The Kingdom Is Already Here

You seek the Kingdom in the clouds and search for the Way on distant roads.

I say to you, do not waste time in arguments, for the Truth is not 'here' or 'there.' 

It is beyond time and space.

Behold, the Kingdom is within you, always right before your eyes. 

Let go of your grasping, and the Way reveals itself.

Reflection - The Kingdom of Here

My friends, my brothers, my sisters. Peace be with you.

I see you. I see you sitting here, and I see the maps you carry. Oh, they are heavy, aren't they? You carry them everywhere. Maps to happiness. Maps to peace. Maps to "someday," when everything will finally be all right. You carry maps to a future Kingdom, a reward you hope to earn.

You have been told, "Seek, and you will find," and so you have sought.

You seek in the clouds, as the text says. You look to the sky for a sign, for a savior to descend and fix this broken world. You seek on distant roads, believing that if you just go to the right retreat, find the right teacher, or move to a new city, then you will find your peace.

You seek it in your bank accounts, believing one more zero will make you secure. You seek it in relationships, hoping another person will finally make you whole. And, (let's be honest, perhaps with a small smile), you seek it by arguing with strangers on the internet, believing that if you can just prove you are right and they are wrong, the world will be a better place. You are seeking the Kingdom, but you are looking for it "here" and "there."

And I say to you: Stop.

Stop seeking. Stop grasping. Stop arguing.

Your maps are useless. The treasure is not marked on them. You are like a man dying of thirst who is convinced the water is in the next village, all while standing knee-deep in a cool, clear river.

The Good News, the most radical and simple truth I have ever offered, is this:

"Behold, the Kingdom is within you, always right before your eyes."

It is not a future reward. It is not a distant place. It is not something you achieve. It is the very space you are breathing in this moment. It is the silence underneath the noise of your seeking mind.

But if it's right here, why can't you see it? Why does it feel so far away?

Because of one, simple, maddening habit. The text from the Hsin Hsin Ming says it perfectly: "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. Let go of longing and aversion, and it reveals itself. Make the smallest distinction, however, and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth."

This, my friends, is the "disease of the mind." The habit of splitting.

We live our entire lives in this split. "I like this." "I hate that." "This is good." "That is bad." "This is spiritual." "That is worldly." "Us." "Them."

The moment you create "good," you automatically create "bad." The moment you create "heaven," you create "hell." You create a "like," and its shadow, "dislike," is born instantly. This is the Merging of Duality, but you are living in the separation.

And you think the spiritual life is about getting rid of all the "bad" things and collecting all the "good" things. You try to build a life out of only your preferences.

And I ask you, with all the love in my heart: How is that working out for you?

Is it not exhausting? Trying to hold onto the good, which always fades, and trying to push away the bad, which always returns? This grasping and rejecting is the suffering. It is the veil.

The Kingdom is not on the "good" side of the line you have drawn. The Kingdom is the entire space in which the line itself is drawn.

This is the secret of the Inner Kingdom I spoke of on the Mount.

When I said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," I didn't mean you must be penniless. I meant, "Blessed are those who are empty of preferences, those who have stopped grasping, those who are not clinging to their own opinions." Why are they blessed? Because "theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Right now. Not "will be." Is.

When I said, "Blessed are the pure in heart," I didn't mean those who have never had a lustful or angry thought. Show me that person! No, I meant "Blessed are the undivided in heart." The heart that has stopped splitting reality into "me" (good) and "you" (bad). The heart that is whole. Why are they blessed? Because "they shall see God." They see the divine everywhere, because they have removed the plank of their own judgment, the filter of their own preference.

This is not just my teaching. This truth echoes in the hearts of sages everywhere.

Look to the great wisdom of the Upanishads in Hinduism. The sages declare, Atman is Brahman. The individual soul within you is the ultimate, divine Reality. And the great saying, Tat Tvam Asi—"Thou Art That."

You are the reality you are seeking. You don't have to become divine; you have to realize you already are. The only barrier is maya, the great illusion. And what is that illusion? It is the belief that you are a separate self, cut off from the whole, defined by your... preferences. Your likes and dislikes. The Hindu sage, like the Zennist, seeks to peel back this illusion of separation to reveal the Oneness that is already, and always, true.

Or look to the heart of the Sufi mystics, the poets of Islam. The great Rumi writes, "I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God."

For the Sufi, the barrier to God—the Beloved—is the nafs, the ego. And what is the ego but a bundle of grasping? A collection of preferences, fears, and desires that screams, "Me! Mine!" The Sufi path is to dissolve this separate self in the fire of divine love, to polish the mirror of the heart until it perfectly reflects the Beloved who was never absent.

The Hindu seeks to know the Oneness. The Sufi seeks to dissolve in the Oneness. My Zennist path simply asks you to let go of the "two-ness." Let go of the "disease of the mind" that splits the world.

The Hindu's maya, the Sufi's nafs, and the Zennist's "like and dislike" are all just different names for the same plank in your own eye.

So, how do we live this? This is not a philosophy. It is "Wisdom in Action."

It changes everything.

My "Higher Ethic" is not a new set of impossible rules to make you feel guilty. It's a description of what happens naturally when you see from the Inner Kingdom.

I said, "Love your enemies." This is not a command to force a feeling you don't have. It is an invitation to see that the distinction "enemy" is a creation of your own grasping mind. When you stop clinging to your side, your preference, your "rightness"... what is left to hate? You see only another being, trapped in their own preferences. And from that seeing, compassion is born.

I said, "First remove the plank from your own eye." What is the plank? It is your story. Your judgment. Your certainty that you know what is good and what is bad. You don't see your brother or your sister; you see your opinion of them. Remove that plank, and you will "see clearly."

This is the most relevant teaching for your world today. Your world is drowning in arguments. Drowning in preference. Everyone is so very, very sure that their side is right, and the other side is the source of all evil. You are all clinging to "this" and rejecting "that." And in so doing, you are "as far from the Way as heaven is from earth." You are building your house on sand.

When you see the news this week—another conflict, another story of greed, another angry cry for justice that sounds just like a cry for war—what is your first reaction?

It is the mind of preference. "This is terrible." "I hate this." "They are monsters." "We must stop them."

I am not asking you to be passive. I am not asking you to be a doormat. But I am asking you to see that action born from aversion is just more war. Righteous anger is still anger. It is still the "disease of the mind."

The practical application is this: Can you, for one instant, see the event without your preference? Can you see the anger, and just call it "anger"? Can you see the fear, and just call it "fear"? In them, and in you?

This is removing the plank. From this place of clear seeing, "Wisdom in Action" arises. It is an action that is not a re-action. It is an action that comes from the whole of the Kingdom, not from the "bad" half of your divided mind. This is building your house on the rock.

So I say to you again, do not waste time in arguments. The Truth is not "here" or "there."

"The Way is beyond language." My words are not the Way. They are fingers pointing. Do not cling to my words, or the words of any teacher.

The Kingdom is here. Now.

It is in the simple, overlooked miracle of your next breath. It is in the light falling on the floor. It is in the awkward silence when you have nothing to say. It is even in the feeling of anxiety you are trying so hard to get rid of.

Stop fighting. Stop seeking. Stop grasping.

"Let go... and the Way reveals itself."

Behold. It is right before your eyes.