A devotee mentioned to the Sage what a righteous man the Sage was. The Sage replied, "I'm not a righteous man." "But," the devotee said, "you certainly aren't an unrighteous man." "No, not that either," replied the Sage.
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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In 1957, monks were relocating a monastery in Thailand. When moving a giant clay Buddha, a monk noticed a crack. Looking closely, he observed a golden light originating from it. He used a hammer and a chisel to chip away at the clay. Underneath, he arrived at solid gold.
Historians believe Thai monks, hundreds of years prior, covered the Buddha with clay to protect it from harm by the Burmese army. In one attack, all the monks had been killed.
I mention the above because it pertains to what I write below. Underneath our appearance is you and me - we. What I write below is within this understanding - no one is an appearance, yet there is continuity between essence and appearance.
We are like the Tai golden Buddha. We live in forgetfulness of Presence looking out the eyes, our True Self that has not aged while the body has been aging. This does not mean the body is untrue, only that it is relative. The challenge is to see the relative as an appearance of Presence, not a person carrying around inside an essence, soul, Buddha Nature, Image of God, True Self, Self, ... Rather, the body is being worn like it wears clothing and will be discarded in the same manner - and soon, for all of us.
Presence animates the body. When the body can no longer retain its connection with Presence, it goes. A wise teacher once said to me that the soul - Presence - releases the body. Said one way or another, form and formless separate. The best I can say is that Presence, being nonlocal and nontemporal, goes nowhere, while the body, formed in time and place, goes somewhere.
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A woman, about age seventy, visited the famed Hassidic rabbi, the Baal Shem Tov. Her husband, about age eighty, was becoming virtuous. He had always been a sinful man. She arrived to the Baal Shem Tov to give thanks for her husband's change.
Unlike her husband, this wife had lived a virtuous life. She said to the Baal Shem Tov, "There can be hope now. Even my husband may reach paradise." The rabbi laughed, saying, "The greater the sinner, the greater the saint."
The woman became sad. She said, "Then why didn't you tell me before? You should have told me forty years ago."
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We may find it challenging to appreciate the nature of our relationship with the Sacred as a pure gift. Grace is not a business transaction. Spirit is not in the quid pro quo industry.
The wife had thought for many years that she was going to paradise due to her goodness, and due to her husband's lack of it, he was not. She thought, "I am the saint, he the sinner." She thought this, for this is what she had been taught. The Baal Shem Tov upended that opinion in one sentence. She had lived in fear for her husband all those years. The rabbi clarified the fear had been groundless.
The wife was attached to appearance. In the case of her husband, the appearance of him as a sinner man. Being attached to that appearance, she was attached to her appearance as a virtuous woman. When attaching to one side of appearance, we attach to both. This is why so many in religion reek of self-righteousness, or self-inflation; I am sure I reeked of it many years, too.
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Have you noticed how people find receiving a gift from you so problematic without them giving in return? To receive with nothing required to act deserving and no payback is foreign to most persons. This means we humans struggle with the enigma of Grace, and little encourages us to receive Grace gracefully.
To just receive is an act of humility. Such self-demotion disrobes the self of its arrogance, need for control, and, yes, need to have enemies. So, we create categories, like saint and sinner, enlightened and unenlightened, saved and damned, believers and nonbelievers, orthodox and heretic, ... I am not saying this is wrong; I am saying it is a fantasy. It is a thought. Such thought might serve us well when needed but is a shadow of the truth. Attaching to such discriminations blocks the flow of gracefulness.
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Outside of religion, this quid pro quo worldview is most well-known in the Santa Claus myth. Children are taught to fear Santa may not give them gifts unless they deserve them by being good boys and girls. Then, they can go to a church and receive the same message about God. Buddhists and Hindus can toil to undo bad karma and avoid further bad karma. Yet, one can likely not focus on this quid pro quo or karmic cleansing without creating the same self-intoxication that is already the root of their suffering and alienation from Grace.
But what if there is wisdom wherein you see no one is deserving or undeserving? Would this not be liberating?
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Spiritual growth leads us to a place where there is no saint and no sinner. The ego is lost there; it cannot abide it. The ego cannot comprehend Grace and tends to be intolerant of what it cannot understand. The ego wants to be special. Well, what will it do when everyone is special? Or, the same, no one is special?
What happens when we do not see the opposites but simply see? What happens? - love. Love abides in such a state of thoughtlessness, empty of judgmentalness, of criticism. When the mind moves into its oppositional posture, love recedes.
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I, while fulfilling clinical hours for a Master's degree in counseling, counseled a woman suffering from major depression. The mental health facility was the last step before persons would be admitted to the state mental hospital. We were there to provide care, hoping to keep persons from decompensating and going to the hospital. They would arrive daily by bus.
One day, the woman and my sharing turned to forgiveness. She identified as Christian and believed she had to pray to be forgiven. The response given to me at that moment, which I have no recall even thinking of at any time prior, was, "When you pray for forgiveness, you are really praying to receive the forgiveness already given you." The woman's face lit up with joy. The words were liberating for her. That was a moment of Grace.
This sharing with the depressed woman parallels what the Baal Shem Tov said to the wife. The husband was entering into a relationship with the Sacred that from the Sacred's side had always been. He, implied the Baal Shem Tov, had never been lost to God. Likewise, many Buddhists teach to walk the Way not to become enlightened - we already are - but to recognize, or realize, we are enlightened. To be is to be enlightenment itself.
The Baal Shem Tov communicated - it is gift, it is love. We all live in a state of gift, of love. It is just that some know it, others do not.
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When we awaken to our oneness with life as gift, we are left with a challenge. To learn to see others from and in the same Grace. This leads into compassion. We become more graceful. Presence progressively comes to the fore. Person recedes to the background. We feel compassion for people who cannot see the gift. We want all to know Grace is their birthright. We want them to know what they think of themselves and what others think of them is not who they are. They are not the story in the head anymore than the golden Buddha was the clay covering the golden Buddha.
*Brian K. Wilcox, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
