The Way and the Goal Are One

On the night of June 12^th a man in Orlando, Florida went into a nightclub and began shooting into the people who had gathered there for a night of dancing.

Everyone knows the story.

I'm not going to write about that horrible night. I'm going to talk about some things that happened afterwords.

A Christian fundamentalist pastor in California said he was sorry more people weren't killed. He also said Orlando was now a safer place because lots of “those people” had been killed.

I won't share the words he used to describe “those people.”

Another fundamentalist preacher in Texas said he was praying that the wounded survivors in the hospital would die.

A religious leader—the head of a house of worship—said he was praying that the surviving innocent victims of the terrorist attack should die.

When I heard these two reports I was anything but kind and patient.

Luckily my training and my practice guided me—not my knee-jerk reaction.

After my first emotions and thoughts, I tried to find my center and my calm. But I had to work to find them and to hang on to them.

I thought about the superstitious and barbaric beliefs that gave birth to the words those two pastors used.

I immediately realize the words “superstitious” and “barbaric” were simply calmer expressions of my original anger.

I wasn't hanging onto my center too well.

I was once a Catholic Brother. I worked on the streets of Tijuana in Mexico and Los Angeles and Houston in the US. During that time I read many “approved” Catholic books.

I always thought if others were to read those same writings they would see things the way I did and the world would be a better, calmer, and more just place.

Lots of things have happened in my life since those days.

I'm no longer a Catholic Brother. Now, I'm a Buddhist monk and teacher.

But that same idea about others “reading what I've read or hearing the teachings I've heard and the world will be a better place” has remained quietly in the back ground.

Even though my training has taught me that idea is not correct, that idea is still quietly deep in me.

What's the very first verse of the Dhammapada?

Different translations will give you different words. But, they all mean the same thing: “We are what we think.”

I thought if others had my learning experience the world would be better. Of course that's not correct.

We all have our individual lives and experiences.

And what we think is the result of what we have seen, heard, done, and experienced—individually.

Simply reading something I've read or hearing a teaching I've heard isn't going to alter a lifelong trajectory.

I've been away on holiday, camping alone in the forests in Michigan near Ludington. I left town for the forest a few days after the massacre. Instead of relaxing and watching the green around me, I sat with my anger. I held my anger.

I knew all my thoughts and emotions in regards to the words of those two pastors were centered around my anger. I was experiencing anger. Anger at the man who killed and anger at the responses from those two religious leaders.

Under the trees, I began to work through my anger. I remembered a story the Buddha once told his students. Most people know that story. Its the story of the blind men and the elephant.

Each blind man felt a different part of the elephant and each had a different idea of what an elephant was.

I'm not for a moment attempting to justify anything. I'm not for a moment trying to blame anything. I'm saying everyone, the terrorist, the pastors, and me, only see part of any situation.

I don't know if the terrorist was guided by wrong information, or was deluded, or mentally ill. I don't truly understand the pastors.

I do know what the terrorist did was harmful to many, many people, including himself.

I do know what the pastors said was harmful to many, many people, including himself.

I do know my anger could be harmful to many, many people, and was harmful to me.

What I was doing in the forest was working so my anger did not make my decisions for me. I'm glad I was there, alone, away from people.

No one is born a terrorist. No one is born a bigot. These things are created by events.

Buddhism gives me the tools to allow the hate and the judgment that was in me to wither and fade away. And it's that hate and judgment that cause more hate and judgment.

The Tibetan nun Kathleen McDonald said, “It is not that anger and desire are inherently evil or that we should feel ashamed when they arise. It is a matter of seeing them as the delusions that they are: distorted conceptions that paint a false picture of reality. They are negative because they lead to unhappiness and confusion.”

In the Dhammapada we can read the Buddha's words on anger. (222-223).

Curb your anger,

just as a charioteer

controls the unruly horse.

Those who lack control

merely hold the reins.

Transform your anger with kindness,

your meanness with generosity,

your lies with truth.

These three ways lead to liberation:

speak the truth,

give whatever you can,

forgive and relinquish anger's hold.

Do this and you will perfect yourself.

There it is.

Speak the truth, give whatever you can, forgive and let go of anger.

Easy, right? Not easy. Something we have to practice. You hear it all the time. Buddhism is a practice. You do it and do it and do it. You do it until it and you are one.

I experienced my anger. I didn't allow it to guide me. But I acknowledged its presence and allowed it to be so it wouldn't fester in me.

There's something very important about Buddhism. The path and the goal are the same.

I experienced my anger without living it or allowing it to live me. I found its source. I let in wither and fade away.

The way and the goal.

I'm not bragging by telling you this account of how I dealt with my anger. I'm sharing my personal walk as a learning experience for both you and me.

I didn't want to surrender to anger. Especially anger caused by that awful night and the awful words that followed.

Please, remember, the way and the goal are one. They're the same thing. Don't ever be embarrassed or ashamed of your emotions. Please, remember you need to drive the car, not your emotions.