Dharma Field

     We live in a field of dharma. Each one of us has a unique dharma position. We each live in a unique set of circumstances with unique feelings and perceptions. Life calls us to act in a specific way according to our own unique setting. This way we act is our dharma position. The dharma is the teaching. It is the way that we learn and the way that we teach others. We teach others by being who we are. Simply through being our unique self. We do this effortlessly, it is not something we have or need to learn. It is the truth that emanates from us as we are now.
     The whole world is full of dharma. Full of truth and wisdom. Dharma that we learn by being who we are. We each have our own unique dharma position. When we learn to see it, we can let go of what we are not and we can be at peace with what we are. We try so hard to be something different than who we are. This is the cause of so much of our suffering. We fight we we are and what is because we are afraid to be with who we are now and what is now. we have pushed ourselves away for so long that who we are takes the form a a terrible demon. Who we are resides in hellfire within ourselves.
     This is within our minds, within our imagination. Who we are is really the best way that we can be. it is the only way we can be. Recognizing this is what frees us from the hells we live in. We think these hells reside within ourselves in a place we must avoid, or in the world in enemies and fears, but they reside in our minds. In our imaginations. We don't quell these fires by changing who we are or by fighting the world, we quell them by being present and still within ourselves. By letting go of our fears and attachments, and looking out at the world with our own eyes.
     It may be our dharma to be lost or to be found, to be free, or to be full of hate. It is these things that show us who we are. We learn through our unique dharma and we learn through the unique dharma of the world. Out of the limited nature of the world, out of it's limited wisdom do we discover truth. out of darkness comes Light. Out of confusion, understanding. What we do and what we don't know live in perfect balance. This balance is the reality of being human. We are ignorant, we are are limited. Through this we find ourselves.
     We find ourselves through our unique dharma position. We do not find ourselves by transcending it or overcoming it. We find truth through our limitations. The truth is who we are now and what is now. Not who we will be tomorrow or who we were yesterday. Who we are now with all our limitations and setbacks. Who we are now is the way to peace. Who we are now is the way to liberation. And is through ourselves, our unique dharma, not against or in transcending ourselves that we find this peace.
     We live in a field of dharma. We live in a field of truth, not only in words and ideas, but of living things. Birds, trees, rock and stone. Mountains, flowers, insects, animals. All resonating in and emanating dharma. We are apart of this truth. We live in this field of dharma. We are not separate from it. Our bodies are composed of the same elements as the soil and the Earth. We are not separate from it. We are and extension of it. We rise from the soil and we return to the soil, like all life on this planet. We are born from it, from our mothers, who are the Earth giving birth to us who are the Earth. In our confusion we destroy and maim it. In our wisdom we bend down and embrace it. It is our very body, our very life. We celebrate our home with all its natural wonders. Sparkling waters, green grasses, and craggy mountains. Food for our spirit. In this wisdom we seek balance with life, we seek harmony with each other. Our dharma becomes the dharma of love and compassion.
     Much of the dharma in the world today is the dharma of confusion and madness. It is hard to resist it, to not compulsively follow a path or paths of confusion and madness. This is the world screaming at its disconnect from the Earth. From the natural wisdom of our bodies which are ignored and abused. We thing we need to do all these special things to our bodies when we really just need to listen to them. Hear what they have to say, what they want to do. The more we listen to them, the less they'll want to fight. Te more they'll want to be in harmony with the natural world, with each other. The less they'll want to poison themselves or others with substances and words. The more they'll want to be at rest, in awareness of the natural world unfolding around them. the more they'll be at peace being at rest with the natural world.
     The dharma tells us what to do in each moment. It is intelligence. The deeper our dharma, the wiser we are. The more wholesome we are. The more we see things as they are and the less we are attached to the ideas in our minds. The deepest dharma is seeing that all intelligence is of the same intelligence. This intelligence is the dharma. All awareness is of the same awareness. All awarenesses are seamlessly connected. They are all unbroken awareness. Just awareness. No self, just dharma. Unbroken dharma. When you see this truth, you see that everything is dharma. Trees, plants, rocks, even buildings and cellphones. Lol. All dharma, all awareness, all truth. This is why I say we live in a field of dharma. Everything around us, right now, is apart of this dharmic field. These are all forms in the field of dharma. These forms are the dharma field. They compose the dharma field altogether all at once, right now. right now. Here and now. This is it. This. Dharma. Now.
