THE PRICE OF TRUTH
Ozmo Piedmont, Ph.D.
What would you do to find the truth? What price would you pay for wisdom? Truth is Universal and free, yet at the same time it costs everything we have. The Buddha told a story which illustrates this point. One afternoon He was about to teach the Dharma to many people gathered in the forest. The light of day was beginning to wane, and the night was approaching. Many people began to offer their oil lamps to light the area, so that the Buddha could continue his teaching. There was a little old woman that approached the Buddha. She was very poor, indigent with no possessions except for her begging bowl. She offered this bowl to the Buddha so it could be filled with oil and used as a lamp. The Buddha accepted this gift, then turned to the people present saying that the virtue of this woman was the most excellent of all, because she had offered all of her wealth, that which was her only possession, her begging bowl. The bowl in this story is our own heart. We have to empty it and offer it to the Infinite so that it can be filled with the Truth. In the same way as this little old lady, we have to release our attachment to everything so that the Buddha can illumine our lives. When one offers the heart, without expectation, only because it is that which there is to do, one expresses the most excellent of virtues. How then do we apply this story to our own daily lives?
In the scripture “The Rules for Meditation” by Dogen, of which we read aloud together at the beginning of every meditation meeting we have together, one sees the following: “Why are training and enlightenment differentiated since the Truth is Universal? Why study the means of attaining it since the supreme teaching is free?” These first lines of the Rules for Meditation are a koan, a mystery and puzzle that cannot be easily solved by reason only. It is a meditation on the meaning which only reveals itself little by little over a long period of time. I have read these lines for many years, thinking that I understood them well. However, for reasons related to new changes and challenges of our meditation group recently, I am beginning to understand more clearly what they mean. For this reason koans are so important to our practice. Life itself provides us with the puzzle to be solved in the form of obstacles and enigmas, which can only be fully resolved through spiritual practice, applying that which we are learning each day in our meditations and studies.
In begin with, what do these lines mean? We read the phrase, “Truth is Universal.” The Truth is the direct experience of the fact that nothing is separate from the Absolute. All is one and all is different. Everything, every image, every detail in life has its context and its relevance, based on conditions that are in themselves arising from prior conditions, creating exactly the situation in which we find ourselves in the present. Each thing has its context and its reality in each moment; everything has its unique value. How we relate to these things is part of our spiritual practice. At the same time, everything is part and reflection of the Absolute. Everything is an expression of the harmony and perfection of the Infinite. In its core, everything is an expression of this perfection, although of course it may be very difficult to understand this perfection as we face the multiple problems and contradictions every day of our lives. But this is the point of Zen, to discover in each moment of our lives our connection with the harmony and perfection of the Divine. This Truth is literally revealing itself and teaching us every day in all our experiences.
If the Truth is everywhere, “why are training and enlightenment differentiated? Although the Infinite is in every leave of the tree, and every cell of our body, we are unconscious most of the time of this reality. We ignore this beauty and harmony that is all around us because we are blinded by our own egotistical delusions, believing that we are isolated and separated from the rest of the universe, trapped in our individual bodies which are made up of already formed permanent ego. But the Buddha teaches that this belief is false, a delusion, and is the foundation of all our problems. Our attachment to the idea of a permanent and separate self is that which has caused our fears to preserve it, our desperation when we are threaten, and our desires in our search to substitute this insecurity with distractions of pleasure and sensation. Every one of us is like a block of Wood containing the Truth of his or her original face. We have to carve away little by little every day to finally find it. Spiritual practice is based on the application of the Precepts in our lives. This effort of practice of the Precepts is that which cuts away the ignorance and reveals the Truth of our connection to the Divine or in other words, we work to purify our karma sufficiently to discover the direct expression in our lives of our Buddha nature, experienced as peace, joy, and love. This work purifies our karma, allowing us to rediscover our connection to the Infinite. Dogen tells us that our practice is Illumination itself. By way of this continual practice, we will find our interior Buddha, our Buddha nature.
Later in the scripture we reed that “The Supreme teaching is free.” This means that to experiment this Truth directly does not depend on any exterior condition. You cannot buy the Truth. You cannot force the Infinite to reveal itself to you. In fact, you cannot do anything to obtain it, since the Truth is fundamentally “empty”, which means it is not conditioned by anything, it depends on nothing. It is eternal and infinite. It has no beginning or end. If obtaining it depended on some type of conditioning, it might be possible that it doesn´t exist at some moment in time for us, so therefore, we might not be able to experience it. However, we are never really separate from the Infinite in any moment. There is nothing separate from this Reality.
However, if the Supreme teaching is free and everywhere, “why study the meaning of attaining it?” Why do we have to practice spiritually? Although the Universe is perfect and lacks nothing in its totality, individually we have blocked our perception of this fact. For some reason in our pasts, we came to distort the Truth due to selfish intentions, which then blocked our perception of the Truth. These deluded intentions are that which creates negative karma, resulting in our suffering. Since each one of us has created this situation due to our own beliefs, actions, and behaviors, we alone are responsible to correct it. Nevertheless, every moment of suffering is an opportunity to awaken to our connection to the Divine. But only wishing to wake up is not enough. We have to do the spiritual work in our minds and bodies in order to directly experiment the Reality that is always present. We have to be conscious of how we created this suffering. Only if we are ready to pay the price with our effort, our determination, and our commitment, can we then change the unconscious habits and patterns that brought us to feeling desperate and deluded.
