Tripleslam Post 15 11/27/13
We have seen the truth, I'm not perfect, I cannot demand that I be so, I can only do the work.
So here is a slam back from me, at the imperfections, in me, perhaps in all of us, please forgive me, but I can no longer keep my silence. I felt the words had steeped deep in me long enough and were ready and that I should share them with any who would or could hear. No load off of my heart, but perhaps, a hair's breadth further out from the forefront of my every waking mind. So, do not suffer needlessly, and thank you.
[ At her request and with her permission, I am including my long time correspondent and good friend's name in full.
Constance Casey. ]
hello Constance,
I hope with all my heart that you are well and constant in your wellness.
I have written what is below and I fully intend next to post it at DhO.
I have returned there to resume the dialog I entered into before.
I thought that you, of all people, who Fully awakened me to This Truth,
should see this first.
--------------
and now I post it here.
It seems impossible to me, imponderable to me, that a company which is entirely concerned with truth should fabricate a falsehood. Yet I see this every day and sadly more so all the time.
I have written already before, and I am doing so again now, about the poisoning of this world, our world, by Ideologically Totalitarian Impositions, Impositions against the Truth, impositions against us all.
By this I mean any complete or allegedly complete body of knowledge and understanding which thereby becomes a view, a view to which people cling, yet not only cling to but cling to and then impose upon others.
If the view and its views are fully and absolutely true, then no matter what happens, those who see in such ways are on the winning side, the winning side of any dispute over the truth, and even if they perish in it, they have triumphed in upholding this complete and utter truth.
However if the view, and or its views in whole or in part is false, then they should be and must be questioned and this falseness brought to light so that they and all will see the truth, the complete and absolute truth, for what it is.
So in this light I will say this. This is not about the Noble Sangha who even now, as surely as ever in the past, do see the truth. This will be about the ordained sangha, which today as in days past are simply people who aspire to the truth. Some may be also of the Noble sort, but today, as in the past, some will not, even should they wish otherwise, yet be so.
So we have, as everywhere in the world, a mix of kinds and types of people. In the world, men and women together. Yet in the ordained sangha, in many ways and in many places, yet thankfully not in all places, only men.
Here I stop, and I wonder at this and this is why.
The sangha and the Sangha are the possessors of the truth. They are people surely as well, but in name and in form they are seen to hold only to the truth, no matter who or how they are people.
Now I agree, the sangha should be, or become, and the Sangha is, possessor of the truth, and may in the perfection of themselves in the truth Be or Become the possessors of the Truth in Full.
Here I stop again, and pause even longer in wonder, and here is why.
I pause in wonder because so very men in robes have gathered together to bar the door to this truth and hold out from it those who also would long to see and dwell in that truth.
Now I do not care nor shall I ever care who ordained these men or who ordained those men before them in days past. But sometime, somewhere, these men and their words have turned their backs on truth in its fullness.
Here is why.
You cannot say, in full, to fully half of the people now alive, "come and see the truth, come and see it in full, gaze upon it in wonder but nonetheless, you cannot dwell in this truth." To my mind, to any mind that can think, this cannot be so.
This is why. This is why, despite the fact, despite the truth, that before all things, I, who too see the truth, no less so, cannot dwell with you.
I am a man, but I am also homo sapiens and in this I am no different from a woman in anything but the mere appearance of the very same form. In every other way, that need truthfully be considered, we are the very same.
Those who know the truth, know that the truth conforms, in just these ways, and we cannot deny this.
This is why I see a falsehood, where I see I must see only truth.
So it is impossible, it is imponderable to me that anyone should open the door to truth and then say to any other the same, "I can see and dwell in this truth and you can see it also but you cannot dwell in it together with us here."
This cannot be, this cannot stand. And so I and others will leave you be in your solitudes and isolations, in and from this truth, if in no other truth besides this.
I cannot see therefore, that you see the truth fully, if you do not see it completely. So I bid you well and goodbye.
I see the truth, as others do, perhaps not fully and completely but no less clearly than those who have proven and demonstrate the same, and we will take the truth elsewhere, and we will plant fresh new Buddha fields, and in those fields we will all of us; man, woman and child, all of us shall dwell together in this truth. We will be as one in it and as a great company we shall stand together in this truth.
We shall grow, we shall flourish, in the truth, and even as you may wander without it and beg, in it we shall flourish and be nourished by it. Turn away now I say to you who deny this, turn away from falsehoods, and join with us who cannot deny the truth or our need of it in fullness and completeness and we will welcome you into our company, in the truth and in the fullness and in the completeness of it, and in it we shall all be nourished and never go without.
Now I have said my peace and we may all return to the blessed silence and do so in our truth.
________
Constance
I have thought about your suffering at isolation as a person and as a woman in this and in so many ways, (you know too how we all share in it, all of us, with any eyes and ears and hearts and minds of any note at all) for many long days and nights and this the best of my metta, my metta for you my sister and all of our sisters and brothers, for all of our sakes.
I wish you well
metta
nathan
___________________________________
p.s.
Some hope yet exists, even if nothing can be done for the world, in another kind of solitude and apart from it. It should be added here as well but not probably not by me. So...
I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying at Savatthi in the Eastern Monastery, the palace of Migara's mother. Then in the evening, Ven. Ananda, coming out of seclusion, went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As he was sitting there, he said to the Blessed One: "On one occasion, when the Blessed One was staying among the Sakyans in a Sakyan town named Nagaraka, there — face-to-face with the Blessed One — I heard this, face-to-face I learned this: 'I now remain fully in a dwelling of emptiness.' Did I hear that correctly, learn it correctly, attend to it correctly, remember it correctly?"
[The Buddha:] "Yes, Ananda, you heard that correctly, learned it correctly, attended to it correctly, remembered it correctly. Now, as well as before, I remain fully in a dwelling of emptiness. Just as this palace of Migara's mother is empty of elephants, cattle, & mares, empty of gold & silver, empty of assemblies of women & men, and there is only this non-emptiness — the singleness based on the community of monks; even so, Ananda, a monk — not attending to the perception[1] of village, not attending to the perception of human being — attends to the singleness based on the perception of wilderness. His mind takes pleasure, finds satisfaction, settles, & indulges in its perception of wilderness.
"He discerns that 'Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the perception of village are not present. Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the perception of human being are not present. There is only this modicum of disturbance: the singleness based on the perception of wilderness.' He discerns that 'This mode of perception is empty of the perception of village. This mode of perception is empty of the perception of human being. There is only this non-emptiness: the singleness based on the perception of wilderness.' Thus he regards it as empty of whatever is not there. Whatever remains, he discerns as present: 'There is this.' And so this, his entry into emptiness, accords with actuality, is undistorted in meaning, & pure."Excerpted from the opening passages of:
EmptinessMN 121 Cula-suññata Sutta: The Lesser Discourse on Emptiness
translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu © 1997