“This moment is a perfect moment; this moment is my refuge” – Thich Nhat Hanh
“Here and Now!” commanded the essential mantra of the 70’s consciousness expansion movement. It is a koan, an exclamation meant to stop our rushing through life, lost in our mental wanderings. “This!” declares the Zen master. “Enter into This!” To grasp Zen requires no other instruction, yet the words are only an invitation into a life-long exploration into the fullness, depth, and subtlety of their meaning and importance in the transformation of our lives into peace and harmony, into deep spiritual realization.
In Aldous Huxley’s 1962 utopian novel “Island,” describing a society dedicated to harmony, justice, and peace, all throughout the land were trained myna birds who would call out “attention” and “karuna” (compassion) to remind people back into what was essential – this moment experienced deeply and compassionately. Utopia is built on Here and Now, through awakened consciousness able to see what truly matters. It is built on love for the totality of Life, of the what-is unfolding. Utopia is built on honoring the web of interconnectedness and miracle that is the truth of Life – Here and Now. Dystopia is built on troubled minds carrying their identity built on conflicting ideas out of the past trying to impose itself into the future, never present enough to sense what truly matters. When ego holds preeminence over awareness, any crazy, even dangerous, idea can be the foundation for a person or a whole society. This is why, after thousands of years, human society remains so conflictual, unjust, and lacking in wisdom and compassion.
Buddha is said to have explained that the purpose of his teachings was completely and only the cessation of suffering. While this sounds purely psychological, as if it has no metaphysical or theological implications, this understanding misses the point. It misses that the transcendence of suffering requires the realization of dimensions of existence beyond what we commonly experience. It requires taking us from walking within our daily routines with a sense of their un-remarkableness, even sometimes annoyance, into deep appreciation and joy, into spiritual awakening into all of life as sacred. It requires we shift our experience of the “routine” into levels marked by “attention” to detail, into wonder, and gratitude for the balance and beauty of even the everyday and regular, into the level that is love. “This!” It is a shift from dualistic consciousness into non-duality, union, into the miracle of a balanced and harmonious universe that creates stars and planets, air, water and soil, plants and animals, and harmonizes the over 30 trillion cells which comprise a human body into what amounts to a galaxy unto itself. We are levels upon levels, organized and balanced into the Universe itself.
Zen Master Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in the 13th century, called us to realize, “If you can’t find Truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?” Truth, in this context, is the entryway into enlightenment, into the deepest truth of the way things are, into the cessation of “suffering,” when, as The Buddha addressed it, we become one with Life as-it-is. The ultimate psychological cure is found in spiritual awakening, and spiritual awakening is built on total openness to the miracle and mystery which is unfolding as our life, moment to moment, just the way it is.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk exiled from his home country during its civil war for preaching peace, had a particular talent for bringing the teachings of Buddhism into simple memorable statements. He was a poet who knew exactly how to distill the spiritual felt-sense Zen invites us into with a few words. He calls to us, “This moment is a perfect moment.” How can this be? He is not saying this moment when all is well in our world, when we are enjoying ourselves – for the next thing he says is “This moment is my refuge.” We don’t need refuge from our enjoyable and peaceful moments, rather from our troubled lives and world. He has put “this moment,” without any qualifiers together with perfection and finding refuge. This is truly koan, the Zen device to upend the way we usually consider life to open us into the experience of Life as unlimited and all-inclusive. Can you see? Unlimited and all-inclusive HAS to be perfect. We have moved from dualistic judgement about whether Life meets OUR terms for satisfactory into the non-dual, truly spiritual realm, of realizing beyond “good” and “bad,” “desirable” and “undesirable.” Life IS. Life is whole and complete and perfect just as it is. This is the realm of Nature, of the Universe unfolding in its balance and harmony. As it is the way of Nature, it has to be the true essence of the human way as well. How can it not be? Buddhism calls this our “original nature,” and our reconnecting to this essence holds the secret to spiritual and psychological well-being.
