the tao = the dhamma = god

Just happened to read this first chapter of Ursula Le Guin's translation of the Tao Te Ching, which is as follows:

The way you can go
isn’t the real way.
The name you can say
isn’t the real name.

Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name’s the mother
of the ten thousand things.

So the unwanting soul
sees what’s hidden,
and the ever-wanting soul
sees only what it wants.

Two things, one origin,
but different in name,
whose identity is mystery.
Mystery of all mysteries!
The door to the hidden.

Le Guin's Notes:

A satisfactory translation of this chapter is, I believe, perfectly impossible. It contains the book. I think of it as the Aleph, in Borges’s story: if you see it rightly, it contains everything.

The first thing I thought of while reading this was the juxtaposition of a mind seeking out of craving and desire and attachment vs. a mind characterized by non-attachment in the Buddhist sense (AN 4.10), with the parts about 'name' reminding me of how name and form (nama-rupa) — our tainted conceptual understanding of our experience of mentality-physicality (or mind and body) and the sense of self we construct around it — arise through the process of dependent co-arising (SN 12.67). And, conversely, the seeing of the truth of 'things as they are' and the nature of the unconditioned, nibbana, arises from its cessation and the unfolding of transcendental co-arising (AN 11.2, SN 12.23).

In other words, you can't condition the unconditioned, but you can condition an end to conditioning, thereby opening up to the experience of the unconditioned already present and hidden in plain sight. Hence, the unwanting soul sees the hidden, i.e.:

"For a person who knows & sees things as they actually are, there is no need for an act of will, 'May I feel disenchantment.' It is in the nature of things that a person who knows & sees things as they actually are feels disenchantment.

"For a person who feels disenchantment, there is no need for an act of will, 'May I grow dispassionate.' It is in the nature of things that a person who feels disenchantment grows dispassionate.

"For a dispassionate person, there is no need for an act of will, 'May I realize the knowledge & vision of release.' It is in the nature of things that a dispassionate person realizes the knowledge & vision of release. (AN 11.2, Thanissaro)

And I think Le Guin is right that this chapter contains everything, much like how the footprint of the elephant encompasses all others. And in the same vein, I'm a perennialist in the sense that I see all of our various religious traditions as smaller footprints encompassed by a larger, universal truth we're all struggling to apprehend. Just different fingers all pointing towards the same moon (i.e., the Tao = the Dhamma = God, etc.).

Tao is a word that's used to described both the nature of things as they are and the way that's in line with the nature of things as they are. This, I think, is akin to Dhamma, which is also used to describe the nature of things as they are as well as the way that's in line with the nature of things as they are. God, nature, or whatever else we want to call it from the Western POV is synonymous, as it is an all-encompassing term denoting the totality of being. The morality of kamma = the will of God. And words like nibbana, the unconditioned, etc. are simply ways we characterize the underlying nature of reality — i.e., the ground of being, the existence of which is neither dependent upon nor determined by anything else — that we may glimpse with unrestricted awareness (AN 10.81). When we remove ignorance and see the world free from attachment and unclouded by ignorance, we are awakened. Our darkness has been enlightened. We step through the door to the hidden and perceive the oneness that lies on the other side. But people have a habit of getting stuck on the words and concepts and grasping them as the true reality. They see the finger and its ornaments and focus on that, missing the moon that we all are able to see when our eyes are not shrouded and we are looking in the right direction.

The real question is, am I on to something with all of this or just an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill heretic?

i'm a spinozist now i guess?

I've found it difficult to put my spiritual/religious beliefs into words, often relying on the words of others to articulate them. Recently, for example, I've been delving into Spinoza's Ethics (especially through the Seekers of Unity series), and I find myself very drawn towards this work, as many others before me have been.

I'd definitely say that I'm a believer in panentheism, i.e., the idea that what we call God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. and the world are interrelated and that, ultimately, they are of the same substance. What we perceive to be distinctions between things like mind and body, for instance, are merely distinctions between modes, attributes, or appearances of phenomena that arise and cease through the complex causality that our individual minds conceptually perceive. We see the movement of the parts but not the stillness of the whole. But just as the individual waves of the ocean — due to things like the movements of winds and currents and the gravitational pull of the moon — appear to be unique and isolated phenomena distinct from each other and the world of the ocean they inhabit, they are in reality all of the same substance, i.e., water, out which they arise from, return to, and are but modes of being of. In much the same way, our individual selves appear to be unique and isolated phenomena distinct from each other and the world we inhabit. And while the water itself can be said to have inherent existence, needing nothing else to exist or be conceived, the modes or properties of the waves cannot and need the substance of water to exist and be perceived.

