Hail to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas!
There is no coincidence that the supreme martial arts arose in the most holy cultures of the Vedas and were refined by the Buddhist monks. It is a spiritual combat we endure, one with the world’s delusions or illusions that assault our senses, coating our perception of reality in the blood-like red dust of the world. There is the internal war, the pursuit of mastery that enables us to overcome the demonic forces that divert us from our potential.
In military terms, it is understood that to ‘shock and awe’ in an initial assault can be easy with the proper resources. This is like the drunken, happy bipolar-like mystical state of a supreme ‘high’ that can lead one to crash into an even deeper depth of despair. One can win the day, but can you control the territory? Hold the line? Win the peace? History teaches, again, that it is nearly impossible for an invading army to not have mission drift into these squabbles and distractions that drain their ability to truly control the area with any real authority.
Years of discipline and effort and planning can all be scattered to the wind in a few moments of careless action. All the gains and obstacles that one has made or overcome can be shattered in periods of apathy, of resting on laurels, of the hubris of feeling accomplished. In the eternal moment, the now is really all that matters. This is the perceptual awareness of the immediacy of the present, of holding the line of awareness, of the complete concentration that never waivers with excuses of the past or future.
Yesterday’s effort, yesterday’s battles only matter in the lessons learned that are applicable in the current crisis or situation. In other words, it is a case beyond what have you done lately, it is, what are you doing now? A soldier can travel across the world and survive many conflicts, train, and drill his skills of war. But they cannot rest upon these achievements when today’s battle begins with the sudden violence of reality intruding on our soft, comfortable lies we tell ourselves.
So what, you did so many prostrations? So what, you read so many sutras? These are vital, but not if they do not continue and increase and transmute the Mind into an adamantine diamond that is unbreakable or unyielding. So what, you healed from some trauma, some disease? There are fresh karmas to pierce and burn away in the tapas and heat of our pure effort and striving.
We speak much of the alchemy of the seasons, of the Spring as the time to commence the true esoteric Great Work. This is the complete transmutation of Being, of refining understanding, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. This sequence, the 8 fold path, is where each concept builds upon the other in supreme Mastery. Rather than the moralistic term of ‘right’ we should use the term ‘appropriate,’ as in what is the most healthy, viable and efficient method to employ these skillful means as medicines for our spiritual sickness.
We stand alone facing the aggregating forces of destruction, hostile to the individual’s quest for enlightenment. We seek the health, the healing, the wholeness needed to endure these assaults. The holy substances must permeate one’s entire Being, the mantras must resound in silent echoes within, the images so imprinted that they flash in vivid color in dreams and when the eye blinks. The incense and precious items are empowering through smell and touch, as all the senses converge into the singular understanding of our predicament and potential.
The assaults of the world will besiege you, torment you with every fear, every seduction, every temptation. Any seed of doubt, any atom of fear that is allowed to ripple the stillness of the pure Mind can thwart the adept’s lifelong pursuit. The hermetically sealed energy of the inner alchemy is the final strength and stability to withstand the full-spectrum attack seeking to break the supreme concentration, the highest mudra of the Mind. All of your past work and effort, the suffering and pain was to refine and prepare for the final battle between the demon and the future Buddha within. The nature of space and time is that this moment is always present in a trajectory of karma and destiny that primes for a supreme encounter. The daily work is to prepare and to meet this ordeal in the purified and disciplined state of the Bodhisattva warrior who overcomes all illusion with perfect stillness within the Mind. Our Great Work is to produce such a penetrating field of Merit and Energy such as that no sorcery of illusions can enter.