At the heart of Buddhist teaching is the Sanskrit word “dukkha,” generally translated as “suffering,” but a far more instructive and revealing translation is “dissatisfaction.” In all of existence, only humans can be dissatisfied with Life-as-it-is and it is the untangling of this conundrum which Buddha spoke of as the only purpose he had. How do we get from experiencing our sometimes conflicted and painful individual lives as understandably unsatisfactory into “perfect?” We must shift dimensions of consciousness from the time-oriented, dualistic, and judgmental egoic mind into “buddha-mind,” the awakened, non-dual, eternally present-moment mind of essential Beingness. Here and Now the vastness and particularness of this immediate experience is realized. Here we are in the unfolding miracle of the everythingness that is the Universe. “Here” we can see miracle in every aspect of existence. “Here” we can see how everything is connected and interdependent within an unbroken unfolding of the mortal and impermanent within the immortal and infinite. “Here and Now” calls us to experience with our full faculties of senses, intellect, emotions, and intuition sharply focused into this miracle called “this moment.” “Here and Now” is where our troubled mind finds sense and purpose in what our personal perspective finds unsatisfactory, even terrifying and painful. Here and Now is where we find “refuge.”
It then becomes understandable how in Buddhism, “refuge” is a central concept. It is where suffering is held in loving and safe arms. An extremely important teaching in Buddhism is called “The Triple Refuge” or “Triple Gems.” It is a simple recitation: “I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha.” What is the meaning here? “Buddha” is awakening. Dharma is the path to awakening, the teachings and practices. Sangha is the community of human beings throughout history who have awoken into the larger mind of Being, often to the result of a sense of existing outside conventionality. Zen Master, Dainin Katagiri said, “In wholehearted presence, The Buddha is realized, the Dharma is Lived, and the Sangha is shared.” “Wholehearted presence” is this moment, as it is, embraced compassionately as ultimate reality. This “presence” into “what-is” enables individual and collective human psychological and social healing.
One moment, we are walking along, our mind filled with trouble, ache, desire, aversion, self-doubt – all the obstacles the mind can create to afflict itself – pulled into past remembrances and future anticipations, and we remember, “This moment.” We shift consciousness into our senses with subtle interest. We experience our breathing, we experience what is seen, heard, and felt, as a channel for consciousness energy that transcends the sense of “me,” and we are in perfection, radiance, miracle. We have found refuge from our troubled mind. Zen says we have discovered we are “nobody,” just this moment in consciousness with a human body and mind. Our circumstance is our circumstance. We do not evaluate. We do not judge. All Nature is this way. Every bird and squirrel, deer and bear, dog and cat, meets its circumstance as “just this.” It is what-is. Enlightenment is a human being realizing this essential and primal truth. All there is is this, Here and Now. There is no trouble even in the midst of trouble. Two dimensions. One personal, full of trouble. One transpersonal, sometimes called the spiritual, where there is no trouble, only this moment unfolding in and as miracle, and so, perfect. We take that next step and we naturally know what is needed. Zen is in doing what is needed with no ado or valuation as to whether it meets our need for comfort and ease. We do “this” with skill, precision, and appreciation. A very important Zen teaching tells us, “Obstacles do not block the path; obstacles ARE the path.”
It is told that when asked to say something of great wisdom, the 15th century Zen poet Ikkyu picked up his calligraphy brush and wrote, “Attention.” Not impressed, the inquirer said, “Is that all?” In response, Ikkyu wrote, “Attention. Attention.” Now irritated, the inquirer said this didn’t seem very profound or subtle at all. In response, Master Ikkyu wrote simply, “Attention. Attention. Attention.” The inquirer, now quite confused asked, “What does ‘this word ‘attention’ mean?” Ikkyu replied, “Attention means attention.” Attention to the Here and Now, to this moment, to this, right here, right now, deep and subtle attention explored with total openness through all the dimensions of “this” right Here, right Now, is, yes, the secret to Zen and Life. It is our refuge from dissatisfaction and suffering into the realization of Life in its perfection – even in the midst of challenge.