~ The Spiritual Journey (1) ~
"We had thought that we were human beings making a spiritual journey;
but it may be truer to say that we are spiritual beings making a human journey."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
but it may be truer to say that we are spiritual beings making a human journey."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The spiritual journey is often viewed as climbing a mountain, in which human beings leave behind their desires, fears, and imperfections and ascend to become virtuous and holy. But one of the problems with this metaphor is that it assumes that there is something inherently bad or flawed about human beings that needs to be conquered or gotten rid of somehow. That we need to transcend our imperfections and become perfect.
But what if saw the spiritual journey the other way around? What if we saw it as a journey downwards to get to know ourselves, including all those unwanted and unacknowledged parts? Instead of trying to get rid of what we believe to be bad or flawed about ourselves, what if we got curious about it? What if we welcomed all the parts of ourselves into awareness, especially the yucky ones we don't like?
Rumi’s poem The Guest House describes this well:
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
The downward path is also a Buddhist path. On it, practitioners dive deep and get to know their thoughts and emotions - whether they are pleasant or not. We become more familiar with our fears, anger, and desires so they can be understood and transformed by our love and compassion. The Buddha often said that he taught one thing – suffering and the end of suffering. Some two and half thousand years later, Carl Jung said something similar “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
Unlike many other faith traditions, Buddhism is based on the notion that human beings are basically good rather than fundamentally bad, and that our true nature is characterized by positive qualities such as openness, intelligence and compassion. This is not to say that we don’t have emotional baggage but it is to say that it is superficial and can be removed.
There’s a true story about a clay statue of the Buddha that illustrates this very nicely. In 1957 a monastery in Thailand was being relocated. One day, the monks were moving a giant clay Buddha when one of them noticed a large crack in the clay. On closer investigation he saw there was a golden light emanating from the crack. The monk used a hammer and a chisel to chip away at the clay exterior until he revealed that the statue was in fact made of solid gold.
Historians now believe the golden statue had been covered with clay by Thai monks several hundred years earlier to protect it from an attack by the Burmese army. In the attack, all the monks had been killed and the hidden Golden Buddha had been forgotten.
So perhaps we have piled layer upon layer of clay over our own basic goodness, in an attempt to protect it. Some layers of clay are of our own making – our own limited thinking and our unconscious conditioning. Other layers get added by our families and social conditioning. Eventually, we are so covered with clay that we forget that the Golden Buddha is there inside us all the time.
In closing, I invite you to consider that your basic nature is golden, even if it is covered over with some clay. And that perhaps we can remove the clay by getting to know it better and embracing it with the love and compassion that is our birthright.
Thank you.
But what if saw the spiritual journey the other way around? What if we saw it as a journey downwards to get to know ourselves, including all those unwanted and unacknowledged parts? Instead of trying to get rid of what we believe to be bad or flawed about ourselves, what if we got curious about it? What if we welcomed all the parts of ourselves into awareness, especially the yucky ones we don't like?
Rumi’s poem The Guest House describes this well:
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
The downward path is also a Buddhist path. On it, practitioners dive deep and get to know their thoughts and emotions - whether they are pleasant or not. We become more familiar with our fears, anger, and desires so they can be understood and transformed by our love and compassion. The Buddha often said that he taught one thing – suffering and the end of suffering. Some two and half thousand years later, Carl Jung said something similar “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
Unlike many other faith traditions, Buddhism is based on the notion that human beings are basically good rather than fundamentally bad, and that our true nature is characterized by positive qualities such as openness, intelligence and compassion. This is not to say that we don’t have emotional baggage but it is to say that it is superficial and can be removed.
There’s a true story about a clay statue of the Buddha that illustrates this very nicely. In 1957 a monastery in Thailand was being relocated. One day, the monks were moving a giant clay Buddha when one of them noticed a large crack in the clay. On closer investigation he saw there was a golden light emanating from the crack. The monk used a hammer and a chisel to chip away at the clay exterior until he revealed that the statue was in fact made of solid gold.
Historians now believe the golden statue had been covered with clay by Thai monks several hundred years earlier to protect it from an attack by the Burmese army. In the attack, all the monks had been killed and the hidden Golden Buddha had been forgotten.
So perhaps we have piled layer upon layer of clay over our own basic goodness, in an attempt to protect it. Some layers of clay are of our own making – our own limited thinking and our unconscious conditioning. Other layers get added by our families and social conditioning. Eventually, we are so covered with clay that we forget that the Golden Buddha is there inside us all the time.
In closing, I invite you to consider that your basic nature is golden, even if it is covered over with some clay. And that perhaps we can remove the clay by getting to know it better and embracing it with the love and compassion that is our birthright.
Thank you.