Spirituality and the Real World

 HOLY

what is it that is holy

what is holy is what it is

 

with permission, from Out of Hiding, poems by James Lloyd Rice, New York: iUniverse, Inc. 2005.

 

Lately I’ve been especially frustrated by a growing misunderstanding that exists in the spiritual world.  In Buddhism, the confusion rests in understanding the nature of the absolute and the nature of the relative.  This mix-up results in a distortion of what it means to live a spiritual life.  Although this is a very complex topic, I’d like to make an effort to clarify the nature of the absolute and the relative, and how they are not only not separate from one another, but also that both should be embraced in our everyday lives.

 

The absolute refers to everything in existence, where there are no dualities and no conflicts.  It is the perfection, where we are “all one,” where there is no “this or that” nor “good or evil,” and there is also this and that and good and evil. It is not only a complex concept to understand, but it is an even more difficult one to experience.  In spiritual communities, however, the understanding of the absolute can often be distorted:  we are told that leading a spiritual life means that we should live from the state of the absolute as if everything were perfect and acceptable, just as it is.  From the absolute standpoint this is true.

 

But people forget that if the absolute includes everything, it also includes the relative.  It includes dualities of good and bad, right and wrong, cruelty and compassion, because these concepts are realities in everyday life.  While we aspire to not harm others, to not be greedy, to not put others down, we take these actions in some way nearly every day.  To deny that the difficult, frustrating, embarrassing, hurtful parts of ourselves exist is to ignore aspects of who we truly are.

 

Disregarding the relative also has a destructive component.  Besides our desire to be perfect spiritual beings (which is impossible to do) by continually dwelling in the absolute, we also may find ourselves practicing spiritual bypassing, a term used by John Welwood, where people may use spiritual ideas and practices to avoid dealing with their emotional unfinished business.  We create a perception of ourselves which is distorted by our desire to block out those unpleasant and negative aspects of ourselves that make us truly human.

 

From a universal perspective, there is an even greater (in some ways) danger.  When you look at terrorism in the world, for example, can you look at Osama bin Laden and see yourself?  Do you know that you are Osama bin Laden, because you are not separate from him?  That would be the understanding from the side of the absolute.  But the absolute does not have “sides” since it includes everything—which means it includes the relative.  From the relative standpoint, Osama bin Laden is evil, a monster, who has an unquenchable desire to re-establish the caliphate and convert the entire world to Islam.  This statement is not just a theory; it is without question an historic part of jihadism, an integral part of Islam.

 

Your tendency might be to want to stay in the absolute, justifying or accepting the actions of the terrorists from a “compassionate” standpoint.  If you stay in the absolute in examining this situation, however, you are stuck there.  The absolute also includes the relative, which says that the terrorists may have all kinds of reasons for killing innocent people.  But to do so is unacceptable.  We are called by spirit to delve into this paradox of embracing and condemning, of feeling compassion and rejection.

 

The challenge we all face is learning to live with the tension of living the life of spirit, which means allowing ourselves to dwell in both the absolute and the relative.  It means that we can experience compassion for those who practice hate and destruction; it also means that we condemn them and their actions for killing others.  The additional challenge is to notice when you allow your fear to disguise itself as compassion, or to let your wisdom deteriorate to hatred.  This awareness is an opportunity for you to notice that all of this is happening, to fully experience your reaction to it, to embrace the complexity of it all, and to act on your understanding.