After many years of spiritual practice, people are sometimes disappointed because they don’t feel that they’ve made any real progress. Frustration, loneliness, and impatience still arise, and inevitably, the question is, “What am I doing wrong? My practice is not yielding the results I was expecting.” There is this idea that we can change our personality through practice, do away with unwanted feelings, not get hurt anymore, and change or at least upgrade ourselves.
Recently somebody said to me, “If I don’t keep my thoughts under control, it’s a circus, but I feel vacant and disconnected.” We think that we have to do something to be okay and that a “me” without thoughts would be a better “me.” Some people try to suppress or ignore certain thoughts and feelings because they don’t fit into their concept of spirituality and then wonder why life seems flat.
We rely on concepts, beliefs, and judgments to categorize and measure ourselves and the world. We are convinced that they are a valuable and essential tool for navigating safely through life. We feel that without them, the world might be too chaotic and overwhelming and that our concepts and judgments keep a certain predictable order in place. We confuse predictability with security and don’t understand that it is actually a veil that keeps us locked into separation while missing the fullness we are searching for.
“Me” is the reference point for our notions, narratives, and judgments. It is the reference point for searching. Now, it could be tempting to turn around and say, “I need to be non-judgmental,” setting up a new goal of an improved and non-judgmental “me” and once again imprisoning myself in a new concept and deception. It doesn’t matter what we are caught up in - in our judgments or in the idea of being non-judgmental - as soon as we identify with it, as soon as we have a reference point for filtering life - the notion of a stable and enduring “me” - we will get bogged down and drown in it.
Master Rinzai (9thCE) said: “As I see it, the arising of feelings and constantly changing thought is in itself infinitely deep and free.”
Everything which is arising, all forms and manifestations, are Buddha-nature or One Mind revealing itself. If we get hooked on one form and caught up in it, we create an artificial center; it becomes my judgment or my non-judgment, and we lose sight of the freedom and unsubstantial nature of what we and everything is. If we pursue a practice based on ideas of what should and shouldn’t arise or on concepts of good and bad, we will eventually get disappointed or turn into narrow-minded believers.
Can we let each moment be as it is, without getting hooked but also without rejecting or referencing it to an artificial me and owning it? Can we let each moment be without denying some feelings and holding on to others, without picking no-thought over thought, holy over worldly? There is only a temporary “me” arising and ceasing as each moment, where none of my methods, plans, or concepts apply. It isn’t even doing or non-doing. It transcends categories of easy or difficult, existing or non-existing. It is the immediacy of One Mind, without any intention to get rid of one thing or attaining another in the future. Master Hakuin (Jap.1686-1769) called it “The oneness of cause and effect,” the vibrant aliveness of the ungraspable freedom that we are.
We have a deep habit of judging ourselves, saying, “ I am not good enough. Or I am not a good practitioner; I will never reach liberation.” Or we may be convinced that we have reached a higher state and respond with anger when criticized or judged by others. We compare our appearance, intellect, ways of doing things, and accomplishments to others and conclude that it says something about our self-worth, about “what or who” we are. If we can recognize that pattern and its never-ending frustration and instead of searching on the outside or the inside, realize the already present reality as “infinitely deep and free,” suddenly there will be a deep sigh of relief and Okayness. This experience of “originally, there is no-thing,” neither male nor female, neither high nor low, is the spark of freedom. In that never-changing equality, we are a hundred percent woman without being defined by it; we are male without being caught up in it, Mountains are high, and valleys are deep - all manifestations in their distinct individuality are equal.
The aspiration to do better is important, but we must be clear about what “better” refers to. If we mistakenly think that what we are, our self-worth could be improved; we are off. Could we improve the recognition of being caught up in assuming a lasting and intrinsic “me”? Most likely, yes. But the one reading this, the one getting up for a cup of coffee, the one judging and wanting to be non-judgmental, the one thinking and wanting to be non-thinking - that one is always already present, “infinitely deep and free.”
Photo: Dennis Elliott-Smith
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