Paradoxically, we are immersed in the immediacy of the absolute. But all that we are capable of perceiving is the phenomena of this absolute—in fact, only its temporal, wavelike aspect. The external world before us including our own subjective world, amounts to nothing more than wavelike phenomena. Making matters much worse, we cling to this wavelike phenomena and as we do our suffering grows and deepens. As a result, we become even more deluded. In the main, our suffering doesn’t, by any measure, diminish as we age no matter how hard we might insist that it does.
This problem has been around for a long time. I am not the only one to have noticed this. Bodhidharma noticed it ages ago.
"The Buddha said people are deluded. This is why when they act they fall into the River of Endless Rebirth. And when they try to get out, they only sink deeper. And all because they don't see their nature. If people weren't deluded, why would they ask about something right in front of them? Not one of them understands the movement of his own hands and feet. The Buddha wasn't mistaken. Deluded people don't know who they are. Something so hard to fathom is known by a Buddha and no one else. Only the wise know this mind, this mind called dharma-nature, this mind called liberation. Neither life nor death can restrain this mind. Nothing can. It's also called the Unstoppable Tathagata, the Incomprehensible, the Sacred Self, the Immortal, the Great Sage. Its names vary, but not its essence. Buddhas vary too, but none leaves his own mind" (Red Pine, Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, 22-23).
What Bodhidharma is saying is quite profound. That which animates us is the absolute but our delusions prevent us from turning to it—enough to profoundly realize it. Yet, I have to think, by the evidence around me, that most people could no care less about such matters. Mundane life must go on. And so it follows, the deluded people of the world will get in their automobiles this morning, drive to work or walk down a dusty trail with their empty plastic buckets to get water. As far as their religion goes for deluded people, it must be a religion that promises to turn every sow’s ear into a silk purse; make fortune come from misfortune and, make good arise from the deep pit of evil.
Most people want a better dream. Few really want to wake up from the dream.
Even Zen is a job or a lifestyle for many. The popular “everything is Zen” in the “here and now” is a convenient way to stay within the dream, and slightly improve it with fancy Asian robes and neatly shaved heads.
Posted by: Huanshen | June 25, 2009 at 10:52 AM