Inspirations and Sources

"The book is the Supreme Doctrine by Hubert Benoit...it's the best explanation for the human problem that I've ever found... a French psychiatrist who was in a severe accident that left him almost completely helpless for years..." Nothing Special Living Zen   --by C. Joko Beck

While we all from time to time have inspirations, mysterious invitations to new possibilities and ways of seeing or doing, not often do we consider the source of inspiration. The ancients attributed them to the muses, the gods and goddesses about in their midst. Modern rational man looks elsewhere, or nowhere at all. In the creative mind, there may be many attributes or, surprisingly none well defined, just the result itself.
 For some like Charlotte Joko Beck, she writes in her book, Nothing Special, Living Zen, that "I studied it at one time for 10 or 15 years. I have a copy that looks like its been in the washing machine." The book she writes of is authored by French psychiatrist, Hubert Benoit, titled La Doctrine Supreme, first published in France in 1951; later published in England in 1955; the one which is quoted here was copyrighted in England in 1998.

Dr. Benoit was severely injured in an accident that left him paralyzed and immobile. He had a great mind and a great deal of time on his hands in the aftermath of his accident. In his immobilized condition, he set out in deep thought.
The results of his pensees, or thoughts were the genesis of that book, titled in English  The Supreme Doctrine. He had a good knowledge of spiritual matters which deepened with his enforced confinement. Benoit was quite knowledgeable about the works of Zen master Suzuki, especially the book, The Doctrine of No Mind. Paying heed, especially to the thoughts of Suzuki, Benoit reminds the reader that like Suzuki, No Mind is an anti-intellectual mind, a mind that "detests every kind of intellectuality, wrote Suzuki.'

And continues Suzuki,"there is nothing complicated that man needs to do; it is enough that he see directly into his own  nature." Thus Benoit starts by saying, "Man has always reflected upon his condition, has thought that he is not as he would like to be... after having demonstrated what does not go right in the case of the natural man, and why that does not necessarily go right, come to the question: How are we to remedy this state of affairs?"
Benoit remarks that the remedies most often proposed fail to address the root cause, the germ that inspires or fails to do so; perchance  misery is often inspired because of unending want for something.
 Yoga, he writes, "is often prescribed, as if the perfection of the body would cure the root ill of the human condition."

"All that," Benoit concludes in his opening chapter, "is just animal-training and leads to one kind of servitude or another... it is perfectly analogous to the story,  Achilles and the Hare." Yet the penetrating manner of Zen cuts through illusion; it does not pause to consider peculiarities. "It knows that nothing is wrong with us, and that we suffer because we do not understand that everything works perfectly."
And so this volume by Benoit which has inspired many begins. But do not be perturbed that good and great minds have read Benoit's words before you; so many have, and many puzzle over them. You will too, and perhaps they will inspire you.

Civil Religion: One for All, All for One

In recollection of Prof. Robert Bellah, 1927-2013.

Civil Religion in America argues Robert Bellah in his book of the same title, is the faith of the land, not Christianity as some will argue. The civil religion he says exists both independently and along side the other religious organization in America, such as temples, churches and mosques.

Taking up this as his topic, Bellah says that while the founding fathers may have advocated for religion, they in their enlightened minds, argued for no religion in particular; up sprung what today we call the civil religion. Over time the amalgamated beliefs of many faith communities have coalesced into this one great mass that here in America, the religion of our intrinsically religious society is not any particular religion at all, but the civil religion that suits so many.
In defining civil religion, Bellah describes a situation that goes beyond folk ways but does not extend itself to established or 'mainline' faith groups. Often the leaders of civil religion inhabit political spheres and engage religion to advance message. These messages may or may not be in keeping with the founding ideals of the American nation; when they are not, often there tends to be political in-fighting, bickering among civic groups or political entities for a "share in the marketplace" of ideas, a phrase that Frenchman De Tocqueville who was an early advocate for enlightened, American ideals, surely would have detested.