From the perspective of the human mind, the world appears as one thing and we as another, and so too does 'God' or that which transcends it all. We are in the world, and ultimate reality lies outside even that. This ultimate reality or what we call God is something that seems alien to us and beyond our grasp. However, in truth, we are more like the waves of the ocean, passively unaware of our essence and the substance that makes our modes of being possible, an essence which is empty of inherent existence yet the same essence as the world as well as that which both lies beyond it and underlies it, or maybe better, contains it all. From the Buddhist POV, I think this idea is mirrored in Nagarjuna's line, "Samsara does not have the slightest distinction from Nirvana. Nirvana does not have the slightest distinction from Samsara" (Verses from the Center, 25:19). Samsara represents the world and nirvana represents that which transcends the world and lies outside of ordinary human experience. And while from our human POV there are noticeable distinctions between samsara and nirvana, conditioned and unconditioned, world and God, mind and body, us and others, or anything else we can differentiate, from the ultimate POV there's not the slightest distinction between them; the distinctions are illusory.

Interestingly enough, Buddhism also defines 'the world' or 'the all' in terms of our individual, sensory experience of it, i.e., "the eye and forms, ear and sounds, nose and aromas, tongue and flavors, body and tactile sensations, intellect and ideas" (SN 35.23). What we know is constrained in many ways by the nature of the human mind and where/how consciousness 'lands and grows' due to where "there is passion, delight, and craving for the nutriment of consciousness" (SN 12.64). But these sensory experiences locked into the apprehension of the modes of expression, being, or appearance of phenomena are illusory and comparable to a glob of foam floating down the Ganges, a bubble, a mirage, a hollow banana tree, a magic trick—i.e., empty and void (SN 22.95). It's as if our minds are conditioned to grasp the attributes of the waves, whose individual existence are inconstant, imperfect, unsatisfactory, empty and void because they do not exist from their own side, and not the substance they are an attribute or mode of. Nevertheless, understanding the causality of the conditioned world can act as a cause for the human mind's understanding of the reality of things as they are, abusing us of our notions of separateness and inherent selfness, thereby touching the deathless element through ceasing the mental processes of craving and clinging and 'I-making and my-making.' Clinging to our identity as an independent wave is ultimately unsatisfactory and stressful because it traps us within the causal modality of arising and ceasing, birth and death; letting go of that clinging 'unbinds' one and opens them up to experiencing the waterness of the waves.

The true reality, on the other hand, is one that can be said to be unborn, unmade, unconditioned, existing from its own side, stable, eternal. Spinoza reasons that this reality is analogous to God or substance, "that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception" (Ethics, I, Def. III). In Buddhism, this is somewhat comparable to nirvana, the "unborn, unbecome, unmade, unfabricated" (Ud 8:3). This reality or substance or whatever you want to call it is akin to the primordial water that's modified into all the various waves that we conceive of and that form the basis for our subject-object dualism and the illusion that we are one wave distinct from all the others and the ocean we all inhabit, when in fact everything that we see, hear, taste, touch, feel, and cognize is of the same substance or reality that comprises what sees, hears, tastes, touches, feels, and cognizes. Its true essence is eternal oneness, while its attributes or expressions are infinite.

The Buddha demonstrates that through the practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment, the human mind can cognize nirvana, the unconditioned, the deathless element, etc. making the mind into the mind of enlightenment characterized by 'consciousness without feature.' Spinoza, on the other hand, argues that "the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God; thus when we say, that the human mind perceives this or that, we make the assertion, that God has this or that idea, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he is displayed through the nature of the human mind, or in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind; and when we say that God has this or that idea, not only in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind, but also in so far as he, simultaneously with the human mind, has the further idea of another thing, we assert that the human mind perceives a thing in part or inadequately" (Ethics, II, Prop XI, Corollary) and that "the clear and distinct ideas of the mind are as necessarily true as the ideas of God" (Ethics, II, Prop. XLIII), suggesting a rational means of achieving the same type of knowledge: "The knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God which every idea involves is adequate and perfect. The human mind has an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God" (Ethics, II, Prop. XLVI&XLVII).

