There is one thing which must never be forgotten.
If you were to forget everything else, but were not to forget this, there would be no cause to worry, while if you remembered, performed, and attended to everything else, but forgot this one thing, you would in fact have done nothing whatsoever.
It is as if a king had sent you to a country to carry out one special, specific task. You go to the country and you perform a hundred other tasks, but if you have not performed the task you were sent for, it is as if you have performed nothing at all.
So man has come into the world for a particular task, and that is his purpose. If he doesn't perform it, he will have done nothing.
RUMI
Let it be made quite clear from the beginning that if you do not at least intellectually understand all about that one particular purpose, Natural Survival, then your progress upon any transcendental Path is doomed to complete failure.
That is a very strong statement that needs to be supported and that is why I commence with this theme.
What is Dharma? That is where we must begin. Dharma, धर्म (Pali: धम्म, dhamma) is an Indian term, and means that which upholds the universe; in other words, Natural Law.
It also refers those behaviors considered necessary for the maintenance of the Natural Law and also the words spoken that explain this behavior.
It is synonymous with the Chinese word Dào, 道, which one can see is identical and means the Path, the Principle, and that which is Spoken.
What we are interested here is the Principle, that which maintains the regulatory apparent chaos of the universe that we attempt to understand using our concepts of order.
We must maintain the first premise that the Universe of Energy is "what is" and it is boundless and indestructible.
Within that Universe of Energy there arose the spark of life and once that spark had established the stability of life, one single criterion emerged.
That criterion was Survival, that is, the resistance to extinction.
The greatest possible resistance to the Extinction of Life was the diversification of life and that, through evolution, is what gradually developed, and the vehicle for that diversification was reproduction, mutation (one of the principal means by which evolutionary change takes place) and finally adaptability.
Today, according to the National Science Foundation’s “Tree of Life” project, there could be anywhere from 5 million to 100 million species on the planet, although science has only identified about 2 million. We are just one of those species.
And all have one thing in common: the drive for survival.
What is it then that opposes this survival, except for natural individual death?
The answer is Natural disasters and Natural Conflict between species in the struggle for space and nourishment. There is within this Chaos then also an "individual Impermanence," which means constant change, so all apparent human creatures, in fact all life, is constantly threatened by extinction.
Furthermore, we can state that there is no greater significance for the apparent presence of the Universe (or Universes) as the Natural Law. In and of itself, it requires no further elaboration or explanation.
So we have Natural Survival, with:
Chaos not Order
Impermanence not Permanence
Conflict not Peace
Natural Law not Significance
Nonetheless, we human creatures, with this superior thinking brain, continually seek Order when there is Chaos; Permanence when there is Impermanence; Peace when there is Conflict; Greater Significance when there is none and the proof that we Exist as a separate entity, when we are only one small part of the whole.
In demanding this individual existence and the significance that places us above all Life Forms we become the greatest enemy of the survival of Life, going beyond natural conflict, becoming the enemy of all diversification of Life.
In so doing we become the greatest enemy to the Survival of our own species.
THE SUBLIME STATES
When the Aryan Bhagavad Gita was written (astronomical evidence gives 3137 BCE as the date), there was already a clear idea that the human creature's behavior was flawed and the Brahmins developed a philosophy and psychology to remedy the problem. But the problem was seen in terms of Virtue and a Supreme God, not Survival.
From these roots Buddha developed his teachings and after his Awakening advanced the traditional meditations, ध्यान dhyana (Sanskrit) trance absorption, which is "full attention on the present moment," to embrace a greater understanding of the natural human state.
After his awakening the four sublime states -Gladness, Compassion, Benevolent Affect and Equanimity- became an important theme of Buddha Dharma.
Examining these Sublime States we find:
Gladness is the experience of being content that other beings are also dwelling with Gladness.
Compassion is the experience that wishes all sentient creatures to be free from suffering, while the Benevolent Affect is the counterpart of Compassion in which the experience is that all sentient creatures may experience Well Being.
Equanimity is the experience arising from the intention that there will be no Identity response to any Action, whether it be well-received or not. It is not to be confused with intellectual indifference.
These four Sublime states, called boundless, are the thread experiences that are associated with the components of the information carrier that runs through all human operations, both conscious and unconscious.
