“There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”
Today we’re going to look beneath the matrix and perhaps begin to touch on the infinite and inscrutable world of what manifests as everyday life. Many spiritual philosophies see everyday life as the simple appearance of a deeper, more complex, structure. Hindus believe that there is a corresponding spiritual plane of existence which we were approximating in our temporal life. Christians believe that there are angels, saints and beings of a deific nature that communicate between us and an intelligent being that created us.
The Buddhists believe that physical forms are informed by non-cognitive realms similar to the Christian triad of Father, Son and Holy Ghost but without gender or personal designations. Buddhism is by nature impersonal. This does not mean that Buddhism is not concerned with interpersonal relationships, but it questions the ‘me’ designation we place on ourselves and our experience. Simply said, ‘me’ is a designation I place on myself so I can understand you. And ‘you’ is a designation I place on everything ‘other’. This is a helpful, if crude, tool for understanding the complexities of our experience. However, from the Buddhist perspective we are so very much more than you and me. We are not separate at all, but interconnected with all reality. The problem is not that we formulate a template to communicate with others, but that we believe it. We believe we are separate and so life happens to us, or we gain mastery over the forces in our life. This dualism creates a two dimensional us and them antagonistic way of seeing the world. We so strongly attach the surface appearance of things, we are disabled from seeing the fullness of experience. Everything becomes a material we can use, or a transaction we can benefit from. This is called materialism. We so believe in things that we become a thing.
Yet the temporary nature of things, and the vastness and unpredictability of the universe and the great distance between all the things we believe to be real suggests there is more to life than we see. Among the materials of life, earth, water, fire and air, there is a fifth element which is often overlooked yet is the most plentiful: space. The space between things. The space within things. Space is so integral to the ordering of the universe, the term quintessential, which means “fifth element”, is meant to convey the essence of things. The essence of things is not a thing at all.
Space is most often seen as distance. The vastness between bodies of the universe, or the vastness of the universe that folds the bodies as well as the vstnes within each body. In fact, space exists within all physical structures. The things we believe are real simply because they appear real to our senses are actually made of atoms. Atoms are very small designations, but much larger than the microscopic particles that comprise it. But taking an atom as an example, the distance between its nucleus and the nearest orbiting electron would be as if the center of the atom was the size of a basketball placed in the center of Metro Life Stadium and the electron was orbiting around the stadium. Otherwise, the element that comprises the things we believe to be solid is itself 99% space. The vast amount of space within atoms, is also within the particles within atoms. The more science looks into our physical world, or the more it uncovers space. The more astronomers look into the universe, the more they discover space.
However, that space is hardly empty. The energy that keeps the nucleus of an atom together is known as the “strong force”, which is one of the four basic forces in the universe. Thuis force is so powerful that when it is erupted there’s a vast rip in the time and space continuum, such as the radiance of a star, or an atomic bomb. In a controlled way, we are able to harness that incredible energy to provide lights, power and communications however. Space is hardly devoid of potential. The term “emptiness”, a designation used by western scholars, is a misnomer. It’s a way a materialist explains what they cannot quantify. It’s used as a conceptual designation to describe the indescribable. But emptiness is hardly empty. Space is potential.
What does this have to do with washing the dishes?
Well, just as our physical world is made of unseen particles and energies, so our lives are motivated by karmic propensities we don’t fully understand. Our hearts are touched by feelings, most of which we are unaware. Unseen energy becomes manifest in the physical world like angels communicating the will of God, or the Holy Spirit transmitting the will of the father to the child. In Buddhism we refer to Sambhogakaya, the energetic realm that transmits from the vast emptiness of pure intelligence of the universe to all who are open enough to experience space in everyday life. Energies of the Sambhogakaya are felt as the vastness of the universe touches us through feeling and instinct, such as how we respond to music or to falling in love. Most of us misinterpret that sacred connection by taking things personally. We turn universal love of the universe into a commodity we can barter. We take the energies of the universe as proof that we are real. This is not to imply that we are not important, or that we do not exist. It means we are not as important as we think we are, and we do not exist as we think we do. It seems we misinterpret life’s experiences by making them about us. So, this divine communication with the absolute becomes twisted by self-referential concepts. We interpret the energies of the universe to mean things about ourselves and our society. Because of the specific makeup of human psychology, we bifurcate our experience into what Buddhism refers to as dualism. We create us and them and so become separated from the simple experience of being fully connected to our life. Everything in the conventional, societal mind is interpreted as for or against us. This means, whether for, against or neutral everything in our experience appears to be about us. This makes our mind heavy and our perception dull. We go through life disconnected and discouraged.
Conversely, when our mind, spirit and body are aligned they naturally open to the world. In meditation we are training the mind to synchronize body, feelings and life in the present. Body, spirit and mind are called the 3 gates. When these are aligned and open we are able to connect to our life as it is. When we are fully synchronized it is as if we are in a gap in our narrative. From that point, we are not interpreting reality. We are experiencing it directly. When we are fully open, we receive information as though it were a transmission. It comes through us, unblocked by our grasping, without reference to ourselves. We are the channel or the vessel. Getting to this state of complete openness is rare but happens more often than we realize. It is said, when students receive empowerment from their Lama, there is this conjoining of minds that occurs outside of conventional time. This experience is said to happen at birth and death. It is also said to occur during an orgasm, or prosaically, when we sneeze. Anytime our body, mind and spirit are connected and fully open. Perhaps this is what happens when Pentecostals speak in tongues in tongues, or when shamans dance or Dervishes spin. It is not a mental experience alone, although in a Buddhist context, we are fully awake. When this moment of acute synchronicity happens it’s as though time pauses and the eternal passes through.
Yet, often when this moment of grace happens, we immediately label the experience and so miss the point. It’s like gasping at the incredible beauty of the Grand Canyon, and then turning to take a selfie. Usually, these gaps in our usual narrative are interpreted as being about us, and so we stomp on the preciousness of the moment by creating labels, context and concepts to smother them. We think this gap is either a problem or a blessing, but always in reference to ourselves as separate from all else. In this way our mind becomes dull, and our life ensconced in habit. It is the purpose of our meditation to begin to free the mind of its dualistic constraints and become spontaneous and clear. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, we refer to this as developing Pure Perception. We increasingly see our life as Pure Appearance.
The liminal space between waking and dreaming offers a glimpse of the dynamic interplay between realms of our experiences, or glimpses into the matrix, as it were. I love moments when my mind can glide there as if surfing consciousness. Over time, my meditation practice has led me to less interpreting and more experiencing. With less interpretation that world is more real and bright. With less dualism, there is less struggle. With more understanding of the interconnectedness of life, compassion becomes as natural as space itself.
