Sometimes the more cynical side of me appears without warning, as it did yesterday. I listened to a minister, as they are wont to do, wax eloquent about the great "mystery" of the spirit. This is a mystery I have been pondering in spades for a good deal of the last 15 years, and more secretively for most of my life. What exactly the mystery is, is, well, kind of a mystery. This is perhaps because for everyone, the true nature of our inner life and spiritual path is unique and can really only be an expression of our own sensibilities. And this is true whether we believe in God, or not, whether we believe ourselves to be spiritual or not, and regardless of how authoritative or important we might be. And thus neither I, nor Agatha Christie, nor Ken Wilbur, nor Eckhart Tolle have come anywhere near actually solving the mystery--lots of writing and posturing and postulating, for sure, but no real solutions.
So, gleefully realizing the futility suggested above, my cynicism jumps into the fray and asks "what mystery?" This is, in fact, a very spiritual perspective, at least for a Buddhist. Buddhism presumes that in life we are dealt both joy and suffering and if we are consistently mindful of accepting this immutable truth, we can find a measure of peace. So what's the big mystery? What is, is.
Of course when our ego is involved we create judgments: If life is good we are doing something right; if life is bad, something bad is being done to us, and the mystery is how to make it stop. So we search for something we don't think we have to mitigate our discomfort. But if we eliminate the judgments, then life becomes what it is-whatever it is. Or to put it somewhat more bluntly: life is what we are given--deal with it.
Now this is not to say that we don't, by the choices we make, create some unhappiness for ourselves, or to imply that we have no control over changing some things that cause us discomfort. But perhaps the mystery arises in why we think that we will figure out a way to rid ourselves of all discomfort for all time, if only we can figure out the "right path."
But in the end, I have to wonder why it is so hard for us to accept that in spite of whatever is happening in our lives, we are okay; because life is what it is, and there is no better place to be. There's not much mystery in that.
So perhaps the biggest mystery is why we find it so hard to accept that there is no real mystery.
So, gleefully realizing the futility suggested above, my cynicism jumps into the fray and asks "what mystery?" This is, in fact, a very spiritual perspective, at least for a Buddhist. Buddhism presumes that in life we are dealt both joy and suffering and if we are consistently mindful of accepting this immutable truth, we can find a measure of peace. So what's the big mystery? What is, is.
Of course when our ego is involved we create judgments: If life is good we are doing something right; if life is bad, something bad is being done to us, and the mystery is how to make it stop. So we search for something we don't think we have to mitigate our discomfort. But if we eliminate the judgments, then life becomes what it is-whatever it is. Or to put it somewhat more bluntly: life is what we are given--deal with it.
Now this is not to say that we don't, by the choices we make, create some unhappiness for ourselves, or to imply that we have no control over changing some things that cause us discomfort. But perhaps the mystery arises in why we think that we will figure out a way to rid ourselves of all discomfort for all time, if only we can figure out the "right path."
But in the end, I have to wonder why it is so hard for us to accept that in spite of whatever is happening in our lives, we are okay; because life is what it is, and there is no better place to be. There's not much mystery in that.
So perhaps the biggest mystery is why we find it so hard to accept that there is no real mystery.
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