BLOW OUT THAT CANDLE OF YOURS

‘A light to oneself! And this light cannot be given by another, nor can you light it at the candle of another. If you light it at the candle of another it is just a candle, it can be blown out. But whereas if we could find out what it means to be a light to oneself then that very investigation of it is partly meditation.’ – J. Krishnamurti.

Tokusan, a scholar of Buddhism of some renown, was studying Zen under the teacher Ryutan. One night he came to Ryutan and asked many questions. The teacher said: ‘The night is getting old. Why don't you retire?’

So Tokusan bowed and opened the screen to go out, observing: ‘It is very dark outside.’

Ryutan offered Tokusan a lighted candle to find his way. Just as Tokusan received it, Ryutan blew the candle out. At that exact moment the mind of Tokusan was opened. In other words, he experienced enlightenment. That is, he woke up, and for the very first time he saw things as they really are. He came to know truth.

Tokusan knew much. He had studied long and hard. Yet, in that ever-so-brief moment of enlightenment in the form of a direct, immediate and intuitive experience of truth, Tokusan came to see that everything that he had learned in books and by listening to others had done him no good at all. 

It is said that the next day Tokusan burned all his books, scholarly notes and commentaries. He declared, ‘In comparison to this awareness, all the most profound teachings are like a single hair in vast space. However deep the complicated knowledge of the world, compared to this enlightenment it is like one drop of water in the ocean.’

Tokusan realized his mistake. He had been seeking wisdom ‘without’ instead of ‘within.’

We need no candle or lamp to guide our path except that inner light that says to us, if we will but listen attentively and quietly, ‘This is the way … .’ 

The 'way' is the way things actually are, the way things unfold from one moment to the next. That is truth, also known as reality, also known as life. It is something to be perceived ... from moment to moment. It is not something to be attained or provided by some third person however meritorious he or she may be. Our task is simply to observe with choiceless, silent, and timeless awareness, that is, to 'stay awake' at all times. We rely far too much on the advice and supposed wisdom or knowledge of others, and on so-called ‘book knowledge.’ We buy self-help books and attend self-improvement courses, we consult gurus and priests, and we follow ‘holy ones’ or just plain others, but we fail to do the one thing---the only thing---that can lead us through and out of the darkness. Yes, we fail to … look within.

One of the many things I like about Buddhism is that its essential ‘message’ is that we must be our own teacher, saviour, and disciple. No one outside of us can save us from ourselves. No one can find truth for us. No one---no earthly person, god, or demi-god---can be truth for us. Truth just is, and our task is to see things as they really are as they unfold unceasingly from one moment to the next. That is why truth is dynamic and not static. It is forever new and fresh. There is no 'way' or 'path' to truth, because truth just is, and it's all around us and within us. 

That is why truth can never be set in concrete in the form of creeds, articles and confessions of faith, formulae, ideologies, and other such nonsense (although many have done just that). All such things are fabrications of fragmented thought, that is, conditioning, which is the past. At best, they are only purported representations of truth, and many aren't even that good. J. Krishnamurti [pictured right], who sought no disciples or followers, expressed it this way:

I cannot lead you to truth, nor can anyone else; you have to discover it every moment of the day as you are living. It is to be found when you are walking in the street or riding in a tramcar, when you are quarreling with your wife or husband, when you are sitting alone or looking at the stars. When you know what is right meditation, then you will find out what is true; but a mind that is prepared, so-called educated, that is conditioned to believe or not to believe … such a mind will never discover what is true, though it may search for a thousand years.

The timeless light of awareness shines from within, so let that light shine. Do not depend upon any light shining from without to guide you through life. As the Buddha said, 'Be a light unto yourself.'

So, blow out that candle of yours---now!

MINDFULNESS AND THE GETTING OF WISDOM

In the third chapter of the Epistle of James we are told a number of important things about the nature of 'wisdom' (calligraphed left).

First, we are told that wisdom and meekness are very much associated. Yes, meekness. The word meekness refers, not to timidity, mildness or blandness, but to being in a right relation to God – or, if you wish, Life itself – and one’s fellow human beings, and to being disciplined as regards one’s intellect, emotions and will.

Secondly, we are told that wisdom and such discordant and unholy things as envy and strife, which only serve to divide – as opposed to unite – people, are antipathetic (that is, incapable of living in harmony with each other).

Thirdly, we are told that wisdom comes ‘from above’ – meaning, of course, not literally from ‘above’ or ‘out there’, but from the ‘source’ of all life, power and goodness (if you like, ‘God’).

Fourthly, we are told that wisdom manifests itself as purity, peacefulness, gentleness, easygoingness, mercy, impartiality and lack of hypocrisy – the 'fruit' (to use a Biblical metaphor) of our mindfulness practice.

Now, we are told in the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke that Jesus ‘grew … filled with wisdom’ and that he ‘increased in wisdom and statue and in favour with God and man’. Note that important connection between wisdom and our relationships with God (as we understand God) and other fellow humans. The truly wise person is a grounded and harmonious person, someone who is disciplined, someone who is non-resistant, that is, does not have a hostile or resistant spirit – yes, what the Bible refers to as a ‘meek’ person.

