Breaking Free

2024, November, Issue 124

With a light touch

We find ourselves entering the Supreme Path

We find ourselves wishing to awaken

from this bad dream

We find ourselves suspecting

that none of this is real;

With a light touch,

We materialize the key that will unlock all of this,

all of these doors, within our mind,

within our mind, within our mind,

relative reality within our mind;

With a light touch we realize this key,

This Key of Bodhicitta will open all doors,

open our heart and mind to what is, as it is,

to the ineffable, to all, to nothing and beyond;

With a light touch, we avoid extremes,

we avoid the painful agony of eternalism,

with this ludicrous notion that this illusion

is solid and that something about it

might never change . . .

We also avoid this extreme foolishness

of nihilism, of thinking the illusion is nothing,

that we are nothing, that nothing appears;

We avoid all extremes with the Supreme Key,

even those we have not heard of,

knowing that this illusion seems real,

and that it is not nothing;

With a light touch, we learn great compassion,

helping ourselves and others to awaken, because,

because, because they are not different than us,

not different than us in this grand illusion;

With a light touch, we directly experience that bright light,

That Wisdom Light of Supreme Source

within every breath, the air we breathe,

within every vision, the rays of light,

within every sound, the echoes of the ineffable,

Our mind encompasses this knowledge

that we have never left Timeless Luminosity,

that is Dharmakaya, the Supreme Source;

We know this through direct experience,

intuitively, with open heart and mind,

We gaze upon mind and all that appears to mind

within this vast field beyond clinging

beyond miracles, of miracles

all these bright crisp miracles.

A poem by Robert Aho © 2024

Quite a lot of discussion happens among people who are on the Spiritual Path; and, most of it is completely useless or misleading, seeming like an intellectual debate. People engage in more of a philosophical social competition. The trouble with doing this is that it’s really a fool’s quest. It’s really a distraction.

No concept, no philosophy, no belief, whether religious or otherwise, will ever lead you to what is ultimately true. With absolutely everything everywhere changing millions of times per second, we can never definitively discover or find anything whatsoever that can be grasped or established as real. This does not mean that such wildly changing appearances do not exist, it is just that they are more like a dream, something unreal springing from infinite potentiality. Real and unreal have nothing to do with nothing and everything. These concepts are really human misconceptions.

When we wish to awaken, we are really wishing to realize what is, as it is. We’re not seeking another philosophy. We’re not trying to get someone to reveal spiritual secrets. If you conceptually approach spiritual practices with the idea that you’ll awaken once someone tells you about the secret they’ve been keeping, you will be sorely disappointed. The answers you seek cannot be realized through concept or belief. I’ve seen many Spiritual Practitioners fail in that way. They go right back into confusion, as they were before they had even started on this quest.

If you come to something like Tibetan Buddhism, you will quickly learn that many things are kept secret, or even profoundly, extremely secret. Many Spiritual Practitioners approach this with the idea that they will somehow steal this knowledge, thus discovering something that was being kept from them. This is almost comical, if it weren’t so tragic. What they don’t understand is that certain things are secret, because we must each come to some sort of realization about them, thus revealing the secret through intensive Spiritual Practice.

These secrets are not secret because you haven’t been told what they are. They’re not something that someone can tell you. These secrets are secret because you must do the hard work of preparing to discover them. It’s not something where we could have been told the answer at the start of our spiritual quest. We wouldn’t have believed it, and our journey would have ended before it even began.

What I can tell you with complete confidence and certainty is that this Spiritual Path is completely worth all of the hard work of meditating and learning to face anything at all. When you begin upon the Spiritual Path, it may seem daunting; however, this Path does lead somewhere. If you discover the first step on the Path, you will see instant results in your life, but don’t let this be an indicator of what is to come. The Mahayana and the Vajrayana can be overwhelming at times; in fact, looking for instant results as you enter those vehicles will only create tremendous obstacles. If you discover the Dzogchen, it might seem like you’ve arrived. Ironically, that is when the real challenges have begun.

Please remember that our Spiritual Path requires a light touch. Concept and belief are demons to be overcome. Awakening requires our full attention, without grasping or expectations. We must resign ourselves completely without expectations, that we could instantly awaken, or it may take a thousand lifetimes.

Blessings in Light,

Robert Aho