Goodbye, Hello
2024, April, Issue 93
“In the few moments before I died, in this lifetime, I waved goodbye. In the next moment, I was fully integrated into Dharmakaya, such an amazingly brilliant light, beyond time, beyond any sort of mental construct. In that moment, which lasted for all of eternity, we said hello in the only way anyone can ever say hello. It was ultimate reality, far brighter, far more real than anything we can imagine on Earth. The essence of all phenomena became completely apparent. The essence of all beings were fully evident.”
An excerpt from, The Frog: A Spiritual Autobiography, Spanning Many Lifetimes, pg. 386, © 2021.
Sometimes I become very upset when I see someone fully enmeshed in samsara, when I see how tightly someone clings to their own bonds. It doesn’t make me angry or delighted, I simply feel a deep sadness. There’s nothing that I can do for someone who clings tightly to cyclic existence. I become upset instantly; and, people might become surprised by this with me, especially after watching me not get upset by all sorts of things that might make someone upset.
This disturbance to my quiet comes from knowing the essence of why beings suffer, why they continue to wander, drifting helplessly in the ocean of samsara, at the mercy of their own karma and disturbing emotions. I came back to life with the intention of helping all beings, and one of the first things that I observed was that there are a vast number who I can offer no relief. They serve only Mara, this great demon that stands against enlightenment; and, these beings have not even begun to see that there is a problem with this.
This, observing those who gladly take their poison, makes me upset more than anything.
Ignorance, attraction and aversion all feed this demon; and, yet, this is not who we really are. We are really all this bright light. The perversion of reality that we experience through cyclic existence is something that is happening to beings who are really Buddhas. I don’t know what to do when I observe a sleeping Buddha who won’t even consider the possibility of reality beyond our deluded mind. What is to be done about that? You can’t say anything that will make sense to them. You can’t behave in ways that they can fathom. They don’t want to hear about awakening, because they are utilizing every ounce of their energy to remain restlessly asleep.
So, if one were to study this quote from my book The Frog, it is not likely that a person would truly understand the significance of it. One might have the misconception that I had a very bright dream, or that it was just some sort of hallucination coming from events in the hospital, as I underwent a procedure. The reality that is not so apparent is that it was far more real than what we regard as being reality. The intense awareness, the overriding expansiveness, the clarity, all these are not something that we ordinarily experience. Writing about such direct experience can hardly communicate the truly profound extent of just what happened.
This was a condition beyond our ordinary suffering, our deluded mind that thinks that it is separate and experiencing something like dreams. This was also a condition beyond the bliss we associate with this notion of nirvana, where we might extinguish our negative emotions that cause suffering. My direct experience did not have any emotions that we associate with self. What happened was a vivid experience of self becoming fully integrated with our natural condition. Self, essentially, disappeared completely; and, along with it, ego and even the idea of a self with no ego became released from cyclic existence.
When I meet someone who seems to have closed themselves off completely from our natural condition, I think about remaining in the light and never coming back to this neighborhood ever again. I think about letting go of samsara forever, not ever appearing for any reason whatsoever. I, of course, let that notion go quite quickly when I turn my attention to those who have opened their hearts and mind just a little. The key of Bodhicitta works in this way as well.
When I died, the reality of leaving cyclic existence became vivid. When I said goodbye, I instantly said hello, because all beings were revealed to me in detail, as part of this open expansive awareness. This sounds like a lot; however, it was just a small drop within this bright condition. Becoming Dharmakaya, beyond time and space, beyond conceptual understanding, all this busy turbulence in our dull dark corner of existence, all the universes and all those conditions in dimensions we can’t really imagine, all that, even with the infinite number of beings, even that was just a speck, just a tiny portion of this awareness.
We think too much of ourselves. These appearances we sense are extremely limited. Even a very perceptive genius knows very little. When we awaken, we allow self to disappear into light. We allow our real nature to envelop our consciousness. Awareness itself emanates in a way that cannot be fathomed by the most advanced human intellectuals.
Awaken! Awaken now! Cast aside these bonds of delusion!
Blessings in Light,
Robert Aho
This was a timely read for me, as I have been grappling with exactly how dedicated I can be to others, who may be suffering terrible situations (or perhaps my mind is exaggerating), and to what extent that goal diverts me from simply growing in my own embodiment of The Good.
Sometimes, actions are profound, sometimes they are just rearranging the pigpen, at the expense of true Inner growth, which may look (paradoxically) like detachment or disinterest. It is very hard for me to allow myself to detach, when others seem to be drowning.
An extremely profound poem was once shared with me, Mary Oliver's "The Journey". It sums up a lot of this tension. I have trouble believing that my own life has as much value as those I'm trying to "save", and that sometimes social projects are a distraction. I am still unclear and have a lot of guilt.
I'll leave it here, and will thank you deeply for addressing a current knot that's been difficult to untangle. Please have me in your thoughts.
"The Journey"
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life that you could save.
So much suffering! I feel like since I'm here, if we can share a moment of kindness, laughter, closeness... isn't that spreading Bodhichitta? So they might offer it to the next person?