quite a bit of synchronicity lately in relation to this concept/term. most teachers in the west speak of the mistake/error that westerners make in relation to trying to get their heads around what it is.
they have said most of us err on either assuming toward nihilism or eternalism… but that only further obscures things.
i admit, the hardest part of this has been finding the understanding of the nature of ultimate mind, reality, and love. i think the reason it is so hard is because so much of our culture is based in the notion that (a) we exist and (b) we are separate.
ultimate mind was the easiest here. we are not what we think, nor what we feel. we are what is when nothing is happening. that is ultimate mind.
ultimate reality is a bit harder. but the concept of ultimate reality is simple and at the same time, complex. heh. paradox is the best indicator of truth.
what we perceive as reality is the result of our senses and what we tell ourselves about ourselves or others. but those things are the experience of being. they are not being.
‘being’ itself has no definable quality. if there is an attempt to label its qualities, it is found those qualities are qualities that many other things have or share.
from this, the truth of interdependence, that we are all connected, one, inter-related, reliant upon one another. without exception.
if there is an attempt to catalog any one thing, it is found that it is made of aspects and parts that are shared among other things.
for example, our body. water, minerals, chemicals, etc… parts of all the world around us are what make us. it is the same for all other things within this world. and even many things without this world. shared. interdependent.
if one were to make a logical statement of it (heh), that statement would go:
A is made of what is not A, therefore A is truly not A.
what does that mean? well, for one, it means that “me” is not really “me”:
me = non-me = me
actually, it means that all things are me and not-me at the same time.
this is the point when most western brains begin to bubble alarmingly. mine included.
i’ve been standing with my head resting on the brick wall of “me” for some months now, occasionally raising my head just long enough to drop it back against the wall, hoping against hope that eventually the wall will not be there.
but the wall is never there. i am the one who tells myself it is. i make it real for myself. just like… well… just like many others do.
so much focused thought has been set on this. and i think i’m beginning to push through the wall. the wall that doesn’t exist. i had a bit of an epiphany the other day. the nature of mind, the tathagatagarbha (tath-a-gotta-ghar-bah)– Buddha-dhatu, commonly known as ‘buddha nature’.
but it is ticking me off how many of these realizations are rising from particular encounters that i no longer wish to think of, speak of, or write of… but they are the only way to express them without sounding completely… well… you know. heh.
but it’s just evidence of that ‘one taste’. it’s all the same. and here, it seems the best way to really understand it has been to wear myself out utterly on what i’ve been seeing as ‘different’ until i had no choice but to accept it as the same.
ultimate love has never been difficult here. i’m not sure why. ultimate love is the true love. in fact, it is the only love.
ultimate love has nothing to do with any of the things our society, culture, and selves so often insist on thinking.
ultimate love, agapos, agape, the ‘unconditional love’, is free. it is the love of ultimate reality, it has no boundary and recognizes no boundary.
it doesn’t hold, seek to hold, ask to have, or bind. it just is.
it. just. is.
it’s no more destroyed by not having than by the having. having doesn’t matter.
it’s no more inflated by reciprocation than by being unrequited. validation or acceptance doesn’t matter.
it’s no more nourished or starved by others than by self. giving or taking doesn’t matter.
ultimate mind, love, and reality is… and goes beyond normality. it does not constrain nor does it seek to constrain.
i have a list of people i love. a very long list. heh. a good many names are of people who would be sincerely surprised to hear they are loved here.
it doesn’t even matter.
ultimate love is beyond the normal. whatever happens, you stay in the process and find the way through. instead of being conditional and giving up.
love is not a word. it is not a feeling. it is an action. that action may not always be pleasant, but it is constant. effort for others. when we give up, we are not loving. we’re being conditional.
if this happens…
if this doesn’t happen…
if it is that way….
if it is not this way…
… then i will give up.
THAT is selfishness. THAT is conditional action. that is not love.
love must be shown. love IS the action, not the words, not the feelings. if there is no action, there is no love.
we’re so mixed up about it. really.
people say that loving oneself is to be selfish. but correct love of oneself is not selfish.
what is correct love of self? correct love of self is love that is not at the expense of others.
if it takes its expression only by conditions under which it can exist, it is not love because correct love has no condition attached to it. only conditional love does that. and conditional love is a cover for the selfish mind. it is the one way you can always tell the difference.
the odd part is that most people mistake unconditional love for selfish love because they think anything that ‘feels’ like a demand is automatically selfish.
but what feels put upon? what is deciding and judging? what is setting conditions?
ultimate reality is… in the same way that true love is. neither have criteria. neither have boundaries. neither have conditions. if you’re doing anything with it other than letting it be, for yourself or any other, you’re confusing it, losing it, killing it.
which is why that long list still exists and is tucked away here.
which is why that list is always getting longer.
which is why i can write some of the things i write and not have them mean a thing. not change a thing.
there are only two people in my entire life who have actually understood this about me. one is the woman i call ‘mom’ and the other died some years ago.
one taste. ultimate.
i don’t know what is worse — that i took this long to remember or that i ever chose to forget.
hah. it doesn’t matter. what a relief!