We go through life often unconsciously separating associations into “us” and “them.” Our “us” can be as small as “me vs not me or my immediate family.” Some stay at this level of discrimination. Many further identify “us” as a community, a religion, a skin color, a culture, a human, a sexual preference, a gender identification, a political party, a country, a sports team, and so on. This identified separation as “us” and “them” is the basis for much of the suffering we see in life. To effectively address this suffering, we must dispel the delusion of separateness. When we truly know ourselves, see “us” as unity of Everything, we can enjoy and celebrate the different fragrances in our many-flowered garden.
Zen master Dogen described enlightenment as complete intimacy with the 10,000 things. This is when there is no longer a “them.” “Us” is then unity, a unified One. In Dogen’s words, “The way the self arrays itself is the form of the entire world”
Shankara put it, “The world is illusory; Brahman alone is real; Brahman is the world.” Again, the separation between an “us” and a “them” is seen through as delusion. It is all Us. It has never been otherwise. One experiencing as many. Ask yourself now, listening with heart rather than mind, Who or What am I? Marinate in the direct felt experience of the answer. The question of “us” or “them” does not exist in the unfolding Life experience from This/One/Nothing/Everything/God/Creator/Stillness.
Even before we recognize the unity of all, we can take a look at how and where we are identifying as an “us” and a “them,” as opposed to a unified Us. This inspection weakens our identity as these tribal affiliations and flows into experiencing as indivisible, unique expressions—expressions unendingly rich in diversity.
In this openness as one Us, comes a recognition as universal, primordial, boundless Awareness, dissolving confusion to reveal there NEVER was an “us” or a “them,” just Isness.
Love, Steve and Bec