Worldly Path and Spiritual Path
I would like to share a story with you. I watched a series on Netflix not long ago called Messiah. The scenes were in the modern day 21st century. When Messiah arrived, naturally there was a split in reaction among the masses. Some believed he was a fraud, while some believed he was The Returning. This is interesting, I remember telling myself. Different views resulted in different reactions and I was contented with that knowledge. The point of my story is not about Messiah, but on what I thought I knew but I actually knew not.
One day while reflecting on the different reactions on the arrival of this figure, it triggered questions in my space with regards to faith, more correctly my faith. Faith in things that I strongly believe in, including this journey of self-discovery. The questions shook me to the core. The kind of shock that came from being snatched away from what I strongly believed in; my refuge. These were the questions. The last question was the undoing.
What if the Right Information that have accumulated through the years of practice is like any other information that have supported my mind to be wholesome. (It’s possible)
What if the Right Information is like any other wise information I heard before that also made me believe there is something beyond me. (It’s possible)
What if the insights through the years of practice have misled me to believe that this is The Way. (It’s possible)
What if whether I believe or don’t believe in the Truth and whether there are insights or not, either one is still a deception within the matrix. (It’s possible)
Which means there is no way for us to know for sure what is Truth; and that pretty much means that we may have gotten the Truth totally wrong or even worse, there is possibility that there is no such a thing as Truth! (It’s possible!)
In that moment, I felt truly defeated followed by a confidence that I have never experienced before, akin to a lion’s heart. This confidence was totally different from the faith I already had in The Path. You maybe perplexed by the magnitude of confidence when the questions were clearly doubting The Path. It was because what I thought I knew about Truth was shattered before the ‘true’ Truth revealed itself. The Truth that I had believed in was separated from me. I believed that I had to practise diligently before I could arrive at the Truth. I had believed that Truth was an endgame.
The revelation was miraculously shown in the questions themselves. The questions revealed the error I had about Truth. The error was in ‘I believed that there is a Truth’. That if I practise diligently, the Truth will be revealed. I am not saying what I believed in is wrong because this belief has motivated me to a very great extent in this practice and is one of the conditions (faith) that ignited the little little insights through the years. However, when this belief was shaken, the next error was in ‘I believed that there is possibility that there is no Truth after all’. As I was trying to reconcile these two ideas in disbelief, both errors were exposed and made way for the middle path to arise. It debunked my idea that Truth is a thing, away from me, and that can only be found when seeing correctly happens. In truth, It is already here, in fact It is everywhere (when seeing correctly happens). Truth finds us instead of us finding Truth. What we know now is seemingly true but we know it not till wisdom arises. And when that happens, The Path and all its glory ascends the throne.
In the same way, most of us including myself perceive the worldly path and the spiritual path as different. If there is no understanding, they are different and as practitioners we will continue to struggle as we toggle between the two. We think if we go for spiritual, we neglect the mundane and if we go for mundane, we neglect the spiritual. This is true if they are seen as different paths. And since this is still true to us including myself, developing wholesomeness is a wiser bet. However, we have forgotten that The True Path is not about going for or forsaking either path, but to learn to stand in the middle to see it correctly regardless whether we are in the worldly path or the spiritual path (Right Attitude). The Way never judges which path we are in. The Way only sees correctly. And with that, Wisdom will naturally lead us to what is beneficial.
This journey is truly very beautiful. These words do not do justice to how amazingly beautiful Wisdom is (does not mean the journey does not come with despair since defilements are aplenty and not seen correctly yet). Wisdom is the only thing that matters. With Wisdom, everything is solved. Without Wisdom, everything needs to be solved. Nothing can dispute Wisdom, not even the smartest person or technology. Wisdom surpasses everything that we could ever create or think of because Wisdom is nothing of those.
In grace,
Hung Leng
on behalf of The WISE Team
Newsletter 08 December 2020