I once heard someone call the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah,” a guy you’d never invite to dinner.”
Why’s that? I wondered.
Well, Jeremiah was one tough cookie when it came to speaking his mind. He dared to tell the Truth because he saw the Truth. He was the mouthpiece of Divine knowledge.
Imagine sitting across from him over a slice of pizza?
He’d likely burn through your persona and façade and delineate all your selfish faults. In the mistaken defensiveness of our ego, we’d feel hurt and wounded. Refusing his gift of knowing the truth, we’d reject his ability to burn through our ignorance in order to set us free. Most of us would feel scorched and misunderstood and run off miffed declaring “Jeremiah is a guy you’d never invite to dinner!”
But…Jeremiah is a man worth listening to when it comes to the human heart. Remember his mission in life is to speak the Truth of divine knowledge. He’d go for the juggler of ignorance in the instinctual human heart.
Let us remember the instinctual man is us. It is when we get caught at the level of a person who goes after the things of the world without regard for anything but his own wants and desires. Most of us at one time or another react to life from this level. We do well to remember that this is the place where most of us begin. Life is all about ‘me’ when we are babies and we are subject to this instinctual level until we begin to grow up and awaken. We need to be trained and taught to recognize that life is not all about ‘me.’ Some of us never get very far from the instinct of all about me; leaving us at the mercy of our wild selfishness.
The opposite extreme of the instinctual man is the dogmatic one. Dogmatic mind is when we think, believe and function with the axiom, my way or the highway. The dogmatic mind is filled to the brim with our rules and our laws that become as hard as cement. It is what is known as a hardened heart – a heart of weights and balances used to judge ourselves and others. This stage also needs teachings and trainings to soften the defenses. Often, however, the hardened heart struggles with listening to teachings and trainings because this mind state is filled with thinking, believing and functioning written in stone: MY RULES ARE RIGHT! MY LAWS ARE RIGHT! Those caught in dogma have a great deal of difficulty listening. There’s no room to listen or hear anything. Adolescents, often a rebellious phase, are often filled with such hard, monumental thinking. But it comes from ignorance. There is a tendency to believe “I don’t need any help. I, alone, can do it.”
Those of us, however, who live according to some level of moral and ethical decency or a level of spiritual aspiration are still subject to mutability – meaning that even decent, spiritual seekers can be overtaken by the mind states of the heart. Here is where we might want to invite Jeremiah to dinner. But this willingness to burn off our ignorance comes after knowing the sage, prophets and divine incarnations reign from the throne of goodwill, a goodwill of wanting to liberate us from suffering. And yet, very, very few are willing and open enough to invite Jeremiah to dinner.
A teacher is helpful in this regard simply because the teacher’s job is to point out when we are going into a ditch and to help us to get back on the path. Jeremiah’s words are warnings against falling into the ditch. When we are in a ditch – filled with greed, hate and delusions of all sort we need the likes of a Jeremiah. But even then, the question remains “Will we heed his wisdom?”
In Zen Buddhism the teacher acts as a verification of the spiritual condition of the student. This verification may seem ominous or perhaps even unwanted, but I assure you it is a boon to one’s spiritual life. In my experience it is fire – a hot blaze that shows us the Way. We decide whether or not we are willing to use what is offered. It is not a mandate, but an offering. We can take it or leave it.
Jeremiah, I imagine, could point out who was who – being that his job was to speak as from the mouth of God. Here’s a sample of God’s mouthpiece exhorting us about ‘trust.’
Blessed are those who trust the Lord; The Lord will be their trust. They are like a tree planted beside the waters. That stretches out its roots to the stream. It does not fear heat when it comes, its leaves Stay green; in the years of drought it shows no distress. But still produces fruit. Jeremiah
Wonderfully, Jeremiah’s exhortation is very much a Zen Buddhist urging.
Here’s what it sounds like in Zen Buddhism:
I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha.
