Kill the Buddha — Spiritual Materialism, Ego, and Practice

Kill the Buddha? In this episode I unpack the famous Zen koan to expose spiritual materialism, ego traps, and how to ground practice in real life—on the cushion, in traffic, and in hard conversations. We look at the subtle ways the ego turns spirituality into an identity, and the simple moves that bring you back: breath, honesty, humility, and beginner’s mind.

Along the way: Chögyam Trungpa’s warning about “spiritual materialism,” Jesus and the I AM, Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ, Ram Dass, Zen/Taoist pointers, and a closing reading of Kabir’s “the breath inside the breath.” If you’ve ever wondered whether your practice is helping you wake up or just look awake, this one’s for you.

If this resonated, please follow/subscribe, rate, or share it with a friend—it really helps the show grow.

Chapters

• 0:15 Koan And Ego (Spiritual Materialism)
• 2:11 Church Upbringing (Belonging And Doubt)
• 3:51 Friendship And Agnosia
• 5:39 Belonging Versus Truth
• 8:18 Triangulating Traditions
• 12:13 Roles And Identity
• 15:14 Message Over Messenger
• 32:52 Humility Over Pride
• 40:02 Return To The Root

Transcript

Jacob: 0:14

If you encounter the Buddha on the path, kill him. Hello, and welcome back to the Standing Nowhere podcast. This is your host, Jacob, and it is a pleasure to be back with you. And of course, this is not meant to be taken literally. What it points to, however, is what I'm going to be talking about on this episode, which is spiritual materialism, a term coined by a Tibetan Buddhist by the name of Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche from his book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. And what the Koan points to is essentially looking within yourself for truth, not taking anyone's word for it, but seeing how it resonates within you, seeing if it rings a bell of truth within. In other words, not holding any concept in your mind as gospel, but seeing for yourself through lived experience if what you are practicing holds true. To quote Trungpa from his book, he says, the basic point of spiritual materialism is to try to use spirituality to improve ego, to make it more comfortable, or to make it bigger. Our ego or sense of self will hijack spirituality, turning it into another possession or a badge that you can wear. And we've all seen this before. I grew up, and this is from my own perspective, I grew up in a Christian household. And I always felt like I was in the club, that I was on the correct path. But I I always knew something was a little off. I didn't know how to express it though. I remember when I used to go to church, the first thing I felt weird about was the way we worshiped. You know, people would raise their hands up in the air and close their eyes. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I just never felt compelled to do it. And I never felt forced to do it either. I remember one time when I was in the service in North Carolina, I went to a very charismatic church, and people were just jumping out of their pews, doing cartwheels. Not literally, but I remember people would kind of pat me on the back and kind of push me to join in. And I would clap my hands, but I wasn't uh I wasn't as, I don't know, I was enthusiastic about worshiping, but it just wasn't my style. But growing up, I always felt just that something was off with the whole idea that you've got to believe Jesus Christ is the correct path, or you are going to burn in hell forever. And I've got 70 odd years in my life to convince you otherwise. I had a really good friend, one of my one of my best friends in my life, who I still talk to to this day, he grew up agnostic. And yet he embodied fully all the things that we spoke about at church. Compassion, all the values that Jesus taught. I'm not, I'm not gonna paint him as a saint or anything, but he was a very good person, a very good friend of mine, still one of the best friends I've ever had to this day. And he always had, he always took an agnostic point of view towards life. And I remember he would, he would kind of gently tease me about being a quote unquote believer, growing up Christian, and I would always kind of tease him about not believing in any one thing per se. He was always very clear not to say that he didn't believe in nothing, he just wasn't sure. As I would later find out in recent years, agnostia, the word I believe in Greek, which means the unknowing, is one of the highest forms of wisdom that you can have. The not knowing mind. Not knowing how it is, but trusting. And we see this all throughout society today. There are wonderful human beings who do great things who don't go around forcing religion down your throat. You must believe this. To me, when I grew up in this church, I never even asked myself why I believe what I believed. I wasn't even overly familiar with the Bible. I remember my mother told me when I was young, if I read the Bible, that she would buy me a Super Nintendo. So I did, but how much do you think I really soaked in? You know, I just kind of went through it. Look, mom, I finished. It didn't take me very long. Maybe a month. How much did I really absorb, though? I used to go to a group called Awanas when I was a kid, which is where they bring young children in um sort of like youth groups, up with the premise of memorizing Bible verses. But to this day, I when I think back to that, none of it really mattered to me. What mattered to me was the prize, getting the recognition, belonging. And I've realized looking back that belonging is not the same thing as truth. Belonging is a social need and it's valuable. But truth, that's something that you can only live, that you can experience, that comes with experience, that comes with time. Belonging will tell you who you are or who you belong to, I should say, what group you're in. But