The question then arises, “What is the Price that we are ready to pay for the Truth?” In the West, money represents the hierarchy of our values. If we pay a high price for something, it must be of great value. Therefore, one values something more because it requires more effort to get the money to pay for it. The attitude reflects where we put our focus and what we value most. A friend called me recently asking for spiritual counsel. However, for lack of funds, he had little money to offer for this service. During our conversation, he informed me that he had no money because he had spent it all on beer. His addiction had overtaken so much of his life, that he could not provide the basic needs of his family. He was damaging his own health as well as that of the ones he loved. It became clear that his God was beer. He was ready to sacrifice everything to get more beer: his money, his family, his health, and even death. Of course, this is a sad disease. But he is not so different from all of us who carry our addictions in our daily lives. We say we want peace, happiness, and love. But in stead of giving that which is required to obtain it, we spend our time, effort, and money on those things that bring us a momentary pleasure: on vacations, hobbies, parties, cloths, expensive dinners, big televisions, movies, stimulants and entertainments. The teachers and ancestors of the past paid with their lives for the Truth. They sacrificed everything to be able to pass it down to us through the centuries. They suffered the climactic elements, poverty, and hunger. They gave everything they had for this goal, and for this we can study the Dharma today. This fact has given me pause to reflect on the price I have paid in my own search for the Truth.
I have dedicated 39 years of my life in the practice and study of meditation. It began when I was 15, sitting in a history class in school. The teacher had invited some representative from the community that taught Transcendental Meditation (TM). They came to visit us and to speak about meditation. I was very moved inside when I heard them speak. Later, I convinced my father to pay for the course at their center in order to learn how to meditate. My whole family participated. What I learned there inspired me to continue exploring more and more to learn about meditation and how it works. I wondered, “Why does meditation work? What are the mechanisms and the structures in the brain that bring about these changes? Are all methods the same or are some better than others in bringing about change in the mind and the body?” Thus began a lifetime of research, in which I studied more than 50 forms of meditation from many different spiritual traditions of different countries throughout the world, including different forms of Buddhism such as Theravada, Mahayana, Tibetan, and Zen. I also studied the traditions of Hinduism, Taoism, Mysticism, Shamanism, Sufism, spiritism, New Age, Reiki, yoga, Tantra, Vedanta, and Kashmir Shaivism. I dedicated myself to the practice of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga, to Ramana Maharshi´s Self Realization Yoga, to Transpersonal Psychology, analysis, psychotherapy, and even Broadway dance. My spiritual teachers included Reverend Ellen Resch in New York (a mystic who channeled spiritual teachers and taught Buddhism), Robert Johnson in San Diego (a famous psychoanalyst and disciple of Carl Jung), Gangaji in San Francisco (a spiritual teacher of the Self Realization of Ramana Maharshi and disciple of the Hindu teacher Papaji), and Reverend Master Meiten McGuire in Canada (a Zen monk and disciple of Reverend Master Jiyu-Kennett).
I went to India various times, visiting temple and gurus everywhere. I climbed the Mount Arunachala, a Hindu personification of the God Shiva in the form of a mountain. There in a cave at the top of the mountain, a strange yogi was living and fasting, sustaining himself on nothing more than meditation and his yoga, which transformed light into nutritive sustenance. He blessed me and offered me a strange drink, which I took willingly, though possibly risking my life for what seemed like that lack of hygiene. Nevertheless, I thought at the time, I hadn’t traveled half way around the world just to arrive to this moment and lose this opportunity just because I might be afraid of sickness. I drank it all. I was also the only member of my group of 12 that did not get sick.
In India, I shaved my head in a temple for the merit and blessing of all my friend and family. I visited Tibetan monasteries, Hindu ashrams, and temples led by yogi adepts. I even went into the jungle where I was confronted by a black panther in the middle of a meditation hall as part of a spiritual initiation. In another temple I meditated in a giant lotus built in honor of Sri Aurobindo, in which a giant crystal ball was housed, measuring three feet across, which reflected the sun’s rays onto the white marble walls, looking like a million stars sparkling down.
I have participated in successful dance rituals to bring back the rain after a prolonged drought. I have studied a BA, an MA, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, psychology, and comparative religion. I have sat in meditation in deserts, mountains, beaches, jungles, temples and monasteries all over the world. I have confronted demons, those possessed by their fears, and the mentally ill. I have overcome disease and have faced even death full in the face. I did all of this, not because I thought is was fun or daring. The only reason was because I could not live without knowing the Truth, as if it were the air to breath. I was ready to pay with my life for that which I yearned. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could prevent me from my search. It is that which I had to do, and will continue to do, or I will die trying.
