Go Beyond

The following is an except from The Roots of Romantic Buddhism

However, the Dharma as expounded in its earliest records places training in oneness and a healthy sense of self prior to the most dramatic religious experiences. A healthy sense of self is fostered through training in generosity and virtue. A sense of oneness — peak or plateau — is attained in mundane levels of concentration (jhana) that constitute the path, rather than the goal of practice. The ultimate religious experience, Awakening, is something else entirely. It is described, not in terms of feeling, but of knowledge: skillful mastery of the principles of causality underlying actions and their results, followed by direct knowledge of the dimension beyond causality where all suffering stops.

It explains the difference between peak experience and actual awakening.   It explains how many teachers get caught up in the romantic idea of enlightenment which is only useful in the pursuit of happiness.   This is not my goal,  because it falls short of the ultimate prize.   Until we completely process and understand the significance of no boundaries, we’ve only put a band-aid on a gaping wound.     If you do not understand how all suffering is pure delusion, you will never be able to put an end to it.    We’re not after happiness, that is part of the delusion, that we are here to be happy can be compared to a baby in a crib being content with glittery, moving, things that distract.   The ultimate prize is peace, free of suffering, free of the delusion that the world is anything but perfect.

Peace is not found by demanding submission, peace is not found by protesting war, peace is not found by being right, peace can only be found by choosing it in every moment.  Peace cannot be found by being invested in the world, if you think if only we loved each other a little more the world would be a better place, you are settling for romantic Buddhism, you are not radical, you are not eradicating suffering.

You look for the world to be peaceful because you are not at peace.   You look to the world for love because you need consolation.   When will you wake up and realize the world is you, and when you are at peace, the world is at peace, when you need no consolation, the world is perfect.     Realizing no distinction between you and what you see around you,  leads to truth, truth is for the disillusioned,  the courageous who seek a cure to suffering.

If you simply want a better life, a better world, then this is not for you.  This is for those who are no longer distracted by glittery, moving things, those who are not fixated on beauty, are not consoled by love,  who have been touched by the unknown to seek farther, to go beyond, blessed are the disillusioned, for they alone will push through.

Freedom is not the goal, freedom is a symptom of delusion.    To be a free man is to believe you can be enslaved!   We’re not free, we’re completely, undeniably, unbound, please don’t settle for freedom, push through, go beyond.

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.

Lao Tzu

Don’t settle for anything less than perfection, keep letting go until there is nothing left to let go, until the unknowable is touched, not through experience alone but with contemplation that leads to understanding, and the flower opens and the universe whispers yes you have arrived.