Striking Ordinariness: Redux

There is a line in the central text of my Fellowship which reads: "Deep down in every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God... in the last analysis, it is only there that He may be found."

I've found that, as a part of my spiritual path, that has been perhaps the single most difficult notion to remember - 'God' is within, an inner experience, not without, an outer, objective experience.

My tendency in spite of abundant experiential and indirect knowledge to the contrary, is always to assume He's 'out there', that if you found the right apparatus or the right methodology you could see Him in a physical sense. And this of course leads to all sorts of problems, all the problems (in fact) that come from anthropomorphism: what does God look like? Is He really a he or a she or an it (which sounds too impersonal) or does God appear to each individual as he or she wish to see God? What does Heaven, or Paradise, actually look like, or Hell for that matter? What is the metaphysic of the soul, and how does it relate to the body, etc etc.

Such questions can be interesting in that how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-end-of-a-pin way, but the reification of spiritual concepts and realities becomes problematic when one starts to take such things too seriously. One runs the danger of 'eating the menu', as it were, treating Heaven and Hell as actual physical localities rather than concepts, notions, or states of mind.

Thankfully I tend not to make that mistake with these things; but sitting in Meeting this morning, I realized that I've been making a rather continuous mistake in the way I think about spirituality and the spiritual life, period.

I sat in Meeting for Worship, trying to find that 'light within', holding this mental construct of a layer of thoughts and thinking on top, a layer of subtler, quieter thoughts underneath, a layer of moods and emotions below that, and my 'self', trying to sink lower and lower and see this light...

... and while I was thinking about all this, for some reason the following phrase from a Qur'anic ayat floated into consciousness and got stuck on a loop:

Qaf (50):16

وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ وَنَعْلَمُ مَا تُوَسْوِسُ بِهِ نَفْسُهُ وَ نَحْنُ أَقْرَبُ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ الْوَرِيدِ

Wa laqad khalaqna al insana wa na-'alamu ma tuwaswisu bihi nafsuhu wa nahnu 'aqrabu ilayhi min habli alwareedi

And verily We created humanity, and We know what whispers in [humanity]'s essence, [for] We are closer to [him] that [his] jugular vein. (My own translation/interpretation)

... and that's when it dawned on me that I once again was turning spirituality and the spiritual experience into something other, something other-worldly, rather than something very simple and direct and here-and-now. I was separating out the experience of God from the experience of day-to-day life, treating it as something special and different, reifying that experience, setting it on a pedestal in a fiberglass case and setting an alarm to go off if anyone tampered with the case, and then standing back and looking at it and thinking "Man, I wish I could get inside that case and touch that thing again."

Which is when I began to smile, and realize that the alarm, the case, the pedestal and the thing didn't exist: I had just thought them all up. What I was looking for was right underneath my nose.

Out of that grew a deep appreciation for my immediate experience, what was happening to me in that moment. I opened my eyes and stared at the whorls in the wood of the bench in front of me, and felt real gratitude for it. Then I began to think about my life, this life, all the experiences that I've had and everything that I've learned and done and felt and seen, and I felt love for that. I saw it as a gift, or more precisely, an offering to Allah, something for which - because He is me and I am Him - He also felt love and gratitude. Life, my life, was not a gift from Him to me, as I had previously thought; instead life, my life, was my gift to Him, the eternal Watcher.

So I was able to feel God's love for me, and my life; which is something I have been missing, something I seem to omit from my day-to-day experience usually. Intellectually I enjoy and love my life, but for quite a while now it's been a hollow statement, just something you say because you're supposed to say it.

And this brought back memories of one of my more primary and wonderful 'root' spiritual experiences, which happened during and after I had suffered a major illness. I was in the hospital for it, and in the recovery process, and I felt so alive, so full of real joy, as if I were truly blessed. During that time, which lasted about six weeks, I woke up in the morning with thankfulness and fell asleep with gratitude. Being kind and compassionate, forgiving the few faults I saw and utterly overlooking the rest, connecting to other people in a very simple and basic way... telling the truth, letting wants and desires and needs and cravings slip by, intuitively handling conflicts within myself and without... it was a grand ol' time. It was only after discharge, when I returned to 'normal life', that I for the first time began to notice what I did not have, latched onto that thought, and sank into one of the deepest pits of depression I have ever faced (and, being a severely depressed person normally, I want to stress how much of a doozy this one was).

I think, now, that was the character of that experience, a certain sense of knowing that living my life, and the way in which I lived my life, was a gift, a present, an offering to Allah. This precious, tenuous thing called an 'existence' was both something given to me and something which I could give without ever giving-away. Or, to paraphrase Terry Pratchett in one of my favorite books, Small Gods: to die for a cause is easy. To live every day of your life for one, that's the real challenge.

Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. What is enlightenment? Chopping wood and carrying water.

Acceptance

I have one student in my lineage, who consistently fails. I've tried again, and again, with every skill I have, with every bit of knowledge that I have, with every shred of kindness I have, to help him along the Path; but he never seems to make it. When all is said and done, I can only do so much; I cannot walk the Path for him.

It has gotten to a point now where I don't even want to help him. Facing him - no, facing my inadequacy, my inability to find an answer - disturbs me. Here I am, one who has tread the Path before him, the teacher, the one who is supposed to have answers for him, and I have none left. Nor, if I did, would I want to give them to him, because I feel that if I gave them to him, he would use them and fail, and I wouldn't have anything any more.

