Maria comes and sits with me during today's quiet period.
She's a little self-conscious and gives me an uncertain sidelong glance as if not believing that it's really okay for her to be here. I don't think I put out much of a guru vibe, but I guess I must put out something because everyone reacts in a similar reverential sort of way. I don't dress like a guru and I don't talk like one. I don't carry flowers, perform miracles, smile beatifically, or radiate anything that I'm aware of.
I think of myself as a pretty laid-back guy with only the weakest grasp of what it means to be a human among humans.
It's like I can hum a few bars but I have forgotten most of the words.
I can't stand in line at the grocery and carry on a normal conversation if it gets much past the weather. I can't go to a bar and have a beer and shoot a game of pool because I can't pretend to share the experiences and interests of the other patrons. In other words, there's no commonality. Commonality at this level is so basic that it's probably not possible to imagine what it's like when it's not shared. No two humans could have less in common than any human
and me.
I am a member of no community. Because I live in a different paradigm, I am effectively set apart from humanity.
Yep. Here comes the vampire analogy again.
When humans become vampires they make a trade, even though they don't really understand what they're giving up or what they're getting into. Perhaps irresistible forces compel them, as they did me.
To be enlightened—just to take the First Step on the actual journey toward enlightenment—is to be henceforth and forever excluded from the whole human thing
. I knew when I started on my own journey that
it meant leaving behind human connectedness
, and that was perfectly acceptable to me
. No one gets to that point without being prepared, however naively, to pay the price.
I actually don't care to be around Maria very much, not because she won't make any progress from her perspective while she's here— which she won't—and not because she'll quickly leave for the next cool-sounding spiritual adventure—which she will—but because the particular flavor, for want of a better word, of her ego is off-putting.
Maria cloaks herself in spirituality rather than dealing with the fear she seeks to conceal. It's always fear beneath the surface, of course, no matter how it manifests.
With Maria, the fear revolves around money and security and relationships and vanity, all boiling down to fear of rejection and loneliness, which further boils down to the
black diamond at the heart of all fears; fear of no-self.
She's very self-possessed on the outside; calm, smooth, convinced that she's a very open and spiritually attuned person, but I'd much rather be with a raving loony who was directly confronting their bullshit than someone who spends all their energy repressing it. The cloaking thing always strikes a tinny note that would register as jarring and discordant to anyone able to "hear" it.
Here's the most directly I am able to say this:
The one and only truth of any person lies like a black hole at their very core, and everything else—everything else—is just the rubbish and debris that covers the hole.
Of course, to someone who is just going about their normal human existence undistracted by the larger questions, that rubbish and debris is everything that makes them who they are.
But to someone who wants to get to the truth, who they are is what's in the way.
All fear is ultimately fear of this inner black hole, and nothing on this side of that hole is true. The process of achieving enlightenment is about breaking through the blockage and stepping through the hole, and anything that's not about getting to and through the hole is just more rubbish and debris.
"I had an experience in meditation I wanted to share with you," Maria begins, and proceeds to reel off a string of insights that she
feels aid her in becoming free of something or other, or maybe she's overcome an obstacle or slain a dragon or something.
I know within the first few words that she's trying to impress me
so that I will reward her with praise. It's a common enough dynamic.
She assumes we have an unspoken agreement in which her part is to reflect and reinforce my self-image as a Great Spiritual Teacher so that I, in turn, will reflect and reinforce her self-image as a Very Spiritual Person. She assumes we have this unspoken agreement because she had it with the dozen or so other spiritual teachers and it's always worked out well—a nice win-win situation.
I interrupt.
"Have you heard the term
makyo?" I ask her.
"Yes, isn't it like something to do with...?"
"It's a Zen thing. Very handy term.
In Zen, no one is interested in spiritual growth. No one is interested in self-exploration or self- realization. They're not trying to become better people or happier people. They're not following a spiritual path, they're following a wake-the-hell-up path.
They're completely focused on the hot and narrow pursuit of enlightenment. There's no consolation prize, no secondary objective.
Full awakening is what they signed up for. Of course, as students, they have no real idea of what such a pursuit actually entails, so it's the job of the master to see that they stay on course. With me so far?"
She nods a little uncertainly.
"
The Tao warns us to beware the flowery trappings of the path, or words to that effect.
There are many things to see and do on the path to awakening. It's all new and magical.
There are points, for instance, where you can stop and develop what you might consider special powers; prophecy, telepathy, mediumship, magical arts, plate spinning, whatever. During Zen meditation—zazen—the student might merge into timeless unity consciousness. He might unravel all the complexities of his life in a single glorious sitting. He might feel that he has vomited a gigantic ball of molten lead that has resided in his chest for years. He might descend into the pits of hell and slay all his demons. After such experiences, he might run to his master to share his victories and experiences, thinking he's well on the road to enlightenment, only to have the master splash him with cold water by calling it makyo."
Maria is frowning now, realizing that she's the one being splashed with cold water.
