The Lottery Ticket

The Lottery Ticket

During Francis Bennett’s talk in Berkeley on March 29, someone asked for clarification: if awakening is something we have all along, why is it such a big deal when we find it?   

Francis said, “It’s like you bought a lottery ticket for a $75 million lottery a year ago; you put the ticket in a drawer and forgot about it, not knowing it was the winning ticket.  A year goes by, and then you see something in the news about the unclaimed ticket and you go to your drawer and you check all the numbers and you realize you have it.  How do you feel?  Fantastic!  You have an unbelievable moment of rejoicing.  But it was there all along.  It was there when you couldn’t make your car payment; it was there when you couldn’t buy groceries.  It was there all along.”

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”  Mt 13:44

The Wedding vs. The Marriage

Francis Bennett, a former Trappist monk and student of Zen, Vipassana, and Theravadin contemplative traditions, spoke in Berkeley with Adyashanti recently.  They talked about how the big moments of awakening get so much attention that they distract us from the more ordinary and difficult work of emotional, spiritual, and psychological growth. 

To illustrate the point, Francis talked about the current fascination with reality TV shows about weddings.  “Bridezillas,” for example: women so obsessed with the perfect wedding that they turn into raging monsters.  “But you wonder,” Francis mused, “whether they have the same concern for the marriage as they do for the wedding.”  Just so, he said, the real challenge of the spiritual life is our “marriage” to the ultimate – our longterm growth, our health, our emotional maturity and balance, not the big “wedding” moment of awakening.

Adyashanti agreed: “I think we’ve all known `enlightened’ masters who are on their third or fourth marriages, who clearly have huge challenges in their families and primary relationships...  If you really want to know if someone’s enlightened, talk to their kids, talk to their spouse or partner.”   Awakening doesn’t instantly heal your emotional wounds; it doesn’t turn you into a perfect being. 

This is the tricky, paradoxical part.  In the non-dual world, a teacher’s claim of enlightenment is presented as their primary teaching credential.  Just about every biography of non-dual teachers emphasizes their awakening experiences.  Those of us on the other side of that experience thirst for the Big Event that will solve all our problems and bring us to some kind of endpoint, and so we cling to those who have had that experience as if they can take us there.  Variations on the theme of “how do I get enlightened?” motivate many of the questions raised in dharma talks.    

Even after spending two hours talking about its relative unimportance, audience members kept asking,“Tell us about your awakening experience!”  Clearly, our fascination with the Big Experience betrays our illusion that awakening is the endpoint, when in fact the harder one works toward it,  The paradox of awakening means that as soon as we think we “have it,” we’ve lost it.

“The first shall be last; the last shall be first” – Jesus

“My weakness is my strength.” - Paul

The One Who Knows

       The man across from me - a distinguished author and world traveler, well-known on the inspirational speaker circuit - had confident, twinkling blue eyes, the kind that meet you without evasion and draw you in. His head was shaved, his chin was strong, and at 64, he had the physique of a professional athlete.  Even more impressive was that he had a kind of internal density; a gravity - as if he were fully settled into himself.  I thought, if he were a house, his timbers would be oak, not pine.

            We met for tea on something of a whim, having met briefly at a fundraiser the week before.  He was British, and so I asked him how he had come to this country. 

            He said, "I woke up one morning and I knew I was moving to the United States.  And this is the thing: it wasn't a decision.  It's not like I thought, well, shall I move or not?  If I move, when would be the best time?  Where will I go?  It was nothing like that.  I just knew I was moving.  It was a knowing that I came into; it was not a decision."

            I told him I knew exactly what he meant.  On the morning of January 8, 2012, I came down the stairs to say goodbye to my wife as she headed off to work.  I watched as the door closed behind her, and as the door went "klunk", I knew our marriage of 30 years was over.  It just died, right then.  

