Love is the Mystery

There is a higher reality that words, concepts, and sermons can’t reach. We try to
point to this reality with carefully wrought language, theology, and doctrine, but the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The map is not the place. The menu is not the food.

For those of us who teach, preach, and write this news is somewhat deflating. We thought we were getting close to naming the mystery. But in the end, all we can do is cultivate in others a willingness to deepen into the mystery that wells up through the cracks of their own lives. This is why Buddha simply held up a flower and didn’t say a word. This is why Lao Tzu wrote that “Those who say don’t know, and those who know don’t say.” Even Jesus seemed exasperated as he chastised his disciples in chapter thirteen of the Gospel of Thomas. “I am not your teacher,” he said. “Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring I have tended.”

If the teacher is not the message, and if the message cannot be received second-hand, then why do we gather in spiritual community to hear sermons about how to better ourselves and draw closer to the sacred source? As a guy who often gives those sermons, this strikes me as a particularly urgent question. What, in the end, are spiritual teachings for? Why do we need any of this?

You might as well ask a tree why it leans toward the sun. We love language, talking, and teaching because concepts are what we know. They’re how we know. In a way, they feed us.

First we perceive the world, then shape those perceptions into thoughts. As Adam named the animals, we name the concepts taking up residency in our consciousness, even going so far as to order them into hierarchies, because with naming comes judgment, prejudice, and bias. There is no such thing as value-neutral thought. We fall asleep and forget that we do not know the world as it is—we know only our thoughts about the world. This dynamic leaves us vulnerable to self-aggrandizing narratives that lionize us while diminishing the other. Prejudice seems baked into cognition itself.

Our innate need to discriminate and ascribe hierarchies must be deliberately disrupted and discarded. The good news is that the deeper part of us already knows this. Beneath the conceptual realm there is a concept-free field of awareness unbound by the limitations of thought. The world’s wisdom traditions call it by many names—Atman, Buddha-mind, spirit, inner Christ—and it is our essential nature. We have our being there. The conceptual mind is ill-equipped to experience this deeper reality. Realizing one’s sacred nature is more a process of  unlearning, of getting out of our own way. No matter how Herculean the effort, how can you become what you already are?

One of the most notable hallmarks of awakening is humility. Less and less do you need to prove that you are right. You recognize that every religion is true—that they all work, like maps, to show the way home. You stop straining and start softening. Freedom replaces fear and anxiety. You no longer argue about the meanings of words. All of the names of God are fine. Or none at all. In the end, only one word—love—serves us best as the name of the nameless mystery that we are. 

[This piece was first published in my A to Zen column in the March/April 2023 issue of Unity Magazine, and is reproduced here with permission.]

Planting Seeds

When a gardener plants seeds, she intends to yield a harvest. These dry, hard, yellow kernels will give rise to tall green stalks laden with ears of fresh, delicious corn. If everything goes right.

            There are many phases to the process – deciding to plant a garden, envisioning the outcome, learning everything you can about soil, compost, weather patterns, fertilizer, insects, and the elliptic of the sun. But no matter how much we learn and how hard we work, the most important part of the process is intention.

            Intention is the potent act of out-picturing – allowing our vision to move from the realm of thought into the realm of manifestation. We don’t control the weather, the sun, the bugs, or the corn – we are only their witness and collaborator. All creation is co-creation.

            The wisdom traditions of the world warn us of the perils of confusing intention with attachment. “Work without attachment to the fruits of work,” Krishna teaches in the Bhagavad Gita. And in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus counsels us in no uncertain terms to renounce all anxiety about the future. Worrying isn’t going to add one inch to your corn. And Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching put it this way: “Rushing into action you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.” You can’t make the corn grow faster by yelling at it, tugging on it, or nervously pacing up and down the rows.

            Our job is not to grow the corn. Our job is to co-create the conditions in which the corn can grow itself. Corn already knows far more about how to become corn than we do.

            Whether we are growing corn, raising children, or building a career, the same principles apply. All we can do is set intentions, hold aspirations, and envision fruition. But the minute you slip into the seductive delusion that you are in control, chaos reigns and the only crop you’ll yield is suffering for all involved.

            Many of us have worked for micromanagers, bosses who hover over you directing your every move. Under these meddlesome taskmasters workers lose their two most potent qualities – innate enthusiasm and creative problem solving skills. Nothing quashes the enthusiasm and creativity of a work team faster than micromanagement. Instead, hire great people, create the conditions in which they can thrive, and get out of the way.

            Under micromanagement, employees stop trying and stop caring because they’ve received the message loud and clear: their essence isn’t valued or even necessary. They’re seen not as human beings but as extensions of the boss, robotic appendages without heart or vision. When you’re dehumanized, your soul lives in exile. The only reason you show up now is for the paycheck. Is that what anyone wanted?

