A LOVE LETTER TO THE BUDDHA The Exquisite Paradox of Our Uniqueness and Oneness

markthemysticactiv
4h
5 min read

“Be a lamp unto yourself.

Be a refuge to yourself.

Take yourself to no external refuge.”

The Last Words Of The Buddha

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Three sages met in a park,

in a city.

“I am me, yet I am not” said one.

“I feel the same”,

“and I”,

said the others.

For one remembered not being.

Another how she had been joy

dancing in the garden of God.

And the third still felt the wind in his feathers

from when he had flown as an eagle -

and been freedom itself.

“And yet these selves we are and are not

must speak” they agreed.

And so they spoke,

slowly,

carefully.

Very carefully.

Tenderly.

City days died,

and city nights were born.

City nights died,

and city days were born.

The sages in the park who were are were not who they were

spoke of time that was and wasn´t,

of worlds that were and were not -

and of caring,

and not caring.

And although they felt they understood each other,

they agreed they weren´t certain they did.

City days died,

and the three sages in the park died -

together.

City nights were born,

and the three sages in the park were born -

together.

They agreed they didn´t know

if they did in fact understand each other -

and yet they all felt

that to remember not existing was to remember

dancing in the garden of God -

that to remember dancing in the garden of God was to remember

not existing -

and that to remember not existing was to remember

being freedom itself.

Notes On A LOVE LETTER TO THE BUDDHA

The Exquisite Paradox of Our Uniqueness and Oneness In this poem I write, principally, about Radical Honesty, Paradox, and The Intuition of Oneness.

I start out from the perception that each of us lives within our own unique reality, with our own unique perspective (the understanding I call Radical Honesty).

From this point of view I can never be sure I feel/understand you. Because I am not you. I am not experiencing your experience. I only ever have my own feeling/understanding of whatever it is you´re trying to communicate to me.

Even if you say you feel I have felt/understood you perfectly, that is not something you can be sure of – because you only have your own feeling/understanding of my feeling/understanding of you.

If there was an All Seeing Eye, that Eye might be able to say “yes, you are feeling/understanding each other exactly as each of you is feeling/understanding themselves”. But as the unique individuals we are – that´s not something we ourselves can affirm.

Whatsmore, due to the uniqueness of every personality, I don´t know if that´s even something an All Seeing Eye could affirm – because I don´t know if such exact feeling/understanding exists. (But let´s leave that for another time....)

So.... the three sages in the city park are aware that every individual lives in their own reality. And yet, in their three different ways, they all feel they have experienced something beyond their unique, limited, individual reality.

In the poem I write that they “have experienced” (i.e. they remember the experience) of existing beyond their individual personalities. This is because I believe that if they were (1) not existing (as in Monism, Buddhism, Vedanta, etc), or (2) joy itself dancing in the garden of God (as in Theism, Sufism, Bhakti, Judeo-Christianity, etc), or (3) freedom itself (as in Indigenous traditions, Paganism, Animism, etc) they would not be able to speak. In identification “as everything” or “as a unified drop/spark/wave/child of everything” we are beyond speaking. We need to “come back” to our personalities, to “separate back into” our limited individualities - before we can communicate as one individual to another individual..

Nevertheless, they all seem to carry the scent of the transpersonal, of divine encounter, of transcendent experience, of expansion beyond the confines of the conditioned personality – and they intuit this in each other. This is why they all agree “we are and are not” who we appear to be. They all feel they are their bodies and personalities - and yet that they are not. They all feel that they are living and dying as the people they are – and yet that, simultaneously, they are beyond such definition and limitation.

So... and without wishing to strip paradox of its poignancy – I believe it is important to recognise that, on the one hand, we are inside different, limited, individual realities – and on the other hand, to honour our intuition that beyond our individual realities we are inseparable... Our intuition that existence is atemporal, and that therefore we are together forever... Our intuition that there is Only One Whole – and we are made of it.

Why do I feel the paradox that we are both un-joinably different, and inseparably-one is important? Because once we open to it (not intellectually, but intuitively) we come to both truly honour ourselves, and truly honour each other – and that this paradox is therefore the seed of the communities, cultures and civilisations that so many of us feel we now need to co-create.

But how do we arrive at the experience of this paradox?

I myself live and teach this simple approach: that when Radical Honesty is not just a principle (an idea), but a path (a lived exploration) – it leads us there. Staying present to our own unique reality (our own experience of the moment), and no longer concerning ourselves with how others might be experiencing the moment (because we feel that´s not something we can ever know anyway) – we fall through the layers of our resistance to what we are actually experiencing, and gradually land more and more profoundly within our own reality.

Our reality, we then come to feel and see, is beyond definition, a sacred mystery – and we are humbled and washed through by an energetic pleasure. By “going it alone”, by fully embracing our aloneness (the uniqueness of our reality), we enter everything, we meet God, we become freedom... (For me, the exact words are not important - because they are only pointers towards an experience beyond words.)

I believe that this is why the metaphysical philosopher Plotinus wrote “life is the flight of the alone to the Alone”.

And this is why the Buddha´s last words were “be a lamp unto yourself, be a refuge to yourself, take yourself to no external refuge”.

Landing more and more heavily and solidly on the ground of our own unique reality, paradoxically, we feel our inalienable belonging. We feel we are both unique, discrete individuals and, simultaneously - inseparably embedded within the Great Mystery of Existence: we feel we are, and that everyone is, and that every living creature is - a unique, individual expression of The Great Mystery.

And finally, in conclusion, as I have said, for me, this is not just a “personal growth” matter – of interest to those of us on the path of healing or self-knowledge. For me, the exquisite paradox of our uniqueness-and-oneness needs to be the fundamental, foundational concern of any movement devoted to societal reform.

I don´t believe any political or ecological movement can create an alternative to our current, desacralised, dystopical, global civilisation(s) unless it is grounded in the understanding of Radical Honesty (the understanding that “each of us lives within our own unique reality”), and offers experiential education in Radical Honesty to our children, and makes devotion to the path of Radical Honesty a prerequisite for selection to any post of social responsibility or leadership.

“BE A LAMP UNTO YOURSELF,

BE A REFUGE TO YOURSELF.

TAKE YOURSELF TO NO EXTERNAL REFUGE.”

The Buddha

Mark Josephs,

"Mark the Mystic Activist",

Aragon, Spain,

Autumn/Fall 2025

"I feel The Conscious Tribes Project carries something beautiful, profound, powerful and important.

I try to convey this in my articles, stories and poetry."

www.tribusconscientes.com

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