The Dead are not Alive, and the Living will not Die

You may observed that I have been, of late, quoting the Buddha and Yeshua in my blog, and if you find it offensive, I invite you to recognize that all resistances arise from non-understanding. Where there is understanding, resistance fades away. My teacher frequently reminds me to observe experiences through the perspective of understanding the causal relationships of phenomenon and doing so, allows me to move from being personal to nature – seeing experiences as a natural unfolding of nature rather than “I”.

The title is riddled with deep meaning, taken from the Gospel of Thomas. Coincidentally the Gospel starts with the statement made by Yeshua: Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not touch death.

We both knew that the dead are not alive and isn’t it something so obvious that needs no interpretation? That’s the beauty of riddle – behind the form lies the essence. Form and essence are always in contradiction, like for instance, words. Words are merely words if we do not understand the meaning behind those words. So the statement in the title is merely another statement if we do not probe deeper what Yeshua is trying to convey.

Remember the analogy of Darkness and Light in my previous blog? The former is, the latter exist. Anything that exist has to die, for if there is no birth where is death? So all existences are transient by nature, and if they are transient, it is with certainty that there is no absoluteness in it accept its conditioning.

That reminds me of a statement found in the beginning of A Course in Miracle:

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of GOD.

Anything that can be threatened cannot be real brings me to understand that anything that changes has no substantiality, no realness in it. How can I say I exist when existence itself is beyond my control? How can “I” – what I thought is permanent existing on a body that is entirely breaking apart each moment and to be arise again the next moment? And what about the mind? How can I say the mind is me when I would not even know when and what it is going to happen in the next moment? I can only know how it works by observing the causal relationship of the conditionings but I can’t change or fix it. I can only pop in a new cause or a few causes and allow the effect(s) to take its natural course.

So if the body and mind is devoid of “I” how can it be called “alive”?
When I identified with my body and mind I am never, never alive, though I may seems to live and die in the end.
When I finally go beyond the body and mind, beyond the conditioning of all things, in that “space” there is no death. That is when the “living” will not die.

To quote a sentence from the Dhammapada:

Heedfulness is the path to the deathless. Heedlessness is the path to death.
The heedful do not die. The heedless are as if dead already.

Beyond the illusion of Ego lies deathlessness….

Ideas, Views & Beliefs

I have been observing the mind for quite awhile now and recognized that what I know is all I know. I can’t know what I have yet to know except to know that I don’t know. So I can only knows what I know and don’t know. I can’t know beyond these two. Will there be any possibility that there is an area call I don’t know that I don’t know? If I know such area I am still in one of the space of knowing what I don’t know and not really experiencing I don’t know that I don’t know. You have to digest a slowly to understand the tongue twisting lines of what I have just shared. It is not possible to don’t know entirely as it is already preceded by knowing you don’t know. I am not talking of knowing in the context of object but the subject itself.

So what is it that I know? Know is something that already existed in mind. If it has not existed in mind, the mind would not understand what it is been shown except as an entire new experience totally. Upon experiencing it, it becomes a knowing, sometimes comes with understanding. Bear in mind that knowing and understanding is not related at all. So knowing is a second hand knowledge of what has been experienced. Yeshua calls it the second symbol. Just a symbol, nothing great about it.

In truth what we knows are merely a bundle of ideas, concepts, thoughts, views or mere beliefs. They are devoid of substance. And yet, at the same time, they can be useful tools directing us to the Truth. It can also direct us away from the Truth!

There are ideas that set you free and there are ideas that imprison you. The Buddha mentioned Right Views and Wrong Views to mean pathways that lead to freedom or imprisonment. Quoting Yeshua again:

A wise fisherman cast his net into the sea. When he drew it up it was full of little fish. Among them, he discovered a large, fine fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea, and he chose the large fish. Anyone here with two good ears should listen.

In my system, or rather the personality of who I am, are merely a bundle of two kinds of ideas – Right Ideas and Wrong Ideas ( I am using idea the same as views, beliefs, concepts etc). Other than that I can’t exist. So it is true to say existence comes from the appearance of ideas.

If you wish to be free and peaceful, keep questioning your ideas, particularly manifesting in your thoughts. Most of them are not real and true. Only when you are present to your thoughts are you able to meet it with understanding. That is what I meant when I say knowing and understanding is entirely different. It is the same as saying knowledge and wisdom is far apart.

Conditioned and Unconditioned

I used to get a little uptight whenever I come across the word “conditioned” in Buddhism and felt so “lofty” when the meaning “unconditioned” came to mind – though at those times I don’t really get what it means except whatever limiting ideas I put upon it, thus seeing conditioned as wrong and unconditioned as right. What an ignorant judgment!

And throughout those years I was so attracted to the word “unconditional love” – trying so hard to be one but failing most of the time :(

The wiser part of me (or Holy Spirit, if you come from a different faith) came up with the following illustration to let me see that there is no right or wrong to both words except its definition. And there is no better way of illustrating it other than Darkness and Light.

Darkness Is, Light Exist.

Darkness is unconditional as it always Is. Darkness needed nothing to make it exist, for in reality, it does not “exist” except is. Are you following me? It will be easy to see this truth when we come to Light. Now for Light to come into existence, it must have something for it to arise, for example, the Sun or even the collision of meteor etc. In other words Light is been conditioned by something. Once it is been conditioned, it has the nature of ending for the word “conditioning” already implies a situation that can only come into existence due to a certain nature. For instance, fire can only exist when a matchstick and a source of friction comes into contact. Fire is not hidden somewhere awaiting for contact. It just arise due to conditioning, and thus temporal by nature.

In the modern new agy stuff we are been encouraged to view Darkness as evil and Light as purity – I am not disputing what are been shared but we missed the point of Reality when we see something as good and bad. Everything has its essence of Truth – only when we give opportunity for enquiry. I wish to share with you here a teaching on Tao about Darkness:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

– Tao Te Ching (A New English Version) by Stephen Mitchell

Coming back to the topic of Conditioned and Unconditioned, it is logical to say that all existence are conditional by nature and thus not lasting, devoid of self and unsatisfactory.  All existence are unreal, so to speak, for it only exist due to conditioning. What is it beyond existence, you may ask? Unconditioned, my friend, as spoken by great sages like the Buddha or Yeshua (he uses the word eternity).

I invited you to consider the following which may invoke repulsion, defense or disillusion but allow yourself to enquire, deeply – Your existence is unreal. Beyond your existence lies the Unconditioned.

Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed, they will marvel, and they will reign over all.
– Yeshua

May you see this Truth. Peace be unto all.