Author Archives: John

Nonduality and the Question of Meaning

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In a world that places such emphasis on meaning and purpose, the teachings of nonduality challenge all spiritual seekers who attempt to unravel their paradoxical wisdom. When we hear that our lives have no significance, we can easily start to see life, bleakly and nihilistically, as meaningless altogether. When we read in the Tao Te Ching that “the world is sacred. It can’t be improved,” our cherished ideas of progress, improvement, and making a difference immediately come into question. We must understand, however, that our qualms arise because we are looking at all of this from the perspective of the doer in a world of divisions. Without the ego that reigns in this reality, there would be no fear of a meaningless life.

Does a flower have meaning? Standing naked and fragile for the short span of its existence, the flower makes no pretence of playing a role or making a contribution. When we look at its delicate form and catch the light scent it unreservedly shares, we don’t ask what purpose it serves; the question of meaning does not arise. The flower is perfect as it is and need make no apologies. Alan Watts argued that only words and concepts have meaning, because they point to something other than themselves; they are symbols, significant only as a conduit for communication. This is not the case with life. As Watts would say, the flower doesn’t have meaning. It is meaning. Catholic monk Wayne Teasdale would add, however, that the unfolding of a seed to the perfection of a blossom, and its subsequent decay, reveal a deep truth about all life. There is nothing haphazard in the process of nature, and according to Teasdale, the comprehensive purpose reflected in a flower suggests a similar truth embodied in our own spiritual pilgrimage to the source and origin of all that is. As he makes clear, this purpose is not of the parts but of the whole—“the divine drawing all things to itself first by the interconnectedness of everything, then through its cosmic symbolism, and finally through the communion and union of the mystical journey itself.”

People go round and round looking for meaning, never realizing that the seeker is the sought. Meaning is found in being, nowhere else. As long as there is one who is chasing it, the chase will never end. Like the flower, we are meaning. We cannot find it in objects or accumulate it through accomplishments. We can only be it. For this reason, Jesus declared that those things hidden from the wise and learned have been revealed to little children—and watching young children at play shows us just what he meant. They are so fully intent on what they are doing, so caught up in what Zen calls the “isness” of being, that the question of meaning never occurs to them. With the innocence that precedes the appearance of the ego, they are the truth so often repeated: life is in the living. When as adults we can return to this oneness, with the wisdom gained from having thought it lost, we will have closed the circle of life.

Wonder of Being

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Whenever I have the opportunity to spend time with my little grandsons, all under the age of three, I am vividly reminded of the wonder and miracle of simply being alive. A muddy twig or stone they find on the ground fascinates them as easily as a shiny new toy. They see with “Beginner’s mind,” with what we ourselves saw before society taught us what was “good,” “beautiful,” or “important,” and what was not. Their approach is strikingly different from the attitude we adults so often voice: “Been there and done that!” In recent years, as the veil of conditioning has grown increasingly transparent and the realization of what is deepens, I have noticed that, like my grandsons, I stay put in the moment more often. And like them, when we play peekaboo, I never cease to be surprised at the wonder of it all.

Figure/ground shifts alter my perspective repeatedly. When I look at my hand, I find life. When I look for life, I find myself sitting with my morning cup of coffee. I study my multiplying wrinkles, and muse on the passing years; then I see myself everywhere – in every face, in every facet of life. I am nothing and everything. My being, our being, stretches from quarks to quasars, nanoseconds to light-years, and embodies both life and death. As I get another cup of coffee, I am filled with profound awe.

Listening to a Bach sonata, I am reminded that all manifestation is like the notes played on the cello, coming out of nothing and just as quickly disappearing. Our being unfolds as the evanescent, timeless, flickering radiance of what is. It is all a play of the mind, appearances in our awareness that are without substance, including the self we think we are! The awareness of our true nature precedes both mind and manifestation, so there is no figuring all this out, and no answers to find. Yet, here I am, and I have a dentist appointment this afternoon!

There is beauty in every direction, and only our attention is required for it to dazzle us with its creative brilliance. Whether it is a song bird in the spring, the simple elegance of a cloud overhead, or the laughter of children, life invites us to lose ourselves in the intimacy and enchantment of its creations. The feelings of profound gratitude, love, reverence and humility that accompany such experiences tell us this is our natural birthright. This is home, and where we belong. We are Life.

