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BUDDHA’S LUMINOUS PROMISE

The holiday season is marked by lights that shimmer and glisten in the cold darkness of long nights. This tradition of surrounding ourselves energetically with radiant color harkens back to the earliest experiences of the human race. In ancient times, humans had fewer distractions and were more attuned to the world around them and the sky above them. They felt the sun rising and felt it falling and diminishing. Like all life on our planet, they learned to live in conjunction with these rhythms.

As human consciousness grew more acute, we developed ideas about concepts that began to separate us from direct perception of our life. Feeling the sky move around us, we imputed meaning to those movements. As our life was dependent on things that lay beyond our control. So we created stories. In time those stories became beliefs. This was the blessing and curse of our developing awareness. We ended up believing our beliefs.

While animals move naturally toward warmth or rest, humans began to think about these cycles. Imbued with conceptual meaning, we tried to understand what was happening. We saw the sun sink lower in the sky. and experienced nights growing longer until they reached their nadir. The longest night of the year became, for many cultures, the coldest and darkest moment of our survival.

To lift their spirits through the dark, humans lit fires, created rituals, and celebrated to urge the light’s return. After two or three days, they noticed the subtle shift—the light was coming back. Many traditions arose around this moment, celebrating the return of the sun. Certain dates were singled out as markers such as December 25th. These times were—and still are—marked with celebrations of light. As fires became torches, and torches became electric lights, the fundamental energy of the sun continued to transmit hope, stability, and wellness. From lights we string grandly across our homes to candles glowing quietly in our room, an energetic message of possibility is transmitted deeply within us. We feel the light because we are light. Every atom, molecule, and element that composes life on this planet came from our sun. When we experience light, it is said to a child recognizing its mother.

The notion of a sacred world as an orientation of mind is essential to what is known as the Third Turning of the Buddha’s teachings. In the Vajrayāna schools of Tibet, we recognize three essential epochs of Buddhist transmission. The first centers on the Buddha’s teachings of the Four Noble Truths and the Three Marks of Existence. These teachings form the foundation for everything that follows. Schools emphasizing this turning are commonly referred to as Theravāda, meaning the ancient or early schools. The First Turning occurred at Deer Park, where the Buddha gave his first sermon articulating the possibility of seeing ourselves and the world as we are.

The Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma took place at Rājagṛha, on Vulture Peak Mountain, and emphasized the teachings of emptiness (śūnyatā) and compassion. There is a deep symbiosis between these two. In everyday life, emptiness can be understood quite practically: our ideas, constraints, and prejudices are simply thoughts. Until we act on them, they are just energy—something we can see through and choose not to solidify. A teacher once told me, as I was suffering a period of angry depression, “Nothing is happening. There is nothing here but your mind.” At the time I felt insulted and diminished. But years later I don’t recall what had me so upset. I recall her advice to me.

Nothing is happening.

Veterans of the Vajrayāna tradition of Buddhism often say that life is like a dream. This is not meant to diminish life’s importance, but to help us take things less personally. Taking things personally points to the solidification of the self—the ego that feels compelled to defend, prove, or promote itself. Imagine moving through life without that constant burden. Imagine how freely we could benefit the world, and how naturally we might benefit ourselves.

At the same time, caring for family, concern for the climate, or awareness of political consequences are all valid responses to life as it unfolds around us. The practice is to engage without personal fixation—without the need to defend or proclaim our beliefs. Reality has real consequences, and yet it is not solid except insofar as we react to it. Therefore reality is both real and not real. Science echoes this insight: what appears solid is composed of atoms that are mostly space and energy, and those components dissolve further upon investigation. As the Buddha taught, all things arise dependently; nothing exists as a separate, permanent, immutable entity.

This paradox—that things function and yet lack inherent substance—is known as the inseparability of form and emptiness. Because experience is ephemeral, we are free to manifest loving-kindness and compassion. Nothing truly obstructs this except our own limiting beliefs. The Buddha taught that compassion is natural to sentient beings, that all beings possess bodhicitta—the awakened heart-mind. This union of heart and mind reflects the truth that emotions and needs is real in experience yet empty of fixed essence. When resistance is seen as empty, compassion radiates freely.

