First, let’s truly understand this key fact: We are all Enlightened from the day we are born until the day we die.
Learning to recognize this is perhaps where the true meaning of life, the innermost secrets of life truly exist. Each one of us is perfect in every way in every moment we’re breathing. Many spend their lives trying to tell us differently. But the moment we recognize this simple truth and allow ourselves to fully embody and understand the meaning, is the moment each one of our lives will truly begin.
Could it all be this simple? Yes.
How do we learn to recognize our own perfection, our own inner Buddha, our own Enlightenment? It’s as simple as stopping your external search for god, the Divine (or whatever you prefer to call that sacred connection with your true spiritual nature), and as difficult as recognizing that each one of us is god, the Divine (or whatever you prefer to call that sacred connection with your true spiritual nature). Western society, in general, has been conditioned into believing that it’s “sacrilege” oer “blasphemy” to call ourselves god. But, ironically, if we’re going to be true to every major spiritual teacher’s message, including Jesus, Mohammed, Lao Tzu, and Buddha, the true sacrilege is not recognizing that the Kingdom of God is not only within us, but that by embodying our own truth and devoting ourselves to clarifying that truth, that’s actually the greatest expression of the very truth that each spiritual master devoted their lives to hoping each of us would recognize.
Most live their entire lives from the outside in instead of the inside out, yet to realize our own true nature from the outside is said to be impossible. When we live with true intimacy with ourselves and others, we are always expressing our true self, our original and authentic self. It’s one thing to tell ourselves that we are all connected or that we live life to love and to be loved. It’s another thing entirely to live that realization from our awakened, fully-formed selves, when we not only remember our true nature, but also remember that everything we ever needed to live an awake life was already and always there within us all along.
And it’s the path of the very few who then have the courage to surrender to that realization wholly and completely, who can admit to themselves that the person they’ve convinced themselves they are (and often everyone else) was likely a false self indoctrinated into each one of us from a very early age. The moments we do remember that our true nature is to naturally be at one with god (often called nonduality), that the root of all suffering is our separation from our original selves and the Divine through life’s countless distractions, we are liberated from that suffering in a way so utterly tangible that we can’t help but be transformed by it and, in some small way, help transform the world around us in the process.
My favorite personal “pop quiz” to see if I am living authentically, is to observe my reaction to negative feedback. If someone cuts me off in traffic, if someone tells me that my anger seems inappropriate for the situation, or if I’m told that I’m being stubborn, that I’m not listening, that I’m not “hearing” someone of the feelings they’re trying to express or whatever else it might be — if my initial reaction is anger, I know that I am living inauthentically, from the outside in, from my false self, from my child-self. The beautiful thing about this pop quiz is that it’s infallible; it never produces anything but a true result, no matter how much I remain convinced that the root of that initial anger is anywhere other than outside of my own self. When I am actually living my life without fear, trusting wholly and completely the person I know myself to be, by default, I will then be living at one with the present moment and in perfect harmony with the whole of the Universe. Seriously. And without fail.
Every great spiritual teacher spoke of this connection with the whole of the Universe in different words; whether it’s the teachings of Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu, or even (and especially for us Westerners), the esoteric teachings of Jesus that became buried and obscured over time. Unfortunately for the beautiful message being conveyed by both Jesus and Buddha, both were institutionalized into organized religions after the deaths of each spiritual leader. What was their core messages became “esoteric” teachings, and lost in history to XXXXXXXXXX. [FIRST SESSION BY BATCHELOR TALKS ABOUT THIS VERY THING]
Rumi, a great sufi master spoke of this state through countless poems I personally find inexplicably beautiful in books like “The Way of Passion” by Andrew Harvey. Joseph Campbell, an accomplished academic and expert on mythologies spoke of this state of nonduality throughout his career via simple translations of the myths most of us pay attention to only in passing. He spoke of one called “The Hero’s Journey,” which explains through metaphor, the difficult path of learning to remember our true nature, our Original Self, and our natural state of nonduality with our own personal Divine. It’s not an easy path, nor is it a path many people have the courage, strength, opportunity, or determination to pursue.
But it’s the path that is the very essence of the human experience and why we’re all here.
Seemingly worse yet, though, before any of us can fully understand and appreciate truly being in only the present moment or existing in a state of nonduality, we absolutely, without exception, need to have a healthy mind first. This is a detail that I would learn the hard way after many years of searching for something I not only already had, but didn’t realize I couldn’t fully integrate and understand because my dysfunctional mind would continually obscure the truth and thwart even my most sincere and determined efforts. (This idea is explained in detail in the “Healthy Mind Before Zen Mind” article.)
