As an introduction, the point will be clearer later. When I write, I write without a 'why.' This does not mean a 'why' does not arise or is not, you could say, in the background. It might or might not arise. If it does, it dissolves quickly. This means I am intimate with the writing, and the writing with me. The intimacy, a mode of consciousness beyond ego, does not permit the 'why' to find ground; it does not stick. So, in the act, someone could ask, "Why are you doing this?" And there is no reason. I could, outside the act, say something like, "I enjoy it," or "I want to write to share with others," ... "help others," ... "inspire others," ... "give others what they might not get anywhere else." Again, yet, in the act, there is no what we will speak of: 'why.' Writing from intimacy, then, needs no reason outside the action of writing. If there is a pure reason, undiluted by ego, it is hidden within the action of writing.
I write the way I live, at least sometimes, and aspire to live more. It is a slow, gradual process of relearning what is natural and got lost. Rediscovering it is a reason we engage in an intentional spiritual practice. How else will we relearn to live without a 'why'? Yet, spiritual practice can become a hindrance when we focus on intent - why - rather than the simple, pure act of practice. Can you chant, meditate, offer flowers and incense, worship, pray, dance, engage in spiritual reading ... for no reason at all? Can you do this, the way your body breathes, your lungs expanding and contracting? If so, are you doing something?
* * *
What are you doing with all this spiritual practice? You seem to be pushing yourself too much. Where do you aim to be?
I'm trying to transcend myself.
Don't transcend. Fishes swims, birds fly, leaves dance in wind. That simple.
trying to climb the sky... so exhausting! so exhausting!
trying to crawl outside the skin... so exhausting! so exhausting!
trying... the self to dispose of self... so exhausting! so exhausting!... futile!
don't be like a turtle trying to climb a tree
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
* * *
It's like boundless dream here in this world, nothing anywhere to trouble us.
I have, therefore, been drunk all day, a shambles of sleep on the front porch.
Coming to, I look into the courtyard. There's a bird among blossoms calling,
and when I ask what season this is, an oriole's voice drifts on spring winds.
Overcome, verging on sorrow and lament, I pour another drink. Soon, awaiting
this bright moon, I'm chanting a song. And now it's over, I've forgotten why.
*"Something Said, Waking Drunk on a Spring Day." In David Hinton, Trans. The Selected Poems of Li Po.
Li Po, or Li Bai, China 701-762, was a leading poet during the Tang Dynasty. Acknowledged as one of China's greatest poets of all time. While not Taoist or Buddhist, both Buddhist and Taoist thought influenced his life and writings. Li Po, as we will see, sought to embody the wisdom his poems pointed to.
* * *
A mark of the tradition of Chinese poets is the enjoyment of alcoholic drink. Rice wine, or sake, being the main to imbibe. Li Po's poem shares the mood of such consumption; yet, it does not exhaust its meaning, even though the biologically altering effects of alcohol likely influenced the experience. These poets would use drink to alter consciousness, believing it would help them transcend the ego.
I have elsewhere shared, on this site, why I do not advocate the use of alcohol or other mind-altering substances in spiritual practice. Still, this does not negate the potential, like in near-death experiences, that people might get some benefit. There is, likewise, downsides to such altering of mind "synthetically," but that is not the subject for us now.
* * *
So, why share this drunken poem, seeing I do not advocate any kind of mind-altering drug or drink in spiritual practice? When I read the poem many months ago, the last words struck me. "And now it's over," with the concluding, "I've forgotten why." Forgetting why resonated with me as wisdom, something I had always known, but now, Li Po was saying it right before my eyes. There was spontaneous recognition.
* * *
A little obscure, this 'why.' What has Li Po forgotten the 'why' of? What caused him to forget the 'why'? If one says to the last query, "Of course! It's obvious. The drink led him to forget the 'why'?" The reason, however, these words struck me so is they say much more than about a man forgetting something because his brain is drenched in a bacchanalian fog.
There is a whole worldview behind the forgetting and what was forgotten, one as relevant then as now. And one facet of Li Po's worldview I will share - an aspect largely lost to our modern societies, yet surrounds us as a lesson nature teaches - if only we would listen, we would see it clearly. The lesson is all around us, even in us. In fact, how much of your body is doing what it is doing, and you do not even think about it? Does it need your permission or help?
