Part II
Living On A Red and Blue Planet
It was the seventh day since the little monk had landed on the red and blue planet. He had been walking for quite a long time and seemed to be getting nowhere. The planet was a waste of red sand and wind-swept dunes as far as the eye could see. A feeling of desolation overwhelmed the little monk. To be lost and abandoned in such a dreadful place. What had the world come to!
“Ah,” said the little monk to himself, “I shall surely die here in this forsaken place. This is not a safe haven for little monks. Perhaps if I walk a little more I shall find a place of refuge.” No sooner had the little monk uttered these words than a faint glow could be seen just across the horizon. The glow became brighter the closer the little monk approached it.
“What could this be?” asked the little monk, to no one in particular. He began to see the outline of a castle. This castle was shimmering brightly, the closer the little monk approached it the more this odd shimmering dazzled his eyes. The castle was made out of diamonds. This was a most awesome sight for the little man. He came from a place that prided itself on modesty. The sheer majesty of this diamond castle was overwhelming. The little monk took a few seconds to shield his eyes and recover his composure.
“Is this it?” the little monk asked himself. “Is this the place where one could find the meaning of life?” The little monk quickened his pace. Was this a dream? And was the castle merely an apparition inside the dream? These were deep questions that needed to be answered. Our brave little monk was destined to enter this castle and see for himself what the source of this brilliant white light could be.
*
The door was open. No one had locked it. The little monk entered and, once inside, could see that this castle was quite large. There was a long hall leading to a big room. Inside the room there was a large throne. It was empty, yet the little monk noticed that someone had been sitting on it recently.
“Hello ....,” cried the little monk, “is there anybody home?” There was no answer. The little monk was curious. “This is quite queer .... such a big place and there is no one to welcome me. This place is so empty, I don’t really feel at home here,” muttered the little monk to himself. Our story would have ended here, dear readers, but naturally as you all know, a story cannot end with such an inconclusive state of affairs.
The curtain behind the throne opened up and out stepped a small little man. “Hello there, how do you do?” he said. The little monk was startled. “Uh, hello, and who are you?” asked the little monk. “I am somewhat lost, actually.” The little man, or, should I say, the castle’s guest-keeper, slowly walked up to the little monk and shook his hand. “Splendid! No one has made a reservation in a thousand years. Welcome!”
The little monk was relieved to have found someone to talk to. His new companion was a little odd. But he could live with this. He had seen many odd things on this long journey, and he reasoned that a little monk could put up with a lot more. Also, it was well within the realm of possibility that this little man could be able to answer some of his questions.
*
“Dear Sir, could you please tell me how to see beyond the limits of my eyes?” asked the little monk.
“That’s easy,” answered the guest-keeper. “All you need to do is slow down.”
“Slow down?” asked the little monk.
“Yes, just slow down. It’s not that hard. Try to stretch your mind out until an opening occurs. Let the pauses and spaces become more full. Try to stretch the gap between each thought. Go deep down and see where they bubble up. Embrace more distance.”
The little monk was absorbed in this lecture. The guest-keeper continued: “Sometimes it gets a little dark and murky down there. Perhaps a little clouded. When the heartmind is slowed down, one begins to feel a more resonating quality within and without. The actual difference between in and out begins to melt away.”
The little monk asked in a tone of expectation: “What use is this?” The guest-keeper laughed and continued: “That’s when you start talking to them.”
“Start talking to whom?” the little monk asked.
The guest-keeper answered with a hint of surprise: “That’s when you start talking to the great guides! That’s when you feel their limitless compassion. They shower you with it. The fullness of their radiance is given to you.”
The guest-keeper paused; he slowly began to gaze across the room. The guest-keeper smiled, almost as if listening to someone’s compassionate whisper. He closed his eyes and sat down on the floor.
*
The guest-keeper had been sitting in silence for what seemed many hours to the little monk. But he could not really be sure. Time seemed to stretch and contract on this planet.
“Are you awake?” asked the little monk to the guest-keeper. “I have always been awake. It is you who are asleep,” retorted the guest-keeper, as he lifted his eyes and smiled to the little monk.
“One can never get too much of that precious stuff, you know,” said the guest-keeper.
“What precious stuff?” asked the little monk with a hungry look.
“Oh, you know .... that precious white light,” answered the guest-keeper. Even as he said these words, the guest-keeper began to glow. The little monk noticed this immediately.
“Are the guides giving you this glow?” asked the little monk. The guest-keeper looked up again. “Well, yes and no. They give me the tools and I use them. The more I use them, the more they help me. It’s all quite simple.”
