Good morning everyone! Happy Veteran’s Day! Unfortunately, the majority of us don’t get off. So maybe we’ll practice being grateful for the opportunity to work today! Today is also the day we reach the end of our first series—bridging the east and west. I hope this series has inspired everyone to drop certain modes of thought and bring on new ones. Like we said yesterday, you have to abandon the lower steps to ascend the ladder!

Today, for our main course, we’re going to talk about the climax of each of these philosophies; awakening and resurrection. On the side, we’ll bring it back to those greek beginnings by contemplating the Socratic Paradox. For dessert, we’ll go back to Thich Nhat Hanh. We’ve talked a lot about love in the passed few editions, but today we’ll talk about love's body. So pull up your chair, thought breakfast is served!

Christians and Buddhists share a common destination, or end goal. The destination is a place beyond death and fear. The destination is a place where who we thought we were dissolves into what we all are. For Buddhism, the destination is enlightenment. For Christianity, the destination is resurrection.

At the surface level, these two things seem quite opposite; one being the relinquishing of the self and the other being a triumphant return of the self. When you dig below the surface, they are actually the same. Both are about transcendence, rising above what we think we are and becoming love without limit.

When the Buddha was enlightened under the bodhi tree, this was not a change in substance or a a certain type of “becoming.” It was literally the opposite. It was staying the same, but seeing the same for what it is—what it always has been. “When I awoke, I saw that I had never been asleep.” This is quite simply, to die before dying. To relinquish the ego’s attachment to impermanent things so that only awareness remains. It’s the understanding that nothing has to change because everything is already whole. Compassion is not outside of what it’s observing, but the thread that holds everything together. The world is bound by pure love.

The Resurrection of Christ is a story told much differently. The Buddha was vibing under a tree alone when he became enlightened. But Jesus was beaten, brutalized, and murdered. The image of his suffering cast empathy on the observers for three days before His miraculous resurrection. Jesus showed us that His love for us, which is the same love that you hold for those dear to you, is stronger than any and everything negative. Sin, death, and despair are no match for the love that ties the universe together. Dying on the cross was essentially the same as the false self dying. The self that sees creation without creator. The Resurrection is the true self that is unveiled after the old self dies. The true self that is rooted entirely in divine love. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” - Galatians 2:20 For Christian philosophers like Augustine and Aquinas, the resurrection is not just a holy event. Rather, it is a repeating pattern cascading through the fabric of time and space. Every surrender to God’s will, every act of kindness, every feeling of love is a kind of small resurrection. The point is to follow the path from self-centeredness to unattached and complete love.

Both of these traditions agree that before awakening there must be dying. The Buddha completely relinquishes his ego. Christ yields himself entirely to the will of the Father. In both stories, the greatest illusion in the world (separation) collapses, and what remains is pure love.

What does this mean for you? Do you have to find the Bodhi tree and sit under it to be awakened? Do you have to be crucified and rise from the dead to become love? No. These great teachers did these things to create a legacy that shows people what can be accomplished in ordinary life. Every time you forgive, you rise. Every time you’re grateful, you awaken. Every time that you choose love over despair, you are participating in both traditions; Resurrection AND Enlightenment.

Maybe heaven and nirvana aren’t physical places, but the moments when the veil is lifted. When we experience that life itself, when lived in complete and total love, is already eternal.

“I know that I know nothing.” - Socrates, Plato’s Apology

If you are truly convinced that you know nothing, then you know as much that you know nothing, which means you actually do know something. The moment you do claim to know something, then you are no longer a wise man in the Socratic sense.

This seems like a mere contradiction, but obviously that’s the point. Socrates isn’t confessing ignorance here, but revealing his awareness of his limits.

The true paradox here is that wisdom begins where certainty ends. Socrates attributed this idea to his entire method. Question everything, not to seek or destroy truth, but to clear out any cob webs of illusion. People who think they know are trapped in what they think they know. They are not willing to ascend the ladder, but want to stay on the same step that they feel comfortable on. Socrates says, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

To close out this series, we’re gonna take another look at Thich Nhat Hanh’s Going Home. Today’s passage is deep and impactful, so I hope you have room for dessert.

Thây says, “When you are motivated by the desire to transcend suffering, to get out of a difficult situation and to help others to do the same, you get a powerful source of energy that helps you to do what you want to do to transform yourself and to help other people. That is what we call bodhicitta, the mind of love.”

Here Thây is saying that in order to live a loving life, you must possess the bodhicitta, the mind of love. This is not love’s literal mind of its own (even though I’m sure it can be spun that way). But rather, this is showing that once you truly commit to ending the constant turning of your suffering, it won’t be just for yourself. When your mind sees the suffering you experience as the suffering everyone experiences, you feel more connected. Not only are you more connected, but you will do everything in your power to help everyone else’s suffering to end so that everyone too may become enlightened.

Thây continues, “True love is made of understanding—understanding the other person, the object of your love, understanding their suffering, their difficulties, and their true aspiration. Out of understanding there will be kindness, there will be compassion, there will be an offering of joy. There will also be a lot of space, because true love is a love without possessiveness.”

This is not the romantic type of love, but rather the love that Jesus referenced when He said “Love on another.” This type of love is when you will the good for other people, regardless of what it possibly means for you. It is the awakening, the resurrection, the culmination of awareness that transcends any thought or deed that separates us from God or from Oneness with each other. This is also what Thây wants us to understand when he says “true love is made of understanding.” Ultimately, when you truly realize and feel that everyone suffers, you will explode with love and compassion for your neighbor. As your mind of love (bodhicitta) expands, you will cast your love on more than just those other people around you. You will cast your love onto animals, nature, even the natural order of things as they happen you will come to love.

So walk through today with all of this in mind. This feels like the perfect ending to a deeply rooted series and I hope you all learned something. We’ll have more thought breakfast tomorrow and bring a whole new (slightly shorter) menu that will last us the rest of the week.

And remember, you are already made of love; just lift the veil.

You ought to thank your friend/colleague/parent/forwarder because they’ve blessed your inbox with something special. Every day we will upload more thought-provoking content that will ignite your day with a sense of mindfulness and thoughtfulness.

Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast

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