Wisdom From a Fool

Everybody, in their natural state, is enlightened. You can’t do anything to make yourself become enlightened. Anything you try to do to move towards it is only moving you further away from it.

“Well that’s all very nice, but I don’t really feel it,” you say.

Who doesn’t feel it?

Zen master Hakuin used to tell a story of when he was a young student, traveling around to see Zen teachers and meditating on emptiness, by which Zen followers seek to clear their minds of subjective imaginings in preparation for perception of objective truth.

On one occasion Hakuin was traveling in the company of two other Buddhist monks. One of them asked Hakuin to carry his baggage for him, pleading weakness and fatigue from illness.

The young Hakuin readily assented, taking his mind off the extra load by plunging even more deeply into his contemplation of emptiness.

Observing Hakuin’s youth and zeal, the other monk decided to take a load off his own shoulder as well. Claiming illness like the first, he asked Hakuin to carry his baggage too.

In the spirit of Buddhist service, Hakuin took up the third load and continued on his way, immersing himself in emptiness more intently than every.

Eventually the three monks reached a point where they could go on only by boat, so they boarded a ferry at the nearest landing. Completely exhausted by now, Hakuin collapsed into a heap and fell sound asleep.

When he awoke, the young seeker was momentarily disoriented. It appeared that they had just docked, but he had no memory of the trip.

Noticing a foul odor, he looked around and saw that everyone was green in the face and covered with vomit. They were looking at him very strangely

It turned out that the ferry boat had run into a squall in the course of its passage and had been tossed about so violently that everyone, including the boatman himself, had become uncontrollably seasick.

Only the young Zen student Hakuin, so exhausted from carrying the baggage of his two companions that he slept right through the storm, had not been affected at all.

This, related Zen master Hakuin, was how he had first realized through his own experience that the principle that hidden virtue is manifestly rewarded is actually true.

The Point

Great story, isn’t it? There’s not much that needs to be said. Don’t complain if you feel your silent virtuous deeds are going unrewarded. It’s more likely that you just aren’t paying enough attention to notice them.

In part one, you found out how to clear your mind. You can use the principle of a calm, clear mind to create mindfulness in your life. It sounds contradictory, but it’s true. To improve the quality of your action, mindfulness is a wonderful tool.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is filling your mind with something. That “something” could be anything. In mindfulness meditation, you are supposed to be mindful of your breath. If other thoughts keep bothering you while trying to concentrate on your breath, you are not being completely mindful. It takes practice, but being able to sustain your mindfulness is the beneficial goal you should be trying to achieve.

What does mindfulness have to do with my actions?

How many times has your mind wandered off on its own when you were walking, driving, working, talking, etc.? When you are doing something, your mind should be there with you, doing whatever it is you are doing. Thoughts distract you. Imagine how well you could do things if your mind was completely focused on the task at hand. Let’s consider a few examples:

• Working Man – The man should be completely mindful of his work. This is his work mind. His work mind produces the best results; he carries out his tasks skillfully and thoroughly. Maybe he is a husband also, and if there are troubles at home that are bothering him, his work mind cannot focus. It is being distracted by his husband mind. The husband mind might be great for being a husband, but what good is it for being productive at work? It serves only as a distraction to the tasks at hand, and lowers the quality of his results.
• Husband – When the man is at home with his wife, he should thoroughly be a husband. Lingering thoughts and worries from work will make him unfocused. It will only cause problems for him and his wife.
• Mother – A mother should be a mother. It’s all about mindfulness. A mother who is thinking about work, or thinking about being a wife, can’t sincerely be a mother to her child.
• Artist – To produce good art, the artist needs to be using an artist mind. You may have experienced what this is like. It feels like getting “lost” in the action. For me, I have occasionally experienced this by accident when I’ve been drawing. There were no other thoughts in my mind, I was only drawing. My mind was full of pure drawing. In that state, I always produced the best pictures. Well, the best pictures that my poor drawing ability were able to produce, anyway.

So now you understand the use of mindfulness in improving the quality of your actions. However, it doesn’t end there. Every aspect of your life is connected. Improving the parts improves the whole. Without mindfulness, every part affects every other part and causes problems. When mindfulness is applied, the working man is a better husband, the husband is a better working man, and so on. I won’t go through all the examples again, because I’m sure you see how they relate to each other.

Sounds great, but how can I be mindful?

Being mindful is not difficult. You don’t have to be perfect, you don’t need to instantly change the way you think. Start small, try to focus when you are working, or start meditating regularly. I think meditation is the best way to learn how to be mindful. It’s like training any other muscle in your body, except you are doing a training exercise for your mind. Although, it would be a mistake to think of meditation as a chore you need to endure to gain a result. Rather, it is practice to help you learn to live in the present moment, where mindfulness can happen. Being mindful at work could also be considered practice to improve the quality of your meditation, it works either way.

Some people see meditation as completely separate from the rest of their lives, but it’s your mind that’s being calmed, and that same mind is with you wherever you go. If you can practice and learn to concentrate during meditation, it should be easy for you to apply that concentration to other areas of your life.

That’s it. Isn’t it simple? When you are working, just work; when you are sitting, just sit; when you are driving, just drive; when you are walking, just walk, but don’t wobble… Unless you are a very thorough wobbler.

A student once asked his teacher,

“Master, what is enlightenment?”

The master replied,

“When hungry, eat. When tired, sleep.”

For the average person, clearing your mind is a tricky thing to do. To learn how to clear your mind, you first need to understand a few things about how the mind works.