I now know why, despite having several ineffable experiences where I not only know I touched the hand of the Divine (or my Beloved, God, my Buddha Nature or whatever else one wishes to call it), but that I have witnessed that formless, non-body state within the infinite expanse of the formless void that is our mutual my “real” spiritual home. This is the same rapturous experience that every mystic spoke of, that I can never be talked out of or diagnosed away from knowing is one of the most authentic moments of my entire human existence. It’s the very experience most claim to wish they knew, yet so readily seem to dismiss when shared by someone. It’s understandable, especially when we’ve been mutually conditioned to dismiss any experience that may involve entheogens of any kind.
When this experience first happened to me in the late 1990′s (my actual first out of body experience was as a boy in the dentist’s office), I couldn’t figure out why my external life wasn’t transformed by this ineffable experience. I thought that by simply knowing that there’s far more to these lives than I had been taught, that by experiencing, first-hand, the realm of the Divine by somehow slipping through the cracks to witness my own Divine Nature before I was ready, that my life would instantly transform, that my suffering would cease, and I would somehow physically glow so brightly that everyone around me couldn’t help noticing.
No such luck.
So, I did what I always did; I started to research. (My research resembles inhaling more than researching, but I do manage to cover a vast amount of ground, for whatever that’s worth.) My research began with the history of my own religion (Roman Catholicism), to the root of spirituality, to shamanism and entheogens, to trips to strange and exotic places around the world to “live” those strange and wonderful things I read about, even venturing into the deepest parts of the Peruvian Amazon where I thought I could find whatever secret piece of the puzzle I was missing. I started websites, wrote articles, continued to inhale books at an alarming rate, reading (and often suffering through) the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of the Dead, and any other sacred scripture I could get my hands on. I researched every pathway others seem to have found to the Divine that might glean what it was I didn’t get, why I had an undeniably ineffable and rapturous experience, yet didn’t feel any differently at the end of the day.
As a result, the life I have lived up until that moment cut a complicated swath, riddled with and equal number of joys as dead ends that left more for me to untangle from than I ever imagined it possible to have created in the first place. Fear is an extremely powerful motivator, but so is the powerful and enticing goal of my thinking mind working to distract me from my true nature for a great number of years. The world I managed to create around myself was overwhelming to even me in those moments, yet I was so convinced that the world I clung so tightly to, often so desperately to, was an expression of my true self. It was an expression of my own dysfunction and undeniable evidence that I was clinging to a false version of who I was so vehemently convinced I was.
But why might my rational, thinking mind might do this to me?
In overly simplistic terms, I was taught from an early age that who I was wasn’t good enough, smart enough, or worthy of loving or being loved. To shield me from ever having to sit with my true self (which I was convinced would be a terrifying, empty place), I lived my life in “fight or flight” mode, on constant alert, doing whatever it took to ensure my only goal; to never be alone. I’d find myself in relationships that fit into that mechanism, never understanding that no one I was ever involved with could ever have been anything other than an exact mirror of my own self, of my own issues, and of my at least as equally inauthentic self.
So, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many hours a day I spent reading books on spirituality, no matter how many trips I made to see gurus and shaman and mystics across the globe, I was missing the only element I ever truly needed to awaken: a healthy mind, free from dysfunction, capable of living fully and completely from my fully-formed adult self in the present moment, truly free of fear, past trauma, and future thinking.
Years of difficult, often grueling work on myself, with vastly less focus on my external obsession with “finding Enlightenment,” eventually peeled away enough layers of the onion to show me a stark truth I and most people I have ever known deny: Our lives are guided by our immature, traumatized, indoctrinated, often-brainwashed, often-abused boy and girl selves and not the fully-formed, emotionally present man or woman selves that help us to be in a position to recognize our true nature. We need to know how to live life through the eyes of an adult before we can free ourselves to safely look wide-eyed at the world once again as we all did by default as children. But it comes at a price most are unwilling to pay.
The good news is that anyone who puts effort into remembering their own truth can transform their reality into one of absolute authenticity. The moment you remember that you already possess everything you need will be the first day of your life. Me; I was born Enlightened and I will die Enlightened, no matter how much I clung to illusion or delusion, as is the same for you, regardless of whether you ever realize or recognize that fact.
But it’s a difficult path. It’s a lonely path. And it requires great courage from places I never knew existed within me. But to anyone who chooses this difficult path: The rewards are far greater than I could ever hope to explain or share, but can only be found when ones ceases to look or anticipate any result. With the perseverance to remain only in the present moment, a life lived truly fearlessly becomes the only way live. My informal but determined and often seemingly fruitless meditation practice of almost 20 years has culminated in a spiritual awakening that has left me with no choice except the path I am now on. As grateful as I am for every one of the moments I’ve lived, most of my online world, my 100+ websites and multiple careers are distractions from the life I used to live.
