- If you really take a look at your ordinary boring life, you'll discover something truly wonderful. Our regular old pointless lives are incredibly joyful -- amazingly, astoundingly, relentlessly, mercilessly joyful. You don't need to do a damned thing to experience such joy either. People think they need big experiences, interesting experiences. And it's true that gigantic, traumatic experiences sometimes bring people, for a fleeting moment, into a kind of enlightened state. That's why such experiences are so desired. But it wears off fast and you're right back out there looking for the next thrill. You don't need to take drugs, blow up buildings, win the Indy 500 or walk on the moon. You don't need to go hang-gliding over the Himalayas, you don't need to screw your luscious and oh-so-willing secretary or party all night with the beautiful people. You don't need visions of merging with the totality of the Universe. Just be what you are, where you are. Clean the toilet. Walk the dog. Do your work. That's the most magical thing there is If you really want to merge with God, that's the way to do it. This moment.
You sitting there with your hand in your underwear and potato chip crumbs on your chin, scrolling down your computer screen thinking "This guy's out of his mind." This very moment is Enlightenment. This moment has never come before and once it's gone, it's gone forever. You are this moment. This moment is you. This very moment is you merging with the total Universe, with God Himself.
The life you're living right now has joys even God will never know.
- – Brad WarnerZen is Boring
[Tip o' the zooch to Jesse for introducing me to Warner]
10 comments:
Cool. I think I will go crank up my tractor and do some more cleaning up around the 'ol barn. ;-) That's what I did yesterday afternoon too.
Excellent post.
Kimberly
I think learning to live in the present takes practice and I'm still practicing. Thank you for the reminder.
Andrea
I'm going to change a diaper. I'm going to merge with the oneness of poop and a toddler's bad attitude. I am one with the poop and the bad attitude. I merge with...er, the poop and the bad attitude. Zen is smelly.
And hey look - three girls here. Aha! The numbers, they grow...
So, what's that--Enlightenment comes from hand in underpants--cant this be right. Whose underpants??? Are you a kill joy or what? Feels good, must be true, 'eh (and I am not Canadian)!
Cheerfully, Phantom director
You sitting there with your hand in your underwear and potato chip crumbs on your chin, scrolling down your computer screen thinking "This guy's out of his mind."
BAD visual...
Agreement and clarity, if any more is needed:
This post is, of course, the essence of Gnosticism and the final point of Gnostic practise - but we do all these practises and all these rituals and all this intellectualizing because they are tools that allow us to get to the Realization outlined in this post.
But they are the map and not the actual place.
If we could all just do as outlined in this post, we wouldn't need any of the structures or clergy or rituals or anything else.
But usually we humans can't.
So we use skilful means that 'bring us to that special place' where we *can* connect with that 'something bigger' for a time.
I have seen a tendency in some quarters among modern Gnostics to get too caught up in the intellectualizing and theology and the need to 'be right'.
This is an Orthodox, literalist tendency and not in the spirit of the Gnostic worldview. Use intellectual pursuit as a skilful means to Gnosis, but realize it as 'the map' and not the final destination.
Gnosticism is, in the end, poetry and not a instruction manual. Something which Fr Jordan's book does a pretty good job of showing.
Rev Ken+
AJC
If you meet your underpants walking on the road, wear them.
Or wash them, maybe
I suppose thinking about being together with God while going for a walk to the store is good enough. I suppose having a connection with a friend during a dinner is the same. And I suppose seeing your trousers run off because you didn't wash them is a sure sign the Demiurge is at work.
Very cool post. A co-worker foisted Warner's book on me a few months ago.
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