When you cannot believe in the meaning of the practice which you are doing

"If our practice is only a means to attain enlightenment, there is actually no way to attain it! We lose the meaning of the way to the goal. But when we believe in our way firmly, we have already attained enlightenment. When you believe in your way, enlightenment is there. But when you cannot believe in the meaning of the practice which you are doing in this moment, you cannot do anything. You are just wandering around the goal with your monkey mind. You are always looking for something without knowing what you are doing. If you want to see something, you should open your eyes."

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Substitute "enlightenment" with "salvation" if you wish.

The meaning of the practice? That nirvana, that the kingdom of God, is already here. That it is within us, and that we are within it. That we are imperfectly perfect as we are. No formal theology, no deep philosophy, no dogmatic litmus tests, no reject of spiritual depth, no achievement syndrome.

English: The Valley of Moses in the Desert of Sinai (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"When you cannot believe in the meaning of the practice which you are doing in this moment, you cannot do anything. You are just wandering around the goal with your monkey mind. You are always looking for something without knowing what you are doing."

When you cannot believe in the meaning of the practice which you are doing, you are just wandering around looking for something without knowing what you are doing.

We are lost in the desert, looking for the Promised Land.

No outside force is going to save you

Image via Wikipedia

I was recently reading a book which had what many in the Christian world (as well as the Jewish and Muslim worlds) would consider to be some pretty offensive or blasphemous statements, about looking for protection in some kind of divine parental figure or waiting for some outside force to save you. Many I'm sure would see that as the antithesis of belief in God, especially in what has become in our age the common understanding of the Christian message. I can hear a reply:

"We pray to God every day to bless us and save us, this goes against God and the Gospel! You much be teaching the heresy that we can save ourselves, but the community and tradition (including the Bible) that arose from the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth tells us that our salvation is a matter of grace. You are a false prophet and a liar."

The problem here is one of idolatry. Yes, I wrote idolatry. In fact I did it twice. Third time is a charm: idolatry. If we look to the limited conceptualized view of the world, of this versus that, then we are dividing up a continuous whole into artificial fragments, assigning them names, and assigning them qualities and properties (good/bad, pretty/ugly, big/small, long/short). This is what the mind does, and it has its usefulness, but all such concepts are limited and to some degree distorted. Even philosophical and scientific models ignore, diminish, or emphasize some aspects of what is being studied in order to focus on a particular question.

The problems arise when we forget these conceptual models are just that, models, and that for all of their usefulness we mustn't mistake them for reality. But too often we do, including our conception of "me" or "myself", and this is where we run into the problem of believing we are our lesser self, the flesh, the ego. "I am my body and my memories and my experiences". Yet none of those things are stable or lasting, so if we are told we are not those things, we can slip into a kind of nihilism. The point isn't that we are nothing, but rather that what we are at the deepest level is neither defined nor confined by these other aspects, aspects of form (or again what some call flesh, but which is more than just the body as used here).  The idea that we are the awareness of these things, the ground consciousness in which they arise and exist, which the ancients referred to as "spirit", "the divine", or "God" seems nonsensical to many because it can only truly be experienced, not really described or imagined.

Are you ready to fully enlighten?

That is the question I found in an email I recently received -- an advertisement for a retreat or workshop I think.  The sender was looking for a few people who were really ready to commit.  Now, I do have more than a little doubt that the program the email was trying to sell would have the promised result, but let's assume for a moment that indeed the offer was completely valid and that I could in fact watch a video, take a 3 month course, and attain what some Buddhists refer to as full and perfect enlightenment.  Let's assume you could do the same.  So let's take that question seriously.  Are you ready to commit to be fully enlightened?

I don't want to get bogged down in other really great questions, such as "What is enlightenment?"  Let us assume it is a perpetual state of higher awareness in which one is fully actualized as a human being.  One is no longer confined to limited narratives of themselves or the world around them and is no longer compelled to act out in attempts to gain power, security or approval.  For some this may be referred to as Budhha-nature or Christ-consciousness and for others it may have a different name or none at all.  Some may say we possess enlightenment and hence it doesn't need to be acquired, yet it would still be true that we have a kind of amnesia all the same which we need to address.