The little monk pressed on. “So, you really do talk to spirits!”
The guest-keeper looked annoyed. He then said: “The spirits are in us and we are in them. There really is no difference. The first step, one learns, is to pull back from one’s senses. Sounds get a little muffled and distant. Strangely, they also get louder, but the loudness does not disturb you. As you move away from sound, you put yourself in a sort of soundless realm .... an echoless chamber. Everything seems to be happening on the other side of the sense wall. That’s when they come.”
The little monk was getting lost. But he begged the guest-keeper to continue. He also took out his sketch book and started to draw. As he drew, the guest-keeper added: “When you tune into the light, you are doing this for the benefit of all beings. The light clears you and as you clear you clear every being everywhere. The great guides are so limitless in their compassion. Their care and concern cannot help but touch us. Everything we do is holy. How can we possibly miss? This powerful MINDHEART WIND carries us to our destination. We are given the opportunity to clear out everything that needs clearing in ourselves. We have all the time in the world. The great guides will be with us until we have all finished this task. This is the commitment they have made to us. They will help us, if we are only willing to help ourselves.”
The little monk felt his heart swell up and quickly drew another picture. This is how it looked:
Dear readers, the entire castle soon started to glow.
The guest-keeper paused for a moment and spoke again: “One must drop all attachments to any idea of what one is and what one has to be. This is important.” For emphasis, the guest-keeper thumped the floor. “Any view is limiting. By having no view, one has access to all views. One begins to see why people suffer, and the answer is quite simple. Chasing an illusion leads to enormous frustration. The meat-grinder of desire is seen for what it is. How can one not have compassion for beings? The great guides know what we’re going through. When you discover this for yourself, you will start to hear them. Indeed, you will at last begin to be like them. You, too, will have that glow.”
The little monk listened quietly. He knew that a deep truth had been spoken. Suddenly the entire castle started to shake. The glow of the room became more intense, and the guest-keeper began to fade away.
*
The entire palace began to heave violently. The little monk became terrified. The floor swallowed him up in one big gulp. Was this truly the end? The little monk heard a sinister laughing coming out of the walls as he fell down into some deep bottomless chaos of passion. A great pressure, like the pounding of a thousand hammers began to squeeze the little monk; he suddenly was seized by a strange temptation to fight something. This strong sensation bred terror inside the heartmind of our little hero. In truth, the little monk was not even sure whom or what he was supposed to be fighting. The terror began to turn on the little monk. He tried to strike out, but found himself striking his own head.
The little monk tried to run away from this violent energy. It was useless, for he was now the violent energy himself. A true volcano of passion and heat.
The little monk found himself overwhelmed by this intense environment of terror. He saw fields and mountains of re-hot iron. The sky was filled with sparks of fire. Heat was coming from all directions. What was there to do? The little monk could walk on the burning floor to run away, or stay and be reduced to charcoal. Not a pleasant choice either way.
No sooner did he muse about this ghastly choice, than the heat was replaced by cold icy blasts of air. A frozen world appeared before his startled eyes. Nothing moved, for everything was buried in cold white snow. The little monk felt intense pride and self-satisfaction. This pride made it hard to communicate with himself. He could not smile, or laugh. Deep down, the little monk felt sad. This was a fate worse than death, he thought to himself. The little monk blacked out and fell into the snow.
*
When the little monk woke up, he found himself in a strange room. It was bathed in a shimmering fluorescent white. He began to feel a sense of poverty. This fed his need to run after things in this strange new world. It was a very strange place. Everything he wished for, he instantly was given, but this made him feel more deprived. The little monk could get no satisfaction from searching for things. It was a frustrating experience. He was filled with an insatiable hunger.
The little monk’s belly began to swell. His mouth shrank, and his throat became thin as a reed. Images of people eating and drinking filled the little monk’s mind. These images only made him more distressed. He felt full, yet envious of all these people still eating and drinking. The joy of being satiated brought no pleasure. Every time he tried to pick up some food, it simply dissolved in his hands. When he tried to swallow food it got stuck in his throat. If any did fall into his belly it began to burn. The little monk felt no joy in possessing or holding on to anything; but he found it difficult to let go of things as well.
“What a terrible existence,” exclaimed the little monk. He shut his eyes and wished he were dead. Anything was better than this, even the heat and cold of his last experience seemed preferable.
*
“So, how was it?” asked the guest-keeper. The little monk was sprawled out on the floor. His head was throbbing violently; the large room looked untouched. The guest-keeper was smiling.
“So, how was it?” he asked again.
The little monk leaned on the wall next to him and weakly said: “I suffered quite a bit.”
