Why We Are Here … The True Purpose of the Spiritual Life

I have spent my lifetime defining for myself and sharing with anyone who would listen what I have come to believe it means to live one’s lifetime authentically and with purpose, what it means to be a human being, and finally what the purpose for living is, which I believe we all share.  It was Teilhard de Chardin who wrote, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”   Early on I came to accept these words as the context for fully understanding and actualizing what people call spirituality, what I have come to identify as “Authentic Spirituality”.  Most of us live our lives as if the opposite is true, “human beings trying to have a spiritual experience”, and that is why we are never satisfied.

For most people in the West “spirituality” is merely a concept or a word which has replaced another concept called “religion”.  People often say to me, “I am spiritual but not religious.”  I have never been able to  wrap my head around those words because my experience has taught me that you can’t have one without the other.  In order to be truly spiritual you must also be religious.  You don’t have to necessarily be a monk, but you do have to live like one.  What I mean is you must be devoted to a purpose larger than yourself, living your life with integrity, and offering it daily as a benefit to others.   This is the true meaning of “Love”, and Love is the only reason we are here.

When interviewed, the people who witnessed the events of 9/11 as they occurred, whenever asked to describe what remains for them as the single most profound and lasting image of that horrible tragedy, is not what you would expect.  It is not the image of the airliners crashing into the towers, or the skyscrapers falling, or the people in the streets running for safety.  It was the images of the people who threw themselves from the 104th or 89th floor, especially those who in their final moments reached out to another human being and taking their hand made the leap to their inevitable and sudden deaths together.   Persons leaping from the Towers hand-in-hand they reach for another, perfect strangers, their hands meet and they jump.  The image of two hands nestled in each other embodies the most powerful and the most authentic definition of the spiritual life and the reason we are all here.  Was it a random act driven by fear?  Or was it an inherent response which affirms Chardin’s words when he writes that each of us are “spiritual beings having a human experience”?   Like that other moment in life, when fear shakes our very foundation and delivers us into the hands of a stranger, the hands of our Mothers at the moment of birth.  In that moment too, perfect strangers, two hands nestled making the leap together.

Authentic Spirituality or to “be spiritual” is about “Connection”, it is about “Love”.  Spirituality is about finding our way back to each other and taking the leap together into an abyss marked by uncertainty, assured that in the final reckoning all will be well, not by what we believe, or have read, or even by what we have been told, but rather by the touch of each other’s hands nestled together.

Since 9/11 we continue to witness similar events involving tragedy and loss, and each time whether it was a senseless shooting in a school or a theatre, or a natural disaster capable of destroying the past, the present, and the future in a single moment, whenever the worst of times presents itself, each time and every time we see the greatness and the holiness we “spiritual beings” possess which rise up from within us like an angelic army from heaven, whenever we are under fire.  Running toward each other, not from, without hesitation or ever considering the cost.  Strangers reaching out to another.

The Spiritual Life is ground for cultivating the seeds of Love and Compassion which each of us possess, and for nurturing the Connection we all share with one another.  It is the ground where the divine recognizes the human, a conducive environment to commune with our original nature, our true Self.  It is also a place similar to the tragic moments in history, where we confront  the worst in us in order for the very best to resurrect again and again.  It is the stuff of ordinary people choosing to live extraordinary lives, risking, working and living side by side, without a clue about the future yet, committed to having a choice in how we will make the journey.   Choosing to meet our fears and whatever painful events that may be thrown at us with a Noble Faith that who we are is greater than all our imaginings and will persist far beyond this moment and moments to follow, that we are made up of the stuff of heaven and earth,  and that Love is why we are here, and Love always finds the Way.

We cannot take the essential work involved and necessary for “spiritual beings to have a human experience”.   We must be diligent, committed, and resolved to practice regularly like an athlete preparing to run the race, with our full attention.  We must be ready for life’s uncertainty and the inevitable suffering that comes with it.  Spirituality is not about bypassing what is human or,  avoiding or averting suffering, but rather it is the means by which we fully engage and respond – with all victorious, loving and compassionate mastery.

We can begin to recognize that the stuff that taxes us is not oppositional but rather an inescapable provocation ever challenging us to realize that each of us possess the potential not only to survive life’s tragedies, but also to carve out our dreams for a more loving and peaceful world, just as Michelangelo carved out David from a stone and, that this infinite potential cannot be measured by any part of the imagination and no institutional doctrine or dogma can ever fully describe it with any accuracy.   Anyone who tries is a “finger pointing at the moon”.  We must just as the Ancient teachers have always affirmed, walk the walk and discover it for ourselves, for the Way has been clearly mapped out for us, and we must embrace our responsibility to live accordingly.

Whenever I am asked to speak at funerals or memorials I often tell the audience that, “We best honor the memory of the deceased by having the resolve to go on and live our own lives with the integrity, devotion, love and compassion, that will make the world a better place and fulfill for them the dream they could not in their passing.”  I believe that this responsibility belongs to each generation, to continue to fight the good fight.  Hearts and dreams nestled in each other’s taking the leap, in life and in death.

The Buddhist speak of Three Refuges for those who choose to live the Noble Life.  They are:

• I take refuge in Buddha Nature.
• I take refuge in Dharma.
• I take refuge in Sangha (Community)

The Buddhadharma teaches that “all beings are Buddha (enlightened beings) and possess at all times Buddha Nature.  Each of us possess the seeds of loving-kindness and compassion, the seeds of infinite wisdom, insight, and real knowledge.  This being said, every moment of our lives is a “choice”, we are never “capable”, to act or not to act upon our potential.  At all times we are either willful or not, or as Pema Chodron writes, “At all times we are either opening or closing our hearts.”.  The choice between Love or Hate, Forgiveness or Resentment, Anger or Kindness, Compassion or Indifference is always ours to make.  It also teaches that the path has been walked by not only the historical Buddha, Jesus, Moses, but by millions of other Buddha’s before us, it has been well honed and proven throughout the centuries to work.  We need to learn the lessons of those who walked before us and then step up and walk the path ourselves.  Finally, we are never alone, unless we choose to be.  If two strangers on the 104th floor of the towers, in the most horrific and terrifying moment of their lives knew to “reach out” and take the others hand, we need only to do the same at anytime.  As my own life’s experience has proven time and time again, the hand I look for will always be there, I need only to extend my own.

When we choose to “connect”, first with our own Buddha Nature and then with other Buddha’s, we have made the choice to “live spiritually”, to engage every moment of life with the Wisdom of Heaven no matter the circumstances or situation, with loving-kindness and compassion.  Authentic spiritual practice whatever form or tradition it takes is never about “bypassing” those difficult moments in life, it has always been about being fully “present” to every moment especially the one’s we’d prefer to avert.  To use any of the spiritual practices as a means of bypassing life’s difficulties is not disingenuous, but futile.  Eventually life always says to us, “You can run now, but you cannot forever hide.”

Love is why we are here and learning “to Love” is always the lesson of the moment.  Connection is always risky, but if we don’t risk it whenever the teacher presents the opportunity,  when we arrive at the moment of our death we will not think, “I’m sorry I did all the things I did in my life.”, rather we will say, “I wish I had done that.”, and that is Hell.

The Buddha once wrote, “However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act upon them?”  Love isn’t Love until we risk it and give it to another.  And as another Buddha wrote, “In the end the Love you get, is equal to the Love you give.”

In memory of all the many beings who have died from tragedy or from life taking its course, let us now and all now’s to follow, choose to risk, to “take the leap”.  If you will do that with me, I promise “my hand will always be there for you!”

I Love You,

Seijaku Roshi