I find myself drawn increasingly to simplicity, and the luxury of silence, solitude and stillness. I relish the mystery that is, and sip the subtle joy of unknowing like a fine wine. There is a growing inclusiveness unfolding, expanding like ripples in a pond, a deep love pulling me into union with all that is. Gradually emptying my pockets of the favored opinions, beliefs, and attachments of a lifetime, I find everything that is needed right here and now: just this. While life remains replete with all the characteristic suffering and dilemmas of existence, perfection is found in imperfection, and on occasion, I simply float effortlessly in the currents of what is.

How are we ultimately to express the miracle of it all? The same force that makes the planets spin in their orbits causes our hearts to beat, brings the wave to the shore, and lifts the doe over the fence. We participate in every moment of creation and watch firsthand as wonders unfold in our presence. How can we make sense of a heart overflowing with gratitude amid the suffering and distress of life? Language cannot snare our being in a net of words or plumb the contents of our hearts. The measures of science cannot capture the splendor of the setting sun, nor gauge the reach and power of our love. However we try, there is no way to articulate the imponderable nature of things. We simply yield to life’s unfolding with deep gratitude and joy. Joining our children in the celebration of what is, we can never unravel its mystery, but we can be it.

The original version of this post appeared in James Waite’s wonderful website, Nonduality Living

The movie of life

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We have all had the experience of going to the movies. They have a magical power to transport us to very different times or places, and in the good ones we become deeply engrossed in the story. When we walk out, we are often amazed by the abrupt return to our own everyday world. Something quite similar occurs with spiritual realization. Suddenly, we see life in a profoundly different way. We are still right where we were before, still surrounded by the people and circumstances that were there before, but it is all seen with a totally different understanding.

From early childhood, we are taught to see a fragmented reality that we can navigate only by making endless choices and decisions: that and not this, this but not that. By making distinctions and remembering those given social priority, we find our way through our dualistically envisioned world. The dos and don’ts, the “yours” and “mine,” of childhood become the liberal and conservative, believer and infidel, friend and foe of adulthood. Oftentimes, the boundaries we superimpose on life resemble the proverbial lines drawn in the sand by a movie character distinguishing friend from foe. In reality, we forget their arbitrary nature and defend the edges of our perceived separation with deadly seriousness. We live in a maze of opposites within which we have lost our way. The eternal drama of good and evil is but the most pronounced of the numberless pairs of opposites between which we are torn.

Duality is the nature of existence, and its alternating play of forms is eternal. And we see this in every movie we watch. It is rare if there is not some villian who must be brought to justice or some physical calamity that must be heroically overcome. Without such a play of opposites, our interest would wane and ticket sales would plummet. In a far more important theater, that of life itself, duality sets the stage for the universal spiritual drama, and it is the condition in which we discover our nakedness, self-conscious and separate from everything else. Just as we cannot know hot without cold, or up without down, it is only as individuals alone and vulnerable that we intuit the wholeness that is missing—our true nature. From this moment on, whether we realize it or not, our deepest desire is for this wholeness.

While we may dream of the day when the lamb will lie down with the lion and the clashing opposites of life be calmed, we will never find the way to that resolution in external events. The solution lies in our relationship to the events. It is somewhat like the relationship we have as viewers to the movie we are watching. Though we are engrossed in the movie, we know at a deeper level that we are sitting a the theater and the story we are watching is not real. On a spiritual level, there is a parallel. We continue our daily lives, going to work, raising a family, but the way we see it changes. When we ultimately realize that all things are one, and no longer define ourselves within the limits of this and that, we find the peace, love, and compassion that come with the transcendent vision of wholeness even while we are in right in the middle of our busy lives.

Photography as spiritual practice

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A fundamental truth shared by the all mystics of the world is the wholeness of life, the unbounded, nondual glory of what is. And as incomprehenisible as it may seem, we are That. It follows that we are beholding the glories of our own Being. Why is it so hard to imagine? Conditioning; the content of our lives, to a large degree, begins and ends with language, even our understanding of self. To exist and be recognized, and to ensure efficiency in a society that worships speed and productivity, things must be labeled, categorized, defined and pigeonholed. We see what we expect to see, what we have been taught to see. A thick screen of concepts and abstractions blinds us to the unique radiance and artistry of every concrete object. As Jung said, no concept is a carrier of life. Conventional wisdom is the “fast food” of the mind, streamlined, efficient and readily understood by all. It is also the enemy of original vision.

