In the Aleinu prayer it says: “G-d is the Divinity in the heavens above and in the earth below; ein od- there is nothing else”- there is nothing else but this Divinity because Divinity is Being Itself. But later it says- “…and G-d will be king over all the earth”- as if there is a dualism, as if “G-d” and the “earth” are two separate things. But this is resolved in the final verse- “and on that day G-d will be One and the Name will be One”. The “Name” is our understanding of “G-d”. G-d is already one, but our understanding is that things are separate, so we think of G-d as separate. The duality is not between G-d and the world, but between G-d (which includes the world) and our mental concept of the world. Our concept of the world is our narrative, so the true duality is between Reality and our narrative of reality.
I was recently visiting a friend and we stayed up late talking about spiritual things. He started telling me about his Christian friends who were terrified of Hell. As he animatedly conveyed the extreme fear of his friends in graphic terms, I started to feel light headed. The next thing I knew I was waking up on the floor with my friend crouching over me friend saying, “Brian, Brian, are you okay? Here is some water!” I had passed out. This was amazing to me as it was a direct experience of our tendency to shut down from pain. The Christian narrative of Hell was too much for my nervous system and it shut down for about a minute. Most of the time, however, we don't shut down by fainting, but by thinking. The paradox is that, on one hand, it is our narrative-making mind that creates our inner suffering, but it is also our narrative that allows us to avoid the very suffering it creates. Through incessant thinking, we are able to avoid the direct experience of the pain within; we are able to remain separate. But relax your narrative and sooner or later the pain will come. Stand firm, let yourself experience the pain and it becomes possible to break through the mind’s illusion of separation to the realization: There is nothing else! There is just This! In Parshat Bo, G-d says to Moses, “Bo el Paro- come to Pharaoh”- not “go” but “come”- as if G-d is there with Pharaoh, calling Moses to “come”. Pharaoh represents the constriction and suffering of ego and in order for Moses to lead the people to liberation he must “come” right into Pharaoh, come directly into the experience of suffering, without the dualistic narrative. There is not “G-d” and “Pharaoh” as two separate things; there is just G-d and you must fully feel your suffering to see that for yourself. In a sense, this is just another version of the incident at the burning bush. Moses tried to avoid the Call from the Fire to liberation. “Send someone else,” he says. It is natural to want to avoid the fire- who wants to get burned? But the voice says, “take off your shoes”- in other words, remove the barrier between yourself and the reality of this moment, even if it is a burning fire. The truth is, it will not kill you- though it may kill the false you! It may kill the Pharaoh, because the burning of your pain has the power to dissolve not just the suffering-creating mental narratives, but all narrative. In the Torah, the Hebrews did not cry out for liberation until the suffering had become unbearable. They were slaves but there was no desire for freedom until the slavery hurt bad enough. It’s the same with us. Ordinarily we are “enslaved” by our narratives that keep us in the experience of separateness, though we may not notice. But when this separateness hurts badly enough, there is this special opportunity for the whole narrative-generated illusion to collapse, if we let it. Without narrative, there is just this direct awareness of Being, of awareness as Being. This is hinted at by a later verse where G-d speaks of the suffering that will be brought upon Egypt- “and I will pass through the land of Egypt- I and no other!” There is a story of a Hassid named Reb Yoel of Tshopli. One day Reb Yoel thirsted for some words of wisdom, so he set out to learn something from his master Reb Mordechai of Lechovitch. When he arrived, the door to his master’s home was closed. So eager he was that he pounded loudly on the door and shouted- “Open up please!” Reb Asher who had stepped out for some fresh air said, “Who is that”? “It is I!” said Reb Yoel. The voice of the master came booming from within: “Where in the whole universe can you find a creature that can say “I” about itself? ‘Ani Hashem- ani Hu- v’lo akher- I am Hashem, I and there is no other!’” When Reb Yoel heard these words through the door he had no need to stay- he had received the wisdom he sought. He untied his pony and trotted home to Tshopli, his thirst quenched.
0 Comments
We tend to ignore the fact of existence; we take it for granted. For the practical purposes of the intellect, the fact of existence provides no distinction, and it is therefore irrelevant. But pay attention to existence, and see what happens: when you notice that something exists, rather than only noticing the particular qualities of a thing and your judgments about it, you are also noticing that which notices- awareness. Awareness notices existence first; only after does your intellect discern the qualities of a thing. Awareness transcends the intellect. Because it is prior to judgment, it is free from judgment. It is free from narrative; it is free from the whole urgency of “me”.
