The Presence of God

One thing I've noticed about the nature of mind is that it likes variety.  It wants to keep experiencing different things, never quite content with what it has.  Always moving from one thing to the next, it is rare to have a moment of pure presence. 

Let us think a moment about the Western idea of God.  In a sense, God is the perfect being.  All present, all knowing, God simply rests in the moment.  The classic western idea of God is as this great being who we turn to to change things, to make them better.  A Holy Santa Claus waiting to grant wishes on the deserving.

When I was younger, I had an incredibly powerful experience of God.  God was not, as I had been led to believe, a person, but rather a presence.  A constant, steady, unyielding presence.  This was not a God of wishes and miracles, but a God of being.  I knew instantly that this was the true God of the mystics. 

Strange as it may seem, the true name of God implies this.  In Exodus, Moses asks God his name, so that he can tell the others.  God says his name is I AM.  In Hebrew, the sense is I Am, I was, and I will be, a sense of being that transcends all time.  Of course, the people, unsatisfied with this God of presence, constantly turn to man-made idols to worship.  They wanted a god they could see and talk to. 

A true mystic seeks to become like God.  It is taught in Western religions that all humans have a spark of the divine within, a godlike part of them.  Most people, in an idolatrous fashion, imagine some sort of subtle soul.  Yet to me, this spark of God is actually our inner presence.  This presence is formless yet existent, a complete paradox.

The idea of God will lead to different forms of religion.  If you imagine God as a powerful judge, then the religion will be narrow and judgmental.  If you imagine God as love, then religion will be one devoted to compassion and service.  The God of presence, however, neither judges nor serves.  The God of presence simply Is, and Is available always to those who seek Him.

How, then, to be like God?  Develop a sense of presence that is open and aware.  God does not interfere with our everyday lives.  God does not seek to destroy or suppress people.  Likewise, we should not seek to destroy or suppress our inner thoughts and energies, but rather bring a sense of presence to them.  This presence, in itself, is transformative.  Like the Tao, it does nothing yet leaves no thing undone.  

In the words of a Tibetan Buddhist, Jamgon Kantrul Rinpoche:

With constant, vigilant mindfulness, sustain this recognition of empty, open, brilliant awareness.
Cultivate nothing else.
There is nothing else to do, or to undo.
Let it remain naturally.
Don't spoil it by manipulating, by controlling, by tampering with it, and worrying about whether you are right or wrong, or having a good meditation or a bad meditation.
Leave it as it is, and rest your weary heart and mind.

Quote from http://freddieyam.com/p/jamgon.html

Dual and Non-dual

Perhaps the greatest yin-yang is duality and non-duality. David Loy, in his book Nonduality presents the following translation of the Tao Te Ching Chapter 1:

The Tao that can be Tao'd is not the constant Tao
The name that can be named is not the constant name
Having-no-name is the source of heaven and earth
Having-names is the mother of the ten thousand things
Therefore, always have no intention in order to see the wonder
Always have intention in order to see the forms
These two things have the same origin
Although different in name
Their sameness is called the mystery
From mystery to mystery: the gate of all wonder!

According to David Loy, this alternates the dual and non-dual view. There is the nameless source, and the diverse named things. There is a state beyond labeling and intention, and there is a state full of things. Together, they make up the one Tao.

To connect this to personal experience, imagine sitting in meditation listening to a dog bark. There will be a bare sensation of the barking, generally followed by thoughts and feelings. There may appear in the mind an image of a dog, memories of dogs, emotional impulses of irritation or fear. Thinking "there is a dog barking and it is annoying me" is from the point of view of the ten thousand things. Having a field of awareness in which things arise and pass is from the point of view of unity, of non-dualism.

One important thing that this points out is that there is nowhere to go. The non-dual state is not something else. It is not full of light and bliss and angels singing sweet songs of divine delight. It is not on a different dimension or plane of existence. The ten thousand things and the nameless source are the same.

The difference between the two is the overlay of thoughts, feelings, perceptions, associations: the naming and labeling we generally impose on experience. In Buddhism, we would start with rupa, form. Form doesn't mean anything. It's not good or bad. It just is what it is. There is a sound of the dog bark, the sight of the moon shining, the feel of the wind blowing. To this would be added vedana, or feeling. I like the wind, but I don't like the dog. Then comes perception. There's that dog bark, that moon. Then come the reactions: the dog barking colors my mood, my thoughts turn to how I hate the dog barking, how I wish it would stop, to ceaseless talking about the dog. Then comes vijnana, discriminating consciousness.

This shows the progression in Buddhist terms from the nameless to the named.