Taking Refuge

Taking Refuge

"One bread, one body, one Lord of all
One cup of blessing which we bless
And we though many, throughout the earth
We are one body in this one Lord.
 Verses:

Gentile or Jew, servant or free
Woman or man no more.

Many the gifts, many the works
One in the Lord of all.

 Grain for the fields, scattered and grown
Gathered to one, for all. "

There are many ways of taking refuge; while some may associate this term as being strictly Buddhist, it is not. Many, if not most religious traditions have this notion. Its most simple and literal meaning is to be sheltered. To take refuge is often thought of as coming into a moment, any moment of stillness, of shelter, where a rising awareness of a divinity, of salvation may well.

For some, the words of the psalm are new; for others this refuge is a favorite. For all, it rends hope, expresses the idea of taking refuge in the Christ, the one begot by God for all of mankind to share in salvation, or holiness. The three jewels, if you will, for Christians are faith, hope and charity. The greatest of these however is charity, or caritas in Latin. It translates most simply to mean love. Whether you accept the message or the messenger is not the point here: refuge is the point in its various forms.

In this refuge, the food upon which the faithful feast is love, divine love. The water they drink ends their thirst for all time. Their growing awareness of reality as expressed in the Psalms is light and clarity. Kindness and compassion guide the believer to paths which are gentle and unperturbed by pride, angst or wickedness. The song the psalmist sings is many; it's one. One bread for all, one body existing in this one Lord.

Health Crises May Be Spiritual Awakenings

"I will act as if what I do makes a difference." poet and writer, William Blake
 
Debilitating illness has plagued mankind as long as anyone may imagine. Yet the human spirit ever resourceful, ever hopeful, bounds back into the realms of life. Unable to quash the spirit and its boundless potential, Susan Nessim was inspired to write about her spiritual, physical and medical journey with cancer. She writes in her book, Cancervive, now revised as: Can Survive, that for her, the roads she traveled were difficult and long, but ultimately fruitful for her spirit. Writing to share her experience, Nessim encourages others along the path she's followed from illness to recovery; for some it is not recovery so much as living, surviving with illness. She writes to encourage one and all.


"One of the most frustrating things," she writes is, "... allowing disease to dominate their thoughts to such an extent that it undermines their life." With diagnosis you may easily be transformed from a person to a 'patient.' One thing is certain, however, significant illness is change. As a patient your day may easily become structured around your symptoms and treatment. Perhaps you obsess about little changes, you go to websites where others with similar diagnosis carry on at length about their treatment, their moods, their medications, etc, etc. Possibly even, you may be attracted to groups who claim advocacy and support. They may be in fact, groups who exist for their own, other purposes, their political agendas; like a sort of union, they may need you for less obvious reasons, for money, for prestige, for access, or for a myriad of other considerations. So do just what truly matters to you. Uniquely you. Let your decisions be from a spiritual basis. The rest will follow.


Learning to cope is essential for those living with serious illness. Cure may just be a chase for perfection, something that may not be. Perhaps acceptance of the dilemma in which one now exists is preferable; acceptance of oneself is an important spiritual act; it may be slow in coming, but ultimately it is the most satisfying to discover one's unique talents and blessings, despite everything else. Looking with new eyes, remaining in the stillness of the beating heart is often enough. Learn to smile, because this is the day that has been made; let us all rejoice and be glad in it.

Gopal's Eternal Brother

The Ideal of Forgiveness, a tale from India. This article appeared here previously on January 15, 2009.

Gopal's Eternal Brother

Once there was a great king named Vishwamitra. One day he learned that there was a saint in his kingdom whom everybody adored. The name of this saint was Vashishtha, and everyone gladly touched his feet. Now, although Vishwamitra was a very great king, nobody used to come and touch his feet.

People were afraid of him, and they would tremble before him. But with Vashishtha it was different. People gladly touched Vashishtha's feet with deepest appreciation and admiration.

So Vishwamitra was extremely jealous of Vashishtha. Vashishtha was a very great saint. After praying to God for many, many years, Vashishtha had realised God, and could speak to God face to face.

