Gateway To Eastern Philosophy & Religion (August 2013)

From the book Gateway to Eastern Philosophy & Religion, excerpted and reprinted with permission from Good Karma Publishing, and available on .

~ Indian Buddhism ~

Indian Buddhism is really the key part of the course. Indian Buddhism today is taught only in Burma, Thailand and Sri Lanka, which used to be called Ceylon. You remember, when I talked about Zen Buddhism, I said, “Zen is life affirming, everything has to do with life affirmation.” Original Indian Buddhism is life negating. The Buddha said, “This world is a house on fire, get out of it.” It is suffering. Even what you think of as pleasure or joy is suffering. Therefore, to give up your individuality, you give up your self and are in Nirvana, which is perpetual joy, but not as ‘Joe Jones’ or some individual identity. There are many who feel that no man in history has ever reached the level of knowing Being the way the Buddha did. You’ll get a chance to judge for yourself. But you’re going to have to empty your minds of preconceptions in order to understand what it is that the Buddha taught.

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~ Impermanence, Suffering and No-soul ~

The Buddha said there are three truths that make up life. The first is Impermanence. We all live as though there is permanence. People don’t think they’re going to die. “I have a wonderful job, a swimming pool, two lovely children who are always obedient, a beautiful spouse. I’ll always have a good job; I’ll always have a swimming pool; my children will always be obedient; and my wife will always be beautiful.” Is that the way things work? In my mind, the biggest cause of suffering is the failure to accord with impermanence. A beautiful woman, past middle age, begins to look in the mirror every day and she sees little changes. She’s going to fight impermanence. Go fight City Hall!

The second truth is suffering, dukha. (Sukha is joy, suffering is dukha.) Dukha is a little different from ordinary suffering. The basis of the Buddha’s suffering is not knowing what you really are, who and what you really are. If you don’t know who you are, you’re going to drift through life, or blow like a tumbleweed.

The third truth (which is the most difficult and about which people fight continually) is there is no abiding self or soul. The key to Buddhism is An-atman, no atman, no abiding self or soul. Sure, on a tentative basis, you are here. This table looks very solid, but it hasn’t always been a table and it won’t always be a table! To illustrate this, I’ve often given the following example: A man dies, and his body is eaten by worms. The birds eat the worms. The birds die and become the soil, and in the soil a tree grows which gives fruit. The fruit falls to the ground, and is eaten by man. The man dies, and the worms take over. At what point does one become the other? In other words, when does the man become the worm, and when does the worm become the bird?

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~ Hindrances to Meditation ~

All Buddhists meditate. Zen, which means meditation Buddhism, is based on it. The Buddha said there are several hindrances to meditation. Those of you who practice meditation (quite a few of you do, I believe), might be interested in this.

1. Sense desire (we don’t want to give that up! Lemon Meringue pie is pretty good!);

2. Anger. We don’t want to give up anger! Why do we get angry? Because we get puffed up: Who do you think you are to say that to me? He did that to me! He said it, and therefore my ego is threatened. I get angry! If there were no ego, no sense of self, and offended self, there would be no anger;

3. Doubt.

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~ Stop Sticking Pins in Yourself ~

Meditation in Buddhism is called “right concentration.” Various subjects are given. The first is metta, sympathy. Good feelings toward all beings. One form, metta, is the practice of loving kindness, first, to oneself! I hope some of you are listening to that! First to oneself! Don’t be unkind to yourself. Then extend metta to all beings. This overcomes fear. Meditation on loving-kindness overcomes fear. Yesterday, I told someone, “Stop sticking pins in yourself!” We all do that sometimes. We’re too hard on ourselves. Being hard on oneself, in a sense, is ego-aggrandizement. I remember the book Jurgen, written so many years ago by James Branch Cabell. In the book, the grandfather went to hell. He insisted on going to hell because he had committed so many sins in his lifetime though no one had any record of it. The grandfather was indignant; he wanted to suffer more! The imps said, “We’re doing our best! We only have two hands!” When we stick pins in ourselves, it impedes the development of right concentration. If you get a chance, (those of you who have the books, either Meditation for Healing, or Joys of Meditation) look through the Satipatthana, the way of mindfulness, and see if you feel like practicing it.

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~ Follow Your True Nature ~

Remember the story I told you about the Chinese monk who kept picking the scorpion out of the water and the scorpion kept biting him? The bystander said, “Don’t you know the scorpion is always going to bite?” The monk said, “Yes, it’s in the nature of the scorpion to bite me, but it’s in my nature to keep picking him out of the water.” There’s a man who knows what it is.

I know so many people who go through Indian ceremonies but they don’t know the purpose or the real meaning of the ceremony. They are not ready for the real meaning of the ceremonies. What is the purpose of the ceremonies? Moksha! Liberation from life and death. Get off the wheel of life and death. How many here want to get off the wheel of life and death? (No one raises a hand) Well, it’s a unanimous vote.

Why go through all this nonsense and hypocrisy if they aren’t what you want? If you don’t want liberation, why follow the practices to do it? This doesn’t mean you can’t follow a spiritual life. It means that whatever direction you’re going, whatever your own nature is, follow that! Don’t say a lot of things just because other people are saying them.

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~ You Must Fulfill Your Karma ~

Ramana Maharshi, the great teacher, said, “I don’t care how long you go into samadhi and meditation; when you come out you have to fulfill your karma. You’ve made the karma and you’ll have to fulfill it.” When that great teacher was asked by a student, “Meditation is so blissful, why don’t I just stay in meditation?” He said, “Try it; you won’t be able to. Your karma will bring you out!” You cannot hide, you can not retreat to the womb of meditation. You’re going to have to work out your karma. If your karma is to be a monk, you will become a monk! Your whole tendencies will head in that direction. Many people try to become renunciates.

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~ Following the Path in the World ~

In the greatest teaching in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that the one who follows the path in the world and understands and is not attached is far stronger than the one who goes to the top of the mountain and becomes a hermit. You don’t have to go to the mountaintop. You don’t have to give up money. (Many people have thought they had to). You don’t have to do all these. Later I’ll tell you about a man who tried to give everything up; a man I came in contact with in the Himalayas. But, you must be nonattached to worldly things. You remember the story about the piece of cake? Push it away. Can we do without this? Sure. Well then, we might as well eat it. That’s non-attachment.