not knowing

freedom from what we think we know is an essential step to profound self-understanding. thoughts can shape our entire perception of reality, and in deciding we "already know" we forego the possibility of coming into contact with ever-deeper aspects of our essential nature.

maintaining a posture of open-ended unknowingness and curiosity, on the other hand, is like having the scuba diving equipment that allows us to plumb the ocean's depths. without it, there's little hope for discovery.

non-resistance

peace lies in non-resistance to what is. ask not what can be different, but what already is.

opening eyes

opening eyes for the first time is like getting your head above water and breathing in air for the first time. after having been gone for an indeterminate amount of time, we are suddenly purely and intensely here.

in reality, we have periods of intense awareness sporadically throughout our lives, whether or not we practice to achieve them. but the nearly unbroken chain of mental identification that appears to take place within most of us most of the time can cast a surprisingly alluring spell on our attention, making us believe thoughts are indeed real and who we are is absolutely contingent upon a mental position.

accepting the presence of mental activity and being simultaneously aware of one's nature as the object-perceiving awareness rather than the object itself, life is approached from a different perspective, one that is not as strongly rooted to a limited sense of self but perceives its very essential nature as inextricably linked to everything it perceives.

when we suddenly realize that we are an aware presence encapsulated in a body with no true knowledge of why we find ourselves immersed in this human experience, we touch a true source of humility. we are ignorant to how exactly we've gotten here. it's as if we suddenly awoke within a dream and acknowledged to ourselves the fact that we don't know what this is or why we're here. we look and see with lucid unknowing. enlightened ignorance: the first step in any direction to finding out, since no answer can be provided without a question having been asked in some form or another.

while none of us will probably ever have all the answers, it is possible to arrive at a realization of one's existential, experiential nature that contrasts pretty vastly with what we may have been conditioned - or conditioned ourselves - to believe we were. being aware of one's ultimate nature as consciousness itself does not necessarily answer all questions, but with regard to one's sense of what one is it removes the need for a question to be formed in the first place. one is what one is as one feels oneself - not even that, since for one thing to feel another there has to be a perception of distinction; one firstly and primordially is, and all else comes after and falls within that.

to have a glimpse of awakeness as you're strolling from your car to work or school is like suddenly inhabiting an unsolved mystery, looking behind eyes that are as much an enigma as what they see. insects, trees, sky... what is it all? becoming passionate about finding the answer to this riddle we feel tugging on our very heartstings is the spark that will lead to a fire that will lead to a sudden flash of recognition: the recognition of something so obvious and intimate it is like we finally realized a truth that has been completely self-evident throghout every moment of our lives but has somehow managed to stay out of conscious awareness. since knowing what we are (by virtue of being it consciously) is the most relevant thing that could possibliy be, residing in a state of prevailing existential unconsciousness creates a deep-rooted and highly invested-in source of dysfunction, of unnecessary suffering.

life is not always easy but it can be an awe-filled, beautiful experience for which one feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude. it can be an adventure filled with adversity but on fire with passionate discovery and flooded by joy, contentment, and love. the alternative (the fear-driven life of ego-identification) is like hell compared to heaven.

the shift in human consciousness from "it's me against the world" to "i am a part of everything i see and everything i see is a part of me" is drastic and radical. it marks the beginning of the end of one thing, and the beginning of quite another. making unmistakable contact with our true nature may not solve all of the issues we think need solving, but it will resolve the one drive that, with or without our awareness, has provided the basis for every experience in our life.

static enlightenment vs. evolutionary enlightenment

i've been interested these days in the concept of "evolutionary enlightenment" brought forth by Andrew Cohen. Cohen is best known as the founder of EnlightenNext magazine (formerly known as What Is Enlightenment?), and he seems to get somewhat of a bad rap in certain spiritual circles, i think because he's often seen as something of an egotist.

watching some of his videos on youtube, i can certainly understand why people would feel this way. he displays a certain intolerance towards ego-based perspectives and seems to think quite highly of himself and the work he's performing. simply put, he comes across at times as kind of arrogant.

does this mean he's full of shit? maybe, but i don't think it's necessarily that simple.

writing Cohen off as pompous may be easy to do because we've been conditioned to believe enlightened spiritual teachers should look and act a certain way. but the reality of it is that individuals who have realized their absolute nature wake up, experience what they are utterly beyond any conditioned thing, and then keep on being individuals. they know that what they are is not limited to whatever body they happen to be inhabiting, but they keep inhabiting a body. they understand mental identifications and preferences represent what they are as much as any random shoebox at the nearest Foot Locker does, and yet they go on exhibiting relatively unique personal characteristics.

