field report

Seems like I should have something to say by now, don't you think?

There's a temptation, when you come to the proverbial "end of seeking" to talk about how great it is, here at the end of the road. But that's all nonsense. It's great everywhere, is the thing.

The whole "end of seeking" business is really about the end of a certain type of confusion. It's a type of confusion that removes value-fulfillment from one's experience by seemingly separating it from you either in space or in time.

That was a mouthful. I'm trying to talk around it, rather than approach it headlong, because the headlong approach is so simple as to sound almost idiotic, but I may have to resort to that.

The power is yours. There is nothing you cannot experience if you wish to experience it. But in order to experience it, you have to feel as though you are already immersed in the experience. However you figure out to do this, is fine.

So for example, what if this, just this, were enlightenment? Just this plain old moment in your sweatpants and with your coffee cup. Isn't it a beautiful moment, a miraculous moment? Did you catch just a nano-particle of that before you started thinking again?

What I have found is that the plain old moment and the power within it is a magnificent game. I am loving the playing of it. I have lost interest in awakening or enlightenment. I have no idea what those things are supposed to be, because this is pretty damned fine.

Have you ever noticed that when you begin some kind of chore—say, digging your way to China (or America for my Chinese readers) with a teaspoon—in the beginning you are totally focused on the goal and its impossibility and the dreadful predicament you seem to be in? Wretched inadequate spoon, awful weather, terrible accommodations, and all that.

But then, somewhere around middle-earth, you start to get into it. You forget to compare this new digging-life with any other experience or imagining, and you just completely abandon yourself to the spoon, the dirt, the wet, the heat, the cold, the "is-ness" of it all. And you feel full of power. You don't care if you ever get to the other side. You are loving the digging. Digging the love. And the whole thing is just fine.

See? I told you it sounds idiotic. Anyway. Questions? Because seriously, folks, I am just about out of words!

Comments

[Leslie]

♥♥♥ Dearest Marian...thank you.
XOXO
-Leslie

[John Quelch]

I hope you don't run out of words for awhile because you are my teacher and have taught me more about what the whole damn thing is about than anyone ever before. Thought about doing, "Enlightenment for Dummies?"

I am one of your Chinese readers now and have hung out for this post for sometime. Living in another startlingly different culture does really help you focus on the nowness of everything. I am really liking digging my teaspoon into the Chinese soil but not quite sure whether I would like to come out in the US. It's just fine here.

Much love my teacher and muse away, it is balm for my soul.

Red Dragon

[marian]

Greetings, Red Dragon. Good to hear from you. Lately I feel kind of like an old pump standing in a farmhouse yard. You know the kind where you have to pump the handle to get water? I'm situated on a well, but unless somebody needs water, nothing happens! So it's nice to even hear someone ask me to continue writing.... that gives me ideas. Otherwise the ideas don't really flow, because I'm immersed in being an unpumped pump, which is also a very satisfying state.

Glad to hear you are enjoying China. Much love to you, too.

[Sarah]

OMG. Please do NOT stop writing! you give such amazing perspective for those of us lost in our own mind!

[marian]

Hey woodscookie... that's all I need to hear. thank you!

[Aileen]

Great post, Marian. I love the idea of enjoying the digging for its own sake! Without the story that there is a purpose, any action in and of itself is blissfully satisfying. XOXO