A Saying on Fighting and Nature

You have heard it said by men of code and coin, "We are fighting against human nature," and that to do so is a mistake warned of by their prophets.

But I say to you, this "human nature" you speak of—this grasping, this fear, this preference for gain over loss—is itself the disease of the mind.

To "fight" it is to create another preference. It is to make the distinction of 'the Way' versus 'not the Way.' The moment you create this battle, you are as far from the Great Way as heaven is from earth.

Do not resist this nature; do not judge it. That is the teaching.

Why do you look at the speck of 'human nature' in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank of 'fighting' in your own?

First, remove the plank of resistance from your own eye. See this nature for what it is—a cloud passing through the sky of the Inner Kingdom, a dream, a flower in the air.

Do not build your new world on the shifting sand of fighting, for when the rains of greed and the floods of fear descend, it will fall.

Build your house on the rock of non-preference. When you let go of longing and aversion, the Way reveals itself, and you will see clearly. For where your treasure is—be it in code or in spirit—there your heart will be also.

Reflection - The House on the Rock of No Preference

(To be delivered in a warm, centered, and compassionate voice, with touches of dry, Zennist humor.)

Peace be with you.

We are a people who love a good fight. Are we not?

We wake up, and we fight the alarm clock. We fight traffic. We fight the long line at the coffee shop. We go to work and we fight our email inbox, we fight our deadlines, and sometimes we fight our colleagues—hopefully just with sharp words, not sharp objects.

We come home, we fight the evening news. We fight with our children about homework. We fight with our partners about what to watch. And then, when all is quiet, we lie in bed and we fight our own minds. We fight our anxieties. We fight our regrets. We fight our desire for just one more cookie from the kitchen.

We are magnificent fighters. We are warriors of the mundane.

And so, we hear this saying from the "men of code and coin," and we nod. "We are fighting against human nature," they say. And this seems very, very wise. Of course we are. This grasping inside us, this fear, this endless hunger for more or different—it feels like an enemy. It feels like a bug in the system. It feels like a wild, untamed thing that must be wrestled to the ground, bound, and defeated.

We believe that if we can just win this fight against our own nature, then we will have peace. Then the Kingdom of Heaven will arrive. Then we will be "good."

And to this, the Zennist—the teacher who sits on the mountain and in the meditation hall, the one who sees the sermon in the silence—smiles. It is a kind smile. But it is a smile that sees right through us.

And he says: "But I say to you, this 'human nature' you speak of... this grasping, this fear, this preference for gain over loss... is itself the disease of the mind."

And then the key teaching: "To 'fight' it is to create another preference."

The fight is the sickness. The war is the disease. The moment you create a "me" who is "spiritual" fighting a "me" who is "human," you have simply made the smallest distinction. And in that moment, you are as far from the Way as heaven is from earth.

This is the central trap of our lives. We think the problem is the "bad" thing—the anger, the greed, the fear. And the Way is to replace it with the "good" thing—the peace, the generosity, the courage.

But the Hsin Hsin Ming, the verse on the Perfect Mind, says: "Like and dislike are the diseases of the mind."

The problem isn't the anger. The problem is your dislike of the anger. The problem isn't the greed. The problem is your aversion to the greed. The problem isn't the fear. The problem is the preference for a state called "fearlessness."

The moment you set up this battle, you have built two circles. 'Good' and 'Bad.' 'Holy' and 'Human.' 'Enlightened' and 'Ignorant.' And you will spend your entire life running back and forth between them, trying to fill one and empty the other.

It's exhausting. And, if you'll forgive me, a little bit funny.

We are like a dog chasing its own tail. We see this "human nature" following us around, and we think, "I must catch that thing! I must defeat it!" So we spin, and we spin, and we huff, and we puff, and we get very serious about the Great Battle against The Tail. And the tail, of course, is perfectly happy. It's just doing what a tail does. The dog, however, gets very, very tired.

This is our spiritual life. We are so tired from fighting the phantoms of our own mind.

The saying is clear: "Do not resist this nature; do not judge it. That is the teaching."

This wisdom is not a secret. It is the common treasure of the world, hidden in plain sight.

When the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, what was his great realization? He saw the First Noble Truth: There is suffering. Dukkha. Life is unsatisfactory. And what was the Second Noble Truth? The cause of this suffering. It is tanha—craving, grasping, thirst. It is this very human nature. It is the preference for pleasure and the aversion to pain.

But what was his path to liberation? It was not a holy war against the craving. He did not say, "Take up your sword and slay your desire!" He taught a path of seeing. Of understanding. He taught us to watch the craving arise, to see its impermanent nature, to see that it is "not me, not mine," and in that clear seeing, the grasping simply... unties itself. It is a path of radical release, not of resistance.