I realize that the analogy of waves and water breaks down in the sense that the wind and gravity which represent the causal conditions that shape the waves aren't themselves water, as well as the fact that the element of water is comprised of atoms that in turn are further divided, while these laws of nature and all the particles within it are but part of nature itself, whose reality is said to be singular, self-contained, one infinite substance. But I think it conveys the general idea clearly enough, especially if we compare the wind in the analogy to the passions of the mind fuelled by ignorance and greed, hatred, and delusion churning the water of the ocean into waves, and which when stilled give rise to an experience of peace and an ending to the wave's rounds of rebirth.

That leads me to also say that I'm a perennialist in the sense that I strongly believe this reality — whether we call it God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. — is a unity that paradoxically contains or is capable of infinite modes of expression, being, or appearance. And I see in each spiritual tradition a sincere search for and genuine understanding of this unity through a combination of imagination, reason, and intuition, with the first two arising from our dualistic awareness, and the latter achieved through nondual consciousness. The human mind, as a dependently arisen product of causes and conditions, is the experience of samsara; the mind of God is the experience of nirvana (the deathless element often alluded to in Buddhism = Spinoza' one eternal substance). And they are one. We are ultimately one with all of the things we seek to know, understand, and love. The human mind, in so far as it's characterized by its particular mode of being, much like the temporal wave in the ocean, is finite and limited, and our ignorance of things as they are blocks the light of this understanding from illuminating our mind. But the human mind, in so far as it shares its substance with God, strives to understand itself and seek truth in its existence.

Our salvation or enlightenment is achieved through the process of overcoming our ignorance of reality by releasing our mind's grasping of the appearances and letting go of our self-identity view, thereby opening ourselves up to an intellectual understanding and/or love of God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. and realizing our own nature, or as Ruksana put it in The Circle, "real recognizing real." In Buddhism, one is encouraged to develop selflessness in regards to the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, and sensory consciousness in order to achieve this realization. Judaism has a similar concept in Kabbalah called bittul, 'selflessness' or 'self-negation.' In Christianity and Islam, one is encouraged to die to yourself or 'die before you die.' Another method involves love, effectively doing the same thing. In Buddhism, for instance, metta or loving-kindness can also be salvific. And this method seems even more predominant in Christianity. Jesus says to love God and love others as ourselves (Mt 22:37-39). And we are all interconnected, so loving others as ourselves is also loving ourselves. And John goes even further, saying God is love, and it's that act of unconditional love which becomes the positive form of selflessness that equally removes the mental passions and clinging that cloud our vision and prevent us from truly seeing things as they are. So ultimately we're left with God loving God, which in reality is just the act of loving itself—a singular, loving or unbound state of consciousness free from misperceptions and passions and sense of self.

While I've spent a lot more time with Buddhism, I've also found myself drawn strongly towards Christianity in recent years. In Christianity, I see the inheritor of the Greek Mystery cults and Platonic philosophy that, in the ancient world, used both ecstatic and rational means to point practitioners towards God, the One, the Form of the Good, Logos. And in Jesus, I see a person who had such mystical experiences and intuitive realizations, seeing himself in God and God in himself, unifying his individual mode of being with the substance underlying it, reflecting and pointing towards this constant and eternal state of consciousness. And just as John states that God is love and whoever is without love doesn't know God (John 4:7-8), Spinoza states that, "The intellectual love of the mind towards God is that very love of God whereby God loves himself, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he can be explained through the essence of the human mind regarded under the form of eternity; in other words, the intellectual love of the mind towards God is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself" (Ethics, V, Prop XXXVI).