truth, it asks the question am I awake right now? Because truth is always right in front of you right now. It's not in your head, it's it's the present moment. You see, I'm I'm not bashing Christianity. I still go to a Christian church on occasion with my mother and uh wife, and we I can worship just fine alongside everyone in the church. Now, of course, if I start quoting Buddhism to them or things like that, so you might call me a little bit of a different flavor of Christian. I don't even really identify as a Christian. I guess you could call me a mystic because I love pulling from all different traditions. You know, it's it's sort of like when people try to find their position on a map. I don't I don't know if you guys are familiar with the method of triangulation. They use it with cell phone towers as well. It's where you get two points of reference to find your position. And that's what I've been doing over these last three plus years is looking outside of my traditional upbringing, because as you all know, probably from episode one, I found myself in a very dark place. And the the tradition that I was brought up in, well, I don't want to say there was something lacking, but my understanding of it was lacking. So I started listening to philosophers of Eastern wisdom and triangulating myself in a way. I have I now understand or have an interpretation that is much more spiritually enriching for me because I am embracing other human beings just like you and me, that are part of this world, part of this universe, that grew up in a different place, in different times, and have different relations to what we call life. And the way that they say the most similar things to what I was raised in excites me and at the same time helps me understand it in different ways that I didn't consider before, which is, of course, one of the main inspirations for me starting this podcast is sharing some of this wisdom, which is why in episodes you will hear me quote from Jesus, you will hear me quote from Tibetan Buddhists like Chogyam Trunk Trunkpa Rinpoche or the Buddha himself, you'll hear me quote from Lao Tzu, you'll hear me quote from the Bhagavad Gita. Because again, belonging to a club is not truth. It's okay to have a tradition. There are many traditions and paths up the same mountain, but truth that can only be found in the present moment and if you're awake. This is echoed by Jesus in the Gospel of John. He was speaking to Nicodemus, and he says, and he says, The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. When he says the wind blows, that word wind is the same word as spirit. And what he's speaking to here is that spirituality is not about a membership or a club. It is about the unpredictable movement of what we call spirit, or that some call Tao in the East, the way of things, or in Buddhism or Hinduism, they would call the Dharma, the unfolding of things. We don't know how it c how it works. You hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. But you trust it. You live in that spontaneity. There's a book which I absolutely love and recommend to everyone by an author named Richard Rohr called The Universal Christ. And he says in that book, a mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That is a definition that will never fail you. Always demand more of you, and give you no reasons to fight. Exclude or reject anyone. Because we identify ourselves with our roles and the clubs that we're in. You know, I'm a DoorDash driver. I'm a loser. I'm forty two years old doing DoorDash. I'm a billionaire. I did something right. I worked hard for my billions. I'm a dad. My kids better listen to me. The worst are the religious roles. I'm a Christian. I've got the right path. Everyone else has no clue what they're talking about, and they need to accept Jesus or else. Well, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in all that nonsense. I'm a meditator. I meditate a lot. I'm very awake. All these people I encounter every day, they're asleep. They need to wake up. Oh, I'm enlightened. I'm gonna start a YouTube channel and tell everyone I'm enlightened. Nonsense. All of them. You are none of those things. This exclusive path that I grew up with was really outlined in John 14, 6. I am the way, truth, and life. Nobody comes to the Father but through me. But we learn that Jesus had several I am statements, and he spoke from the I am within him, not from the Jesus part of himself. He even said in certain parts of the Bible, He who has faith in me has not faith in me, Jesus, but in him who sent me. And the I am is in all of us. The I am will never fail you. It's a divine part of life within us all. I am tired, I am hungry, I am going to work. There's always the I am prior to everything else, and we all share that. It is indivisible. And these roles are not exclusive to Christians. I mean, it's in every tradition. You'll get spiritual one-upmanship. Even atheism. I'm an atheist. I'm a nihilist. I face facts. This whole universe is random. I don't need to tell myself a story about a man in a cloud or heaven. I face facts. When you're dead, you're dead. That's it. That's all there is. But you see, all of this, all of these identities, especially the spiritual ones, they are fingers pointing at the moon, but they are not the moon itself. And what we what happens is we mistake the pointer for the thing that it's pointing to. Richard Rohr speaks to this in that same book I mentioned, Universal Christ. He says, Too often we have substituted the message the messenger for the message. As a result, we spend a great deal of time worshiping the messenger and trying to get other people to do the same. Too often this obsession became a pious substitute for actually following what he taught. And he did ask us several times to follow him, and never once to worship him. I know that may sound polarizing to some, but it's true. Jesus