As a leader you have two principle tasks – articulate the group’s intention, and manage the structural processes so that your employees don’t have to. As a leader, your only question to your employees should be, “What can I do to support you today?” 

A leader is a planter of seeds. Taking leadership in your own life is a matter of humbly but boldly setting intentions, then letting go. As Lao Tzu wrote, "If you want to be a great leader, you must learn to follow the Tao. Stop trying to control. Let go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself."

[This piece was originally published in my column "A to Zen" in the July/August 2018 edition of Unity Magazine, and is reproduced here with permission.]

Storms Don't Last

When hard times come there’s one thing you can always count on. They don’t last. The world has a way of righting itself. But not before a lot of damage gets done and a lot of people get hurt. Still, it is life’s resiliency that most surprises us. Just when you think the darkness will never end, here comes the sun.

            This is not only true about the affairs of the world – it is also true about our inner life. There are days of sadness that drag you down and days of joy that buoy you over the waves of adversity. There are days when you can’t stop talking, and days when you have nothing to say. These are the natural ebb and flood tides of the cosmos, a field of interconnected energy of which we are an inextricable part. One day stormy, the next placid – why would we be any different?

            4^th century B.C.E. wisdom teacher Lao Tzu left us a wealth of insight in the immortal classic Tao Te Ching. This brief collection of cryptic poems speaks to us from deep within the hidden folds of our own wisdom. In chapter 23 of the Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation Lao Tzu writes:

To talk little is natural.

High winds do not last all morning.

Heavy rain does not last all day.

Why is this? Heaven and earth!

If heaven and earth cannot make things eternal,

How is it possible for man?

Or in the Stephen Mitchell translation:

Express yourself completely,

then keep quiet.

Be like the forces of nature:

when it blows, there is only wind;

when it rains, there is only rain;

when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.

            In Chinese metaphysics, Tao is ultimate reality. Not personified as a deity, Tao pours forth all that is without conscious intention. Unlike the western God who is transcendent, that is, outside of space and time, Tao is imminent or found within the processes of the world, guiding all things, all events, and all processes, including us, from within. Like logos for the Greeks or dharma for the Hindus, Tao is the cosmic pattern of which everything is a part. Heaven and Earth stand for yang and yin, the primordial, complementary modes of energy through which the Tao unfolds. Heaven, or yang, is the assertive, forceful structure that shapes reality, while Earth, or yin, is the receptive stillness within which both cosmic and human affairs unfold. These two polarities are not opposites – they are understood as complementary aspects of a singularity. You can’t have one without the other.

            At the heart of Taoist philosophy is a fluid sense of purposeful change. Things come and go, tides rise and fall, storms rage and dissipate, all with an implacable sense of inevitability and majesty. The wise person, then, learns how to wait. If conditions are not to your liking, they will be soon.

            In light of this portrait, Taoism counsels us to engage in the world with a light touch. Avoid imposing your preconceived plan onto the unfolding Tao. Instead, learn how to harmonize your energy with the energy already flowing around you. In this way, by doing less, you accomplish more.

            When things are chaotic, frightening, and destructive – when the storm is raging – it’s probably best just to hunker down. Soon the tempest will pass and then we can get to work cleaning up the mess and turning the broken pieces of the past into new forms and new solutions. Destruction and chaos are opportunities, even on the personal level. It is from hardship that our wit and wisdom emerge. As Epictetus wrote, “The trials we endure introduce us to our strengths.”

            When Lao Tzu suggests that we “be like the forces of nature,” he is advising us to allow the strengths that well up in us to have their say. It’s o.k. to be angry – just don’t be angry all the time. It’s o.k. to be sad – just don’t let sadness define you. It’s o.k. to celebrate joyfully the beauty of life – just don’t turn frivolity into denial and escapism. As the Hebrew book of wisdom Ecclesiastes says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.” (Eccles 3:1-8)

            Wisdom literature like this reminds us to accept the fluidity of life with all of its sometimes frightening extremes. And to stop evaluating everything from the perspective of how does this affect me? See the bigger picture. It isn’t about you. There are larger forces, larger stakes, larger processes in play. Sometimes you lose, and your loss creates space for the victory of another, or for your own unforeseen bounty, heading inexorably toward you from its hiding place just over the horizon.

Your Greatest Treasures

When we think of the word treasure we think of Trump-like wealth, Smaug’s lair, or a buried trunk of pirate booty.

             But upon deeper reflection we realize our real treasure is our loved ones – our children, our spouses, our families, and our friends.

            Yet in the ancient Chinese book of wisdom called the Tao te Ching, Lao Tzu offers a very different definition of treasure. In chapter 67 he writes, “I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, and compassion. These are your greatest treasures.”

