Redemption

"The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religions, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.”

In my search for God and spirituality, I stopped and chose Zen Buddhism for several reasons, one very important one being the fact that Zen Buddhism emphasizes the act of human enlightenment. The practice of Zen is not a passive one of ritual observance and brown nosing to the all mighty.
The practice of Zen aims at changing the individual and his life.

What about “people can’t change their nature” statement?

Nature is what we are born with. Like the color of our eyes, hair or skin. Things like personality, sexuality, talents, and abilities that are given to us by God – or genetic inheritance if you are inclined to believe so.

You can’t change your nature simply means that no matter how much plastic surgery Michael Jackson will undergo, he will never turn from a black man to a white woman.
It means that no matter how hard I want or try, I would never be a talented musician because I was born tone death.

I was not born an asshole.
I don’t know why but I have done hurtful things to other people, especially to the people that loved me.
I have betrayed their love and trust, I have cheated and lie to them. I have behaved like a jerk.

The practice of Zen has brought me face to face with that inner jerk. I had become aware of the evil and ignorance lurking in the recesses of my soul and I have decided to change.
Have I succeeded 100%? Not at all.
Have I changed my own nature? Not a bit.

I see myself as one of those recovering alcoholics, locked in a battle with their disease for the rest of their lives.
I am a recovering asshole and I will be all my life a recovering asshole.
Maybe I should start an asshole anonymous group. …That will be really interesting.

So I believe that one can change their behavior, one can be aware of their demons and try to keep them under control, but I believe one can’t change his nature.
Even this behavioral change is extremely hard and rare.

How many people in the US have bad eating habits? - More than 50%.
If only changing one's habits would be so easy, we would all be trim, fit, healthy and successful.

So for practical purposes and to keep you out of trouble and being taken advantage of, I would say that assuming that people wouldn’t change just because you love them is a fairly accurate statement and it will serve you well in the wrong run. What if they change? I would say then, a nice surprise is better than a nasty one.

What about Jesus and believing in Jesus as a path to redemption?
If I tell you – believe in me and you will attain enlightenment, what do you think am I asking you to believe?
That believing that I physically exist will make you enlightened.
Or: That by practicing my philosophy you will attain enlightenment.

When Jesus was addressing his disciples and asking them to believe, he was not asking them to believe in his existence.
He was right there in front of them. He was asking them to believe his teachings are the path to salvation.

There is no one that believes in Jesus more than Satan. After all, how could he not, when he got his ass kicked by the all mighty so many times. So is Satan going to heaven because he believes Jesus exists and he's the son of God?
Hell no. Satan doesn’t believe in love, peace and turning the other cheek.
In other words, Satan doesn’t believe in Jesus and neither 99% of the so-called Christians.

To believe in Jesus and to be a Christian means to feel, and think, to talk and act like Jesus.
Mother Theresa is a Christian, not the Pope. Gandhi was a Christian, not Pat Robertson.

The notion that just by saying “I believe Jesus is my savior’ will give you a free pass to heaven is absolutely ridiculous.
This evangelical propaganda that you can do whatever you want without any repercussions as long as you hail to their dogma, has taken America on the path of moral decay and bankruptcy.
The right-wing, fear mongering, war loving, hate spewing evangelism, sweeping America today, is taking us straight to hell.

I believe there is a judgment day coming for all of us and I believe there are no free passes.
More of, I believe God is not a Christian, Muslim, Jew or Buddhist and on that day of judgment, we all are going to have a huge surprise.

On the Human Nature

"Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, it is not 100 percent so. Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false."
                                                                                 - Dalai Lama

"On the highway of life, the secret of smooth riding is to avoid the potholes."
                                                                                  -Anagami

A long time ago I had a friend that was really bad with money.
He couldn’t hold a job for more than six months, was always involved in some get rich overnight scam, never paid his bills in time and always got in trouble with the banks.

One month, as usual, he was late in paying his rent and was facing eviction.
He asked me to lend him 300 $dollars until next day and somehow I couldn’t say no.
Well, guess what? I never saw my money back.

My question was not why he didn’t pay back his debt – that was his nature.
He did the same thing with every person he came in contact with – but why all the people got suckered in to give him money? Why somebody like me who thinks of myself as a pretty rational man, did not see it coming?

