Those Things That Last…
By Michael Erlewine
The word ‘religion’ came from the Latin “religãre” which means “to tie fast,” or more simply the things that last and last longest. When everything more ephemeral dies out, what remains are those things that last, what we call religion.
Oh yes, I was taught religion early on, but not early-on enough because Mother Nature (and thus science) got to me early and left a more indelible impression. I was born and raised in my early years in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. My parents built our house between two large farms out in the countryside and there were no other houses and thus no other children to play with.
Aside from my four brothers, the only companions I had was Mother Nature herself and I took to nature like it was life itself.
So, long before Catholicism got its hooks in me, I was already an intense student of nature and natural history. In fact, even in later years as I looked into other religions, I ended up with the impression that anything with an ‘-ism” attached was not for me, whether it was Catholicism, Muslimism, Judism, Protestantism, etc. And this includes Buddhism, as well. I am interested in dharma. Organized religion of any kind, in my book, is an oxymoron. Nevertheless, I did my best to look around for something that would last, if not eternally, than last longer than anything else.
For me, it comes down to inquiring of history what have those wise men and women who have come before me centered on and taken to heart? As it turns out, there are all kinds of philosophies, religions, and spiritual advice just waiting to be taught and hopefully realized.
As for me, after casting about in all directions for whatever made sense to me, I settled on Dharma, first recognized and realized by Siddhartha Guatama, known commonly as the Buddha. Yet, dharma existed before Buddhism because it was the Buddha that realized this.
Of all things, the dharma seemed most natural to me, more like what internally I was thinking on my own. That’s why I took to it. It made sense to me. And I liked it because it encouraged, even demanded, that I question it myself. I was already questioning almost everything. Now, back to my early life out in the country.
From a young age I was by nature a naturalist, loving every animal and critter. And in the dharma, I found a similar appreciation for nature and every living thing.
Even as a young person, when in the Catholic religion I took what is called ‘Confirmation’ and was asked to pick a saint as a confirmation name, I chose the mystic, poet, and Catholic friar St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology and animals.
Later, having been to Tibet a couple of times, I watched in person how the Tibetan people very carefully brushed mosquitoes from their arms, trying not to hurt them. Indeed, that’s the way I naturally felt as well, not wishing to hurt any critter including people.
And I was not afraid of any animal, although respectful of their dangers. For example, I learned to handle very poisonous snakes, catching six-foot rattlesnakes by hand, and all my kids know how to handle snakes, frogs, and so on. We were on the board of a wildlife rescue group, and our backyard was filled with stainless-steel cages filled with injured animals being healed and released.
Of course, as a young person I was not exposed to the Buddha and the dharma. It would take until my late teens that I discovered Zen Buddhism and marveled at its minimalism and sense of space.
And while I tried Zen out, sat all day in Zazen and things like that, when it came to finding a root teacher, it was not in Zen Buddhism, but rather in Tibetan Buddhism that I found one, which was anything but minimalistic, but as ornate as my Catholic upbringing, and also required that I work in the Tibetan language itself for many, many years. I had learned church Latin as an altar boy, so the Tibetan rituals were nothing strange to me.
Yet behind or beyond all that ornamental Tibetan ritual was the very spacious concept of recognizing the actual nature of my own mind. It was the accent on meditation and beyond that to non-meditation that was eventually liberating.
And I am very thankful that I was fortunate to train in meditation and the dharma, following the Tibetan curriculum faithfully for over 36 years. I started some 20 years before that, but not with a teacher. Thanks to the presence of, for me, a great dharma teacher, who did not cut corners but undertook instruction and supervision for decades until I was able to learn on my own. It was Ven. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche who first introduced me to the nature of my own mind, and I continue in that path today, learning on my own.
That’s the whole point of the dharma, to get you on your own feet and know what to do by instinct rather than tutelage. I don’t even like the popular concept of being, quote, ‘spiritual’, having been trained since a child by Mother Nature herself, who does not hold back the punches of reality.
And of course, I wrote a little poem about what ‘lasts’ some sixty years ago that if read aloud clearly is what I call a “mantra poem’. It can recreate and reanimate the original inspiration for it.
Everlasting Life
What will in words not wake,
Clear sleeps,
And clear, sleeps on.
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What wakes stands watch to see that sleep as sound.
What wakes will serve to set asleep,
Inset a sleep with standing words,
That wake, if ever, last.
And on that “last,” in overlay, our life.
Yes, to lay at the last a life that ever lives,
To ever “last” that last of life,
And in ever lasting life, everlasting,
We have a life that lives at last.
[Photo by me or Margaret of H.H. the 17th Karmapa (left), a meeting of the minds, between the Karmapa and my teacher, Ven. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche (right) at the Karma Ling Three-Year Retreat shrine room in the 1980s.]
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As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
