Nirvana Is An Illusion
I grew up Catholic. My family and I were at church every Sunday. Without fail. Rain or shine. No breaks. Such rigidity was suffocating and a set up for failure. I always wondered why my parents were so adamant about attending. We weren’t even that Catholic. In fact, we did not follow one rule of Catholicism. We were hardcore sinners. I don’t know if we believed in heaven or hell. We did believe, however, in the inherent punishment if we didn’t believe. So in the off chance either paradox was real, we showed up. In case we lived through judgment day, we planned for enough data points to be considered average sinners, hoping for a 50/50 chance at salvation. Not bad if you ask me.
Courtesy of @meditationmood
But when life got tough - mom lost her job, dad didn’t get the raise, Tia Kina got sick, our deadbeat uncle, whose name we don’t say out loud, knocked someone up, we became devout Catholics. We did the chants, lit the candles, prayed to every saint we could remember. And as things got worse - parents got divorced, grandma died of cancer, dad got diabetes, friends suddenly died, student loans piled up, and work became a soul-sucking prison, the thought that life was better “there”, became more and more attractive. I thought, maybe this transient time is irrelevant, and our best hope was to get through this dead zone as fast as we could, be just good enough, and enter the gates of eternal instant gratification.
And so we ignored our planet. Its sustainability became an afterthought, we abused mother nature and all living things. Our narcissism grew and with it our lack of empathy for each other, and more importantly, for ourselves. I don’t need to tell you how our culture of things has made us heavy-hearted and alone. You already know that. If you listen to your intuition and your body, it will tell you. If you let it. Some of us, having realized the error in our ways, have taken to the cushion. I am one of those people. Today, every star athlete, celebrity, and millionaire entrepreneur will evangelize the power of meditation. It has become the answer to everything. And to be honest, if people adopt meditation at the same rate we adopted opiates 20 years ago, we’re in good shape. But in many ways, we meditate for the same reasons our parents plunged, head first, into religion - to get “there”. For most, it’s been an attempt towards salvation. But, if we make our way to the cushion as a means to get something in return, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of meditation? Isn’t meditating with a goal only taking you deeper into samsara itself? And can we ever learn to meditate with no purpose at all?
I will honestly confess, I haven’t always been able to. Although I am more conscious of my motivations when sitting each evening, I am usually trying to achieve something. Achieve. What a tiring word. So heavy. So full of expectation, anxiety, and ultimately fear. We have been groomed to earn our status, fame, perfect aesthetic, luxury, and refinement at the expense of our peace of mind and self-worth. It is almost unfathomable then, to subscribe to a philosophy that tells you to let go of that same endless rope you’ve been tirelessly trying to climb up.
So where do we start? I think we need to begin by looking at ourselves and our actions honestly, and embrace whatever it is we find. Embrace our faults, shortcomings, and ultimate culpability for the frail state of our society and our planet. There is no alternate “there”. In meditation, we sit to pause. To feel our bodies. To check in with our soul. To admire our surroundings, and catch our breath if we need to. We need to forgo our expectation it will instantly make us better communicators, better parents, and better friends. On its own, it’s not the answer to our problems. What it does is lower the volume of our useless to do lists, anxieties, and criticisms. It calms the waters of our mind, and in so doing allows our feelings to catch up to us. It forces a mirror in front of us and makes us look. When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror, not with self-criticism and a fault-finding mind, but with genuine curiosity? When did you look at your fine lines with charm and affection, admire the unique curve of your eyebrows, and catch the gleam in your eye as you smile?
Meditation brings with it honesty and ultimately, empathy. The cushion is a vehicle towards these two states. But the mode of transportation is not important. Walking, art, psychedelics, and sports can be as effective transports as the cushion.
So, perhaps, in the end, there is a “there”. That magical place we’ve imagined is where we already are. “There" is nothing more than a different lens of the word we already inhabit. “There” is perspective. It’s the appreciation for the wealth of resources this world gives us, gratitude for the people we connect to, and acknowledgment that suffering ultimately leads to newfound wisdom. As I write this entry Frou Frou comes on, and as I pause to listen to the lyrics I think Frou Frou-Frou had it right, “There’s beauty in the breakdown”. So go ahead, let go.