A strange thing happened on the way to writing my new book. Writing is a mystic process. How often do we have a clear idea for a story, poem, article, or book, and end up writing something completely different? We may have put together the perfect outline and our creative juices know just what to do, but in the end, we write something completely different. Such was the case for “Riding the Wheel to Wellness.” I had set out to write a manual on healing visualization. The book that emerged was a map to whole life wellness.
Some people fuss over their hobbies or children, I seem to be obsessed with discovering and refining new ways to teach non-Buddhists about healing and mantra-powered visualization. Teaching others about Buddhist healing can be very tricky. When someone has been attached to a certain religion or spirituality for their entire lives, when it comes right down to it, they may not be willing to try something new – even if it might prolong their lives.
In my first book, “Modern Buddhist Healing,” I presented a thesis from the perspective of an SGI member who survived cancer. This posed a problem for more than a few people interested in using mantra-powered visualization because of the foreign nature of Buddhism to the Western mind and the dubious reputation of the SGI. Personally, the SGI saved my life long ago, by giving it structure and direction. One can learn about the essence of Buddhism through the SGI, and the social fabric of the organization can be enormously encouraging. But many things changed between the organization and me, and I realized that being an independent was the only way that I could write books on Buddhist healing that expressed my own enlightenment. After the publication of the book in 2002, I quickly learned that few people wanted to cast away their religion and be SGI members. All they wanted was a way to get well.
My assertion has always been that chanting does not conflict in any way with a person’s current belief system, and that one need not become a Buddhist to reap the fabulous benefits from Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. This truth has been borne out repeatedly in the past three years.
As expected, I received some criticism from leaders, that those who read the book and learned to chant would have no one to take care of them and teach them about Buddhism. Others have laughed at me, as if I were a fool. My retort was that I was planting a dharma seed and not trying to convert anyone to Buddhism. If daimoku is a universal law, as is taught by the SGI, it can work for anyone without all the accompanying religious dogma, organizational campaigns, and even the Gohonzon. You can imagine how that went over. The Gosho and the Lotus Sutra clearly indicate that all one needs to do is chant daimoku (or embrace the Lotus Sutra). A universal law doesn’t require membership, adherence to a mission statement, or canonical scholarship. You chant and it works.
Perhaps the most unforgettable experience I had in writing my new book occurred one night while I was chanting to discover and reveal new ways to help sick people use visualization. Exhausted and suffering from a painful flair-up of my chronic bursitis, I finally fell into a hard sleep and had a lucid dream. Lucid dreams can be very powerful experiences. I dreamed that I was sitting in my darkened living room chanting, and saw a small pinpoint of starlight that began to grow into a swirl, like a spiral-arm galaxy. It grew in size and luminosity, like ten thousand sparkling jewels. I felt it drawing my mind into it and I could not turn away. The feeling of losing control was momentarily frightening and I fought to break free, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of this starlight wheel. My daimoku became stronger and I let go of my fear. I was instantly drawn into the center of the vortex where the light intensified – emerging on the other side. I began to fly back and forth around the room. The sensation was exhilarating. I watched myself flying around the room, detached from my dream body, as an observer, as if I were three different people; one was the sleeping Charles, the other the flying me, and the third, a witness in the corner taking it all in. My thought was that if I can fly, I could certainly be free of knee pain. I looked at my right knee and it was red, hot, and inflamed. “No more pain!” I thought, and immediately, the redness in my knee vanished, and the dream faded away. When I woke up that morning, my knee was back to normal and stayed that way for weeks. That’s interesting, I thought.
Later that day, I decided to experiment with this epiphany, to see if might be a practical visualization technique for my readers. There was plenty of precedent for this particular approach, as mystics had used images of the circle, crescent, oval, triangle, triangle with crescent behind it, and square, for thousands of years to travel out-of-body, and obtain esoteric knowledge. With lights dimmed, and eyes closed, I put myself in the position of a novice. Obviously, I did not use the Gohonzon, as a non-Buddhist trying to use visualization would not have one. I began to chant daimoku in an attempt to duplicate this visualization. The results were stunning. Not only was I able to duplicate this experience, I found it to be a rapid immersion into “the visualization zone.” I discovered that after I had passed through the center of the spiral, I could see into my body like a CT scanner and create any image I chose. Over the course of two weeks, I repeated this specific exercise many times and tested it on my own body and physical problems, documenting every experience. Once I was satisfied that this visualization technique was effective and repeatable, I included it in my new book, and have no doubt that this option will help may people who are suffering from illness and pain. The “visualization zone” is any concerted level of sustained concentration and imagery. Our minds are constantly in this visualization zone on a daily basis, whether we are imagining our goals, having a sexual fantasy, or day dreaming.
