RIGHT VIEWS

In the beginning there is the idea.  The seed from which all
else germinates.  In spiritual practice, the view we hold of the
world is certain to dictate the course of our actions.  In
Buddhism, the path of right view or right idea begins with a
basic understanding of the spiritual laws of existence.  The
noble four fold truths: 1.) that to be alive is to experience
dissatisfaction 2.) that this dissatisfaction is borne of
attachment to desire 3.) that these desires can be extinguished
4.) through following the eight fold path.

The first noble truth is usually interpreted as to be alive is
to suffer.  However, the original Pali word "dukkha" is a little
more complicated than simple suffering.  It really means a basic
underlying unsatisfactoriness with existence, a psychological
tension.  Buddha never taught that life itself was inherently
suffering, but that to be alive with a mundane consciousness was
to be in a state of tension with existence.  Of course suffering
is an experience all living things share, because the nature of
life is finite and when we experience the limits of our
finiteness, we experience suffering.

Sickness, old age, and death visit every being born in this
world.  They are the borders of our own mortality.  They do not
inherently carry with them a measured level of suffering as each
person, according to their own karma, experiences a different
level of discomfort when confronted with their own mortality.

For instance, two people may break their legs skiing, with an
identical level of physical pain and discomfort involved.  One
person may accept this accident gracefully, being mature enough
to realize that when he or she choose to take up skiing,
potential injury was part of the package.  That person might
spend the rest of the trip in the lodge, enjoying some wine and
good company and making the most of it.  A less mature
individual could well be sent into a frenzy of anger at the
"injustice" of their accident.  This type of person will suffer
a psychological hell of their own making and their experience of
this hell is much worse than the pain of the injury and
discomfort of a cast.

The essential difference in experience of two people sharing an
identical misfortune is due to the excessive desire of one,
versus the acceptance of the other.  The worst part of this
scenario for the angry skier is that they are likely to suffer
more in the future because of their inability to deal with their
situation.  They bring this on themselves by arousing the
contempt and anger of their companions because of their childish
behavior.  This in turn makes them bitter, full of self hatred,
and more likely to repeat their mistakes in the future.  

The source of their problems lie not in their experience, but in
the view they hold of the world that made that experience so
hellish.  It is the natural consequence of being out of touch
with reality.  The basic idea or view of such a person stripped
down to its essentials is that the world should conform to their
expectations.  This is a world view driven by desire, rather
than acceptance.

Many westerners view acceptance as a kind of moral cowardice. 
In the words of Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good
night, but rage; rage against the dying of the light."  The
truth is, acceptance is not a passive state as opposed to
desire.  This is one of the misunderstandings inherent in modern
world views.  Acceptance is a conscious awareness of the reality
of ones situation and does not imply a lack of energy. 
Acceptance is grounds for action because it deals realistically
with the actual.  Attachment to desire is a type of frenetic non
action in that it ignores actuality in favor of a denatured
possibility.

Understanding and acceptance of reality is the beginning of
enlightened activity.  In order to pursue a goal, we must have a
grasp of what the conditions are that will shape the direction
of our efforts.  If we do not recognize the terrain, we will be
unable to follow the map.  Knowing this, Buddha systematically
delineated the forces that shape life and consciousness.  His
interest was not in presenting a philosophical system, but in
laying out a road map of the terrain of the human condition in
order that we might find our own way.  Hid teaching was an
expression of his own experience, rather than a philosophical
agenda handed down to him from tradition.  The power of this
teaching arises directly from its unconditioned freedom.  This
freedom can only be obtained, when one has the courage to
pioneer into the self without the aid of a wagon full of
philosophical given and theological speculations.

The Buddha's teaching was, and still remains, an intensely
personal confrontation with the problem of human suffering and
its alleviation.  This confrontation with suffering was even
more remarkable when we consider that Shakyamuni's profound
distress with the human condition was not generated by his own
personal suffering so much as his recognition of the suffering
of those around him.  The prince in his palace was moved by the
sickness, old age, and death he saw around him while he himself
remained free from these afflictions.

It was not just the knowledge of his own potential suffering
that moved him, but the reality of suffering as a given in life
that shook him to his foundation.  For the truly spiritual , the
reality of suffering abides in ones spirit as an enduring flame
of compassion.  This is a fire that burns away all distinction
of self and other.  It reduces all lesser considerations to
ashes once it is kindles.  Therefore, Buddha adamantly refused
to answer questions that were purely theological or metaphysical
as being inherently irrelevant.  

His teaching had only one priority; the alleviation of human
suffering.  Even a simple person can recognize that there is no
way that a human being can avoid these conditions which produce
suffering on a physical level.  As long as a man exists in a
physical form, he has the consequences of that form.  To have
form one must have limit.  For that which is without limit is by
nature formless.  To move in a world of limits is to experience
limit in oneself, and the personal experience of limit is by
nature an unsatisfactory experience to one who defines himself
by his limits.

In the very beginning of life, physical pain and psychological
frustration mark the infant's first confrontation with its
limits.  It experiences directly the unsatisfactory nature of
its limits in its initial movements in the world.  The bumped
head, the toy just out of reach, reinforces a sense of
powerlessness in the infants mind.  This inability to have our
own way, and the tension that it produces with the world, is
what is meant in Buddhism as the first noble truth; that life is
suffering.

The original word Buddha used was dukkha, a Pali term that, as I
have said, implies more than the English word suffering.  Dukkha
refers to a type of underlying tension or dis-ease with
existence.  It describes the continuous confrontation of the
individual with his limits.  There is nothing particularly
revolutionary about this insight, except for the subtleness of
the definition.  Buddha, however, then goes on to postulate
another truth which begins to mark his radical departure from
ordinary perception.  Suffering is caused by desire, and this is
the second noble truth.

Once again the actual Sanskrit word signifies more than the
English word desire.  Obviously there are many positive desires
which are not productive of suffering, such as the desire to
enlightenment, or to aid others, etc.  What differentiates
negative desires from positive desires is the clinging
attachment associated with negativity.  This energy is called
Klesha or defilement in Pali, signifying an obsessive energy
which bonds the individual to a concept of self or situation
which will not allow one to confront limit with equanimity or
acceptance.  

Dukkha and klesha are like two ends of a magnet; dukkha is the
energy that repels limit, while klesha energy is constantly
drawing limit toward itself and bonding to it. Dukkha is unable
to simply be, within the boundaries of personal existence,
without pushing away continually from life situations, trying to
manipulate its way into a position of power.  It does this
because the mind is constantly attracted to limit by the energy
of klesha's magnetic pull.  The clinging desire to be or abide
in something of our own choosing, pulls one constantly forward
toward various life situations.  These are invariably
unsatisfactory, in that they cannot appease the energy of
desire, and thus we are repelled by them in the moment by the
force of dukkha.

The attachments of desire attract us, and the unsatisfactoryness
of the experience of our finiteness when we approach the object
of desire repels us again.   We are thus ceaselessly driven back
and forth emotionally in a maelstrom of unhappiness.  We can
actually become so used to this situation that we learn to
accept it, and not even recognize our own existential turmoil. 
A man who has been in pain since birth, believes he is quite
happy until someone comes along and alleviates his pain.  Then
he recognizes for the first time what it is to be happy.  The
source of this klesha which causes suffering lies in a basic
misunderstanding of the nature of self.  This lack of
understanding is what the Buddha called ignorance.  The man that
is ignorant sees himself as an absolute other, and carefully
defines his limits, thus activating the energy of the kleshas
and the resulting experience of suffering.

According to Buddhist teachings, the fundamental Reality of the
Universe, the Buddha Mind, is none other than our own original
nature.  This nature is hidden from us due to the conditioning
of desire and attachment to the process of becoming.  This is
the point where ignorance, in the form of attachment to self,
keeps us from seeing our true nature.  We literally are unable
to see the forest for all of the trees, and yet there is no
forest other than these trees.

The result of practicing the eight fold path is to begin to see
each tree or component thing for what it is, a perfect
expression of time and space.  Every tree in the forest becomes
a mirror to the process of becoming, reflecting the forest
itself.  All of life becomes merged in mutual identity at this
subtle level of understanding.  This is the result of a change
of perspective that allows a perception of reality as a dynamic
whole, rather than a set of ontological structures in a linear
causal relationship.

For instance, our usual understanding is that a tree is an
adaptation of a specific organism to a unique time and space. 
This is a linear perspective, however, and does not see the tree
for what it is.  It ignores the tree's interaction with the rest
of the environment.  A tree is a dynamic process rather than a
concrete unit of being.  That we perceive it as such is because
of the limits imposed upon our senses by their very structure,
and the corresponding interpretation by our mind.

In other words, our eyes are able to perceive light reflected
from a source within the limits imposed by the visible spectrum.
 Although we are aware scientifically of other radiations such
as infrared and ultraviolet light, we are unable to perceive
them.  Though the energy of light is composed of undulating
patterns or waves, our perception of change is limited to only
rapid transformation.  We can see this clearly when we look at a
time lapse film of a garden flower.

What appears to our ordinary consciousness as a rose in bloom is
actually a rose in process.  Through time lapse photography we
can see the crest and trough of the energy of the rose bush as
it generates buds, blooms, drops flowers, and begins again, all
while it continues growing. Along with all the visible
manifestations of process, are the myriad aspects of its
interaction with the other forces of the garden.  The rose
interacts with the soil, absorbing nutrients, dropping leaves
and flowers, which recycle nutrients, hosting insects, the
insects feeding each other, and absorbing carbon dioxide and
releasing oxygen.

Nothing about the rose is static.  In fact, its very being is in
interaction.  Our consciousness defines it as a thing, however.
A unit which is separate from the other units in the minds
arena.  It is either experienced as foreground or background. 
When the mind contemplates a garden, it delegates the rose to
the role of background, and when it considers the rose itself,
the sky or the garden wall becomes background.  The reality of
rose, however, is in its interaction with its environment.  The
names rose, garden, sky, and earth are mere tools of the
intellect and communication having no real relationship to the
reality of the phenomenon itself.  This is always a matter of
mutual interaction or better put, interpenetration.

The Buddhist term "mutual interpenetration", recognizes the
absolute coincidence of being that is an environment.  Every
aspect of the garden is effecting and being effected by all
other aspects simultaneously.  The evidence of this reality is
recognized in many disciplines from ecology to particle physics.
 The essential point for a Buddhist is that his own being is
also sharing in this interpenetration.  There is no abiding
reality of self outside of this interpenetration; no permanent
soul, mind, or spirit that is not one with this eternal
interchange.

The process is being, there is nothing else.  Ideas about self
are irrelevant to the truth.  They are mere clouds over the
garden, coming into being and dissipating.  All the while the
constant stream of interaction goes on.  As clouds blow where
the wind takes them, so the dharma student allows ideas of
self-freedom to blow across the sky of this eternal mutual
interpenetration. 

The forest is the trees and the trees are the forest.  The rose
is the garden, and the garden the rose.  Others are the self,
and self is the other.  There is nothing other than this,
nothing to cling to and nothing to fear.  For if all is self,
then there is no self which can be threatened by other.

How is it possible, then, for a person to operated effectively
in this world of things holding this lofty view of mutual
interpenetration?  It is possible because each phenomenon,
though sharing an essential being with all other phenomena,
never the less maintains its own pattern or structure as an
expression of this interrelationship.  Things do not cease to
exist when we become aware of their essential emptiness of self.
 If they did, then all existence would vanish with them.  The
process of this awareness can be found in the Zen saying, "First
there is a mountain, then there isn't a mountain, then there is."

When we first see things we see them as absolute concrete
realities in themselves.  A mountain is a mountain and nothing
else.  Then we become aware of the mountain's essential
emptiness, that it does not exist outside of its
interrelationship with the world.  Finally, it becomes mountain
again when we see it with the enlightened eye as the perfect
expression of the universe as mountain.  In the final vision, it
is no longer other, but participates with us in the mutual being
of the moment.  

We do not sacrifice anything by attaining this enlightened
perspective.  We are still able to function in the world of
things with the same facility as before.  We use reason and
discrimination in our daily lives with even more adroitness than
we did when we saw each thing as a reality onto itself.  Now we
understand on a visceral level that there is no action we take
that does interact with the whole.  Impetuous and stupid actions
we would have taken before, thinking them to be in our self
interest, are now seen for what they are.

For the first time we can trust our intuition to be a full
partner with our reason in determining life's action.  This is
because there has been a fundamental turning round of
consciousness which allows intuition to flow directly from that
shared being which is the universal consciousness.  Before
intuition was crippled by the mind's obstinate adherence to a
conception of the world of things separate in being.

We can begin to move through the world with the grace of a
virtuoso who, having attained technical mastery of his
instrument, can now let his intuitive genius flow into the
symphony of life, but with our own unique touch and accent.  The
old view of self, which we believed gave us a sense of freedom,
actually held us back from experiencing the beauty of our life. 
This beauty is what we call the Buddha Nature; it is the harmony
of life of which we are one note.  This view of life which
recognizes the Buddha nature and the laws of spiritual reality
is what is called Right View.