“It is essential that
we bring the correct understanding of Buddhism into the western world, not one
bound by cultural chains. When everything is clean-clear in your own mind,
nobody can create obstacles for you.” ~Lama Yeshe
Spirituality,
for so many of us, is a solution or an escape from the discomfort found in our
daily lives. We come to spirituality in search of “something else.” We want
some “thing” set apart from the aggravation and monotony of our
everyday life. The cue to search for fulfillment is undeniably
intelligent, but the tendency to do so in a realm of time-&-space that is
disconnected from the reality of our day-to-day affairs is a gross
misunderstanding, because our imagination is the only point of departure from
the immediacy of our life. Imagining happiness is the path of The
Secret©, not the Buddha.
Since
true fulfillment is not the product of an hallucination, Buddhist spirituality
begins with a recognition of our personal disappointment and proceeds with an
internal investigation of the causes and conditions that created this seemingly
inescapable atmosphere of despondency. We cannot reject the relative truth of
our life for two reasons: First of all, our relative existence is a
physical event or a natural dimension of our absolute Self. Second, our
subjective experience contains the fundamental misunderstandings that
conceal a direct experience of our larger Self, which is the source of true
fulfillment. In order to discover what we are looking for, we must first
understand how we lost it. One could say that spirituality is the observation
of confusion, because when confusion is seen for what it is, it is
immediately transformed into wisdom.
There is
an inborn urge in each and everyone of us that seeks fulfillment. This
primordial drive is the human imperative to transcend the perverted tendency to
think about ourselves, and actually be ourselves. This
movement seeks expression in every aspect of our lives—food, art, conversation,
music, sex, business, and solitude. Unless we are able to move beyond
our limited self-conscious narrative and begin to explore this ever
expanding experience of our true Self, we will continue to be plagued by
dissatisfaction and pervasive restlessness. But moving beyond
requires that we first move through, which begins with us embracing our
relative existence.
Embracing
our subjective experience does not mean continuing to blindly believe in the
solidity and continuity of the ego; rather it is an invitation to open up,
observe this pattern of personified thought, and recognize the limitations of a
compounded state of mind. In meditation, we observe our minds. We watch as our
subjective narrative is constructed by one thought interacting with another
thought, creating the illusion of a solid personality. In observation, the
ego’s true nature is revealed to be an open-ended process that isn’t in a
state of fluctuation, but is fluctuation. As a
result, we become intensely curious about the gaps in this endless process
of revolution—the space between the dissolution of one self-conscious moment
and the emergence of another—and begin to explore the unlimited nature of our
true being. This exploration is the most fundamental of human instincts,
as it is a moment towards who and what we truly are.
Enlightenment,
which is just a word used to describe the fruition of this fundamental
imperative, is something most of us want in theory, but few of us are willing
to work for. In practice, we go out of our way to avoid it. When we come to
spirituality the ego is in the driver seat. We do not want to change the
dynamics of our lifestyle. Rather than rediscovering our intrinsic courage or
capacity to sit in and move through our personal disappointment, we keep
“dealing with it” by applying more pressure and speed. We resist change with
every ounce of energy at our disposal. Instead, we want the spiritual path to
conform to our self-centered agendas. We don’t defend sanity by uncompromisingly
setting aside time for silence, we put meditation on the back burner. We
practice when it is convenient for us, so that we do not have to
sacrifice the apparent solidity and speed of our limited self’ image and its
endless agendas. When the ego outlines the path of practice, the criminal is in
charge of the crime scene.
Many of
us window shop spiritual traditions until we find a path that demands little or
nothing of us. This is the appeal of new-age
spirituality. Transforming the spiritual path into yet another
mechanism that validates pre-existing patterns of consciousness is what Chogyam
Trungpa referred to as spiritual materialism. However, spiritual
materialism is not limited to new-age circles. It is a problem that manifests
within traditional religions as well. Spiritual materialism is present when we
manipulate the teachings in order to preserve the belief that the small self is
our true Self. The best way to manipulate the teachings is to ignore them all
together.