            How are simplicity, patience, and compassion our greatest treasures?

Simplicity

            With each passing day we take on more and more, adding, never subtracting – more property, more commitments, more obligations, more appointments, more expectations. It’s a wonder we can even breathe. The more buried we are under layers of adornment and intricacy, the further we are from our essence. We lose our center and live increasingly in the outer world of thoughts, forms, and accomplishments. All of this busyness sets up a screen through which we try to view the uncarved wholeness of the world. But everything grows cloudy, distant, removed. We end up isolated in a thicket of our own judgments and thoughts. The real world – the people we love, the essential core of life – recedes into the haze. This is the disease of over-thinking and over-complexity. Simplicity is the antidote. As Lao Tzu writes, “In the pursuit of knowledge, everyday something is added. In the practice of the Tao, everyday something is dropped.”

            In his longest speech, The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offered similar advice. “Do not worry about your life” he said, “what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable then they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

            Simplicity then means simplicity in the outer world as well as simplicity in the inner world. “Simple in actions and in thoughts,” Lao Tzu writes, “you return to the source of being.”

Without lifting a finger we shift into awareness. As the Upanishads of ancient India proclaim, Thou art That – we are already one with the sacred essence of all things. No seeking, no struggle. We have only to grow still enough to allow the realization of unity to rise up from where it is hidden beneath all of our complexes. In this sense then, less definitely is more. The advice Henry David Thoreau offered for hikers in his 1857 journal was no doubt meant in a much broader sense – “The rule is to carry as little as possible.”

Patience

            If the first treasure is simplicity, then the second treasure is patience. “Patient with both friends and enemies,” Lao Tzu wrote, “you accord with the way things are.” How does patience put us into accord with the way things are?

            Patience is the virtue of accepting what is. Impatience generates anxiety, suffering, and conflict. Patience generates serenity, joy, and peace. Impatience says no, patience says yes.

            In Vedanta philosophy we often hear the word renunciation. It means relinquishing the illusion of control and coming out of ego-demands and into the consciousness of surrender. Renunciation is the path to awakening and enlightenment. In Buddhist teachings the focus is on non-attachment. Dropping our endless list of cravings and complaints we finally arrive fully alive in this now moment able to experience the depth of our own loving interconnectedness with all that is.

As the contemporary Zen Buddhist teacher John Tarrant puts it, suffering is the phrase “Not this,” while enlightenment is the phrase, “What is this?” The first stance is full of judgment and resistance, the second open-hearted and appreciative.

            Patience then is Lao Tzu’s word for that state of serenity wherein one is content in the present moment, no longer caught by the snare of craving something else. When you are free of expectations, the pace at which things unfold is exactly the right pace.

            And he’s specific about where we are to apply the virtue of patience – toward our friends and enemies. We all know that it is in the realm of human relationships that our serenity is most sorely tested.

            What if instead of silently demanding that everyone conform to our arbitrary expectations, we set them free to be who they are? Why are we so quick to demand our own freedom, and so reluctant to grant theirs? Let others drive the way they’re going to drive. It really is none of our business. Go around.

            This is especially challenging when it comes to our enemies. But in Jesus famous words, “love your enemies,” we hear an even deeper truth – there are no such things as enemies. There are only other people suffering like us, working with incomplete information like us, clouded by storms of chaotic emotions like us, trying to make their way and sometimes saying horrible things and acting in confusingly destructive ways, like us. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said it best when he wrote, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

            In chapter 15 of the Tao te Ching Lao Tzu writes, “Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?” Patience means leaving the universe enough room to provide you with solutions, mercies, and healings you did not foresee and could not create on your own. In chapter 64 he writes, “Rushing into action you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion you ruin what was almost ripe.”

Compassion

            The third treasure is compassion. Lao Tzu wrote, “Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.” How does self-compassion lead to universal reconciliation? It’s simple. If you cannot experience love, mercy, and forgiveness for yourself, how do you think you can offer these gifts to another? When you learn how to better love yourself, your love for others grows clear, pure, and genuinely nurturing. Still, how does this reconcile all beings in the world? Many of us already understand this: our spiritual awakening is our greatest contribution to world peace. It is through our spiritual growth that the whole world is healed. If one person shows up awake, everything shifts. Imagine if ten of us do, or a hundred, or a hundred thousand?

            Taoism avoids intricate ideology, elaborate doctrine, and complex ritual. Also missing is a specific list of prohibitions or exhortations. Instead, Lao Tzu simply draws us toward what the Zen Buddhists call our “Original Self.” Coming out of our busy minds and into our cores, we know what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and why. We just feel it. That’s how great treasures work.