What is truth? We are told what we should believe by advertisers depicting beautiful bodies, and we are told to believe it is truth. We are told what truth is by our modern Gods, and we believe it, and repeat it like parrots. But is this truth? Are our bodies beautiful? Or should we look more closely rather than just believe?
What doesn't become soiled when it encounters our beautiful bodies? We must wash our sheets, our pillowcases, and our clothes regularly. If we don't, they begin to smell. If we don't shower every morning, we begin to smell! The fact is, our bodies are pretty filthy; the inside muck seems to ooze to the surface.
Yet, we are told, and we insist, that our bodies are beautiful. We admire them in mirrors. This is delusion, a fairytale that we believe in because the truth is far too real to face, and if we admitted all of our truths, our lives would become nothing more than stark realities.
Once in a while, however, we are faced with stark reality. Maybe in a cancer ward, or in a divorce court, or maybe at the scene of an accident - the experiences that shock us out of our fairytales and into life. You hear the stories every day.
But because what we fear most is truth, we prefer living an illusion. We do everything possible to keep truth hidden and under wraps. We seem happier that way, or we think that we are. But there is a remote possibility that living a lie is the opposite of happiness; that living a lie is stress - the underlying enigma in our lives that prevent us from ever being completely happy, the fly in the ointment, the sticking point of our existence.
What if we went for the throat instead of killing ourselves with a thousand cuts? What if we went for the truth in all things while still strong enough to face it, ending our fears forever? Would that kill us . . . or free us? Are you brave enough to attempt a journey into truth, to look actively for truth instead of waiting for truth to blindside you? Few are, and few, unfortunately, ever see the brilliance of unobstructed Reality.
If we ever found the courage to face truth before we are dragged kicking and screaming to its abyss, what would we expect? First of all; our illusions would have to be squashed, and this would be painful, so painful that we would more than likely run back into the arms of our illusions at the first sign of discomfort. But if we accidentally went too far in our search for truth, where a big hole developed in our safety net, then we couldn't run back so blindly. We might have no choice but to go all the way.
With no safety net, we would have to face our false impressions. We would have to look at our bodies in a new way. We would have to see how they cause us stress. We would have to see the impermanence of them, how they change and grow old before our very eyes. And how nothing stands behind the body and mind; no little man or woman stands behind them. What we see is all there is! And this kind of truth can be devastating to those in their dream world.
But once this truth is seen for ourselves, without a doubt, really for ourselves, and not by reading a book, or hearing truth from someone else, then truth begins to do its magic.
Then in time, the truth sets us free. We have to look no further than our own bodies.
E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-nine years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit www.AYearToEnlightenment.com