For Those Feeling Spiritually Isolated and Alone
I am writing this essay in the hope that it may provide some consolation to others who, like myself, find themselves feeling spiritually isolated and alone in a chaotic world. [1]
While this may be true in our immediate circumstances there are many, like ourselves, for whom the comfort of faith and belonging is secondary to knowing the Truth of our inner experience (gnosis) as we continue to comprehend it. Since this experience is beyond our understanding, our comprehension of it is bounded by our cultural and personal circumstances. It is the experience, not the comprehension, that we share.
A Buddha of 2,500 years ago comprehends a different universe than does a Buddha of this time and place and culture. This is the adventure, to watch the universe bloom! What we comprehend is relative to our time and place and culture. This is the adventure of Life. The Truth of Life is the experience of living. The Buddha and the experience are one.
IT IS THIS EXPERIENCE that is THE NOBLE TRUTH[2] of the cessation of suffering and is simultaneously, the way that leads to the cessation of suffering. Whatever we comprehend, whatever we think, is by our very nature, relative, and cannot be the TRUTH. It can only be — relatively true.
This is the source of human suffering, mistaking the relative and impermanent for TRUTH. What a Buddha comprehends can only be relatively true. What a Buddha experiences is THE TRUTH. The Buddha and the Experience Are One.
While we share this experience, from our isolation as individual sentient beings we can only communicate our comprehension of it.
Before we begin I should thank three women who have, very recently, helped me realize how many of us do share this experience. Kim Domenico, Elaine H. Pagels, and Beril Sirmacek. I thank Kim for continuing to write, sharing her life. I look forward to her postings on CounterPunch. Elaine, for sharing her studies of the early, spiritually independent Christians who were declared heretics and alienated from the organized Church. Beril, for her courage to publicly share her passion and grief for the world we experience as alienating and chaotic.
I should also say a few words, not about who, or what, I am, but about how I fit in the anarchy of spiritual comprehension. In no particular order, I am a heterodox Buddhist, a Christian heretic, and a Zen Ronin.
I knew very little about heretical Christianity until a few months ago when I read, as fast as I could, several books by Elaine Pagels. In fact, I haven’t recognized myself as any kind of Christian since I left the seminary at seventeen, until I read Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas. This was accompanied by a realization that there have been many people across the centuries since Siddhartha and Jesus were with us who have rekindled, in isolation, the inner experiential awareness that in Buddhist terms is beyond words, beyond thought.
I’m not an Orthodox Buddhist because I don’t believe life is suffering, that there is reincarnation in the sense of rewards and punishments, or that karma is individual. I am a masterless Zen practitioner as I identify with no particular teacher. I prefer to have as many as I can find. Perhaps this quote from the, Taoist, Anthology on the Cultivation of Realization — circa 1500 a.d.[3] makes it plain.
“ The Great Way is formless; the universe is the way with form. The universe itself does not speak; sages are a universe that can speak. I did not get to see the sages, but I have read their classic writings. By reading their classic writings, one can understand their principles; how is that different from seeing the sages?”
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To begin, I would like to be clear that no matter our religion, or lack of it, we are not, spiritually, isolated and alone, no mattter the chaos we see around us. When we are feeling alone, we are not, at that moment, fully aware of what we are. The writings of these sages speak to what we are.
Elaine Pagels — 2003 — in Beyond Belief[4] “…the cluster of sayings I take as the key to interpreting Thomas suggest… that everyone, in creation, receives an innate capacity to know God.”
Yangqi — circa 1025 a.d. — in Zen Essence[5] “I am asked to expound the supreme vehicle of Zen, but if it is the supreme vehicle, even the sages stand aside, buddhas and Zen Masters disappear. Why? Because you are all the same as the buddhas of old. But can you really believe and trust this? If you really can, let us all disband and go our separate ways. If you don’t leave, I’ll go on fooling you.”
Whatever our religion, or lack of it, our essential nature, in the image of God and Buddha, is shared by all of us. There cannot be a different image of God in you than the one in me. The only possible difference between us, spiritually, is whether we pay attention to our inherent buddha nature, or not.
Pagels, — from The Gospel of Thomas — circa 140 a.d.[6] “…certain passages in Thomas’s Gospel…(say)…that the “image of God” is hidden within everyone, although most people remain unaware of its presence.”
