Seeing the Whole Picture
Q: A friend who meditates tells me that none of this is real. I have tried to understand what she is saying but I don’t get it. Things don’t always seem real to me; but on the other hand, when I am sick or heartbroken, everything feels too real.
A: Perhaps your friend had a mini enlightened moment. I don’t know. If we assume she is relating an understanding that comes via insight, we can only say that what she is trying to describe is indescribable. However, when the mind is focused and alert and we are observing the nature of consciousness from inside the mind, we can experience the fact that all conditions just arise and pass away in rapid continuous succession. Things are merely appearances that don’t belong to anyone. The “anyone” they might belong to is a fabrication that comes into being, passes away, and comes back together in a similar form again and again.
Birth—death—birth. Disintegration—regeneration—disintegration. In the eyes of most people, this process seems real and substantial. To those with eyes to see, it’s all a movie. The difference between these two modes of seeing is profound. Those who see only the concrete, material world see only the surface. Their lives move along on the surface. They see the front of things without ever seeing the back. They live with all the problems that come from partial vision.
Those who see with penetrating eyes see the whole picture. They see the surface and they see the depths of things. They see through and around. They live both in the world and aloof from it. Their insight into the nature of the world comes from diligent spiritual practice. They are not caught in the conventions of life and are not living merely in a conceptual reality.
Q: Is there a way to stimulate profundity within the mind?
A: Profound events and moments happen on their own.
Q: If I were to look out into the world as a wise person, what would I see? (A question from a 10-year-old child.)
A: You would see a world full of creatures, each one of them carrying the burden of previous disharmonious and improper actions. The taint or scar left from that foolishness is called karma. A wise person sees a world full of beings forced to carry what is hard to bear, and so compassion arises in him. The wise person then goes on to help others in the best fashion he can.
You won’t be able to understand this yet—or maybe you do understand the implications of what I am saying. But no adult has ever asked me the question you just asked.
Q: I have read a lot about Zen Buddhism and am impressed with the number of koans that there are. But is there one koan that is the most important?
A: The Buddha solved the great koan embedded in this universe. All Buddhas solve the same koan and thereby set the wheel of Dharma rolling. What is the great koan? All that arises passes away.
Every school child knows this. This fact is so blatantly obvious that it is likely to be taken at face value without recognizing its transformative power. Only a budding Buddha would consider this theorem to be profound. That’s the kind of intuitive wisdom and determination that makes bodhisattvas—Buddhas to be—unique.
The Buddha of this age, Siddhartha, scrutinized this koan, though to others it may have seemed a preoccupation with the prosaic. He focused his attention on it, knowing that his lack of true understanding of this principle maintained the sense of self and the whole mass of suffering that comes along with this notion.
All that arises passes away. Reflect upon this principle and observe what arises and passes away in your mind.
Q: When does the beginningless begin?
A: The beginningless begins forever!
Q: Buddhism recognizes wisdom as the objective of the religious life. Does that mean that a supercomputer can become an enlightened being?
A: Hardly. Both computers and wisdom make use of data, but that is as far as the similarity goes. From my viewpoint, a supercomputer is just an expensive toy. I am not impressed by a machine even if it can access huge amounts of information in a blink of an eye. Of what value is data?
With wisdom, however, I am very, very impressed. For after wisdom receives data, it immediately and spontaneously assesses the situation. That is, wisdom sees the way things are in the present moment deeply and comprehensively. Then it responds objectively and with metta, loving kindness. I would say that a Buddha represents the ultimate potentiality for integrating wisdom and loving kindness into every moment of thought. I can safely say that no one will ever develop a computer with this capacity, even with a billion years of cutting-edge technological research.
Q: I know that the truth is supposed to be incredibly simple, but if I try to act in as simple a way as possible, often I look—and feel—like a fool.
A: There is a fine line between simple as in genius and simple as in simpleton. The genius and the fool can utter the same words and make similar gestures, but in the case of the fool, the words and gestures are inconsequential and meaningless; in the case of the wise person, these same words and gestures carry authority. By authority I mean the presence of truth grounded in radiating love.
An intriguing paradox in this universe is that things that appear to be straightforward may actually have two diametrically opposing faces. When your heart is clear and full of love, you will know the simplicity of a sage. You won’t have any problem discerning the difference between simplicity and Simplicity.
Q: When do we come to know the-way-things-are?
A: Only after we have come to know the way things aren’t.
Watching my mind, all I see are patterns of thought, feelings, perceptions, and so on constantly arising and passing away. All of them are interrelated, for all are made out of the same mind stuff. No exemptions. This is incontrovertible evidence that the world exists as a complete whole and the things of the world exist as modifications of that. In mathematical terms, all the knowable dimensions of the world are contained in a circle, which has no beginning or end.
Even though knowing intuitively that reality is coherent, we can make a problem out of it, and then require scientists to run experiments so that the results can be monitored. Then we will have scientific evidence that there is a fundamental compatibility, thus proving that all things are essentially the same. But in the end, regardless of how many experiments are done, how many rivers are harnessed to fuel monitoring equipment, and how many technicians are gainfully employed, the experience of knowing is ultimately left to us, isn’t it?