Silent Musings

Where do I start? Well, as my friend Walt is fond of saying, “Start at the beginning, proceed to the end, and then stop.” Fair enough. Unfortunately, this story has no beginning, nor any end for that matter. But nonetheless, there is a certain beauty to its timeliness that cannot be denied, no matter when it occurs. Perhaps I should just start from the middle.

Much of the time, I ride the train to work, the L.A. Metro Rail Gold Line to be exact. And as you might imagine, or perhaps have seen firsthand, the insides of those light rail trains are not designed to be particularly attractive from an aesthetic viewpoint. Lately however, I have found the nondescript floors of the train to be more than satisfying to the eye, in fact, to the entirety of Being. As I stare at the Blackberry/iPhone/iPod carrying crowd deeply engaged with their fantasy worlds, I choose the floor, the walls, the windows … the whole train as my venue. As I take it all in, I find myself laughing silently, the kind of laugh that also wants to cry, the kind of laugh where the floor laughs back at me. I am on a train after all. Might as well be where I am.

Some years ago I experienced a series of awakenings, which spurred me to explore the world of self realization with a fervor rarely expressed in search of Truth. Back then it seemed every spare minute I could find was dedicated to the pursuit of that something that I couldn’t quite identify, and in my foolishness I was certain that I would know it when I found it. Meditation practice occupied several hours a day as a regular habit. After some years, my passion softened somewhat, and single-mindedness naturally expanded into a more whole-life encompassing view. With a delicate subtlety, love, compassion, and beauty turned the game around, and gradually I became aware of their seeking me. Day by day, almost imperceptibly, I surrendered to their pursuit. And as I shared a laugh with the floor of the train one morning last week, I realized that I had given up completely.

The world of spiritual cultivation is filled with overt and covert promises of becoming supernatural. And in our fantasies, we envision ourselves expanding beyond the perceived boundaries of the Cosmos, being One with All of It. Even if we’ve experienced such expansions in meditative absorption, it’s not enough, we must find them again. We’ve even invented a whole vocabulary to describe these images - samadhi, kundalini awakening, opening the third eye, … blah, blah, blah. I’ve got a secret for you - it’s all a big Fantasy. Sorry, but we spiritual seekers are not any different than our fellow rail commuters, desperately clinging to their gadgets so that they don’t have to deal directly with the fact that they are on a train.

Surrender means giving up the pursuit and accepting, done to the bone, that you’ll never get anything from meditation or any other spiritual practice, other than being right here exactly where you already are. Mundane, of the world, form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. If you actually give up, and aren’t just fantasizing about surrender, you may find a profound beauty in the simplicity of the floor beneath your feet. And perhaps you will find yourself laughing/crying, as the floor laughs back at you for the foolishness of all those years of seeking.

It is important to see that the main point of any spiritual practice is to step out of the bureaucracy of ego. This means stepping out of ego’s constant desire for a higher, more spiritual, more transcendental version of knowledge, religion, virtue, judgment, comfort, or whatever it is that the particular ego is seeking. One must step out of spiritual materialism. If we do not step out of spiritual materialism, if we in fact practice it, then we may eventually find ourselves possessed of a huge collection of spiritual paths. We may feel these spiritual collections to be very precious. We have studied so much. We may have studied Western philosophy or Oriental philosophy, practiced yoga, or perhaps have studied under dozens of great masters. We have achieved and we have learned. We believe that we have accumulated a hoard of knowledge. And yet, having gone through all this, there is still something to give up. It is extremely mysterious! How could this happen? Impossible! But unfortunately it is so. Our vast collections of knowledge and experience are just part of ego’s display, part of the grandiose quality of ego. We display them to the world and, in doing so, reassure ourselves that we exist, safe and secure, as “spiritual” people. -Chögyam Trungpa, from Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism