Gorillas In the Midst
Paul: we’re all still stuck with our endless cravings and aversions.
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Fogueira: I think the difference between our philosophies is I don’t KNOW that they’re endless and you think they probably are. 
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That probably sums it up, dear friend. It’s a conclusion I came to, in the wake of great suffering, after 30 years on the path - in this lifetime.
As for your not knowing, I can offer you an experiment that might or might not be helpful:
Take one persistent, niggling craving/aversion - something that puts you in a state of dis-ease, over and over again.
Grab that little monkey, frolicking at will in what Zen teachers call “monkey-mind”, and try to kill the little sucker once and for all - or at least evict him permanently from the premises.
Here’s a good monkey to experiment with - since I know you pretty well for several years:
How did you feel on the night of the last Presidental election? And the day after that? Was your little monkey running riot in your head? Did you experience great aversion as the early returns showing Kerry as the probable winner were swamped by the later ones showing that indeed, we were going to enjoy/endure “four more years”?
I’m not ashamed to tell you (or anyone else) I have a pesky little monkey right here myself. I simply can’t contemplate the master plan of “pax americana” with anything resembling equanimity. I get upset, in a dozen different ways. Anytime I am confronted with looking at all this politics (and I don’t turn away) , the score remains the same: Monkey 1, Paul 0.
And of course that’s just one little monkey, in my own monkey mind.
Looking at my daughter, lying dead on a gurney, skin turning grey, a tube stuck down her throat that would not be removed because it’s a law that the medical examiner must see it - for me, my friend, THAT was a monkey of an entirely different size - an 8 million pound gorilla in my own mind.
Why? Because whatever my aversions are concerning Bush and company, my aversions around my children dying, by any means, and worst of all by their own hand, are infinitely greater.
But - leaving my gorilla and getting back to your monkey - I offer you an opportunity to take the journey from “DON’T KNOW” to “KNOW”. It’s a simple experiment: take this little monkey, and by whatever means, make him STOP - CEASE - DESIST - once and for all.
That stopping, ceasing, desisting is the practical definition of what the Buddha called NIRVANA - the END of suffering. A Buddha - and only a Buddha - is one in whom those monkeys of craving and aversions - the little cute ones and the big dangerous ones - are extinguished, extinct, evicted, once and for all.
Even though you say you do not KNOW - do you honestly THINK that you will be able to extinguish those monkeys once and for all if you dedicate the entire rest of your life to trying to do so - by meditation, or chanting, or prayers, or service - or whatever means?
I don’t bet - but if I did, I’d lay you a million to one odds that our respective monkeys will continue their frolic from now until the end of this life for both of us, foggie. I don’t say that as dogma - just as bald fact - even though we both have awareness, and experience, of our fundamental Buddha nature.
If we’re trying to fix this problem - extinguish or evict these monkeys - taking the path of the sages by whatever means - then at the end of this life it’s back into the karmic cement mixer, from which we will eventually be tossed, naked and wholly ignorant, back into yet ANOTHER life as a suffering being - having forgotten every blessed thing it took us so many years to even find out intellectually - much less as felt experience - in this life.
Our new home may be nicer than our old one - or not. But it’s still yet ANOTHER life of suffering - because it’s yet ANOTHER life as a non-Buddha. Non-buddha and suffering life are one and the same.
Those aren’t my ideas, my friend. My ideas are worth the proverbial two cents - and probably not that. Those ideas come from my go-to guy for such metaphysical understanding - the one we call Shakyamuni Buddha.
Personally, I don’t want to go back into the karmic cement mixer, again. I don’t want to suffer any more as an endarkend being plagued with monkeys - the cute little ones, and especially the huge and overwhelming ones. At the end of the day, I remain a simple person - and it’s that simple.
And I know, that left to my own devices, including my own best attempts to extinguish my monkeys and live a life of awakening, I will indeed be strapped to the terrible karmic wheel of birth and death, get tossed back into the karmic cement mixer, get spun around on the karmic wheel of fortune or misfortune.
Left to my own devices - including my own best efforts - I don’t THINK that.
I KNOW that.
This is where your “I DON’T KNOW” and my “I KNOW” meet.
Of course, ultimately all of us fulfill our course - end our endless journeys - and actualize the Buddhahood that is our fundamental nature at last.
All of us Buddhas do that - including Buddha George Bush - and Buddha Saddam Hussein - and Buddha Osama Bin Laden.
How long, how long? That is the only question - and entirely practical question from my simple person point of view.
For me, and for my life, I have come to a place of TRUE ENTRUSTING - of SHINJIN - in Buddha’s final teaching, so I really do KNOW the answer for this one life. That is the gift of Amida and His Primal Vow.
Much love, as ever…
Paul