            I spent the rest of the day weeping, and writing, and trying to talk myself out of what I knew was already true.  It wasn't as if I had "decided" to leave the marriage - it was that I knew the marriage was over.  I watched it drop into the ocean: it hit the water, and it was gone.  

            It took me eight months to accept it - eight months of marriage counseling, therapy, spiritual direction, prayer, journaling.  I kept hoping that a miracle would happen: Lazarus would rise from the tomb; a flash of lightning would resuscitate it.  But in my bones I knew: it had died.

            When I told him this, he said, "You see?  We know.  We already know.  We have inside us this One - this knowing One.  The challenge is in being the One we already are; entering into this knowing that is alive within us."

            Yes.  Who is this One?  Beneath our thoughts, personalities, preferences, desires, attachments, this One lives.  It is directing our lives in ways we rarely see; it is connected to the Vast; it brings us the wisdom of what is.  Might Christians call this the Mind of Christ?

            "...It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me."  Galatians 2:20

I love this cartoon!

The Art of Letting Go

In my former church there's a stained glass window, tucked behind the organ, nearly invisible to everyone but the Celebrant, who, for over eleven years, was me.

The window is of Jesus' encounter with the Rich Young Man. Light streams through their delicate faces and highlights their long, flowing hair.  Jesus is radiant in a simple white robe.  The Rich Young Man approaches in a sumptuous velvet tunic; a huge red jewel glows from his velvet hat.

The young man asks, "Lord, how do I find eternal life?" In other words, how do I find my greatest joy? My ultimate purpose? My bliss?  Jesus says, "Sell everything you own and give the money to the poor. Then come and follow me."

In other words, Jesus says, "You're not going to like this but here's the deal: It's not your joy. It's not your purpose. Give up this habit of thinking you own anything. You'll only find what you're looking for by letting go of all of it.

The young man knows this price is too high.  He walks away, Scripture says, "empty" - a beautiful irony for one who possesses so much.

It took eleven years for the meaning of that image to sink in. But when it did, it landed with force.  A year ago, I had the image of the Rich Young Man tattooed to my left forearm, and the image of Jesus onto my right.  They stand on either side of me; I live in the tension between them.  6 months after getting those tattoos, my world came crashing down.  Almost as if God knew I was ready.

Since then, Jesus has been schooling me in the art of letting go - and I know this is only the beginning. Time catches all of us; in the end, everyone loses everything: health, memories, our very lives. And I don't like it. It hurts like hell. But despite myself, I am finding, just as Jesus promised, a strength that feels like me; a joy that feels like truth.

Reaching Bottom

"A man who is not stripped and poor and naked within his own soul will always unconsciously do the works he has to do for his own sake rather than for the glory of God. He will be virtuous not because he loves God's will but because he wants to admire his own virtues." Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation.

Without having heard, I suspect, of the Alcoholics Anonymous concept of "reaching bottom", Thomas Merton captured, in these elegant two sentences, the special grace of spiritual desolation.  Our capacity to delude ourselves in false security, to take comfort in a phony self, to clothe our nakedness and desperation in smooth answers and shallow platitudes is nearly limitless.  I know this firsthand.

I am not yet able to discuss the details, but suffice it to say that in the autumn of 2014, in the space of just a few days, I went from a relatively happy and successful parish priest to one who lost nearly everything: job, reputation, financial security. My career of 25 years was suddenly washed down the drain; my future as a priest was deeply threatened.

I was fortunate to have retained my health, my beloved girlfriend, and my best friend.  I am very aware of how much worse it could have been.  But the experience was truly horrifying - like being inside a flimsy building during a massive earthquake.  Everything I took for granted was crashing down around me.

And the earthquake continues.  I don't have a job - but my calling has deepened beyond anything I've known before. If I let myself, I can be seized by financial panic - but through this whole ordeal, I have been possessed by an uncanny sense of God's presence - which is also God's absence.  It is a sense of finding God in emptiness; of finding myself by losing myself.  All the crazy, paradoxical dimensions of the Gospels and the koans make a deeper sense to me now. 

