A friend asked me how I was feeling about current events. He asked what a mystic sees in all this, and how I walk within this “painful human dynamic.” It’s a good question, and a difficult one to answer with words, because it calls for an account of the absolute while bearing in mind a relative world focused on present change. Here’s what I wrote:
It’s heartbreaking when I see people gripped by fear, aggression, despair, and suffering. It’s uplifting when I see them embrace courage, hope, friendship, and selflessness in the midst of uncertainty. But from a spiritual perspective, what’s going on and the stakes involved are no different now than they have always been. Delusion and ignorance are the source of suffering. When there is great delusion, there is great suffering. That’s nothing new. It’s been going on for a long time.
The mystical view is one of absolute unity, without any division or separation whatsoever. There is nothing but that unity, that limitless One. All phenomena, including one’s own body, one’s mind, one’s thoughts, the world, others, all things and events, all of time and space, appear — dream-like — within that. Behind it and through it always and everywhere is this limitless reality of being. So while great change may erupt around us — whatever it is — it is not other than divine.
I read a piece by Buddhist teacher Alex Kakuyo recently that said “The world is both a land of suffering and a wish-fulfilling jewel.” And that’s a good way of putting it. The relative and the absolute are not separate. So although delusion is the source of suffering, it is this very suffering that turns us toward the truth, puts us on the path, and leads us to that which is beyond all things.
For any individual at any given time, this turning toward the truth may happen in a very small way, like a whisper one barely hears, tries to ignore, or even actively pushes away. But once truly heard, the sacred fire is lit. And this thirst for truth, when followed, leads all to a heaven that is both this very world and beyond it.
Nothing bad happens when we regard all beings with compassion and see their actions in this light. So I pray for all people to hear that whisper, that call to the truth. I pray that whatever suffering they endure shows them the next step on their spiritual journey, and that they may keep walking, all the way to the end, to realize the great love and the great perfection that is always with us.
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