The teacher is not the refuge but helps the student with how to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha with practices – such as:
Plant yourself like a tree in silence and stillness… Water your roots in the teachings of going against the stream. Don’t get jazzed by the heat or cold of the material world; there is no escaping the changing weather of life. Stay put. Don’t fret over the changes. Stay still and see what comes up. Something of some sort is inevitable.
This small smattering is a sample of what we need, whether we follow the words of a prophet, or the teachings of a Buddha. We need the constancy of exhortations to strengthen our resolve.
The caveat.
The LORD proclaims: Cursed are those who trust in mere humans, who depend on human strength and turn their hearts from the LORD. Jeremiah
What Jeremiah exhorts as cursed is in an ultimate sense true, only the unborn, undying eternal Beloved is to be fully trusted. But until we awaken, we need confidence in the teachings in order to make the climb to the summit.
OM NAMO GURU DEVA NAMO
Author: FaShi Lao Yue
Image credits: Fly, 2019
A Single Thread is not a blog.
If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching,
please contact editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com
More tortuous than anything is a human heart. ,Beyond remedy; who can understand it.
This exhortation covers a lot of Zen ground. Here are some samples of what I mean.
Put no head above your own.
Of course, your head must be engaged with the unborn, undying divinity or you risk going off the rails. Composure, calm-abiding and steadfastness to stay on the spiritual mountain path (plant yourself by the waters, root yourself and don’t be afraid) are evidence akin to no fear and green leaves in drought.
There are many a Zen Buddhist story that address this staying-put and staying the course. Begin and continue in Zen, no matter what. And what is said as an encouragement to keep going and continue to practice. …more tortuous than anything is a human heart – beyond remedy without the Beloved and mysterious Truth – and who can understand it? A sage, a guru, a prophet, a master, a teacher.
There’s help for this tortuous heart but be careful where you go for help.
And finally, Jeremiah goes to the penultimate.
The LORD proclaims: Cursed are those who trust in mere humans,
who depend on human strength and turn their hearts from the LORD.
In Zen Buddhism, take the backward step away from the world of things. Go against the stream.
Human beings by nature will disappoint one another. Our nature is frail until we awaken to the Lord of Truth – to the Truth of the Unborn, Undying Eternal. It is our plight. Our frailness is our unfortunate situation. Jeremiah speaks in no uncertain terms the mistake we make is when we put our trust in human beings rather than in THAT which never changes.
This truth guides and chides us towards a strong practice. But we must be willing to seek the Noble Truth. Knowing the wisdom of disappointment makes disappointment a boon – like a harbinger, a signal to take a look at the direction you were headed when you got disappointed.
When we disappoint ourselves and others, when others disappoint themselves and us. What do we do? Stop and answer this question for yourself. What do you do when you are disappointed?
Disappointment is a beacon of Light breaking into the mundane world giving us a glimpse at the truth of the Absolute. For many of us we get downhearted when we experience disappointment. Our inner views collapse around us and if we are lucky we remain standing in the rubble of our own desires for the world to be different than it is. But this type of collapse comes from blindness – a type of ignorant blindness of the world. The world, and all those things in the world which includes other human beings, are unreliable by nature. So, if you begin to see the nature of the things of the world you have a chance to see what really happens when you experience disappointment.
In short, our desires and wishes we project on the world have caused this inner turmoil. It is our attachment to wanting it to be different that brings up suffering. But if we see the world as it is, then we calm down. We calm down all our wishes and desires for the world to be different without bitterness.
In fact, when we experience disappointment in others, in ourselves we get a firsthand look at out real situation. Jeremiah, the prophet knew this truth. Tells us. What a gift.
One final note. The directive to labor without reward will serve any of us well and keep us out of harm’s way of a tortuous heart of another. We are being like the tree – no matter what, we work – we labor – we offer what we have to offer. We do the next thing. We do what the Grass Roof Hermitage Sutra by Shitou Xiquan ends with –
If you want to know the undying person in hut,
Don’t separate from this skin bag here and now.
OM NAMO GURU DEVA NAMO
Author: FaShi Lao Yue
Image credits: Fly, 2019
ZATMA is not a blog.
If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching,
please contact editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com