Awake and in the Truth, part 1

Taking up the precept of the Way of Speaking Truthfully is often a first precept encountered and one of the most obvious, yet not always to ourselves. Many of us have finely developed defenses to what would otherwise intrude upon our dream of self. Some have referred to this as being fond of, or attached to our "favorite sins."

In truth we find the ability and power to break away from our usual thought habits and self destructive practices-- practices that act to keep us separated from our true selves, from our peace and our joy. Yet as practitioners of the Way, we see there is only just this moment, that it arises from other moments, and that this moment now leads the way to every other moment. In the Simple Mind, there then is awareness that "where ever you go, there you are now."

Truth is expressed as only just this. Truth turns us towards the realization that our assumptions of permanence are just that, assumptions. Thus living in awareness of truth causes us to look carefully, and to see that practice in this instance is to challenge those assumptions of what it is that makes the world real to us. What is truth, what is "such"?

Here our true self lies, and in the freedom of the truth is our strength.