AN INTEGRATED UNDERSTANDING: COMMON FRUITS - THREE PATHS
In contrast to this Natural Survival and the accompanying Sublime States there arose Suffering, which is associated with the presence of Identity and mental Duality.
Try to understand that Buddha's quest was to understand why the human creature was infected by the Suffering induced by Mara (the Evil One, Identity) and his three seductive daughters (Confusion, Acquisitiveness and Aversion).
What he discovered through his Supra-mundane contemplation was that there apparently existed a primordial state of pure mind, which in Chan we call the "Uncarved Wood."
Now it is the combination of the Dao and Chan contemplations within China that reveals that the Four Sublime States are expressions of the vehicle for all internal operations of both hemispheres.
But the Sublime States are cognitive Experiences transformed from the unconscious experience, which is the language of internal operation. The question is, "What does this mean in terms of human behavior and its correct balance and harmony?"
Is there a connection between Human Survival and the Behavioral correlates
of the Experiences of the Sublime States?
SURVIVAL EXAMINED
If we set apart for the moment the threats of Environmental disaster, attacks from predators and disease, we find that survival of a species depends upon the environment and upon reproduction.
The personal force and capacity to defend oneself is clearly most important and that drive for "self-survival" exists within all species. So we can say that the means for survival of self, the defense of offspring and defense of the environment that supports life are of optimal importance.
Many animals, and that includes man, have developed another means to improve survival. It is to cooperate in that survival with others.
It is thus that the tribe cooperates in group protection against natural disaters and predators. This is a great boon as selection of partners in breeding and it assists in territorial protection.
The concept that arose naturally among the human species was a consciousness of the force for natural survival, beginning with the self, but in harmony and balance with the defense and protection of offspring, tribe and the environment.
With the advent of Identity defense of the tribe and environment was ruptured and perhaps the only drive present in many cases was the defense of one's OWN offspring and one's wife or wives, considered as property.
Modern society has not changed a great deal, except to give equality, at least nominally, to women, devise laws for the protection of children, draw upon the idea of tribal unity in war and speak wise religious and social words about unity and humanity.
The truth is that the true survival factors have been dissolved by Identity to such an extent that only the Survival of the "Identity-self" and one's possesions is uppermost.
Ther is no True deep unity with tribe, with all human offspring or with the environment in the face of the strong SELF-INTEREST.
Homeostasis cries out, but Society, the Religions and Education no longer support natural human survival, but raise the flags of globalized desire and craving.
The task of Buddha Dharma has always been the restoration of natural virtue, but the means have been limited to absorption meditations which are noble enough, but do not allow the human creature to restore the natural roots for survival without threatening the majesty of a mind that has been seduced by Identity.
MAKING THE CORRELATION
The Natural Self, that is the "Self that is observing" without the presence of an Identity, is the base upon which survival depends, but that base rests clearly upon the value and importance of the species and not the individual.
Nature, Dao and Dharma know nothing of individuals. It is the species that is important for the diversity of life and guarantees the continual "spark of life."
That TRUE SELF then has "other-directedness" as its criterion and the experience related to that is GLADNESS, not for oneself, for the experience depends physiologically upon the detection of that GLADNESS operating in others.
This then becomes the Collective Self projection.
Positive energy is projected to ALL offspring. Thus there is an expansion without a loss of the full intensity. How is that experienced? If you examine those rare moments within oneself through reflection and absorption one finds that the experience generated is one of BENEVOLENT AFFECT. Since there is only potential Suffering present then the wish is that the Natural Well-Being of Offspring should continue.
Next we find the natural adhesion to the tribe and self-sacrifice for the benefit of that tribe and we find, in the moments when that does arise, that there is the wish that ALL members of the tribe should never Suffer. That is the other face of Benevolent Affect. That is Compassion.
Next we see that that Natural Self, when Identity is not present (we find that present in early tribes just a few hundred years ago, before their annihilation), operates with the "all for one and one for all" paradigm.
Finally there is the Protection of the Environment, which includes every other living creature and all factors that support life. In that there must be a clear drive against Identity, Equanimity must be applied in which gain or loss is not considered, only the correctness of attitude, intentions and, of course, final actions.