* * *
Li Po's poetry is imbued with the Chinese concept of tzu-jan. David Hinton, translator of Li Po's poetry, points out tzu-jan means, literally, "'self-so' or 'being such of itself.'" Thus, he says, meaning "natural" or "spontaneous." Hinton proceeds...
Li Po's work is suffused with the wonder of being part of this process [of nature unfolding], but at the same time, he enacts it, makes it visible in the self-dramatized spontaneity of his life. To live as part of the earth's process of change is to live one's most authentic self: rather than acting with self-conscious intention, one acts with selfless spontaneity.
* * *
Tzu-jan is a key idea in the Christian path - even if largely unlived by those confessing Christianity. We find it in the Christian Scriptures, for example, in being instructed to "walk in (by, with) spirit (the spirit, Spirit)." Also, the Scripture says not to be "intoxicated with wine, which is excess, but be filled [so intoxicated] with spirit (the spirit, Spirit)."
Beyond particular admonitions, the entire Gospels - Mathew, Mark, Luke, John - portray a man, Yeshua (Jesus), who demonstrates the Way of selfless spontaneity. He demonstrated being a just-so being.
Too, the Christian mystics and contemplatives, monks and nuns, and laypersons engage in practices to live this manner of life. For example, a primary teaching among Christian contemplatives for centuries, arising from the teaching of a French Jesuit priest, Pierre de Causade (1675-1751), is Abandonment to Divine Providence, which is the title of his foremost publication.
* * *
Back to one of the questions above, the one I did not directly reply to: "What has Li Po forgotten the 'why' of?" I am tempted to read Li Po to say, "The song I chanted is over, and I don't know why" or "I don't know why I chanted the song, now that it's over." Li Po could be referring to the whole scene he depicts in the poem. Maybe he has no 'why' for any of it, or for anything, period, the poem being a mirror extending to his whole life - and ours. I take the words to imply he intends to indicate he has no 'why' for anything, even if the present scene is the immediate reference.
Li Po invites us into what Christian contemplatives have called "bright darkness" and "divine ignorance." This not knowing 'why' arises only after the answers to the ultimate questions lose their influence over us. This is something we grow into, for we must develop consciously to live with and explore this not-knowing. The not-knowing appears as darkness to the intellect, thus it is a bright darkness, an ignorance arising from deep, sacred insight.
Then, 'no-why,' or tzu-jan, opens up beyond knowing and not-knowing, for in Spirit there are no contrasts - contrasts appear as appearances, grounded in Spirit. One has to learn to live with this not-knowing within the relative experience of daily life, with all its ideas and images. Almost all religion and spirituality, however, shrink from this 'no-why,' seeing it from the self, so as merely another lofty idea. The ego is glad to find refuge in a fashionable or traditional spiritual concept, like someone thinking they are enjoying a meal while talking on and on about the menu.
* * *
What is most important with this poem is not what Li Po has forgotten the "why" of. Or if being intoxicated aided the forgetting. What is central, from inside the narrative, is that Li Po has forgotten 'why.'
Again, Li Po is introducing us to the naturalness of being our acting. And this naturalness is not natural as opposed to unnatural, for natural has no inherent contrast. The word is just a label for this ineffable experience. Even to say "experience" is limiting. This is more of a non-experience, as we commonly understand experience. Like saying, "God cannot be experienced; to experience God is the ultimate non-experience." We try to build palaces with silk thread, but what else can we do? That is all I do here ... share silk threads with you... yet, follow the threads until they disappear, and you will see something more.
* * *
If a cloud were trying to be the wind moving it, the cloud would be contradicting itself. Yet, humans do this - go against themselves, so as to create a not-of-itself, and it is exhausting. I know, by experience! We are socialized to split off from ourselves. And a danger with spirituality is people can engage a path trying to create a spiritual - enlightened - holy - christlike self... another artificiality. Yes, this is okay. We begin there. The problem arises in attaching to this impostor, meant to be a way along the Way, and making it a final destination.
Spirituality is, therefore, an unlearning, a return even as we grow forward, to a being-of-itself. We all have these moments - when we experience that we are without 'why.' The impostor drops its mask. We have these times, and we feel wonderful at those times. Some people know, intimately, that they are more than a silken identity. They set out to find what that is. What that is is seeking to show itself as itself - neither personal nor impersonal, yet appearing as either, and beyond all identities.
This emergence means eliminating the self-conscious gap between the self, the actor, and what the self does, the action. Actor and action become subject-without-object. Hence, the self is the action, and the action is the self. This clarifies why, when Buddhists speak of "effortlessness" and "non-doing" as an ideal, they do not mean "no effort" and "not doing," but natural, spontaneous action originating from and expressing True Nature.
