Like this, just like this - Destination: Buddha

Zen Master Seung Sahn pointed out so meticulously to us that attainment of our true nature arrives, in its completion stages, at the clear and pure ever-present manifestation of truth, “like this“ — reality, just as it is: “The sky is blue, the trees are green.“ (And, well, as I write these words to you from a car traveling to sign some important legal documents in Attenhausen, looking through the front windshield, “the sky is cloudy, the trees are green” it would be!)

Truth is “like this”. Moment-to-moment, everything is reflected as if in a mirror. “ Salt is salty; sugar is sweet.“ Not difficult. As Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 20:28). Just that!

When someone asked the Zen Master once, “your mind before your enlightenment and your mind after: how were they different?“ He replied with words that are simple, but have a depth you should not too easily “understand“: “My mind before enlightenment, the sky is blue; the trees are green. But my mind after enlightenment; the sky is blue: the trees are green.“

Bravissimo!

But remaining only in this view is not enough. Because as we know, even though a child sees things purely just as they are, they do not have the complete wisdom which can respond to the suffering of others skillfully. Sometimes people get this view of truth, either through meditation or a quiet sit on a bench in a park, possibly even through a psychedelic experience, definitely from a good dose of MDMA. But this doesn’t necessarily help the world if it is not exposed to further training for its final completion: what he called “just like this“. Function.

How does truth function to connect with the reality around us, which is filled with beings constantly engaged in various forms of suffering?

Our practice is only complete – – yet never ever finished, due to the effect of constant entropy – – until we attain this final level, which he called “truth just-like-this”, sometimes called “the Great Bodhisattva Way“. What does “truth“ do in a world of suffering beings?

And here, remarkably, Jesus points us in exactly this same direction. Not merely seeing clearly, not merely the child-like mind of undifferentiated perception – – itself impossible for many people to attain, once they’ve grown out of that physical state into pre-teens and beyond – –but moving: into the crowd, toward the suffering, without hesitation. “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28). The Bodhisattva Vow is the one who could remain in stillness, but chooses to turn toward suffering instead.

This is not the rarefied stillness of the park bench. This is clear seeing in motion — truth that has learned to walk toward the need, that gets its hands dirty where suffering demands assistance, that shows up in the presence of suffering. The Great Bodhisattva Way and this teaching are, at their root, the same instruction: your awakening is not yours to keep, to merely enjoy, just to bliss out in your quiet cocoon. It’s not the purity and removal of John the Baptist in the desert; it’s Jesus bringing truth into engaged connection in the cities. The soft ecstasy and purity of the yoga practitioner — all-veganed and organic — lying on their mat in half-sleepy Śavāsana at the end of a channel-opening session is beautiful, all-over orgasmic, endorphin-drunk sweetness where everything in the world feels good and right, but it is the ecstasy of the sterile.

Attaining truth like-this is fantastic, restful, beatific. But it’s not the ripest fruit of our practice.

Only where our clear consciousness embraces fully the common condition of other beings – – and nearly always, that condition is covered by self-made pain – – does truth have its fullest confirmation and proof. Only then is truth really true.