I remember having a conversation with my Uncle Howard when I was about twelve years old. He was one of the few people in my life who would engage me in conversation about spirituality when I was growing up. I had been explaining some idea which I can’t remember now and in the course of my talking I had made several references to the “meaning of life”. “Wait a minute wait a minute” he interrupted, “life has meaning?”
I was stopped in my tracks. I said, “What do you mean? Isn’t that what this is all about? How could you ask that?” I couldn’t believe that this religious man who was having a religious conversation with me was questioning whether life had meaning. Eventually I came to see that “meaninglessness” has at least two very different “meanings”. The first and more common meaning has to do with the disappointment we feel when we are searching for meaning and we can’t find it. People suffer and their minds want to find some meaning in the suffering so they can feel encouraged and hopeful. Or, people feel that life itself is missing something and they search for meaning. One of the places they search is religion and spirituality- perhaps meaning can be found. That’s what I was doing in my younger years- I felt there was something more to life than I had been taught, some deeper meaning. Uncle Howard knocked that down: “Life has meaning?” But there is another meaning of meaninglessness that is completely different. To get it, let’s look a little more closely at what “meaning” is all about. “Meaning” is when one thing refers to another thing. The word “couch” means something. It refers to that thing I sit on. But what is the meaning of sitting on the couch? It’s meaning is to fulfill a purpose- the purpose of rest and comfort. But what is the meaning of rest and comfort? There is no meaning- we’ve come to the end of the meaning train. Rest and comfort are just for their own sake, because I like to rest and feel comfortable- that’s all. Now, you might disagree on religious grounds. You might say, no, rest does have a meaning. It is to allow your body to recharge itself so that you can go and do good in the world. In that case, the meaning of rest is to do good in the world. But what is the meaning of doing good in the world? Okay, you might say its meaning is to be an expression of love. But what is the meaning of love? Aha! You’ve gotten to the end again. Love does not need any meaning because it is good in and of itself. Love is the thing that other things mean; love itself is beyond meaning. So if Uncle Howard comes along and says that love is meaningless (or beauty or truth or whatever), that is not an insult- it is actually a wonderful complement. It is pointing out that which is beyond the meanings that our thinking minds assign to things. It is pointing out something ultimate- something that fulfills our deepest needs, not something that merely leads to something else. The lights of Hanukah do have meaning. They are symbols. To some they may mean hope, to some endurance, to some consciousness- take your pick. But whatever they “mean”, the things they mean are themselves meaningless; they are for their own sake. And that is the power of ritual in general- by symbolizing something Ultimate, they invite us to move beyond the mind with its meanings and move directly into communion with That which transcends meaning. You can in fact do this any time. You can do this now. Simply bring yourself to what is happening in this moment and let go of the activity of the mind and the meaning it assigns things. Is there a desire within you to find meaning? Is there a longing for something? Bring yourself even to this- bring yourself entirely to whatever you are feeling- be it longing, rage, desire, terror, love, amazement, boredom, whatever. When you do, you may begin to glimpse that inner Light hinted at by the lights of Hanukah and Shabbat that seem to shine from Beingness Itself, healing and illuminating those who open to It. In this Light, the mind no longer needs to know the “meaning of life” because that which life means is That which you are, That which Everything Is! Blessings of peace, illumination, realization and liberation on this sweet Shabbat Hanukah to you all! Spiritual growth is like a log that’s been pulled from the ocean and is drying on the beach. Over a long time, the sun gradually dries the whole thing out. But sometimes a wave comes and soaks the log again, or rain comes and drenches it. Still, it then gets wet on the surface, but the deeper parts that have already dried remain dry. So too, for most of us, there is some wetness on the surface and some wetness really deep down. In between there is the felt effect of the sun.
