Steve Hagen - Buddhism Is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs

Whatever you think is delusion.

Dainin Katagiri

T HE PERCEPTION of an awakened person is identical to your own.

Its a good thing, too, because this means you can awaken. All that is necessary is to see Reality, directly. We only need to get beyond our calculating mind, our thinking mind, our explaining mind.

Our confusion is only the result of what we think. Reality doesnt need any explanation whatsoever. In fact, it cant be explained. And it doesnt need to be; after all, its already here. Explanations are merely an attempt to say what Reality is like. But its absurd to think that Reality could be like anything. Reality isnt like anything. Its Reality. Reality itself is inconceivableit wont go into a conceptual package. But it doesnt need to. We already see it. We simply need to stop trying to take hold of it.

Whatever you hold to, let it go. Step into this moment. Come back to just this. It takes some effort. But come back, come back, come back to just this. Just see what youve been ignoring for so long.

I F YOU VISIT a Buddhist temple in Japan, youll likely encounter two gigantic, fierce, demonlike figures standing at either side of the entrance. These are called the guardians of Truth, and their names are Paradox and Confusion.

When I first encountered these figures, it had never occurred to me that Truth had guardsor, indeed, that it needed guarding. But if the notion had arisen in my mind, I suspect I would have pictured very pleasing, angelic figures.

Why were these creatures so terrifying and menacing? And why were the guardians of Truth represented rather than Truth itself?

Gradually, I began to see the implication. There can be no image of Truth. Truth cant be captured in an image or a phrase or a word. It cant be laid out in a theory, a diagram, or a book. Whatever notions we might have about Truth are incapable of bringing us to it. Thus, in trying to take hold of Truth, we naturally encounter paradox and confusion.

It works like this: though we experience Reality directly, we ignore it. Instead, we try to explain it or take hold of it through ideas, models, beliefs, and stories. But precisely because these things arent Reality, our explanations naturally never match actual experience. In the disjoint between Reality and our explanations of it, paradox and confusion naturally arise.

Furthermore, any accurate statement we would make about Truth must contain within itself its own demise. Thus such a statement inevitably will appear paradoxical and contradictory. In other words, statements about Truth and Reality are not like ordinary statements.

Usually we make a statement to single something out, to pin something down and make it unambiguous. Not so if our business is Truth. In this case we must be willing to encounter, rather than try to evade, paradox and confusion.

Our problem with paradox and confusion is that we insist on putting our direct experience into a conceptual box. We try to encapsulate our experience in frozen, changeless form: this means that.

Ordinary statements dont permit paradox. Rather, they try to pin down their subjects and make them appear as real and solid as possible. Ordinary statements are presented in the spirit of This is the Truth; believe it. Then were handed something, often in the form of a book or a pamphlet.

But all statements that present themselves in this waywhether theyre about politics, morality, economics, psychology, religion, science, philosophy, mathematics, or auto mechanics are just ordinary stuff. Theyre not Truth; theyre merely the attempt to preserve what necessarily passes away.

When we claim to describe whats Really going on by our words, no matter how beautiful, such words are already in error. Truth simply cant be re-presented.

We want Truth badly. We want to hold it tightly in our hand. We want to give it to others in a word or a phrase. We want something we can jot down. Something we can impress upon othersand impress others with.

We act as though Truth were something we could stuff in our pockets, something we could take out every once in a while to show people, saying, Here, this is it! We forget that they will show us their slips of paper, with other ostensible Truths written upon them.