February 7, 2019

We Are So Stupid, But I Like It, Like It, Yes I Do

I saw my sister a few days ago. She has been living in London for a few years and recently started to teach some kind of spiritual courses. I really don't know what exactly the courses are about but it is something about healing minds. She definitely looked healthy both physically and mentally. She was busy preparing a course in Prague and seemed really satisfied and balanced.

Anyway, we talked about sex for a while, as we usually do, and she mentioned chakras and tantra. And she told me how in the past she had a very primitive understanding of sex whereas now the kind of sex she is able to experience is a different league altogether. She told me that for an advanced spiritual practitioner it is possible to experience a kind of sex in which you connect with the whole universe and it is so powerful that you feel that you could explode in any moment. And she mentioned enlightenment. I told her that Buddhist understanding of enlightenment is a little bit different from that.  

I thought about what my sister had said and came to the conclusion that we Buddhists must be somehow hopelessly stupid compared to tantric masters and people who fly around the universe fuelled by the mere power of their minds. We simpletonic Buddhists sometimes imagine having sex with an attractive person. We sometimes have an ordinary orgasm without having even traveled from the bedroom to the kitchen, let alone a different galaxy.  We seem to be complete amateurs and nobody should listen to our would-be spiritual talking.

I told my sister that when I meditate, which is practicing zazen, to be precise, something Buddha Gautama did more than two thousand years ago, I do not travel to the other side of the universe, but I do let go of my body and mind, which happens by itself, and once body and mind is off, I cannot even say what is going on or where I am as there is no self or no-self that would be or not be anywhere. Basically, when we practice zazen, we become as stupid as a branch lying on the ground in the woods. So we cannot really say what is what and who is who in the state of such stupidity. What is interesting, though, is that this state of stupidity is not something rigid, fixed or stuck. So it is not being stupid in terms of not being to able to answer simple questions or not being able to open our mouth and have a spoon of mashed potatoes. We are spiritually stupid, but not mentally stupid.

Of course, Buddha Gautama seems like one of the most spiritually advanced people  in the history of mankind.  But if you study and practice his teaching honestly, thoroughly and regularly, with a reliable teacher, you sooner or later come to a discovery of something that could be called "a different spirituality". He was called Buddha, awakened, as he woke up to something hitherto unknown to his fellow spiritual practitioners, although they may have experienced the most amazing cosmic things you can dream of. But he discovered something totally different. He discovered the essential quality of things and beings, which has very little to do with mental powers or traveling throughout the universe or having  super advanced sex. He just discovered the untainted quality of what is here and now, even if it is something as plain as a white wall, nevertheless whose here and now quality must not be touched by our mental powers, or spiritual powers, or intellectual powers, must not be touched by magic, tricks, spells, knowledge, wisdom, or dreams, must stay intact and this intact quality must be met directly and without a moment of hesitation. As we cannot really define this quality or state, for it has to be free from language and thought, we may call it, very inaccurately, stupidity. Or simplicity. Or not knowing. Or just acting. Or just sit.  Or The sun has risen. Or Get out of here! Or Sorry, I just have to go to the toilet now.