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Enlightenment
May 2009 
My Spiritual Evictions
Posted on Mar 11th, 2008
by 
Michael
Michael
Today, I was evicted from a dharma website devoted to overcoming taboos, anything goes, and seeking real dharma. After posting a few days, I was, (at my own invitation if appropriate,) deleted and barred. I was not rude although I had a lovely flamewar one evening with the owner of the site. One of the delights of degrees of truth and awakening is that one can walk into the midst of hell without untoward reprecussions. Well, other than being deleted from another's ballpark! Perhaps he didn't get the joke when I called him an enlightenment nazi. (as in soup-nazi from Sienfeld TV show)
T'would have been better if I used the phrase dharma nazi, as his gig was that everything is ignorable and nothing compared to his vast and perfect understanding that dharma is only discoverable, apparently, by following his chart of the dharmic jhanas. Perhaps we'd have been more compatible if I had known what a freaking jhana is My bad!
I do not know anyone willing to go as far as I. (Nor do I know this is a good-thing!)
One small feather I've been able to wear in my cap for nigh on thirty years is that I was once evicted from a Catholic confessional by an irate priest. There are a number of lessons learnable from such a thing, not the least of which is that some are limited in their degree of understanding other human beings. i.e. lack of compassion can manifest anywhere. Twenty years later, when a few were pulling me to "teach," I deliberately traveled to meet other teachers. I did not consider myself in the least bit holy, and still held myth-beliefs about enlightened folk.
I am now slowly coming to a realization regarding other folks, that no matter what level we've "attained" (if a dharma trooper) or experienced (say, the equanimity after arriving back here after er uh "disappearing" for a while,) of highly-regarded states, here, we are again oh-so-human and, here's the unhappy part, I can't even consider other awake beings as strong enough to withstand casual insight. They too, like our aging parents, need to be fed truth slowly and judiciously, (if at all!) An advanced Buddhist Aharant can be just as neurotically religiously correct as any raving Catholic priest.
And in reflection, is my neurotic expectation they be earthly-sane any more neurotic than their, say, rejection of natural paths to enlightenment? No, this is a judgment, and if I'm to be on this level, judgements are part and parcel, so, yep, I'm even more neurotic.
T'would have been better if I used the phrase dharma nazi, as his gig was that everything is ignorable and nothing compared to his vast and perfect understanding that dharma is only discoverable, apparently, by following his chart of the dharmic jhanas. Perhaps we'd have been more compatible if I had known what a freaking jhana is My bad!
I do not know anyone willing to go as far as I. (Nor do I know this is a good-thing!)
One small feather I've been able to wear in my cap for nigh on thirty years is that I was once evicted from a Catholic confessional by an irate priest. There are a number of lessons learnable from such a thing, not the least of which is that some are limited in their degree of understanding other human beings. i.e. lack of compassion can manifest anywhere. Twenty years later, when a few were pulling me to "teach," I deliberately traveled to meet other teachers. I did not consider myself in the least bit holy, and still held myth-beliefs about enlightened folk.
I am now slowly coming to a realization regarding other folks, that no matter what level we've "attained" (if a dharma trooper) or experienced (say, the equanimity after arriving back here after er uh "disappearing" for a while,) of highly-regarded states, here, we are again oh-so-human and, here's the unhappy part, I can't even consider other awake beings as strong enough to withstand casual insight. They too, like our aging parents, need to be fed truth slowly and judiciously, (if at all!) An advanced Buddhist Aharant can be just as neurotically religiously correct as any raving Catholic priest.
And in reflection, is my neurotic expectation they be earthly-sane any more neurotic than their, say, rejection of natural paths to enlightenment? No, this is a judgment, and if I'm to be on this level, judgements are part and parcel, so, yep, I'm even more neurotic.
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