Who are we… humans?
Retelling our foundational story can change our perspective of who we are. So, I want to retell the story of Enlightenment.
More than likely, you’ve heard of the story of Buddha. He was around 800 years BC. The basic story we hear is that he was a prince who ran away to meditate in the forest, practiced radical fasting, and eventually reached Enlightenment. He is the one who then taught and started Buddhism. That’s the nutshell version of the story we’re told.
But what if it was very different? What if we go back way further than Buddha and put him in context?
Another story
Once upon a time there was a rich, expansive land full of people who lived many thousands years in harmony with the land and each other—not necessarily what we would call peace, because they did bicker and fight as humans do, right? But they lived in a state of understanding that they were living within their food system. They were part of the ecology; they were an integral part of the grand design that was always moving and interconnected.
They were not the dominant species in this land. They lived within their brothers and sisters—the winged brothers, the crawling sisters, the fish, the trees, the plants. As a matter of fact, they understood that they were not the most intelligent creatures around. They believed the birds could teach them things, so they would listen. They knew that the plants and animals could teach them things, so they would listen.
They didn’t own property. They didn’t own plants or animals. They constantly moved within their food system to feed the people. Everybody worked together to bring the food, and they always took care of each other in their tribe. They knew when things would be ripe over here, and then they could go. They knew when the fish would be running fat and strong in the rivers, and then they could go. They knew where the animals would come and when.
They lived within their landscape, and within their full consciousness. They knew who they were—they were ripe, awakened, aware spiritual beings.
Then, one day, conquering hordes came. They conquered all the groups of people, took the land, and turned it into property. They tied up the land, and tied up the food system. Now everything was separate and owned: rice came from over here, potatoes came from over there, animals lived in pens.
The conquering hordes turned everybody into slaves, which made the conquerors very rich. These conquorers lived in luxury, built beautiful large homes, and every little thing about their life was taken care of. They were living in total luxury, while all the people they had conquered were living in poverty and agony. Over the centuries, all the people forgot who they were and started believing in the gods of the conquerors. These gods told them who was who, who was important, and that they were not good enough. The religion grew with many gods and supreme beings who had been lifted up from the human condition to achieve enlightenment.
Live was a struggle. Disease and death caught them by surprise now because the big picture was lost. All the people now, conquerers and conquered alike, believed that they needed to achieve this rarified Enlightenment to escape the struggle.
In this society, where everyone had forgotten who they were, there was one young man who was born into a rich family. He lived in a big, beautiful house, and everything he could possibly want was taken care of for him. As he grew older he was even given a wife. She got pregnant and was about to have a baby. Everything was perfect. Then one day, he decided to go on a trip outside of his beautiful home. He went out and saw the incredible poverty and agony that everyone was living in. It shocked him because he was a very sensitive, thoughtful man. He couldn’t believe it; it was the first time in his life he had ever experienced this level of agony and horror at life itself. It broke him.
He was a Hindu, and Hinduism is about becoming enlightened. That seemed to be the only escape from this agony. So, he left his home and went into the forest to live with the aesthetic meditators there. He was a bit competitive, so he became the best of them all. He did the most prayers and ate the least food until finally, he was eating one grain of rice a day and was on the verge of death. He went over and sat by the river, watching the river flow. He saw a boat come down the river; it avoided a rock, went around it, and floated on down. All of a sudden, he realized, “Oh, there is a middle way.” You can live within the river you’re floating in and go in this middle way. He was having a glimpse of the old ways of his long ago ancestors.
So, he left his friends, started eating actual food, and searched for this middle way.
Then one day, he sat down by a tree and decided, “This is it. I am not going to move until I figure this thing out.” He sat there. The moon rose, the stars rose and then, in a flash, his thinking mind stopped and all the concepts of his mind fell away with a crack. He saw who he was—a natural being floating within the middle way. Boom! It’s what we call Enlightenment.
He was Siddhartha, the Buddha. He had discovered the inner, awake, nature that exists when the language of the conquerors stops. He started gathering people around him and teaching them this middle way. He went back to all of his friends in the forest and said, “Dudes, look, this is really easy. Let me show you how to do it.” He gave them instructions, and boom, it happened for them too. People around him were becoming enlightened and waking up.
