I know I belong here on earth But I long to be lifted up My heart does not rhyme The rhythm of my mind What is life worth living If you can't dance to anything? Night after night Oh, I long to be alright
I want to feel it To feel it What the people talk about How do you find it So easy? And all I can is ask But whatever you say it's never right So I won't do that (You cannot make me feel a thing) And wherever I go, I'm always blind So I lose my track (You cannot make me feel alright)
How I hunger for touch How could you say that I love too much? I don't want to fight I just want to feel alright What is life worth living If you don't bleed for anything? Night after night Oh, I long to be alright
I want to feel it To feel it What the people talk about How do you find it So easy? And all I can is ask But whatever you say it's never right So I won't do that (You cannot make me feel a thing) And wherever I go I'm always blind So I lose my track (You cannot make me feel alright)
I love it I believe I love it I believe I love it Nobody can make Me feel something more I believe I love it I believe I love it Nobody can make Me feel
I don't want to fight I just want to feel alright I don't want to fight I just want to feel alright I don't want to fight I just want to feel alright
What is life worth living If you don't dance to anything? Night after night Oh, I long to feel alright
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If you speak delusions, everything becomes a delusion; If you speak the truth, everything becomes the truth.
Outside the truth there is no delusion, But outside delusion there is no special truth.
Followers of Buddha's Way! Why do you so earnestly seek the truth in distant places? Look for delusion and truth in the bottom of your own hearts.
*John Stevens. Translator. One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan.
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Ryokan (Japenese Zen Buddhist monk-hermit, poet; b. 1758) speaks of the place to find truth or delusion. All untruth is delusion, regardless of how well-received, traditional, or attributed to a holy book, a god, or a person of high esteem.
We have all been socialized so into delusion that it is often difficult to see the rope is a snake. This delusional thinking is like concluding the ocean ends at the horizon or viewing a movie thinking we are watching reality, not sitting outside viewing projections on a screen. The movie is a reality: a delusional one. Have you driven down the road on a sunny highway and seen the water-mirage ahead receding as you drive onward?
How often do you stop and ask, "Is that so?" A challenge is to see through societally induced fantasy. To do so, we need a questioning mind - and more: a heart with depths, says Ryokan. And being Buddhist, Ryokan meant more than the emotional faculty Westerners often refer to. We can render "heart" as our most inward inwardness. We can know it as it knows us, but we cannot define it.
One way we get caught in delusional thinking, what we could call spiritual and common, is not looking into what Ryokan refers to as "the bottom of your own hearts." So, there is depth to this look, and it takes time, quiet, and tolerance for inwardness to discern this inner voice. The mind must descend into this heart. The mind may resist, trying to hold on to its pilot status. Meditation is a means of training the mind to descend into the heart.
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This inner voice is more a subtle feeling than a voice. Since it is slight, we need space and relaxation to sense it. We rarely, if ever, will sense the voice as a jolt. Theistically speaking - god does not often shout.
For the mind to descend into the heart depths, we need space. Space means room within for wisdom to arise. We cannot force the mind to descend, and we cannot compel wisdom to arise.
* * *
Why the space? This wisdom is in-sight, while we are pulled outward constantly to out-sight. For this insight to happen, we must turn off craving for mental and physical stimulation from sources outside ourselves. We cannot listen well and constantly subject ourselves to stimulation of our body-and-mind.
Also, to listen, we need to prioritize the inner voice over the voices of others. Each one of us has our own capacity to see for ourselves. Physically, we see with our own eyes. We cannot see through another's eyes. Likewise, with insight. We can, and need to, listen to others offering us their thoughts. Yet, we can mute the authority of the inner voice by giving too much credence to outside voices.
No one can listen for you. So, while listening to others, you need a space to retreat and be still. What is spirit saying to me? While subtle, there is a directness to that. At the same time, this directness is intangible and non-linear - contrary to our usual modes of perception.
All detours gone, all byways behind. Fuzzy yet clear. The word appears as mind-mist disappears.
* * *
To recieve wisdom-arising, we need to be courageous. We might need to rediscover the courage to drop the mind-and-body inwardly. This movement is in-scape, when we may be used to es-cape. Do we realize how easily we escape from ourselves as part of a culture or sub-culture of escape? By serving as a pastor for many years and attending church worship since childhood, I concluded, for example, that the church was one of the best - if not the best - places to escape god. That is like saying the best place to hide from the devil would be in hell. We can spiritualize escape, which may be as deceiving as a glaringly profane one. Truth is neither spiritual or not spiritual, however: truth is truth. Delusion is delusion.
Many have forgotten this inwardness of listening, for we have stilled the inwardness. Almost nothing in modern societies encourages this inward openness and sensitivity. We have relied on so-called common sense; we have so busied ourselves, we have dulled and drowned out solitude. Being still and genuinely opening ourselves to what we sense inwardly can be daunting. Still, in itself, it is the way of freedom. With this, we cease simply following habitual thought. We must encourage ourselves in this journey to the heart depths, even when no one else does.
This newness of listening and acting is like asking why we are still walking in the same footprints simply because they are there and you can fit your feet in them. A freshness enters. Groupthink is really about everyone deciding to walk in the same footprints. There is zero originality to that. You can walk and make your own footprints.
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If we follow untruth, Ryokan reminds us, that delusion is from the bottom of our own heart. So, when we go to the heart depths, we need to sort out truth from untruth. - Both are found there. Both truth and delusion arise from the same source. - This process is called discernment. "To discern" is from the Latin dis - "off, away" + cernere "distinguish, separate, sift" (from a root krei - "to sieve").
Spiritual wisdom entails insight arising from the sifting of truth from untruth. And when we refer to "spiritual discernment," we place the accent not on thinking something through but on allowing insight to surface from the space within ourselves. We utilize what we need to prepare for this insight, and then, we step aside, so to speak, and see what arises after our conscious sifting. There is a shifting more subtle than our intelligence. Our limited intelligence is a spark of boundless Intelligence.
* * *
Hence, with Ryokan, we can logically ask, "Why seek in distant places?" Anything outside the heart space is a distant place. The near space is the heart depths. As we familiarize ourselves with that space, we find ourselves more attuned to it, more likely to go there, be still, and listen. We find the heart space a welcome and helpful refuge. And, with this, spontaneous insight begins to arise amid our usual daily activities. Our heart is attuned to Life; we receive insight sooner and need less space of withdrawal to do so.
