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* * *
A common form of this misadventure is believing one is not who he or she thinks he or she is, so following a path to find Buddha Nature, True Self, Original Face, Christ Consciousness, ... ~ different ways of positioning truth elsewhere, rather than here, in the future, rather than now. In this way, we are living in a not-yet, we are divided from ourselves, from this moment. We may think we can leap over the relative into an absolute, as though the relative does not equally belong, is less good. The relative self lives, in this scheme, under continual condemnation; the self is haunted by a subtle perfectionism, as real as the perfectionism that has hurt so many in conservative religions. One, indeed, can spend years attending retreats, reading books, receiving guidance, all to arrive at the place that is always a little out-of-reach, indeed evasive. While, usually, you can at least be comforted and encouraged on by someone who is esteemed as or claims to having reached the place himself or herself. So, you can remain devoted to this one who has arrived apparently, and wonder why you are so inept that you are struggling so to arrive.
what if the obvious and the non-obvious is the Truth
the path is the path
and is nothing, too
what if, the enlightened
are as darkened as you
what if, the saved
are lost with everyone
what if all this
either-or, being this-or-that,
is a simplistic fabrication
for being true and untrue
* * *
This is much like the teaching of a Ladder to Heaven ~
that is, Union with God.
Heaven becomes the end of an arduous journey,
something not here but which will be here,
that is when I get there.
Yet, again, this is a set-up, if
who I am or heaven may be all the way to
who I am or to heaven.
Where does the mountain begin
to be the mountain?
Where does the ocean
begin to be the ocean?
Can you find the end of night
and the beginning of morning?
Continued... |