"
When a Zen master uses the term makyo, he's telling his students that the precious gems
they're stopping to pick up or the pretty flowers they're pausing to collect
only have value or beauty in the
world they've chosen to leave behind.
The Tao says 'beware the flowery trappings' because, in order to possess them or benefit from them, you must cease your journey, stay in the dream.
Ultimately, they're just a distraction from the tricky business of waking up.
Breaking free of delusion takes everything you have. The price of truth is everything. Everything. That's the rule and it's inviolable."
She looks sad. I continue in a gentler tone.
"I'm explaining makyo because this is what's happening here.
You have had some profound insights in meditation and you have brought them to me. Understandably so. Western spirituality seems to equate enlightenment with self-perfection, so it's natural to assume that ridding yourself of mental and emotional baggage is the way to go. But what I'm telling you is that,
within the context of searching for enlightenment, your experiences are makyo.
You bring me these priceless jewels and I am telling you that you should flush them down the toilet and move on."
I pause to let that sink in. The point here is less to aid Maria in her quest for enlightenment than to help her see that she's not on one. I sometimes wonder if I would make a good Zen master— Roshi—but I don't think so. Or maybe I'd be a great one, depends how you look at it. My emblem would be a graphic depiction of the Buddha's head lanced on a pike, complete with dripping blood and dangling viscera.
The motto beneath the emblem would be "DIE!" Students would line up outside my door after zazen to come in and tell me their experiences and as soon as the first one opened his mouth I'd start shrieking at the top of my lungs
"
You're not him! You're not the real guy! You're the makyo guy! You're just the dream character!" I'd probably start hitting the student with a stick at this point, which is one of the perks of being a Zen master.
"
You're supposed to be dead! Why aren't you dead? Why are you coming to see me? You're the problem! Get out and come back when you're dead. That's the guy I want to talk to, not a stupid dream character. Now GET OUT!"
That essentially defines the quest for enlightenment;
the you that you think of as you (and that thinks of you as you, and so on) is not you, it's just the character that the underlying truth of you is dreaming into brief existence. Enlightenment isn't in the character, it's in the underlying truth.
Now, there's nothing wrong with being a dream character, of course, unless it's your goal to wake up,
in which case the dream character must be ruthlessly annihilated.
If your desire is to experience transcendental bliss or supreme love or altered states of consciousness or awakened kundalini, or to qualify for heaven, or to liberate all sentient beings, or simply to become the best dang person you can be, then rejoice!, you're in the right place—the
dream state, the dualistic universe. However, if your interest is to cut the crap and figure out what's true, then you're in the wrong place and you've got a very messy fight ahead and there's no point in pretending otherwise.
That earlier paragraph—the one with Buddha's head and me screaming at students that they should be dead and all that—that's not why I think I wouldn't make a good Zen master. In fact, that's why I think I'd make a really cool Zen master. The bad part would stem from what I suspect would prove to be poor student retention. As it happens, I'm a very nice guy with an easy-going teaching style and laudable student retention and if I had a banner or emblem it would probably be a minimalist version of the Fool card in Tarot, the fool striding blissfully off the cliff and into the void.
As a Zen master my job would be to infuse in students total knowledge of the absolute. That may sound like a tall order until you stop to consider the fact that it doesn't require knowledge to be enlightened any more than it requires knowledge to obey the law of gravity or to be bathed in sunlight.
Since enlightenment is nothing more than truth-realization, it doesn't take much to figure out that if anything requires knowledge and effort and seemingly superhuman powers of imagination, it's not truth but delusion, and if anything is so wildly improbable as to defy belief, it's not the vast ocean or the billions of fish in it, but
the inability of those fish to locate water.
I hear a sniffle. Maria feels rebuked. The master has diminished her offering. That's how she should feel. Those Zen students aren't
getting the giggles when that stick comes down.
"Why do you think I'm telling you this, Maria?"
"I don't know... so I can transcend the common... so I can move past... you know, so I can..."
"We're talking about two different things here, Maria. Okay? You think I'm telling you that the insights you've had in meditation are makyo, right?"
She looks at me and nods.
"No, not at all. This is an important distinction. I'm saying that the insights you've had are makyo in the context of waking up. See, unlike me, the Zen master knows exactly why his students are there. He doesn't have to ask. But it's not like that here so I'm asking you now.
What is your desire?"
She starts to say something, but I cut her off. "The universe will give you whatever you want, Maria. That's how it works, even if you don't know it. It can't be otherwise. You don't have to be worthy, but you do have to know what it is that you want. You have to
focus. Try to do that. Try writing out what it is you want and condensing it down until you've reduced it to a concise statement of desire or intent. Your path can only be meandering and your life a blur until you do that. Come talk to me when you have something, okay?"
She nods.
"And Maria, I think being a good mom for that little girl would be a perfectly good answer."
She nods and smiles and hugs me. She gets it. I'm sure it hurts to have the master say that her profoundly moving insights are shit, but she gets it. That's good.
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