At about the same time I started dating a very nice girl.
Her best friend had a very nasty gossiping habit and I was quite shocked when my girlfriend started telling her very intimate tidbits of our personal life. I told her:
- Don’t do that! She is a gossiper and she will take that information and spread it around.
- No, she wouldn’t do that. She is my best friend. She replayed.

Well, guess what? She did just that.
So what is the moral of all this?
It looks like all of us have some sort of a soft spot, a built-in gullibility I would say.

We all like to believe that we are pretty special and that we deserved to be treated differently.
We believe that we can change the people around us, especially the people we like.

We get emotionally involved with those people and it becomes very difficult to see when we are suckered in.
At the same time, if we are not emotionally involved, it is much easier for us to see the true nature of other people.

The truth is that people cannot change their nature. A liar will be always a liar, even if he tells the truth when it is to his advantage.
A cheater is a cheater an ass hole is an ass hole as well as a nice person is a nice person.

If we could step outside of the emotional involvement and look at the true nature of our friends, relatives coworkers or other people involved in our lives we would avoid a lot of bad surprises.

Only if that would as easy to do as it is to say it…

Zen Tales: The Swan and the Swine

Once upon a time in the little community of Hogtown, in the bayou country, lived a little swan and her family of pigs.

I know what you are thinking "How come a family of pigs can have a swan daughter?" but let me tell you, it is more common than you think.

The pigs were quite wealthy and offered their swan daughter the best education money can buy.
The little swan was not only pretty but also very gifted and soon grew up into the most beautiful young lady in town. (Although some of the older pigs thought of her independence and free spirit as unbecoming of a young sow.)

After finishing college she thought of starting a career but her handsome hog boyfriend proposed to her and in the excitement of the moment she accepted. (She also wanted to make her pig parents proud and happy by marrying the most eligible bachelor in town.)

But married life did not turn the way she had predicted.
Away from the protective shield of her parents, she found herself being totally unprepared for the porcine life.

She tried very hard to play the role of a perfect swine but she was failing miserably.
She even went to the best pig specialists looking for help.

They pluck her feathers, broke her wings and cover her in sticky mud, but all their efforts to change her did not help.
On the surface she kind of looked more swiney, but inside she felt more and more inadequate.
She looked at the swine around her all happy whirling in the mud and dreamed she could be like that even for one day.

Her husband seemed to be very understanding of her shortcomings and try to cover up their family problems buy putting up the front of a perfect marriage.

The plans of her adolescence turned to dust.
She gave up all her dreams and she gave up all her hope.
All she was capable of is to survive and carry her pain.

With broken wings, crawling through the swamp she keeps on living, until one fateful day when she met an ancient turtle.
This old hermit basking in the sun atop of a mossy rock had on his face the most content smile she had ever seen.
Somehow it looked like he did not care about the filthy mud he was living in.
Somehow it did not affect him.

She approaches the old man and asked him.
- Why do I have to suffer all my life like this?
Why can’t I be just like the other swine, thick and slow, stupid and coarse?
Oh, why is God so cruel to me, why did he have to put this curse on me?
Or has he made a mistake?

- Oh no, my dear. Said the old man. God doesn’t make mistakes.
We do.
You are a swan and not a swine.
Your life is what you get if you choose to crawl when you are meant to fly.

The Fall of Idols

We are all God.
That is until we develop an Ego and we start thinking we are Gods.
And that ignorant belief throws us in a lot of trouble because your Ego is not God and it cannot control the universe and therefore it cannot control your life.

Sooner or later, like a blind man walking a tightrope, you gonna take a wrong step and your castle build out of cards will come tumbling down.
Then you start asking questions like:
- Why is this happening to me? Maybe there is a God and for some unknown reason he really doesn't like me and is trying to ruin my life.
Or something like that.

Let me start all over again from the beginning.
We are all God, not Gods.
We are born from the De like waves are born from the ocean.
We all have the same Divine nature. Actually, to be more precise everything there is, has the divine nature.

What differentiates us as persons start after we are born.
After our conception, we start a process of indoctrination by our power figures, which I call our IDOLS, into believing that we are something different than God. That we are human beings, a name, a race, a religion or country.
We are taught and learn to identify and therefore to separate ourselves from anybody and anything else. Thus we become strangers to our own divinity.