The practice of photography can help us learn to open a direct line to reality, unclouded by the dust of the past – to become intimate with life – but it is always a struggle to see with fresh eyes. To be truly sensitive to the unique visual offerings of the moment, we must set aside agendas and preconcieved notions, be free of pretention, and open to the intuitive and spontaneous reactions of our being as it responds to the beauty and wonder of life. We must open the doors of our senses and FEEL more than think. Though prior training in technique is important, the best work has no identified purpose and often has the quality of an accident. In a sense, the picture takes itself. When we step aside, and give Life itself free reign, unhampered by our premeditated ideas of what should happen, the resultant pictures can be quite remarkable. Only after the fact, when assessing the pictures earlier taken should reason and judgment play a significant role.

This kind of photography promotes the rediscovery of the obvious. It sees the miraculous in the common and magic in our everyday surroundings. When we are not rushed, and our minds are unclouded by conceptualizations, a veil will sometimes drop, introducing the viewer to a world unseen since childhood. We reach a point where we forget ourselves, much as artists and musicians do, and become what is happening. Sink into the moment, and just BE. There was a time, when, as children we inhabited a world devoid of boundaries and unmediated by the canned perceptions with which we were later inculcated. Picasso once said that it took him four years to paint like Raphael, but it took him a lifetime to paint like a child. There is a parallel with photography. We can take photos correctly, and follow all the rules of composition and balance, and still not capture the passion and magic that makes a great picture. To see things in their original beauty, we must crack the shell of preconceptions, and penetrate the habits of the mind. When this happens, you will find a world overflowing with wonder and hopefully capture them in your photos.

I have attached below a few examples of photos taken of commonplace subjects that might kindle your imagination of what is possible: a backyard leaf, highrise reflections, plastic bag, and torn cardboard.

 

 

 

Haiku as spiritual practice

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Writing haiku, the traditional short Japanese poems that have gained worldwide popularity, is something that can prove helpful in opening our eyes to what is, and the wonder of being alive. We are all guilty of spending large portions of our waking hours lost in thought. We swing back and forth between past and future, and only rarely stay right where we are, in the here and now. Typically, we go through life with a “been there and done that” attitude, and in our busy, fast-forward life styles, put the flesh and blood of living on hold to do something “more important.”

When we are born, our vision is fresh. Our first experience is undifferentiated and timeless, and we have no real perception of self or other. As young children, we live in Eden but don’t know it. We unconsciously play in the garden of life, fascinated with the wonder of what is. Writing haiku is an activity that can train our eye to see some of those wonders again, but with the added appreciation gained from age and experience. While obviously a conceptual activity, it is nevertheless one that redirects our attention towards the unconditioned “suchness” of what is. Haiku can give us a hint of the meaning of the Buddhist phrase, Samsara is Nirvana. Writing these short poems, devoid of judgment, prejudice and expectation, can nuture the gift of observation and mindful attention, and help us to find the magic in the ordinary. Just this! It is a practice of being wherever you are, of living in the present instead of in the past or future. This very moment – a fleeting immediacy of what is – is all that is real, and to that we must attend if we are to see the truth of what is.

Allow yourself the priviledge to being stunned by the extraordinary detail of life. Forget all you know. See with fresh eyes, unclouded by conditioning. Take time to sink into the moment, and perhaps taste life when the conceptual veil between self and other falls away. It is here that you can find an abundance of miracles to herald in the few words of a haiku. The form of haiku that is used or the effectiveness of the wording is not what is most important here. Rather, it is that they may unveil for us the obvious, the home we never left but only forgot. Here are a couple of mine:

high grass / peeking at mower / from under the parked car

startled prankster / under the bed / . . . tail showing

offered on its own / the violet’s / flower sermon

same barber / same conversation / thirty years

Take a moment to just be

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The functioning of modern society is predicated on an obsessive relationship with time. Driven by our desires for a better life and the promise of fulfillment on the temporal horizon, we are stuck on fast-forward, in an unending rush hour that creates havoc in our lives. Losing touch with the natural rhythms of life, we race through our lives with an ever-diminishing chance of experiencing what is real. Below, you will find two exercises that I have suggested to my meditation classes for years. They are designed to help you at least occasionally slow down, catch your breath, and turn your attention to the only thing that is real: the present moment.

Exercise One: We have all heard the expression of “doing time.” It usually relates to the experience of being in prison, and the slow, painful passage of time. The fact is we all “do time” almost every day. We are forced to wait in line at the grocery, wait on hold on the phone, wait in traffic on the way to or from work, wait for a train, etc.  I encourage you to use this time to be right where you are. This is an opportunity to create a rich and sacred moment of mindful living. When you find yourself waiting, tune in to your environment. First, listen attentively to hear how many different sounds you can hear. Then, look carefully around you to find things you have never noticed before. Feel your breath enter your body, blink your eyes, feel the pressure of your feet on the floor or the seat against your legs and back. The point is to come back to the moment. Be alive, and not in lost in thought. Feel the moment. Don’t think it.