We all know of people who are knowledgeable in this or that but are far from being wise. The world is full of educated idiots, and I fear that for much of my life I have been one of them ... with lots of degrees, diplomas and certificates on the wall to make it ‘official’!

Yes, we all know that 'knowledge', in the sense of intellectual or book knowledge, is not the same thing as 'wisdom'. Wisdom is knowledge of, and not just about, life which is acquired from the experience of life itself – the ‘wisdom of the years’, so to speak. Wisdom is not so much knowledge as the understanding of knowledge. However, there is another 'kind' of wisdom, which is real wisdom. True ‘spiritual’ wisdom is rooted in, and otherwise derived from, a relationship with the 'Ground of Being' – the one Power and Presence active in the universe and in our lives – the very Livingness of Life itself!

Historian and philosopher Will Durant once wrote, ‘Ideally, wisdom is total perspective - seeing an object, event, or idea in all its pertinent relationships.’ Krishnamurti said as much, when he said, 'In the acknowledgement of what is, there is the cessation of all conflict.' Krishnamurti would always speak of the importance of seeing things as they really are - life as it really is - without judgment, without condemnation, without any interpretation, explanation or mediation of any kind - choiceless awareness, he called it. That is mindfulness ... and wisdom.

I mentioned the word 'discipline' above. Krishnmaurti often spoke of the importance of discipline, linking it with the notions of 'freedom' and 'intelligence' (cf wisdom). Here is a short YouTube video in which Krishnamurti refers to discipline as 'the act of learning all the time':

The Apostle Paul wrote, ‘Whatever is true, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything is worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things’ (Phil 4:8).

Now, that, also, is wisdom.

Acknowledgment is made, and gratitude is expressed,
to the Krishnamurti Foundation of America, Ojai, California, USA.

OMAR KHAYYAM AND LIVING MINDFULLY

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám (for copies, click here) is said to be one of the ten best known poems in the world. At any rate it is doubtful whether any other piece of Oriental literature has been as widely read, and as much loved, in the Western world as The Rubaiyat.

When I was growing up as a kind we had two copies of The Rubaiyat in our home – one which had been my late mother’s (bought, I think, before her marriage to my father), and one which was my late father’s (similarly bought before their marriage). Nothing was ever thrown out in our household. My wife would say, “Nothing has changed there, unfortunately.”

I still have my mother’s copy of The Rubaiyat (see copy of its cover below) but my Dad gave his copy away to a very dear friend of his - a devout Catholic - not long before his (Dad’s) death, with the remark, “This book makes more sense to me than what your Church teaches.”

My father was not a formally religious man, but he was the most honest person, and one of the wisest, I’ve ever known. He often said that there was more wisdom in The Rubaiyat than in The Bible. I won’t go into that. All I’ll say is this ... there is, in my view, much less that is culture-bound, and thus irrelevant to our times, in The Rubaiyat than in The Bible.

The question of whether or not the Persian poet and astronomer Omar Khayyam (pictured below) was a Sufi mystic is a hotly contested issue. My view is that of Edward J FitzGerald, The Rubaiyat’s most famous English translator and interpreter, who wrote: “No doubt many of these Quatrains seem unaccountable unless mystically interpreted; but many more as unaccountable unless literally. Were the Wine spiritual, for instance, how wash the Body with it when dead? Why make cups of the dead clay to be filled with—‘La Divinité’ by some succeeding Mystic?”

I don’t think that Khayyám was either a Sufi mystic or a promoter of Epicurean hedonism. To me, he was an early exponent of, and apologist for, Mindfulness and, in particular, the practice of mindful living, that is, living mindfully and consciously in the present moment - in other words, simply being aware of the fact that each moment spent wisely, and with awareness, is to live in the now, and to be truly present in and fully engaged in the moment. Take, for example, this well-known quatrain:

The caravan of life shall always pass
Beware that is fresh as sweet young grass
Let’s not worry about what tomorrow will amass
Fill my cup again, this night will pass, alas.

Note those words ... “fresh as sweet young grass”. You can almost smell the grass, yet how ephemeral it is. Then we have this:

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring

The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:

The Bird of Time has but a little way

To fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

The bird is “on the Wing”. Watch it fly away ... it will, of course! Further, as is written in another quatrain, “The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.” Observe them both, without judgment, condemnation or fear, for is it not the case that ...

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

So, what are we to do? How are we to live? Here, in my view, is some good advice:

Look to the Rose that blows about us—"Lo,

Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow:

At once the silken Tassel of my Purse

Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."

Living mindfully means that we accept the fact that everything is in the process of becoming a dissolution ... yes, everything is in a state of flux. All is transitory and will eventually vanish from view. So, as the American Unitarian Universalist minister and former head of Amnesty International, Dr William Schulz, points out, “the paradox of life is to love it all the more even though we ultimately lose it.”

That is what makes this present moment so very special. So let us engage with it ... with a whole-body-and-mind awareness. When we do that, and interfere with nothing, strangely our minds become free from all limitations, fetters and bonds.

So, in the words of Omar Khayyám, "Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life."

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