Do Buddhists Talk about Grace?

I met a new friend yesterday. I presumed he was Buddhist, but he dropped the word grace into our conversation one too many times.

"Do Buddhists talk about Grace?"

"I'm not Buddhist."

Of course I'm not unusual and I recalled: "The bodhisattva goes completely beyond convention." (from the book, Mother of the Buddhas: Meditation on the Prajnaparamita Sutra by Lex Hixon).

This is the third consecutive uninitiated conversation about grace I'd had in the last three days. So I'd thought I'd share my inklings:

Grace is the free and unmerited beneficience of a God which is all and nothing and beyond comprehension. It is the natural law of the cosmos – well outside the gravitational pull of man-made law of sin and/or karma – which is ever-available in each and every and every moment. The metaphor of gravity can be extended: The lightness of Being that comes by accepting grace each moment is akin to the weightlessness and bouyancy and peace of outer space. 

It is so unconditional and infinitely patient that it will allow you to hit the snooze button as many times as you wish, yet your remembrance of its embrace eventually wakes you up gently and in your own time.

The Ego Says The Ego Needs to Go

Keith Ray pointed me to Adrian Savage's piece on "Expansive Egos." While I enjoy Adrian's blog, the biggest 'barrier' to Awakening is thinking anything, including ego, well, especially the ego, needs to 'go' or needs to be abolished and then everything would be perfect.

I'll be in the Tao then. Someday if only.

There is no then.

You are immersed in Tao right now 24/7. But you don't see it because of this mental interpretative layer that's like a thin film over your vision chirping: "This needs to go" or "That needs to go." Other similar looping refrains: "I should be…", "They should be…", "The universe should be…"

Trying to control your so-called ego into submission (or death) is merely the most subversive ego-manager trick. Trying to make harmony only masks the innate harmony in Reality.

The vastness of Tao (since Adrian quotes the Tao Te Ching) is totally completely all-encompassing. What it means that the ego doesn't exist is it has no substance to it – try pointing to it. Where is it? Can you really find your ego?

This is all sounding "easier said than done." To get to point where you can see through your interpretations, it is useful to witnesss and investigate thoughts that have the quality of "This needs to go" and "This should be different than it is right now." I recommend Bryon Katie's book Loving What Is. I also like to carry Bryon Katie's worksheets in my notebook everywhere I go.

You'll finally get to the place where the finite mind becomes like one of your other five senses, rather than it trying to be the author of the whole infinite she-bang. The infinite doesn't fit quite as well into the finite, but the other way around works quite nicely. And then you see for yourself it's all seamlessly infinite anyway. That open clear space isn't infinite period – it has the felt sense of sublime qualities of infinite complete whole peace, ease, intelligence, and love.

Mind wants its freedom, not a straightjacket. – Bryon Katie

An Exchange with Tao

"But, I still get angry and impatient and tired. People still compete and strive and try to seek advantage over others. Needless suffering compounds needless suffering, and I reckon I need about another 10,000 lifetimes before I'll be wise enough to say "Yes!" to that each time I confront it." – email from a friend

There are no 10,000 lifetimes before or after this instant. Only thought seems to reincarnate every instant, until we realize they actually don't. As my teacher finally got through to me Wed.,  there is no absolutely no "event" that "happens" that switches one from unawakened delusional clod to enlightened sage. You just realize you
couldn't have possibly have said No and there is simply Yes, not even you saying yes.