Think of your untamed mind like a pool of muddy water. There is nothing you can do to clear a pool of muddy water. Any effort will only make things worse. Imagine trying to use your hands to clear the pool; it just wouldn’t work. The harder you try, the murkier the water gets. People feel like they should be doing something when they want to clear their minds, but in fact all that is required is observation, patience and understanding. What happens if you leave the muddy water alone? The mud settles and the water becomes clear.

Your everyday mind is bustling with thoughts, it’s always thinking about something. Simple meditation techniques can help you learn to calm your mind. Many people try to calm their minds, but give up because they find that their mind keeps racing through thought after thought, when they don’t want it to. This is okay. You can’t expect your mind to just magically empty itself and enter a state that it is not familiar with. Just let the thoughts come and go, they will eventually come and go less frequently. The mud settles, your mind is calm. If you do not know how to meditate, but would like to try, watch this instructional video.

Don’t get confused, though, it isn’t important to remember all the jargon, or to sit in lotus position. Your focus should be your mind, not the way you are sitting. Just make sure that your back is straight and that you are comfortable. There are many free guides to meditation on the internet, so feel free to refer to them if you are having trouble. Also, remember not to get caught up with learning about meditation, just go ahead and try it. See what happens.

Having a clear mind doesn’t necessarily mean having an empty one. Part two of this series will tell you how clarity of mind can improve the quality of your action.

Knowledge is absolutely useless if you don’t realize it. Realize is a good word. In this case, it means what it sounds like: bring your mind’s knowledge into your reality. I have come across people who were deeply depressed and unhappy, despite knowing everything anybody could possibly want to know about how to be truly happy. They had read all the books, articles, and stories out there. In theory, it all sounded wonderful, but it just didn’t work. The reason things weren’t going well for these people is they were tricking themselves into thinking they were taking action, when they actually weren’t.

Let’s say I have a lot of weeds in my garden. I could read books about how to remove weeds, I could buy a whole lot of weed removal products, I could take classes on how to remove weeds, but none of those things is going to remove the weeds from my garden. If I want to get rid of the weeds, I have to go outside and pull them out. That’s all there is to it. Of course, if I have little knowledge of weed-pulling-out technique, the weeds will just grow back. If I did all of those things and then pulled the weeds out, my efforts would be effective. Unfortunately, many people make the mistake of getting lost searching for knowledge instead of implementing it.

The way you perceive information you receive is very important. In many cases, believing everything you hear or read is incredibly foolish. I’m a fool, I know this from experience. It’s when people blindly believe something valuable that the value is lost. Religion is a prime example of this. Reading and knowing The Bible doesn’t make you closer to God; The Bible is a signpost, pointing to God, giving people directions. Instead of experiencing God for themselves, they’re reading about God… It’s like hearing about somebody’s vacation; it can never take the place of actually going on a vacation. A Buddhist can’t attain enlightenment by studying Sutras, it’s all about experience, implementation and realization. There’s an old saying:

_______ is like a finger pointing at the moon. Don’t mistake the finger for the moon.

The blank can be any religion, or whatever else you want it to be. Use your imagination. My point is that you should not mistake signposts or “fingers” for the actual “thing” being pointed to. There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom, or methods and results. See the truth for yourself, don’t believe to be true whatever you hear is true.

It’s kind of foolish for me to write about wisdom, since wisdom cannot be conveyed through words. Words are terrible. They can’t get anything done. I could write for hours describing something as simple as an apple and my description wouldn’t even come close to what it would be like to truly experience the apple. If something as simple as an apple can’t be conveyed properly, then how can we expect something as illusive as wisdom to be conveyed? There is an answer. If I told you something like “apples are round and red, they can be found growing on apple trees. Go forth, find an apple and experience it!” it would be far better than me trying to accurately convey to you what an apple is like with words. So when you are looking for wisdom, remember not to try and find it in words. Use words, knowledge, and methods as tools to find what you are looking for; don’t mistake the finger for the moon.

Freedom is often an illusion created by a sense of control. When do we feel free? When we can do what we enjoy or want to do, live and exist in the way we would like to. You are probably aware that life isn’t that simple; we can’t just do as we please. Freedom in this sense is unattainable, we always, and I mean always, want something more than we have. False freedom runs rampant in this existence, but I suppose that serves to make true freedom sweeter.

Freedom of speech apparently exists, but it is rare. Most people hardly ever speak freely, though they feel like they do. People don’t say what is truly on their mind, they think what is there is usually unrelated, pointless, offensive, embarrassing or whatever else. You think you know people? You don’t know the people you know, you probably don’t even know yourself. Your idea of someone is a constructed image in your head of what you think they are, created from your experiences with them. Effectively you could create a “you” in someone’s head that is completely different to who you actually are, just by acting different around them. You may know somebody quite well, but you will never know more than they want you to know, unless it is an accident.

This relates to freedom, true freedom. In your head is your self, what you think you are. This is your prison. The way you act is determined by this image of yourself. How often have you done or said something and then thought “Oh, that wasn’t like me.” In fact, it was like you since you just did it, and it is more you than a mere abstract thought. In society, people try to act out the part that they have created for themselves in their head. It is a hindrance. To be free is to be unbound, without attachment to anything; even this (what could be considered false) sense of self.

Freedom does not exist in the future or the past, it is only found in the present moment. If you put your focus on the future and rely on it to bring you happiness, then you can’t be happy and free in the present. Focusing on the past is equally bad for obvious reasons. I believe it was Lao Tzu who used the analogy of a mirror. Use your mind like a mirror, do not retain or grasp things, just let existence flow through you.