The following dialogue was excerpted from an ongoing communication with a friend in Asheville wherein we joust back and forth on any number of topics. For clarity I offer it with my friends comments highlighted and MY REPLYs noted as such.
I think a major difficulty in accepting that Nirvana is here and now is that if one takes this seriously, one is likely to respond: “Yikes! You mean this is it? There ain't nuthin' else? What a disappointment!” I read someone write that spiritual practice represents a mental sickness and the role of the teacher is to show the student that his/her practice is useless and the only thing keeping the student from enlightenment is the student's very thinking that there is such a thing as enlightenment.
MY REPLY: I am in 100% agreement that this is a situation that arises quite often. It doesn’t mean that one ceases to practice, but rather that they realize that their grasping after an end result, making it something “out there,” only causes them to miss the experience itself.
I’m fairly sure I wrote this sometime in the past but my realization about this issue was when I was driving down a long stretch of highway in which there was no street-illumination, and the distance I was traveling consisted of many long, gradual curves. It was late at night and I could see the reflection of city lights rising up from the horizon against the dark sky. At some point I realized that if I maintained my sight on the lights along my circuitous path, I would surely find myself careening off the highway into a tree or at least some remote part of the countryside. That I needed to keep my eye on the road itself in order to safely achieve my goal, became apparent. Luckily this experience was not lost in relation to other parts of my life.
The manner in which the Master expressed his teaching was extreme and lends itself to rejection, but the truth remains. If I ignore the present and focus on my goal at the expense of the present, moment to moment process, I am likely to forever miss the desired end.
That's one valid point of view though it sounds a little cynical to me.
MY REPLY: I don’t think it is cynical at all. It speaks to the fact that if I am so intent on arriving at some pre-ordained state or place, I will miss the process or steps that actually lead me there, as expressed in “to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive and the true success is in the labor.” – Robert L Stevenson.
The reason this is true in Bob-ism, is that what Nirvana is, is a state of mind - or "be-ing" if you will - a be-ing that is manifested here and now, not there and then. It is one of the beautiful, subtle truths that are pointed to in the seemingly arcane and paradoxical teachings in Zen.
That Nirvana is here and now: one reads that from time to time. To me it sounds a little like the Christians who say that Heaven is here; we just have to open our eyes.
MY REPLY: I believe that those two statements are identical even though they are from such dissimilar ideologies. They mean the exact same thing to me.
Or that all you need to do to be saved is to accept that you're saved.
MY REPLY:Well, if we are able to see that what we understand as our life arises from our attitudes, and thoughts about it, then it’s ontologically reasonable. If you believe you are saved, since there is no overt proof of such an assertion being possible (a matter of faith), then your believing trumps all.
They all have the same logic and maybe they're all true.
MY REPLY: I’m not sure about what you mean by “we all have the same logic?” If that were true we wouldn’t argue with the logic some people use to explain those ideas we determine to be in opposition to our own???
How can Nirvana be here and now and also not be here and now?
MY REPLY: If nirvana is not interpreted as a static location outside the mind, but rather a posture, here and now - resulting from the extinction of the root cause of whatever our dis-ease may be (say, grasping-after or non-acceptance) - we will have an opportunity to see clearly the path to liberation in this life.
My statement implies that the goal, in this case Nirvana or Heaven, is not here for me in this moment since I am being told to do something in order for it to be manifested at some point. And if we remember that there is no tomorrow but rather just Now, then arriving at the place where Nirvana/Heavens reward arises in my life, it too will be Now. So it is achievable in the here and now, and at the same time I do not have it here and now because I am in the process of achieving it. When the object is found, the search ends, and this will always be Now. The way this is understood in Bob-ism is as follows.
If we are able to understand Nirvana/Heaven as a new way of being-in-the-world, wherein we embrace or absorb the impact of the constant flow of data upon our senses with emotional and intellectual equanimity (the distinguishing characteristic of nirvana), we will be without judgment (attraction or aversion) and our suffering/dissatisfaction will be extinguished (to the limited degree possible for a physical being).
This equanimity requires us to see deeply into the connection between four very important truths about our existence - Impermanence, Emptiness, No-self, and Dependent-Arising - and how they are manifested in our everyday life. Or in the words of Christmas Humphreys in his book, A Western Approach to Zen, (pg.182), “Zen does not deliver us from the conditions of manifestation; it enables us to deal with them efficiently."
Nirvana, samsara, enlightenment – all these are illusions created by our dualistic mental processes. They are illusions in the sense that there is no separate, identifiable essence inherent in them (unless one chooses to identify this essence as their referents). They are as “fingers pointing to the moon” – thoughts or ideas that represent something, and in this case, a process; a path out of the woods. “Posture is everything.” - Japanese Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki.
So I think this explains what seems to be an unacceptable paradox. Nirvana or enlightenment are not places, so in that sense they don’t exist, they are illusory notions. However, at the same time they are achievable postures with which we embrace the ever-changing onslaught of experiences that assail us as we go through our lives in each present moment. In doing so, we find that an emotional and intellectual “middle ground” can be achieved in the Now. And when we reach this middle ground and it becomes our of way of relating to the world as presented to us, we will no longer be thinking, feeling, and acting from the previous perspective. Thus I hear the sages advice to “be the change you want to see in the world, and your world will change.”
And in order to comment on this difference or change, we will have to step out of the present perspective in order to objectify it. They can now be seen as two separate realms, realities, or whatever term suits one’s way of ordering one’s experiences. But the entire process is achieved in this present lifetime.
Now this is just the tip of the iceberg, but suffice it to say that it is achieved in the “here and now.” One must not get caught in the trap of thinking that by “here and now,” one should expect to have an instantaneous liberation. The reference to here and now is intended to counter the idea of after-life acquisition and to help us stay focused on this existence, and to work diligently.
Just as when tomorrow comes it will always be here and now, today - so it is not an “is that all there is” situation as you alluded to earlier. But rather, it is a journey wherein one changes gradually as a result of the effort put forth until one suddenly realizes there are changes that he/she didn’t notice as their practice proceeded. It is just another answer to the previously noted comments by teachers about not focusing on some idea or evaluative understanding of enlightenment or nirvana or heaven, but to just practice with one’s nose firmly entrenched in the present.
What are we really meaning here? That one “enters” Nirvana if one just drops all one's hang-ups and anxieties?
MY REPLY: First, the term "enter" is misleading as you may have surmised by what I’ve suggested above. There is no need to consider entering something that is always present. In this case it presents as a “possibility,” if one lives through an appropriate practice.
And second, if one always thinks in simple terms likes hang-ups and anxieties instead of focusing on the actual work to be done involving a deeper understanding of Impermanence, No-self, Emptiness, and Contingent-Arising as they specifically relate to one’s life - as well as daily experiences wherein we attempt to nurture the ideas of Compassion and Tolerance, and attempt to become more experientially aware of our own Grasping, Aversion, Judging, Anger, and Fear (just a cursory list) - it will all remain rhetorical. To focus on terms like “hang-ups” and “anxieties,” while they are colloquially acceptable, they are also dismissive of the depth and value of what is pointed to with the use of the terms mentioned above.