So what in our lives is both seemingly solid and empty? Light. Light can be focused to cut through the toughest metals, yet when diffused we can walk through it and be nourished by it. Life is born of light.

The Buddha gave his third and most esoteric teachings at Vulture Peak and in refined settings such as royal courts and celestial realms—teachings later known as the Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. This turning emphasized Buddha-nature, the innate luminosity of mind, and the sacredness of lived experience. It returned us to the understanding that life is profoundly beautiful and that goodness is not only possible, but fundamental.

A traditional way of pointing to this truth is the contemplation of ourselves and all beings as beings of light. Life is alive. It is not a thing. It is a dynamic interactive experience. At our deepest level, there need be no doubt, no confusion, no self-limitation—only the responsibility to work compassionately with the circumstances of our lives in order to benefit our world.

Because life appears and functions while remaining empty of inherent solidity, we can come to see all existence as the expression of Buddha-nature. Goodness, in this sense, refers to awake, clear, crystalline knowing—pure awareness itself. When perception is not clouded by fear or prejudice, life is revealed as workable, even benevolent. Life does not need to be battled, owned, or subdued. Ultimately, it need not be feared, because there is nothing to lose.

Buddha-nature provides the ground from which we see all life as sacred, just as it is. While this view does not prevent death, it transforms death from an ending into a continuation. We are the universe waking up. We are the vanguard of Buddha-nature, vast as all creation, expressed here in our little corner of the cosmos.

When Vajrayāna speaks of being one with everything, it means both the vastness of the outer universe and the equally vast inner expanse of awareness. Life is energy—appearing as form yet vastly exceeding any fixed notion of being. And this is true of everything, including awareness itself. Awareness and compassion are not things we possess; they are experiences we are.

So enjoy the holiday lights. They connect us to our truest nature. Whether good, bad, happy, sad, rich, poor, sad or glad the light is always there. Whether we feel it or forget our nature it’s always art of our nature with us, because it is our nature. Our Buddha Nature.

Struggling Through the Hangover of Delusion

There was a song by Neil Sedaka in the 60’s called “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”. Many of us have been there. It is hard to let go of someone to whom we’ve grown attached.  First we try to let them go, only to find the part of us who identified as their partner also had to be let go. It’s not easy to see beyond the love bubble. It’s not easy seeing beyond me.

Waking up in life can be similarly difficult. Arising after a long, wild night we are cloudy and unsure as we try and reconstruct the events of the night before. It seemed like so much fun, I think. Maybe. But why am I suffering now? And why do the few things I remember make me cringe?

In the same way, after years, even lifetimes, of believing the delusional states we sleepwalk through, waking up can be disconcerting, embarrassing and painful.

“Waking up”refers to the glimpses or stabilization of realization that is a consequence of regular meditation practice. It might begin with flashes of insight that permeates our practice, but in time fuses into a sense of panoramic knowing. We begin to see ourselves in context to the world around us rather than being lost in ideas to which we’re conditioned. This seems like a good thing, and yet a part of us resists this. We would rather cling to sleep finding excuses to stay in a routine of non-awareness. Perhaps we can set the phone to “snooze”, but that doesn’t really work. Once we’ve seen the sunshine our slumber is ruined. We toss and turn but at some point rolling out of bed becomes choiceless.

Waking up in the spiritual sense can be disorienting because there’s seeming comfort in delusion, as we hide within layers of protective self-deception. (My autocorrect had written “stealth deception,” which is serendipitous because much of the way we fool ourselves lies deep in our psychology and goes uninvestigated.) We take “me” for granted, assuming everything we do is the same me doing it. We fail to notice how that me shifts from circumstance to circumstance. We may be one me with our mother, another me at work, another me in a bar and several others with each drink as each releases another layer of me.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve excused myself with, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t wasn’t myself last night.”

“Stealth deception,” indeed.

