What Are We So Afraid Of?
This morning, I got a whiff of what’s behind my problem with ‘what is’.
I went hunting for a good image at adobestock to illustrate an article I’m writing about meditation. In the search field, I typed “meditation,” then “zen,” then “consciousness”; and each time I was met with perfection. Every grain of sand in place. Little bonsai trees. A still pond, no ripples.
And then clarity struck. These images show me where I’m not. They pulsate from a million miles away, beckoning. I look at them, and I want…that. They give me something to shoot for, and I feel the aspirational pull toward peace, toward oneness, toward awakening. That’s the problem.
The problem is that very pull. The goal. The reaching. As though awakening weren’t already here. As though I didn’t already have it all, right here in my Subaru, stuck behind someone trying to turn left in heavy traffic at an intersection with no light.
The pull posits a “spiritual” state of being in that Subaru. A superhuman calm. A divine love emanating golden light. That’s not awakening. That’s posturing. That’s pretending.
True awakening is me feeling my weight on the driver’s seat, my hands on the steering wheel, its texture, its temperature. It’s me…