So many
people in the west are participating in Buddhism as if it were a hobby. I have
suffered from this delusion (click
here to read about my adventures as a Buddhist Dumb-Ass). I tried to keep
the path of transformation at a safe distance by convincing myself that the
east was spiritually superior. I thought of Tibetans as wizards, and related to
Buddhism as if it were nothing more than a role for me to play. So, I read the
books and remembered my lines. I bought the mala and got the “Om Mani Pade Me
Hung” tattoo. I engaged in wordy debates about Buddhist philosophy
without the slightest god-damn clue as to what I was talking about. Even when I
did develop some intellectual understanding, it was totally divorced from
practice, and therefore empty and unsatisfactory. I loved applying Buddhist
standards to Christian theology, in order to assure its insufficiency and
my own superiority. I was the same old miserable person with a new
wardrobe and vocabulary. I had created some fairy tale apart from my daily
life. I was still trapped in my imagination, and as a result nothing
changed.
I cannot
begin the spiritual journey—an exploration of the deeper truths about myself—by
adopting the persona of another person, nor can I postpone transformation. The
path is the most powerful urge in my life—the path is my life, and true
contentment is contingent upon my conscious participation. Everything in my
being is calling me to the path. This innate inspiration is the
indestructible drive to be myself. No justification—I think too much
to meditate, I don’t have the time, I’m too busy, Americans are too
materialistic, or westners are not spiritually inclined—will prove to be a
sufficient excuse to ignore the call to participate in our life. We will
continue to be tormented by dissatisfaction and restlessness, which is nothing
more than the friction between the imperative to rest with the totality of our
original being and the habitual tendencies that seek to evade this primal
mandate.
The
spiritual path consists of fully embracing this life. We must begin where we
are at. For westerns, this means that we must fully embrace our 9-5′s,
anglo-saxon names, and the culture that wrote our narrative. We must be willing
to see the movement of our own dissatisfaction and the causes and conditions
that set it in motion. These are relative truths. We cannot embrace the
relative truth of our existence by relating to someone else’s station in life.
I have to be willing to relate to my own unwillingness.
I have to confront my own dishonest attempts to avoid open and
honest relationships; rather than trying to mimic the as seen on TV/
ideal relationship. Getting a bumper sticker that says, “Loving-Kindness is my
religion” or wearing a mala is no substitute for directly relating to
my own inability to soften-up and be authentic. I can no more cultivate
compassion by mindlessly reciting prayers in a language I do not speak,
than I can produce a patronus charm by
parroting Harry Potter.
Spirituality
is about rediscovering the capacity to allow our life to flow from the source
of authenticity, which is the silence that is at the core of our being. There
are a great many obstacles that prevent this discovery. The path is about
relating honestly and directly with these obstacles. Many of these hang-ups lay
dormant, and only manifest when provoked. Only the reality of our daily life is
provocative enough to shine a light on our shadow side. Our daily life is
immersed in western culture, and our personal narrative is an example of
our cultural narrative. So,
our daily life can push our buttons because our daily life installed them.
When you
combine mindfulness with your daily life you begin to notice
that fundamental awareness expands beyond the personal narrative, because
you get the opportunity to un-do the traps that keep you locked up in your
limited self. When we create an alternative spiritual-verse where we
pretend to be something we are not, we remove the possibility of transformation
from the spiritual path. A path that ignores the possibility of transformation
is neither spiritual nor a path; it is neurotic and cyclic. For Buddhism to
take root in the west it must be grounded in our western lives. Otherwise, it
is an irrelevant distraction to the western search for spiritual
fulfillment.
Reggie Ray, of the Dharma Ocean Foundation,
speaking about some of these spiritual pitfalls, as it relates to Buddhism’s
migration to the West.
