Whether you’re tall or short, attractive or not, wealthy or poor, young or old, spiritually mature or otherwise, the following is nevertheless true, at all times:
At any given moment either you’re present for your life or you’re trying to avoid being present for your life. There really is no other choice.
Avoiding being present sometimes feels good at first but it often leads to regret, and that’s how we find out that there was no real peace in it. The more we see the effects of avoiding being present, the closer we get to being sick of making those choices all the time.
On the other hand, being present may not feel good at times, but it helps us recognize a kind of peace that is available to us regardless of the circumstances surrounding our current living. That kind of peace is actually indistinguishable from being present itself, and that is what is meant by the expression “the path is the goal.”This cannot be fully understood, really. Only experienced.
In some spiritual traditions being present is what is called ‘heaven,’ the promises that come from avoiding being present are called ‘temptation’ and the effects of the avoidance are called ‘hell.’ Ultimately, it does not matter what words are used. What matters is: Are you using the ingredients of your life to fully come alive? The world will thank you and reward you for that choice, in more ways than one.
(In gratitude to my friend Kara Pecson / from whom I learn much / simply by watching her dance.)
I wondered for years why if TW was so effective nobody was as “advanced” as KT was even though there’s now been people doing TW for decades. One day I understood that we were all chasing the end of the rainbow. That day I “graduated.” It was a quiet ceremony. Nobody was informed. I did not receive a special certificate. If I had to put what I learned that day into words it would read like this:
. . . It doesn’t end.
It’s just not a problem that it doesn’t end.
That’s the freedom.
. . . . . . . .
The most amazing thing I learned that day was just how much I was like everyone else:
.
I
I’m just as fucked up as the man next door,
I just don’t beat myself up about it as much as he does.
That’s the enlightenment I know. .
And sometimes
I notice he beats himself up much less than I do.
Those days he is the enlightened one
and I’m proud to call him
Teacher. . . .
.
II
Deep forgiveness for our apparent imperfections.
Deep compassion for our apparent flaws.
A knowing that it’s okay to be just like this.
Even as I try to be a better man with time.
Perfection and Imperfection in perfect harmony.
That is the enlightenment that I know. . . .
..
III
Anything that I can compare myself to
Is imagined.
Why would that be a fair standard of comparison?
Better to spend my time appreciating
How much of a good friend
I can be to myself.
The spiritual search is like color Blue thinking it’s best to be White.
We call White being ‘enlightened’ in the human world.
So Blue goes on retreat and fasts and reads self help books and goes to therapy, basically attempting to clean all of the blueness from itself in the belief that once all trace of blue is gone, what’s left underneath is the White that represents what it truly is, what it wants to spend all its time as.
Now, while engaged on genuine spiritual inquiry, Blue will be invited to learn about itself from the thoughts it has about all of the other colors. Blue learns that it is like Red, sometimes, and that it is like Purple, sometimes. Blue may go deeper and learn that it was identifying with its manifestations more than with what originated them. It may learn that its truer nature is that of radiation, that different colors are simply radiation being emitted at different wavelengths (If you take radiation that appears blue and increase its wavelength it will now appear red, if you decrease it’s wavelength it will now appear purple, and so on).
III
Blue may learn that it was seeing itself literally in a very limited light and of the futility of trying to strip itself of all blueness. Better to own your own blueness, your own purpleness, your own redness, and so on. All colors have their uses.
Even as these realizations may take place for Blue, it never really ‘transmutates’ to ‘White: ‘White (Enlightenment) is a myth.’ The radiation that ‘Blue‘ is may lose it’s identification with ‘Blueness‘ and then be fully able to see itself as showing up as all wavelengths, and one can call that a ‘truer’ Enlightement, but what’s really important is to be in touch with the fact that one shows up as blue, sometimes, red, sometimes, and so on. And that’s the part that is really important: to be in touch with how one is showing up this moment and to have intimacy with that. And the reason why that is what matters is because, right now, that’s all one’s got. All the rest is a story.
IV
This little model helps me explain people’s disillusionment with their spiritual teachers. In the same way we, as spiritual seekers, long to be White we want our teachers to be White, so that we have somebody in our life who we believe can show us the way. But n o b o d y is White.
‘White‘ is a story.
A spiritual master is somebody who is in touch with all her colors, AND who owns them when he or she shows up as that, and that equanimity with all colors is as White as it gets. When we don’t understand this and our teacher begins to show his or her blue and red and purple sides, we’re disillusioned. We attack them in our minds or write blog posts about them. We separate from them and I know that’s not wise because it all feels like pain. I know that because I’ve done it. It all stems from a basic confusion about what enlightenment is and is not, and about the deeper meaning of purity. The simple way to begin to clear up that confusion is to literally recognize that ‘Enlightenment is not what you think.’
This prompted me to write a little poem, which I dedicated to my friend Michelle Kassinger. We had a good time the other day talking about the matters that eventually became the ingredients for this post. Here it is.
Working on it
I am aware of the colors I wear today
I am aware that those colors are not all that I am.
Allowing those insights to percolate right through my actions
So that I may live a life of balance
That’s the enlightenment that I know.
Strange, how some of us, with quick alternate vision, can see beyond our infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, can behold the wide plain, where our persistent self pauses, and awaits us.
A few Sundays ago as I was taking a shower I had the courage to admit to myself the unadmittable: that I still loved my drama. I have been reading over the last few months in several of Adyashanti’s writings about the fact that the reason that we humans still identify with the notion of a separate Me is that we think it is fun to be a Me. If we didn’t think there were any benefits, why would we do it? And if we did not identify, how could we suffer? So to the extent that I still feel entangled in my life I can open my eyes and, well, begin to take inventory of all the benefits I think being a Me brings.
And the insights I got from this kind of honesty to myself are too numerous to count and even to describe, although I will try my best.
I found a freedom that was at the same time deep and very ordinary, that simply comes from the realization that it is okay that I love my drama, when I do, because that’s what is.
Loving what is, no matter what it is, does not take me to the land of the metaphysical fairies, it brings me to now, now, now. Where else would anyone think it was going to take me? It’s all reentry, all the time. And this is the best news.
I notice an ease to deal with the “curveballs” in life that I fall in love with more and more with with each day that passes by.
I am more loving and accepting to myself than before. I don’t have to wait to be “enlightened” to really love and admire the way I live. I can be more loving and accepting of it now instead. And whatever parts I don’t love yet, I can love and accept that I’m not there yet. It REALLY is okay.
My favorite way of saying it, for now: I still have problems. It’s just not a problem that I still have problems. I don’t need to be problem free to be happy or at least to be at ease with the conditions in my life, or at least to have the integrity to be present with my suffering, when it comes. And sometimes it does.
Further, I see the advantages of still “having problems.” Judging from all I’ve learned from my old problems, and knowing the value of those lessons, wow, I can’t imagine what good could come from what is left of my problems. So I look forward to them. They are welcome here. Not because I’m masochistic, but because, well, they may come anyways. I am open to the wonders they bring. In the end it becomes difficult to call them problems anymore, and I notice that I still do, sometimes. I’m working on it.
The real end is that I don’t care much anymore about whether there is an end or not, because either way, I know how to deal with what comes. And even if I forget how to deal with it, I’m never too far from Home. Not far at all.
And that, as far as I can see, is the real freedom, the one that is independent from conditions. It’s what’s meant in Buddhism by the expression “Samsara is Nirvana,” as far as I can see.
But, please, don’t take it from me: I may just be full of hot air. That could be as true, or truer :).
Whether you’re tall or short, attractive or not, wealthy or poor, young or old, spiritually mature or otherwise, the following is nevertheless true, at all times:
