Note: Observations for clarification before reading the main section of the posting, so not to mislead - or try not to -
1) Absolutely, matter shares the same isness as Spirit, for matter subsists due to Spirit and participates in Spirit, however all form is from Spirit, the Formless. Spirit is the Subtle, while matter shares in being subtle to varying degrees. Still, all matter is involved in the sharing based on their specific nature and potential.
2) This does not mean all matter equally conveys Spirit. There is a subtle relationship between how matter conveys Spirit relatively and expectations of that conveyance. Most religious persons would say an altar is holy, not a rocking chair. Yet, in another realm, the rocking chair might be seen as holy and the altar not. There, to bow before the rocking chair would inspire devotees like the altar inspires devotees here. That is, personal and agreed upon projections of sacredness upon things and persons shapes how sacredness is communicated through relationship with them. Yet, still, we are dealing with relative experience, not the true nature of things. No one can say, "Absolutely, the altar is sacred, the chair not." And we cannot divide up sacred, parceling out more or less. No one can say, in anything but a relative sense, "Jesus is more holy than my next door neighbor." Why? Jesus absolutely is not, yet you might experience him as more holy. And your experience would be true, yet as your experience, not someone else's or everyone's. Likewise, relatively, Jesus - or anyone - might be more holy than your neighbor in that they have so aligned, so opened, more to be a conveyance of Spirit. Some persons enfold more Spirit's inspiration than others. Hence, we hold together relative and absolute, otherwise we get caught in an extreme of transcendence or immanence, matter or spirit.
3) Spirit and matter are not the same, yet they are not different. Participation and derivation do not equal sameness, even as nonduality does not negate duality. This writing is, therefore, not monistic: meaning, it does not state everything is the same, so what some refer to as God is not the turd in the commode.
4) Since Spirit is inconceivable, nonverbal, and absolutely blows the mind, everything I write below is a shadow, and you get to decide how dark the shadow is. So, welcome, and you're welcome!
5) Continuing the previous point, from Spirit's viewpoint, possibly I should have watched movies over the four days I wrote this, rather than writing and editing this. Watching movies or just sitting with my mouth shut would have safeguarded me from writing something that ultimately might be a fiction - but ultimately is the key word there.
6) In the following words, unity is to be found. It is up to you to see it. I have offered it, even if along the way it appears I am driving in circles and off to only-god-know-where by byroads. Circles and byroads teach, too: unity is not always the one road straight ahead or the one way clearly seen, maybe never.
Okay, let us get onto this roller coaster and at least see where it might take us, even if along the way, we have no idea... and having no idea, well, that is often the best way to proceed forward and the most adventuresome, too. So, why not enjoy the ride, regardless of how or where it leads? And, yes, you can always jump off at any point along the way, including now: if so, just be careful where you land. Therefore, we ...
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In Japan, the 1700s, Satsujo’s parents were concerned she was too spirited to attract a husband. The family was Buddhist, and the parents instructed her to pray to the Compassionate One (bodhisattva) Kannon (Avalokiteśvara) day and night. Satsujo's diligence in prayer led to a spiritual awakening - something the parents and Satsujo did not foresee, did not intend.
Afterward, one day, Satsujo's father looked into her room and saw her sitting atop a copy of the highly esteemed scripture Buddhists call the Lotus Sutra, dated c. 100 BCE-200 CE. "What are you doing sitting on this precious scripture?!" he shouted. Satsujo asked, "How is this wonderful sutra different from my buttocks?"
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Satsujo's act would be somewhat like a Christian sitting on the Holy Bible, a Muslim on the Koran, or a Jew on the Tanak (Hebrew Bible). I was raised with a reverence for the Holy Bible. I would never have sat on it. I did not place anything atop it, certainly not my fanny. For me, it contained the words of the Creator God. No one taught me my backside, supposedly shaped by the same Creator God, might be as wonderful, as holy, as the Holy Bible. Is it possible for your posterior to be as sacred as a holy book? Could it be any part of your body is as precious as any ritual object? Could eating your daily meals be as spiritual as a religious feast? Is it possible March 1 is as precious as December 25? Could your friend's face be as sacred as that of a sage, a Jesus, or a Buddha? Who decides? You?
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Possibly, it will help here, seeing this kind of talk is so foreign to us and what appears obvious, to go a long, long way back into history - many centuries before the science of particle physics and its insight into a holographic cosmos - and share a time-honored teaching called the Net of Indra (Indra, in India, Vedic culture, the Creator God). I will cite from Zen Buddhist Teacher Ben Connelly, in Inside the Flower Garland Sutra, where he quotes Liu Ming-Wood, “The ‘P’an-chiao’ System of the Hua-yen School in Chinese Buddhism,” 28, in Toung Pao 67 (1981). What this does is demonstrate the intuitive awareness of this cosmic co-existence has been around long before what we today call science. That is, what I am writing about, we could say, is nothing new, certainly not eccentric thinking. Yet, our senses fool us, for what appears obvious is part of Spirit's sneakiness and disguise of itself and its ways (How else could Boundless Infinity walk through the door into Bounded Finitude?) -
It is like the net of Indra which is entirely made up of jewels. Due to their brightness and transparence, they reflect each other. In each of the jewels, the images of all the other jewels are [completely] reflected. This is the case with any one of the jewels, and will remain forever so.
Now, if we take a jewel in the southwestern direction and examine it, [we can see] that this one jewel can reflect simultaneously the images of all other jewels at once. It is so with the one jewel, and is also so with each of all the others.
Since each of the jewels simultaneously reflects the images of all other jewels at once, it follows that this jewel in the southwestern direction also reflects all the images of the jewels in each of the other jewels [at once]. It is so with this jewel, and is also so with all the others. Thus, the images multiply infinitely, and all these multiple infinite images are bright and clear inside this single jewel.
The rest of the jewels can be understood in the same manner. If one enters one jewel, one has in fact entered all the layers upon layers of jewels in the ten directions. . . . Thus, while remaining in one jewel, one can enter all the infinite layers of jewels without actually leaving this one jewel. While remaining in the infinite layers of jewels, one can enter this one jewel without actually departing from these infinite layers of jewels.
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My point, then, is such teaching is, again, not eccentric. I have used the image before, how we are like children playing marbles on the shore of the ocean. Yet, our senses, and our faith in our ignorance, can lead us to think reality, so truth, is within our grasp. This leads to intellectual arrogance. Wisdom was showing itself long before the materialists were dallying with their conceptual reductionism - like children on the shore playing marbles and with no appreciation of the immensity and depths of the ocean. This same reductive mindset is the practical lifestyle of most adherents of religion, also.
We humans are, simply, still much-grounded in the playful disguise of appearance. This is, in theistic terms, like a cosmic game of hide-and-seek, and appearance is where God is hiding. Form is Formlessness' attire, matter is Spirit's dress code. Hence, appearance is the God-dance. Appearance is not wrong, rather as a conduit of Spirit, it is an invitation: "Hey, count to ten, then come find me!" In Christian terms, matter is sacramental.
Again, in theistic terms, "When you say to anyone, "I love you," you are saying, "God, I love you." Why? That of God of the other attracts you to love the one who appears as other - but is not other. Hence, loving the appearance is the opening to loving the non-appearance.
When you look into any being's eyes, you are looking into the Ocean. That simple. That profound. That ungraspable. To see is humbling. The mind runs into a wall, for mind cannot transcend itself, even as matter cannot leap outside itself.
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Recently, I sat in a meditation gathering. After meditation, a group of six remained to share on the readings given before the meditation. I listened for some thirty minutes of talk about God, God's presence, and sensing God close or not. No one seemed to be seeing whatever all this talk was about. It seemed absent to them. What dawned on me, amidst this God-talk, is I seemed to be the only one enjoying the seeing of God, then and there - one Presence through five faces and ten eyes. How do we miss the most obvious? Why do we live as though Spirit is somewhere else? That truth does not breathe, see, talk, walk, ...?
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Connelly observes, "The Dharma [Buddhist teaching; truth; reality] lives in surprising places, and a commitment to conventional religious practice can contain some startling freedom."
Connelly's remark follows his quoting one of Usiang's (Korean Buddhist monk, 600s) verses based on the Flower Garland Sutra. The verse reads: "Within one is all, within many is one." The one life contains all forms of life, both seen and unseen. Life does not change itself from form to form; life does not divide itself. Life enfolds and, too, fills the in-between of forms. And, as we will see, a highly esteemed scripture includes in itself Satsujo's butt, and her butt includes in itself that scripture. See, there is a reason we call the universe "universe."
In this interdependency, or what Buddhists often call mutually co-arising and, at other times, interbeing, one person's eyelids are appearing together with everything and everyone. Interbeing means being is your eyelids, for it is inter with being. Your face is in communion with every face. If one takes away Satsujo's buttocks, the entire universe is another universe. If we could separate Satsujo's backend from the universe, our intuitive sense of universe would be a fiction. There would be no universe. We would only have fooled ourselves. Yet, most persons live as though the universe is not a universe. This forgetfulness is why Buddhists speak of "awakening." To act like the universe is universes is a contradiction not only in word but mind, leading to a fractured awareness and life. We are, then, trying to climb a mountain by digging into the ground or brown our toast on a block of ice.
This wisdom goes beyond the idea that one thing is part of the universe. Instead, the universe is that one thing. Everything is. If you notice closely, you live with a primal, foundational sense of isness, and all else about you is added to it. You attach "I" to it, but "I" is not it. "I" hangs on it like a piece of garment on a hanger. "I" is a contraction of the expansive, spacious isness. This is essential for form, so person, to become. The isness, felt intuitively, is being being itself. Zen Buddhists call this isness by the word "suchness," or "thusness. Many of religion call this "God."
Thus, nature is not something outside of you, as though you can take a walk outside in nature, as people like to say. You are taking a walk with yourself. You are nature; you cannot step outside of that you are, so you cannot step outside of nature. And a high-rise building in a big city is nature as much as a tree in a forest, while a concrete sidewalk is as much nature as a flowing river. Your smile is as much Spirit's self-effulgence as is a temple, an altar, or the bread and wine of the Eucharist. The floss with which you floss your teeth manifests the same suchness as a meditation mala or prayer rope. To touch anything is isness touching isness. We are inescapably living as a member of the wholly communion - there is no exit, not even birth or death. Birth is not leaving, death is not returning. There is no leaving, no returning.
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Meister Eckhart (Germany, Christian mystic, c. 1260- c. 1328) -
The eye by which I see God is the same eye by which God sees me my eye and God's eye are one eye one seeing, one knowing, one love ...
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Connelly refers to surprising places, which include wisdom shared outside our chosen path, in other wisdom traditions. We can learn from other paths rather than fear them, due to their appearing different or foreign to us. Your path is already in their path, and vice versa. Each path is in all paths. Truth appears, as well, outside any such tradition. Walk out your door, open your heart and mind, look about, and truth appears.
Presence shines everywhere, for its nature is the outflow of itself. You are the outflow of it; your life outflows Life. As the Christ says in the Gospel of Thomas, "Lift up the rock, I am there." Love shines under rocks, deep in dark caves, on Main Street, in forests, in kitchens, in bars, in temples, and in your eyes. To see God is to see Love - for you to see yourself.
How, then, are there seekers everywhere, searching for the jewel resting in the palm of the hand - every hand? When will the seeking end? Is it possible seeking is a veil to seeing? Could it be everyone looks right at it, and, so, is seen by it, but most do not know it? What does it mean to know it?
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Since everything is in one and one in everything, we never know what or who will teach us. A sage may teach us, a child, a song, a rock, wind brushing against our face, or silence. Teachers are everywhere. This natural inclusiveness is a reason I often use photography and so-called secular songs on this site, as well as material from varied spiritual paths. Use of so-called non-spiritual aspects is a means of teaching inclusiveness.
Yet, we do not create inclusiveness by deciding to be inclusive: it already is. We can align with it or not, we can mirror it to others or not, but we cannot decide if it is or not. We can agree with it or not, but we cannot step outside it. Our teeth cannot step outside themselves. We cannot outrun the Wind.
A classic rock song can be a conduit for wisdom as well as a religious one. A Buddhist sutra or a Hindu scripture can teach as well as the Holy Bible. This means, when you are receptive, you learn truth is not selective the way humans tend to be. A way to assess any religious or spiritual path, a teacher, a writer, a book, a group ... is to observe the matter of exclusion and inclusion.
Truth being inclusive, as one aligns more with truth, they become more inclusive. Their words, life, and work will reflect this cosmic network, so project true nature. One wants their version of truth, while one wants truth. Recognize, nonetheless, truth can appear clearly in an exclusive person or path. Truth includes those who cling to their idea of what truth is, shutting out the welcome of truth. Welcome or not, truth can sneak through even a stalwart defense against truth. And truth may appear most clear in the contrast between what appears as truth and appears as falsehood. Hence, the denial of truth can be a fit messenger for truth.
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Truth is not hiding. We see when we are prepared to see. A question is, "Do I not see more, for I fear seeing more?" Most people would reply, if challenged on this point, "Of course not! I don't fear seeing truth." Likely, all of us have at least a subtle opposition to truth showing up, for we know it will change our lives, at least a little, sometimes possibly totally.
One reason I left conventional, church Christianity was the observation that, as best I had witnessed it for decades, the church, with some exceptions, was not seeking any truth outside what it already believed to be true. I had, instead, been subjected repeatedly to hostility for stepping outside the sectarian understanding and for challenging the boundaries of the assumed truth.
Yet, are we receptive to truth at all, if we narrow the boundaries only to learning more about what we already say is truth? See, truth does not care about what you already think. And there is no conventional or unconventional truth, orthodox or heterodox truth.
