Four Things That Are Always True: A Contemplative Meditation Program—Truth #2

Author’s note: If you are not familiar with the preceding part(s) of this article, my suggestion is to first read Part 1, which contains a more complete introduction. For those who may be dropping in without having read preceding parts, I repeat a condensed introduction in Parts 2-4 so that each can be read as a stand-alone article. My apologies if the tone is didactic—my goal is to share my thoughts as clearly and concisely as possible and, hopefully, to learn from your feedback.

Regarding human experience, thought, emotion and behavior (what some may call “subjective truth,” or that which is dependent upon the mind), there are four things that are always true. This article addresses Truth #2.

There are three very important things to know about the four truths:

1. As the four things are always true, they underlie every human situation.
2. Each of the four things either contains a definition of love or describes conditions necessary for love to exist.
3. As all spiritual precepts are teachings about truth and love, the four things that are always true are the “first principles” of all universal spiritual doctrine.

For these reasons, and because inner peace is the purpose of meditation and all spiritual practice, contemplation of the four truths is a path to a deeper and more lasting sense of inner peace and contentment.

For these reasons, and because inner peace is the purpose of meditation and all spiritual practice, contemplation of the four truths is a path to a deeper and more lasting sense of inner peace and contentment.

For each part of this article series I will identify 1) one of the four things that are always true, 2) how each thing is a definition (or condition) of love, 3) universal spiritual precepts that flow from the truth, 4) examples of how the truth may be used as a contemplation in meditation, and 5) taiji practice principles and notable wisdom related to taiji practice that emerge from each underlying truth. The meditation contemplation suggested below derives from Buddha’s definition of love and has been an especially powerful one for me.

The truths are universal (by definition) and, to quote Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. But the specific list, and the idea that all universal spiritual precepts and definitions of love unfold from these four truths, are mine.

To resume the list. . .

Truth #2

The first truth was that everybody is different. The second of the four truths is . . . drum roll . . . everybody is the same. Ba dum tss. Hear me out before you moan.

How are we all the same? I mean, besides the fact that there are four things we all experience as true all of the time 🙂 To restate the question with the precision of mathematical language: what is included in the subset of “ways we are all the same” within the set of “things that are always true?”

Ways in which we are all the same

Physical bodies

To dispense with the obvious: whatever your personal philosophy or theology, it is most evident that we are all in the same boat, as uncertainty and impermanence are inherent to physical existence. Sharing a fragile human body capable of surviving only within razor-thin environmental conditions and susceptible to illnesses and myriad other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, we all have the same essential needs of food, clothing, shelter and a stable environment. And, as Plato wrote recounting Socrates’ argument for the existence of a soul in Phaedo based on the universal principle of complementary opposites—”it is inevitable that everything which has an opposite be generated from its opposite and from it only”—the fate of all those born is death.

Individual consciousness and self-interest

As we are all born into individual consciousness (or develop it soon after birth), we are also all self-interested beings. There is enlightened self-interest (for example, living in accordance with the four things that are always true 🙂 ), and there is ignorant self-interest (greed, hedonism), but every person is self-interested. The saint may sacrifice and the sinner may act selfishly, but both are motivated by the desire for the rewards of their actions. It is healthy, and not selfish, to pursue enlightened self-interest. What is selfish is to expect or demand that others live in service to your self-interest.

Enlightened self-interest necessarily involves both self-transcendence and self-enhancement. The reward for enlightened self-interest is lasting inner peace, contentment, bliss. This is what all people desire. There is no lasting reward for unenlightened self-interest, other than perhaps the opportunity to learn from the dis-ease, emptiness, pain and regret that will ultimately result.

That (and why) inner peace is the desire of all and the purpose of meditation, qigong, and taiji will be the focus of much of the discussion below. But before proceeding we need to dispense with two misconceptions: one that “desire” is bad and the source of pain, and the other concerning the limitations of the term “happiness” and why this term cannot be used in discussions of what is always true.

Desire, pain and suffering

It is oft-repeated, but quite incorrect, that “desire” is bad and the source of pain. Were this true, we would all be placed in the absurd position of desiring not to desire.

Desire of itself does not bring pain. Desire is pure energy and is what motivates us. You would not be reading this if you did not desire to get something from it. You must desire enlightened self-interest in order to pursue it.

The absence of desire in humans has a name: depression. It is the attachment to objects of desire that brings suffering. We must all feel pain—it is part and parcel of the human experience and we should welcome and embrace it. But once you believe “I must have this or that” then you have created the conditions for emotional suffering to exist.

