Suchness II

“The real thing” doesn’t come out of a pop bottle. It’s everywhere and it’s ours for the taking. The Great Tao is manifesting before your very eyes as we speak. You don’t need to watch some cheap digital magic trick on a Harry Potter movie, the most stunning transformations are happening all around us all the time. Water pressure at the Hetch Hetchy reservoir is being converted into electrical current that heats a filament in a vacuum globe above your head that explodes into a shower of photons that reflect off the surfaces of the room into your irises where it stimulates your neural apparatus to create forms and colors that represent a particular place and a particular time. And what’s happening in the sub atomic world or in the neuropeptide cellular universe to knock your socks off? Plenty. Don’t get me started. Believe me, reality TV’s got nothing on reality.

But we’re always missing the real show because we’re always watching bad remakes of the same old movie: Held Over for the 10,000th week in a row at the Cranium Theater… “Me, the movie. The Story of my Endless Quest for Survival, Respect and a Few Good Laughs in a Hostile World”. Like Roger Ebert says, “Save me the aisle seat.” I may have to walk out in the middle of this one.

It’s like Whitman and his poem “When I Heard the learn’d astronomer” The awesome facts and figures about astronomy are all very impressive but for the awake and aware, nothing will replace the experience of simply walking beneath the stars.

The same is certainly true of your little story. And mine. Isn’t it just so full of drama and pathos? And doesn’t it pale in comparison to the glorious culmination of all our stories plus the be-all end-all saga of all time, Being itself, ever-changing, everlasting, wondrous, the quiet witnessing of everything going down before us… forever?

No? You’re not sure? Never thought about it? Nothing like a good Cuban cigar you say? Maybe we need to acquire a taste for subtler kicks before we kick off entirely. We need to learn to savor the subdued delights of the swaying of the leaves on the trees. But no, that couldn’t be soothing or healing or a worthwhile expenditure of our time… to watch the boughs of the trees do their little live action hula dance? What are we? A bunch of stoned-out hippies? Why, it hasn’t been sanctioned. What major company has earmarked a million dollar ad campaign to promote that? Therefore what could it be worth? Where are there any anthems or hymns dedicated to it?

Why do the powers-that-be have to give their seal of approval to something before we can see the beauty in it? Are we that programmed? Are we that exiled from our simple, happy duckling selves bobbing on the waves of wonder.
Buckminster Fuller invented a concept he called ephemeralization. It referred to a healthy trend in technological development in which more and more is produced by less and less until eventually we can produce "everything from nothing". That’s ephemiralization.

We need to practice a kind of ephemeralization of our attitudes. We need to get more and more well being from less and less arbitrary stimuli until we can become supremely happy for no particular reason at all. Until we can draw great satisfaction from one breath of clean fresh air, we’ll be fouling the air all around in our desperate, ill-conceived attempt to smoke or four-wheel or industrially pollute our way to happiness. Ephemiralize the pursuit of happiness. Or make everybody miserable.

Part of this process will be to deprogram yourself from the pursuit of conventional happiness. You know, the big house, two cars, the trophy spouse and a couple of kids along with a prestigious and well-paying job? And, of course, with the conventional pursuit of happiness you’re going to need 100s of 1000s of dollars worth of education, loans, cosmetics, work and school cloths (not to mention years of psychotherapy) to accomplish all this. But at least this particular high maintenance approach to happiness just happens to be great for the GNP… I mean, as long as we’re at it, right? Amazing coincidence. Who came up with this strategy anyway? See that guy in the Armani with the Cartier watch?

There is a Hindu fable about an ancient king who decided that in order to save wear and tear on the feet of all his subjects he would have all the cattle in the kingdom slaughtered so he could pave the roads with leather. Fortunately his advisors convinced him that it would be more efficient and less bloody to simply strap a small piece of leather onto every foot in the kingdom, We need to stop the mass slaughter based on half-baked ideas. We need to fashion some spiritual sandals we can slip on whenever we venture forth on our great journey through life.

Get it? See awesomeness in the eyes of a friend and you won’t need to build the Tower of Babel to construct a sense of deep meaning. Ephemeralize the pursuit of happiness. But you’ve got to get your sensibilities in shape. Discard the training wheels of name brands, shiny motorboats, plastic surgery and single malt scotches (Spirits have always been a weak substitute for spirit.). Drop the crutches and walk to Papa. You can do it.

Delight in the play of shadow and light. Revel in the colors and aromas of vegetables sautéing in the pan. Soak in the vibes of the cat purring in your lap. Slow down and open up and you won’t need the incessant noise of a Play Station 2 to feel engaged.

See the miraculous in the seemingly ordinary. See the original beauty in every little thing! Has there ever been such a snowflake? Will there ever be such a snowflake again? This is the Zen idea of suchness. Appreciating the unique worth of every little thing. It’s not just a rock. It’s such a rock! Quintessential! Suffused with Buddha nature! As Lao Tsu said, “The sage does not measure one thing against another/ And the stone and jewel are honored as equals. ”This is suchness. The fact that even the smallest thing is a unique expression of the cosmos. As William Blake put it,

To see the world in a grain of sand
And Heaven in a wild flower
Is to hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

It’s been estimated that each person in the United States consumes 11,000 pounds of resources a year to maintain his/her lifestyle. If our high maintenance approach to happiness were really working we’d have to be the happiest people that ever existed judging from our dust alone. But the horrific reality is, we have an alarmingly high rate of murder, rape and child abuse compared to other nations. We’ve been led down a primrose path made of leather. And, personally, I'm not into leather.

There's a Japanese saying that goes, "He who knows not when he has enough is poor." If you don’t appreciate what you have already, what’s the use of accumulating more? Even with the best sports equipment money can buy, “you can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd” as Rodger Miller reminds. But, as Miller’s song continues, “you can be happy if you’ve a mind to”— if you’ve a mind that can see the world in a grain of sand or heaven in a wild flower. Getting such a mind might take a little gumption, but not nearly as many payments as the more highly endorsed, saturation advertized, conventional pursuits of happiness.