This Changes Everything
Years ago, I read a Zen book about how over 50 masters attained enlightnment. It was called Transmission of Light. Each story ended with the words, “And he was enlightened.” I finished the book feeling no closer to understanding what had happened to enlighten them than when I began.
There is a smaller, more mundane way, though, that an idea can inspire so much that it feels like a turning point. This happened to me recently after a few conversations with friends about a kind of radical determinism. I became elated, thinking of only some of the ramifications of this: what if all thoughts and actions are not chosen but are manifestations of the Universe in that place and time?
There are scary and/or disturbing implications of a kind of absolute determinism, some of which I will mention below, but it felt awfully freeing because I spend much more time than I would like preoccupied with others’ words and actions. Suddenly my preoccupation fell away and I saw them in the same light as a flower blooming quietly in a garden, a rushing stream, or a bird quickly and efficiently killing its prey.
I perceived that the mornings I wake up and ‘decide’ not to be productive would also be expressions of life. Perhaps it is not about being a bad person who is not fulfilling responsibilities.
But is this disempowering? Is it victim-blaming or abuser-enabling? Does it encourage wallowing in addictions and self-destruction?
I don’t know. It seems to me though that if something is true and real, no amount of raging against it or trying to tear it down will change that fact.
There is a peacefulness in a gaze that sees the world like this. Blame, judgment, self-despite, and anxiety fall away. In the silence, it seems it could not be any other way right now.
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Does this mean that I am going to stop doing anything? Of course not — as long as there is breath in me, I will continue to be the expression of life in this place and time that is ‘me’, and that will include a lot of doing and talking and writing, if the past is any indication.
What of justice? Are people not responsible for their actions? Can there be no imprisonment or rehabilitation? Does religion or spirituality have nothing to say?
Again, nothing has changed in the way the world is being. Courts will continue to pass verdicts. Law and order will do their thing. People will keep having many beliefs about God, themselves, others, and life in general. All will continue to unfold as it is.
So, then, this changes nothing?
But for me, all has changed while it stays the same.
I currently begin my day by reviewing Facebook memories. Today’s included this quote that feels related to the insight that perhaps, as a friend has said, there is no doer:
“In trying to obtain ourselves, we go away from ourselves. When this is understood, our mind is automatically brought to a stop where all the energy used in projecting and attaining is no longer directed, and we find ourselves in non-directionless openness, waiting without waiting. This is really the most profoundly relaxed state of the body and the mind. We are simply open, open to the all-possible, open to the unknown.” ~ Jean Klein (1990)
This being fully open, largely aspiration for me of course, appears incredibly beautiful and empowering. It’s non-directionless and at the same time open in every direction.
It resonates with the purity of the early morning moment when a bird begins to sing out of the silence.
