Rango, the Metaphor

We are trapped in our own world, contented with the toys within our space, not that we have a choice, but rather, what we dreamt to have more we have never gotten, except to keep having hopes and dreams that someday the toys the big players play may come into our fold. And so here we are in status quo, resigned to the fate of what is within our space, and yet never giving up our hopes that we will be out from where we are, soon, as always.

We are constantly separated from others by our own invisible wall, like the aquarium separating the fish from the world, and yet the fish knows not the existence of the glass. One day for reasons unknown to the little mind, the aquarium shatters and what was once a dream to “be out there” becomes a reality. And yet, and yet, when that moment comes into picture, two pathways are been laid onto our path – to become someone or to become a nobody. In the nobody’s land, the road has to be crossed, where danger lies on the path, with metaphor of vehicles passing at high speed, potentially robbing our lives if we are not careful. And yet nothing could be lost, as death is just a transition where the mind does not die. And it was on this road, Rango, the chameleon, meets the old wise Armadillo, rolled by the passing vehicles again, not once, but many times, just to cross over to the other side of the road, to experience what “nobody” is like.

But of course, Rango chooses the path he has always wanted, to be “someone”, and thus starts his journey into the desert where danger lies aplenty, to finally arrive at this town called Dirt where water is scarce and control is the game if he wishes to be somebody. And he has to learn to blend in with the inhabitants there if he wishes not to be noticed as an outsider intruding into their space. Isn’t that what we do when we wish to be included into a community so as to feel belonged, to be somebody?

The rest of the movie is up to you to interpret, with much spiritual messages within it; where Rango is confronted with the question of “who am I”; the rattle snake being the metaphor of the quest for awakening, the arising of kundalini; where crossing the road to “nobody” needs total surrendering; where returning from it changes the way Rango looks at life.

Seeing a movie is just like going through life – you can either enjoy the movie through its storyline without understanding its metaphor; or with wisdom, understand what lies in tandem with life – what the movie is trying to convey to each and every one of us, so to break free from the delusion of the movie itself, and yet able to live a life that is detached, free and liberating. What movie are you playing and what kind of life do you wish to live, in the midst of its unreality?

Not Forgetting

When one steps into the path of seeking the truth, one will inevitably be lead into the space of facing what is untrue, in a very paradoxical way – as if the table is being turnaround against what one begins with – seeking truth instead of seeing untruth. Whether the Truth is pointing towards each individual’s meaning of God, Enlightenment, Moksha, whatever – the fact is that all those meanings gradually become meaningless, when the untruth is seen surfaced in the mind. Not that all those glorious words are non-existence or meaningless, but rather one starts to realize that the meaning one has put upon those words are merely errors that one has taken in, in other words, wrong ideas or views of what it is, to start off with. Views are like colour glasses that mistake us from seeing things as they really are – the cloud of delusion that separate us from what is real.

The blatant truth each of us has to face in the spiritual journey is the fact that what is true to us, at any given moment of time, is untrue. Even if it is a realization of sort, the next level of realization would have shown us that what we realized before was incomplete. The game intensifies as one gets closer to the gate, so to speak, of where one is supposed to arrive at. Not too long ago my wise teacher reminded me not to put conclusion to what I realized, though that realization can be immensely liberating, challenging the old views that I had. True liberation comes when the realization is complete, to mean the wisdom that we acquired is all encompassing, enabling us to see things from different angle in a very flexible way instead of defining anything in wrong or right. For where there is right view at each given moment, it is impossible to see wrongness in others – what one see are patterns of conditioning that brought the experience into fold.

The Buddha was perfect to point out the fact that it is because of our ignorance to views running in the mind system that suffering has to ensue. Suffering is merely effect of wrong views that we have bought into. To fix suffering is to miss the point of what the spiritual journey is all about. Views are the problem. But to see views as the root problem is too, missing the point. Wrong views exist because of ignorance of what things are. Here one gets a little closer to truth – the forces of ignorance running in the system blinds one from seeing what is true and what is untrue, recognizing what are right views and wrong views. To be able to recognize the force of ignorance is wisdom at work, the opposing force that slowly, but surely undoes all the suffering that one has unwillingly done.

In this context, it will not be incorrect to say that where there is no seemingly suffering in our lives; where we think or feel we are free to do what we like to do, after crossing all the hurdles of what we were before, there are potentially possibilities of wrong views running in the system that we are not aware of.  By focussing on the experience we miss the point of the views that make us believe who we are, a facade created by ignorance to blind us from seeing what is true. At this point of my journey I will be wary of the so-called freedom that I am getting, reminding myself that everything experienced coming through the senses are not consistent to what it really is – they are merely derivative of views.

It is true that wisdom leads to freedom, but not freedom in the context of experience, except in realization.  The moment we are attached to freedom, as an experience, there lies at that moment the triumph of the force of ignorance. Freedom is not out there in the world. Neither is freedom found in the mind.  Freedom is where there is realization that in the midst of bondage there is freedom – that in the midst of ignorance, wisdom is already watching the game ignorance is playing – seeing truth in the untruth. It is this little freedom of realization that leads to Freedom, not the freedom to be who we are! How easily the truth is missed! Because there is no freedom in who we are as ‘who we are’ does not exist but are merely effects of what is already in the mind, again run by views and conditionings, so to speak. Hence it is important to continuously be vigilant, as in not forgetting, as in remembering that every moment is a constant albeit subtle tug-of-war between ignorance and wisdom; until such…

Whoever knows the world, discovers a corpse.
And whoever discovers a corpse cannot be contained by the world.

— Yeshua

Memory, as it is

fearful dream
good dream
bad dream
loving dream
intense dream
dreaded dream
happy dream
scary dream
dream still remains a dream

fearful experience
good experience
bad experience
loving experience
intense experience
dreaded experience

happy experience
scary experience
experience still remains an experience

dream is dream
experience is experience
both passing, disappearing
nowhere to be seen
except in the memory

aha!
memories make it real
as if it is here to stay –
as if loved ones have “died”
or merely a passing experience;
as if possession is real
or merely a passing thought;
as if betrayal is true
or merely a holding on;
as if freedom is real or merely a contrast of opposite

memory – thou art seen!
making what is transient, permanent
what is no-self, self
what is unsatisfactory, satisfactory

oh what a lie
what an illusion
what a shame perception has done

except its own natural function of remembering…