bypassing the bypasser
Prem explains:
This happens a lot.
Someone submits a post for approval — usually a quote from Thầy. Something true. Anchored. About presence, about being fully alive, about returning to the moment with clarity, breath, and care.
Something like:
“There is no way to enlightenment — enlightenment is the way.”
And at first, it’s beautiful. It’s real Dharma.
But then they add more.
A poem, usually. Their own or something they found.
And the tone shifts.
Instead of deepening Thầy’s insight, the extra words start smuggling in a softer, sneakier message —
one that contradicts the Dharma.
Not obviously.
Not rudely.
But gently.
Slippery.
Sweet-sounding.
Instead of calling the reader to practice, the poem implies there’s no need to.
Instead of affirming that awakening comes through effort, love, clarity, and transformation — it whispers:
- “Everything’s already perfect.”
- “There’s nothing to do.”
- “Striving is delusion.”
And sure — if your life is safe, comfortable, and protected by privilege, you might get away with believing that. Maybe your cushion feels like truth, because the world hasn’t crushed you yet.
But.. That’s not liberation.
That’s privilege dressed up as peace.
It’s not born of wisdom.
It’s delusion sustained by conditions that protect you — while others suffer.
And when you dress that up in spiritual language it becomes very dangerous.
Because now you’re not just avoiding the world —
you’re encouraging others to do the same, and calling it enlightenment. That’s not what Thay taught. That’s not what the Buddha taught. That’s not what we practice in BuddhaGang.
This is an engaged Buddhist space.
We remember the vow.
We train in remembering.
Because too many beings are suffering for us to drift into clouds and pretend the work is done.
This morning, I saw it again:
“Mountains don’t care about enlightenment.”
So what — we shouldn’t either?
Mountains don’t read sutras or keep precepts.
You do.
“Clouds just float by without thoughts.”
Yes. But they don’t face addiction, trauma, injustice, or karma.
We do.
That’s why the Buddha taught right thought, not no thought.
“You don’t get enlightened — everything else becomes you.”
No.
Everything is already you — ultimately.
But that doesn’t mean your unexamined habit stream is the Dharmakaya.
Like Thay taught with the three complexes:
We’re not inherently superior, inferior, or equal — because what we do matters.
Karma matters.
Action, intention, result.
Different karma. Different results.
Different seeds. Different fruit.
We don’t all arrive in the same place just by not trying.
We are not the same.
We are not “already there.”
We are shaped by what we feed — thought, speech, and deed.
Karma feeds the seeds.
We’re working with the mud.
We don’t throw it away.
But we don’t mistake it for the lotus either.
And that takes effort.
It takes training.
It takes vow.
“Rain yesterday, enlightenment today — no difference.”
No. That’s no-thinking-ism. And we don’t do that here.
There is a difference.
There are many differences — and they deserve your full attention.
The Buddha pointed it out.
So did Thay.
So did Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Śāntideva, Kamalaśīla, Xuanzang.
They didn’t say “just let it all be.”
They taught how to discern:
- Wholesome from unwholesome.
- Delusion from clarity.
- Habit from insight.
- Mud from lotus.
- Joy and dukkha — pleasant and painful — these arise in conditioned life.
They are not to be treated as insignificant illusions.
They are real enough to matter.
This is where we live.
This is where we work.
So we don’t ignore it.
We don’t pretend it’s all the same to avoid discomfort.
We don’t float above like bypassing ghosts
murmuring “no difference” while the house is on fire.
We get in the dirt.
We do the work.
Because if we don’t?
The mud just stays mud.
But if we do — if we vow deeply, love fiercely, and show up with clarity and ethics — that’s when the lotus appears.
That’s when daily life becomes Dharma.
Not by skipping the unpleasant parts, but by transforming the conditions.
That’s what we teach here in BuddhaGang.
Not floaty sameness.
But sharp, compassionate discernment.
Eyes open.
Heart strong.
Feet in the mud.
Vow intact.
The bummer shouldn’t be hard to spot.
It’s spiritual bypassing.
It sounds spiritual — poems, metaphors, poetic little clouds — but it’s actually just avoidance.
And that’s why I don’t use the word “spiritual” too much.
It’s been watered down.
It’s been turned into a euphemism for comfort,
for a worldly sense of superiority without responsibility.
But in this tradition — the Dharma of the Buddha, of Thầy, of the BuddhaGang effort — the spiritual is the ethical.
It’s the vow.
It’s the action.
It’s clarity in the middle of the mess.
A bodhisattva might say:
“Let me bow before the path and walk it with reverence.”
But a bypasser says:
“There’s no path. No suffering. Nothing to do.”
That’s not humility. That’s denial. That’s not awakening. That’s a prthagjana (worldly, comon, ordinary) defense mechanism. And that’s not BuddhaDharma.
Thay said it clearly:
“There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.”
But people twist that.
They hear it as a license to stop trying.
To rename confusion as wisdom.
To accept delusion as the path.
But that’s not what was said.
And it’s not what was meant.
When Thay said that line, he wasn’t flattening the difference between prthagjana life and bodhisattva path. He was pointing right at the work. Practice here. In the dishes. In your inbox. At the protest. In your grief.
Daily life is the vehicle.
But it only moves when the driver is awake.
If there’s still greed, hatred, and delusion — if the poisons still run the show — then it doesn’t matter how many quotes you post. You’re not living enlightenment. You’re just relabeling samsara.
So when someone says:
“See? There’s nothing to do.”
It’s a bait-and-switch.
It’s spiritual laziness
dressed up as wisdom.
It dulls the Dharma blade.
It blurs the line between awake and asleep.
It turns the fire of the path into a puddle of comfort.
But the Buddha didn’t do that.
Asaṅga didn’t do that.
Vasubandhu didn’t do that.
Neither did Śāntideva, Xuanzang, or Kamalaśīla.
They taught a real path. They taught real transformation. Not empty slogans. Not worldly wordplay.
But an actual shift in how the mind works — from craving to clarity, from delusion to compassion, from sleepwalking to wakefulness. That’s not bypassing. That’s BuddhaDharma. And that’s what we’re here to practice.