Living Large

Part of the Eastern spiritual sense of the deeper reality is termed “emptiness.” It is the realization that there are really no singular things. There is only “One without a second” as the Rishis put it. There is the continually changing process of material and nonmaterial existence with all its sub-processes. And there are substantless versions of Mind arbitrarily labeling stages of the process with various nouns as though those stages were actually permanent entities. But as Pablo Picasso once said, "There are no nouns, only verbs." Every thing is merely an asseblage of parts, causes, effects and conditions with no inherent essense of its own. "Essence" is simply projected upon the assemblage by the mind of the beholder. It's all processes melting into other processes.

Still emptiness is not about nothingness. It’s about the sense of spaciousness that comes when you realize that the borders that separates “you” from “everything else” is not the thin envelope of your skin. You are Big Mind peering through a singular perspective called... whatever your name is. But in fact there are no real borders between “your person” and “the other” because 60% of “you” is the rivers that supply the water that make up your bodily fluids. You are the forces that make up the fabric of the material world, the air pressure that keeps your fluids from boiling away, the electromagnetic forces that are sparking the very thoughts that create the sensation of a you in the first place. You are the 15 billion year process from the big bang to the present day that forged the iron in the cauldron of the stars that now courses through your blood.

If your impressed with this universe then give yourself a hand because when you think about it, you and the cosmos are one and the same. Duality is a duel with ones own gigantic shadow. So emptiness isn’t some nihilistic notion that there is just nothingness and that there is certainly no “you”. It’s the transcendent realization that there is nothing but you. "I am you... and we are all together." as the walrus might say. Why do you think they call it the “You”-niverse? Gregory Bateson, the famous systems theorist called this insight “the delimiting of the self”. So… be all you can be, which is everything there is! It’ll make you a much bigger person.

In a City of Fallen Angels

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is asked by his disciples, “When will heaven come?” He replies, “It won’t come by waiting for it, because Heaven is spread out upon the earth but people don’t see it.” A color blind person wouldn’t know a street made of gold if it smacked him in the face. He might even think he is trapped in a city consisting of nothing but poverty and desperation where any brutal act could be justified as a survival tactic. Such people can't see heaven. They see hell and project their horrific hallucination onto this miraculous blank canvas of pure potentiality we call existence and through reactions and attitudes paint something resembling Edvard Munch's Scream over Monet's Water Lilies.

Instead of making lemonade out of lemons they make spitoons from the pots of gold that bookend the rainbow. This is how hell is born of our own blindness. True, the streets of our earthly heaven may not literally be paved with gold but they are strewn with gold-colored leaves, golden late afternoon light, gold-eyed cats, golden-haired women, golden delicious apples and golden-hued souls shining all around. The real heaven's gold is warm and alive not cold and metallic.

A little skill. a little gratitude, a little mindfulness practice and a little emotional discipline and the world becomes a thinly-veiled paradise. And not only is she gorgeous, she's easy. She's head-over-heals for us. And so for the lowly poet she'll drops her veils at the drop of a hat. You see, the trouble with this heaven of ours is that the real God is no segregationist. He doesn't bus the the confused, needy, mean-spirited people to some project called Purgatory. Those projects were leveled long ago to make way for the ever-expanding urban renewal project of our universe.

The trouble is this heaven of ours isn't a gated community for saints and angels only. God has a very big heart. He'll let anyone in. Even you and me. You don't have to be a Buddha. You only have to have the potential to be one. So if we want to clean up the neighborhood we have to develop our Buddha nature by nurturing the development of other Buddhas. It's up to us. We live in heaven but we need to learn to see through the hell in our heads to realize it.

So one of the most fundamental purposes of our existence in this heaven is to remove the scales from our own and others eyes, not an easy task in a place where fear and hatred are so vigorously promoted in order to divide and conquer. One of our most fundamental purposes in this man-made world of illusion, mind-made world of doubt is to dispel the darkness by practicing optimism, cheer, open-hearted affection— no matter how out of vogue it may seem. Be happy anyway. Celebrate anyway. Be generous anyway. Sing anyway. Expect a miracle anyway.

Sure some people may think you’re crazy but like Zorba the Greek said, "A man needs a little madness or he never cuts the rope and is free." Practice the high art of happiness. Practice, practice, practice. Because practice makes perfection.

Jesus and Buddha: Compare and Contrast

We went to a Unity service in Berkeley today. I was impressed by the alter which sported statuettes of both Buddha and Jesus. No wonder they call it Unity. Of course, Jesus and Buddha have a lot in common. They were both Awakened Ones trying to enlighten the world. They espoused similar principles that emphasized transcendence from the delusions that inevidably dog a self-centered self-concept. Compassion was also a favored theme of both masters as was nonviolence and the renunciation of materialism.

They were both skilled teachers that excelled in the instructive techniques of parable and metaphor. They understood that to become truly enlightened one must at some time abandon a conventional lifepath and "go forth" in solitude to seek deeper understanding of the human condition in order to become one with a higher intelligence. They both left their families to find a deeper realization and founded spiritual communities dedicated to this realization.

It is also important to note that most of what was written about the two is unverifiable historically and so many myths and fantastical stories have naturally accumulated around these two magnetic figures like charged particles might around two great dynamos. There is very little we know for certain.

For example, it is unknown whether Jesus was actually crucified, although I suspect it is likely he was since he lived under a repressive regime that would have felt threatened by anyone that could fill a town square like he could. Also nothing real or fictional was written about his life beyond his mid-thirties which indicates that he was either dispatched around that time or had to go underground rather hastily to avoid such a fate.

In contrast Buddha supposedly lived to be eighty and founded many sanghas that were enthusiastically and generously supported by the potentates of the time (with perhaps one conspiratorial exception). Buddha's story has many more chapters than Jesus'. Also Jesus was supposedly born of common folk, while Buddha was of the priviledged class and chose the life of a humble seeker voluntarily.

These differences are superficial. The important thing is that they both tapped a common source of wisdom beyond words residing in the realm of spirit. And they dedicated themselves to guiding others along the path toward this realm with unparalleled skill.

Historians will never know what was real and what was invented about there lives but the authenicity of each detail of their biographies is not nearly as important as the authenticity of their messages. And if we do have a spark of the divine within us, as both teachers claim, then we should in time be able to divine their truths from the tall tales of others by asking some simple questions like: "What did they say that resinates for me? Which message helps quench the fires of hatred, ignorance and greed within me?" Then it doesn't matter if the water springs from an oasis in the Sinai Desert or an artesian well in a forest in Bodh Gaya, a fountain in Mecca or a falls in the Sierras. A thirsty soul knows what it needs.