THE STRUGGLE OF OPPOSITES

A great master said: "Seek enlightenment, for all else will be added unto you."

The worst enemy of enlightenment is the ego. It is necessary to know that the ego is a knot in the flow of existence, a fatal obstruction in the flow of life free in its movement.

A Master was asked: "What is the path?"

"What a magnificent mountain!” he said, referring to the mountain where he had his retreat.

"I’m not asking about the mountain, but about the Way."

"As long as you cannot get beyond the mountain, you will not be able to find the Way," answered the master.

Another monk asked the same question to the same Master: "There it is, right in front of you," answered the Master.

"Why is it that I cannot see it?"

"Because you have egotistical ideas!"

"Will I be able to see it, sir?"

"As long as you have a dualistic vision and you say, ‘I cannot’ and so on, your eyes will be blinded by that relative vision."

“When there is neither I nor you, can it be seen?"

“When there is neither I nor you, who wants to see?"

The foundation of the ego is the dualism of the mind.  The ego is sustained by the battle of the opposites.  All reasoning is founded on the battle of the opposites.  If we say, “That person is tall,” we mean to say that he is not short. If we say, “I'm entering,” we mean to say that we are not exiting.  If we say, “I'm happy,” with that we affirm that we are not sad, etc.  The problems of life are nothing but mental forms with two poles, one positive and the other negative.  Problems are sustained by the mind and are created by the mind. When we stop thinking about a problem, it inevitably ends.  Happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain, good and evil, victory and defeat, constitute the battle of the opposites on which the ego is founded.  We live our entire lives miserably going from one opposite to another: victory-defeat, like-dislike, pleasure-pain, failure-success, this-that, etc. We need to free ourselves from the tyranny of the opposites. This is possible only by learning to live from moment to moment without abstractions of any type, without dreams, without fantasies.

Have you observed how the stones of the road are pale and pure after a torrential rain? One can only murmur an "Oh!" of admiration. We should comprehend that "Oh!" of things without deforming that divine exclamation with the battle of the opposites.

Joshu asked Master Nansen, "What is the Tao?"

"Ordinary life!" replied Nansen.

"What does one do to live in accordance with it?”

"If you try to live in accordance with it, it will flee from you.  Do not try to sing this song, let it sing itself.  Do not even simple hiccups come by themselves?"

Remember this phrase: "Gnosis lives in deeds, withers away in abstractions, and is difficult to find in even the noblest of thoughts." 

They asked the Master Bokujo, "Do we have to dress and eat daily? How could we escape from all of this?"

The master answered, 'We eat, we get dressed…"

"I don’t understand," said a disciple.

"Then get dressed and eat," said the Master.

This is precisely action free of the opposites.  Do we eat?  Do we get dressed? Why make a problem of that?  Why be thinking of other things while we are eating or getting dressed?  If you are eating, eat; if you are getting dressed, get dressed; and if you are walking down the street, walk, walk, walk, but do not think about something else.  Do only what you are doing, do not run away from facts, do not fill them with so many meanings, symbols, sermons and warnings. Live them without allegories; live them with a receptive mind from instant to instant.  Understand that I am speaking to you about the path of action free of the painful battle of the opposites; action without distractions, without evasions, without fantasies, without any kind of abstractions.

Change your character, dearly beloved, change it through intelligent action free of the battle of the opposites.  When the doors are closed to fantasies, the organ of intuition is awakened.  Action free of the battle of the opposites is intuitive action, full action.  Where there is fullness, the “I” is not there.

 Intuitive action leads us by the hand to the awakening of consciousness.  Let us work and rest happily, abandoning ourselves to the course of life.  Let us finish with the muddy and rotten water of habitual thinking, and into the emptiness will flow Gnosis, and with it the happiness of living.  This intelligent action free of the battle of the opposites raises us to a point in which something must break.  When everything goes well, the rigid ceiling of thinking breaks and the light and power of the Innermost flood into the mind that has stopped dreaming.  Then in the physical world, and outside of it during the sleep of the physical body, we live totally conscious and enlightened, enjoying the happiness of life in the higher worlds. 

This continuous tension of the mind, this discipline, takes us to the awakening of the consciousness.  If we are eating and thinking about business, it is clear that we are dreaming.  If we are driving a car and we are thinking of our boyfriend or girlfriend, it is logical that we are not awake, we are dreaming.  If we are working and we are remembering our child's godfather or godmother, or our friend, our brother, etc., it is clear that we are dreaming.  People who live dreaming in the physical world also live dreaming in the inner worlds during those hours in which the physical body is sleeping.  We need to stop dreaming in the internal worlds.  When we stop dreaming in the physical world we awaken here and now, and that awakening appears in the internal worlds.  First seek enlightenment, for all else shall be added to you.

Whoever is enlightened sees the way, whoever is not enlightened cannot see the way and can easily get lost on the path and fall into the abyss.  Tremendous are the effort and vigilance that are needed from second to second, from instant to instant to not fall into fantasies.  One moment of carelessness is enough and the mind is already dreaming upon remembering something, upon thinking about something different from the job or deed that we are living at the moment.  When we learn in the physical world to be awake from instant to instant, then we will live awake and self-conscious from instant to instant in the internal worlds during the hours when the physical body sleeps and also after death.

It is painful to know that the consciousness of all human beings sleeps deeply and dreams not only during those hours of the repose of the physical body, but also during that state ironically called the waking state. 

Action free of mental dualism produces the awakening of the consciousness.