The Problem is the Solution

I always want to write something new and helpful in my own way that is understandable and rateable very much on the level of my being sincere. I try to repackage Buddhism, really, but not in a way that redefines anything or mucks with any of the real wisdom that lies behind the traditional ways of relating with the Dharma. Really the Dharma is not a thing - so how can you point to no thingness? You have to use a thing to point with - a concept. You have to relate to what a thing is not to understand Dharma - so it turns out there are myriad ways of relating to the dharma. Dharma means truth. The way things function, the actuality of our situation is completely free from our concepts about it. Real is real because it is not false. Our opinions about it do not apply. So Dharma teachings are a way of pointing out dharma. Big ‘D’, small, ‘d’. The Buddha’s Dharma points to dharma. The Buddha’s teachings point to things as they are. It is our job to actually look and see.

You know that feeling that something is not quite right? “Everything is fine, but I can’t escape this feeling that I’m missing something”. I think I don’t have to say much about that feeling, I bet you know what I’m talking about. That feeling is actually a message coming through. It is the reason the Buddha started with ‘Life is suffering’, instead of, ‘Nirvana is bliss’. There is a message coming through that generally we have ignored. Chogyam Trungpa says that message is shunyata, or emptiness. It is the way that we relate to it that makes it scary however. That initial fear and anxiety is called the ground. This is challenging to talk about because people are so prone to being upset about things. There is a risk that you could get upset thinking this way. But I’m being honest, at least. That nagging feeling that you have that something is not right is a message of wisdom coming through and something that would be good to look into further. See, in order to get out of a prison, you have to know that you are in it. If you regard your prison as open space and feel that you can function despite the trap, that way of regarding things will be accompanied by the nagging feeling I am talking about. On the other hand if you know that you are in prison, then you can involve yourself a bit with the schematics and who has the right key and start to analyze ways to get out. I think that is what we call spirituality - some big escape plan. The prison we are in is our own idea. Maybe that seems like good news at first - like if it is just our idea then we are free. We are each of us in a self-created prison. That prison’s walls are made by our grasping mind. The sneaking suspicion may even be that we are already free, but we are living our lives in a way that is not reflective of our freedom. It is embarrassing to think that we might be making a fool of ourselves! It is not the case that democrats are not in prison and republicans are in prison, or visa versa. We are all contained by our own ideas. We are limited in that way. So in order to understand our prison we must understand the process by which such a situation can unfold for ourselves. We must understand our own mind. That can be tough, but things are tough. Things get tough anyway, so applying some effort to this investigation is probably going to turn out. You run around with these ideas and maybe you even get some sort of great experience and after awhile you just can’t help but see that things are running very thin. But still, the knees on your pants are starting to become threadbare. You are still feeling tired even though you have great teachers, the Dharma, all kinds of understanding you still feel a sense of panic - in fact it has increased! Ah yes! So what to do? Well the first time you went past your way of looking at things and felt some relief - like you were on to something, but now, here is that same old feeling. What to do? Do it again! Go beyond this. Go beyond where you have arrived. Then that seems a little thread bare and so you go beyond that - after awhile you can see that going beyond is the way - it describes opening up and letting go and it was at the first, the source of your bad feeling but as you have chased and chased it, you find yourself going beyond. We have a mantra that sums this up: Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Swaha. That means, “Gone, gone, gone beyond, bone utterly beyond, to purified growth” But the ‘to purified growth’ is not some final state you arrive at after having gone beyond 3 times. To purified growth here can be taken as an ellipsis. Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond . . . That’s the fruition - you start to relate to things directly and immediately, spontaneously. Well, it isn’t that you start doing this, really there’s always been this going on. The suchness of things can not be argued with, but since beginningless time, you have been doing your best! Ha! Now there is a possibility of taking this leap, opening up further and further, feeling more and more warmth and that expansion is the purified growth from the mantra. There is no more agenda, you have already lept. There is no gaining or losing. Good exists, bad exists, and you are going to let that be, let it alone. Gone beyond.

So ground is that basic panic and reaization that things are up in the air and that you have no ground. The fruition is the going beyond. I skipped over the path though, which is pretty silly, but I can’t figure out how to inject it into the paragraph above so:

As you start to relate to the ground, to the basic problem, you start to have som gentleness for yousreslf. It, then basic warmth for the people around you. That comes automatically. You find yourself and them in the same difficult situation and you feel connected to them. You start to root for people. You would like for people to let their guards down - to connect with reality, to open up. You would like people to relax. That basic warmth of connecting with others comes from recognizing that you share a ground with them. Life is tough for me and you - lots of sidetracks - we’re all screwed! Out of that comes some warmth - some basic camaraderie

This does not mean that you stop discriminating up from down - that happens on its own, not as a result of your scheme to stay upright, if you know what I mean. Without any agendas things exist as they are. So bad can be called bad, good can be called good. But that is only because you have already seen that good can be bad and bad can be good. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. If everything has no meaning other than that which you ascribe to it, what then? What are you going to do? Form is emptiness, emptiness is form is like mater, anti-mater. By the time you have gone through it, the idea has destroyed itself.