A monk, anxious to learn Zen, approaches the Master -
I've been newly initiated into the Brotherhood. Will you be so kind as to show me the way to Zen?
Do you hear the sound of the murmuring of the mountain stream?
Yes, I do.
Here, is your entrance.
This is like saying, "Do you want to meet God? Then, listen here to the song of the bird."
* * *
We are wise to shy away from any advice to transcend this world of Nature for a spiritual experience. I chased after the supernatural for many years. I had some so-called transcendent experiences. Yet, we can manufacture such experiences. Why try to fly toward the Light when the Light is here? If you go up, you must, as I did, come down. Why not stay down and learn to fly on the ground?
We learn to live spiritually awakened among the elements. Who came up with the opposition between natural and supernatural, anyway? I do not know. It came from the mind that divides into tiny pieces.
Of significance is the Master says, “Here…”. The Master did not say, "Go to the stream. Enter there." Locally, the mountain stream was elsewhere. The entrance to Truth, however, is here. We touch and are touched by some reality here. Intimacy with someone or something is here. If the disciple could not enter here, he could not enter anywhere. So, with us. Is is here.
* * *
Jesus, in the Gospel, says, "The pure in heart shall see God." Now. Not later. Not after death. Zen and God and Truth are here. This is like what the Zen Master says. Seeing God is not seeing a physical form, a something. There is no big man up the stairs. There is no cosmic daddy on a throne. As the Christian Bible says, "God is spirit, and those who worship God must do so in spirit and truth." You can experience and know God… Zen… Truth… Love… but you cannot find them anywhere. Even here is not somewhere; it is here. You can touch it.
In Mahayana Buddhism, we meditate here and awake. We cannot be awake anywhere else. Unlike some Buddhists, we do not seek to shut out the world contacted by the senses, thus becoming oblivious to this world: a practice called in Pali nirodha samāpatti. We do not try to escape the suffering world to have heavenly bliss. We sit quietly and meditate right in the field of misery and bliss. This same world field is a Buddha field. Here, we find Jesus, too. We meet all the spiritual adepts here. So, Buddhists say, "Samsara is Nirvana. Nirvana is Samsara." This is like a Christian saying, "You'll experience heaven. You'll meet God in hell."
Yes, we do have experiences that seem transcendent or supernatural. However, such words have no meaning when one unites God within herself. The words speak of an elevated experience. Such experiences quickly pass. And some use drugs to try to bring them back. This is a waste.
* * *
To wake up and live here is the miracle. If you cannot see God… open to the Light… here, where would you? If you cannot see God in this life, why think you would later?
Again, the miracle is always here. Enter, and enjoy. An ordinary object or happening can be an entrance to heaven. You might open to the Light by reading a holy book, and you might by holding a rock in your hand and looking at it with kindness. Look in the eyes of a friend or stranger, and you might see the Christ. Sit quietly under the tree, and the Buddha might appear.
* * *
*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024. Permission is given to use photographs and writings with credit given to the copyright owner.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The book is a collection of poems Brian wrote based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
