Buddha’s Reluctant Disciple
I am definitely not a
Buddhist but I love Buddha! I love that oh so very long ago young man swept by
a passion to help all people to endure or possibly drop life’s sufferings.
Raised in absolute
luxury with every desire anticipated and fulfilled when confronted with
mankind’s sometimes painful reality he stripped off his clothes, starved and
denied his body, followed wandering holy men living on a few grains of rice
thrown into his begging bowl by passersby. He searched every possible way to
alleviate sorrow and struggling. Years of negation ended when he observed a man
tuning his stringed instrument…a loosely tied string produced a woeful, wobbly
sound but when pulled too tight it screeched as though in pain.
Enlightenment followed
and the Middle Way was born. He had stretched himself on the fulcrum of
experience only to discover that the fulcrum itself was the answer. The central
balanced point between “not enough” and too much” was where peace and freedom
lay. Moving beyond self-perpetuating desire into a calm, unchanging mindfulness
was his path to Nirvana.
Beautiful, powerful,
but not for me! It worked for Siddhartha and millions in the centuries
since…but not for me!
It isn’t as though I
haven’t tried, I hate ‘not enough’ and ‘too much’ could be scary. Early on I took my begging bowl and wandered
through books and philosophies, organized religions, mystical faiths, and ‘new
age ideas’. I was lucky to find a
slightly wicked guru who laughed at me and said, I paraphrase, “look within for
answers, be just who you are and think for yourself!”
I pulled that musical
string so tight it broke…so I decided to sing! My own song, my own words. ‘Not
enough’ became a goad, ‘Too much’ became an explosion of new thoughts and
feelings….like the wrong end of the teeter-totter that throws you up and off
the fulcrum into a flight into the unknown.
Oh, Buddha, didn’t you
see that it was your passion, your struggle, your willingness to try it all, that brought
fulfillment and wisdom?
I choose to live in ‘too much’ where joy and
discovery, excitement and discovery spark and redeem the ‘everyday?” Peace will
come and the serene ‘nothingness’ will happen soon enough but until then “Fie,
on your balance, your Middle way, and although I may fail many times I will
strive to be brave enough, strong enough to search and grab onto every ‘too
much” that comes my way!
