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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels August 6, 2004 I'll Shut Up - Right After This Everyday satori at the Beanery John Darling "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." - Wu Li We're hiking the Loop trail on our first and - I can already tell - last date, and I remember that aphorism people always tell you when you don't know why you're in a "situation." They say: "Everything happens for a reason." I have faith in that, even if you can't always see the goodies immediately coming out of life's vending machine. Like, 33 years ago this young couple was wandering through Golden Gate Park selling LP records to finance their trip to live in this place called the Rogue Valley and, hey, wanna come? It being the '60s, my friend Louie and I say sure. Here we are, still, and marriages, children, countless friendships have come out of that chance meeting. So, (this is a few years ago) we're walking along the Loop and these two guys - who look and sound like the Scarecrow and Tin Man from Oz, literally jump out of the bushes and join us, very friendly, I can tell, so I relax and open to it. In no time, the Scarecrow, who's also a high school teacher, is telling me about "The Power of Now," by Eckhart Tolle, which describes how we're all "sick puppies" because we're trapped by our minds in the prison of the past, which incites us to regret or feel guilt, and the future, which makes us afraid - and drives us to devote our lives to avoiding all the bad things we imagine might happen. You don't ignore random incidents like this. Kurt Vonnegut called them vindits - things that push events off in a new direction. It puts an end to my date, bang, and I drive right off and get the book whose opening chapter is entitled "You Are Not Your Mind." Fine, what am I then? Well, basically, I'm enlightened. So are you. "The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment and the ego likes to keep it that way," writes Tolle, who learned all this at the brink of depression and suicide. "But enlightenment is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something, almost paradoxically, that is essentially you and yet is much greater than you." Then what's the problem, I ponder, sitting in the Bean, sipping my latte? I read on, "The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation, from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself as an isolated fragment. Fear arises, and conflict within and without becomes the norm." Suddenly it happens. I look out at the mundane traffic, the people smoking frowsily on the deck, the students ambling dutifully through the rain to their classes. "It" is all perfect just the way it is. Nothing needs to be fixed. It no longer feels separate from me. I don't need to get anywhere, make a million, marry anyone, get a bigger house or write the great American novel. This satori happens again and again, though not without the plummeting back into the shell of ego. But the opening, the ecstatic coming forth into the world - it keeps flowering, lasting as long as half a day, before covering back over. I realize it isn't that hard and doesn't take a master and many years. The other day, someone I know says she wants to try some heroic methods to get out of "this dreary shell of daily life and into the Divine." At the risk of being a nosy know-it-all, I spout, but you already are in the Divine and when you're feeling depressed, lonely and afraid, that is the Divine, too. You surrender to that too. I don't know where these words come from. I think they come from thousands of moments practicing the Now, if only for 10 seconds at a time. Like, every red traffic light I sit at - that's a mandatory prompt. It says, hey, give yourself 10 seconds being right here. Tolle suggests a game - say to yourself: I wonder what my next thought will be? As long as you ask that question, there is no next thought. As you strengthen the witness, this being watching your mind, you realize the watcher, not the mind is the real you. Soon after, this friend at the co-op (the place where most meetings and exchanges of important information happen) urges a slim tome on me, called "From Seekers to Finders," in which Satyam Nadeen says about one percent of the population, after going through established religions, mind-altering drugs, seeking salvation in romance and then, on giving up, enduring the wretched "dark night of the soul," emerges into daily satori - that place where you just let it all be. Contact John Darling, an Ashland writer and counselor, at [email protected]. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams