Expert: Joe McSorley - 1/17/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hi Joe,
Last time I realized that in reality I cannot be enlightened. Honestly, none of us can be enlightened. Because we are all just a "projection", of the Buddha. When there is "I", there is no Buddha. When there is no "I", there is Buddha. In the end, it is not I who is enlightened, it is just the Buddha who has returned.

In your opinion, how true is that?

One more thing, many people say karma is do good and you will receive good. And they also say we receive good because we do good to others. The whole understanding sounds like we ourselves are the center of the karmic universe, as if the issue of us being innocent but still able to receive bad because of others bad action does not arise. My personal opinion and solution to that is that however good or bad we are, we will still receive both good and bad from ourselves and others. Even a 100% pure and holy person can still receive bad karma from others. To say no good and no bad would be like nihilism. In the end, since we are already here, life should be about making a difference by doing what is selfless good and beneficial to all even in the midst of a hellish world. And not be affected by hatred, revenge, an eye for any eye sort-of-thing where bad karma is exactly perpetrated by such.

What's your opinion?

ANSWER: Hello Choo,
  Even the idea of Buddha itself is a projection.  The Buddha does not come and go, does not return and leave.  We are all nature, all at once, but we confuse our minds for being apart from nature or Buddha.  Coming and going is the creation of the mind.  You are right, ‘we’ cannot become enlightened because it is this idea of ‘I” that creates the problem.  Enlightenment does not happen in time and does not happen to you; it is the realization of the universe as it is, here and now.  Nature/Buddha does not project you, you project it, and therefore separate yourself from that which you already are.  Buddha and nature are creations of our minds.
  Pertaining to karma, what is the self that receives or creates karma? If the self is empty then what can create this process?  It is the illusion of self that attaches to these ideas and judges good and bad karma.  You must ask yourself, where does this karma reside?  Where does it touch me? The process of action and reaction or karma is ever ongoing in nature.  One creates the other, they cannot be separated.  The qualities of good and bad karma are created by the mind; they do not exist in nature.  Animals do not have good and bad karma.  They do not have a self that makes such judgment; they just live in the world as cause and effect.  We humans separate ourselves from the world and say what is good and bad but these do not exist outside of our judgment in nature.  Nature is neither good nor bad.  
  We look at a vine or moss on a tree and think, how beautiful, but that vine is actually killing the tree. What is good for the vine is bad for the tree and vice versa.  It is not bad or good; it is the process of life. We make judgments about what is good and bad for ourselves because we identify ourselves as the body but we do not know who this self is that makes these judgments.  In your case of the holy person receiving bad karma what can actually be done to that self?  You can affect the body with pain but can you affect the self that says it is the body?  An awakened person is free from this total body association we all have as unawakened egos.  While it is happening to their body, they remain untouched, unborn and undying, and therefore free to act kindly in hellish situations.  It is the mind itself that creates the idea of karma because it creates a self that is affected by karma.  To try to deal with karma is to create karma.  This is why we must realize the true self that is free from karma.  
  I know this is a difficult topic but I hope I have made some sense to you here.  Take care,
         Joe


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Joe,
I have realized the true self, but I still suffer. How can realizing the true self helps? I am not the true self nor ever will be the true self. Even if I have realized the true self, I will only be a different I. Besides, the true self always change new clothes. Should "I", after realizing the true self, start to live like a log of dead wood? However, it's from realizing the true self that I learned that I can't go back (it's not I that go back) and since I am already here, I might as well make a positive difference (do  good, help people out, etc) than start living nihilistically just because because there's good or bad karma. I have always been in dualism. If I were to achieve true non-dualism, then it's not I that achieve that. And since I have always been and forever will be dualistic, I might as well choose to be positively dualistic. Or else, it would be like a foolish person who realize there's no self that feels hungry and then stops eating completely and die. In the end, he will be better off to eat when it's time to eat than to starve because even though the true self does not starve, it's still he who will starve. Even if someday in the distant future he would start to repeat the whole cycle again, he's just an "I". And being "I", not being "I", and being "I" again, and being not "I" again, and again, until the end of time, have always been part of the Great flow of existence.

So, what's really so special with realizing the true self?

Answer
Hi Choo,
   The entire purpose of Buddhism and the teachings of the historical Buddha is to eliminate suffering.  To realize the true self is to end suffering, if it were not, then Buddhism has no foundation or meaning.  You may have reached a deep understanding of true self but this in not the same as realizing true self or you suffering would end. That which strives to realize, thinks it has realized or not realized, is itself creating the problem.  That which identifies itself as self is creating the problem. Remember the first of the Four Noble Truths is “Life is Dukkha” (suffering) but the fourth is “There is cessation of the cause of suffering”.  So this is a true end of suffering.
Realization of the true self does not render one like dead wood, this is a false state.  It was addressed in the Zen story where the young woman throws herself at the Zen monk and he refuses her saying “cold like stone, dry like wood”.  This was rejected by his sponsor who threw him out of his house as a result of this bad answer.
    That which cycles into being and out of being is itself the problem.  It is not a cycle, there is not a coming and going in time, coming and going are simultaneous and inseparable and not a process.  One is the other.  Moksha is liberation from the cycle.  The illusion is thinking we are in this cycle.  
    I hope this helps you and is a little clearer.
         Joe