Exercise Two: If you don’t have time to meditate each day, choose a repetitive chore and do it mindfully. Don’t multi-task; only do that one particular task. For example, putting the dishes away: pay attention to the details, the textures, the precision of life. Pick up each dish out of the dishwasher delicately. Avoid knocking into other dishes. Gently lay it in the cabinet where it is kept. Don’t think about what you are doing. Feel the temperature and texture of each item. Feel the water left on some of the dishes. Listen to the sounds of each piece as you pick it up and put it away. Feel yourself breath. Return to the moment. This is meditation.

Paths up a mountain

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Anyone who has read even part of my book knows how much I rely on metaphors to explain the counterintuitive and paradoxical subjects that one encounters in nondual spirituality. This metaphor is about the paths to the summit of a mountain that wind up its slopes. I use it here to illustrate how a common truth, a shared realization of nonduality, can be found at the heart of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Taoism and Sufism, when they exhibit such diverse rituals, beliefs, and practices. In a world of continuing religious conflict, there is a tremendous need for this vision of wholeness.

As is the case with most mountains, there are numerous paths that start from different points around the bottom, and they vary widely in the skill and strength needed to climb them. For those people who remain at the lower elevations, the views are limited. In the foothills at the base of the mountain, one area may be lush with vegetation, while another is arid and rocky. In another location, there may be a pine forest. The few who climb higher get an ever-widening perspective. As they gain altitude, they begin to see some of what climbers on other paths can see. As they grow close to the top, the diverse paths draw closer together, and climbers occasionally glimpse each other. Ultimately, though they begin from very different places at the foot of the mountain, and follow dissimilar paths, when they converge at the summit, the jubilant climbers share the same spectacular view.

In spiritual endeavors, a similar phenomenon is true. People who are born into very different cultures and religions are often like people who live in the foothills of a vast mountain with little understanding of those from the others sides. They may recognize no similarity between their faith and those in other parts of the world, and often declare that they have a monopoly on truth. Their religious understanding is secondhand and conceptual. Those of other faiths may be seen as infidels, pagans, or lost souls, and conflict between such religions is not uncommon. This notwithstanding, there are those from every time and culture who have yearned for something more, an intuitive truth that resonates deeply in the heart. While the teaching styles and practices employed in the great wisdom traditions may be diverse, the mystical truth they espouse offers convincing evidence that wholeness lies at the heart of all. Seekers who dwell on concepts and secondhand understanding can only climb so high—but those who depend on actual experience can reach the summit and share the same realization: the unimaginable freedom inherent in their true nature, nonduality.

Lost in translation

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Thought is not only the defining characteristic of our modern age, it is central to our very human existence. It is the tool with which we make sense of our surroundings, adapt to changing circumstances, and anticipate threats. It is also the basis for our relationships with other human beings, giving us the ability to understand the experiences and feelings of those around us. If we could not think, we would have no way to piece together the events of our lives. The world would be unintelligible. Without this extraordinary and essential tool, our species would never have evolved at all. As a species, we have relied on thought—together with language and the ability to communicate and record our thoughts—to frame the accumulated experience of our past, describe the dimensions of our future, and lay the foundation for our progress in all the innumerable fields of human endeavor. In a world of incessant flux, concepts lend a sense of constancy and predictability. Fixed and unambiguous, they transform chaotic and potentially overwhelming sensory input into a relatively consistent model of our world.

Thought may be indispensable to our existence in the world, but the efficiency with which it symbolically organizes that existence comes at a steep price. We communicate in words that condense experience into concepts, but when we forget that those concepts are arbitrary and begin to substitute our conceptual version of reality for actual experience of it, we lose contact with what is real. Confusing mental partitions with real divisions, we find ourselves in a world of racial stereotypes, religious fundamentalism, and nationalistic fervor, at odds with those who stand on the opposite side of any mental divide. It is like the leaves on one side of a tree attempting to annihilate their counterparts on the other, missing the fundamental oneness they all share. The living, breathing suchness of our world, the very ground of our being, is lost in translation to the language of thought. We take the map for the territory and can no longer see what is.

