Finding the Eternal in the External

One night, during the period of my spiritual growth I called the autumn of my soul, Tacomi, a Tibetan Buddhist monk appeared in a dream. . . .

Tacomi smiled and said, “There is a teaching that may help you better understand my position on feeling compassion for the Chinese Communists who took over Tibet. It is the teaching of the very beautiful bodhisattva named Sadaparibhuta who is called the Never Disparaging or Never Despising Buddha. He would go up to a person and say: ‘You are someone of great value. You are a future buddha. I see this potential in you!’ Since people were not in touch with the ultimate dimension, the message would be rejected—”

“Excuse me, but what do you mean by the ultimate dimension?” I asked.

“We are like waves on a vast ocean. The ocean is the ultimate dimension; it is our true identity. Whereas the wave that we are is our historical identity as a specific person in a specific body in a particular place and time. In reality, we are interdependent waves that are all equally part of the ocean. Where does one wave begin and the other wave start? It’s silly to compare ourselves. I’m a bigger wave than he is. She is a prettier wave than I am. In this sea of the spiritual energy of love and compassion, we are all one. Our task is to bring our compassion into the historical dimension of our day-to-day life.”

“I see,” I said. “We are waves who think we are separate, apart from each other; instead we are all a part of an endless energy ocean of loving-kindness.”

Tacomi then picked up where he left off. “Unaware of their ultimate nature, people would feel that they were being mocked. They would attack this bodhisattva. When he was persecuted and chased out of a village, he would call back: ‘I do not hold you in contempt! You are all treading the path, and shall all become buddhas!’”

“So, would it be safe to say, that his mission was to help people to get in touch with their ultimate nature?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “By seeing their ultimate goodness, they could live joyfully in peace and freedom. And they could relieve the suffering brought on by fear, despair, and anxiety. We must help people recognize that they are manifestations of the ultimate. We must free others of the suffering of a negative self-image. When we engage in this practice, we are doing the practice of the Never Disparaging Buddha or Never Despising Buddha.”

“We’re not supposed to have a self-image, are we?” I queried.

“True, we are not to identify with, or place our worth on, the impermanent things in the world. I am an awakened one, a buddha inside and I am to manifest this in my life. I am not my job, my car, my wealth, and so on. All that is impermanent and can change. But my inner spiritual nature is unchanging.”

“So we do not base our worth on externals, “I said. “We must not see ourselves as separate waves of different shapes and sizes. We are to base our worth on the eternal energy of the ocean of love and compassion within us. We should recognize our capacity and that of others to become an enlightened, kind, and compassionate buddha, an awakened one.

“Hey, I just noticed something,” I said. “When you remove the letter x in external you get eternal. A divine sign that removing external things from our focus helps us see the eternal? I guess x marks the center of the crosshairs of our external focus. Focused on externals, we are riflemen ready to fire in anger at others. We miss the eternal in ourselves and others. We must x-out (cross out) things to be enlightened. This way, we don’t grasp or harm others?”

Tacomi laughed. “Clever play on words. Now getting back to this buddha,” he said, “we must never give up on a person with low self-esteem and that includes never giving up on ourselves as well.”

“I suppose,” I said, “we should not lose patience with a person with low self-esteem. And we should always help others with low self-esteem see their true nature as essentially good.”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “And as Never Disparaging or Never Despising Buddhas, we must give the message: ‘You are already a buddha in the ultimate spiritual dimension; now you just have to manifest it in the historical dimension of your daily life.’ We must help remove feelings of worthlessness and low self-esteem.”

“But so often,” I said, “people feel so bad about themselves.”

“That’s true,” he said, “they think, ‘There is nothing in me except pain and suffering, and I don’t know how to get free of my own suffering, much less help others. I am worthless.’ They also think that they are not as accomplished or as successful as other people.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “So many people are not happy because they are eaten up with envy; they envy the accomplishments and social status of others while regarding themselves as failures.They despise themselves for not having as nice a car, home and/or job as someone they consider successful has.

“This is what I call the ‘I could have been a contender!’ complex. Marlon Brando said these words in the film On the Waterfront. But we don’t need to be prizefighters slugging it out in life, do we?”
Tacomi smiled. “No need to fight,” he said. “We are all already contenders for the ultimate prize of enlightenment.” (Excerpted from Words Become Flesh. See www.drsrj.com).

• Today, when you have a moment, set aside the tendency to be critical and look at others from the perspective of the ultimate dimension as the Never-Despising and Never-Disparaging Buddha does.