What I find eminently important in all of this, however, is how each of these traditions and ways of talking about experience and reality agree on the reality and power of interconnectedness. Whether in terms of causality (such as in the focus of actions and dependent co-arising in Buddhism) or the oneness of reality (such as in the relational nature of the trinity), each of these approaches make interconnectedness a centerpiece. As Clare Carlisle puts it in an article for the Guardian: "Spinoza's world view brings to the fore two features of life: dependence and connectedness. Each wave is dependent on the sea, and because it is part of the sea it is connected to every other wave. The movements of one wave will influence all the rest. Likewise, each being is dependent on God, and as a part of God it is connected to every other being. As we move about and act in the world, we affect others, and we are in turn affected by everything we come into contact with." And this understanding not only gives us insight into the nature of our world, but in how to live a life characterized by virtue, freedom, and happiness through our knowledge of causality and, ultimately, love of God. Because the more still we, as waves, can make ourselves, the closer we are able to come to experiencing our own waterness.

toward a worldwide culture of love

I enjoyed this recent article from bell hooks, which connects Buddhism, love, and social engagement. I think that what she's talking about is what led me to become politically and socially engaged in the first place. I think in many cases, developing compassion, empathy, and love will naturally inspire one to address the suffering of others when possible, and that many of the ways love is expressed coincides with what we'd label ‘leftist’ political and social movements precisely because such movements are often motivated by love and a desire to protect and uplift others. They're less focused on 'me' and more on 'us' in the sense of all of our lives and predicaments being interconnected.

Love compels us to move away from things like greed, selfishness, and competition and towards generosity, compassion, and cooperation. That's at least why I was drawn towards social engagement and more to left-leaning politics, because that's where love and compassion directed me. A mind suffused with love, for example, will see someone struggling with injury or illness within a system that makes it difficult for them to afford and access care and be inspired to help, whether through charity or through supporting a more accessible and universal healthcare system.

That doesn't mean I think that only people who are political active or on the left end of the political spectrum are capable of love, only that I see why she connects love to the end of domination, and how that tends towards movements and ideas that we associate with the label 'leftist' today. Alternatives to capitalism. Universal healthcare. Addressing climate change. Gender equality. Black Lives Matter. Etc. Because much of that domination is rooted in fear and anger and greed. Systems and institutions and cultures have been built to protect what we have from others and to maintain positions of privilege for certain segments of the population, and love compels us to confront and end those things because of the suffering they engender—from sexism and racism to imperialism and militarism and the profit motive.

Love is also a key component of most spiritual traditions, and it suffuses their soteriology. And I'd even go so far as to say that, after studying and practicing in multiple spiritual traditions myself, a truly spiritual person who follows the underlying message of their respective faiths will necessarily be empathetic, inclusive, and ultimately, intersectional in their politics, but more importantly in their actions, as a result of the presence and development of love regardless of what their politics are. I think this can be seen from the lives and works of people of faith like bell hooks, Giro Seno'o, Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Merton, Oscar Romero, Malcolm X, Thich Nhat Hanh, Gustavo Gutierrez, MLK Jr., Rachel Held Evans, and countless others. As Franciscan friar and author Richard Rohr puts it:

"If we are going to have truly prophetic people who go beyond the categories of liberal and conservative, we have to teach them some way to integrate their needed activism with a truly contemplative mind and heart. I’m convinced that once you learn how to look out at life from the contemplative eyes of the True Self, your politics and economics are going to change on their own. I don’t need to teach you what your politics should or shouldn’t be. Once you see things contemplatively, you’ll begin to seek the bias from the bottom instead of the top, you’ll be free to embrace your shadow, and you can live at peace with those who are different. From a contemplative stance, you’ll know what action is yours to do—and what is not yours to do—almost naturally."

Love moves us to act against suffering and injustice, because love motivates up to try and heal rather than harm. Love moves us to swim against the current of what she terms "dominator thinking and practice," which "relies for its maintenance on the constant production of a feeling of lack, of the need to grasp"; and that conversely, "Giving love offers us a way to end this suffering—loving ourselves, extending that love to everything beyond the self, we experience wholeness" and through that "we are healed." And that love can be expressed in many ways, not just in the realm of the political. It can be expressed in any number of daily personal interactions and small acts of kindness and generosity.

should monks, and Buddhists in general, protest social injustice or engage in politics?

A question was raised on a Buddhist forum I once frequented more regularly that I've been thinking a lot about myself recent, whether monks, and Buddhists in general, should protest social injustice or engage in politics.

This question, and the question of Buddhism and politics in general, is one of the reasons I've backed a bit away from Buddhist communities over the years. More often that not, they tend to want to remain outside of politics and keep things as PC and nonpolitical as possible, partially because much of the Dhamma is focused on internal dynamics and purification, partially because they don't want to ruffle any feathers, and partially because they think political engagement in samsara is ultimately pointless. In addition, the Buddha himself does seem to discourage monks from speaking about these things, which makes many completely distance themselves from confronting social evils, not speaking up for the oppressed, etc. My own practice, however, has lead me in the opposite direction, giving me compassion for the suffering of others and the feeling of a moral duty to address injustice when and where I can.