never asked to be worshipped. In fact, we find him washing people's feet and saying things like, Sure, great things have I done, but greater things will you do. But today we've turned it into a club. And we see the badges on people's bumper stickers, or in the way they live, and the way they describe themselves. When when Jesus said, They will know you are my disciples by the love you have for one another, we toss that out, and then we turn it into a club. You've got to believe in him. That's the bottom line, that's the most important thing. Sure, it's great to love people, but you've got to believe this or else. Chogyam Trunk uh Trunkpa Rinpoche in his book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, he also says the surrender which is involved in following the spiritual path is the surrender of ego. It is not a question of giving oneself up to something else, but of giving up the reference point, the self-centered clinging. You see what he's saying here is you've got to give up the idea of yourself as belonging to X and take action. Move. Do the thing that the teacher, or whatever word you want to put there, is telling you to try and experience for yourself. See what happens. See how you feel when you love people. See how you feel when you are angry towards people, or cut someone else off on the road, or try to be first in front of someone else. See how you feel for yourself. If you get yourself out of the way, you'll notice things will start aligning for you naturally. You'll feel good about helping people. And this is where authentic spirituality takes shape. Not only is it spontaneous, but it's authentic because it's spontaneous. It's not preconceived, it's not pre-planned. This is why on this podcast, I am, um, since the beginning, I've planned on doing interviews, of course, and I haven't had as much time as I would have liked, but I've had two so far. And if you listen to the interviews, you'll you will hear human beings like you and me talking about their experiences in life and how they have dealt with them. My mother, my first interview, in that episode, she describes praying over her children, over us, while we were sleeping in our cribs at night. See, that is not a ritual. That is not something she was forced to do. She felt compelled in the dark with her hand over our heads, praying for us. That is somebody who has pushed themselves out of the way and is giving it to something higher than themselves. It doesn't matter whether you want to call it God or a father or mother, mother nature. She is passing it to a higher power, to a higher, something higher than what she perceives as herself. That is the opposite of trying to control everything. Or Kate, I my second interview, um, she went through a toxic relationship. She wrote a book about it, which, by the way, is called Rose Colored Glasses, and that comes out the day you'll hear this podcast, October 2nd. And she talks about how she brought mindfulness into her life. And I asked her about that, and she said that she didn't have a specific practice that she did. There was no labels for it, but she enjoys the simple things in the morning. She'll sit by a window and look out at the rain in Seattle and have tea or coffee in the morning and just sit. Or she may do a crossword puzzle and just lose herself in it. See, her form of mindfulness, it doesn't it doesn't have the label that you might find like in um because I I when I was speaking to her afterwards, I said, you know, the things that you do are very much in line with Zen Buddhism. And we find that in Zen Buddhism, which I'll talk about later, how they don't like to label their activities. They even have tea ceremonies and things like that, which are deeply religious for them, but they don't have labels. And Kate naturally, as she has aged and gone through these traumas, learned to process the trauma by just allowing space for herself. That peaceful view out the window, just sitting. Our relatives who used to have front yards, they would sit on the porch swing and just sit. There is deep wisdom in this without labeling it. There's an old Zen parable about a student talking to his master and reading from one of their scriptures saying The voices of torrents are from one great tongue. The lines of the hills are the pure body of Buddha. And the teacher replied, Yes, it is, but it's a pity to say so. Pointing to the fact that when we put things in words and label things, it diminishes them in a way. Ram Das, one of the major inspirations in my life, he says that all methods are traps. Use them to get free, and then hope they self-destruct so you don't get caught in them. This is echoed in Buddhism. There's a saying where our spiritual traditions are like a boat. They get you across the river. But when you get across, you don't pick up the boat and carry it with you after you're there. You leave it there. And this doesn't mean that you can't continue meditating after you've found spaciousness in your life or things like that, or read the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita, or the Tao Diching, or whatever spiritual texts. You can keep reading those things. In fact, that's a good thing. But you have to have that part in you that's willing to let even those go. Otherwise, you risk this spiritual materialism that we're talking about. Risk it becoming an idol, something that you cling to. It's it's like I used to go to a home church group, I think I've mentioned on a podcast before this, and there was a there's a lot of good people there. And as I mentioned earlier, I can worship alongside anybody, any tradition. Even if they don't have the same views as me. And there was a man there who used to send me just constant anti-gay, anti-LGBTQ content. And it I'm not saying he was a bad person or anything like that, but it was just, it was so fascinating to me that we would gather together