This world is awash with people wanting to find the “pot of gold” - that secret that will make their whole life complete, true, beautiful, healthy, wealthy, wise. You know what I mean. It sits there in you saying … you’re not good enough (yet).
The theme of “self-betterment” runs through much of my writing here on Naked And Alive. (see this post, for example). I’m not a big fan of this constant focus on our lives not being “good enough”. The real problem isn’t YOU being less X. The real problem is that YOU
You see, searching for a solution to your self incompleteness (in any sense), will never end well. There is no final resting place, garden of Eden, pot of gold, nirvana, where everything is just as you wished it were. Our lives teach us who we are. You’ll be stuck on a treadmill that never stops, trained to keep feeling incomplete, unwell, unclean, unfulfilled … the secret is to stop looking. Get off the yellow brick road - there ain’t no Oz Dorthy.
“I don’t seek. I find.” - Pablo Picasso
A story that I think illustrates my point.
A monk set off on a long pilgrimage to find the Buddha. He devoted many years to his search until he finally reached the land where the Buddha was said to live. While crossing the river to this country, the monk looked around as the boatman rowed. He noticed something floating towards them. As it got closer, he realized that it was the corpse of a person. When it drifted so close that he could almost touch it, he suddenly recognized the dead body - it was his own! He lost all control and wailed at the sight of himself, still and lifeless, drifting along the river's currents. That moment was the beginning of his liberation. http://users.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/searching.html
I tell this to myself all the time, “He who knows the Buddha, does not know the Buddha.”
What if instead of reading, watching, listening to those offering a solution - we give up that ghost? We begin to help ourselves by not looking for a solution, betterment or completion but are happy and involved with the process of being, of life itself?
It’s like when you are on a trip to a destination and for a moment, you finally give up that voice in your head repeating “when will I get there?” and for a moment you see the beauty, feel the love of the world through just being out there, in the world, on that journey.
What if instead we wrote our own books or spoke to ourselves, What if we joined a discussion without any end purpose - all as a way of being more aware of our own condition? What if we join the story of life, instead of trying to read it and give it an ending?
Community works like that and I think real community is so missing in our modern world.
Community is a place where you can be safe, can be complete, at home in this world. It is sorely lacking. Community is when people love and embrace who you are, as you are. Look at your life - do you have community, people around you that allow you to be complete, in the journey, just as you are - not just temporary matter in need of destination and betterment?
So to end - I’m offering no answer but to get off the merry-go-round of trying to “improve”. You are complete, beautiful, special, lovely, knowing, moral, kind - just as you are. There is nowhere you have to go. Sit back and enjoy the journey. It’s about stopping the search and resting in your incompleteness, in the love, peace and joy that is YOU. Only then will you FIND.
Can you walk on water? You have done no better than a straw. Can you fly in the air? You have done no better than a bluebottle. Conquer your heart; then you may become somebody. - Ansari of Herat.
One Day At A Time
When you gonna wake up?
There is nothing wrong with you.
There is no one you have to be
not even that elusive true self.
There isn’t anything you got to accomplish.
there isn’t anything you must have;
a car, a child, love, a house.
Oh, it’d be good
but they aren’t necessary.
The day is sufficient unto itself.
You are sufficient unto yourself.
Don’t believe the hype.
The gurus, the docs, the pious ones
telling you that you can “do better”.
Just take it one day at a time.
It’ll all be fine.
So long as you wake up.
You aren’t lost.
You aren’t unloved.
You aren’t alone.
You just need to wake up.
When you gonna wake up?
Sometimes
Sometimes
in the morning
you are blessed
with a huge dump
an emptying
and just when
you’d thought
you’d pack it all in
so full of shit you are -
the morning greets you
fresh, light, alive
and you say to yourself
”Not today.”
while making more coffee
and a mental list
of things to do
that you don’t have to do
sometimes.