The Best Buddhist Writing 2010 - Melvin McLeod [137]
My intention in sharing this journey of mind and its culture, here and in the following pages, is to echo the Buddha’s message that the truth about who we really are, beyond all appearances, is knowledge worth seeking. It leads to freedom, and freedom to happiness. May everyone enjoy perfect happiness, and may that happiness, in turn, liberate the suffering of the world.
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rebel buddha
WHEN YOU HEAR the word buddha, what do you think of? A golden statue? A young prince seated under a spreading tree? Or maybe Keanu Reeves in the movie Little Buddha? Robed monks, shaved heads? You may have many associations or none at all. Most of us are far removed from any realistic connection to the word.
The word buddha, however, simply means “awake” or “awakened.” It does not refer to a particular historical person or to a philosophy or religion. It refers to your own mind. You know you have a mind, but what’s it like? It’s awake. I don’t just mean “not asleep.” I mean your mind is really awake, beyond your imagination. Your mind is brilliantly clear, open, spacious, and full of excellent qualities: unconditional love, compassion, and wisdom that sees things as they truly are. In other words, your awakened mind is always a good mind; it’s never dull or confused. It’s never distressed by the doubts, fears, and emotions that so often torture us. Instead, your true mind is a mind of joy, free from all suffering. That is who you really are. That is the true nature of your mind and the mind of everyone. But your mind doesn’t just sit there being perfect, doing nothing. It’s at play all the time, creating your world.
If this is true, then why isn’t your life, and the whole world, perfect? Why aren’t you happy all the time? How could you be laughing one minute and in despair the next? And why would “awakened” people argue, fight, lie, cheat, steal, and go to war? The reason is that, even though the awakened state is the true nature of the mind, most of us don’t see it. Why? Something is in the way. Something is blocking our view of it. Sure, we see bits of it here and there. But the moment we see it, something else pops into our mind—“What time is it? Is it time for lunch? Oh, look, a butterfly!”—and our insight is gone.
Ironically, what blocks your view of your mind’s true nature—your buddha mind—is also your own mind, the part of your mind that is always busy, constantly involved in a steady stream of thoughts, emotions, and concepts. This busy mind is who you think you are. It is easier to see, like the face of the person standing right in front of you. For example, the thought you’re thinking right now is more obvious to you than your awareness of that thought. When you get angry, you pay more attention to what you’re angry about than to the actual source of your anger, where your anger is coming from. In other words, you notice what your mind is doing, but you don’t see the mind itself. You identify yourself with the contents of this busy mind—your thoughts, emotions, ideas—and end up thinking that all of this stuff is “me” and “how I am.”
When you do that, it’s like being asleep and dreaming and believing that your dream images are true. If, for example, you dream that you’re being chased by a menacing stranger, it’s very scary and real. However, as soon as you wake up, both the stranger and your feelings of terror are simply gone, and you feel great relief. Furthermore, if you had known you were dreaming in the first place, then you wouldn’t have experienced any fear.
In a similar way, in our ordinary life, we’re like dreamers believing that the dream we’re having is real. We think we’re awake, but we’re not. We think that this busy mind of thoughts and emotions is who we truly are. But when we actually wake up, our misunderstanding about who we are—and the suffering that confusion brings—is gone.
A REBEL WITHIN
If we could,