Furthermore our teachers, our Idols teach us how to lie, steal, hate, judge others, kill, deceive and betray and all that wonderful things that "humans" think, say and do all in the name of protecting US from THEM.
Of course, no Idol will ever take responsibility for this corruption of the Divine in us, for teaching us the evil way, but somehow we all learn and know it by the time we hit adulthood or the time we leave our family nest and start acting out our independent life.

It is at this time and point in our life when our disaster scenario programming starts unfolding.
Yes, we all follow the same path of self-destruction with some variants of time, place and circumstances.
It is inevitable. It is our destiny.
The biggest problem is not that we fail but that we keep following our programming again and again, repeating the same mistakes until we die without ever realizing what's going on.

So let me start again from the beginning.
We are all born God.
Everything else following our procreation is an experience of God in this material world.
Everything else you believe you are is just a role you have been programmed by your Idols to play, which in turn have been programmed by their Idols, which in turn have been programmed by their Idols since the beginning of human civilization.

In this process of self-programming, the chaos and error introduced by Ego each generation is perpetuating and amplifying constantly.
Translation: Our dysfunctionality as individuals and society is increasing with each generation and it will end in self-destruction and a spiritual renaissance revolution shortly after.

This revolution will be brought by the fall of Idols.
The personal realization that your Idols, your mother, father, teacher, priest, politicians and scientists, prophets and laymen and last but not list YOU are ignorant assholes. That there are no Idols outside your erroneous perception that everybody is just like everybody else.

I know it is scary to think that our Idols are nothing more than ordinary people doing their best or worst depending on how you see it, but their shit doesn't smell like roses and they are as ignorant and clueless as anybody else no matter how many diplomas, how much fame money or powers they have.

But that is the inevitable outcome the inevitable end of our Ego experience, the liberation act from our Idols and the return to the original truth.
We are all God.
Everything else is just an illusion, the experience of our human manifestation.

The Age of Entanglement

Deep down at subconscious level, we are all connected.
There are very few people that understand that and even fewer people that have made that connection at the conscious level.

There are numerous accounts of the past in which this connection has been made.
Finding out who you are, the true original nature of “I“ was enough to awaken you at a higher level of conscious connectivity.

The sudden realization of the true nature of reality would trigger a chain reaction in which the illusion of the material world would collapse and the individual would be freed from the prison of reason reestablishing the natural supremacy of the Spirit over the Ego.

The Zen literature is full of accounts of people, Zen students, that have attained enlightenment, spiritual awakening or Satori, by simply breaking through the illusion of separation and understanding the nonduality nature of oneness.
It looks like that type of awakening is not possible any longer in our times.

I’ve never encountered or heard about another alive human being enlightened at the present time with the exception of few momentary spontaneous enlightenment, the most notorious and documented being the so-called “near-death experience” which I like to call more appropriately “near life experience”
But even these spontaneous enlightenment experiences were not powerful enough to create a permanent conscience change and reverted after a short time to the Ego-consciousness prior to the event, leaving behind only the memories of the awakening.

That means that even for the people that have broken through the illusion of the material world and have made a total connection with the spiritual world at the conscious level, the awakening wouldn't last very long before reverting to the Ego reality set of mind.
This situation is the result of a very strong Ego dominance over our thinking that has exponentially grown in intensity in our time.

Zen Buddhism developed in Japan in the 8th century in a medieval society. 
Since then the world has become increasingly more interconnected and interdependent.
New modes of transportation and communication have made our world shrink. It took years to circumvent the world, and about as long for the news to propagate.
Now going around the globe has become a matter of hours and the news is transmitted at the speed of light to any corner of the globe. In the last decades, the information revolution has connected us 24/7.
We are practically going to bed with our phones and waking up with our phone in the hand. On top of that, the complexity of our social and economic life has also increased. We are in a situation that our brain is overused and have no free time left in the day. Paradoxically all this development has not brought us together but contrary has made us more isolated from each other and tied us stronger to the Ego material world.

You have to physically break away from any social interaction in order to escape the chains of entanglement.
As long as you are a part of the social system, being in this world but not of this world has become an impossibility.