elation station

The great American playwright David Mamet once said “A happy man has nothing to write.” Well, I’m going to try anyway.

I feel different lately. There is a feeling emerging in my life and it’s new and exciting and happening all at once and I really don’t know what to make of it. It’s like a new dimension is opening up in my life and for the first time I feel embodied and much more whole and capable to truly embracing who I am.

I find a deep well of compassion swelling up for even those people around me that are hurtful, in fact especially those people, and it’s like I am seeing through people, seeing more in them, more granularity in life, both the beauty and the agony of being on this planet in a body, as a human, once again.

I feel for those who don’t have faith in this path. I feel for them because they will never know what it truly means to lay down the weapon they raise against this world. This is the true meaning of ahiṁsa, or non-harm. In order to practice this central precept we must start with ourselves, we must learn to surrender and lay down the weapons we bear in our speech, in our gestures, but most importantly in our mind.

To open onself up to the enormity of what is being proposed on the Buddhist path is to keep bearing in mind that rebirth is real, and we have been, and will continue to be, alive for countless births and deaths, until we choose to lay down the weapon and admit we have been defeating ourselves the whole time, and that we are not clever, and do not know the way. Humility is not blind adherence, it is respect for those who have a depth we do not have, and can see what we do not see, and to follow the way they proclaim. This is faith.

There is a quietude amongst people that open themselves to this possibilty. It has a certain energy to it; a gentle, rolling renunciation, with nothing to prove, but with a warmth and glow to it, like the embers of a hearth. It isn’t loud, and it doesn’t need to prove itself or be seen; there is a subtlety to it that is lost on those who are too myopic to see it, to blunted to feel it, but it is there. These people are moving in a different direction, only seeking to refine this new flow.

When people’s practice is going well, you can tell, because they aren’t talking about it. They aren’t talking, period. They have a grace and a smoothness to the way they hold themselves, there is a harmony and a balance to them, a silent strength. They don’t need to telegraph anything, yet they are actually holding the room by largely not being in it, the space they create is much more powerful.

This is happiness. It’s the path to deeper happiness and contentment as well. It’s an open hand and a kind heart and no need for recognition, or preference, or company. One simply elides into the space of the mind and finds energy and joy there, connected with nothing, not doing it for any reason, not doing it to be a good monk, or to to escape the pain, or to attain samādhi, or crack out of the egg shell and see the world as it actually is.

Weirdly, the less I chase faith, the more it just seems to grow in my heart, and many days I feel like I’m floating through this world, feet barely touching the ground, yet totally embodied. I can see that many around me live their lives a short distance from their bodies, many in their heads, and some disconnected altogether, lost in the flickers of seductive, shimmering opinions. This all seems quite amusing and to be honest, somewhat peurile to me, but I can be with it and be OK most of the time.

This is what is feel like to own one’s life, and to have faith in something other than the shallow grave of one’s own importance. I refuse to play the ochre-coloured prima donna, the lazy grifter, the man-child. I don’t believe for a nanosecond those who boast on this path. These people are so far behind they think they’re coming first.

My knees buckle at the power of the sages and what it implies about this life and what we are here to do, I can’t help but bow, and humble myself. The beauty I behold on this path is indescribable at times, and leaves me speechless, for words often seem a coarse second to the Dhamma as it unfolds. You have guides and forces that carry you forward as signals emerge, and the mystery of your existence feels pointed and purposeful in ways you can hear if you choose to be quiet, and listen.

There are many ways I know this path as real, and this is one of them. It’s in the invisible hand that orients your mind and helps you find your feet, that beckons the citta to pay attention and follow that deeper part of yourself, that fear that will break you open into true awe, and that you know, deep down, is the only way that you can live and truly be free.

I’m not blind to the travesties unfolding on this planet, I just feel more embolded to face them, and inspire others to open themselves up to the magnanimity of this life and the potential that we all hold if we are smart and gracious enough to learn and follow the path, giving our whole life to this thing and walking it to the end, no matter what. There is no other reason to be alive on this planet as a human.

I feel elated.

• Peace.