What was the Buddha's contribution to humanity?
That we live, as it were, behind a glass darkly,
hidden from our real lives,
in a slumbering existence,
disconnected from the Present,
and that from that,
ta da
we can Wake Up.
What was Jesus' contribution?
Well, that gets messy:
it could be the lesson that beautiful words
can lead to ugly Inquisitions,
or it could be the idea
that this is possible:
Love your neighbor,
Love your enemy,
Let go of all your possessions,
come into the Kingdom of Heaven,
which is within us right now.
Okay,
that's sort of spiritual stuff, isn't it?
Why am I setting up Moshe,
a great skeptic in these matters
in such a way?
Because
one: various places it has been said that he mentioned
in an unpublished Playboy interview (wouldn't he have been
great there?) that Gurdjieff was his foremost influence.
And what was Gurdjieff about?
We are asleep,
wandering along with no real center
at the mercy of every tide that sways
first one personality one way
and then some other personality the other.
solution: remember ourselves and wake up
and Gurdjieff also said,
to the staid St Petersburg crowd to whom
he taught in the early part of the 20th Century:
what we are after
is to be real Christians,
by which I'd say he meant,
really able to love
And what's that go to do with rolling around on the floor?
And being touched very gently and with great intelligence
and listening?
Or touching others with gentle intelligent listening?
Lots.
Say you clarify rolling your head to the right,
and lifting it just slightly.
And you stand your feet,
and clarify tipping your knees to the right, so that
your right knee falls almost to the floor,
or to the floor.
And say you get this idea of the , of your, left arm coming across you
to the right,
as you lift your left shoulder and bring it forward and down
and you begin to do
legs to the right
and left arm to the right
and head to the right and toward your right knee as if to
kiss it
and your right elbow kicks in as something like a hand,
and you
go slowly
and roll your head so it is near and then above your
right knee
and
you are something like sitting
and then you are sitting
You have changed.
You were a lying down person.
Now you are a sitting up person.
You know and love and like
and understand your arms better,
your head better
your knees and legs and pelvis better
and they
with your awareness and knowing
all come together
and you are sitting from lying down.
That's change.
That's practical being present.
That's loving yourself in this way of a child:
not,
oh yeah, let's just lie in the sun
and all is groovy,
but let's learn to jump across a pond,
let's learn to climb a tree,
let's learn to fingerpaint with a new color,
it's the love of life
that comes from expanding out into more
of living
And is that like Buddha?
yes. Waking up in perhaps its easiest form,
with aware movement.
And is it like Jesus loving the enemy?
No.
But it does take you away from all thought
of enemy
and help you make friends with all sorts
of parts of your body
and when you body feels sweet and friendly to
you,
is it easier to love anyone
and everyone.
I'd say so.
You say what you want to say.
But if we are all a genius inside
and were that genius when we were children
learning to roll over
and come to sit
and crawl
and walk
and talk
surely recovering that genius
(and didn't Jesus say, become like the little children)
again, is
to my mind
Moshe's gift to humanity:
You are never to old
to re activate
awareness
and the genius of learning that we had
as children
This is our birthright:
to be awake
to be in the joy and thrill and fun
of learning
and waking to now
and loving ourselves more
not as vague "self esteem"
but as happily more potent people
able to do something we couldn't do
an hour ago.
Good.
No comments:
Post a Comment