I am finding my ground - in free-fall.  As much as I resist the term "God's will", I can't think of a better way of describing this process of absolute trust. I am trusting in God's will because there is no other option, no other reality. So I meditate and I pray, like a beggar sitting naked and exposed at the threshold of God's palace.

How Jesus is Like Ice Cream

My mother was one of the all time great enthusiasts. She could find something extraordinary in the most everyday experience. Countless times, I would watch her take a drink of ordinary water on a hot day, close her eyes for a moment, and then exclaim, "Matty, this is just about the most delicious water I've ever tasted!" And she meant it!

Any mundane thing could trigger her exultations: a taste of ice cream; a distant bird song; each and every one of the countless drawings her five children brought home from school. When something tickled her, it was never "That's very nice, honey." It was "That is quite possibly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!"

Her responses to my writing - equally out of proportion to reality - formed the inflated presumption that I - and I suspect every writer - needs in order to share my writing with the world: the outlandish presumption that anyone would care what I have to say. Most writers have probably had an early reader like my mom. Her exclamations formed within me the secret notion that I might just be the next F. Scott Fitzgerald. After all, she thought so - and she knew me best!

Later, of course, the sting of reality began to leave its mark, and I came to realize that my mother's ecstatic pronouncements were not to be taken literally. I came to see that certain relationships - love relationships, to be precise - evoked exclamations that were not exactly true: "Wow, you are the most beautiful woman on the planet!" "I could listen to you talk all night!" "I will love you 'til the day I die!"

The same is true about our language about God. Most of our language about God, found in the Bible or in church - is love language. One prayer after another begins with ecstatic exclamation: "O God"; "Almighty God"; "Gracious Father." These are the words of a people in love; people who have left behind the ordinary, descriptive language of newspapers and how-to manuals for the language of exultation; the language of love poems; the language of transcendence and ultimacy and devotion.

In the same spirit, we declare Jesus as the "only son of God"  In the ecstatic vocabulary of devotion, we mean it.  This is the most delicious ice cream in the world!  How could a better ice cream possibly exist?!  But when we say things like that, we also know that these are not words to be taken literally.  

Theologians, preachers, and everyday church-goers often seem desperate to prove that Christianity is superior to any other religion. They quote ecstatic statements from the Bible as their "proof." Sorry to say, they have misunderstood the nature of devotional love language, and like the know-it-all atheists they condemn, they commit violence against the gorgeous poetry of devotion.  

And may we all, some day, come to learn the difference between love poems and news stories.

Paul Knitter, in his excellent book Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian, makes this point beautifully:

"...What do we do with all the “one and only” language that so lavishly populates our Bible and our liturgies? Let me offer a suggestion. Such language, as scholars of the New Testament point out, is “confessional” language – the way of speaking the early communities of Jesus- followers used in order to put into words what they felt about this man who had so affected their lives. Or, in more ordinary terms, it was “love language.” And like all love language, it made spontaneous and abundant use of superlatives and exclusives: “You’re the most beautiful person in the world.” “You’re the only one for me.” But – and here’s my point – such language is meant to be used in situations of intimacy, not in the presence of other people who have their own spouses or lovers.

"Now, “situations of intimacy” for the Christian communities are their liturgies or services where they share their commitments and sing their faith. I’m suggesting that our traditional love language that speaks about Jesus as “the one and only” be reserved for “internal consumption only” – for use within the Christian communities, or within one’s own personal prayer. It should not be used in our relations with others. It’s the way we Christians speak among ourselves to share our faith and commitment to Jesus and the gospel; it’s not the way we speak with others, for that would possibly belittle their faith and commitments. This corresponds to the original purpose of such confessional, one- and- only language about Jesus in the New Testament: it was meant to extol Jesus, not to put down others."

Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian (London: One World Publications, 2009) pp.124-125.