That said, the following is a bit of a jumbled mess, but what follows is my general approach to morality and the way I see conventional morality, Buddhist morality, and the scientific study of morality intersecting, all of which suggesting to me from a rational and pragmatic POV the existence of (or at least the need for) a shared moral responsibility—one that we're not forced to abide by, but one that would certainly be beneficial to acknowledge and attempt to live by. It ultimately ends in a form of the safe bet argument in response to those who eschew the world as something inherently bad or insubstantial, and morality as the crutch of the deluded and weak-minded masses, because I can't persuasively argue against either possibility.

From a personal POV: I don't know if morality is objective. If it is, the basis could be called God, Dhamma, or the laws of nature. Whatever one wishes to call this foundation, objectivity in this sense basically means that morality extends from something larger than us, a force or process that shapes our moral framework and how it functions, and all of these things fit that description. I'm not well-versed enough in the subject to say for certain, but I'd argue that it's objective in the sense of evolving from nature and operating within the framework of psychological laws, but not necessarily emanating from a supranormal source. In one YouTube video, for example, Dr. Andy Thomas discusses what he believes to be the biological basis for morality and its origins in the "evolved architecture" of our minds.

But even if morality isn't objective in that sense and is inherently relative, I treat it as such, much like Kant with his "act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Furthermore, a morality arising out of consciousness of oneself, consciousness of others, and wholesome mental states such as empathy and compassion seems the most rational and humane, in my opinion, and leads to a demonstrably safer, more stable, more cohesive, and more flourishing society. One could debate whether or not morality has some objective basis, but it doesn't really matter if it does from my POV as long as it has efficacy. And I've come to the conclusion that the larger, more complex, and interconnected our world becomes, the more expansive and inclusive our morality must also become.

From a scientific POV: Science is looking at morality and striving to uncover and articulate a scientific (one could say naturalistic or even objective) moral framework. Andy Thomas is one, as I've already mentioned above, with his views on the biological origins of morality. Sam Harris is another such example, who lays out some of his ideas in his book, The Moral Landscape. In it, he argues that things which are "morally good" are so because they pertain to increases in the "well-being of conscious creatures," which is comparable to my views on morality and moral responsibility. And as a social species, an argument can be made that that morality naturally extends outside of us/beyond our conventional selves.

From a Buddhist POV: The Buddha seems to offer kamma as a type of natural law, primarily psychological/existential in nature, which mirrors much of what Dr. Thomas proposes in the aforementioned video. This may be unique to our own evolutionary psychology, or it may be something common to all sentient beings to various degrees that intrinsically stems from the manifestation of consciousness itself. Whatever the case, the Buddha makes a strong case for the efficacy of actions and the results of such actions being coloured by the intentions underlying them, which goes far beyond mere worldly agreement (e.g., AN 6.63, MN 60, MN 61, MN 76, MN 136, DN 2, etc.). He also advises that certain actions are better more moral/skillful and in line with the Dhamma than others and lead to our long-term welfare and happiness, actions that have wholesome intentions and that also take the happiness and suffering of others into consideration. Moreover, the Buddha himself offers a form of the golden rule in SN 3.8 — expressing that one who loves themselves should harm no other — and seemingly points towards the social nature of morality and hints at a shared connection and, one could argue, responsibility in DN 16 in reference to the Vajjians and the ways they conduct themselves as a society.

For me, this makes logical and intuitive sense in the context of the precepts, ten wholesome actions, four brahmaviharas, selflessness, and conditionality. Our actions have consequences, which reverberate out into the world. The ways we act matter. The decisions we make matter. And the intentions underlying those actions and decisions matter. Generally speaking, the more wholesome and in harmony our actions and decisions are, the more we can be expected to grow and prosper. Not just as individuals, but as a society as a whole.