Yusatani Roshi — circa 1965 — in 3 Pillars of Zen[7] “Although we are unaware of this at first, as our practice progresses we gradually acquire understanding and insight, and finally, with satori, wake up to the fact that zazen is the actualization of our inherently pure Buddha-nature, whether we are enlightened or not.”
Kim Domenico — 2017 “True utopianism is grounded in a religious vision that makes clear that one must choose to be human; its not something that happens to all creatures born homo sapiens.”
Bankei — circa 1650 — in The Unborn[8] “What I teach in these talks of mine is the Unborn Buddha-mind of illuminative wisdom, nothing else. Everyone is endowed with this Buddha-mind, only they don’t know it.”
Our inherent nature isn’t a passive other lying dormant somewhere in our physical bodies until we actualize it. It is us.
Domenico — 2022 “Bly understood moral authority (God) was equated in liberal minds with patriarchy, not “Absolute” but relative, a man-made construction and thus equivocal.”
Bankei — circa 1650 — in Bankei Zen[9] “If you become a buddha, there’s no place at all to go. You fill the vast universe to its very limits. It’s when you become any other sort of being that there are different places to go.”
Domenico — 2021 “…in regards to Being, liberal reality must keep relative that which is not relative, but Absolute (God).”
Reach out, and touch the Mind of God. We, all sentient beings, are the eyes, ears, mouth, nose, skin, hands, and minds of God. We are Life.
Humans through the millennia, have awakened to this experience and many, right now, are awake to it[10], no matter how we comprehend it. It is sufficient that whether we are near together or far apart, in time as well as in space, we share this experience beyond words and beyond thought. Because we are seeking the Truth, we are never alone. “Isn’t that what friends are for?”[11]
References
Bhikkhu Bodhi. (1995). The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha; A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya, Translated from the Pali. (B. Bodhi, Ed., & B. Nanamoli, Trans.) Somerville, MA, US: Wisdom Publications.
Cleary, 1. (Ed.). (2000). Taoist Meditation. (T. Cleary, Trans.) Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Cleary, T. (Ed.). (1989). Zen Essence — The Science of Freedom. (T. Cleary, Trans.) Boston / Shaftesbury, Boston / Dorset, US / UK: Shambala Publications, Inc.
Kapleau, P. (Ed.). (1967). The Three Pillars of Zen. (P. Kapleau, Trans.) New York and Tokyo: Beacon Press.
Kristofferson, K. (1974). The Burden of Freedom [Recorded by R. Coolidge]. On Fall Into Spring [LP]. D. Anderle. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqLp-WszvxQ&list=OLAK5uy_kICgNGA4tKlYJP-fsopLp5yNIYcPn-vwU&index=10
Pagels, E. (2003). Beyond Belief, The Secret Gospel of Thomas. New York and Toronto: Random House.
Sirmacek, B. (2022, Jan 20). Interview with Beril Sirmacek. Beril Sirmacek — Post-doom with Michael Dowd. (M. Dowd, Interviewer) Retrieved May 27, 2022, from https://youtu.be/CjMbxT0GGSU?t
Williams, P. (1974). That’s What Friends Are For [Recorded by R. Coolidge]. On Fall Into Spring [LP]. D. Anderle. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CwaxghMyII&list=OLAK5uy_kICgNGA4tKlYJP-fsopLp5yNIYcPn-vwU&index=2
Yotaku, B. (1984). BANKEI ZEN — Translations From the Record of Bankei. (Y. Hakeda, Ed., & P. Haskel, Trans.) New York: Grove Weidenfeld.
Yotaku, B. (1984). THE UNBORN The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei. (N. Wadell, Trans.) San Francisco: North Point Press.
[1] (Kristofferson, The Burden of Freedom, 1974) — Rita Coolidge
[2] (Bhikkhu Bodhi, 1995) Pgs. 25–34
[3] (Cleary 1. , 2000)
[4] (Pagels, 2003) Pg. 46
[5] (Cleary T. , 1989)
[6] (Pagels, 2003) Pgs. 40–41
[7] (Kapleau, 1967)
[8] (Yotaku, THE UNBORN The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei, 1984)
[9] (Yotaku, BANKEI ZEN — Translations From the Record of Bankei, 1984)
[10] (Sirmacek, 2022) discussion with Dr. William Kallfelz ~ Spiritual Dimension ~ Climate Crisis
[11] (Williams, That’s What Friends Are For, 1974) Rita Coolidge