“Most beings do,” echoed the guest-keeper. “Now you too can have compassion for them.”
“How?” asked the little monk.
“By not getting stuck in greed or anger,” answered the guest-keeper. “You know how it feels, so why get stuck in it?”
“It doesn’t feel very good,” intoned the little monk. “Actually, it feels quite gruesome.”
“Yes, indeed,” exclaimed the guest-keeper. “Somehow beings still fall into this unsavory pit. They never learn.” And with that he gave a deep sigh.
*
The little monk began to feel a little better. The feeling was so soothing. Somehow he felt blessed. Someone was sending him radiant grace waves and as they splashed on his heart and mind the little monk knew that tuning into these waves entailed a hidden responsibility. Indeed, tuning into the radiance meant having to share it as well. Anxiety needed to be transformed into these waves of compassionate grace. Getting in contact with unwholesome emotions was a source for discovering care and concern.
Suffering could be seen as a gift. The dust in the heartmind wind was blowing there for a good reason. It was actually stardust, radiating outward for the benefit of all beings. It took awhile for the little monk to understand this.
Whatever arises is what needs to be dealt with. This was the practice that the guest-keeper had taught the little monk. This was also the meditation. Seeing suffering and transforming it was an offering to the great guides and to all sentient beings. The courage to face whatever is happening at the moment was what was ripe for transformation. It was an opportunity to complete what had to be completed.
The little monk began to understand that adversity in life was not the result of some evil spell but that it was actually a most potent blessing. This insight released the little monk from a lot of mental suffering. Life was a purification rite. The care and concern of the great guides who had lived this and gone beyond it by dropping all attachments was the shining grace wave splashing on the little monk’s face.
The guest-keeper had said: “You can never make a mistake. The great guides are infinitely forgiving. Their compassion is that great. The very urgency of being demands it.”
*
The little monk had lost track of how long he had been in the diamond palace. He found himself alone again. This seemed to be the usual pattern. This palace seemed to be no ordinary palace. It had one strange guest-keeper and ten thousand rooms. The little monk had little hope of exploring them all.
“Good evening,” shouted the little monk to the wall. Alas, this wall could not talk back. It could not even echo the little monk’s greeting. For the large room he had been in was an echoless chamber. Sounds disappeared and never came back. Such a queer thing, indeed.
Now, you must understand, dear readers, that the heartmind loves to laugh and hates constriction. Rules and regulations are often a hindrance for the heartmind, because it loves them so much and likes to get lost in them. Often the heartmind likes to play tricks on itself. Instead of talking to itself, it likes to write books about itself. The heartmind likes to avoid problems by keeping itself busy with echoes and games; usually it finds itself wandering off in some new activity, every five minutes.
The heartmind likes to churn. When an emotion comes up, it likes to grab it and play with it. To really listen to itself, the heartmind needs to be still and this it finds exceedingly frightening. Solving a riddle needs concentration. The little monk was not interested in sitting down and quietly listening to his own echoes within himself .... no, this little monk liked to wander. And so he wandered out of the room and up a staircase to another room. How natural for our small hero to do so.
In this new room, he found a small little boy. This boy was no larger than a strawberry.
“Good evening,” said the little monk.
“Good evening,” replied the little boy.
“And how long have you lived here?” inquired the little monk.
“I have lived in this room for quite some time,” answered the little strawberry boy. “I don’t really remember how I got in here. But I feel very comfortable. What are you doing in this galaxy so far from home?”
“A wizard brought me here and abandoned me,” sighed the little monk. “He was a strange man. He talked a lot about deserts and wild bushmen and how to dig up wild roots and not be thirsty; but he failed to put radar in his ship and somehow landed here.”
“What an odd story,” laughed the little strawberry boy.
The little monk looked at his new little friend and wondered how much to confide in him. Dear readers we are always searching for someone to trust in! So often we become disappointed when we are let down by someone we felt we could confide in.
“There are no wizards on this planet,” said the little strawberry boy. “Here, there are only two kinds of people: guest-keepers and visitors, like yourself. Did you like my friend? He often gets carried away. He likes to entertain his guests, you know .... they don’t come that often. He really is a friendly fellow. Please, make yourself at home!”
The little monk didn’t know quite what to think. This little boy was quite small and quite friendly. He wouldn’t play tricks on him, or would he? This was a strange planet. Indeed, this entire journey had been strange.
“Would you like something to eat?” asked the little strawberry boy.
“Yes, please,” answered the little monk.
The little strawberry boy took a plum from his pocket. It was quite small, however. The little monk was not sure how much nourishment he would get from a plum so small. But he took it and swallowed it.