Vishwamitra knew that this was the reason why everybody was adoring Vashishtha instead of him, so he too started praying to God.

He prayed to God for a couple of years very seriously, often fasting but still he did not realise God. Then he became impatient. He went to Vashishtha and said, "You have realised God, but I have not been able to. I wish you to tell the world that I have also realised God, like you."

Vashista replied, "How can I say that?" "You can say it," the king insisted. "If you tell people, everybody will believe you, because you yourself have realised God. You know who God is, you speak to God. Tell everyone that I have realised God. Otherwise I shall kill your children!" Vashishtha said, "You can kill my children, but I cannot tell a lie."

Vishwamitra was a most powerful king. One by one he had the hundred sons of Vashishtha killed. The hundred sons were very well educated, kind and spiritual. They had studied the Vedas, the Upanishads and other religious and sacred books.

Nevertheless, the notorious king killed them all. Even after doing this Vishwamitra was not satisfied, because Vashishtha still refused to announce that he had realised God.

After a few months he thought, "This time he has to tell the world that I have realised God, or I shall kill him!" With this idea in his mind he went to Vashishtha's small cottage.

Before knocking at the door he stood outside quietly listening to the conversation inside. Arundhati, one of Vashishtha's wives, was saying to her husband, "My lord, why don't you say that Vishwamitra has realised God? If you had said it I would still have all my children. They were such nice, kind, devoted children.

They were all jewels. But just because you wouldn't say that he has realised God, he has killed all my children, and who knows what he will do next!"

Vashishtha said, "How can you ask me to do that? I love him. He has not realised God. How can I tell people that he has realised God? I love him and that is why I cannot tell a lie."

Even though Vishwamitra had killed the hundred sons of Vashishtha, the father could still say that he loved him! When Vishwamitra heard what Vashishtha said, he came running in and touched Vashishtha's feet, crying, "Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, my lord. I never knew that anyone on earth could love a person who had killed all his children."

Vashishtha placed his hand on Vishwamitra's head and blessed him. He said, "Today you have realised God, because today you know what love is, what truth is. God is all forgiveness. I am forgiving you, because the God in me is forgiving you. Today you have realised God."

What do we learn from this story? We learn that the ideal of forgiveness is the supreme ideal. When we pray to God, we see God's qualities: love and forgiveness. When we receive love and forgiveness from God, we can behave like God towards other people. Vashishtha's hundred sons were killed, yet even then he loved Vishwamitra.

Then, when Vishwamitra begged for forgiveness, Vashishtha gave it immediately, as well as giving him his inner Light, Joy and Power. Like Vashishtha, we always have the ability to forgive people when they do wrong things.

In this way we give them our Light, our Truth, our Joy. From this story we also learn the importance of associating with holy men.

When we are in the company of a spiritual person, even for a second, what transformation takes place in our life! Our life is changed in the twinkling of an eye.

From Gopal's Eternal Brother And Other Stories for Children by Sri Chinmoy

Mother Teresa, the Venerable: "If we really want to love,

[ our self first, and then the other ] we must learn how to forgive."

Dashka Slater: Orpheus and Company

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again."-- -- Old English nursery tale

The Fall of Icarus

I looked up when Icarus came down –
but who would notice?
People are always crashing.
My neighbor's foot caught on the edge
of a furrow as he plowed
even as Icarus tumbled
headfirst down. He twisted his ankle
and tore up the ground with his hands.
While Icarus plunged down streaming,
my neighbor cursed the ants that confuse
the dirt, the feet that are blind
in their shoes and are always blundering.
The white wax ran down Icarus' arms in rivers;
he was a drenched man, a ruined,
a steaming man – I watched him fall
and my neighbor turn his ankle in the field.
That day Icarus was the toast of all the taverns.
I told everyone about the red runnels
on his shoulder where the wax plowed away
his skin. My old neighbor was there,
a cloth around his leg. We drank
a mug or two for Icarus who imagined
he could look God in the eye, another mug
for Icarus and then one for God Himself–
Here's to God's Eye which burned away
the wings of Icarus!
God's Eye! I felt wild thinking of it.
I went out to look at the sea, gilded
with the last of the light that took down
Icarus, bright as the annoyance in God's Eye
when he blazed away those wings.
I lost my head for a minute, dazzled
by light and drinks to daring and scraped
my knees when I took that tumble,
standing on tiptoe on the edge of the hill,
imagining the cut valleys, the lean spoon
of the isthmus and the shredded breezes
in the sky – how it must have looked to Icarus
as he spun down and God flicked me
off my hillock just for imagining.
Everyone crashes down around here.
by Dashka Slater, poet