The function of thought can be compared to the process of collecting butterflies. If an entomologist catches one of these colorful insects and pins its motionless husk on a board, he may admire the beautiful pattern on the wings and label the unique characteristics of its physical form, but he cannot apprehend its being anymore; that essence is lost. There is little in the display box that suggests the magic of its flight and the way it once fluttered from one flower to the next. Thought and its labels cannot communicate the ineffable. Like the butterfly, much of life resists the classifications and definitions we depend on to figure things out; it can be understood only by actual experience, by being and feeling, not through abstract thought. We know what green beans taste like, but to convey in words the experience of eating them is impossible. Likewise, when we think of the music of Bach, words cannot convey our own listening experience to someone who has never heard his music. Can a mother express in words the experience of giving birth to her first child? Life is in the living.

The Perennial Philosophy

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Mystical practices, in contrast to faiths codified in written creeds, are based on direct, unmediated experience: knowing by being rather than by thinking and believing. In every age and culture, these esoteric spiritual paths have consistently directed practitioners to go within to discover their true nature and their place in the world. They share the belief that language, through its omnipresent and often unconscious role in defining our everyday reality, lies at the heart of our melancholy and alienation. While the practical value of language is beyond question, we fall into delusion when we mistake the map for the territory. When we see life through the prism of thought and conceptualization, division replaces wholeness. The symbols we use to communicate with each other must not be confused with the essential reality they represent. Serious seekers come to realize that it is our way of seeing the world that has caused our suffering, not the world itself.

This realization is reflected in a theme that appears over and over again in the mythology and sacred writings of humanity. It appears in the regions producing major civilizations, as well as in areas supporting the world’s indigenous populations. This theme, known as the Perennial Philosophy and popularized by Aldous Huxley’s book of the same title, is found at the core of the mystical, nondual forms of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, Judaism, and Christianity. In one variation or another, it is also fundamental to the work of many great thinkers, such as Plotinus, Hegel, Teilhard de Chardin, and Sri Aurobindo, and is espoused by many others, from Plato, Spinoza, and Jung to William James, Alan Watts, and Ken Wilber.

The central thesis of the Perennial Philosophy claims that there is something hidden from us by the numberless names and forms of manifestation. The ground of our being is the formless elemental source of all things. It is not envisioned as the creator of the world, a deity to be worshipped, appeased, or obeyed; rather, it is what we are. While most belief systems are content to posit some form of relationship with the Divine, the Perennial Philosophy recognizes our identity with the divine source. Throughout the history of human spirituality, its message is unequivocal: we are That.

Inherent in this understanding is the belief that the preeminent purpose and desire of humankind is to find its way back to this fundamental origin of what is. In contrast to the external rewards—salvation, an afterlife—sought by believers in more traditional forms of religion, the Perennial Philosophy sees something within us that calls us back to our beginnings. It is not a return to something we left behind so much as a recognition of something that has always been. As it is impossible to attain that which we never lost, seekers must simply remember what is, and be the “suchness” that they are—in other words, experience directly the most basic fact of being alive in this very moment. This suchness, so often mentioned in the mystical wisdom traditions, is simply what always is, but often goes unnoticed in our busy days and thought-filled minds.

Who are you?

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This seems to be a straightforward question, and one we have all answered countless times in our lives. We each have a personal story we know by heart and repeat often. It usually begins with the time and place of our birth, and where we went to school, and is followed with what we do for a living, if we are married or have any children, and so forth. Depending on who we are telling our story to, details about our interests, experiences, political views, religious affiliation, and retirement plans may be added to give a more complete picture. In our society, such sharing of personal information seems satisfactory and accurate to most everyone.

While such facts may be conventionally relevant, from the perspective of the world’s wisdom traditions they have nothing to do with your true nature. In the Buddhist tradition, for example, a question that teachers often pose to students is: “What is your original face before your grandparents were born?” This koan, or paradoxical riddle of sorts, insinuates a reality far deeper than the surface characteristics with which most people are preoccupied. It bypasses all the demographic data, everything we have learned, the personality we have developed, all the wealth we have amassed, and the many accomplishments we so eagerly show off. The perceived content of our lives is given no quarter in this question, and for that reason its meaning is beyond the reach of most who try to fathom it. But once our personal stories are dropped and our perceived importance forgotten, we can see that this ancient query is directing us to what we are, to what is—to life itself.

We are born of two mothers, given existence in two radically different ways. Our actual mother is life, and we are conceived in the human womb and nursed with the milk of wholeness. Our virtual mother is language; we are conceived in the thoughts and words of our people and nursed at the breast of our cultural and intellectual heritage. Ever after, we struggle with the conflicts and confusion that have plagued us all since our species learned to divide up what is and give names to its separate parts. The key to our spiritual dilemma is not to find God, but to find our true Self—to solve the riddle of our conflicted existence and to return to wholeness.