Turn to another great tradition. In the Bhagavad Gita of the Hindu faith, the warrior Arjuna stands on the battlefield, his chariot between two great armies. And he is broken. He is paralyzed by preference. His aversion: "I do not want to kill my kinsmen. This is a sin." His grasping: "But I must fight for my duty, for my kingdom." He is trapped in the duality of 'right' and 'wrong,' 'gain' and 'loss.'

And what does his teacher, Krishna, tell him? He does not say "Fight, because you are right and they are wrong." He says, in essence, "Fight. Because it is your nature and your duty to act. But... renounce the fruits of your action."

This is Nishkama Karma. Action without attachment. "Be not attached to 'victory' or 'defeat.' Be not moved by 'pleasure' or 'pain.' Do the act, and let the results be what they will."

Do you see the unity? The Buddha says: See the preference and let it go. Krishna says: Act, but let go of your preference for the result.

Both are the Way. Both are the path of non-preference. Both see that the attachment is the poison, not the world.

Jesus the Zennist looks at both and says: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." And what is purity of heart? It is an undivided heart. A heart that is no longer at war with itself. A heart that has let go of the disease of "like and dislike."

So, what about us? What is the plank in our own eye?

The saying tells us: "Why do you look at the speck of 'human nature' in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank of 'fighting' in your own?"

The plank in our eye is our resistance. It is our judgment. It is our preference that reality be different than it is.

Think of that person in your life. You know the one. The one whose name just popped into your head. The one who just... endlessly... gets on your last nerve. We spend so much energy on the speck in their eye. "They are too loud." "They are selfish." "They are ignorant." "They are wrong." We are fighting them, judging them, resisting them.

The Zennist way is not to pretend they are perfect. That is just another preference.

The Way is to "first remove the plank from your own eye." The plank is your aversion. The plank is your judgment. The plank is your furious, white-knuckled preference that they be different.

What happens if you just... stop? What happens if you see their behavior not as "wrong," but simply as a fact—like a cloud in the sky, or a flower in the air? Not 'good,' not 'bad.' Just... is.

Suddenly, you are free. The anger may still be there, but it is no longer your anger. It is just anger, passing through. And now, you can act. You can speak, or be silent. You can leave the room, or you can stay. But you will do so from a place of clarity and peace, not from the burning, blinding pain of your own resistance.

This is true for the world, too.

We look at the news, and we are filled with fear and anger. We see a world literally on fire. This very week, we were met with the devastating news from the United Nations that we have effectively failed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. We read the new Lancet report, a horrifying calculation that rising heat is now killing, on average, one person every minute worldwide.

And our response? We fight.

And this is what the fight looks like: It looks like nations building their house on the shifting sand of preference. On one side, "We are averse to the loss of our comfort, our economy, our way of life." On the other, "We are grasping for a perfect, pure, immediate solution."

One side fights regulation. The other side fights the corporations. Everyone is fighting. Everyone is pointing at the speck in their brother's eye. "It's their fault!"

And all the while, the rains of rising seas are descending. The floods of climate refugees are coming. And the great, gaudy house built on the sand of "gain and loss" begins to shake. And great will be its fall.

What is the Zennist path? It is not to give up. That is just another aversion—an aversion to effort.

The Zennist path is to build your house on the rock. And what is the rock?

"The rock is non-preference."

The rock is planting the tree, not because you are attached to "saving the world"—which is a great, heavy preference—but because the act of planting the tree is the Way itself.

The rock is turning down the thermostat, not from a place of fear for the future, but as a simple, clear act in the present.

The rock is speaking truth to power, not in a storm of self-righteous anger, but with the calm, clear voice of one who is not attached to "winning."

When you act from this place, you are no longer fighting. You are simply moving. You are dancing with reality. You are embodying the Higher Ethic.

The "men of code and coin" are right about one thing. It is a mistake to "fight human nature." You cannot win.

But the Way was never about winning. The Way is about seeing.

See the fear. See the grasping. See the anger. See this "human nature." See it as a cloud in the vast, open sky of your own Inner Kingdom.

Do not fight it. Do not judge it. Do not cling to it. Do not push it away.

Let go of longing and aversion.

The Great Way is not difficult. It is right here, in this breath. It is perfect and lacks nothing.

You don't have to fight to get there. You just have to stop fighting, and realize... you are already there.

For where your treasure is—not in gain, not in loss, not in like, not in dislike, but in the simple, clear seeing of What Is—there your heart will be also.

Amen.