I tend to look at it this way from a personal and Buddhist POV: We begin with bare conscious awareness, which leads to awareness of ourselves. "I think, therefore I am." This awareness is immature, incomplete, and imbued with some level of ignorance, however, and primarily concerned with our own survival and happiness. Then, through observation and reflection, we become aware of other living being who also desire happiness and freedom from suffering, physically as well as mentally. This is a more mature state of awareness, but one still clouded by ignorance. And through the practice of continued reflection, we hopefully, ultimately, become aware of the illusion between self and other, so that there's no longer any rigidly defined distinction between 'us' and 'them,' between our long-term welfare and happiness and the long-term welfare and happiness of others. From this state of awareness, we see that interconnectedness binds us all together, especially within the context of our socially-created world, which is why I see a moral responsibility for others underlying Buddhist morality as much as conventional social morality. This kind of morality and the world itself may never reach a state of perfection; but that's no reason not to make an effort, out of empathy and compassion, and wisdom, to make the world better and infuse all aspects of life with the spirit of Dhamma.

Another way I look at it dialectically: We want to be happy and not suffer, and we see that same desire in others, therefore we should not do anything to cause harm and suffering to others (thesis/passive morality/observing the precepts to refrain from x). We want to flourish, and we see that same desire in others, therefore we should seek to do what will lead to the flourishing of all (antithesis/active morality/our wholesome actions in the world). The less selfish we become and the more we break down the barriers between self and other, our shared responsibility for one another shines through, so that we eventually reach a point where we 'love our neighbour as our self' and more naturally do what we call good, right, moral, and for the long-term welfare and happiness of all (synthesis/collective moral responsibility/societal growth and prosperity).

And here, I'll just stop to note that I realize people are different, possessing variegated inclinations, desires, motives, and degrees of engagement. I'm only speaking in general terms and principles. I don't expect a monk in a mountain hermitage, for example, to have the same level of engagement or social responsibility as the average lay-person. Their moral responsibility towards others may be more in the form of being a positive example and teaching, but there's still a level of responsibility there. That's one of the reasons I think the Buddha connected the monastic community to the lay-community via alms.

In essence, our moral responsibility towards others flows naturally from the basic building blocks of morality, be they Buddhist or humanistic. While this logic may not hold for solitary, independent beings (although I think it still would), we are a decidedly social species and grow and flourish when we work together and share each other's burdens. And as the Buddha's conversation in DN 16 illustrates, this isn't limited to just the morality and actions of the individual, but also includes what we'd call the political, the collective organization and social engagement of people in a society and our individual responsibilities within that context. We don't live in isolation. We all depend on others, even monks and nuns, and the shape of society has a great deal of influence on who we are and the quality of our lives (e.g., the forms of and access to education and healthcare, societal infrastructures, socioeconomic systems, etc.). And our voice in that shaping of society is the realm of the political. Of course, this may only be true in appearance to those who see conventional reality as deceptive and illusory, and from the transcendental point of view may not be inherently real or true with a capital 'T'. But even if that's the case, what kind morality would they offer to those immersed (or perhaps trapped) in this 'deceptive conventional reality'? A purely selfish and individualistic one? I'd hope not.

In closing, whether the world is real or not (you know, the whole emptiness/glob of foam thing that some use to justify indifference to the world), or whether morality is objective or not, I think we should treat them as such out of a morality responsibility to other sentient beings. Because if the world is real and morality objective, then it will be for the benefit and welfare of the many. And if they're not, nobody is hurt and at least it'll still give the appearance of providing a greater level of benefit and happiness to those trapped within this proverbial magic show. Compassion demands as much, I think. And this is eminently important in our day and age, with the advent of industrial production and nuclear weapons, not to mention the powerful forms of oppression and violence we enable with our support or lack thereof. Our collective impact on the environment alone affects every living creature on earth. To ignore this responsibility is the height of folly and selfishness, in my opinion, which is why I argue so strongly that, as social creature living in a social environment, our social nature requires social engagement if we are to steer society in the right direction.

And coming back to the question of monastic engagement, I think this includes monks and nuns to some extent. While their duty is primarily to work towards liberation and to help teach/guide/inspire others, that doesn't mean they can't and shouldn't speak out against grave evils and take political stands when their involvement may help to reduce so much suffering, especially if it's fellow Buddhists committing the grave evils (e.g., the persecution of Rohingya in Burma/Myanmar). Of course society can't be 'fixed' and I'm not saying that Buddhists' political engagement can make the world a utopia, but it can help to relieve some suffering and help make the world a more conducive place to practice the Dhamma. Too much suffering makes our lives a hell realm, and how can someone in hell practice the Dhamma? (And I think the Dhamma is reflected in many religions and philosophies, just in different terms, but that's another discussion.) And having monastics willing to speak up and stand up against a societal evil can be a powerful message. Having monks and nuns in a protest, or even sitting in meditation at the site of unrest and injustice, can be a powerful seed of good.

