I shifted a conversation when conversing with a person on matters regarding what many would call metaphysical, including life after death and God. A table was to my right. My arm was resting on it. I lifted my arm, turned a hand downward, and began tapping on the table with my knuckle and said, "Here it is."
The Buddha wisely called his disciple out of conjecture into the reality of suffering. In compassion and insight, he refused to allow Malunkyaputta to lead him into vain speculations.
We can be in touch with the presence of suffering and, as well, joy, gratitude, and love... Yet, to do this, we need to get out of the theoretical and into the concrete, the suchness of what is here and now.
I am not saying all speculation is bad. I enjoy such conversations at times. One can enjoy such activity playfully, in moderation. Yet, one needs to be aware that metaphysical speculation can become a temptation, a bypass from the suchness of what one can be in intimate, immediate contact with.
* * *
In my 30s, I was a Professor of Religion. The dean called me into his office and asked me, after telling me of a young girl that was raped in a nearby community, "What does what you're teaching have to do with that?" He likely was aware of my fascination with biblical criticism, an academic, scientific approach - a heady one full of intellectualization.
I was fascinated with such theoretical conjecture, freshly out of graduate school. His point, countering much of what I was teaching the students: "Brian, don't get bogged down in all the speculation that does not apply directly to our everyday lives. Teach so that the content applies to a world in which girls are raped, and people everywhere are suffering starvation, war, loneliness, domestic abuse, grief, homelessness, violence due to bigotry ..."
Dr. Gregg had given me some wise Buddha wisdom. I was not yet ready to listen, but thankfully, I did later.
* * *
Exploring questions we cannot answer does not directly address the suffering within and about us, nor will it do so with non-suffering qualities. We cannot touch deeply through conjecture or attempting to make sense of the contrary affirmations of persons about what no one can honestly affirm in the first place.
To touch deeply anything, we offer ourselves with wholeheartedness. We live like knuckles tapping a table.
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*(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.
*Story of the Buddha and Malunkyaputta is adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh. Old Path White Clouds.
