Just before dark, I sat outside, as I had many times since moving in two months prior. I looked again, as I had many times, at the white frame church across the street. For the first time, I noticed a broken board on the side of the spire.
I wondered, "What else have I missed?" Decided, "I'll do a close look over the church now, to see what I've looked over, rather than seen." My eyes went to the top of the steeple.
Bird finial atop the church steeple
A finial is the decoration piece atop spires, religious or otherwise. There it is. Decorating. Not alive. Not a real bird. A fake bird.
That's odd
I am surprised. Church steeples have crosses atop them. Not birds. A moment of confusion arises. This bird filial atop a church spire does not fit inside my brain. Nothing has prepared me for this. So, this is a very good moment, because it does not fit. I like those moments. Confusion is a door about to swing open.
"Odd," well, this bird would be the only bird in the world serving as the filial of a church steeple. Lucky bird!
Oh my! Herring Gull flies away
Oh, I thought I knew what I was looking at! Surprised, I sit as the Gull spreads its wings, lifts itself from the spire, and soars through the air. Fortunate bird! It is free to fly, not to live its life stuck to the steeple. That freedom, not odd. To be like the Gull, a good prayer.
Just that morning, a friend and I talked about the use of "illusion" in spiritual circles. My response was, essentially, "There is some truth to it, but it's all about how you see it." And, "If you go too far left or too far right, you go too far; you go to a dead end." I remarked on the Zen Buddhist maxim: "Not one, not two." I will return to this thought - again, later.
* * *
I see the widespread use of "illusion" in Western spirituality as arising from the conversion of thought from one religion and culture to another, quite unlike the original one. In India, maya is central to Hindu sects. People translate it into English as "illusion." The same idea is in Buddhism.
In English, an illusion is something not there, you only think it is. Deception has a long history in the use of the English word and is related to the idea of mockery, among others. It is as though what we think we see mocks us: "See, I fooled you, didn't I?" Life enjoys doing that.
My brain, based on prior conditioning, came to a conclusion not matching reality. I believed in an illusion. The brain is easily fooled, for it is well conditioned to fit what we experience into the patterns of past experience. Before we choose, this is done: an overlapping of the present with a generated rendition. The brain is a majestic computer, and, again, easily misled.
Hence, yes, spirituality addresses our attachment to illusions. We often call this being delusional. A wisdom path challenges our certainties, even those we may call religious convictions. We may think we see the truth, when we see what we want it to be. Some religions say, "This is the truth, just accept it." Buddhism says, "I'll give you a hint, but you've got to find it for yourself."
* * *
So, back to the opening koan. Did the Teacher say something in reply? Yes, by action. He stands with folded hands. He gives a reply, not an answer. He gives a hint. So, the monk - you and I - might hear - "Stop about these kinds of heady questions and live both feet on the ground; don't let your head get caught up in the clouds. The answer is right here, in the ordinary life you live, not in theory, a teacher, or esoteric teachings. I have no answer to give you; only you will find it by a full commitment to your ordinary self and life. I live the answer, standing in shashu before you - that holy, that non-holy."
* * *
Now, all of this could sound depressing. I am writing on this from the negative side of illusions. I will turn to the positive, by reference to a letter sent the same friend later the evening of seeing the Gull.
illusion - you're not unreal, you're more real than you appear to be, so is everything
too far left, too far right, nihilism, transcendentalism; bogged down in matter, flying away into space
now, time for a real movie and real rose petal tea
illusion - you're not unreal, you're more real than you appear to be, so is everything
Illusion does not mean what we see is not real. It means what we see is always limited by how we see. Hence, like the Gull, it was more than a decoration, not less. Still, if it had not been a Gull able to fly away, only a decoration, even then, still, it would be more than I saw it to be. As I wrote, "everything" is more than it appears.
So, our spiritual practice is to open us more to appreciate what we encounter in daily life, and value it more for insight into it, sensing it is more than our brain is saying our eyes are looking at or we are thinking about. See, nothing, no one is what you think about it, and certainly not what many call God. We are awash in mystery. The more insight we have, the more we marvel at the amazing life teeming all around us, and we see we ourselves are part of it.
too far left, too far right, nihilism, transcendentalism; bogged down in matter, flying away into space
If we go too far into the idea of illusion, we end up with materialism, which denudes matter of sacredness. Stuff is just stuff. You are just fertilizer. You think you are making love with your partner out of love, yet what you call love is simply hormones. You believe because bodies die all around you, you are going to die. See? This leads easily to nihilism.