I would never suggest that anyone be forced to be political or socially engaged. If one wants to renounce to world so completely, is indifferent to the sufferings of others, or feels helpless to make any meaningful change and so decides to do nothing, that is their choice. And the practice of the Dhamma does not in any way require one to be worldly, political, or socially engaged. But I would argue that the possibility of engagement should be open for those who feel morally compelled to do or say something, because that in and of itself can sometimes be the practice of Dhamma in the form of right speech, right action, etc. Even the Buddha was willing to advise kings in the interest of reducing suffering, and he allowed his monks the right to overturn their bowls a form of protest/punishment.

So, in the end, yes, I think both monastics and Buddhists in general have a duty and a right as human beings to protest social injustice if they are compelled to do so in their practice of the Dhamma. The practice itself is summarized by these words from the Dhammapada: "the non-doing of any evil, the performance of what's skillful, the cleansing of one's own mind" (Dhp 183). Included in that is the cultivation of things like right speech and right action combined with things like compassion, empathy, and loving-kindness. And in my experience, all of this together has the potential to help motivate one to be more aware of the suffering around them and to engage it when possible with an eye towards limiting its impact, and that engagement can be in line with the Dhamma and Vinaya. As Thich Nhat Hanh so beautifully puts it in his forward to No Beginning, No End:

It has been said that the twenty-first century is going to be a century of spirituality. If it is not a century of spirituality, there will be very difficult times ahead for all of us and for the generations to come. If we are not able to stop and look more deeply at the suffering in ourselves, how will we be able to address the suffering in the world around us? In order for us to transform our own suffering, we must do something radical.

The first radical thing we can do to transform the suffering in ourselves is to practice stopping (shamatha). We stop in order to return to ourselves, to become calm. When we are calm, we have a better chance to see our suffering more clearly. The second radical act is to look deeply inside ourselves and see our suffering, be with our suffering, in order to understand and transform it. This is also true for the suffering in the world. We as entire nations need to stop and look deeply at the suffering in the world in order to see it more clearly without prejudice and understand how to transform it.

The practice of mindfulness in these troubled times is more important than ever. If we as individuals do not take the time to practice mindfulness, not only will it be difficult to transform the suffering in our own lives, but it will be difficult to transform the suffering in the world. It is vital to ourselves, our children, and the Earth that we have a practice that helps us to be mindful, that lets us come back to ourselves and dwell in the present moment in order to transform suffering in ourselves and others around us.</ blockquote>

thanksgiving

Thanksgiving. It can be hard for many to appreciate the mindset of gratitude or thanksgiving when they're confronted by the history of the holiday itself. The mythologized celebration at Plymouth in 1621, for instance, belies the tragic fate of the indigenous peoples of the Americas that unfolded under colonialism, Manifest Destiny, the 19th century policy of native population removal, and countless broken treaties. And Lincoln's creation of a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens" in 1863 was set within the bloody context of what many consider to be the deadliest war in American history, containing within it the hope of some future peace and harmony.

Today, it seems like it's more about food, football, and a prelude to the consumeristic orgy of Black Friday than a recollection of all the things that we're grateful for, mythologized or not. At least that's how it seems to me. But the idea of gratitude itself is something I've grown to appreciate. My life hasn't always been the best, and I haven't always been the best person; but there are numerous people and things I find myself grateful for if I reflect on it, yet I find that I rarely seem to have the time or mindfulness to cultivate that sense of gratitude and appreciation. It's not really a priority in our culture, and it's an easy thing for us to overlook. I'm reminded of the Buddha's words in AN 2.118: "These two people are hard to find in the world. Which two? The one who is first to do a kindness, and the one who is grateful and thankful for a kindness done."

The world can be a harsh and lonely place sometimes, and there are so many people I'm thankful for, too many to list. I just feel terribly grateful at this moment for the many acts and words of kindness given to me over the years. I'm especially grateful for the people who have helped me expand my knowledge over the years, so that I'm not only aware of the somber history that my high school textbooks completely glossed over but my own agency in fighting to change things and right past wrongs. And I'm also grateful for the many people who have entered my life and made it one worth living, including those who sent me such kind messages today.

nonduality

Many Buddhists, as well as those in other contemplative traditions, often speak about nonduality, but what is it? And is it something we can experience living a worldly life?

