Liberation

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Liberation

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Liberation

A Path Beyond Hope and Fear

Gregory Pettys

Nov 16, 2024

Transcript

The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there's no ground. -Chogyam Trungpa

This has been, for myself and for many, a year of letting go, of growing up, of coming to terms with those aspects of life we have been taught to fear, to shy away from, to attempt to avoid altogether. In a nutshell, this year we have begun learning how to surrender. All around us, as wild fires continually burn, unlikely snow falls in distant deserts and hurricanes touchdown inland, miles from the sea, everything increasingly seems upside down, inside out. Empires crumble now right before our eyes. The least suitable among us to lead, easily attain power. It is abundantly clear for anyone with eyes to see that we are living in a time of transformation, of endings. And much of it is beyond our control.

Kalachakra དུས་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོ། (Wheel of Time)

…

Nearly one year ago my wife and I held our unborn child in our hands. I have not myself experienced a more painful moment than burying my own child. The grief felt that day is hard to convey, something only one who has done the same can know. Yet today flowers grow from where she was placed in the soil. And I now have greater empathy for the parents of children effected by war than I did before I tasted this unthinkable despair. Life is always here however, even in dying, always teaching us and helping us grow. Nothing lives without the generosity of the dead. This is the way it is.

Yesterday, after several days of end-of-life ceremony for my wife’s father, who died peacefully with his wife and daughters at his side earlier this week, we rose early to collect the bits of bones still remaining in the ash-pile caused by the humbling flames that made it clear to all present how temporary this precious human life actually is. This body we hold so dear, is but a fragile vessel. Soon it too will become compost. This is the way it is.

This last year some of my deepest friendships ended abruptly because of the flames of misunderstanding, overwhelm and burnout. Several projects were abandoned early due to exhaustion and an inability to rest. No matter how much we hope to build something that will last, eventually, everything goes back into the big cycle. The identities that we hold tightly to, that define our very purpose, eventually we realize were, like everything else, but beautiful dreams, fleeting. Not necessarily without meaning, and certainly not without moments of brilliance, but just as impermanent as anything else. Like a flash of lighting in the dark of night. This is the way it is.

Last night, under the full moon, my wife and I, along with our daughter and my in-laws, went to the banks of the Nan River. There we waded together with the final remains of our beloved patriarch. We sang some songs. Incense was lit. We offered food and drink to his spirit and returned his ashes back to the elemental bodies from which we all come from, from whence we all will eventually return.

Incidentally, yesterday was also the day of the year when, here in Thailand, people gather near bodies of water to offer gifts to the Goddess of the Water, Goddess Khongkha (พระแม่คงคา) to ask forgiveness for the damage we daily do to Her, for taking too much, for neglecting to honor her properly throughout the year, etc. We vow to do our best to try harder to align our actions with the sacred agreements of proper reciprocity in the coming year. As our dads ashes floated down the river, they did so alongside thousands of floating, candle-lit prayers (krathongs). He was the most brilliant “loi krathong” of all. We smiled, feeling connected in a more profound way than ever before, knowing him now as water and said our final goodbyes.

The “Krathong” (ลอยกระทง) my sister-in-law made from unripe and ripened papayas, banana stalk and sticky rice. A traditional offering to ask the Goddess of Water and River, Goddess Khongkha (พระแม่คงคา) for forgiveness.

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Back in my mother-in-laws home, in that wonderful, tiny village along the Laos border nestled deeply in dense forest, my wife and I shared with each other how we both were experiencing an unlikely peace that we had not expected. This past year, so filled as it has been with letdowns, decaying dreams, death, natural disasters, political upheavals, genocides, heartbreaks, illness, community bickering, unspoken words, etc. has found us growing accustomed to confusion and sadness. As such, when we learned that my wife’s father had finally decided to take his great journey, we prepared to delve even deeper into that hellish abyss of despair. But contrary to our weak-minded expectations, we experienced quite the opposite. Instead of feeling heavier, we felt strangely lighter, and even a bit, dare I say it, happy.

Our physical bodies and the personal journeys we experience inter-are with the experiences being had by all beings. As such, it is entirely understandable that many of us are feeling confused and afraid now, while the world as we know it now metamorphisises into a never-before-seen thing. It can be scary. But it cannot be avoided. Change is the only constant and dying is certain. The only way to know peace with it, is to know it, greet it, sit with it. Hospice it with care and let it go.

Empires, religions, concepts, ideas, all our plans, convictions, noble efforts and righteous causes, all will eventually return to the earth. Nothing makes this more clear than when you are asked to look at the already decaying body of your parent, light them on fire, watch their body burn and finally, collect what remains and offer it back to the holy earth we borrowed it from. Our time here is short. Whether rich, poor, republican, Jew, atheist, democrat, Palestinian, Russian, trans, Christian, whatever mask we wear, story we like to believe, we all live but temporarily, and then we die. Nothing is as it seems in this dreamlike realm.

So it begs us to ponder the same questions sages have been pondering for millennia; What are we doing here? What is the point of it all if after all our efforts we simply perish? Is our goal simply to have a big house? Is our main aspiration to harvest the most bitcoin? to have our team win? to prove to everyone we are right? The moon has seen it all before. The river remembers this drama. It’s happened so many times before. Again and again and again. The earth eventually swallowed the dinosaurs, Rome, Persia, and now She is beginning to devour modernity. So the question is the same as it always has been, How do we face death?