“You should listen to your little guardian angel,” spoke the little strawberry boy quite solemnly.
“My little guardian angel?” asked the little monk.
“Yes, your little guardian angel,” repeated the little strawberry boy. “It sometimes won’t come, but if you listen to it you will hear it speak. It will say ‘don’t do this, and don’t touch that.’ Just listen to it and obey! Don’t argue with it or you’ll drive it away.”
The little monk thought this to be quite an important little secret. Guardian angels, indeed! What would this little boy think of next?
“Are you living for enjoyment, or for others? asked the little strawberry boy.
“I am trying to find the meaning of life,” replied the little monk.
The little strawberry boy laughed. He looked out the window and pointed to a small house in the distance. He then said, “In that house live two brothers. One is shallow. One is deep. Both are dangerous. Both are always fighting each other and I often listen to their screams. They think they are so important!”
The little monk could not hear anything. “Perhaps they are asleep,” thought the little monk.
“They are not asleep,” answered the little strawberry boy. “They are hiding, waiting to pounce on you. The first chance they get, they will do so!”
The little monk thought this a strange reply, for the house seemed quite far in the distance.
“Make no mistake,” said the little strawberry boy. “The shallow brother is shallow and the deeper brother is deep, both are dangerous. Both must be killed. Then, you will discover the truth. Not a moment before.”
The little monk was quite puzzled. How could two people, so very far away, harm him? Before he could say anything, the little strawberry boy answered: “The shallow brother is who you are. The deeper brother is who you feel you need to be. It is the you who is in your body and thinks it owns it. It is your reputation. It is an illusion, but quite a deep one. That’s why the shallow brother always follows his deeper brother. The shallow brother is just a name.”
How strange this all is. Not just for little monks, but for all of us, dear readers. Trace this all back to the end and it’s not there.
“Do it, don’t talk it,” said the little strawberry boy. The little monk was confused, as usual. The little strawberry boy continued: “Don’t be a teacher. Do it and don’t talk it. The heartmind needs to be listened to. When you listen to it, it becomes clean. The two brothers are slain and only a sweet emptiness is left behind.”
The little monk was still not quite sure what the little strawberry boy meant by all this.
The sun was setting on the little house in the distance. The little monk wondered if he would ever see the two brothers; no one seemed to ever come out of the house. The little strawberry boy was also watching the house.
“You are what you are. Take it from there. I knew a woman who wrote twenty-five books. Her heartmind found many a distraction. The two brothers had captured her in their tight little web and it was a gruesome sight. She recently told me she was beginning her twenty-sixth book!” the little strawberry boy grinned in satisfaction.
The little monk asked: “What about the guest-keeper?” The little strawberry boy thought seriously for a moment. Then he said: “He likes to watch movies and listen to opera! He’s been doing it for quite some time. But I think it helps him from becoming too bored with his life.”
The little monk was startled. He felt this too cruel an answer. He asked, “Do you mean there are no spirits and protectors?”
The little strawberry boy laughed: “Of course there are! But sometimes we need a bigger push than that. There is a guiding intelligence that lets us do our own pushing! This is what we are all striving for. A one-on-one relationship with our heartminds. No talking. Just caressing.”
“Please, explain further,” pleaded the little monk.
“Well, there’s not much more to explain. Just surrender! The more you give up, the more the Universe helps you. The more it is easier to listen to the heartmind. You will have to work things out. But, you always get more than just the tools you need. You’re made to pay attention. You know that you’re always loved and protected; there is no need to fear. It’s sheer poetry. GIVE IT UP!” The little strawberry boy seemed quite pensive.
The little monk then inquired, “Give what up?”
“Give it all up! You’ll survive and the freedom is quite tremendous. You’re almost there. You are a monk aren’t you? You’ve already given up quite a lot. Now, you just have to give up all your questions and be simply silent. Listen to that intelligence inside you. Stop listening to the intricate little stories that the two brothers are always cooking up to keep you distracted from the purpose at hand. Use one brother to kill the other. When both are gone, all obstructions end. Then you can really see.”
“This could take time,” answered the little monk.
“It can’t be done in a rush. You do it step by step. But you have to do it. Not talk it. Pretty difficult, sometimes. Words cannot describe it.” The little strawberry boy yawned.
“You must be getting tired,” remarked the little monk. “I think I shall take a nap, myself.” Both of them lay on a couch and went to sleep. It had been quite a day. Deep truths often exhaust the listener and speaker. Perhaps it is time, now, that we all should take a nap as well before going on the final leg of this journey into the mindheart .... relax, dear readers, for we have only a little further to go.
