Evolution

2023, March, Issue 38

Cultivate great compassion, be kind, allow wisdom light to fill your life.  Living this way, for most people, would be a very positive change.  In a broad sense, evolution simply means that we change; however, the implication is that we improve.  If we have been consumed by fixations and distractions related to ego, as well as disturbing emotions, then allowing light to fill your life requires positive change.  This requires practice.  So often we make the dualistic mistake of thinking that we need to judge what appears in the harshest of terms.  We beat ourselves up, thus perpetuating the way we have always been.  We also work hard at defending what we think, not really knowing that what we think is a product of our deluded dualistic vision, not real. 

Evolution requires a light touch.  In order to evolve, we need to be gentle with our own situation.  We need to be able to accept growth, as well as find ways to dispel ego.

My Root Guru, Namkhai Norbu, often spoke about this idea that we need to cultivate evolution, not revolution.  This makes complete sense, when you really investigate what this means.  If we do not evolve spiritually, then a revolution will make no sense at all.  We have seen over and over again in this world that revolutions might settle a dispute here or there; however, without going right to the heart of the real problem, which is our habitual propensity for dualistic vision, then the problems are sure to rise again, maybe in a far worse manner.  Without a spiritual evolution within the individual, the same disturbing emotions, fixations and dualistic vision will become a problem once more.  On a societal level, this is always quite tragic.

The answer to all our problems can never be solved externally, that is for sure.  In order to even begin to improve our lives, we must look within, cultivating Bodhicitta.  Without the key of Bodhicitta, all our efforts will amount to nothing.  We must sit in meditation, working with mind, paying attention to what we are doing, with the intention of causing no harm, as well as becoming familiar with the inexplicable reality that we all must face in death.  Evolution happens when we address just what is happening here, with the aspiration of Bodhicitta, which is the aspiration to awaken, suffused with great compassion for self and all beings.

When I died, as I have said before many times, I was ready for whatever happened.  I was not at all concerned.  By resting into this notion of the inexplicable, being completely and instantly present, the light manifested for all eternity.  It was no problem.  I had evolved because of my Spiritual Practice.  This gave me a very deep spiritual experience, one where I completely, once again, integrated fully with the Dharmakaya, fully realizing through direct experience that we exist as a nondual condition, as nonduality inexplicably expressing all possibilities.

It should also be made abundantly clear that my goal in my multi-lifetime Spiritual Practice was not to find peace.  My goal in my Spiritual Practice was to peel away the layers of deception and delusion that had obscured my vision from beginningless beginnings, in order to awaken.  This is a very compassionate process, involving great effort at first.  Even though the actual practice eventually becomes effortless, it is not so easy to work through all the layers.  I faced my own resistance to this idea of awakening, as well as tremendous obstacles.  It’s very common to not really want to let go of our delusions, to resist awakening.  Ego makes it so.

If you have read The Frog, you know that my Spiritual Practice was, for me, in lifetime after lifetime, far from peaceful; it was actually very shocking and brutal to confront so much.

Facing all these demons actually prepared me for death.  Courageously engaging in all those things that should scare the bejesus out of anyone is important.  It’s not about peace or happiness, it’s about seeing just what is going on here, engaging delusion, then shredding it completely.  This is what you will need to prepare to do, if you wish to remain in the light.  Evolution is brutally painful; however, this you must do if you wish to awaken.

It's also important to know that remaining poisoned by ignorance, attraction and aversion will simply perpetuate suffering for an eternity.  It keeps us completely consumed by cyclic existence.  It will add layers of delusion that will be vastly more difficult to remove.  This is why aspiring to awaken is essential. 

Awakening means discovering our real condition, it means discovering reality.  Reality is not what we wish or believe it to be.  Reality is only as it is.

We can do this; we can all awaken.  It is in our nature to awaken, to evolve.  The key is Bodhicitta.

Blessings in Light,

Robert Aho