So much of our ego — the part charged with defending us and keeping us socially acceptable — lies unseen. Buddhism describes ignorance as the primary manifestation of ego.  Various ego states (plural because despite seeming solid they constantly change) shape who we think we are, yet lie uninvestigated, beyond reach. We accept the brother me, the son me, the teacher me or the pupil me without question. Hence, when we’re angry, we assume it’s justified, fixating our ire on some person or object. When we feel attraction, it must be love. We rarely go deeper and ask what else we might feel. For instance, anger covers over doubt, sadness and confusion because it’s an energy we can grasp. Anger feels strong while vulnerability feels, well, vulnerable. Since ego protects us, vulnerability isn’t its go-to — unless we’ve learned to use it manipulatively. So we sleepwalk through life, replaying the same strategies we used in the crib to get our bottle.

At work I’d grumble sarcastically “yeah, I slept like a baby, I woke every three hours screaming for my bottle.” When I quit drinking, I committed to continuing the waking-up process I’d begun in meditation. I’d come far in understanding the world and the Dharma, and developed empathy for others — but that empathy was still at the service of ego – it was provisional depending on how irritated I might be. I cared for others in order to secure my sense of worth. I couldn’t see behind the firewall into the inner workings. I could cajole, demand, intimidate to get what I wanted. Yet I never investigated what it was I actually wanted. It’s possible I never knew.

The meditation master Dilgo Khyentse, Rinpoche used to say the only difference between the dreams we have at night, and the dream of our life, is duration. We believe our life has meaning, as we believe our dreams do. Yet we don’t fully remember either, because we’re not fully cognizant of either.

I held a special ire toward those who punctured my dream-logic. Nothing got me angrier. I felt they were stupid or didn’t understand me. I believed I knew more than anyone as I lived in my dream bubble. I held the belief that I was special secret genius in a tight emotional fist. It took me a while to loosen that grip and begin to see I wasn’t so special. So, yeah waking up is freaking galling. But it’s worth it. And once we start – once we get a glimpse outside the cave – we can’t go back. Saturday night is never the same once you find out.

In order to secure our nascent awakening, I recommend getting out of bed a bit earlier, tired as we may be, and meet our mind as it may be – just as we find it. Just sit there and be with ourselves waking up slowly in order to synchronize with ourselves as we are and discover the day as it is.  Our morning meditation can begin organically before we bound out of bed to a screaming alarm, rushing down the street behind our triple latte.

I sometimes joke: Have you ever woken up next to someone you didn’t know and tried to sneak out unnoticed? That happens to me every morning — and I live alone. I try to escape before I have to recognize myself. I’d jump on the subway, rushing and habitually late, never having to look at myself because I was busy navigating chaos. Fearful of disappointment, I constantly created confusion so I could dig myself out of it and avoid ever seeing who I was.

Meditation slowly changed that. It let me peel back layers of me. At the beginning of meditation, we’re groggy and unsteady. We’re learning to stand without the crutches that once propped us up. We must nourish and protect this early wakefulness.

Waking up is hard to do because we’ve never experienced the alternative. It’s easier to roll and over stay warm than it is to turn and face the ch-ch-change. But we’re missing our life in the process. At some point Ignorance may not be enough.

A sign from one of my favorite coffee shops read:

THE WILLINGNESS TO CHANGE

The bombs fell on their generation as they were born — drums pounding in the night sky, explosions lighting the heavens with fire and rage. Nazi cruelty tried to pound Britain into submission. But sometimes when cruelty strikes deep to the heart, a seed is planted. John Lennon, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, and others were born into this thunderous rage — and with them, one day, the world would change.

On October 9, 1940, the bombing paused momentarily over Liverpool. John Winston Lennon was born into that fragile silence and was carried away into a middle working-class life. His parents were unreliable — his father, a merchant seaman rarely at home, and his mother, Julia, a gentle, artistic soul who suffered from anxiety and depression felt it hard during those harrowing times. John was given to his Aunt Mimi, a strict disciplinarian who ran a very tight household, for his upbringing.