Happiness no, contentment yes

Thus far I have purposely avoided using the term “happiness,” but we need to address it in this discussion—after all, isn’t the desire for happiness another way in which we are all the same? Aren’t all actions calculated to, if not maximize happiness, at least minimize unhappiness?

Certainly nobody wishes to be unhappy. Some seek to present themselves as miserable, and perhaps even intentionally make themselves so. But this attempted manipulation is in pursuit of what they truly think will bring them happiness—whether it is the attention of others or the solitude they desire.

I see two problems with raising “seeking happiness” to the level of “that which is always true.” First, it is a fluid concept with no concrete definition. As everyone is different (Truth #1) there may be as many specific definitions of happiness as people alive. Even our own beliefs about what will make us happy change over time; what we wished for as young people is perhaps even laughable now. As an adult, I once thought working at home would make me happy. After working at home it later occurred to me that getting out of the house and going to work somewhere else would be a good thing.

A second, related issue is that happiness cannot possibly be a lasting experience. “All joys want eternity” as Nietzsche said—is there anything that would bring you happiness for eternity? How much is enough? Isn’t the grass greener on the other side of the fence?

Research on what makes us happy has been well reported in the media. An oft-cited Harvard study reported that strong, supportive relationships with family and friends—what academics label “positive social connections”—was the most significant factor contributing to happiness. (I note that the original subjects in this study were Harvard men. Perhaps the finding would be more accurately stated as “what socioeconomically advantaged white men who have spent their lives pursuing and preserving material wealth and power think is important for happiness as they age.”) As what’s old is new again, this finding echoes the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who wrote in A Guide to Happiness: “Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.”

Other key elements contributing to happiness in the academic literature include sufficient income, physical health and well-being, positive mindset, meaningful purpose, personal growth and accomplishment, and the resilience to rebound from perceived negative events. That is quite a list (albeit fairly non-specific), and certainly not all are achievable all of the time. I can recall a time in life where the only requirement I had for being happy was having enough to eat. After that I was pretty sure everything else would be a cakewalk. “Fat and happy” was the mantra we literally repeated to ourselves.

To foreshadow the third thing that is always true (spoiler alert), one can make an even more succinct argument regarding the impermanence of happiness. (Since the four truths are interconnected, it’s hard to discuss one without directly referencing, or at least intimating, the others.) If defined as “the opposite of sadness,” then sadness and happiness are complementary—neither exists without the other. There is no happiness without sadness, no joy without sorrow, and the extreme of one is always the birth of the other. Only in the mind of a child is 100% and eternal cake and candy a possible or desirable thing.

So happiness is a moving, multivariate target that, if even hit, will inevitably alternate with its complementary opposite over time. Understanding that, I can now further address the way in which we are all the same that I wish to emphasize here.

Serenity/contentment/inner peace/tranquility

Serenity/contentment/inner peace/tranquility (pick your term) are the true desire and measure of every man and woman. They are the wisdom and power necessary to live as a king or queen. Though his poem may outwardly confer masculine strength and stability, inner peace is the vital ingredient for realizing the conditional clauses and becoming “a man” in Rudyard Kipling’s  famous work:

If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: 

. . . you can read the entire poem here.

Importantly and as a final comment, contentment does not mean being lazy and sitting around chanting OM your whole life. To the absolute contrary, you must have inner peace to fully engage with life without fear.

. . . you must have inner peace to fully engage with life without fear.

Serenity/contentment/inner peace/tranquility (and thereby bliss) is the true desire and measure of being human. With it, neither happiness nor sadness can unbalance you; as are all emotions, both are welcomed by Rumi in his poem and are to be met at the door laughing.

Inner peace is also the subject of Buddha’s definition of love.

Buddha’s Definition of Love

Buddha’s definition of love flows from the knowledge that all people suffer because of attachment to transient things. To Buddha the culmination of spiritual realization is peace and bliss, and love is an “unlimited self-giving compassion flowing freely toward all creatures that live.” Buddha’s idea of love (as directly opposed to attachment to others in search of material, emotional and/or physical desires) is to compassionately recognize the pain of others and to wish for them the inner peace and bliss that he had achieved. From the Sutta Nipata (a very early Buddhist sutra):

May creatures all abound
in weal and peace; may all
be blessed with peace always;

(I took the quotation and excerpt above from p. 46 of Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha, 1955, by E.A. Burtt.)

Contemplation From Truth #2

All people are the same. One way in which they are the same is that all people suffer and wish for peace. To wish inner peace and bliss for others is Buddha’s definition of love. This is our contemplation, and I have found this to be a profoundly effective way to achieve a deeper state of quiescence and inner peace in sitting.

