Expert: Joe McSorley - 11/2/2006

Question
Thanks for your previous responses. They have been very insightful. I've been reading previous questions and responses from other inquisitve minds that have been asked. In once of your responses you wrote this...'all thoughts and actions flow freely unencumbered by normal self-refelction and cognition.' May you please give an example or an illustration of this in ones everyday life experience?

Also, you mentioned what it takes to move you to the point that you change your life is to become totally unsatified with your life. You gave an example of an alcoholic reaching rock bottom. How can one reach self-awaking, if they have so many people depending on them to stay strong and can not afford to reach rock bottom?
I assummed that part of enlightnement was studying different beliefs and views. I try to see thing out of the eyes of a scientic, religious leader and the average person. However, you mention part of self awaking is where we realize that we ourselves are the problem and we reach the paradox of self overcoming self to become awakened. How do you overcome self when it is your equal in every way?
Is it easier for a Hermit to reach self awakinging than someone from the city with so much influences and rules to abide by?
With every qestion comes more questions, do you sometimes just except that there are times no answers will be availiable?
Do you consider yourself a Budha? Are your teachers Dr. DeMartino and Masao Abe considered Buddha?
Thank you for taking the time to respone to me.  

Answer
Hi Samantha,
  It is almost impossible to give a good example of flowing freely unencumbered by normal self-reflection but I will try.  In one sense it’s like being bound in chains and not knowing it.  When they are gone you are shocked to realize how different life is and to not have known you were carrying the chains to begin with.  When you practice some thing, like music or a sport, you are first encumbered by learning it and by trying to ‘know’ what you are doing.  So if you are playing piano you are constantly aware of your fingers, your body, your thoughts and the music.  You are encumbered by all of these things.  You might practice to the point where you can move freely physically but you are still encumbered by your mind and your thoughts on playing.  You might reach a point where you lose yourself so that, in a sense, you are no longer playing the piano but you are the piano and self simultaneously playing freely, now totally unencumbered.  This would be a state or freedom, liberation and bliss.
   As far as your question about ‘rock bottom’ it is precisely the need to fulfill your responsibilities that can drive you to this point.  When Abe Sensei went to the temple he was leaving his family and job behind.  He knew that he had only a limited time to work things out which made him more desperate. He often told me that he thought those with every day responsibilities were more driven to awaken because they had to.  Often in monasteries people become complacent because the woes of every day life are not upon them.  It is one thing to practice swimming and another to have to swim to save your life.  The hermit may just be escaping and not at all facing the problem.  
  It is not a matter of knowing different views because any individual view misses the whole point.  You can study religion and philosophy endlessly and not come to anything.  There is a Hindu story of the three blind men and the elephant.  Each feels the elephant and describes what it is.  One thinks it’s like a thick snake, another like a tree trunk and the last like a big barrel.  All have a perspective but none see the entire elephant.
 With every question does come more questions and it is with this sense of deep, skeptical inquiry that one breaks down the illusions of life and our minds.  It’s when you realize that what you think and believe is wrong that you start on the right path.  I, like many people, created my own non-philosophical/philosophical system that I used to replace my old beliefs.  I did not realize that I was hanging on to this.  It was an understanding and a composite of many things that I just took to be truth.  One day I was with one of my teachers and we were just talking.  I don’t remember what he said but suddenly and completely I realized that all that my mind had created was false. The foundation had fallen from the house and now I had nowhere to hang on to.  It was from this point that my eyes finally began to open.  In the Eightfold Path in Buddhism begins with ‘Right thinking” which means that you can realize with your mind what is wrong.  When you really grasp this you will realize that your own individual perspective is the problem; but how do you overcome this?  You must go after this to realize how, it cannot be understood with the mind.  One teacher once said, “You cannot solve with thinking that which thinking cannot solve”.  I really like this line.  You cannot figure it out BUT you have to fully realize you can’t figure it out.  The piano player cannot figure out playing, they just have to do it to the point where it blossoms regardless of yourself.
   In Buddhism we are all Buddhas but we just don’t see it.  So you, my teachers, everyone is a potential Buddha.  You just need to open your eyes to see it.
  I hope this helps you.
        Take care,
         Joe