But I cannot give up. That Imam Hussayn (sa) taught me, by his martyrdom. I am not allowed, by creed or conscience, to stop trying.

I'm worn out, though. I want the problems to go away. I want to stop looking at people and seeing this problem or that issue; I don't want to think in solutions or answers. I've created the situation myself. I stopped looking at people, I started looking at their problems, and so now, to me, the whole world is a mess of problems.

And I've cracked. I think. Something inside of me has given up. Something inside has begun to accept that it's a fucking mess without a solution and so fuck it.

There's liberation in that, of a sort. Because there aren't any answers, and nothing is ever going to get better, I feel free to be happy with things here, things now. And maybe I can start speaking with people again. Maybe I can let their problems be, not get involved, just live my own fucking life without having to be the answer-man.

Which means: I'm not a good person. I'm not a wise person. And that's OK. You know what? I accept that. I'm a liar and a cheat and a thief. I'm selfish and not very nice. I don't care any more. Because God made me this way, and obviously He did so for some reason, and more importantly, I like who I am. Because I know that in spite of all that stuff, I'm honest and good and generous and loving.

I'm tired of thinking. Today, I went throughout my day just doing each little task. I tried not to think about anything beyond the task. Got up. Got dressed. Made my bed. Checked email. Ate lunch. Went to work. Did each task at work. Came home. Just little bits, one by one, checked them off in my mind, doing each as each arose and checking it off, not thinking about the next one on the list, not thinking about the last one.

And I found the tiniest, the smallest bit of peace. And then I realized that I had a practice to, well, practice. Do each little thing. Don't think about it. Just do it. Very zen, 'n' all, just like doing dishes or folding laundry. Chop wood, carry water.

Practice, practice, practice.

Striking Ordinariness

There was a moment, tonight, when I was sitting with my friend in our Fellowship, and he kicked his cup of coffee by accident. It spilled over the floor, and very quickly I got up, went to the kitchen, got some towels, came back, and cleaned it up while our meeting continued.

There was something about that activity, though, that was so... so precious.

Maybe this sounds crazy, but it was perfect. Beautiful. There was no thought involved. I wasn't angry with him because he had spilled his coffee, and I wasn't trying to 'prove' myself with service by cleaning up after him. I just enjoyed the act of cleaning up the coffee, wiping until it had been sopped up by the towels and then disposing of them properly.

I wish all things, everything, could be like that.

I think of the Zen saying "chop wood, carry water"... and how wonderful just the simple acts in life are. I remember, a while back, when I discovered how wonderful it was to do the dishes, to feel the warm and hot and soapy water, to learn how to apply just the right amount of pressure to scrape the pan without hurting it, smelling the water and the soap scents, feeling the little aches in my feet and back... folding laundry while it's still warm... bathing a dog.

So much of life now, it seems, is lived in the head. We spend time thinking. We spend time talking. Less and less do we go about simple daily tasks with simple daily rewards to them, like making the bed, taking out the garbage. We don't do these things any more, really.

The more I think about it, though, it's precisely in those things that the joy lies. It always has been that way; I just never looked for it.

So here's my dream: to have a job I leave at work. No working my job at home.

To have a garden to tend, dirt for my fingers to dig in.

A kitchen where food is prepared, cooked, recycled.

To make beds, clean dishes, fold warm laundry. Listen to the radio.

Clean up coffee spills.

Think less about complicated things. Center my mind on the simpler bits of living, like food.

I'm tired of high-falutin'.

I want to sweep.

The Art of Being Humiliated

Lately, I've had simplicity on the mind; how I wish my life were simpler, how I wish that my schedule were steadier, more stable, how I wish I could plan this, or that, or th'other, and know with something approaching a sense of certainty that X, Y, or Z were likely to transpire. I wish it all made more sense, I wish it fit together; I wish I had a job, and a garden, and my avocation were a simpler bit of work as well, steady and certain too.

And then, last night, I heard someone speaking about how she had been hoping and wishing to learn something new, something more, and how she was coming to realize that there really wasn't anything new, or more, to learn. That she had been taught all the secrets long ago, and the key was now to practice them. At least, that's what I think I heard: I could be wrong. We were in a basement, and the heating system was rumbling with life, and I couldn't really hear everything she said with perfect clarity.

But it became apparent to me, in some way, that although I've been seeking simplicity as something out there, something external to myself, what was really needed was simplicity in here, in my head and my heart. I've been collecting all these books, these methods, these spiritual practices, just accumulating them one after the other, hoping that the next one is going to unlock some mystical secret that I can't seem to pin down, and - Bam! - I will have a gnostic glimpse of the Good and all will be well.

Only, I don't think it works that way.

I feel resigned, as it were, to the thought that I will never be very good. I will never be very wise, or charismatic, courageous or compassionate, no matter how much I want these things. I will never achieve Single-Pointed Concentration or All-Embracing Awareness, or anything else with capital letters you can hear spoken.

I will never be famous; nor will I be a part of something greater than myself, some Greater Good, let alone an integral part of it.

I shall always be, more or less, a poor, ordinary shlub; a breathless spectator of giants, wishing dearly that I might one day be one of them.

But rather than feeling at all good about this, humbled and realistic, I just feel... depressed. I feel as if I struggle for a breath of hope. I wonder what difference I can truly make, what the point is, as it were. I feel humiliated, not humbled.

I know this is a good thing, but... right now, all I feel is emptied of childhood dreams.