(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding
We say I did this I did that I started this I started that
You did, you started what others did, started
So so true 'Nothing begins with you'
The vastness of the universe can feel frightening. After all, it shows us instantly how insignificant our individual lives are [yes, and how significant]. [And we] ... lean into the vastness, ... [And] love is what we discover as we surrender into the great play of what is.
*James Ishmael Ford. The Intimate Way of Zen: Effort, Surrender, and Awakening on the Spiritual Journey.
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Opening a book I much enjoyed months ago, Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, I read the words, "Nothing begins with us." Rubin begins his chapter "Collaboration" with those words.
"Collaboration" ... literally, "to work with." Hence, Buddhists teach everything arises together. So, nothing is a beginning. Possibly, it would be logical to say, "Every beginning is every beginning."
Now, God has been called the Uncaused Cause. Uncaused Cause... well, that is interesting. Saying that sounds like someone chewing on rusty nails. Anyway, apparently, God would need no colloboration to get the universe up and going. And God would be where something begins. We can, however, surmise there is some non-something underlying all the non-beginnings, call that God or something else - but please, not uncaused Cause. Thanks! But since we cannot say anything that that is, even as we cannot say what anything is, I prefer to avoid that subject - at least for today.
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Rubin writes an odd book. Wonderfully odd! He integrates writing with living. Or, better, he sees they need no integration. He could have titled the book The Way to Write and Live are the Same.
So, to be a good writer, one cannot part the two apart. Writer cannot be here or there, an island to itself. Nor with all apparent parts of one's life. Parts are parts, for they are not apart.
You can treat your life as parts apart - but does that work well? Can you make a candle sound "Moo!" or "Meow"?
So, really, nothing is original with anyone. That is great! As the saying goes, we all stand on the shoulders of others. Due to the good others have done and do, we can, too.
This awareness leads to humbleness and gratitude. We can, for example, integrate into our daily spiritual practice gratitude for all those ancestors - spiritually and genetically - who still live through us, and we through them. This practice has enriched my own relationship with Spirit.
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At age 64, I only recently was awakened to gratitude for the people in my home church, back in the 60s and 70s. Love arose for each of them, most, if not all, passed on. I appreciate they provided a faith home for me and loved me in those formative years. Would I be writing today without their having been in my life? Would I be where I am spiritually all these decades later without the love and support that faith community provided me?
In some sense, those spiritual ancestors live through me. I cannot say that sense. But it is true, nevertheless. Buddhism is correct in saying no-self. In a way, we are all-selves, which is still to say a no-self. Or as the Buddha said in a scripture, we are neither a self nor a no-self (The Lakavatara Sutra).
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I leave you with some questions. "When did what I am writing now begin?" And, "Who is writing it?" Or, "Who is breathing - really - when you breathe?" And, "Who has ever baked a cake, when the ingredients never began there, and in fact, one cannot say they ever began anywhere?" And, "Can you find your mind?" For the last, if so, please show it to someone else.
I invite you to go back and read slowly James Ishamel Ford's words and contemplate them in light of this writing for today.
