Are we on their lonesome on this world or at one with all the pieces? Nick Walser shines a highlight on the paradoxical nature of loneliness.
Picture by Warren Wong.
Is Buddhism’s backside line the oft-quoted “Be a lamp unto yourselves?” This can be a beautiful, liberating thought after we are getting rid of reliance upon exterior authority. However generally being our personal illumination can really feel lonely certainly.
I’ve felt most lonely when I’ve weighed the very smallest concept of myself towards the huge grandeur of the universe, and located myself wanting. On many events, I haven’t put the time into connecting wholeheartedly with others; I’ve held myself aloof from life.
It’s straightforward to do that. Our tradition can generally give us the impression that we’re contained little blobs of stuff, and that inside our fastidiously maintained house surroundings our wants can be completely happy. All our requirements are to be discovered inside our respective 4 partitions. We are able to have meals delivered and movies downloaded, and work may be accomplished from house. Our house turns into some form of delivery-unit, and we develop into mere open mouths, gobbling up no matter comes our method. Then it turns into straightforward to persuade ourselves that we’re singular certainly: self-sufficient and in a position to fulfill our each whim, as a result of all roads appear to result in us, and there’s nothing like this type of one-way site visitors for reinforcing a powerful concept of self. We even have the notion that we want by no means be alone due to cell phones, social media and so forth. However this type of togetherness is characterised by an absence of depth, and sometimes by the interventions of company our bodies eager to promote us their wares. In each states of alone and collectively, money-making know-how inserts itself, including to our comfort and taking away from our expertise. Is interactivity changing relationship?
So some could recommend the sangha as an antidote to loneliness, but it surely’s straightforward to really feel misplaced amidst the dharma busyness that goes on.
Even when we have now a beautiful trainer, the trainer has their very own life to reside. Even when we’re a part of a supportive sangha these folks gained’t be current all the time, and we all the time have work to do this nobody can do for us. The Buddha’s authentic sangha didn’t apparently spend all their time collectively, however convened solely through the wet season. The remainder of the time they went off in response to their very own lights, mixing with their very own communities who had little or no data of Buddha’s teachings.
So some could recommend the sangha as an antidote to loneliness, but it surely’s straightforward to really feel misplaced amidst the dharma busyness that goes on. What we discover is that even after we are in relationship with folks, loneliness nonetheless may be current. Loneliness isn’t all the time about being alone, however moderately about feeling out of step with others.
There’s a Zen story, the place monk Ken complains to his senior Genjoza after they’ve been touring collectively for a while: “I’ve been practising for years, and nonetheless don’t have anything. Roaming within the nation like this, I’ll by no means attain enlightenment.” Genjoza solutions thus: “I’ll care for you on this journey. However there are 5 issues I can not do for you. I can’t put on your garments for you, I can not shit for you, nor can I piss for you. I can’t carry your physique round, and I can not reside your life for you.”
On the one hand, this concept of final duty for ourselves induces in us a sort of vertiginous loneliness. On the identical time, it will possibly instil a way of “I’ll do my observe and attain awakening for myself.” I believe numerous loneliness bears down upon us if that is how we strategy the dharma, and I’d hazard that almost all of us undergo a stage like this. Once more, all roads result in our self and make it concrete, restricted and depending on outward circumstances. Loneliness appears to thrive the place the self hardens, and the place we endure is the place we’re clinging.
After I really feel lonely, it’s as a result of I’ve photos of myself being extra liked than I’m, extra surrounded by shut associates than I’m, or having a lover who will get me extra completely. However these are precisely simply photos and projections. I’m searching for reward and reassurance, type phrases, and appears of admiration. However on a regular basis I’m chasing after these, I’m anticipating others to reside my life for me. I’m basing my happiness on outer circumstances, and in doing so forgetting the hundreds of unsung connections and palms of assist that this universe offers me every single day.
There was a time after I needed my observe to be super-charged; I needed to do it, to get woke up, to develop into a Buddha in the identical method that monk Ken needed to. It was about my efforts, and the way I measured up. I used to be casting round for lecturers or practices that may get issues transferring sooner. I admired the lone-wolf characters from Zen historical past like Layman Pang or Ikkyu. I used to be utilizing my observe to separate myself from others.
You probably have any expertise of observe, you then’ll know what I ultimately skilled. I used to be disillusioned. On the identical time, as a result of the cosmos is type certainly, I had a transparent realization: the extra self-obsessed we get, the extra we truly depend upon others to reside our lives for us. A lot for the lone wolf.
If somebody says “I’m having bother with my spouse,” then a sure form of particular person is perhaps given to say “All is impermanence” and go away it at that. However that isn’t the human response.
How about “oneness?” I’ve all the time admired the truth that most Buddhists don’t get too mystical about it. When the Dalai Lama didn’t snigger on the Australian presenter’s “One with The whole lot” pizza joke, I appreciated that. It’s all too straightforward to order one with all the pieces, and many individuals will ship it for you. Tougher is to reside via particularities. If somebody says “I’m having bother with my spouse,” then a sure form of particular person is perhaps given to say “All is impermanence” and go away it at that. However that isn’t the human response. In Zen, when confronted with private dilemmas, some folks get caught in previous koan responses like “Go drink tea” or “Chop wooden, carry water” as if to say “human considerations are trivial” or “ worries are pointless.” I actually went via a stage of feeling like I used to be transcending all of the human nonsense. However truly I used to be simply being aloof, and I wasn’t connecting with issues. One with all the pieces just isn’t an antidote to loneliness.
Neither alone, nor collectively, it’s attainable to respect our place within the universe, as an expression of that universe. This implies dwelling via particulars. Variations are sacred. That is duty. It means connecting, and being human. While respecting the particulars, we are able to then blow up the self and make it as large as attainable, and this implies intimacy with all issues, together with loneliness. Sameness is sacred.
The great and lucky factor about life is that always, even after we are being full fools, we nonetheless get to see some knowledge. Within the midst of my lone-samurai heroics the place contrarily I used to be searching for exterior myself for some form of awakening, this thought occurred to me with some pressure: no trainer or instructing was ever going to “do it” for me. I was the doing already; there was not some separate self to whom dharma would dramatically occur, like lightning placing a rod. However on a regular basis I used to be making a powerful practice-self, and wielding the dharma like some other masks I had constructed, I couldn’t see this. So I made actual loneliness for myself.
This brings to thoughts Dogen’s encounter with an previous monk, of whom he asks: “Outdated man, why are you working so exhausting at these menial duties? Wouldn’t or not it’s higher to be sitting zazen or doing koans?” To which the canny senior citizen replies “Who else can do that work? I’m not others and others usually are not me. You already know nothing.”
There’s nobody else to do it, and but on the identical time, there’s no-one there to do it. Not alone, and never collectively.