In Buddhism, two key concepts about the nature of existence can increase discernment—relative reality and Ultimate Reality. Simply put, relative reality is the phenomenological world of appearances, name, and form. It is the world of our senses and our mental constructs about that world. Sometimes referred to as consensus reality or objective reality, it is the world that we can measure, test, and agree upon. And then there is Ultimate Reality, which is the Essence beyond all form.
It is this Ultimate Reality that often drives us to walk this spiritual path. We are compelled across the veil to a Truth beyond our grasp. This Truth has changed everything for me. I feel much more at home in this world and in my mind and body when in relationship with the Sacred in this way.
Over time, this has also expanded my understanding of what spiritual practice is. Since Ultimate Reality is the substrate for all levels of Truth, including facts and sense perceptions, being in relationship with each of these levels is its own form of spiritual practice.
In this context, logic is a method of training our mind to think reliably in relationship with relative reality and to produce results consistently connected to relative truth.
This includes identifying and challenging thinking errors, logical fallacies, and cognitive biases. It is utilizing structured problem solving, the skillful use of heuristics, and being a good consumer of information. It is a thinking led by facts and a problem solving resulting in skillful service and meaningful answers for the world.
And this is also a practice of Love. Just as we can call it Ultimate Truth, the great sages from time immemorial have cried out for the Great Love that is beyond all individual understanding. As we approach it, we are inspired to enact this Love with our human bodies and minds. We act with kindness. We use our mind to enhance our empathy by thinking about experiences that are different than our own. We train our habits to be more consistently compassionate and less selfish, and we see this as its own form of spiritual practice. I have been making an effort over the last year to be more considerate and thoughtful in the little things—remembering friends’ birthdays, gift giving, or making small talk with strangers. It’s maybe not as glamorous as dissolving in undifferentiated ecstasy, but in many ways I now see this simple and daily work as the more profound.
For love and compassion to meet their goal, they must be guided by logic and reason. Otherwise our good intentions lead to dead-end echo chambers of well-meaning people with delusional goals and ineffective means. Love inspires me to strip my identity from my beliefs so I can challenge axioms and identify blind spots. I believe this sharpens my love in its ability to relieve suffering, expand empathy, and be a source for good.
Humility, then, is both a practice of Truth and Love. It is a willingness to admit that I do not even know what I do not know and to walk beyond the safety of Nasrudin’s streetlamp into the dark house. If I were so bold, I might even rewrite Keats famous last lines from “Ode to a Grecian Urn.”
*This was pulled from one of Sitaram Dass’s newsletters through the Sacred Community Project. Sign up below.