The wetness is ego- that is, the self which is defined by the mind’s concept of what has happened and what will happen in time. When you’re all wet, you might think, “I am wet- wetness is what I am”. But you are not the wetness, you are the sensing of the wetness. When the sun dries you out, you can see in retrospect that there was wetness but it was not really you. You are not actually defined by time at all; you are happening now, you are Reality. Meditation is like the log opening to the sun’s drying power. Stop creating time, stop the incessant involvement with mental activity and you begin to dry out. But there is another way. You can also generate heat from within and that will evaporate the water and dry you inside out; this is prayer. In prayer, you bring out all of your inner content- your terror, your longings, your faults, your desires, everything- and offer them up on the altar of the present. You say to Reality/God, “here is all of it. You know what to do with it, as it is ultimately all You anyway. I put it in Your hands”. Meditation and Prayer are the refining practices for the two poles within which life happens: rest and activity. Through meditation and prayer, you can dry the log little by little, day by day. Eventually, you might notice- all of life has become meditation and prayer! This is the Hanukah miracle- a little fire and heat can ignite the whole of life. May this Hanukah season mark our own “rededication” the practice! Vayishlakh- the Power of Laziness
Once upon a time, in a place called Sesame Street, there were two muppet friends named Ernie and Bert. You may not know that Ernie and Bert were Jewish, and that later in life, Bert became a devout Baal T’shuvah- one who chooses to become very religious. Bert was a meticulous person, carefully collecting and arranging bottle caps and generally liking things to be neat and ordered. He brought this same care and fastidiousness to his devotions, praying three times a day, observing all the laws of Shabbat and kashrut, giving tzedakka (charity) and so on. When it was time for him to leave the earthly realm and put to rest his little yellow elongated muppet body, he came to the afterlife and was rewarded with a beautiful mansion of light and splendor in which to live. There he spent his time learning Torah with the great sages and enjoying many spiritual delights. He missed his old friend Ernie, and lamented that he would probably never see Ernie again, since Ernie’s life wouldn’t merit that he should spend eternity in Bert’s paradise. One day, the door to Bert’s mansion flew open and in walked Ernie. “Hiya there ol’ buddy Bert!” “Ernie!” Bert was surprised, “what are you doing here?” “Oh buddy Bert, I’m staying here with you now. I’ve been greatly rewarded or my very very holy life, Bert.” “Very holy life? I don’t understand Ernie, I mean you never were into all that stuff. I mean, you were always mixing up the meat and milk dishes, you never wanted to study Gemara with me, what happened?” “Oh Bert, that might be true, but I had one very important quality, Bert.” “What’s that Ernie?” “I was lazy, Bert.” “Lazy? I don’t get it? What’s so holy about that?” “Well, Bert, you weren’t always so fun to be around. You were a little stiff before you got religious, and afterward it was even worse. I used to feel frustrated and angry with you a lot Bert, but thanks to my laziness, I was never mean to you and I never did anything to get back at you.” “Thanks to your laziness.” “That’s right Bert, and thanks to my laziness, I always perfectly kept Shabbat. I never worked at all on Shabbat” “But you never worked anyway, Ernie.” “I know, Bert, but I still get holiness credit for not working on Shabbat. You see, it’s because of my laziness that I get to come and live in your spiritual palace.” Suddenly there was a knock at the door. “Who could this be now?” asked Bert, opening the door. It was Biff, and he had a clipboard in his hand. “Heya, you Bert?” “Yeah, I’m Bert, what’s wrong?” “Well I’m sorry to say,” said Biff, “It seems a mistake has been made over here. You’re not supposed to be here, I have to take you to the other place. Come on let’s go.” “What do you mean?” cried Bert, “What did I do? What did I do?” “Well,” said Biff, “It turns out you weren’t lazy enough.” “What? What? No!” “Yeah yeah, come on, let’s go.” As they left, Ernie gave his famous laugh- “khh khh khh khhh kkhhh!!” Judaism is religion of the whole person. Its concern is not with just one aspect of the person, but with integrating all of the different aspects- inner and outer, heart and mind, soul and body, thought and action. The Torah wants the whole person, as it says, “V’ahavtah et Hashem Elohekha b’khol levav’kha… you shall love the Divine with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength”. And yet, when pushed to prioritize one aspect over another, Judaism comes down on the side of action. It’s better to do the right thing for the wrong reason that to not do the right thing and wait until you have the right inention. There is a phrase in the Talmud that expresses this- “Shemitokh Shelo Lishma ba lishma- from acting not for its own sake, one will come to act for its own sake.” This was the Rabbis’ version of behaviorism- don’t worry about whether your heart is in the right place or not, worry about doing the right thing. Why? Because Shemitokh shelo lishma ba lishma from doing the right thing, your heart will come to realize that it wants to do the right thing. According to a kabbalistic understanding of Jacob and Esau, these two brothers represent the basic duality of being human. The Tanya maps the human as having two parts- our physical impulses and instincts, called the Nefesh Behamit or Animal Soul, and the Nefesh Elokit or Divine Soul. We might say that the Animal Soul is made of the forces that drive life- the desire to live, to have pleasure, to avoid pain, to eat, to reproduce and so on, while the Divine Soul is our awareness that knows yet transcends those desires. The mind and heart form the arena within which these opposing realities play out their dance. In this system, Jacob represents the Divine within, Esau the physical passions. The two brothers begin their lives wrestling with each other. According to Midrash, Jacob was conceived first and they wrestled in the womb to be the firstborn. Esau appears to be victorious, coming out first, but during their lives Jacob manages to purchase the right of the first born back from Esau and later tricks their father Isaac into giving him the blessing. Esau threatens to kill Jacob who flees. Later in the story, when the two brothers are going to confront each other, Jacob stays awake all night wrestling some mysterious being. Jacob is victorious this time, and the being blesses Jacob with the name Israel, because he “wrestled with the Divine and prevailed”. The next day, Jacob and Esau meet and make peace with each other, hugging and kissing and weeping. Jacob says that seeing Esau’s face is like seeing the face of the Divine, hinting that perhaps the man he wrestled with all night was in fact Esau himself. Their reconciliation represents, then, the ideal of spiritual work- that the spiritual and the physical should be harmonized within, that a person should move beyond the activity of inner wrestling to a place of inner peace. In this inner peace, both sides are necessary- the physical passions provide our energy and motivation, while our higher consciousness provides the guidance and channeling of our motives. According to Rabbi Dovber, the Maggid of Mezeritch, there are two main ways, positive and negative, that the animal soul can corrupt us if it isn’t guided by our inner divinity. One way is represented by fire and heat, the other by coldness and water. Fire represents desire and passion, which can corrupt into greed, anger, aggressiveness and so on. Water represents passivity, laziness, comfort, and the like. The way to counter these corrupt versions of fire and water are with the holy versions of fire and water. In this way, you channel your inner fire into passion for truth, desire for integrity and for doing kindness. As for water, you channel your laziness into apathy for things that bring trouble for you and others around you. When Jacob approaches Esau in this parsha, he sends many gifts ahead of him to cool down Esau’s dangerous fieriness. Among the gifts are an ox and a donkey. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch interpreted that the ox represents the holy fire of strength and passion of the spirit, while the donkey represents holy laziness. By gifting these qualities to Esau, the story hints at how we can take the very qualities that might be obstacles for us and co-opt them for holiness. And as the Talmud says, if you do something good out of laziness or pride or whatever, through doing it you give strength to your inner divinity, and ultimately you will come to do good just because it’s good, for its own sake. But there is also a deeper level to the holiness of laziness. Ordinarily, the mind is constantly churning with thoughts and this mental activity causes us to hold the burden of our thoughts as though they were reality. Reality is all around us, there is nothing but Reality but instead we mistake our thoughts about Reality for the real Reality. What we call God or spirit or holiness is nothing but Reality as it is, once this screen of mental activity subsides. But for our constant mental activity to subside, we have to become lazy with it. We have to taste the sweetness of what lies beneath all that mental illusion in order to be passionate about being lazy. And that is the sweetness that is available on Shabbat! Shabbat is a kind of vessel within which we can shine the beacon of awareness on Being itself, and lazily forget about what’s coming up and what there is to worry about. From this seed can sprout a whole different way of living life when it’s not Shabbat. Like the havdallah candle which represents the entwining of Shabbat and the weekdays together, and like Jacob and Esau after they make peace and their love triumphs, and even like Ernie and Bert who I know love each other despite Ernie’s tricks and Bert’s fastidiousness- may we drink so deeply from the Light of holy laziness this Shabbat that the business of our future weekdays should spring from that open field of inner freedom and present beingness. Meditation and prayer are not the same thing, but they are very closely related, kind of like tasting and swallowing. It is possible to just taste and not swallow, but it is rare. Occasionally you might swallow something without tasting, like swallowing a pill, but it is not the norm. Ordinarily, the two are part of one process, and often experienced as one event.
Meditation is the art of being; prayer is the art of relating to Being. In meditation, you cease having a particular point of view, and instead you have more of a space of view. You discover your awareness as the space within which experience is happening. That space has no preference, though preference might exist within the space as part of experience. I said experience, not your experience, because in that space there is no claim of “me” or “mine”; there is just whatever is happening. Prayer, on the other hand, happens on the level of heart. Within the space of consciousness, a door is opened through which flows a special inner fire. This fire might be described as love, adoration, devotion or reverence. It may take the form of words or actions, or it may simply glow in silence. Like physical fire, this inner fire has the power to burn and transform one’s whole inner world, remaking one’s self in its fiery image. Imagine someone who studies to become a great musician. In the course of training, this person connects so deeply with the spirit of the music that she is moved to help humanity by doing benefit concerts for charity and teaching those who don’t have the means to pay for lessons. We might say this person has really internalized the inner essence of the music, expressing her art not only through her instrument but through the whole of her life.
Now imagine someone who trains to become a better person, working on his character traits. He also raises money for charity, volunteers his time toward noble causes and learns to treat everyone with honor and compassion. Obviously, this is a wonderful thing, but would we call that person a musician? Would we say that person has mastered music because he also has the “essence” of music, just like the first example? Of course not. And yet, this is how many people see religion and spirituality. Like music, religion is an art. Its essence is surely expressed in living an ethical life, but it cannot be reduced to ethics, anymore than music or science or academics can. All these different fields can and should be used to help others, but they also have beauty and value in and of themselves. We might say the art of religion is the giving of form to the intangible realities of the spirit- of awe, surrender, devotion, love and, at the deepest level, transcendence of the ordinary dualistic nature of perception and feeling. In this week’s parsha Lekh L’kha, Avram is told by the Divine to leave his birthplace and his father’s house to go to the “land that I will show you”. The “place of family” is our conditioning- it’s everything that is familiar to us. The “land” that is “shown” is the Great Secret hidden in plain sight- the awesome sacredness of Existence, normally hidden by our mind’s conditioning. To reach this spiritual world, we don’t need to “go” anywhere; it is already here! We do need to leave behind the familiar, and that means leaving behind our thinking, at least for long enough so that Reality to begin revealing Itself. Once Avram enters the “land”, what does he do? He calls the Divine by name and builds an altar. That is, he begins to engage in the art of religion. The “land” is wild, just as the ineffable sacredness everywhere is wild. It doesn’t always express Itself in an obvious way, though sometimes It breaks forth into our lives without warning. But we have the power to shape our lives according to It’s sacred call. To respond to that call is the art of religion, the art of spiritual living. What is the altar you are called to build? As we move from the lofty plane of the holidays into the day-to-day, how will you work to embody the spirit in your life at a deeper level than before? The Apes were Surprised
Humans did not emerge on this planet through apes following their tried and true ape scripts. But nor did the apes get together to try to figure out how to become human. Real change emerges from the mysterious Source of creation Itself; we don't have to invent it. But unlike the apes, we can choose to open ourselves to It. The Torah tells us that the Israelites had to become free from Egypt first, then receive the revelation of their mission at Sinai. It is the same for us: in order to receive our missions directly from the Source, we must first free ourselves from the contracted sense of "me" and "my life", and that means letting go of all our assumptions. The "I" must become an open window through which the breeze of Divine evolutionary impulse freely blows. You can't make yourself awaken, but you can open yourself to it. How do you do that? You first have to notice what is blocking it. What is blocking it? All your assumptions! When you notice your assumptions, then you can choose to let go of them. But if you just go on assuming you know the truth, then you can't open yourself to Truth. But the Truth wants to come in- it knocks at the door! Tonight at 11:30 pm, in room 7 of the Berkeley JCC, we will open the door together. Join me and many fine teachers for the all-night Shavuot learning gathering.
For more, enjoy last Monday night's talk by clicking here! You will need a password to listen. To get one, sign up here. After you sign up, please send me an email requesting the password. If you don't write me, I will still send you the password within a week or so. In order for the mind to be truly free, it has to first be restrained. Left unrestrained, it tends to wander through well trodden pathways of thought. Restrain the mind, and a space opens up for something new to happen- revelation! So to have true freedom of mind, first enjoy some freedom from mind. May a space for the New open for you in this time of revelation!
For more on this topic, enjoy last Monday night's talk by clicking here! You will need a password to listen. To get one, sign up here. After you sign up, please send me an email requesting the password. If you don't write me, I will still send you the password within a week or so. |
Archives
July 2024
|