Religion is everywhere, belonging to no one and to each one of us, despite what we’ve all been led to believe. In all of my reading and researching, I felt that”The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho and “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse captured the essence of my own spiritual journey, yet it wasn’t until recently that I found a framework, name, or context for the spiritual practice described in those pages. Buddhism never resonated with me, nor did any specific spiritual practice, partly because of the rigors and institutionalized dogma associated with virtually all of them. It wasn’t until I discovered Zen after working from a healthy, fully-formed adult mind that all the pieces finally fell into place. It was an audiobook by Jakusho Kwong-roshi called “Breath Sweeps Mind” as well as one called “Buddhism Without Belief” by Stephen Batchelor that set me on a path that has flourished into this website.
Of the few things I do know, there is complete sincerity of my practice and I recognize my own internal Divine Nature. The whole of my practice consists of my imperturbable composure during my meditation, working to accomplish nothing, except fully recognizing and being in only the present moment. I know, without question or doubt, one ineffable truth I am a temporal embodiment of the truth. I know I have experienced a state of “oneness” with god, where I not only had no body, but I could barely remember that I ever had a body or took human form, where time was no longer linear, and I felt completely, utterly connected to the whole of the Universe. My desire has never changed; to shine as brightly as I can while doing my small part to perhaps help have a positive impact along my journey.
Little did I know that all of these things seem to be most in alignment with the Zen philosophy. My hope is to share that journey with you, perhaps to help you realize and recognize the Buddha Nature in your own self. Shunryu Suzuki-roshi says this: “Zen is based on our actual nature, on our true mind as expressed and realized in practice. Zen does not depend on a particular teaching, nor does it substitute teaching for practice. We practice zazen to express our true nature, not to attain enlightenment.” (Zazen is simply sitting meditation without any goal or expectation other than to simply to truly be in the present moment.)
Translator, poet, and author Peter Levitt describes his verion of this ineffable state in terms of his personal spiritual choice; Zen Buddhism, but it applies to any non-institutional religious system that is based in nonduality; “True Zen masters (which is every one of us when we remember the Oneness of all things) live through and through. You can see it in the way they pour tea, place their shoes together outside the meditation hall, walk down the road. You can feel the presence of their intimacy with all things in their undivided way of engaging with any activity their daily lives may bring. There is a vitality in their manner of speaking and in their gestures, no matter how small, that makes it seem the whole of life has just entered the room. And it has. Jakusho Kwong-roshi says this is Zen. It is not something special, to be found exclusively in the meditation hall, but rather it is the aliveness we bring to our everyday lives, the aliveness that is already present within every one of us waiting to emerge.”
But any of these things were said in slightly different words by all of the spiritual leaders of the world, across any philosophy or religious system. It’s the esoteric knowledge that has become buried within the original intent of most of these religious systems of philosophies that have led so many, including myself for quite some time, astray. Despite such an interconnected world, it’s our growing disconnect with each other, nature, and the Divine that has so many of us feeling unfulfilled, dissatisfied, impatient, and lost that has more looking for personal meaning and meaningful spirituality in their lives than ever before.
Zen simply gives me a framework, names, and a context for the practice I’ve been doing for longer than I can remember. I haven’t learned or found anything. I finally remembered that there isn’t anything to learn or to find. If there was something to learn, then it would be a simple matter of study to “attain” what it was I needed. But to be fully present in this moment is far more difficult because it requires remembering my own true nature which, by default, requires me to first know my own truth so intimately that I become the embodiment that truth in every moment I’m alive. It’s a constant unfolding now, as it’s effused the whole of my personal world and reality.
All the studying in the world was of no use to me. And, I finally realized that in the 47 years Buddha was teaching, he didn’t once impart even a single shred of wisdom to anyone. I discovered that even though I thought I was tasting my morning tea, reading a few pages of a book, listening to a friend talk about their day ahead; I wasn’t actually tasting, reading, or listening at all. How could I? The weight of my own illusions weighed so heavy on me that there was no way for me to carry a single shred more. I’ve simply discovered the truth that I have carried with me since I was born and will die with. In that is liberation from illusion and a rare chance to live a life truly alive, awake, and fearlessly, as I clarify and embody that truth from this moment forward.
If anything above resonates with you, then I would be willing to bet there is far more here for you than you might initially imagine. If so, continue on. Read any of the Zen Journals that jump out at you. Take a look at the Course in Zen introduction to see if you want to know more. Ask yourself what your authentic response to life is, absent of the layers of conditioning that have been stacked upon you since your birth. If you feel a disconnect with your spiritual self, if you wonder why you don’t have as much compassion for your fellow humans as you think you should, if you find yourself angry, frustrated, and not as fulfilled as you had dreamed, then you’ve taken the first step towards what could be your own spiritual awakening. Enjoy and I wish you success on your personal journeys, both internal and external.
– Keith Cleversley, 01 JAN 2013.