So there we have the clear correlations:
Protection of a balanced Self - Gladness
Protection of Offspring - wishing Well Being - Benevolent Affect
Protection of the Tribe - against their Suffering - favoring Compassion
Protection of the Environment with Equanimity
That means that this vehicle we mentioned earlier that generates the experiences of Gladness, Benevolent Affect, Compassion and Equanimity, which have as their natural Force and Objective the projections of the Mother Principle: the Survival of Self, Offspring, Tribe and the Environment that supports the diversity of all life.
It should be easy to see that the Identity and the unconscious demands of Id, Ego and Super Ego are not consistent with Survival. The Self-Identity is then a mind product and within nature the only natural impulse is the OBSERVING SELF and HOMEOSTASIS that brings about true survival.
The SELF that we experience does not exist and is only Illusion, albeit useful as a servant of all at that the True Self promotes.
THE DISAGREEABLE TRUTH
Now we come to what for many will be the disagreeable Truth. The True apparent Individual Self, Observing, being other-directed, is just one insignificant part of the Life Process that encompassses all Life, every one of perhaps as many as 100 million species.
You may often look at the stars and say to oneself, with feeling, "man is insignificant", but you continue microseconds after in the same egocentric way as if man were the be all and end all of the universe and you the pivot of all.
We can say that the human virus of Identity is alien to the diversication of Life.
You are alien to the diversification of Life and even the Natural State of Man.
You believe you are innocently trying to survive... Face that lie.
Kennedy correctly declared that if you are not part of the solution, then YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.
If you cease being a problem, it will not change the abominable course of the human creature. The only good news is that mankind will be doomed before the last vestige of life is extinguished.
SO IF I CHANGE, WHAT IS IN IT FOR ME?
The answer is "Nothing for you," the only thing is that the True Self that is merely a grain of sand in the desert will be a Natural Human creature.
If you die in the next second nothing will change the path of destruction that mankind is treading will continue. There is a vague hope that sometime, somewhere, a seed of Truth may take root in sufficient people to change this path. But being realistic, no seer of the past has changed this path of destruction, confusion, acquisitiveness and aversion. All thay have done is what I do here, to try and present the Truth that has been revealed.
So we, apparent individuals are in a great battle, a losing battle, with Identity with its Shield of Duality on one side and the True Self with the Sword of Homeostasis on the other.
Which side are you on? What is your stance...?
壮士 卫士 火炬手 证人
zhuàngshì wèishì huŏjùshŏu zhèngrén
Warrior Guardian Torchbearer Witness
If you are a natural Warrior you will need Manjushri's Sword that cuts Ignorance.
If you are a natural Guardian you will need to guard the Key to all the Teachings and the Subtleties of Contemplation.
If you are a natural Torchbearer you will carry the Dharma Torch, the Truth of Natural Survival and bearing the Dharma Truths then teach others.
If you are a natural Witness you will Practice the Dharma in the world of Illusion. But with the Dharma Heart, the true mind of FULL "other-directedness" with Understanding.
You will then need the tools, the Sword, the Key, the Torch or the Dharma Heart.
Your Identity-influenced mind will, without a doubt if you really understand what has been said, have perused each and said "I can be that." But that Dharma Halo is rusty.
If you wish to be a True human creature you will require to know how and where each can be obtained and understand their effective use and then use them all to the best of your ability.
That knowledge can only be attained through the full knowledge of Dao and Chan teachings and Contemplations put into practice.
Not an easy task, to be sure. Especially when you consider that the only recompense is the knowledge that you are on the Path to becoming a True human creature, with the accompanying continual Well-Being and with the full knowledge that all positive experiences are only signals that you are still upon that path.
If you wish a little spark of motivation for your Super Ego to drum enough courage to really take the Dharma Path seriously, we can say that you will eventually become an Ordinary man or woman. You will work for your daily bread for the benefit of all and you will have friendship with those upon the path. You will have a life with an extended family, with children, with responsibilities ruled by Gladness, Benevolent Affect, Compassion and Gladness.
You will understand nature and your apparent self like never before.
You will be, as Dao says, "as one with the dusty world."