* * *
Yeshua, in the Gospel of John, points to the same. He says, "All born from above (again) or like the wind (breath), you do not know from where it arrives or to where it is going." Why does the wind blow like the wind? Wind flows and blows, being wind. Wind and blowing are the same.
The rebirth and its fruition in lifestyle Yeshua points to is being being true to itself. Spirit seeks to show itself in form. The reborn one lives windlike, not for being a good Christian, a moral person, or even being a spiritual being - in a conventional sense; instead, that one is simply being itself, like tea is being tea, dew is being dew, and laughter is being laughter. Trout swimming downstream, salmon upstream. A dog barks, a cat meows.
Tea does not try to tea; tea is teaing. Dew does not decide to dew; dew is dewing. Laughter does not try to be anything; laughter is laughtering. Everything is its own suchness. To live in accord with nature and True Nature, you you. What you say and do is you youing. Then, there is harmony between self and doing. The self is recreating itself in union with saying and acting. Spirit is the witness, untouched but not absent, seeing, intimately so.
* * *
True religiousness entails not trying to be religious. Here, I do not mean anything for or against religion. Religiousness is the spirituality that good religion, as well as nature and all wise non-religion, teaches us.
Hence, Li Po portrays an ideal and of our true nature. We are more like flowering flowers than thinking machines. True Nature cannot be managed; it flows. To be religious, or spiritual, entails a subtraction of what you have tried to become and an embrace of what you have always been. That what is nothing, that is its glory. Nothing... without 'why.' Still, something keeps showing up - you do, every single suchness, all without a 'why' does.
* * *
As we grow spiritually, our actions become increasingly spontaneous, for we - including the self, the ego - embody spontaneity. Why? Less self-consciousness is present. Self is present. We are not trying to kill the self. We are not ego demolishers. We are not out to bomb the personality. Self, after all, is part of the human equipment, as is a nose and a big toe. You no more want to deny the ego than your tongue, left shoulder, or genitals. Spirit downloads itself through a program - thankfully not digital - and that program is your name, your body, your mind, and your life.
What belongs belongs, and all of you belongs. In spiritual emergence, nothing is left behind, nothing is left out. It is all elevated toward the expression of an innate and unadorned lyrical liveliness. Recollecting all the suchnesses into a single suchness that would be impossible without all the diversity of suchnesses - wholes becoming wholes becoming wholes. You are a congregation congregating.
This is why Augustine of Hippo, the Christian saint, could say, "Love and do what you wish." To love is of the essence of naturalness. In love, the actor and action are transformed into the likeness of love. In loving, lover and loved are one suchness, one just-so. In pure love, 'why' vanishes. Nothing is more natural than to love and receive love. In true love, not mere emotionalism or sentimentalism, love is true to love, and this means you are true to yourself - you are being yourself. In being yourself, you are true to other beings. Your loving is an action of the whole acting; hence, it matters to everyone and everything, even to God.
* * *
'Why' is part of life, yes. We learn, however, 'why' has become too much a part of our lives. We were not designed to have to have a reason for ourselves and all we say or do. I have shared before the joy of learning to walk up, kneel, and receive the Eucharist without any idea of what it meant - all the theories I learned in seminary had dropped away. I knew the beauty and grace of the act itself, without an interposed 'why' or 'what does this mean.' Why does it have to mean anything?
* * *
Beyond the "a self," there is no space between life and you, and everyone, and everything. Oranges arise from the tree without a purpose to make oranges as something added to the tree. Orange trees do oranges, and oranges do orange trees.
And the tree outside your window is as much life and alive as you are. Even a dead tree is life, so is alive. A dead tree is spontaneously being itself, so it is as natural as a live tree. So, here is an open secret: nothing is dead. "Dead" is a word we assign to something in the process of change, so the act of being itself. The dead tree is acting naturally by being what it is and is becoming. A tree, we call alive or dead, has no 'why.' Theistically, we can say, it glorifies the Creator by being itself without any intent to glorify at all. And, through the tree, the Creator glorifies the Creator, without any intent to do so at all. Hence, the tree, being without 'why,' is pure praise.
* * *
So, in conclusion -
'why'
can you say
yes... but that's not even half the story...
'why' can extend its arms galaxies and never find all the answer to a single question...