When John was 14, his mother Julia was struck and killed by a drunken off-duty police officer outside her home. She had taught John to play her ukulele — and years later, Lennon, having failed to learn proper guitar instrumentation, would still be using ukulele and banjo chords in his early bands. All of these shortcomings — or rather, these wounds — became the crucible that forged his restless creative spirit.

If there’s a theme to this story, it’s the indomitable power of the human life force — and how often that force is held in check by inner and outer circumstance. Yet rather than extinguishing the life force, this tension only creates a kind of dissonance — a pressure that drives creation itself.

Playing ukulele chords and gathering a ragtag group of friends, Lennon began pounding out the rhythms of his heart. He was an artist, a clever writer, a satirist — and quickly became a bandleader. His band members changed and grew in skill over time, but Lennon and his relentlessly urgent guitar was always the driving force. He was brash, foul-mouthed, arrogant — and if you steered clear of his acid tongue, very easy to follow.

At the famous Woolton fête in 1957, John met Paul McCartney — and instantly found his counterpart. Paul had the musical discipline and melodic gift that Lennon lacked. The two would sit, nose to nose, tossing lines and chords back and forth, learning their instruments and honing their craft.

The life force burns brightest when there’s a clear vision ahead. Despite the world telling them to stay in their place, Lennon and McCartney had one simple, driving goal: to get the girls to notice them.

As obvious and mundane as that sounds, for boys in their late teens it was everything. The primal human need to be seen — to be accepted — was their rocket fuel. Driven by the rhythms they heard late at night under their covers from American broadcasts, British bands began to form — boys chasing girls, chasing sound, chasing truth.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the feminine principle is referred to a the womb of the universe — the space in which all creation occurs. The masculine energy quickens that space toward creation; but always at service to the feminine. The girls were the first to fall in love with The Beatles. Together they opened the gates to the most profound cultural shift of modern times.

The brute, manipulative power of male-dominated society had been given its notice — though the men didn’t yet realize it. They still stomped around, chasing power, money, and armaments — not learning the lessons of fascism’s collapse. America helped rebuild Europe, yes — but it was not pure altruism. The U.S. waited until the moment best suited to its own advantage to enter the war. While their intervention freed the world from fascist rage, not all lessons were learned. The victors rebuilt — but also clamped down, holding the world in place.

That grip, however, would not last. Cracks began to appear — in miniskirts, in teenagers dancing and screaming at concerts, in the pure, unrestrained joy of feminine exuberance. Like Sinatra and Elvis before them, The Beatles rode that wave and crashed it against the shores of convention. But this time, it shook the foundations of a repressive world.

Lennon was arrogant, difficult, sharp, and fast. But he was smart enough to push against authority when it stifled him — but willing to pause and listen when it served the music. He, sometimes grudgingly listened to producers, his manager, and to Paul, George, and Ringo. Together they created a unit brilliant enough to become something larger than any one of them.

For perhaps the first time in modern pop culture, there wasn’t a single frontman — but a band. A collective. Each member offered an archetype for fans to project upon: the cute one, the clever one, the quiet one, the lovable one. Lennon encouraged each member of the band to play as they would as they developed his songs. He gave them freedom within the structure of the song.

In Tibetan iconography, great deities are depicted with archetypal manifestations — the sharp one, the gentle one, the deep one, the radiant one. The Beatles embodied these archetypes for a new age. And through them, the world — once pounded by bombs — began to sing again.

Our life force is indomitable. But should we refuse to listen to the music of our heart, we will grow ill and unhappy. If we let this life force have its way, it may lead to chaos. But, the middle way would be for us to allow our spirit to sing, but curtailing ego, allow the energy to be shaped into a manifestation that serves the world.

When Lennon finally found the girl, he turned his sights toward peace. Many people felt he made an ass of himself with his bed-ins bag-ins and protests. He tarnished his career, and nearly destroyed his fortune. But he was using the power of wealth and celebrity in a way that had never been done before. He was not afraid to be a fool. And in his lifetime, he grew from being an arrogant misogynist into a feminist and an advocate for peace that inspires people to this day.

When confronted with his aggressive past in later years, Lennon said that because he lived violence, he understood the value of peace.