With the Tao, we don't try to elevate one or the other. It does not say we should always remain without intention, without the mental and emotional overlay we place on things. It says to see the wonder, be without intention. To see the forms, be with intention. In true non-clinging fashion, we can move between both worlds.

As the Tao Te Ching says later:

Without going out the door, know the world
Without peering out the window, see the Heavenly Tao
The further one goes
The less one knows

Therefore the sage
Knows without going
Names without seeing
Achieves without striving

The Ethics of Emptiness: Part One

What is Emptiness?

Emptiness can be used to mean different things. In the West, when we talk about emptiness, we tend to mean “nothing”. For instance, if a cup is empty, there is nothing in there: no water, no coffee, no tea, no anything.

This can be confusing when we hear Buddhists say everything is empty. A hammer is empty—then why does it hurt when we smack our fingers? Rain is empty--- then why do we get wet?

Some Buddhist schools take this to mean that nothing exists at all. In my experience, this tends to be the minority view. Rather, emptiness in Mahayana Buddhist thought tends to be a very special kind of emptiness. It is emptiness of a self.

Ok, so what is a self?

When we talk about a self, we mean something that endures, doesn’t change, and is independent of everything else. Like an impossibly hard diamond. It is the idea of an immortal soul of some sort, some underlying real, actual substance that exists separate and apart. In the West, the philosopher Plato popularized the idea of an idea: that everything has its perfect self essence that exists apart from its material manifestations. Every circle is a reflection of a divine perfect circle. This sort of thinking became very well entrenched in the West.

Buddhist and Taoist thought goes against this. In both Buddhism and Taoism, the universe is a fluid, dynamic, changing place. There are no objects, there are movements. There are no things, there are open, changing, flowing containers. A good way to test this is to try to find the self. A classical example is a chariot. A more modern example might be a car. Where is the car in the car? Well, a car has doors, four wheels, an engine. But then you think, what if I remove the engine, do I no longer have a car? Or if it has three tires instead of four?

You can take a car apart and sort it into neat, interesting piles, but you will find no “car” there. You will have an assembly of parts. And if you look at each part, you will find parts of parts, and so on.

On the other hand, there certainly seems to be “something” there. You can get into your car and drive it to the beach or the grocery store. If you tell me I have no hand, I will slap you.

You can do this with all things, including yourself. Try it and see what happens. Most people, except children, shy away from this sort of analysis. We don’t push ourselves this far. Yet this is what Buddhism is all about: pursuing an investigation to the end.

In Buddhist philosophy, there is the concept of two truths. There are ultimate truths (there is no car) and conventional truths (I can get in and drive my car). Even though there is nothing like a “car”, we can still get to work every day. It is important when thinking about things to make this distinction. If you confuse one level with the other, than you may step in front of an empty car to find it smashing into you.

A second point is the inter-relation between all things. A car doesn’t jump from the Tao fully formed. A car is assembled, but some one has to mine and refine the metal. Some one has to put together the pieces. Some one has to transport the car from the factory to the dealer. Some one has to grow food to feed all these people. The sun and earth must exist and be ripe for the food to grow. Behind each car is a factory, a team of workers, farmers to grow food to feed the workers, real estate agents, homemakers, garbage men, lawyers, doctors, societies, civilizations, planets, sunshine, gravity, stars--- the whole universe goes into making that car. One might say, in fact, that a car manifests the whole universe.

If, in fact, there were permanent, enduring selves, then nothing would be possible. If there was an essential metal that existed apart and unchanging, you could never mold the metal into a car. It would always be metal. Likewise, sunshine and expelled air would never become a tree.

As Lao Tzu said:

Thirty spokes join in one hub
In its emptiness, there is the function of a vehicle
Mix clay to create a container
In its emptiness, there is the function of a container
Cut open doors and windows to create a room
In its emptiness, there is the function of a room
Therefore, that which exists is used to create benefit
That which is empty is used to create functionality

One thing that should be clear, but may not be, is that the form and emptiness are both required to have anything at all. Emptiness gives the cosmos its flexibility. Form gives the cosmos its existence. If everything were completely empty empty, all the way through, we wouldn’t have anything at all. If everything were enduring selves, we would have a static universe. Again, it is the middle way that is the way to go here. The Heart Sutra says: Form is emptiness. But it also says, emptiness is form. These are not two.

Tao Te Ching translated by Derek Lin

Yin and Yang

陰陽

The characters for yin and yang show us the sunny and dark side of the hill. This is important because there is only one hill.

