Eating Shit For Dinner

Everyone admires
A graceful horse
Galloping past the streaming sunlight,
But few realize that this fleeting image
Is itself the way of Dharma.

From the book The Zen Poetry of Dōgen.

There's no hiding that a spiritual life is how i define my life. Compared to someone who has taken the precepts, of course, i'm still very much a layman. I still enjoy a good cold beer, still fantasize about the incredibly beautiful woman i saw at the book store the other day, still gave the finger to the idiot who cut me off on the highway while trying to cut from the far left lane to the exit ramp on the right because he was talking on his cell phone and almost missed it, and on, and on. But, on the whole, it would be hard for me to imagine a life that wasn't based on Buddhism.

I accept this seemingly split personality with a smile because i know that Dōgen was right — there is nothing that can be separated and categorized as dharma and non-dharma. When i get angry and give someone the finger, that is the dharma at that instant. When i regret having done it a moment later, that is the dharma at that instant. This is no longer just an intellectual understanding, although it was for years, but as obvious to me as the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. By learning to see that both the sacred and the secular are the dharma in all its wonderful glory, i have learned to see that no matter where i am in life, all is OK — as long as i continue to move forward and work to improve myself.

This understanding is, i think, the main reason that i am finding that quitting my job is just not a big deal. I knew the decision was right as soon as it occured to me back in Nepal. I knew as soon as i heard it that the decision was the best present i would give myself in all of 2008.

Living within walls that constrain who and what you are can only do you harm. Living in a rut with no hope of ever climbing out can only leave you discouraged and half alive, at best. Living with the sun in your pocket but keeping your hands tied behind your back will only guarantee that you remain in the dark.

Offering the world less than your potential is cheating yourself and the world. Not giving yourself the chance to find the limits of your potential is a form of mental suicide, so why don't the people that care for you cry when you do this when they would weep and wail if you committed physical suicide? Settling for less than what you can be without a fight is like eating shit for dinner at the kitchen counter, even though there is a banquet on the table on the third floor but not having the courage to climb the stairs.

I have no idea what i am going to find when i leave my job in a few weeks. Given the current job market, i could well find myself unemployed for the entire year. Or i could find myself in a minimum wage job barely getting by. But, i know two things are certain: i have made the right choice and i will be a better person for having taken the leap. The essence of who i am will remember how to fly when the time comes. The wings that used to support my life will unfurl and support me as they have before. Of this i'm sure.

And one more thing i'm sure of ... that all will be well because all can be well when you don't look for it to be otherwise.