The Most Unique Thing That Never Was Before
Lo Más Único Que Nunca Existió Antes
A student asks whether the teacher experiences the repetitive, Sisyphean quality of life as a burden, leading to a reflection on how the same activities that once felt miserable can become infused with wonder, and how each moment is utterly unique and precious.
The Most Unique Thing That Never Was Before
A student asks whether the teacher experiences the repetitive, Sisyphean quality of life as a burden, leading to a reflection on how the same activities that once felt miserable can become infused with wonder, and how each moment is utterly unique and precious.
Do you experience it as pushing something up the hill and then it comes down again? Because it doesn't sound like it from where you're coming from.
I would say yes, not everything, but what used to be miserable is now joyful. Think of washing dishes. This is very Zen. What do they say? Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. But what's the difference?
Before, it's: "This sucks. What's the point? This is heavy. I'm tired." And now it's: "There's no point. It's heavy. I'm tired. I enjoy this."
And "enjoy" isn't quite the right word. There's something more.
"I'm alive."
On being alive
There you go. There's something around simply being. Chop wood, carry water: "Oh, it's so beautiful. I'm so alive. There's just so much being." Push the boulder up the hill, watch it go down, go grab it again, push it up the hill. Don't kids do that all the time?
To me, I see a child, just the "wow of now."
Exactly. My nephew is down here at the beach, and they have a rocky outcrop that's maybe seven or eight feet tall. We bought him a beach ball. What does he do? He grabs it, climbs (he's three years old), falls, grabs it again, climbs, manages to get to the top, drops it, runs down, grabs it, pushes it up, drops it. And he's having a blast.
I want to watch him and learn from him. He sounds like a great teacher.
What was never truly lost
But the point is, you were probably doing that kind of thing as a child too. That's just what was lost, and it really isn't lost. It's something so obvious to a child. We got used to it and we think it's not enough. Waking up is simply realizing it's the most beautiful, valuable thing: to be. Even words like "being" or "being alive" still don't capture it.
The joy just emanating from within. How do you describe it? It's not a thing I got. There are no circumstances that produce it. It's causeless joy, causeless bliss. And what I'm getting more and more is: that's what we are. It's nothing to attain. It's just what we are.
Exactly.
It's amazing. It's so wonderful to hear you, not just the content but where it's coming from. It is the most incredible experience.
The unrepeatable moment
Another way I can point to it is through an image that really resonates with me. The whole universe is moving and changing constantly. It has never been exactly as it is right now, and it never will be again. The experience you are having right now has never existed before and will never repeat. You are experiencing something directly, personally, that no one else in the whole world, the whole universe, is experiencing exactly as you are right now. You will never experience it again, and you have never experienced it before. That is the most unique, precious thing that exists, and it is always true at every moment.
I've never heard it said that way. That's amazing. You can actually see it as a unique gift. It isn't just a concept. You can actually experience it right now.
And it's everything. It's what your mind is doing, what I'm looking at (this cable for the headphones), you, the computer, the whole thing. The whole thing is never going to be exactly as it is right now. It is constantly moving, constantly unique, constantly in a certain perfection, because it is so impermanent. Some traditions point to it as something being destroyed and created every instant.
Yes, that's the Hindu image.
Freedom to be fully immersed
And so you could see that as the most beautiful thing, the most precious thing. That is where I can communicate the love of it. We can also point to the presence from which all of that is arising, and that can bring us to knowing what is pointed to as the absolute, the unchanging, what is outside of time and space. But once that is known, it gives us the freedom to fully appreciate and be immersed in life as it is, fully invested in the preciousness of this human experience, and fully free to develop as much as we can in truth and love. Every moment is just this wonder: the most unique thing that never has been and never will be again as it is.
It's like life, whatever we see, whatever you want to call it, is one big kaleidoscope, constantly shifting and fascinating and beautiful. But it's a hologram: we're it. It's us. That's totally mind-blowing. Beautiful. Thank you.
A pleasure.