At this writing, today the American military is being used to assault the people of Chicago. Some feel this is the next step in the current administration to institute a national police force. The change many of us have feared is actually here. Actually here. I am angered to the point of imagining violence toward those instituting this clampdown. Yet, violence will not win. The only alternative is to push back as we can, and to refuse to lose heart. To be willing to change in order to bring change. Being peace, will bring peace now as it did in the 60’s.

It is my aspiration that I may step beyond personal aggression and truly be willing to give peace a chance in order to give change a chance.

“Keep telling yourself ‘it’s only a movie‘” was the famous tagline for Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left in 1972. It may be appropriate to look at the harrowing moments of our mind with the same encouraging detachment. No matter how serious life may feel in the moment, like a movie, it’s seeming realism is the result of a perceptive trick of the tale. (Pun intended). Neurological fake news is an ongoing misinterpretation of reality bent to the purpose of making ourselves more important to ourselves.

Sometimes we are suck into the movie, gripping our nails in harrowing belief; and other times we’re able to step outside the frame seeing ourselves telling ourselves a story. With meditation practice we can slow the process in order to peak beyond the folds of the curtain to the working basis within.

I love moments of hypnagogic consciousness upon awakening, surfing between sleeping, dreaming and waking as if skipping over gadget impressions as we rise into awareness.

But, just before we wake there is a most precious moment.  A moment of “ahhhhh” that precedes all thought. This moment of pure waking precedes every moment. This is the sacred space, or gap, where we have a limitless opportunity to hack our preset turning our mind from rote adherence to habit toward discovery and change. This may be the very space of creation. The moment before, before.

And within this gap we might get a glimpse into the projector. The apparatus that constructs the fantasy of life.

For many humans, with the outsized pressures of modern life, this subtle moment goes by unreguarded. We push past it, bursting awake to the screeching beep of the alarm, sing some innocuous tune in the shower, dress and rush straight to the coffee. In short order we’re following our travel mug down the street to the train. It’s like waking up after a drunken night next to someone you don’t know, trying to sneak out the door before they wake up.  That used to happen to me every morning. And I lived alone. I could be three stops on the train before I start to recognize myself.

When we slow down in order to meet life, we might see life happening in the gaps we blast past. If we train the mind to pause and pay attention to these precious moments, every following moment becomes an opportunity for discovery. When we turn our mind toward discovery our lives become alive. This is what we refer to as waking up. It’s not leaving a dream state for a somnambulist state, but actually awakening. Looking past the curtain and seeing the mechanics of our seeing.

The Buddha experienced pain and suffering – even after his enlightenment, up until his death – or he wouldn’t have had the skillful means necessary to convey a remedy to suffering. He was there with us. He was not a supernatural being who might free us if we were to play along and do as he said. The path of awakening requires our participation.  And yet, that participation can’t be under our control. Aye, there’s the rub. We can’t just close our eyes and wait to wake up and yet we can’t turn our journey into the next story we are scripting.

Buddha took the personal and translated it to the universal. He owned his personal experience, yet his personal experience wasn’t about him. It was human experience. In the same way, our life is personal, but it is not ours alone. Whether we know this or not, we are inextricably part of everything in nature.

But all too often, we fall away from waking, into fantasies projected by inner narratives. We carry the dream of sleep with us into our day. And in our dreams we are too important to regard the life around us unless we can twist it to fit the narrative.  The mind does this instantly with little concern for reality. It creates stories with ourselves at the center that give us the impression that we are in control. But all we control is our narrative. Like a movie “moving” at 24 frames a second our internal movie creates a momentum that renders a false reality that looks and smells like a duck.

Trungpa, Rinpoche said to a group of students in a shrine room that the before we notice the walls, or the columns, or the floor we have a micro instant gap, which he illustrated with a gasp. Gasp, floor. Gasp, ceiling. Before we label anything, or categorize any moment, we have a moment to pause, breaking the momentum that perpetuates the movie, we might see a past the curtain to a brighter, clearer moment.

We may absorbed in be a gripping movie. But the world is nonetheless waiting outside for us.

Say You Want a Revolution?

