The spiritual person after the search is over
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
There is a book I was reading, its called A Crash Course in Enlightenment by Tijn Touber, who regularly writes articles for the monthly magazine Happinez. You’d be right to notice a few immediate spiritual red flags — crash course, enlightenment, journalist, hip magazine title — and to be honest it’s not a very good book. It does raise an interesting question though, what is the spiritual person like who has given up seeking?
He mentions a few people as examples of his ideal: Robert Muller (a high-ranking diplomat at the UN), Piero Ferrucci (a psychotherapist in the psychosynthesis movement), Aqeela Sherrills (an american specialising in bringing peace to neighbourhoods suffering with gang violence). All of whom seem successful, accomplished, people who bring consensus, health, and peace. This ends up being Tijn’s vision of what a person who has given up on seeking can contribute.
Tijn used to be a musician and was reasonably succesful, until one day he gave it all up and started searching for enlightenment. After fourteen years of searching (and interviews), he woke up one morning and thought, if I haven’t become enlightened by now I never will be, and he joined the ranks of those who hold ‘we are already enlightened’. He gave up meditation, seeking and abstinence. And instead of being disillusioned he started talking about his journey.
It seems to me he is not entirely wrong. The Zen Peacemakers founder Bernie Glassman was also an engaged buddhist who accomplished much, one can take one’s buddhism and do a lot of good. But I don’t think Tijn is entirely right either, in that he still seems very concerned with the world, not far on the path of letting go. I don’t think he has reached the point where his vibration will be helping lots of others just by his existing. Perhaps at his level his answer is right.
It is said that even a bad spiritual teacher is better than none at all.
Comments
Thinking that the path towards suffering's cessation is only a transition from the material to the spiritual, misses the point that this path's destination is really about a transcending of all attachments, not just the ones we might consider to be unrefined.
The sides of this path are littered with the remains of teachers who somehow forgot that this fundamental truth still applied to them.
As long as a seeking, by either a teacher or a student, remains attachment bound, it will contribute to suffering's creation.
When that seeking allows some transcendence of what we cling to, reject or ignore, it illuminates the way toward suffering's cessation.
The quicker we can act as if we are not separate beings that can be divided off into self & other, teachers & students, enlightened and unenlightened, the quicker that our mental equivocations stop obscuring the path towards suffering's cessation that's just the next step to take...even when its often 3 steps forward, two back.
Buddhism approaches things differently from the new age audience to which Touber writes, that is true. It specialises in the long path, while Tijn’s public are after a much quicker fix, hence also the name of his book, a crash course in enlightenment.
I think here we also come across the difference of a religion, where in Buddhism you take refuge, and the attitude of a seeker, who may or may not ever stop seeking. And in the east you have more support for these attitudes. There is not such an immersive form of wisdom in the west as in the east, and I think whatever we can do to grow it here is a good thing.
In a way what we search for is a connection to ourselves, to the source of our being which has gotten obscured and tired over the course of our years of life. Lao Tzu says that a man of knowledge gains something every day, while a man of Tao loses something. In a way this process of returning to the source, of laying down burdens, of becoming ever more in tune with the way of existence is reinvigorating.
Meditation shouldn’t become a burden, if you force yourself in any way you lose the point. Don’t will the mind to become still, just let it do its thing and recognise these are merely thoughts. You don’t have to do anything, don’t get carried away, just observe and be refreshed.
It occurs to me that seeking is always going to be a phase, and taking refuge is a kind of coming home. You need to expend that energy, go in search, examine the guru’s, before you come home.
Seeking is something you can do inside of buddhism and also outside. Inside Buddhism it is different streams, slightly different teachings, like our good friend @bunks who changed his direction to the Pure Land teachings some time ago. It can be refreshing to encounter something new in the search, fire up your enthusiasm and refocus your thoughts.
Still I have found my favoured style of meditation has been somewhat ahead of the evolution of my thinking. I have been doing zazen for a while now, waiting for the mind to come to rest. In the end I don’t think you need enthusiasm or focused thoughts, just being quiet is enough. But how to be, that can be tricky.
Good reminder. Willing the mind still is the mind still willing. Just be still, no need to will.