The road to Enlightenment is through truth

I do not consider myself to be enlightened. I feel I’m on the path leading there and I feel that compassion, being a major tenet of this, that we must strengthen the bonds of our interconnectedness. To do this I feel the best way is to erase fear, since I believe it is fear which keeps us apart. I feel the best way I can do this is to expose myself to you, raw, unfiltered and real – in the light of truth.

The path to Enlightenment is through truth. I posted that earlier and several people liked and agreed with the sentiment. How closely do we look at this process though? How much light of truth do we allow to penetrate us? Because it is inversely proportionate to the levels of our misery. It seems odd to say that exposing yourself; your ugly side could lessen your misery but let me explain my walk, which is ongoing.

I wasn’t happy, life wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I wanted a bigger house, a better car, a better job; hell no job – I wanted to be independently wealthy, I wanted a better relationship with my wife. I felt lost, I felt incomplete and empty often. I wanted a better life for my kids but my own childhood left me with no tools for a normal relationship. The dynamics of my household were horrible. Everyone lived in fear of me. My excuse was that I was building a good family and that I couldn’t make everyone happy. That was total bologna; the truth was I just wanted it all my way.

As I have written before my big epiphany came when my wife took our kids and left me. I was a violent, irrational being for many years, she had grown accustomed to it so when the violence ended but I still had the same energy, the same air about me the waiting and suspense for something she was sure was coming was too much. I don’t blame her. At the time I was in the beginning of really trying to fix myself. I knew, let me get this completely clear, I knew the whole time that violence and what I was doing was wrong. Even after I had changed the bulk of it I was still aggressively after securing only my own piece of the pie. I wanted a better life for my kids…. For me; because that meant I was a good father. I never considered just relating to them and letting their needs dictate how I was a good father, nope it was all about me.

So they left…. I had a house with empty rooms. I had a job to go to and bills to pay. Part of the problem between my wife and I was money (like most families) and how it was being spent. So when she decided to leave she let the bills go, I believe, to subconsciously force her to leave. She had to make a big mess and run from me, she couldn’t just leave. We were messed up, folks.  We kept it hidden, like many families I suppose. The point is though I didn’t hit her or the kids she felt the same fear and left. Your transgressions don’t always immediately bring about their consequences. That is in no way under your control.

I slept on the couch; it was too difficult to sleep alone in our bed. I filly wallowed in my misery. In fact I entertained suicidal thoughts. I laid there on my couch for a month at least eating horrible fast food, not cooking for myself and smoking like a freight train. Then one night deep thought took me. I didn’t intend to be thinking deeply about myself and my place in the universe, it just consumed me. Suddenly there I was kind of floating above all these scenes of myself in different interactions. I was watching this unfold through eyes of truth. I could see my own horrible actions as well as the actions of the others. It was an odd sensation to be so disconnected from myself, seeing myself so clearly and finding disgust for myself in my heart. Then I saw myself lying on the couch and I looked dead and you know, it didn’t bother me. It didn’t bother me at all. Then the couch faded away and there was my body floating in this black emptiness. I watched as my clothes left, leaving me naked unto myself and then as my body faded but my consciousness didn’t; it hit me. I understood that I was alone in this vast darkness and I had only who I was for company and I was a jerk, no I was a dick, a real dick. I had hit my kids, I had hit my wife, I had bullied them all. I couldn’t love that person, I couldn’t stand him let alone being left with only him for company for all eternity. Then as the world faded back in and I realized I was sitting on my couch it all made sense to me. I set about being a nice person and considering others as I had wanted to be, but was afraid of not being, so I was passive aggressive about it and bullied people. I didn’t look at it though. I had a life full of drama I created which kept my focus off my own actions.

Then as I sat there I went back in my mind to all those interactions I had seen and I watched myself and I noticed one thing in all of them:

The moment you witness yourself making an excuse to yourself for your own bad behavior is your call to enlightenment by establishing the source, action of and only escape from your own karma.

It was true in every single instance.

Let me quickly explain how I see karma so that that sentence can make more sense. Karma is the wave you create by acting other than yourself. When you try to act tough the universe smacks you down. Some times its just as clear cut as that and sometimes it’s a total mystery but it always, always, always stems from excusing yourself for what you hold others to judgment for. Theft, for example, is mostly universal. Universally, most people would say it’s wrong. Now, not giving up your seat on the bus to someone else, which is up to your own moral fiber, could be wrong but stepping away from that will cause a wave you have to overcome. Your life is your own and it is shaped by you; by your conception of yourself. When you don’t live up to what you know you should be the Universe sets u[p tests, challenges and lessons to help you see it, but it is still up to you to see it.

So there I was on my couch reliving all these painful moments in which I was a complete tool and standing against my choices. It was like I had to go back and atone for them all and fix them by standing for what was right. I had to watch myself hitting my son and witness the true horrible ugly I embodied and unleashed upon my gentle son. I had to drive into the center of me, down into my soul, the reality of how wrong that was, what I should have done, what I did to him. I had to account for it all. So I spent my three months in solitude when I wasn’t working and I did nothing but look back at myself. Slowly but surely I emerged a different person. I found my own gentle roots, which look so much like my son it breaks my heart. Doing that helped me see how to be a better father to them, a better husband to my wife and a better person for myself.

It was the worst of times; it was the best of times.

I vowed to walk in the light of truth from that moment on. Much later after having found Buddhism (which paralleled my experience) and working with Rinpoche, my Lama, I learned three simple steps to maintaining that walk: Be humble, Be a good person, what will be will be.