at a church in someone's house and praise whatever this mystery is, give thanks to it and love and share our love for it. And then outside of that, him sending me anti-gay things. I remember he sent me one of a testimony from somebody who had been, quote, fixed by the church, how they used to be gay, and the church fixed them. It's like spirituality is becoming weaponized. Where's the love in that? Are we really going to convert people back to heterosexuality? I could do a whole episode debunking that, but I won't I won't digress into that now. But it reminded me of a movie called Saved with Mandy Moore. And there's a there's a there's a point in the end where one of the gay characters, they're trying to convert him back, and his uh friend, who's a girl, she says, Why would God make us all so different if he wanted us to be the same? Because look around. Look at the universe, look at nature. Whatever this mystery is, we know that it loves variety. We even say variety is the spice of life. So why are we trying to fix people and force them into a box that we think is the correct box? Can we live and let live, coexist, allow each other to embark in our own traditions? And the virtue signaling on social media, we see that as well. This false piety. Because the idea of it is you are the product and you're trying to promote yourself as a quote unquote influencer. And when spirituality crosses into that, it just creates this really awkward feeling in me. Like, and I I'm always checking myself on that because I have a I have a Standing Nowhere podcast Instagram and um, you know, X account and things like that. So I use those to promote the podcast, and I'm always double checking myself, like, am I crossing into that spiritual materialism line? You know, I try to promote it with just sound bites and things that'll make people feel good, usually quotes from other people, but oh, yeah. Instagram virtue signaling, it's it's out of control on some accounts. We also see this in uh politics, you know, political leaders pushing their agendas using spirituality to do so. So it takes spiritual materialism takes many forms, and it can be staggering on on the the just how crazy some of the forms it takes. And the interesting thing is how much this contrasts with some of the Eastern traditions, particularly in Zen Buddhism or in Taoism. For example, in Zen Buddhism, it is considered very religious or highly spiritual to not put labels on things, to not idolize scripture. There's a Zen proverb that says, Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance, I am at rest, for it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers. And this really points to the stages we go through as we are seekers, seeking truth, looking for the truth behind things. You know, at first you're told as a child, these are mountains, these are rivers, these are trees, and you don't even think about it. And then, like he says, when you arrive at a more intimate knowledge and you start looking into it, you get into that phony holy phase, sort of where you look at everything and you're saying, This is all an illusion, it's all one thing, you know, blah, blah, blah. But once you've internalized that and you understand that, you can come back to the social conventional level and say, sure, that's a mountain, that's a tree. And you know in your heart of hearts that it's all one thing, but you don't have to live with that material label, if you will. Because the label of a tree is just as much of a label as saying everything is one. You know, anything you put into words. Sort of flattens it and two-dimensionalizes it. There's a very, very spiritual and deeply religious poem. It's actually a haiku by uh I believe it's a Zen poet named Basho. It's very short. It says an old pond. A frog jumps in. Plop. Do you see the beauty in that? Nothing else needs to be said. He indulges in words, but only slightly enough to get the point across. Ramdas, he says, you have to remember your Buddha or Christ-like nature and your social security number. Because we live in a world that exists on both those planes. On one level, we are all one. We all share that same being, that same awakened Buddha nature or Christ nature, whatever you want to put a label on it as. And we live in a world with social security numbers and smartphones. So you can't dismiss one and say it's not a part of this whole thing. Paying your taxes is part of this process. If you separate it in your mind, that's division. That's that's materialism. That creates spiritual materialism. Because then you're saying spirituality is over here, and I can't wait to get back to it after I file my taxes, after I go to work. You have to see it everywhere, in everything, in every one. Otherwise, you risk becoming egotistical about it. There's a saying from Lao Tzu He who stands on tiptoe is not steady. He who shows himself is not enlightened. He who boasts of himself is not given credit. He who prides himself is not chief. And the mystic poet Rumi echoes this. He says, The ego is a veil between humans and God. In prayer, all should dissolve and vanish before him. Stop thinking about it. Stop labeling things. There's really no need. It is what it is. Do you really want to be that person that is identified as the annoying spiritual person? I'm always checking myself if I'm crossing into that territory. And I have several times when I first started learning about all these things, you know, I think most people do. It's exciting to start to finally look into your true nature to become a seeker. And I used to annoy the hell out of my wife with uh little jokes and sayings. It's all one, you know, it's the present moment. Or I used to say it's a divine manifestation, babe. We'd be walking, you know, there'd be uh, I don't know, something something really nasty uh on the side of the road or something like roadkill, you know, it's a