"Things are not what they seem; nor are they otherwise." That sentence has baffled me for years. That's why I like it. I believe I have finally figured it out. It means that things both are and are not what they seem.  It's not one or the other but both. Simple.

‘That which you are seeking is causing you to seek.’

‘That which you are seeking is causing you to seek.’

I read that in the writings of Cheri Huber years ago and it has baffled me until now. I believe it means the pursuit of the self actually ‘creates’ the self. The self creates the thought or illusion of the self, the conviction that if there is seeking there is something that will be found. But there is nothing to be found because the self doesn't exist. There’s just futile seeking. Of course the ‘self’ doesn’t ‘create’ itself, really, but it does create the illusion that it exists. It creates a chimera which it pursues, to no avail. What I am seeking doesn’t exist and that’s why I can’t find it. It’s actually merely a figment of my imagination.

Another way of putting this is that the self is dreaming itself. And dreams are not real, as we all know. Usually, we think of there being a dreamer and a dream. The dreamer creates the dream. But it's still a dream. The self creates a self but it still does not exist - it's a dream.

Hamlet’s famous soliloquy ‘To be or not to be…’ presents a false choice. From the point of view of the self being and non-being are issues. But from the point of view of not-self they are not.

I also see the quote, ‘That which you are seeking is causing you to seek’ is equivalent in meaning to “Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise.”

To understand ‘Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise’ you first have to ask: how do things seem? Well, you can look everywhere (which is what the self constantly does) and you will not find a self anywhere. If I am pursuing something and can’t find it the logical conclusion would be that it’s not there. So, it would seem there is no self. But the phrase says: ‘things are not what they seem’. So if it seems there is not a self and you negate that statement you end up with asserting there is a self. But then you have deal with the rest of the phrase: ‘..nor are they otherwise.’ Which, as I see it, comes down to: first there is not-self, then there is self, then there is not-self.

Does Suffering Exist?

Buddhist teachers say that unless one understands the First Noble Truth (the Truth of Suffering) one cannot understand anything else about Buddhism. When one acknowledges that suffering exists then one can proceed on the Buddhist path. I guess suffering is a tool for awakening – not ‘enlightenment’ awakening but awakening to the truth that one suffers and thereby motivating one to seek out the cause(s) of suffering and an end to suffering. But Buddhism also teaches that the self does not exist and is an illusion. The way I see it suffering brings the self into sharp focus and puts the self under scrutiny. Eventually, one accepts that the self does not exist and one is therefore freed from suffering. So if there is a connection between self and suffering, and the self does not actually exist, then isn’t it logical to say that suffering does not exist? So what is the real meaning of the First Noble Truth? It would seem that the Buddha is lying when he says, ‘Suffering exists.” Because, really, it doesn’t. Interesting.

The Fall 201 issue of Buddhadharma has a column called Ask the Teacher and the question was: Do buddhas think? I was a bit taken aback by the stupidity of this question and surprised that the teachers even deigned to answer it. The question is totally speculative, and therefore worthless. Didn't the Buddha teach about things that are irrelevant to one's practice? (The parable of the man who is shot by a poisoned arrow and wants to know everything about it while proceeding to die from the poison.) The teachers should have either refused to answer the question or just laughed and given funny answers. Since these teachers were answering the question it seemed they were implying they were buddhas. All of the teachers I have known have always demurred when asked whether they are enlightened, but if folks want to claim they're buddhas, who am I to argue? This question reminded me of the famous Zen question, "Does a dog have Buddha nature?" to which the only honest answers are: "How the hell should I know, I'm not a dog." or "Go ask a dog."

There is one universal myth that nearly every person on this planet believes, regardless of all other circumstances of their lives. It is the myth that "I am."

We Are the Way

The Gospels tell us that Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the father except through me.” (John 14:6.) Christians interpret this as meaning that Jesus is the only path to salvation and all other religions are not paths to salvation. The Christians interpret the passage as they do because they believe Jesus is God or the Son of God, and is therefore speaking as God – they believe the “I” he mentions is the Diety. I think the Christians are wrong. I don’t think he was God and I don’t think he really said that.

I think what he actually said was only: “I am the way.” I think he was speaking not as God but as the Son of Man, a term by which he often referred to himself. I interpret 'Son of Man' as meaning ‘every-(wo)man.’ In other words, he was not speaking as God but as one of us.

The way he refers to is the Dao, as in Dao-De-Ching. That Dao. THE WAY. (Dao: Chinese: “way,” “road,” “path,” “course,” “speech,” or “method”.) I think he was telling us that he is the way, you are the way, she is the way, everything and everyone is the way, etc. The Way is what exists and what changes. The people reading this statement long after he was gone and when he was already being worshiped as a God didn’t comprehend his meaning so they added, “…Nobody comes to the father except through me.” They were wrong to add this. I do, however, believe he could have said, “…the truth and the life.” But he meant that the Way was the truth and the life and he also was insofar as he was part of the Way as are we all. We are all the Way, the Truth and the Life. That’s what he was telling us.

The full quote (John 12:4-6) is: “And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

See what I mean about the Way? Thomas wasn’t asking about God. He was asking about the Way. Jesus implies that we all already know the way. This is because we are all the way.That was his message.

May the Way be with you.

I was reading the latest issue of Buddhadharma and a phrase jumped out at me. It was part of an article on enlightenment. The phrase was “personal enlightenment.” I reacted very strongly to this phrase. As I understand it, “personal enlightenment” is impossible. If enlightenment is anything it is the realization that the “person” does not exist, that personhood is a dream. There is no “person” to achieve enlightenment. I thought Buddhists knew this. I read it years ago in the phrase, “Nothing to attain and no one to attain it.” I don’t know where that quote is from.

I think the problem is that we in the West use the word “enlightenment” differently that people in the East, where Buddhism comes from. Our European period of Enlightenment was the dawn of a new era of rational thinking as opposed to religious or superstitious thinking. Thus, for us, enlightenment is related to thinking, and thinking is something each person does. So the idea of “personal enlightenment” is a result of Western misunderstanding.

I prefer Karen Armstrong’s assertion that enlightenment is is an awakening into compassion. It’s an unshakeable affirmation (a transformation) of the end of ‘me’ and the dawn of ‘we’ so strong that you cannot go back to ‘me’ ever again. So it cannot be personal. It transcends the personal and becomes universal.