what i'm trying to get at is that no direct relationship exists between enlightenment and the idiosyncratic expressions of a personality. realizing truth entails acknowledging one's freedom from conditioned existence, but it doesn't erase that conditioning. you're no longer a prisoner to it because you realize it's not what you are, but it goes on operating all the same in some fashion or another. and while it's true that an experience of awakening will have a profound effect on how consciousness manifests through the conditioned expression of a human being (often resulting in the expected increases in peace and compassion), i suppose this doesn't always have to be the case.

or, more likely, qualities such as peace and compassion don't always take on the form we expect them to. someone like U. G. Krishnamurti, for example, whose behavior is nothing close to what most people would expect from an enlightened individual, expresses compassion through a confrontational, even scandalous style that - if it works - shocks the listener into coming to a more realistic reconning of what the ego is and how it functions. a thickly padded ego will look at an unconventional spiritual teacher like U. G. and think, "what a dick." but for someone who's just ripe enough, his approach has the potential to push consciousness towards a direct encounter with itself. and what could be more compassionate than aiding in the process of spiritual awakening?

criticizing the validity of spiritual teachings from people like U. G. and Cohen based on the emotional responses they elicit is probably not too great of an idea, because it is the ego that gets offended and makes value judgments. of course, this doesn't mean we should look up to anybody that displays offensive characteristics as a spiritual master. but neither should we look to how comfortable the ego feels in response to a spiritual teaching as our sole criterion for judging its effectiveness, because powerfully transformative teachings and enlightened perspectives are necessarily expressed through imperfect personalities.

why is this? because the relative and the absolute coexist. the perennial spiritual statement that "all is one" is true, but that doesn't stop the relative universe from expressing itself in all of the glorious diversity that every day presents itself before our eyes. reality is inherently and perfectly complete, and at a less fundamental level it's also taking form as an expression of diversity and process. both things are true; they don't cancel eachother out. one who realizes this is said to be enlightened, but when they draw from this unconditioned source to express their understanding, they do so through inherently conditioned channels. this seems to be an inevitable aspect of formlessness translating into form.

so while Cohen's personality may at times be off-putting, i'm not convinced this means he fails to bring a valid perspective to the table. what i find interesting about his teaching is that it emphasizes how to contextualize enlightenment in the world we currently live in. he acknowledges the importance of coming into contact with one's absolute nature (what he and others call the ground of being), but he also addresses how this realization can be applied to our current existence in the relative universe.

basically, i think Cohen is saying: "so you get enlightened. great - now what?" that "now what?" constitutes the "evolutinary" aspect of his "evolutionary enlightenment" teaching. he calls it the "new enlightenment," which i think is kind of gimmicky. neverhteless, the concept behind it is interesting because it suggests that rather than merely focusing on becoming free from conditioned existence, we should be asking ourselves how to completely engage in the process of consciousness evolution that constitutes the very hearbteat of the universe.

Cohen calls this drive to participate in the universal evolution of consciousness the "ecstatic compulsion of the authentic self." he contrasts it to what he refers to as "premodern" enlightenment teachings that only emphasize realizing the ground of being and becoming free from conditioning, but fail to contextualize this enlightenment within one's continued participation in the phenomenal world. with his "moral imperative" to the evolution of consciousness, Cohen asks us to become absolutely committed to our life experience not for the individualistic ends that are so common in contemporary society, but to establish higher structures of consciousness that will allow for the flourishing of new and higher cultures on Earth.

here's an interesting video on the subject:

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.

using death to bring focus

here's a useful practice: picture yourself on your deathbed. the unthinkable is happening. life is coming to an end. a sudden clarity descends, and as you look back upon your days on earth you realize what truly mattered and what didn't. you remember what it was your soul yearned for, and - the mind's propensity to bullshit itself having finally run dry - you level an uncompromisingly honest assessment on your life.

did you have the courage to live as your heart directed? did you remember what truly mattered in the midst of daily life? were you able to sacrifice immediate pleasure for the greater good of yourself and others? or did you turn a deaf ear to your inner voice and lose yourself in meaningless distractions, petty squabbles, and selfish obsessions?

now rewind to this moment: here's your chance to live in a way that will enable you to die in peace, with no regrets. right now, and tomorrow, and the next day. these are the moments of your life; these seemingly disposable minutes are what make up your whole experience. every second matters; every breath you take is one breath subtracted from your lifelong quota.

this life is a chance given to you. immersed in it as we are, it's hard to see it that way. we get lost in the specifics of daily life. we forget why we came. but learn to take an elevated perspective, and the scattered pieces of daily experience will begin to converge into one meaningful movement; a movement towards the things you know truly matter: knowing yourself, leaving a legacy of peace and love in your wake.