Nonduality literally means 'not two,' implying oneness, unity. More deeply, it means seeing past conventional wisdom, conventional ways of seeing, speaking, and understanding. It means seeing left as being relative to something else from a certain point of view, but that such a thing as left doesn't ultimately exist. It means being able to see beyond our limited, human perspective, glimpsing the greater whole and totality of life, its oneness where our experience is relative and ephemeral, like globs of foam floating down a river.

Nonduality means being able to take in the present moment, as it is. It means that, in the words of Richard Rohr, "You learn not to divide the field of the moment or eliminate anything that threatens your ego, but to hold everything—both the attractive and the unpleasant—together in one accepting gaze." And that is something I think one can certainly do living a worldly life, although such a life can present challenges to developing (or uncovering) such a way of seeing.

Things arise and cease, but things are also empty, like globs of foam on a river—and nonduality is being able to switch our gaze from one reality or mode of seeing to the other. This idea of two ways of seeing brings to mind the line, "These are the world's designations, the world's expressions, the world's ways of speaking, the world's descriptions, with which the Tathagata expresses himself but without grasping to them" (DN 9).

Language itself is conventional, limited, and incapable of fully describing what we're talking about; it can only point us towards such experiences. Generally speaking, however, we don't tend to see life through the prism of nonduality, but quite easily see and make distinctions, likely due to the evolutionary advantages of such. Nevertheless, we do seem to have the ability to perceive the world from a nondualistic (or one might say, unobstructed) POV, penetrating into this ultimate reality or whatever you want to call it, while still functioning in, and speaking about, regular, conventional, everyday life.

To use another image from SN 22.95, one can see and interact with the mirage of dualistic experience (existence/non-existence, etc.) while apprehending its underlying emptiness.

dhamma

What is the Dhamma? In Buddhism, Dhamma is twofold. It refers to (1) the teachings/symbols pointing towards (2) a profound truth. That truth is an experience/way of perceiving reality that leads to a new mode of being; and that new mode of being is an existential transformation lifting us above the fear and suffering we experience through our ignorance and craving, the reality of things as they are when seen with a calm, clear, and ultimately selfless mind—a mode of being where, in the words of Jean-Pierre de Caussade, we're able to "embrace the present moment as an ever-flowing source of holiness."

Although I began my journey into Buddhism with meditation, I think my journey truly began when I read Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah, which inspired me to read the suttas starting with the Majjhima Nikaya and got me seeing things from a whole different perspective. I was inspired to practice, to change myself for the better.

But somewhere along the way, I fell into a sort of intellectual rabbit hole, and began to accumulate views rather than weed them down. I felt it important to be authentic and orthodox, which caused me to have a very closed-minded and narrow point of view, clinging to the finger rather than seeing where it was pointing. The Dhamma became just another possession; and it's only been through a combination of practice and interfaith dialogues and study that I've finally found myself slowing climbing out of that hole.

I realized things were different when I started to see through the appearances of the words and symbols and began catching glimpses of what they're pointing towards; and I eventually came to the conclusion that there's a universal truth which underlies the foundation of most spiritual traditions in some shape or form. For me, Buddhism opened my eyes to this truth, and contemplative Christianity, I think, is helping me to realize it.

From that perspective, then, I'd say that the first aspect of Dhamma is the study of the symbols pointing towards 'knowledge and vision of things as they are.' The next is the application of the various methods of achieving this gnosis until, eventually, everything becomes reflective of Dhamma, which isn't the same thing as saying everything is Dhamma. You just get better and better at recognizing it hiding in plain sight, at seeing through all the illusory distinctions and perceiving the fullness of the emptiness beyond.

But paradoxically, that emptiness isn't empty, it's full. And it's the fullness of that truth we're all seeking, whether it's the luminous mind defiled by incoming defilements due to ignorance, the light of the sun that's obscured within the cave of ignorance, or the presence of God dwelling within the temple of our bodies. The teachings of the wise (like Jesus, the Buddha, Caussade, Ajahn Chah, etc.) point the way; and all we have to do is pierce the veil of ignorance and discover it for ourselves.