They had discovered a place of absolute zero that a human being can go to and find the inner truth. What he didn’t know was that the natural people from thousands of years ago—this was their natural state. Being in this natural state meant they were completely unified with everything around them.
We can’t understand the rest of this story without understanding culture
Culture
You can’t have culture without people. You can’t have culture without language. You can’t have people without culture, or people without language. You can’t have culture without women, and you can’t have women without children. You can’t have culture without elders. When women and elders are suppressed culture dies. These things are so intricately intertwined that it’s really only one thing.
The natural people who had lived in harmony with the land thousands of years ago lived within a context of unity. They knew that the people who came before them, were them. They knew that the people around them, were them. They had elders and families who knew how to speak of this in a language of interconnection. All together the women, the elders, the supporters, the healers… everyone knew how to bring a child naturally into this state.
They lived in a place where time, location, and reality always met together because the elders were always teaching the young, and the young were learning from the elders. Culture comes from this great interweaving of human inner and outer elements. The language spoke always of the interconnection and relatedness of things.
Buddha didn’t have this. He had no idea that this was a natural state. It felt natural, but he had no idea that for hundreds of thousands of years, humanity had lived in this natural state. That this was the human reality before the conquerors, private property, philosophies, gods, and language of division caused our minds to be divided. The only thing he knew was what this state felt like because that was the only perspective he had, and so Buddhism started.
This Enlightenment state, instead of being seen as the normal birthright of every single human being, was seen as a unusual accomplishment only for the select few.
All the people who wanted to become enlightened isolated themselves inside monasteries so that they could be free from the crazy world and come to this inner space. As time went on, Buddhism became a philosophy, and Hinduism changed to include a broader concept of enlightenment. Meanwhile, the conquerors kept expanding around the planet until, just a few hundred years ago, they came to what we call the Americas, Turtle Island.
When the conquerors arrived here, they found the same thing: human beings living within their ecosystem as fully awake, conscious beings. The conquerors grabbed the land, turned it into private property, and enslaved the people. They shoved them to the side, stuck them in poverty, and did everything in their power to wipe out the ancient teachings.
As they say, history was repeating itself.
Putting it together
On day I was reading things on the internet and stumbled across a statement. I thought, “Whoa, wait a second, this person is enlightened,” because it was an obvious non-dual statement. “Who wrote this?” I looked closer and saw it was Robin Wall Kimmerer who had written Braiding Sweetgrass.
So, of course, I got the book and read it. I found out that, oh my gosh, Native Americans, the native people of this land, had lived in the enlightened state until the conquerors came and tried to destroy them. This culture—they call it a culture because it’s the way the people lived—still has remnants of life. There are still elders who can intertwine people into the old teachings.
I realized that the native perspective shows us how to be in this state. Buddhism and Enlightenment teachings show us how to get there if we come from the broken, conquering culture.
So these two things need to come together.
Enlightenment shows us how we can drop the shell of lies we’ve been told all our lives and get into this native state. Native wisdom shows us how this state intertwines with deep history, and with a united humanity.
Unity is unity, right? Everything’s together, which means human beings are together too. Your parents form you with more than just your DNA; your family forms you, your community forms you. The native perspective is to live not only within the Earth but within each other in your tribe and within and through your language.
One way to look at it is that with Buddhist enlightenment you wake up to become an orphan—a human orphan. You’re intertwined with all of the cosmos, but not with a community of elders and young people who all live together in this enlightened, awakened state.
Native reality brings this reality of enlightenment to us right into our hearts. It’s how to become a true, natural human being.
The native perspective is still here, still alive. It shows us how human beings are meant to live.
Buddhism and non-duality teachings show us how to accept the fact that we are the broken conquerors. Enlightenment teachings are how we get back to the empty state where complete unity is experience. But we, the white people—the non-native people—step into this state as a place of pure silence.
Then we start building our ways to come together from that.
So, this awakening is completely essential for a non-native person