Reflections on the Spiritual Journey (1of2) — Infancy and Adolescence
True cultivation and realization of the Buddha’s teachings is a process of allowing our minds to grow, elevate, and transform. It allows our hearts to truly mature, becoming inclusive, compassionate, and universally loving toward all things in this world. Otherwise, we just grow older in age and our bodies mature, but our hearts remain like toddlers. We fuss over trivial, petty things in this world; we refuse to let go of our favorite “big toys”; and we cling to the men or women we like, crying and acting needy, unable to bear even a moment of separation, just like children relying on their parents. A truly grown and mature heart can face any storm in this world with tranquility. It can always maintain a humble, optimistic, and positive state of mind. Whether ordinary or great, it remains unmoved by favor or disgrace.
The Buddha is also called the Tamer of Men. With his perfectly mature wisdom, he can adjust his mindset to the optimal state at every single moment. Our ages grow and our bodies physically mature, but our wisdom does not grow. Instead, we only accumulate more defilements through our six sense faculties—eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind—along with more attachment to worldly affairs. We appear shrewd and capable, never allowing ourselves to be deceived or take a loss, but this shrewdness actually brings us more frustration and affliction. Almost every day, we are doing things that hurt ourselves.
The growth process of the spiritual journey is the true awakening of wisdom, and it requires practice. Cultivation is simply correcting our wrong behaviors and viewpoints. Dharma doors like sitting meditation and chanting the Buddha’s name are merely tools to help us adjust our arising thoughts.
The growth process of the spiritual journey is sometimes very similar to the physical growth process of a person. It has an infancy stage, a rebellious stage, an adolescence stage, a maturity stage, and a stage of perfect completion.
For example, when I first came into contact with the Dharma, the realms experienced in sitting meditation, supernatural powers, enlightened teachers, and Buddhist sutras all attracted and tempted my mind like shining toys. I entered the infancy stage of cultivating and realizing the Dharma. Curiosity made me play my way deeper, step by step. I felt like I had entered an entirely new realm, where everything was magical and beyond anything I could have previously imagined. I began to negate myself and negate the rules of the games in ordinary life. In the face of this new realm, the entire world seemed to totter and crumble before me. In my excitement, I discarded all my previous validations of life, my values, and my outlook on life. I had found my treasure, and I dove headfirst into it, prepared to give up everything I had in exchange for these treasures. I refused to listen to anyone’s advice. Everything in this world became entirely meaningless to me. All secular language felt hollow, weak, and as pale as wallpaper. The greater the resistance I faced, the greater the motivation I felt, and the stronger my determination to practice became. Very quickly, I stepped into the second stage of cultivation: the rebellious stage. I would not allow anyone to slander or disparage my choice.
As my cultivation gradually deepened, I unknowingly entered the adolescence stage of practice. I began to feel lost, and this confusion mainly came from the afflictions of “losing.” Watching love, career, friendship, easily obtainable fame and wealth, vanity, saving face, and self-esteem slowly slip away as I poured myself into my cultivation, panic and a sense of loss arose in my heart. I claimed that I was not afraid of losing everything, but I actually wasn’t ready. It turned out there were many things I simply couldn’t bear to give up; I truly couldn’t let them go. I began to doubt whether my choice was worth all these losses. I even began to doubt the reality of attaining enlightenment.
Cultivating and realizing the Dharma took up almost all my energy, time, and money. I started to feel that, more often than not, I needed bread and milk. I needed to solve my child’s schooling issues, give my husband more care and love, fulfill my filial duties to my parents, and consider how to let them enjoy their twilight years… The various difficult problems of life trapped me inside them like a net. I was living right in the crack between the secular world and spiritual cultivation. At this time, I couldn’t experience any benefits that the Dharma could bring me, and I was ready to give up.
However, the tiny bit of faith I had just developed in the Dharma, my shallow insights, and the occasional joy of meditative concentration I tasted made it impossible for me to stop. When facing the various afflictions of daily life, I wanted to shave my head and escape; yet when facing temptations, my heart would stir with desire all over again… My habitual tendencies and desires leaked out at every single moment, yet my heart knew perfectly well that everything is impermanent, that everything is an illusion, and that it was my own clinging causing the struggle. I could neither fully pick it up nor fully let it go. Every day I would indulge myself, then reflect on it, only to commit the exact same mistakes the very next day… In front of many friends, I wore the face of a spiritual practitioner, which gave me a trendy excuse when I wanted to avoid my responsibilities in worldly matters: I would say I was cultivating. What a complete deception of both others and myself!
Because my wisdom was not awakened and my insight was not perfectly integrated, I was unable to combine the Dharma with everyday life. I was also practicing asceticism. Practicing asceticism in the mountains is fine, but I was unwilling to endure hardship in the secular world. I didn’t want to exhaust myself for work, nor did I want to bear any pressure or shoulder any responsibilities. This turned my asceticism into a conditioned approach—something forced and clung to, becoming a way to satisfy my desire to show off. This unintegrated insight meant that my asceticism was actually consuming my merit, making it no different from someone enjoying the pleasures of the secular world. The true merit and virtue of asceticism simply could not arise.
I was also practicing generosity and living a frugal life, but I hadn’t simultaneously reduced my own greed by even a fraction. As a result, my generosity turned into a form of giving with ulterior motives, and my frugality turned into stinginess and pettiness, yielding very little merit and virtue.
Because I was constantly doing these superficial things while my heart remained truly unchanged, I could not accumulate merit and virtue more quickly, nor could I experience the help and blessings of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, or the benefits that merit brings. If during the infancy and rebellious stages I felt like the darling of the Dharma, then during the adolescence stage I felt like I had become the orphan of life. During this period, my mind was constantly worrying about personal gains and losses. Most of the time, my cultivation felt like I was just putting on an act, wearing an appearance of self-righteous piety.