Truth does not care if you are seen as unfaithful, an unbeliever, a heretic, or a deluded person. Truth is truth - period. There is no fitting adjective to supplement - so limit - the word "truth," as in persons talking about the Christian truth. Who decided that? The truth was around long, long before there was anything called Christian. There is no Christian truth any more than there is Buddhist, religious, spiritual, secular, or atheistic truth. Jesus said, "The truth will set you free" - not a version of the truth or truth found only in some scripture book or religious institution - truth!
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Startling freedom - so we see even within conventional wisdom paths, we can end up with a surprising, unanticipated - possibly unwanted - freedom. Again, Jesus: "The truth will set you free." But how many of Jesus' followers want that freedom? How many Buddhists want to cling to Buddhism rather than let go and enjoy what the Buddha was pointing to? Freedom can be scary, so we can even cling slavishly to the ones who taught and teach freedom. We can turn them into idols to hug and hide. To an extent, this is okay, but we need to grow up spiritually, even as we do biologically.
A wise spiritual guide is going to push one away from the nipples and say, "Think and act for yourself." As the Buddha said, "Be a light to yourself." And Jesus, "Let your light shine." We cannot shine borrowed light.
* * *
Satsujo's parents underestimated what might happen when they instructed their daughter engage in the prayer practice. They wanted her to be a good Buddhist with a husband, respecting the Lotus Sutra and all else seen sacred by the ancestors and sages, not a wild girl sitting with her rump atop the scripture.
Seeing the daughter with her bum on the scripture, the father, shocked by this startling freedom, shouts, "What are you doing sitting on this precious scripture?!" She says, "How is this wonderful sutra different from my buttocks?" Satsujo does not deny the scripture is wonderful; in this, she agrees with conventional thought. She is not trying to disrespect the scripture or her family's religious path, rather she sees her newfound freedom as an outgrowth of her practice of Buddhism; indeed, she became a noted Buddhist Teacher. So, she is not being iconoclastic. But she says her backside is just as wonderful as the holy sutra. She sees more than what she was taught, and through her prayer, she has become more inclusive of reality. That is what truth offers us: to become more inclusive of reality. Not what I believe is, for it was taught me, someone says, they say: what is.
In this surprising, uncontrived freedom, thought is not apart from reality. Thought, in shining with reality, no longer veils reality. Thought becomes porous and reality, being truth, is encountered intimately. We are no longer living fantasizing, we are living in intercourse. This is a reason sexual imagery is a part of varied spiritual paths.
Did Satsujo's insight expand her parents' embrace of truth? Possibly. As our embrace of truth widens, our receptivity can be encouraging to others.
* * *
Now, if you think a scripture is less sacred than your buttocks, I ask you: "Who decided that?" You could look at a Bible and your rear closely and ask, "Does one look more holy than the other?" A scripture and a butt are different, but they are not separate. They inter-are.
The Satsujo story points us not toward avoiding the practice of esteeming some things as sacred in contrast to others. We can hold particular objects, days, books, teachers, feasts ... as sacred in contrast to other things, if we choose. There is a benefit for most people in such a practice. Still, we might get surprised to see that, essentially, there is no sacred or secular; there is just this, be it a dewdrop, a Bible, an altar, a tree, the Eucharist, a banana sandwich, a sneeze, a cough, a windstorm, a flea, or a sunset.
* * *
Then, we could say, "Everything is holy" or "Nothing is holy." Or, again, "Whatever is, is this." Yet, we cannot plumb the depths of this. We can know suchness, isness, only through encounter, not thought.
This is not a mere bum or scripture, so it took devoted prayer for Satsujo to see beyond the opposites of sacred and secular, religious and profane, holy and unholy, enlightened and unenlightened - beyond all opposites. This is before anything anyone has ever said or believed about it. For Satsujo, this cannot be separated from among all the scriptures of all paths and all the buttocks of all beings with bums: they are all and each one conduits manifesting this, so all partaking of it. The truth of the tree and your nose is the same truth. Spirit manifests through leaves and sneezes.
The question becomes, not, "How can I come to see God - truth - reality - Life - Love - suchness - isness - that - it - Spirit ... being?" The question becomes, "How do I come to see that I see it, now, already?"
sitting with bum on scripture okay
not sitting with bum on scripture okay
what do you see?
either way - people sing...
the Bible's "Holy, Holy, Holy" Elton John's "Yellow Brick Road"
"Hooray!" and "Hallelujah!" share the same space
beggar and Buddha emit the same light
Celebrate Your Wonderful Selves, Lotus Blossoms!
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(C) brian k. wilcox
Usiang's poem translated in Connelly, by Connelly and Weijen Teng.
