In my last two posts I've introduced the notion of "truth" and "Truth", but this is part of a nuanced issue that is actually broader and deeper. The lotus sutra talks about "skillfulness", and surface readings of that term have led people to believe that life is not about "truth" but about "skillfulness." This idea has been popularized in cultures and led to the notion that the esoteric reality of life is that there is no reality, that life is entirely a fiction we make up as we go along, and that there is no "ultimate meaning", no "ultimate meanings." It is all a bunch of nonsense invented by enlightened souls to give unenlightened souls something to hang onto so they won't kill themselves. The skillful doctor fakes his death so his children will taste the reality that life is in the here and now and there is no reality to future lives, past lives, or abstract notions like "God", "Buddha" or whatever; "all dharmas are empty."
But that is a partial awareness.
The fact is that while "dharmas" are indeed empty, their purpose is important. We human beings can literally be the architects, (and gardeners) of our own lives. If we can get past the Nihilism of attachment to a single path, and see all the converging paths for what they are, then we are on the road to enlightenment to this.
We can build. Nature will destroy. We can rebuild. We live to build and then die. We live to experience these things. If we dump our attachment to "this particular body" we can find that our mild attachment to this life is, well, okay. This world is a place of woe, but it is also a garden. The same effort it takes to blow people up can put people on the moon. The same anger that is so destructive, can motivate us to change for real.
Human beings wrote the great books, they are full of fictions and parables, myths and legends, and stories told to illustrate a point. That doesn't mean they aren't true. These stories illustrate how our lives should be. They illustrate how our fore-fathers thought they should be. And the changing stories tell us that those images have changed. We should accept the changes and change the traditions to accommodate the truths of our lives, not cling to irrelevent stories, but find ways to make them relevent to us now. Jews call this "reconstructionism," it grows out of the realization that "reform" that "cuts the shoots" (as mentioned in the Talmud in the story of the 4 who studied in the Garden of interpretation), only leads to destruction and the need to reinvent the wheel. And they have done this repeatedly with their religion. It's not the same religion it was when Moses was alive, It is different from when Jesus was alive, it is even a little different from when Mohammed was alive.
And of course Christianity is not the same as it was when Jesus was alive -- it was a Jewish Sect. Islam is not the same as it was when Mohammed was alive. Buddhism is not the same as it was when Shakyamuni was alive. It really, in fact, doesn't matter if these people were real live historical personages or not. The stories attached to their lives weren't told to recite dry historical facts. The Bible, the Koran and the Sutras are not history books, science text books, nor are they meant to be frozen in time and to be used as a whip or an axe to goad people back to some ancient golden age. There was no ancient golden age. We are living in a time that is as close to a golden age as can be and even our time is no golden age. Conserving and reconstructing are part of life.
The bible actually doesn't open with "And God created the world." It opens with a hebrew sentance that can better be translated, "with creation God re-created the world." And "world" means time and space. Literalists and fundamentalists don't realize that all the seven days of figurative creation are present in each moment we live. God is literally creating the "World" of Time-space, in this moment. We are the eyes of God, the ears of God, the mind of God. Not individually -- we are limited beings. Not literally, what is God? But figuratively. If the Universe is sentient, it is because the beings and elements of the Universe start acting in a sentient fashion. If people act evil, the Universe is evil. We construct our gods and smash them all in the same mind of either delusion or awakening. They don't have independent existence. Our rich inner life requires us to eat to sustain it. Our rich inner life can cause us to build towers or smash Airplanes into them. We choose. And the Bible suggests we should "choose life." Sometimes if we act if something is so that is posibly so, reality will start to act like it actually is so. The "one ultimate reality" is the fruit of us creating one. And paradoxically one ultimate reality is true whether we create a paradise or not.
Wisdom comes, not in cynically manipulating religion, nor in mindlessly believing what we are told, but from seeking wisdom. The true believer should be a true believer in the possibility and evitability of creating a better world. Other people cannot slander such a law, such a Truth. They can chose to live by it's admonitions or suffer its curses -- that is all. We live or die by the way we live. In the end we all will dwell in peace. Do we want our memorials to be sad and echoing with loss, or full of vibrant memories? Choose life! Find the truth in all religions -- and rebel against those who would harm others -- whatever their reasons and excuses.
A lot of people wake up to the "emptiness of dharmas" and the power of religion to bind and transform, make money, and bedazzle folks. Not many get past that to the wisdom to refuse to "cut the shoots" and keep their hold on life, reality and their humbleness. Too many come from partial enlightenment with only a strong desire to make money from their illumination and with a cynical attitude towards religion. The result is the blind and fanatical led by the corrupt, fawning and manipulative. I'm going to do some homework from Brian's Blog in order to talk about this in my next post.
Chris