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#2284 - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - Editor: Jerry Katz
Interesting blog entry in this issue. There are a lot of college age people into nonduality and I like to present their voices from time to time. On another note, we just had Thanksgiving in Canada. Here's a belated or an early Thanksgiving Day card, depending on where you live: http://snipurl.com/ifce. I think I'm on about my fifth replay. --Jerry
"I'm just a seventeen year old American kid. You
can't expect me to be fully enlightened, can you?"
http://daviddarmon.blogspot.com/2005/07/some-thoughts.html
Note: These thoughts are of very little value to anyone
but me. I just felt like putting them down. Why I put them down
here, nobody knows. And that's my disclaimer.
So, sitting here in a computer lab at CMU (this acronym is
apparently taken by Central Michigan University, but when have I
ever bowed down to "the man"), I've been letting my
mind race. But then again, since I've gotten here, my mind has
been in perpetual race mode. I don't think it's ever turned off.
I don't know if it will. "Monkey mind" they call it in
Eastern thought. Or at least, I think it's Eastern thought; I
might just be reading New Age crap for all I know.
Okay, so that was sort of disjointed on purpose (I think). At
least, I was observing myself make a fool of myself. (At this
point, if you think I'm crazy, etc., you're probably more right
than you know, and may stop reading. But if somehow you're still
interested, continue on. But be warned, I'm going to get real
steeped in Eastern religious jargon (once again, I don't really
know if it's Eastern religious jargon, blah blah blah) so it
might get confusing for all you normal people. Oh, and being
normal is a good thing, in case you're wondering). So, the
Witness was definitely there going, "Yeah, he's making a
fool of himself on purpose. I see it, I'm aware of it. But
luckily, I'm not the fool." So that was kind of cool.
Anyway, what I've been thinking about is the conflict between
Form and Emptiness. Now, if I were a mere blue, I'd say it's
simple: death to Form and live in Emptiness. That's sweet. But
even enlightened people eat food. You don't see them going,
"Wow man, I'm so enlightened. I don't need to eat. I'll just
live off of bliss." Obviously then that isn't the thing to
do.
Now to the orange. He (or s/he if you prefer... freakin'
feminists! :) ) says, "Emptiness isn't really there. All
that's there is what I can see / hear / smell / touch / taste
with my sensee. Everything else is balogna." I don't like
this reductionist frame of mind either. It seems, well, rather
reductionist. I mean, the Pythagorean Theorem can't be grasped
with the senses, but we "know" that it's real. Why?
Because we can construct it in our subtle mind. So it has to be
real. Same thing with Emptiness (though I've yet to get there).
This leads to the non-dual idea: that it's not Emptiness OR Form,
but rather both. But that just opens a whole new can of worms. If
it was just one or the other, living life the "right"
and "best" way would be rather easy. Either you go and
live in some secluded mountain somewhere (Emptiness), or you go
and make a big success of yourself (Form). Very, very simple. But
what if it's both? That's where I'm confused.
There's a Zen story about an Ox-herder. It goes through this
whole metaphysical thingamabob about Enlightenment. And do you
know what the end of the story is? It's the Ox-herder entering
the market with "open hands." He goes through all this
training, all this "enlightenment," just to enter the
market again with "open hands." WTF, you might be
thinking. But maybe that's the point. That's the non-dual. To
enter the world with AWARENESS of the Emptiness, but realize you
live in Form. Or to quote a common Western phrase, "To be in
the world, but not of it."
Then there it is. Emptiness is eternal and unchanging. It's cool
like that, doing it's thing. And form is ephemeral and always
changing. It's cool like THAT, doing ITS thing. And I, a crazy
human that is known as Homo sapiens sapiens (which for
any of you that don't know Latin, means a man that can think
about thinking [aka contemplate]) get to live in this non-dual
world. But would you have it any other way?
Doesn't really solve all my problems, but I'm just a seventeen
year old American kid. You can't expect me to be fully
enlightened, can you?
And this could end here, but I'm going to add a footnote.
I'm a perfectionist. Anyone that knows me knows this. And I'm a
lazy, apathetic perfectionist. That has to be the worst kind.
As of late, I've been using the whole "emptiness" idea
as a front for my laziness. I mean, if everything just
"is," then why do anything, right? If everything is as
it should be, why do anything. But once again, even Buddha ate
food. Jesus loved his wine and bread. And Mohammed, well, I don't
know much about him, but I'm sure he ate too. That implies that
you must not just say, "Dude, this shit is bananas,
B-A-N-A-N-A-S." You have to DO stuff.
And I'm also horrible at accepting things.
In short: Get up off your lazy, fake-enlightened, non-accepting
ass, and get some stuff done (that should be done, and accept the
things that you can't change!
And that's all for now. Thank you and goodbye.
(No brain cells were injured in the making of this blog. At
least, none of mine were. Maybe some of yours were. I'm sorry, in
that case. Namaste.)