     It surrounds us and fills us. It is who we are, looking out at ourself. It is everything about us. This is the deepest truth. This is the end and the beginning of our intelligence. The end and beginning of ourself. The more we see this, the less we resist who we are. The less we fight what is. The more we see this, the more harmony we find in our lives. The more we feel connected to the Earth, and the more we feel connected to each other. We are of one consciousness, one self, one body of awareness.
     In at least Tibetan and Zen Buddhism this is called one taste. I think I can say that Genpo Roshi, an apparent Zen Master, would call this Big Mind or Big Heart. You might know it as God or Cosmic Consciousness, Universal Consciousness, Universal Self, Self with a capital s. It's basically the boundless experience of reality as it is now. This is the "underlying" reality of our everyday experience. I use quotations because it is not in actuality underlying, it just appears to underlie ordinary consciousness in the feelings and perceptions of people who are wholly immersed in identification with form. God is not a distant father separate from us. God is us. God is the ordinary state.
     We often, if not always, think that and feel like we are separate. This is what I mean when I say that One taste or Big Mind appears to underlie ordinary consciousness. We feel separate because of our immersion in attachment to forms. This Big Mind, this unbroken consciousness, this seamless field of dharma appears to lie under or within our everyday perception of a universe full of separate forms because we discover the non-separateness of the world (this perception of separate forms) by looking within ourselves (our separate self perception). It may appear that this non-separate universe (God or an unbroken field of consciousness) is other than the (perceived) universe of separate forms because when we first find it, we still are very immersed in the perception of separate forms. We believe that both God (undividedness) and a universe of separate forms exist simultaneously and that both are real. I would say that only the undividedness is real and that the perception of separateness is a real subjective but temporary and illusory experience. God appears to rise from within our minds or within our hearts. The only way this perception can develop is from within the perception of a universe of separate forms because, at the time all we experience is a universe of separate forms. Wherever we may find God, outside of ourself or within ourself , God is arising out of separateness fully surrounded by separateness, hence God arising from within separateness. The outer world is a world of separate forms and our subjective inner world is the world of a separate feeling subjective self. Wherever God comes from, it comes from within (separateness) and appears to be distinct from separateness because initially when we discover God we are still under the sway of thinking that we are separate and life is full of separate things. God is undividedness and we feel separate so we couldn't possibly be God. And God appears to underlie ordinary consciousness because when we first see it, it is born in a field of our separate feeling imagination where we know that it is undivided, but still believe,feel, and perceive that we are separate. This is an illusion, because in reality God is not other than separateness. Undividedness and separateness are not separate, they are the same. So God does not underlie or come from within ordinary consciousness, God is ordinary consciousness. Until we realize that our very selves, even in our separate feeling perception and limited nature, are undivided from everything else, we will imagine God and perfection to be something other than who we are right now and we will chase ourselves all over the universe looking for the person who is doing the chasing.
     Anyhoo, the deepest dharma is the dharma of no dharma. No dharma because all there is, is dharma. There's just this, no teaching because we are the teaching. We are the field. We are the dharma. We have nothing to learn because we are the field and we already are the teaching, we already have learned. We have already attained hishiryo consciousness, we already are the highest and deepest dharma. We already are one with God, One with the Universe.
     This is why we don't need to change. Why the way is not out, but in. Not who we can be, but in becoming who we are. Not needing to end all of our limitations, but to fully embrace them. To fully embrace who we are right now. This is why Yoda tells Luke, "Your still looking to the horizon." "Your still not right here, right now." Luke is trying to change the world. He's resisting and fighting who is is. He's not listening to his body, he's warring with it. He's holding onto his anxiety and fear, he's not letting go. And when he finally does, he saves his friends and becomes one with the Universe.

In the field we are one with the force, and the force is one with us.