In the other direction, going too far - transcendentalism. You do not want to live on the ground; you want to fly far above in the skies, maybe even higher. The world is not worthy of you. It is unenlightened. It is offensive to you. It is sinful. Shameful. The enemy. So, you use religion or spirituality to rise above it. "Hooray! You're walking on air, naming clouds." And looking down at all those folk below who are not as fortunate as you, like all those Christians who think they will go to a blissful heaven while others, even their own family, burn in the flames of a fiery hell forever.
now, time for a real movie and real rose petal tea
Yes, why not? Movies and rose tea - as true as any called holy meal. No priest needed to bless it.
* * *
Thus, now, back to: "Not one, not two." The opposites of this world are not fantasies. Pain is real. Pleasure is real. Love is real. Hate is real. Toenails are toenails. Fingernails are fingernails. Joy is joy. Sadness is sadness. The trees along the road or in the park or in the woods are trees. You see them, for they are there. We can talk about sacred and secular, good and evil, right and wrong. All this has a place.
Yet, we are easily collared by the fantasy that these things are only what we think they are. They are shadows of what makes them all possible, and that is the unity of it all. What is before "sacred" and "secular," for example? We may feel separate from others, too, for we believe we are separate, and we are well-trained to see two and more, but not one. Our biological histories train our brains to totter along off-balance.
If we saw one and two, and not as absolute opposites, but as two relative sides of what is, wars could not exist, and much of our personal and collective suffering would cease. So, I am not just talking spiritual bunk today - though I must admit I can see how one might wonder, as there is a lot of misleading spiritual poppycock around, and such can really screw up someone's life.
So, yes, you are more, not less, than you appear to be. You are not a fiction, not even one playing out in the mind of God. And God is more than anyone thinks; even the atheists have a paltry idea of God, though they believe only theists do. Conservative religionists and liberal atheists are very much alike. The god in the head of both is too small.
To come into insight with what is more, we begin with what appears to be: the monk may one day see so much more than his Teacher standing before him in shashu.
On the Way, we may go through a season of spiritualized elevation. That is part of the journey, at least for some, as it was for me. Yet, as the old song says, "What goes up, must come down."
* * *
The more I have oriented myself to and with the Intangible behind the forms I encounter - and you - the more I have come to cherish life on this earth, among things of this earth. I recall years ago, sitting on my back porch, feeling I was not of this world and not caring if I died or remained alive - yet, I was not suicidal, I just lived as though soaring above this world. Now, the world on this ground keeps becoming something I love more, and, yet, I still sense the Something making it all the lovely diversity it is.
I recall Jesus' words in the Gospel of John, "Be in the world, not of the world"; yet, he was speaking of the world-system, not earth or nature. Jesus lived with a foot in eternity and one in time. He was deeply engaged in the lives of the people around him, and he was executed for it. His message was a challenge to the politics, secular and religious, and the leaders conspired to rid themselves of him. That is not an other-worldly guy. Nor was the Buddha. Jesus and Buddha see more, however, than they were taught to see. They do not stop seeing at the skin and bones of things.
* * *
On the other hand, if we do not sense the Something more, we live in a worldview of materialism. Philosopher Ken Wilber spoke of this as Flatland. That is materialism, surfaces upon surfaces, as far as you can see. Matter is real, but like a shadow to a tree. Materialism is a reductionistic way of life, dominating the West - including much of its religion - living in a dim cave, no matter how well-decorated, when the Sun shines outside.
* * *
The manifold things, at this season of my life, keep becoming increasingly illumined with a unity. Yes, I see, everything is both one and two, yet I cannot say how I know that: if I could say how, I would not know it. Generally, the insight is not processed; rather, it is an unselfconscious, spontaneous encounter, unprocessed cognitively: Isness living as all these particular things. I do not walk around feeling or thinking I am everyone else, for oneness with them does not negate my sacred - nor your's - individuality.
How does one know this? Life shows itself to be itself. I can experience all this best by dropping thinking about it, not seeking to understand it, but letting it be what it is and living both intimately with everydayness and the Unity holding it together in a seamless whole. Holiness, we can say, is this wholeness.
I do not aspire to be attached to this world or other-worldliness. I do not want to live above, but with. There is a space where both belong, together, for they are together.
I am both of this world and not of this world. There is no opposition here. There is harmony. Here is our home. As some spiritual traditions say, including Jewish mystics: "As above, so below."
