losing all and getting everything in return

the spiritual quest is not one of striving to bring about or attain truth, but of allowing truth to reveal itself as it already is.

one fundamental misperception we suffer under in the quest for spiritual realization is that enlightenment must be gotten, as if it were some kind of accessory that can be added on to pre-existing identity structures. in this fantasy we'd become supercharged versions of our same basic selves; new and improved in certain respects, but maintaining the same old foundational belief in our intrinsic being as existing separately from everything else.

in other words, we'd like to have our cake (holding on to our belief in separate selfhood) and eat it too (experiencing the clarity and peace of enlightenment). these conflicting drives can keep us in a potentially endless loop where seemingly sincere spiritual striving is sabotaged by the underlying fear of letting go of erroneous yet intensely familiar interpretations of reality.

often as spiritual seekers, rather than being willing to give something up, what we really want is to get more. this is simply an extension of the same impulse that tells us we need a newer car, bigger house, better hairstyle. the impulse to get more, to have new things - material or spiritual - is based upon a fundamental resistance to things as they are. this resistance is exactly what keeps us separated from the actual experience of enlightenment, which is nothing more than the realization of what we really are and the accompanying understanding that what we previously thought ourselves to be was a misperception - an illusion.

in a certain sense, realization comes at a price. we must sacrifice our illusory beliefs before the blinding veil can be dispensed with and things revealed as they truly are. in feeding our fantasies we remain blinded to the truth, but they have become so familiar to us that giving them up can be extremely difficult. the problem is that we have become so identified with the illusion that we believe it is what we are, and letting it go seems tantamount to losing ourselves - in a sense, dying.

gaining real spiritual insight involves a radical process of letting go, not necessarily of material possessions (that would make it easy) but of our very foundational beliefs about who and what we are. our mind-made identity is what's nearest and dearest to us. it's the hardest thing to give up, but it must be surrendered in order to break free from the trap of egoic consciousness. the very thing we'd most like to hold on to (or to be more accurate, what we most fear letting go of) is the very thing that's holding us back from enlightened awareness.

paradoxically, when we become motivated by enough faith and courage to let even our most foundational beliefs about self evaporate (in other words, to release absolutely everything by dying to our moment-to-moment conception of self as we know it), at the very moment when it seems we will indeed evaporate, die, and forever disappear into oblivion, our limited egoic consciousness dissolves into a larger awareness that acknowledges itself as inseparable from everything - as one with all that is.

hardcore zenning it at the SAZ

recently i had the pleasure of meeting Brad Warner (former punk rocker, current zen monk, and author of several books on zen buddhism, including Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate: A Trip Through Death, Sex, Divorce, and Spiritual Celebrity in Search of the True Dharma) at the san antonio zen center (SAZ).

i'd read an earlier book of his (Hardcore Zen) a few months back and appreciated the fun and informal style Brad uses to convey truth. his book is both playful and lighthearted (such as when he asks us "[w]ho the hell are you really?" and assures us he's "not talking about your name, your place of birth, or the number of hairs on your butt") and, for me at least, powerfully resonant:

"Truth has to be bigger than theories, bigger than explanations, bigger than symbols. Truth can't just explain everything. It has to include everything. It has to be everything."

Brad's sincere, humorous, and accessible approach to spirituality really spoke to me. so when i heard he'd be paying a visit to the small house in san antonio's humble woodlawn lake neighborhood the SAZ calls home, i figured the pressures of grad school could be put on hold for a morning with the world's leading exponent of hardcore-punk-zen-buddhism.

about twenty of us gather to do a little sitting and walking meditation and hear Brad speak. (if you're interested in listening to the talk, by the way, it was recorded and can be accessed via iTunes here.) all in all, my personal opinion - not that it means anything beyond the fact that it's my opinion - is that Brad speaks from a depth of sincerity that can only emerge from a direct encounter with truth.

i say this based on what he speaks and writes about, but what really convinced me upon meeting him is his perfectly ordinary demeanor. he's just a guy traveling around to discuss what truly moves him with people interested in listening, but he's no superguru, no energy-blasting presence. he doesn't impose his amazingness on you, wear funny clothes to remind you of how special he is, or gut your soul of impurities with his penetrating spiritual gaze.

i think this is an important point, because you see plenty of people trying to use spirituality to make themselves anything but ordinary. if there's one distinguishing characteristic of the ego, it's that it will use any means available to make itself extraordinary and exceptional in some way - to see itself as separate, whether in a good or a bad light. this goes for the average gal or guy off the street, and it also goes for spiritually-identified people.

in spite of the labels the world pins on him ("spiritual teacher," "zen master," "successful author") Brad seems to be a legitimate embodiment of one who's perfectly content to be nothing more than an ordinary human roaming the planet; no better and no worse than the six billion-odd others who are pretty much up to the same thing, give or take a few specifics. and the way i see it, when you meet someone involved in talking about something like ultimate truth and they're truly making no effort to differentiate themselves from you or make you think they're special in any way, you can be pretty sure you're dealing with a high level of sincerity.

here's a quick summary of a few topics discussed during Brad's visit to the SAZ:

why do zazen? (i.e. why meditate?)
it's interesting to hear Brad assert that after decades of meditation, it's more difficult than ever for him to answer this question! i'm not sure exactly what he means by this, but i'm fairly sure he's not suggesting zazen (zen-style meditation) is worthless. i think he's trying to work against the idea of meditating as an action to achieve enlightenment, to suggest that the point of meditating is to meditate and we would do well to drop expectations.