Buddha (and other great masters) offered a view beyond Hope and Fear. He didn’t present a “religion” anymore than did Jesus. He offered insight. Humans like to grasp on to ideas and quickly manipulate them with their culturally indoctrinated narratives in ways that suit their simple-minded capacity to comprehend. As such, for most, imagining a world beyond concepts is virtually impossible. So steeped we are in illusions of right and wrong that true wisdom is rarely accessible. What these great teachers offered us was not a comfortable tale of an eventual entry into heaven but a raw glimpse at The Way Things Are. They did not conveniently spell out what is right, wrong, good or bad, as all these things are but the result of culture, not reality. Rather, the wise ones spoke of What Is, simply as staring at the moon. Yet because most of us, if we attempt to understand these teachings at all, do so with all our hang ups, cultural prejudices, etc. neglecting to learn the language of the Christ, the language of Buddha, etc., lazily cherry-picking what we want instead of slowly allowing the Big Story to reveal itself in Time, Right View is seldom acquired. All most discover thus, is but more of the misinterpreted, regurgitated reiterations of the same old self-serving hogwash that got us in this mess to begin with. And the cycle continues.

Tibetan Buddhist Wheel of Life, also known as The Wheel of Transmigration

Bhavakachakra*

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This is the way it is. Yet through it all, made forever available to us at any time is a way out. The ability to be released from this cycle does not however come easily. Great effort is required. But true understanding can be attained. Liberation beyond hope and fear is possible. And strangely enough, the most important understandings seem more easily understood in times of great upheaval. “No mud, no lotus” as the great zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh has said. The messiness of these tumultuous times can serve us well if we are wise, if we do not hide from the ash pile but embrace it, love it and allow it to transform with dignity.

We all are being shown now the reality of existence. Although there has never been a time when such realities were not available for all to see, somehow, when life is easy, humans tend to overlook many of the deeper truths. Now that the earth is scarred, now that foundational systems that have held our false understandings together for so long are dismantling rapidly, now that the very seasons that held natural rhythms in order are less dependable, now that the fuels which allowed us to pretend there was no night are running out and with it our ability to pretend everything is fine, we are now forced to humbly return to reality. Not everyone wants to however, ensconced as they are so deeply in wrong view. Thus all the mud. Because of myriad fears, some of us may have managed to position ourselves in such a way that man-made laws don’t apply to us, but nobody is above the laws of Time. All things must pass. Now we must decide, How long do wish to foolishly continue pretending we cannot see?

Fear is the great killer of mind. Until we learn to see things As They Are, we will remain under its terrifying spell. As long as we cling to wrong view, believing that we are the center of the universe, that with the right technologies, enough scientific progress, etc. that we will be safe, that as long as we subscribe to the right religious and/or political affiliation, as long as we invest wisely in bitcoin, get away to enough “wellness retreats”, etc. that we will escape growing old, experiencing sickness and eventually facing death, well, fear will never venture far from view. And hope, suffice it to say, though arguably a better companion than fear, also offers little security as it presents but mere fantasy. Liberation is found only when we face the flames head on, go directly into the heart of the matter, gather the bones and come to terms with The Way Things Are.

For a brief moment yesterday, my wife and and I tasted such bliss. It’s not something I am able to express accurately in words. All I can say thus is that, as with all that I share here on this little Substack thing, I experienced it. I don’t feel comfortable writing about things I have not myself experienced directly. Just as I feel awkward listening to men talk about what women should do with their bodies, bodies they know little, if anything about, or when white people from say, Missouri talk about what people from other countries need, etc. I cringe when people who have not encountered dying try to offer me advice on how to cope with the loss of a loved one. Mere study of anything is never enough. The only way we come to truly know anything is through direct engagement. And even then we rarely, if ever know the whole story. As such, I promise you all I won’t here merely wax poetic about riddles I have not danced with. I speak of death now, in a peculiar way that suggests solace, because I myself buried my own daughter a year ago and watched my own father-in-law literally burn to ashes a few short days ago, and what I found eventually was something that can only be described as peace, something beyond hope and fear.

“Life really does begin at forty. Up until then, you are just doing research.”

―Carl Jung

My wife and I have together gone through an initiation of sorts over this past year that in some ways seems to have culminated with the passing of our father. I am grateful that we not only have genuine elders around us able to help us make since of it all, but a community to support us when we return home, vulnerable and, well, different than we were before. Both of these things, I am learning, are essential for refined understandings to mature, not only within our consciousness but in our daily lives. And such insights only reveal themselves in time.

Carl Jung once said, “Life really does begin at forty. Up until then, you are just doing research.” I have been wondering what death is all my life, but this year, at age 43, as I meditate alongside my beloved upon the obvious dying off of so much of what we once knew, I am slowly feeling what it means to be a human in times of transition.

So much of our lives are tainted with grief, yet even grief can offer peace when we learn how to look deeply. My father-in-law is no longer suffering. Additionally his family is no longer suffering from seeing him suffer. He did what he came to do and we are his joyful continuation. In his passing he gifted us all with the greatest teaching of all. As we age, with the blessing of Right View, we begin to see that nothing ever truly dies. All we ever do, constantly, is transform.

…

Friends, as you journey onward into this infinitely unfolding mandala**, please do not take anything I share here without a grain of salt. Challenge what I share, weigh it against your own life/death experiences. And by all means, if you feel compelled, share below in the comments your own take on what it all means.

The world is vast indeed and their is room for many truths. The Buddha himself taught in 84,000 different ways for this very reason. We all come into this world with a unique way of interpreting this shimmering, fleeting moment in time and no one way is the “right” way. And yet, there is a Way That Is, a field beyond right and wrong, death and rebirth, now and then, hope and fear. However you come to know this, I wish you penetrate deeply into its hidden secrets in such a way that its wish-fulfilling nectar bathes the entirety of your heART and you know beyond knowing the miracle of unborn, indestructible peace.