Maybe we’re not supposed to be looking for moments of bliss and happiness to be the norm? In pursuing spiritual ideals we tend to lean towards one end of the spectrum or the other. Forgetting that balance actually comes from the middle.
My rebellious nature tends to pull me towards the extreme spectrum. A kind of subtle extremism, born out of stubbornness and a thirsting quest to drink from every kind of spring.
Restraining the urge can help when playing the mental games of wants and needs, but even then, sobriety dependent, the famed Drake YOLO can rear it’s head. Taking the die by night philosophy all too true in a single moment. If I’m going to die then my life might as well be pushed and lived for something.
I can’t tell if this urge springs from a lack of love and own worth, it doesn’t feel like I’m running or drowning out emotion of any form. Being wild, reckless freedom. Seeing the illusory nature of this freedom doesn’t matter.
Or even the realization that what I do won’t lead me closer to truth, at least in that moment. What if in our pursuit of grander ideals we’re actually walking the wrong path?
I love meditation, I love silence, but I abhor routine. The thought of doing the same ritual every single day kills a little part of me. What if there are no conscious and unconscious activities, but simply activities bounded by the intention we carry when doing them?
The intention is the background canvas for the painting, without it we’ll just end up with splatterings of paint all over the walls and floor.
What container are you living your life in, and are you actively taking the time to shape that container?
“Before enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water. After enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.”
-Zen saying
In trying to reach awakening we return to the very same ground we tried to leave in the first place – now with upgraded vision.
What if we can choose to see this way now?
What if instead of seeking something beyond, we instead embody our selves in this world as we are now?
No hammering nails into our moments of fleeting bliss, trying to hold onto the moments forever. Realizing happiness isn’t the default state we seek. Instead, it’s a richness of life.
It’s the sense of the blood pumping through our veins, walking in the realization that we are both within and beyond the body separating us from everything outside. Realizations, insight, and awakened thinking are nothing if they remain within.
The true beauty comes to light when you translate these experiences through your perspective.
Finally, something real, grounded, and alive.