To start here I just repeat the beginning of the guided meditation from Part 1 of this series. Use any technique you like—focusing on the breath, think/look/listen to Dantian, feel the tip of your ears, repeat a mantra—it doesn’t matter in the least as they are all simply techniques to quiet the mind and body at the beginning of meditation.

Again, I did not say it would be easy 🙂 . If you are unable to wish peace to this other person then that is lesson enough—you may pick up another contemplation to help guide you into quiescence. After you quiet the mind and body, sink into a state of open awareness, where thoughts become ‘less sticky,’ or perhaps a deeper state of non-dual perception. Remember, in taiji tradition, we call sitting meditation practice ‘wuji’—the state before the differentiation of yin and yang.

Of course many different contemplations unfold from each of the four things that are always true—I only pick up one for each of these articles. Contemplation of your mortality, for example, is another meditation that naturally derives from the ways in which we are all the same. You should, eventually, discover your own contemplations.

Universal Spiritual Principles from Truth #2

The Golden Rule

When challenged to summarize the Law “while standing on one leg” (i.e. succinctly), the famous Jewish teacher Hillel (died c. 10 CE) replied “Simple—that which is hateful unto you, do not do unto your friend. The rest [of the Torah] is commentary; go and learn.” The Golden Rule is perhaps the granddaddy of all spiritual teachings. To Hillel everything else was just “commentary.” To me Buddha’s definition of love is really just another version of the Golden Rule—the compassion to wish for others what you wish for yourself, to wish for others the bliss that you feel and know they desire.

As all people have the same basic physical needs, acts of charity for the less fortunate are also a bedrock spiritual practice, though this too could be considered as yet another manifestation of the Golden Rule.

From the Big Dao, now we move to the little dao of taiji and qigong.

Taiji and Qigong Wisdom from Truth #2

Relaxation and tranquility are the reasons why qigong can heal you

This discussion of inner peace and tranquility is a perfect time to note one of the most famous sayings in the qigong oral tradition.

Daily meditation is the essential foundation of all qigong and therefore common to both spiritual and internal martial arts practice. Serenity/contentment/inner peace/tranquility (and thereby bliss) is the desire of all, the purpose of meditation, and the reward of spiritual practice. I wrote about how and why meditation and mental balance and tranquility are central to martial skill in a previous blog article.

There is one very famous saying in the oral qigong tradition that all practitioners should know:

Relaxation and tranquility are the reasons why qigong can heal you.

That, in a nutshell, communicates both the objective of qigong practice and mechanism for physical and mental wellbeing.

Taiji is the gongfu of xujing

Of Grandmaster Feng Zhiqiang’s 12 principles of taiji (tai chi) practice, the first is

Heart and spirit empty and tranquil from beginning to end.

The word translated as “empty and tranquil” is xujing, and as quoted in Taijiquan: The Art of Nurturing, The Science of Power, Grandmaster Feng said:

Taiji is the gongfu of xujing. This is the most important principle of all.

“The most important principle of all” would probably be a good place to end, but here briefly are a couple other ways in which Truth #2 is manifest in taiji practice.

Physics is applicable to every’body’

This should go without saying, but it recently came up in a class I was teaching so I include it here. We are all the same. All of us with a physical body are subject to the laws of physics. There is no suspension of natural law for any person at any time. Everyone that steps off a cliff will fall downwards at 9.8 m/s^2. Nobody has special forces heretofore unknown to the world’s great physicists that emanate from their hands (or any body part) and which can exert a physical force on an external object from a distance. Internal martial arts are all about efficient physical force and power, but that force is very tangible and describable by biomechanics and Newtonian physics. Nobody can levitate, or start a fire with their hands (unless, perhaps, if they rub them together really really fast), or any other ridiculous claim that con-artists fool people into believing with magic tricks. Relaxation and tranquility are why qigong can heal you; magic tricks cannot heal you.

The power that you must learn

The physically gifted do not acquire the internal martial arts more easily. Everyone must learn them. A famous saying in the classical literature is:

“There are many other schools of martial arts besides this one. Although the postures are different between them, they generally do not go beyond the strong bullying the weak and the slow yielding to the fast. The strong beating the weak and the slow submitting to the fast are both a matter of inherent natural ability and bear no relation to skill that is learned. “    

-Taiji Boxing Classic (Brennan Translation)

Without exception, anyone who wishes to make progress must practice and ponder the art seriously.

To be continued with Truth#3 . . .