There is the distinct possibility of a spiritual excess, one who is high on the religion of it all, as it were. Sometimes people are in love with ideals and ideas; they will not be detained when in this state of mind. In their enthusiasm they forge wildly ahead.
Whether the focus be on the spirit One, animal rights, the planet, disadvantaged persons or any other cause one might think of, sometimes, often they take a fall. For the old adage holds true, 'what goes up must come down.'
'The higher it flies, the further it falls.' And fall they do. Hard. Crashing to the ground in anger, depression, disillusionment, betrayal, foolishness.

Because as the poet Slater writes,

"Here's to God's Eye which burned away
the wings of Icarus!
God's Eye! I felt wild thinking of it.
I went out to look at the sea, gilded
with the last of the light that took down..."
Icarus, bright as the annoyance in God's Eye

So like Icarus, who wanted to fly, sometimes it's the thing we want so badly, so blinded by our want and desire, we are brought down by it. Yet in mythic terms, it is not an ultimate failure. Rather a resolution, the poet writes: "Everyone crashes down around here."

So finally, the question in the practice life, the life of a spirit, is not will I crash, but when, and how will my illusions be removed so that I may see more clearly the things that matter, the things that I need to see?
The resolution-- it's both a promise and the reality.

The Tangle of Emotions

"In this work, I search for the soul in the tangle of emotions."   --The Soul's Religion by Thomas Moore

Emotions, and the openness to the tangle of them so as to discern a sense of deep spirit, a personal sense of the uniquely formed you, is a central task in the spiritual life.
As many religious thinkers have written, it is in the opening of the self, the stillness of the mind, that what is essential arises, and enlightenment becomes possible; yet it is not as a striving or as a goal, but as the natural result of a lived life.
By experiences we learn the meaning of ourselves in the world; the oneness of all in our place is what Moore seeks to examine.

He writes that it is not intellect ultimately, but living knowledge that makes a Self. Yet, he does at times, fall into philosophical banter. That is his background and his training.
As a Roman Catholic, he came of age in the time before the "great transformation" of the Church, Vatican II, with the rise of Pope John Paul II. His experiences may be unlike others'. Despite this he offers valuable wisdom about the human mind.
He says in writing, "Care of the Soul" it was his intent to address the deep soul as found in the emotions, relationships and culture... a way to be spiritual that is honest, close to physical life and emotion... [because] the opposite of spirituality is escape... [Soul] is to be made sense of in the depths of experience, in the never ending efforts to make meaning of life, and in the ordeals that can be seen as spiritual initiations rather than failures to achieve a self.

Moore's work, he writes, allows, searches out the great tangle of human emotion, of perceptions and feelings the conglomeration of the seemingly impossible, the paradoxical, and the apparent failures that comprise a life. He recommends in response to human emotional suffering, "a shift from cure to caring."
Trying to be cured might be another type of perfectionism reckons the author. In the human life, when seen as a sort of comedy, we all fail, we all fall on our faces. Taking ourselves so seriously, we forget that it is human to fail, it is human not to be perfect.
And it is human to love, even that what we don't fully understand, even that we see as lacking, like a child; still we love, in full knowledge of imperfection. In doing so, we may ultimately learn of a holy foolishness which broadens and deepens our spirituality, making the self more resilient, more durable in the process.

