In-Shape
Health
Club Swimming Pool, Napa, California, USA
June 2, 2022
"I do live in a monastery. My monastery is
the whole world."
...
answering the question "Have you ever lived in a
monastery?"
"To do nothing means to do exactly what you're doing. That's the way
to do nothing. If you do what you're not doing, that's doing
something. If you stop doing what you're doing, that's doing
something. But doing exactly what you're doing - that's doing
nothing."
...
"You know, people will give up anything - their jobs, their money,
their families, their
health
- to get it, anything except the one and only thing you have to give
up in order to get it: the conviction that you haven't got it."
...
"Enlightenment
is giving up the notion that you are unenlightened."
I am indebted to John Taylor who contributed material for this
conversation.
If you ask people, both those who have and those who haven't lived in a
monastery or some such retreat, why anyone would want to experience
life in a monastery, or why anyone would want to experience going on a
retreat, their answers would most likely vary with each individual and
yet would just as likely all fall into the same broad categories:
colloquially put, to "get it"
(Zen,
satori,
enlightenment),
to get away from it (stress, world-wariness, ennui /
purposelessness), to be immersed in it (wisdom,
spirituality,
peace)
... and then hopefully to bring back into
the world
a bit of what they got there, to ongoingly enrich their lives and
Life itself
thereafter.
The pursuit of
Zen,
satori,
enlightenment
is a bold, noble one which human beings have courted for a long, long
time. The idea of living in a monastery permanently or temporarily is
inextricably bound up with the idea of getting "it", that magical je
ne sais quois that not only
recontextualizes
(I love that word) the meaning of life (more on that later) but also
makes life worth living - both within the monastery as well as outside
of it ie particularly outside of it ie in
the world.
That magical quality which living in a monastery will purportedly
reveal is the missing ingredient (or so we say) in our lives, that
quality which once discovered and added to them, will finally make them
whole, complete,
and worthwhile - at least that's the fervently hoped for, desired
outcome.
Consider this: what if we've fundamentally misconstrued the experience
of what it is to live in
the world,
and what if to that end we've become sure ie certain that
life in
the worldisn't "it", that there must be something more, that
there must be something else, that there must be some other
not-yet-known meaning, that there must be some other realization
which would explain all
this
and make it palatable, and even save us? And what if there were really
none of that? Really. None. None at all. What if
the cavalry ain't
comin'?
What if
this
is "it", exactly this way, exactly like this, exactly the way it is,
and that there's nothing more than
this
- which would suggest there's nothing other than
this
to discover in a monastery either? What if, whether we're in a
monastery or in
the world,
what there is to get is the same in both places? And even more
pointedly, what if we could stop pretending they're
different?
If we could, and if all that were so, then there'd be nothing more to
be gained by living in a monastery / on a retreat other than the coming
to terms with the realization that exactly what's available in a
monastery is also available in
the world,
and that pursuing living in a monastery is simply prolonging an
inevitable
breakthrough
in being in
the world
(indeed, may even be avoiding it). We would get that our experience in
the world
is exactly this way, exactly like this, with nothing missing, with
nothing to be changed, and with nothing to be added. Indeed, our
biggest mistake in pursuing getting "it" may be we keep missing the
stunningly, blindingly (and beautifully) simple notion that there's
nothing to get and that as such, we've already got it even
though we may not like what we got, even though we may not fully accept
it or let it all in, all of which is predicated on the capricious
belief that getting it is more readily available in a monastery than in
the world.
When I live in
the world
as if I were living in a monastery (in terms of no longer denigrating
what's available to me to discover in it) ie when I live that
the world
is my monastery, I have effectively (as the saying goes) "cut out
the middle man", rendering my experience of
the world
and
Life itself
more direct, more immediate, more urgent, and consequently more
thrilling too (yes). When I give up the notion that
getting "it" is somehow more available in a monastery than in
the world,
and reconcile instead with "this is it", equally in
the world
as in a monastery (ie that it's this way everywhere, and not some other
better way somewhere else), that's when I realize I already got it, and
that monasteries / retreats etc have no lock on the getting of it.
Indeed I suspect if I were living in a monastery and I said to the
abbot "I'm leaving, there's nothing for me to get here", she'd say to
me astutely "Congratulations! You've got it! Welcome to
life being human in
the world!".
Oh, and as for that meaning of life? You know, that
meaning of life which we hope living in a monastery will reveal?
Listen: there is no meaning of life. I'm
sorry,
but Life has no meaning other than any of the random
meanings which we, both arbitrarily and desperately, assign to it when
its inherent meaninglessness becomes uncomfortably unconfrontable (as
in the exasperated "But what does it all mean? ..."). And
that's the subject for another conversation on another occasion.
Postscript:
The presentation, delivery, and style of
The World Is My Monastery III
are all my own work.
The ideas recreated in
The World Is My Monastery III
were first originated, distinguished, and articulated by
Werner Erhard.