LOOK WITHIN!

The great theme throughout the ages is this---look within.

For years and years I looked outside of myself for the answer to life’s problems. I looked to others for help, especially my friends. I demanded their approval, attention and admiration. Not surprisingly, I lost most of them a few decades ago. I also beseeched a deity I thought was outside of myself for deliverance from my woes. Nothing happened. No, that’s not actually correct. Quite a bit happened. My problems and woes greatly increased in number and intensity.

When Gautama Buddha was on his deathbed he noticed that one of his ten principal disciples was weeping. 'Why are you weeping, Ananda?' Buddha asked. 'Because the light of the world is about to be extinguished and we will be in darkness.' Buddha replied: 'Ananda, be a light unto yourself.'

The same theme is present in Christianity as it also is in the other major religions of the world. Jesus may have said, ‘I am the light of the world’ (cf Jn 8:12) but he is also reported as having said, ‘You [that is, you and me] are the light of the world’ (Mt 5:14). He never claimed anything for himself that he didn’t also claim for you and me. Never forget that. 

Here’s something else Jesus reportedly said: ‘The kingdom of God is within you’ (Lk 17:21). In Matthew's Gospel the expression 'kingdom of heaven' is used (cf 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand' [Mt 3:2]) but it means the same thing as the expression 'kingdom of God'. 'Heaven', as Jesus used the term, refers not to some future place but to an inner and very present potentiality and power. It is within all of us, whether we be Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists or something else altogether. The kingdom of God is like the oak tree which is always present within the acorn---both presence and potentiality. In one of his many parables Jesus used this analogy: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches’ (Mt 13:31-32). In other words, we are talking about the invisible essence of reality. So, when Jesus said that 'your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom’ (Lk 12:32) he was saying that the creative spirit of life (the 'Father') indwells everyone. It is individualized in you as you and in me as me. 

The Japanese swordsman and rōnin Miyamoto Musashi [pictured above], in his wonderful text Go Rin No Sho (The Book of Five Rings), said more-or-less the same thing, albeit in different words and thought forms:

There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Seek nothing outside of yourself.

The great Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius gave us the same piece of wisdom:

Look within; within is the fountain of all good. Such a fountain, where springing waters can never fail, so thou dig deeper and deeper. 

I also like this Sufi saying:

Within your own house swells the treasure of joy, so why do you go begging from door to door?

You see, the theme of 'look within' is truly universal. I think it must be part of the phylogenetic heritage of the human species.

Be a light unto yourself. Look within. The answer to all your problems and woes is within you. More importantly, the power to solve and overcome those problems is also within you. And don’t listen to anyone who says anything to the contrary.

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MINDFULNESS IS TASTING THE STRAWBERRY---EVEN IN THE JAWS OF DEATH

Seize the moment! How often we hear those words, yet how rarely do we heed them.

Here’s a Zen kōan that’s all about the importance of seizing the moment. It’s said to be a parable told by the Buddha:

A man travelling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, the man caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

This is a very powerful story. Here’s this man, facing imminent and certain death---and death in a most unpleasant manner---and what does he do? He plucks and eats a strawberry. And how sweet that strawberry tasted!

Now, this is a parable. It has an ‘inner’ meaning, so to speak. The strawberry represents the present moment which before we know it becomes the past. The tiger above the man is birth, and the tiger below is the man’s imminent death—and our death as well. And what of the mice some of which are black and the others white? As I see it, they represent our days on this planet. Some days are good (‘white’) while others are, well, terrible (‘black’). Remember the words of Omar Khayyám [pictured below]? ‘Tis all a Chequer-board of nights and days.' Black or white, the mice symbolise the passage of our days while we are here on earth. Sooner or later the mice will gnaw through the vine of our life's breath and then ... death. Yes, life is damn short, even if many of us are living longer than in years past. Here are some more lines from Omar Khayyám:

Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain — This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

 

Mindfulness is living with awareness, and being fully and consciously present, from one moment to the next. Life is all the more precious by reason of the fact that we will ultimately lose it. ‘Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it — every, every minute?’, asks the dead Emily in Thornton Wilder’s wonderful play Our Town. Sadly, most of us don’t. Most of us live mindlessly. We don’t really live. We don’t even exist---we subsist. In the words of Thoreau, we ‘lead lives of quiet desperation,’ and go the grave not having ever known the joy of living with choiceless awareness of the present moment.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating hedonism. Not at all. I am simply asserting that living mindfully is better than the alternative. Facing certain and imminent death our hero in the parable continues to live mindfully. He looks. He observes. He tastes. In similar circumstances I suspect that most of us would not even see the strawberry, and if we did few of us would have any interest in eating it. ‘How can I think of eating at a time like this?’, I hear myself saying.

Seize the moment ... before it’s too late.

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