perhaps you've never actually faced the fact that you're going to die. thinking about death is no morbid obsession; it's a valuable practice that can help you contextualize your life experience and center it on what is truly important. death in western culture is given an unfair rap, painted as the ultimate evil. but this is just another one of the misperceptions of a culture that views the natural as unnatural, and the unnatural as natural. death is not the end of anything; it's a transitional event - a step that can be taken in joy and gratitude.

if you're interested in facing the fact of mortality, sit down and close your eyes. breathe deeply, and for each long breath, imagine yourself aging one year. how long can you live? eighty, ninety, a hundred years? surely not more than a hundred and twenty! it's gonna have to come to an end sometime, isn't it? but now, while you're still here, why not use the time wisely? there's so much to learn - and not all of it will be discarded when you leave your body behind. this limited lifetime represents the opportunity to take steps that will reverberate throughout eternity.

just be

let's cut the crap, shall we? there's something right there on the edge of your awareness. something you can't quite pin down. you can feel it tickling the back of your brain, tugging at the corners of your memory. you've been very close to realizing what it is time and again, and every time you approach it, every time your entire life converges on a single point and your whole consciousness expresses itself as one unutterable question, you feel you're just millimeters from some monumental, yet incredibly familiar realization - something you know will make you scream out in recognition, as if you've finally solved life's riddle: "THAT'S it!"

that's right! and it's always been there. nothing you have ever done has made it any more or less real. it will always be there, seen or unseen. and it will always be known, acknowledged or not. it is inescapable. it will be there as you brush your teeth. it'll be there while you take a shit. it won't go away when you scream in traffic, and it won't be any "closer" when you're sitting in silent meditation.

it's not a question of what actions you choose to engage in or renounce. it's a question of what decision you choose to make: will you lose yourself in specifics and increase the force of forgetfulness, or will you accept that this trip ain't gonna last forever and behave accordingly? will you inhabit what you are even if it doesn't look like what you've been taught to be, or will you keep ignoring what is so tremendously obvious (what may be too simple and self-evident, in fact, to be regarded as important)? life goes on either way.

discerning the value of spiritual practices

the "new age circus," as spiritual teacher david hawkins refers to it, offers an endless parade of so-called spiritual practices that seem to appeal more to our sense of adventure and need for entertainment than to address the reality of spiritual development. today's spiritual marketplace resembles in large part the secular commercial environment that so pervades our society: both seem to promise the attainment of perfection, the banishment of all problems and challenges - an experience of unbroken pleasure and satisfaction.

we're familiar enough with how products are idealized through the media to turn a profit; how a simple object can be presented - and perceived - as the answer to all our troubles. when it comes to spiritual products, however, we're still quite naïve. this is understandable really, since spiritually speaking western culture has long remained unsophisticated as a whole. our sudden interest in eastern wisdom traditions throghout the twentieth century (particularly strong in the latter half) brought the concept of spirituality as separate from religion to the surface of common awareness and sparked the beginnings of a spiritual marketplace that has only recently taken on the proportions of a veritable wildfire. today we see innumerable spiritual teachers, products and methods peddled over the internet; once exotic spiritual concepts seeping into popular and even corporate culture; super-celebrities such as oprah winfrey touting the teachings of profound spiritual masters like eckhart tolle.

this popularization of spirituality is almost certainly a positive trend in human development, but with increased spiritual currency comes increased need for discernment; the need for something akin to the product reviews and consumer reports that form such an integral part of more traditional consumer markets. if our goal is that of genuine spiritual development and not merely to entertain ourselves by chasing the latest fantasy, we have to understand that everything labelled "spiritual" is not necessarily going to take us closer to truth-realization.

we have to learn to separate the crap from the good stuff. because - within the context of actual spiritual awakening - many (and probably most) of the products hyped on the spiritual marketplace represent either a potential distraction from, or a more serious detriment to genuine growth. so how do we discern, and whose promises should we trust? while ultimately this must obviously be a personal call, it is said the buddha himself - normally considered a pretty nice and genuine guy - offered a simple yardstick with which to judge not only the value of any spiritual teaching but the effectiveness of any mode of living with relation to spiritual development.

the buddha is attributed as having said something along these lines: "do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. do not believe in traditions merely because they have been handed down for many generations."

so what the hell should we believe in, and on what basis? basically, the buddha espoused a very practical approach: to rely on our own experience and logic, to critically analyze things for ourselves, arrive at our own conclusions, and live in accordance with what we have found to be conducive to qualities such as happinness, peace, balance, compassion, love, understanding. it goes without saying that in order to practice this effectively a high level of self-honesty is required - not exactly the commonest of traits among humans, but certainly something that can be developed and refined with practice.