Yin and yang is very important in Taoist thought. Yin and yang is the original expression of creation. Many polar terms can be seen as yin and yang: male and female, heaven and earth, king and servant, the universe and humanity. In the West, we tend to think of these as opposites, and try to increase one at the expense of the other. We value good over evil, wealth over poverty, winning over losing. In ancient Chinese thought, things were more fluid. Yin and yang were open categories. Accordingly, a tree might wither in autumn, become bare in winter (yin), blossom in spring, and flourish in the summer (yang).

I think this idea is closely related to another: the macrocosm and the microcosm. In English, these words mean the large and small cosmos. The great Tao, 道, is expressed in the te, 德, of the individual.

Taoist alchemy often speaks of reversion, of turning things backward. The explosion of creation gives rise to the 10,000 things, but it also casts them apart. Reversing this process returns us to the original Tao.

One of the main ideas of alchemy is to bring fire below water. Now what does this mean? Fire rises, water descends. If fire is over water, then fire disperses and water is lost. If water is over fire, then the fire heats the water. This is the idea of alchemy.

Where this gets confusing is when one fails to distinguish the level one is speaking.

In one system, yin might refer to the body, and yang to the mind. Often, mind flies out into the world, and the body is forgotten. However, by bringing the mind back into the body, mind and body come together. This is a standard first step in martial arts.

In another system, yin may stand for yuan shen, and yang for shi shen. Shi shen flies out into the world and is lost, where yuan shen is forgotten. By calming shi shen and expanding yuan shen, true attention is stabilized.

A third practicioner may come along and point out that heaven and earth do not refer to these things at all. Rather, heaven refers to the dan tien between the eyes, and earth to the dan tien below the navel. The upper energy flies up and is lost, the lower energy descends and is lost. The idea is to bring the upper energy to the lower, and the lower to the upper. This way, balance and harmony is restored.

Who is right?

The laws of Tao should apply equally to all situations. Accordingly, all of these may be correct in their particular context.

The Dreaming Question

Gurdjieff used to say that it was important for a person to have an aim. One person might want to become a general. Another, to acquire the ability to read minds. The best and highest, he said, was to become master of oneself.

I have been thinking recently about my question. I'm sure everyone has a question, at least for a while in their life. When I was younger, the question usually was, how can I get bliss? But now, older and wiser, I am coming to see that these the things of the world don't last, so they will not provide lasting happiness.

I believe my question is as follows: does the mind create matter, or does matter create mind (or some other combination)? I believe that solving this riddle will, in effect, solve many other questions: what is the meaning of life, who am I, what happens when we die. If the mind, or a mind, creates the universe, then this would suggest there is life after death, I am a spiritual being, and when we die, we probably do something else. If matter creates the mind, then we are nothing more but advanced robots. When our power goes out, so do we.

I am struck that how I formulate this question that it tends toward the two extremes the Buddha preached against: eternalism and nihilism. The Middle Way falls between these two, neither one nor the other.

The Buddha also taught a doctrine called "dependent orignation". Under this teaching:

When this is, that is.
From the arising of this comes the arising of that.
When this isn't, that isn't.
From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.

Imasmiṃ sati, idaṃ hoti.
Imass’ uppādā, idaṃ uppajjati.
Imasmiṃ asati, idaṃ na hoti.
Imassa nirodhā, idhaṃ nirujjhati.

This is a very interesting formulation. The Buddha did not say X causes Y. He said, X arises, and Y arises. When there is no X, there is no Y. I compare this to sitting at a computer. A green light comes on, then a red light. Other lights appear. Then a green light, and a red light. After a while, we may be tempted to think that the green light causes, or gives birth to the red light. This is clearly not true. If so, why is this not the case with all things? Why do we think that a seed causes a flower? At what point, exactly, does the seed pass away, and the flower arise?

If you were to follow this track to its root (which is a very Buddhist thing to do), you might get to a point where the universe is simply arising and passing from the Void. The Advaitins say this is just the case, except that instead of Void, they say Consciousness.

Other Buddhist schools deny that there is any universe outside the mind. The mind creates the universe. One of the best explanations of this theory comes from Berkeley, in his Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. Berkeley carefully shows that we can never know anything beyond subjective, mental impressions. It is an intriguing concept, found especially in Chinese Buddhist schools. A Taoist may say of course, the Buddhists are replacing the Tao with Mind!

The other night, I had a dream about these two thoughts. In my dream, it was pointed out that the spontaneous arising theory was a school of Ancient Buddhism, based on the Pali Canon. The mind-only school represented a refinement of this idea (although not necessarily a final refinement). In the first case, the cause was unknown, in the second the cause is revealed.

And why not? Buddhist teaching itself is subject to the laws of change. I suppose in the end, the resolution of this question will depend on my experiences.