I had a lovely conversation with a very beautiful, earnest,
sincere, and kind young woman, last night. She is in the midst of attempting to discover her “purpose”
and has done as much as she can to discover that most illusive of goals,
without the success she so yearns for.
For a long time she attended a local school, a massage
therapy/spiritually conscious college which flamed the fire but… apparently,
did not help her find the answers she was looking for.
Our conversation reminded me so strongly of the years I
spent in pursuit of the trinity of illusions, the “more/better/different” axis
of suffering, that I was deeply touched by her plight of so similar a quest.
The collective egoic drive to follow one’s “dreams” and live
the life of imagination is so very strong, that only the truly committed awaken
from such deep and damning illusions.
My Beloved Teacher had a very simple, yet deeply effective
lesson regarding this phenomena of man…that of living in the illusion of his
imagination, rather than the wakefulness of the reality of “What Is”.
Never one to lecture us he always sought to demonstrate his
point, or in some way to provide an experience. This particular one was so deceptively simple, so radically straightforward
I only recently understood its depths.
He had hung a large rope with a fairly substantial hook on
it, from the ceiling and when we, his students, arrived and arranged ourselves
in our chairs. He began to speak
to us about buckets, ropes, hooks, and their shadow equivalents. First he hung the bucket on the hook
and spoke to us of effective and potent action and results. A “real” bucket, hung from a “real”
hook produces real results. He
then broadcast a very bright light on the hanging rope and hook, which formed a
clearly distinct shadow on the wall behind the rope. Next he attempted to hang the “real” bucket on the “shadow”
hook…and of course, it fell to the
floor and rolled away.
This demonstration was the center of his lesson that
evening. I left that night, having
almost entirely dismissed the contents of that lesson. It is only recently, when I have become
more and more willing to give up the illusions of hope and dreams, and the
trinity of more/better/different living that it has come back to me…ready now,
for me to unpack its depths.
He was attempting to bring the awareness of living free of
the illusory mind to its most simple and basic structure. You simply cannot hang a three-dimensional
bucket on a “shadow” hook, nor can you live an effective and potent spiritual life,
while pursuing a someday-it-will-come-to-pass-dream.
Can you set a goal, take effective action steps to achieve
that goal, and arrive at a destination that appears to, in some way, match your
envisioned expectations? Yes, you most assuredly can… that is after all, how buckets, and ropes, and hooks, are
created.
But that is not how “dreams” are sold to us by our
culture. They are uniformly sold
as the means by which we will achieve happiness, emotional stability, peace,
and even bliss – (if you are talking about spiritual goals). And this is how we come to spend our
days attempting to hang a “real” bucket from a “shadow” hook.
If we are very, very lucky, or graced, or anointed, or who
knows how it comes to pass, we will stumble into a true teacher, a beloved
one. And he, from his vast still
depths, will speak to the truth that we somehow know, but have also forgotten…
The pursuits of our egoic and conditioned mind, the trinity
of more/better/different, is an illusion of the deepest order. The Life you are yearning for is found
only in the here and now, or not at all.
No amount of pursuit, no matter how the pursuit dresses itself up, can
relieve the anguish that is the conditioned and separated mind.
What are you looking for, or hoping to acquire? Wealth, fame, love, appreciation, your
purpose, to be of service to others and thereby gain – love, appreciation,
applause... all of these, and every other pursuit born of conditioning, is a waste
of your very precious life.
If any one of these is tied to the expectation that you will receive a
reward of peace, or harmony, or bliss, or joy, or even simple satisfaction,
then you are trying to place a "real" bucket on a shadow hook, and only heartbreak and
dissatisfaction will follow.
But this too, has its place…
For it is only after you have been thoroughly disabused of
your belief in a better tomorrow, that you can even hope to begin to understand
the notion of living in the reality of the “What Is” truth.
I could not unpack my Beloved Teacher’s lesson, of the real
bucket and the shadow hook, those many years ago, because I was entirely
unwilling to give up the pursuit of a more/better/different tomorrow.
But now, a new day is dawning in my life. I no longer believe in dreams of any
sort, I no longer pursue the more/better/different trinity. I live within the confines of the
current moment, no matter what it holds.
And I discover, a very frequent and quite unusual form of
gratitude. It is quite pleasurable,
opens under and around the smallest of events, supplies me with a kind and open
experience in my heart, and is currently mixed with a soft kind of sorrow. I cannot, currently, parse out the
sorrow. I do not know why the
gratitude is so poignant…but it is tender and moving. In part, I am sure, it is because the smallest things
trigger it…and I do mean small.
The warmth that returns to my hands, after I have washed them in the
cold water that flows from the winter affected pipes in my sink. The taste of a simple potato baked and
sprinkled with salt. The canyon
deep brown of my red-haired dogs eyes, as he gazes up at me, waiting patiently,
to see if I will pull on his soft ears just one more time.
Everywhere I look, and in plain sight, are moments of this
sort to be grateful for…and I am as a blind one, finally able to see. I suppose the sorrow is nestled just
there, in that I could have had these moments all the days of my life, had I
not been so blinded by my cultures belief, that the someday future of
fulfilled dreams, was my ticket to happiness.
I have finally matured to the place that I ask only for what
is given me. So far, this state of
mind is not constant, or even consistent.
The conditioning of my past is still, yet, too strong. But finally, I understand the lesson of
the shadow hook and the real bucket.
I share it with you, in the hope that you will give up the
pursuits of more/better/different.
That “someday” will stop being the focus of your days, and you will no
longer yearn for a “purpose”.
Your purpose?
It is the very same one shared by every sentient being on the planet, to
become truly conscious of the extraordinary miracle of Awareness. Only Awareness is permanent, it has
been with you since prior to your birth, and will still be present, long after
your death. Because it is the one
changeless constant it can, therefore, be the only truth.
Its presence in your life cannot be argued with, and finding
your attention resting on Awareness is the only solution to suffering that
exists.
If you turn toward that depth, you will, I promise…have a
real bucket secured to a real rope, that can hold all the days of your life in
sweet and sincere surrender, and peace will surely be your path.
Adayre R. Miller
1/14/13
photo courtesy of Jaume Soriano Sivera, and flickr photo
sharing, you may see more of this artist’s work by following this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alfanhui/2377450510/