“You say you want a revolution, well you know, we’d all love to see the plan.”

— John Lennon

We’ve talked about stasis and change: the need to regroup, find a home base, and connect with ourselves. Naturally, this leads to a desire to move beyond that base and explore new horizons. Interestingly, I personally struggle with both the claustrophobia of a static environment and a reluctance to change it. It’s a tough bind.

Often, when we feel the itch to break away from our home base, we fantasize about a new place we’d rather be—a new partner, a new job, or even a new body that will transform us into something… what exactly? “Once I transform my body, I’ll find the job that leads to a new partner.” Meanwhile, I stay stuck because instead of tackling one thing, I’m layering conditions: I can’t do this until I do that, but I can’t do that because of something else.

Clearly, I haven’t mastered the art of change. Maybe it’s not laziness or incompetence; maybe I’m trapped in a pattern and don’t know how to break free. The first step is to settle down. Struggling doesn’t help—working does, but only in a clear direction. Instead of pursuing six different goals at once, I could pick one and encourage myself to move forward.

Are you stuck in a pattern, or even a series of patterns that feel immovable? A mindful investigation of being stuck involves unpacking and examining how we got here. What are we doing in our struggle to free ourselves, like being trapped in a Chinese finger trap? Is it productive or just uncomfortable? Let’s explore.

First, we’re in a state of non-acceptance, which triggers unhelpful struggle. Ironically, before change can happen, we must first accept where we are. One major obstacle to acceptance is our unexamined fantasies about what we think we want. I remember once trying to pursue my dream of working in independent films. Transitioning from stage and comedic improv to the detail-oriented world of film shoots—and I hated it. I also couldn’t stand the endless cycle of auditions. What I loved was being in creative flow, not the grind of auditioning.

This isn’t a judgment of those who thrive in film work, but an acknowledgment of my own discomfort. What’s important is that my fantasy was entirely different from reality. I once attended a coaching workshop with a former extreme fighter pilot who became a commercial airline pilot. He said, “My life now feels like driving a bus across a desert—endlessly, monotonously.” Reality didn’t match his childhood dream.

Fantasies aren’t reality because we don’t truly examine what they would cost us or entail. They provide a direction to head toward but aren’t the destination. As I’ve heard it said, “A fantasy without a plan is a hallucination.” Hallucinations can be interesting, but they’re not a viable life plan.

The first step in creating change is accepting where we are—not by endorsing or trying to like it, but simply grounding ourselves in reality. From here, fantasies can become inspiration, not burdensome expectations. A view of a mountain might inspire us, but it doesn’t have to be a goal we must reach—it’s just a direction.

Accepting where we are, and being inspired by new possibilities, are the first steps. Once we’ve determined our direction, we can move authentically toward that view. But to make it a reality, we have to overcome the resistance to movement. Even when we want change, parts of us—often unconsciously—resist it.

A teacher once said, “Obstacles are meant to be difficult. What kind of obstacle worth any merit would be easy?” Instead of seeing resistance as self-sabotage, it’s more helpful to understand it. Seeing where we apply the brakes without judgment helps ease the process forward. Fear of change is natural.

I’ve identified three categories of resistance: mind, spirit, and body. These are foundational in meditation, Buddhism, and yogic philosophy.

Starting with the mind, we often assume that just knowing we should lose weight, get a job, or leave a relationship will make it happen easily. But unaddressed fears and obstacles stop us. The mind can see the view, but it also needs clarity. “I want my life to change.” Okay, but what specifically do I want to change first? For me, it’s my health and well-being, including my diet, as I’m overweight. But dieting alone doesn’t work long-term—it usually backfires. That’s because the spirit or heart isn’t fully aligned with the mind’s goals.

Once the mind clarifies its wants, we need to ensure we believe in them. This requires self-reflection and doing things for personal growth, not for external validation. What do I really want?

On a spiritual level, we face early fears or unmet needs that resist change. We need to negotiate with those parts of ourselves, assuring that this change is for our best interest. This could be as simple as telling ourselves, “I love you, and this is the best step forward.” Spiritually, we must avoid negativity and self-judgment. It’s about deeply coming on board with our vision of change.

Finally, the body is the most ancient part of us, focused on survival. It resists change, even though change is necessary for thriving. This is why sticking to simple changes like exercise can be so hard. The body responds to force but often reverts to comfort.

In substance abuse counseling, a 90-day commitment to sobriety is often recommended because the body needs time to adjust. This three-month period is crucial for the body to embrace a new pattern.

The mind might think it controls the body, but the body operates on its own terms. We need to slow the mind to the level of the heart, and the heart to the level of the body, to truly enact change.

The social and political implications are clear. Before we can change anyone’s perspective, we must first understand their needs. Calling someone a fool for holding different views achieves nothing. The “other party” might not support their leader as much as they yearn for change. How can we encourage that change to benefit everyone?

Struggle can strengthen, as a butterfly gains the power to fly by pushing out of its cocoon. Change may require effort, but it doesn’t have to be self-defeating if we know where we’re going.

We’d all love to see the plan.

OFFERING ATTACHMENT

After years of study, training and ascetic discipline, the Buddha began a 49-day yogic meditation fast.  During this time, he gained mastery over his body and attained relative mental clarity. But, as he was at the point of death, he did not have the strength to fully cross over into awakenment. Perhaps knowing that his work was not about his own accomplishment, but that his quest would be to reach a state that would allow him to help others, he broke his vow and accepted a bowl of rice from a young woman. It wasn’t until he accepted this sustenance that he had the strength to attain full realization.

Upon awakening, the Buddha saw the interwoven systems of causes and conditions that ensnare beings. Caught in an endless web of confusion, we are unable to see ourselves and are therefore unable to find a way out of the confusion. So, without a path to recovery, many of us wander in the twilight of ignorance. Trying to escape pain, we attach to false remedies, sensual pleasures and ideologies that only serve to lead us into further suffering. Strangely, this acceptance of pain and suffering had given the Buddha a deep serenity. It seems that acknowledging the problems we face is a necessary first step in calming the anxieties we experience. Taken by his deep serenity, many seekers came to him, and urged him to teach. He was unsure how to proceed until he developed a plan to speak to people as they were without the artifice of religious doctrines, social structures, or philosophical framing.  He chose to start at the beginning. The first step was to recognize the common problem. All beings suffer.

Beginning with this first step, Buddha developed a system of recovery from the attachments that bind us.  He urged his followers to follow a step-by-step process to loosen their imprisonment. I am a sentient being and I experience pain. The buddha taught that although pain was an inescapable – even necessary – part of life, we compounded that pain into great suffering by trying to escape it, or believing we were somehow above pain. “I’m too sexy for my suffering.” And then we feel betrayed when the inevitable happens. We blamed the world, our god, or ourselves for our pain and so created a universe of blame and retribution. Ignorance of this basic condition lead us to a variety of suffering from domestic violence to global warfare.

However, the Buddha saw there was the possibility of cessation of our suffering. Pain was inevitable, but suffering was a choice. Buddha felt it important to see where we were making that choice. If we were to train the mind to accept responsibility for our suffering, we could train our body, speech, and mind toward its cessation. Buddha then laid out an 8-fold path to liberation that led his adherents to renounce attachment to the people, places and things that kept them in darkness. Renunciation was not intended as a punishment for an original sin. In Buddhist thought, we are born perfect, but psychological and societal gravity pulls us away from our natural state.  In Buddhism, renunciation is means to turn our minds from the attachments that bind us to liberation. Anything to which we are attached, we are bound to. All of us are bound to things that are important to us, such as our family. But what are the things we are attached to that take too high a toll on our freedom. What are the things in our life that keep us on a path to liberation, and what are the things that are keeping us bound to ignorance? In Buddhism we call tis learning what to accept and what to reject. And to that end, the Buddha developed a system of conduct called the Vinaya. The purpose of the Vinaya was to offer followers a structure to allow them to distance themselves from the people, places, thoughts, and things that supported their suffering. In order to recognize and renounce attachments that were unhealthy, vows were recommended to refrain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication. Over the years, as the Sangha grew, and lay persons and people whose lives offered less capacity for strict adherence came to follow the path, these rules became guidelines open to interpretation. In fact, a primary principle of Buddhism is that the means should never upstage the purpose.