instead of seeing it as an enlightment-generating exercise, Brad offers a more simple and practical reason to meditate. he compares it to brushing our teeth, something we normally do every day, although not for the reasons our dentist says we should (to keep our teeth clean, gums in shape, gingivitis at bay...). we do it because when we don't brush, our mouth tastes like crap. similarly, Brad offers, when we don't meditate we just don't feel right - something's off. meditation helps keep the mind less stinky.

is zen about enlightenment, or not?!
in my brief encounters with zen buddhism i've been interested by the play between the notions of "it's all about enlightenment" and "forget about enlightenment" (zen masters are famous for jamming up your mind-cogs by relentlessly throwing contradictions such as these at you). i ask Brad if he can speak about this.

his response is that many zen masters have been reluctant to speak about enlightenment, but that even the most reluctant ones, such as his own master Gudo Nishijima, do speak of it on occasion. the tricky thing with enlightenment is that most people inevitably dream up what they'd love for it to be and end up striving for something that doesn't even exist. given the propensity of spiritual seekers to form a distracting "enlightenment fantasy," the benefits of deconstructing this process or stopping it in its tracks are obvious.

in Brad's words: "if enlightenment is this state of perfection that you achieve where everything is cool forever, then i don't believe in that."

but there is such a thing as enlightenment, right?
this is my next question. while there are few things i could be more convinced of than the fact that a real shift in perspective from egocentricity to trans-egoic awareness can and does occur, i'm interested in hearing how the zen master will navigate his way out of this one - and besides, i could always be wrong!

"maybe..." he begins slowly, feeling uncomfortable, i imagine, with feeding unproductive desires. "there can be a shift... but it's not like anything ever changes. this is enlightenment, whether you notice it or not."

taking spiritual practice too seriously
Brad points out that by investing something with undue seriousness, we separate ourselves from it, make it into a "thing," divest it of its real power to transform our lives. (hopefully i'm not getting too carried away with my paraphrasing here.)

he brings up an interesting quote, from some zen master or another i believe, that i think is both funny and utterly true at the same time: "spiritual practice is too important to be taken seriously."

at the same time, he points out, having a sense of humor about spirituality is exactly what makes us sincerely serious about it, in the sense that we're truly devoted to it and not merely holding it up as sacred to use as material for self-aggrandizement. i agree completely; the highest respect we can pay to reality is to live our lives by it. if we do this, we have the right to joke about it because the playfulness emerges from a profound sense of love and appreciation, not disrespect.

the supermystical power of loving the ordinary

spirituality is often sold as a journey of epic proportions full of incredible experiences and - if you're really lucky and extra special - even the promise of mystical powers. and who wouldn't love becoming some kind of superhuman? there's probably not a single person on the planet who at some point hasn't fantasized about it.

but what a disappointment when those who have been seduced into spiritual practice by the lure of escaping their boring daily lives and becoming something more than what they are now find that legitimate spiritual discipline involves exactly the opposite: being content with what is and realizing what we already are (basically, not demanding any changes from life).

after all, what's innovative about striving for something outside of ourselves to achieve happiness? whether we're looking beyond our immediate experience in hopes of getting a new possession, altering our present circumstance to better fit our desires, securing a higher social status, or attaining enlightenment is of relatively little significance. in each case, we're telling ourselves that what we have now isn't good or complete enough and withdrawing our own permission to feel truly satisfied with life until we reach our goal - which is always "out there," whether it be in space or time.

despite the fact that it's very often distorted as such, real spirituality is not an incentive program. it is perhaps the only mode of living available that's not based on the philosophy of devaluing what we have now in order to arrive at a more satisfactory future.

spiritual awakening will never, ever result from overlooking what is. because what is?

reality!

and how can you know reality without coming face to face with it? how can you ever even come close to knowing something if all you're doing is not only ignoring it, but actively running away from it?

working towards incentives is great, but not when it comes to your intrinsic sense of happiness and contentment towards life. if your basic sense of completeness and satisfaction depends on getting something other than what you have now, knowing something other than what you know now, or becoming something other than what you are now, you're screwed. you'll never get there. you'll keep on grasping and grasping and never be one inch closer to happiness.

the good news is, you'll never be one inch further away from it either. happiness is simply realizing what you are and being at peace with that (and you will always be what you are no matter what behavior you engage in, or fail to engage in for that matter). not superficially of course, as in "i'm a sensitive guy who works at a bank and likes gardening on sundays." realizing what you truly are implies discarding every last layer of artificial and misplaced identification and stumbling finally upon that to which nothing can be added or subtracted - that which remains unaffected regardless of what does or doesn't happen in your life - that which cannot win or lose but always, simply, is.

it's not beautiful, it's not amazing, it's not tear-jerking. (it's not ugly or boring either.) it doesn't solve all the problems in your life, and it may even create a few new complications. it doesn't give you special powers and raise you above all the messy flotsam and jetsam of everyday life (you're still gonna have to pay your taxes and wipe your ass). people won't look at you differently after you realize it and stand in awe of your power.

it's just the simple truth, and that's all.

but it will help you fold your laundry better, and it may even make scratching your nose a more joyful experience.