divine manifestation of the divine. She'd just roll her eyes at me. On one level, it's absolutely true. Everything is a manifestation of the divine. But even saying that kind of creates a differentiation, divine and not divine. In uh the book of Matthew, Jesus warns about righteousness for show. He says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them. For then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. Don't tell other people when you're doing good things. Do it spontaneously with no expectation of reward. And don't overthink it too. If your family member or friend asks you for help, don't sit and deliberate on it. Act. There's always that battle between the head and the heart. How much should I help people? How much should I give this homeless person? If I indulge too much, they could end up on my couch. So we have to, the mind has to draw some line somewhere. But the more you act out of spontaneity, the more you'll make that correct choice, I think. And Jesus warned about pride and making sure to have humility over pride. In the book of Luke, he says that two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself was praying thus God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of all my income. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted. So you see, this is echoed through all traditions. Get rid of yourself. Get over yourself. Chogyim Trunkpa Rimpoche, in that same book I've been quoting this episode, he says we must be willing to face the reality of our lives without any deception or self-deception. Do not think highly of yourself. Don't think anything of yourself. It will weigh you down. It will make you not who you want to be. Be selfless. Don't be self-centered. Don't do things for self-gain. Don't help others for self-gain. Don't think highly of yourself. Don't think anything of yourself. Because how do we do this? There's only one way. Because you can't do anything. The you that you think needs to do something to overcome spiritual materialism is the same you that can't do it. So the only option is to rest into awareness and notice, keep noticing when the ego is hijacking your practice. This happens to me constantly, still does, and probably always will. I'll be sitting on my cushion. Oh, I've been meditating three years. Is this working? Back to the breath. Man, I spend so much time thinking about not thinking. I just need to not think. Back to the breath. Keep returning to beginner's mind. No judgment, just return. Your mind, look at it like a little puppy that just keeps wandering away and you gently bring it back. You don't slap it. Man, I think more about practicing and how to practice than actually doing the practice. Back to the breath. That's an interesting thought. That one really convinced me. That one that one got me for a little while. Oh, back to the breath. Man, this is so hard. I am so not focused today. Back to the breath. That's the key. That's the trick. I gotta remember this trick. I gotta have an interest in taking myself back to the back to the breath. That's all you can do. You will not find the answer in thinking. You have to come back, whether it's your breath or whatever. One-pointedness, of course, is one aspect of mindfulness, but awareness of what you are doing. If you're walking, you're aware that you're walking. And as soon as you notice your mind tries to take you away from walking, you come back to walking. If you're working, if I'm driving my car doing deliveries, I'm just driving my car doing deliveries. And if my mind takes me away about things I have to do later in the day or the episode or blah, blah, blah, I come back to driving. And every now and again, a good idea will pop up in my head and I put it in the notes on my phone and I come back to driving. I don't sit in thought spirals. That is the practice. When I am talking to someone, and they're talking to me, I am just listening to them. And if my mind tries to take me away with what I'm going to say next, I come back to what they're saying. And when it's time for me to speak, I will know what to say, and I can trust that I'll know what to say. Keep returning. Back to the beginner's mind. Keep returning. Allegiance to the void implies denial of its voidness. The more you talk about it, the more you think about it, the further from it you go. Stop talking. Stop thinking, and there is nothing you will not understand. Return to the root, and you will find the meaning. Pursue the light and you lose its source. Look inward and in a flash you will conquer the apparent and the void. All come from mistaken views. There is no need to seek truth. Only stop having views. So understand that the ordinary and the spiritual are inseparable. They are two sides of the same shape. Understand that there are different paths up the same mountain. The point is that you walk the path. Pick one and walk. There are plenty of good ones. And as Trungpa Rinpoche says in his book, before we close out here, he says enlightenment is the ego's ultimate disappointment. I'm going to close this out with a reading from Kabir called The Breath Inside the Breath. But before I do, I would encourage you if you like this episode and want to hear more, to please subscribe or follow the show on whichever app you listen on, as it will help this show grow and reach more people. And now Kabir's Breath Inside the Breath. Are you looking for me? I'm in the next seat. My shoulder is against yours. You will not find me in stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals, not in masses, nor in kirtans. Not in legs winding around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables. When you really look for me, you will see me instantly. You will find me in the tiniest house of time. Kabir says, Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath. So remember, folks, if you encounter the Buddha on the path, kill him.