The Buddha taught that our lives were in transition.  So, to reduce our life down to false binaries is impractical and incorrect.  The point of the Buddha’s early teaching was self-liberation.  The method was to follow a path toward that end. The tools helped to free us from the addiction to our attachments so we can see clearly.  But the methods are intended to support the path, hence the methods are provisional. Methods are variable. They work as long as they work. But we are instructed not to mistake the finger pointing to the moon as the moon itself.

Therefore, as the Buddha’s teachings developed, the methods changed. Zen Buddhism is different from Vajrayana Buddhism, which is different from Theravada. Buddhism in the west is its own expression. The commonality to all of these expressions is that they are rooted in the belief that we are born as we should be and our lives can be led by a path positioned toward greater awareness of ourselves and our world. Each expression of Buddhism has its own methods. It is considered a rookie mistake to be an unwavering adherent to any method. Renunciation is not abstinence. Renunciation stepping back from an attachment in order to see more clearly. Sometimes this happens all at once, and sometimes incrementally. Renunciation may require abstinence in some cases. or for some period for those who cannot work safely with the person, place, or thing. There is no shame in that. But abstinence is not the point. The point is liberation. And liberation is not another jail we place ourselves in. Liberation is the vast space beyond our imprisonment that we can grow into.

Another commonality to the schools of Buddhism is the application of the middle way free of extremes. This principle suggests that we eschew violent tendencies such as devout zealotry on one hand, or the wholesale rejection of all spirituality on the other, looking instead to the sanity of the central path. We don’t have to be the first in order to prove anything, nor the last to prove we don’t need anything. To the extremist, renunciation is al or nothing abstinence.  And while that may work in some cases, it is the wrong approach in many others. Buddhism is above all practical. So, we have to define where it is our path is leading. If we are heading toward liberation then slow even steps, with great forgiveness is best. Some say progress instead of perfection. Perfectionism is a great way to build ego. 

So, the Buddha broke his fast to attain the strength to gain full awareness. Likewise, many Tibetan people eat meat when their metabolisms require it. There is scant vegetation at 16,000 feet and red meat is important for the long winters. And just as Tibetan Buddhists broke from some Indian traditions, so later generations who have grown up in India or the west are breaking Tibetan traditions by going back to vegetarianism. Times change. So, methods change. What thus far has remained constant is that the path begins with acknowledgment of our suffering, its cause, and the possibility of its cessation, and continues with further refinement of our experience to great understanding of ourselves and our world. Renunciation is an important tool. It is “the foot of meditation, as is taught.” But that tool is there to guide us toward all the things we might become when we’re no longer attached to the things that bind us. In this light, the 5 precepts are considered as acknowledgements for lay persons. That when strict abstinence is impractical we pause and consider. If we decide we can safely include alcohol in our lives, we might pause before each glass and remember that this is a powerful substance that requires our attention. If our intention is t o enjoy our life, we might resolve to keep our attention throughout the evening. If, on the other hand, we are not clear of our intention, then we get what providence gives us. For people who decide that abstinence is best it is not recommended that we realize that others have the freedom to make their own choices and follow their own path, remembering that abstinence is just tool for our personal liberation, not a law for the world to follow. Abstinence is a sometimes necessary shut door. It is saying no. I give this up because it no longer has a place in my life. Renunciation is an offering, an opening to the path. We offer this as a way of saying yes to everything else.

There were two monks from a strictly adherent order walking back from the market. They came upon a woman standing before a river, who was too slight to wade across.  One of the monks offered to carry her over, and did so. On the other side, she thanked them and went about her way. The monks headed in the other direction and walked for a time in silence.  Finally, the monk who had abstained from helping the woman was unable to contain himself. “You broke your vow by touching that woman!” he yelled, his face turning redder than his robes.  The other monk smiled and replied, “I let he go back at the river. Though it seems you are still carrying her.”