One of the ways through this life process is by emptiness, Sunyata. Moore describes the empty self  not as loss but as liberation, an opening for the possible.
"Spiritual emptiness doesn't lead to resignation, or depression... it gives hope, frees us from anxiety... having to be in control." Yet emptiness doesn't work if it becomes a project, to be controlled and directed. Emptiness is an active stillness, an allowance of what is, or may be. It is the perception that an angry bull is charging towards you in an arena and stepping aside rather than confronting as it passes by. "Emptiness itself has to be empty." As a way, it is both an art and a practice.

Psychoanalysis can help in learning emptiness by "teaching how to notice..."
Moore sees emptiness as the psychological absence of neurosis. Neurosis, in his view, is what fundamentally disturbs the deep soul, the unfolding of life and its desires.
"Various neuroses such as jealousy, inferiority and narcissism are nothing more than anxious attempts to prevent life from happening. In place of a positive life experience there is anger and fear. Yet in the dissolution of fear is its opposite, and jealousy for example, transforms into passion. Fearfulness is what is desired and as yet unrealized. Moore writes of an experience from his own life. "At certain times in the past I have been suseptible to this powerful emotion [emotion=energy] to the extent that it obliterated all other concerns. It took the joy out of life... I hated being a jealous person... It taught me that my passions could throw me and that my self confidence was not as strong as I thought it was... I noticed that jealousy gives rise to many thoughts about freedom, dependence, justice and individuality... Its resolution may feel like a simple calming." paraphrased

One form of 'psychoanalysis' that can be very helpful is often referred to as Cognitive Therapy. It is based on the learning principle that a person does not need to learn all about their earliest life or the intricacies of their suffering. Rather through a short term learning and education process, usually conducted in about eight to sixteen weeks, one can learn to effectively work through the tangle of emotions, the fears and the irrational quirks we all face in our lives.
The goal in everyday life is, after all a successful, skilled functioning response to daily events. The method is accomplished by altering or 'repackaging' our habitual, customary ways of thinking; these thoughts are replaced with new thoughts or cues we are given and practice, gaining proficiency over time. The benefit is the ultimate ability to manage our imperfect, human nature so as to gain balance and a new sense of possibility replacing the old fears of inevitability. Remarkably for many it works, and for some, over long practice, it leads to an opening, and the emptiness that Moore writes of.

The Teacher

"Perfectionists are never satisfied with who they are, or others but are always reaching for a goal, and never enjoying the imperfect moment they're in." --Thomas Moore

Moore writes in his book, The Soul's Religion, that one of the goals of the 'educated' is to become perfected, more complete, more whole in themselves. He writes that we must not forget for all the importance of spirit, that bodies are needed; spirits inhabit bodies and an everyday life is lived from them, but what will we, the spirit-body learn, and how will we learn so as to realize the "perfected self"?
In the everyday, complex world of science and technology, the role of pain, of trial and ordeal are seen as experiences to be eliminated, controlled, suppressed; yet Moore argues that these experiences, these moments are vital to a human education. It is experience, simple experience, finally and not intellectual achievement that will bring around a perfected soul, the one which is completed, whole and peaceful.

Zen master, Suzuki in quoting another, Dogen, goes on to say "you will be even the teacher of Shakyamuni Buddha." As bodies are souls whole and complete, we learn in the Dharmakaya, as Suzuki also repeats, 'when you realize Buddha nature, you are the teacher.'
So then the best teacher is the one who does not teach, yet who leads, guides, experiences the lessons of his students, and his students experience the lessons of the teacher. In this way teaching is profound with benefit. It is a far and away from the experience, in which some have believed, that the teacher is the expert who pours knowledge into otherwise empty heads.

Thus as Thomas Moore notes from his own life experience, imperfection is a good and valued part of education, for both the student and the teacher. In the best moments of teaching, an alchemy, or a deep moment of newness of creation, a mystery transpires between two or more persons engaged in this process of experience and perfection. "When a teacher evokes the deep process of imparting and learning subtle aspects of life's mysteries, then teaching goes on." And like any creative activity, teaching "happens best when a muse is present, initiating something far deeper" in the exchange.