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' There is No-body to be saved'...


CHAPTER 26
Seeing through the Desire for Non-dual Teacherhood

The desire for enlightenment is a trap because as long as the desire for enlightenment is there, enlightenment can never be found because one is still trying to get somewhere in the future. No manner of wonderful spiritual experiences, cosmic unitive experience, or wonderment will release me, as the me still desires enlightenment. What is me but desire? Me trying to get beyond the mind to some goal of enlightenment is just a strategy of the ego. As Adyashanti described about his whole journey, this ego striving is a whole recipe for failurehood, and the sooner, the better!' When the desire for awakening dissolves through failurehood, the ego drops away, and existence reveals itself in this moment.

In my own experience, through absolute hopelessness and total failurehood, the ego dropped away and existence was embraced. I, however, was not prepared for a new set of problems. Through the awakening process, I naturally assumed the Bodhisattva vow, of after awakening helping all sentient beings come to awakening. After a while, though, similar to my desire for awakening, this wanting to help others awaken was a setup for misery as well. Wanting to help other beings find their original nature, is perhaps a noble desire, but it still is a desire. Desire impinges on the moment, as it is a tension of wanting something to happen in the future. Because I want to help people in the future, it is a tension now.

I could see that I was subtly waiting for more beings to show up so I could help them. That subtle waiting is a demand on existence in the moment; it is like a complaint, saying to existence "Where are all the people I want to work with?" I could see that, after a while, I had trapped myself once again with desire—the wanting to help others awaken—because it was a subtle way of saying to exis¬tence this moment is not good enough. I was rejecting this moment for some future preferred moment in which there would be more people for me to work with.

This awareness also made me check closely into some non-dual teachings, for I felt others must have experienced this problem as well. The Buddha's teachings in The Diamond Sutra point to the insight of nobody helping nobodies realize they are nobody:

What do you think, Subhuti, does it occur to the Tathagata, "by me has Dharma been demonstrated"? Whosoever, Subhuti, would say, "the Tathagata has demonstrated Dharma", he would speak falsely, he would misrepresent me by seizing on what is not there. Because not even the least Dharma is there found or got at. Therefore it is called "utmost, right and perfect enlightenment". Furthermore, Subhuti, self-identical is that Dharma, and nothing is therein at variance. Therefore is it called "utmost, right and perfect enlightenment". Self-identical through the absence of a self, a being, a soul, or a person...What do you think, Subhuti, does it occur to a Tathagata, "by me have beings been set free"? Not thus should you see it, Subhuti! And why? There is not any being whom the Tathagata has set free.

Here, the Buddha is basically saying there is nobody to be saved, freedom is everybody's nature. There is nothing to hang onto. The only thing that could be said is that there is an invitation, a reminder offered of what is already everyone's own nature. Nothing for the ego to grab onto.
Similarly, Bodhidharma said, "Buddhas don't save buddhas." There can only be an invitation to realize your own nature, a reminder of who you already are. So, there is not much to grab onto here as to what is going on as it is very much like "selling water down by the river." A "teacher" is just a nobody pointing to what a person already is, another nobody.

For me, I knew this intellectually, but I had to see I was putting myself in suffering again with my inner demand to help people. That desire just made me miserable as it allowed my small brain–mind to get back in the driver's seat and strategize how to pull this off, what to do next? The whole rat race of mind and goal-setting had returned through the back door. When one sees clearly how, once again, one has been seduced by desire and pulled into the wheel of the mind, it just stops all by itself. It is just a complete falling away into being. It sure made me laugh as I realized even a noble desire can be a straight path to suffering.

The even crazier thing is that I was already working with many people on their non-dual journey; I just couldn't totally enjoy it as the mind was saying, more... more... more. It was a relapse back into mind. This made me laugh. It was so ordinary. I am an apparent non-dual person that seems to have to learn his lessons the hard way, through experience. So be it.

The way I look at it these days is that the mind with all of its expectations is dropped moment to moment. Expectations are misery, so cut the root. Whatever happens is what happens, and I will just totally enjoy writing and talking about non-dual being as a gift to existence. I am doing my thing. I drop the demand for the echo back and just surrender to existence and let the energy of
existence dance through me like a hollow bamboo. There is no longer an expectation, as that just puts me in bondage, and I have been through that despair. I am just doing my thing: writing, talking, and facilitating non-dual groups. It is just a sharing of understanding.

I have also realized that I needed to drop the Bodhisattva vow of bringing all beings to nirvana. What I have noticed is that some beings want to have nothing to do with me, so that would be crazy to be attached to bringing them to nirvana. Instead, there is just an openness to work with beings who present themselves in my life, in one way or another. This helps me relax and enjoy totally who I do work with, with no demand to work with others or every-body. It seems that people who want to work with me just show up somehow. They decide they want to work with me, and we go from there. I like the simplicity of it. I like working with people who are desperate and at the end of the line. It only entails a small percent-age of the non-dual population. That is beautiful!

Gary Tzu from Awakening to the Paradox of Darkness

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