Your life is your own, you are responsible for it completely; your actions, your inactions and your reactions - from the three levels of being – they must all be in harmony for you to be able to find happiness…

Or so it is in my experience.

Namaste

Compassion & Community

They say when Buddha realized it was like 84,000 doors opening... I like to think that those doors are the various paths we all take to the same end and when you become you are at one with all paths, at one with your brothers and sisters. You can see the flow of karmic energy which pushed and shifted you also affecting your fellow human beings. I believe this is why the practice of compassion is so important. Unless you can swing the same result by sitting beneath the Bodhi tree and completely rearranging your mental state, we all must consciously practice compassion.

We start out pure and innocent, from one point of view. We have innate perfection always no matter our state from another point of view. I can see where they’re both coming from, I believe. It’s “original sin” from one place and the effects of samsara from another. I can see how they’re both correct, I believe. All religious paths are teaching the same basic thing. You can see the truth hidden in the dogma. Each of us has the responsibility of holding our souls to truth. It’s all too easy to “follow” a church and give away your free thought. Free thought and questions aren’t generally looked favorably upon within religious organizations. Free thought threatens the control.

Right now, free thought and difference of opinion are met with outright violence from our country. Sure, you can say it’s “them” but that is just disassociating yourself with your fellow man. Nope! The way forward is together, it’s with our arms around the shoulders of our brothers and sisters and working for the good of all.  It seems a hundred years ago our country took a perspective of “restriction” as the road to civilization. I disagree with that precept. We cannot have our laws, our government, our very lives set to restrict. That is a “punish the good with the bad because we “have” to” approach. All that has done is made those good people who are screwed by the rules cease to follow the rules. I doubt the number of criminals corrected through this type of government can even be 1/100^th of those who now disregard the rules and take care of only themselves. Don’t agree? Go out into any town and drive around for a couple hours. Count the number of people who follow a four way stop correctly and not just “I was here second, I GO second”.  Drive on the highway and see how you’re treated. Remember to leave your own personality at home so you can stay objective.

We go from one isolation booth to another throughout our day. When was the last time you heard a siren before you saw the vehicle? We isolated ourselves from the road and, unwittingly, each other. The same is true with the way we work. Do you remember when having more than one job over two years would get you declined for a job? Do you remember when you knew the names and numbers of every man on the team? Before free agency? Do you remember when teachers taught instead of worked to not get fired? Do you remember when you felt good about your government? For me, it’s been a while and I want that feeling back.

I feel we’ve focused on the individual as a solution to the problem of the 50’s oppression and close minded attitude. Where a man was a man a woman was in the kitchen. It was wrong, but we didn’t address the reason, we sought to restrict. We restricted speech and brought about political correctness. All that did was cause the sexist, racist, bigoted attitudes to be hidden. We didn’t go to the root of the problem and address it. For each evolution of society a new mode of restriction was born. Einstein said that doing the same action repeatedly and expecting different results is insanity and I believe we’re all insane. We haven’t figured it out? The problem isn’t “them” it never was, it was “us” all along.

There is no one simple solution. There isn’t anything one person can do to change it for everyone. The solution lies within the hearts of every living being. We have to be the change before we can expect to see the change. We have to do what is right just because it’s right. Not because God is watching, not because we will get thrown in jail, not for any other reason other than the joy in my heart demands it.  If you could manage to strip all your paper-doll personae, from the moment you realized you were separate until this moment, perhaps you could see that joy in your heart. You shared willingly, you gave without thought of return, and there was no ownership and no religion. You didn’t have any shields then to protect your psyche against the repercussions of your own bad behavior. There were no justifications. If you were bad, you knew it and your friends let you know.

We all long for simpler times and leave it at that. We’ve given up and only those ruthless among us, those willing to hold out longer, have come to power. They don’t have our best interests at heart because that was not what drove them to excel. We have no one to blame for our mess, we are to blame. We let other people doing bad things change our ethics to where we just had to be a notch above them in order to feel superior. It’s all a lie and we know. We knew it then too, we chose the lazy.

It’s time, isn’t it? Haven’t we all had enough? All I want is to love and be treated fairly and I believe that is really what we all want. When our motivation is greed, and it certainly is in the world today, we have to take from another to have it for ourselves. This is wrong. We know it; otherwise we wouldn’t be driven by fear of losing what we have.  I’m tired of living in fear. I’m tired of seeing the faces of my brothers and sisters as they have to go against their nature to follow the “rules” when we know it’s wrong. Such as when we deny medical help, social help and so on. We shouldn’t be choosing money over truth and humanity. When we sacrifice our fellow man for our own gain we know it is possible for someone to do the same to us; enter fear and we are driven by it ever more.

We have to do what is right just because it’s right. We have to put the work in to see the benefits. We’ve grown into an instant-gratification society and it’s just wrong. When you work for something you appreciate it more; that is a truism. So why aren’t we moving forward that way? Why aren’t we putting the work in? We may say “we are, we go to church” but are you holding yourself responsible for the total effects of your life? Or are you putting the responsibility squarely on the church? It’s easy to use it as a shield and only you can know if your every effort is coming from your most sincere heart. Do you go to church for salvation or to lend your positive presence to the congregation? If it’s the first all you are is a taker and then when to you give back?

Pay it forward by being a good person, treat everyone fairly, practice compassion, patience, understanding, tolerance, and so on. When we live those ideals they become … we’ve been living the ideals of greed and possession and it has become & we’re all suffering from it. It’s time to change. It’s time to go inside and do some spiritual housecleaning. It’s time to be humble, be a good person and let what will be, be.

Namaste