using this simple method of analysis, we can learn to keep away from the things that bring out the worst in us (greed, envy, anger, discontent) and develop an affinity for that which brings out the best in us and makes our experience of living more joyful and fulfilling. but, again, self-honesty is essential here - the kind of honesty required, for example, to acknowledge that while degrading others in the name of self-inflation may provide a certain perverse sense of satisfaction, it ultimately brings us suffering by alienating us from ourselves and others. the kind of honesty necessary to understand the pursuit of selfish pleasure and self-glorification as an imbalanced effort to repair a dysfunctional self-relationship, or the manifestation of any form of aggression as a desperate act of self-violence.

lost in the wilderness of mind

to be consumed by mind-identification is like being lost in a vast and alien wilderness. there is a constant urgency to "go somewhere," to "find something"... to arrive finally at a comfortable, non-threatening place. nearly every landscape we encounter, however, has a feeling of unfamiliarity (or "not-right-ness") attached to it, and much of the time we suffer from an underlying sense that - despite being surrounded by the people and places we're familiar with - we ourselves are caught in a strange and unsettling inner space.

in devoting the main thrust of our energy or awareness to the mind, our experience naturally becomes defined by the attributes of mental functioning. we lose ourselves in the infinitely complex labyrinth of thought in all of its forms: memories, speculations, fears, desires, regrets, obsessions... we become desperately entangled in the mental "story of me."

just as we can sit and concentrate heavily upon the physical sensation of inhabiting our body and thus temporarily experience ourselves as primarily a physical entity, by concentrating our awareness upon the mind we experience ourselves as primarily a mental entity. the difference between the two is that focusing awareness on the physical sensations associated with inhabiting a body brings us into the present, real moment (raising our consciousness out of the thorny entanglement of mind-identification), while devoting our energy to the mind only furthers our entrenchment in a delusional perception of reality.

the "answer" to our mental search for truth lies beyond the mind; it is wordless, thoughtless. it is revealed in the midst of utter silence because it is the felt experience of what we are. no concept, belief or theory is needed to "bridge the gap" between the state of existential ignorance and innate knowingness, because no such gap exists. when a person is said to experience awakening or realization, change only occurs at the level of awareness, not at the level of being (i.e. one realizes what one always was, as opposed to one becoming something one wasn't).

so to return to the first idea addressed in this post, a return from the unsettling wilderness of mind-identification is possible - but not by taking the right turns or seeking out the correct mental landscape. further engagement in the mind's labyrinth - regardless of the intention behind it - can only solidify the attachment of consciousness to mind. what's called for instead is a disengagement from the mental perspective; a "pulling back" from the world of thought and an abidance in the context of silent awareness.

this is often difficult to do because it feels like "quitting" on one's problems. the temptation to resolve all of the knots - which in actuality don't need resolving in terms of self-realization since the mind is not who we are - holds one back. it is a gravitational force that's difficult to overcome. once achieved, however, a powerful rupture in the consciousness-mind entanglement takes place, and with practice it becomes easier to recede from the highly specified context of mind-identification to the more encompassing context of silent awareness.

stopping and listening

the process of awakening is actually quite simple: instead of dedicating all of your energy towards (creating, maintaining, evaluating, improving...) a mental conception of who you think you are or want to become, start paying attention to what you actually are. that's about all there is to be said about waking up: stop making noise and start listening.

the ego is what stands in the way of truth-realization, and thoughts pertaining to a mental image of self are what the ego is made of. as long as this mental idolatry is kept front and center stage, no room is left for real discovery.

one can read hundreds of books about enlightenment; meditate for decades; dip into innumerable practices, disciplines and philosophies; discuss spirituality constantly... but none of this guarantees anything at all. none of this produces enlightenment, because waking up is not merely a matter of "putting in time" or "acting spiritual." (to be fair, however, engaging in a spiritual lifestyle does have the potential to create a favorable context for realization).

waking up involves separating awareness from ego: observing it from a detached perspective; realizing gradually its nature as an impersonal, mechanical process that doesn't represent an individual will or entity; disentangling, knot by knot, the sense of self from it.

but in reality nothing has to be done to wake up. something has to be stopped. the awareness of truth can only be postponed through concealing action - continual effort that obscures the otherwise self-evident truth. unceasing investment in ego is what keeps one separated from moment to moment from the awareness of what one truly is.

this is what needs to be stopped, and this stopping is the only work that can be done to wake up. truth cannot be "gotten" or brought about; its light dawns of its own accord when we cease to create the conditions that obscure it from awareness.

many forms of so-called spirituality involve brushing the ego up, smoothing it over - creating a prettier mental image of self. this may provide certain benefits, but ultimately, it's a step in the wrong direction. the truth can only be approached when the mental self-image is laid down, when awareness frees itself from the object of its fascination - the ego - and comes back to rest upon itself as untouched and unconditioned consciousness.