As you can see, the Mystic Law has many secrets to reveal. I don’t expect the purists or scholars of Buddhism or the medical establishment to praise me. In fact, I know that there will some who will admonish me as a heretic, slanderer, quack, or worse. The problem is that what I teach actually works. I have received hundreds of letters and testimonials over the past three years from people all over the world, who know little or nothing about Buddhism and have gone into remission or completely overcome a chronic condition, where allopathic medicine had been unable to help them – just by using mantra-powered visualization. None of this is my invention. I am just the messenger. Even though there are some who frown on what I am doing as it might seem to clash with the approved interpretation of Nichiren Buddhism, they can’t possibly refute the fact of my own survival, my literary success, or the actual proof of my readers.
There seems to be conflicting opinions as to what, if anything, survives death. Unless you have already cultivated a confident, “I know mind,” there are many questions. Does individual consciousness continue? Deeper than our individual consciousness, is there some universal mind or Godhead that we are part of which is the primary ground of all phenomena and awareness? Our perception is all we have to rely on – and for most, it is a very narrow bandwidth. When masters teach that our belief in the soul or a continuing self is an illusion of consciousness, we must pause, and wonder whether it may be the masters that are an illusion of consciousness.
In Christianity, there is the immortal soul, in the Vedic traditions, there is the atman, and in literal Buddhism, there is no continuing or surviving self. Emptiness is at the core of all phenomena, and all that appears is mutually arising. What then, experiences the afterlife? What is it then, that survives? Does nothing experience something that is nothing? Is emptiness a synonym of being, or is being the shadow of nothingness? What are we to make of our procession through bardos - the peaceful and wrathful deities; our sojourn before the awesome Ten Kings, the joys of the kingdom of heaven, and what of the realm of hungry ghosts or the freezing infernos of a 1000 different hells? If nothing survives, what are the human mythologies trying to convey? Experience survives. More than a witness, we are Empirical Beings - transcendental by nature, and an expression of the Absolute.
Joseph Campbell describes our internal discriminator of the knower and the known, between the subject and object, and oneself and the subject, based on the wisdom of the Vedic and Buddhist traditions: “I know my body, my body is the object. I am the witness, the knower of the object. I, therefore, am not my body. I know my thoughts; I am not my thoughts. I know my feelings; I am not my feelings. And the Buddha comes along and adds: “You are not the witness either. There is no witness.””
If we read this lesson literally, it would seem that The Enlightened One has dismissed the assumption that we are a witness to our own life. What are we to make of such a conundrum? Existence and all phenomena are mutually arising and empty. Although you live, you are not really the witness of your own life. When you die, your self does not survive. This sounds to me like the invention of priests with too much time on their hands. When I see contradictions like these, I look for the truth in-between the two extremes. The only safe path to the Phantom City is the middle way.
What are we to make of the Buddha making references to his own rebirths and the previous and future incarnations of his disciples? If nothing of our former selves survives, what is reborn? In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna said, “To that which is born, death is certain; to that which is dead, rebirth is certain: be not afflicted by the unavoidable.”
The Zen masters conjure up an “I don’t know mind.” If we read some of the Buddha’s words literally, it would seem that we are not the witness and there is no soul or atman to reincarnate. When we look to the other prophecies and words of Shakyamuni, Nichiren, and other masters, we read of consciousness surviving, experiencing the afterlife, and choosing specific rebirth – reborn with all the manifest and latent characteristics accrued from previous incarnations. Some of these carryovers include trace memories of former lives, and unique abilities, far beyond what others are born with. It is manifest traits carried over from previous lives that enable Tibetan monks to identify reincarnated masters.
It’s only natural for us to find an explanation that works to give us hope. Some might argue that it is the ego or attachment, that causes us to cling to ideas of the self and a surviving soul. Perhaps I read the words of the Buddha differently than others. My understanding is that the “I” or ego does not survive death, but the Alaya consciousness and Amala consciousness do survive and reincarnate.
Over time and through various experiences such as near-death, samadhis, and seeing the dissolution of matter and elementary consciousness, I am in agreement with Baba Ram Dass and the Vedic approach. We are comprised of the ego, the soul, and universal awareness. The ego constructs a universe fed by the senses, around its ephemeral identity. The soul resides within as the observer, recording all that transpires. The universal awareness or our enlightened nature abides deep within, shining its light as if it were the sun rising from behind a mountain. At death, the sun appears over the summit, the soul is the corona about the sun, and the ego is the darkness that fades in the light.
We must find the answers for ourselves. Because the answers to esoteric ideas of the afterlife are written in a holy book, or that reality is what a master says it is, does not make it so. There's only one thing I’m sure of – regardless of our beliefs, if we can fashion a sense of peace and openness to the unknown - beauty, joy, and wonder shall ensue.