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What then would be enough? What are we complex moderns really after spiritually? An answer came to me at a rock and roll
birthday party of a friend. It was a hoot, a riot of laughing, singing along and foot stompin’. During a set break I sat next to a well-known local Zen teacher. I’d heard quite a lot about her and she seemed lovely sitting there, all primly folded hands, erect head and pressed white gown. So I sat down next to her. I asked about her kids. I asked about her Zendo. I asked with a smile how on earth she kept her robes so clean? She responded, quite correct, earnest,
slow voiced and monosyllabic. You know: the distant and impenetrable sage act. It was like chatting with a wall! I never
“ ”
Enlightenment isn’t what any of us on the spiritual path who live post modern, post-Freudian, post true-believer, sexually active, mortgaged lives actually are after.
her as a person, much less as a woman. God save us from some such a bloodless ‘universal joy!’ This just can’t be right! What healthy spirituality should
learned where she was born, what she liked, whether she was divorced. Not once did she really smile! After a little while, I gave up. A Zen
student soon wandered over and sat on the floor, literally at her feet. Suddenly she was all low register and stately Zen sage voice. She actually seemed relieved that she could now play guru. She was, I suspect, swimming in the
‘universal self’ that the Upanishads describes. She is, I hear, a wonderful teacher. But honestly, I found her frozen nearly solid, with nary a shred of personality or vulnerability or doubts or playfulness. There was no way to contact
facilitate isn’t this, I found myself thinking. It’s full-bodied freedom. The freedom we feel in the ‘universal self’ is, or should be, lived in every corner of our everyday lives. What we’re after today must include spreading our arms to it all, to the whole cornucopia of human feelings, doings and ways of acting. Freedom does not mean having only a
free inner self. It means whole, complete and full-bodied freedom. What I think we’re after in our complex lives is all of it, a complete life. We’re after being able to use our heads, our intellects, as well as our hearts. It means being able to love and have wonderful sex, and equally able to dance with abandon at a rock and roll party. What we’re after is to be utterly non-
resistant to joy and pain and love and loss and boredom and knowing and not- knowing: wide open to the whole paradox that is the life of a human being.
What makes a life spiritual is its range, not just its inner workings, and not just its shift in structure. Certainly the serious ‘sage act’ doesn’t make it spiritual. Life is alive. The more alive you are in the more ways, the more flexibility you live – and vice versa. The truly spiritual can flow any- emotional-where, without any hesitation whatsoever. Rock and Roll parties are times for foot stompin’, not slow talking; flirting, not sharing dark secrets. And if you’re free in all things you can enjoy their outrageous excitement just as much as you can delivering a good ‘dharma talk’. Real spiritual freedom can go deep
and serious and funny and raucous and thoughtful and can plan with a spreadsheet, happily, each when the time is right. The free can play alone, play with another and play in a work group without holding back. Real spiritual freedom lives wide open
in the juicy paradox that is being a multi- hued human being. Lord let me dance to that old rock and roll music and sit comfortably on
KINESIOLOGY OPEN DAY Stress Release and Hormonesse a
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the meditation cushion and weep with melancholy when I lose a loved one and think creatively with my buddies and love the gentle curve of a woman’s back, each at the right moment. And all on the settled groundwork of the Vast Infinite. Such full bodied freedom includes the
tears that well up with unabashed love, the easy smile that comes from a fully resolved conflict, the silence that can only be known by being it, and laughter, real belly laughter at the Rabbi, the Priest and the Minister who walk into a bar. And in the midst of it all, grounded in the sacred, it is as non-resistant as the wind. What I am envisioning is
‘enlightenment plus’ if you will. It means we’re effortlessly appropriate under any circumstance—on the settled ground of spiritual awareness. Now that’s a spiritual telos worth
pursuing!
Robert K.C. Forman, Ph.D. is the author of Enlightenment ain’t what it’s cracked up to be – a journey of discovery, snow and jazz in the soul, to be published by O Books in
late October, and this article is based on the book. He is Executive Director, The Forge Institute; Founding Executive Editor, Journal of Consciousness Studies; Associate Professor of Religion, CUNY (ret); Honorary Doctor, Lund Universeity (Sweden) and lives in New York State.
SYDNEY BRISBANE 16 NOV
30 NOV
93682i143
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Everyone is welcome!!
Refreshments
and light snacks provided.
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