But it occurs to me that the essence of the spiritual task is being happy in a simple and deep way KNOWING full well what this life can hold. How can you be happy and at peace when you know pain and death await all of us? When people are tortured, shot, raped, belittled and scorned unfairly?
This is the core question. This is the primary spiritual question.
The Buddha did not teach anyone how to overcome disease, old age, and death. Nor did any other spiritual teacher. All of them, each in their own way, taught how to recognize and accept the realities of our existence and to still live a great life which was largely independent of the ups and downs which happen to all of us.
This time is no different than any other time. Your house was on fire before, and it is still on fire now. And most of us are still sleeping. It’s very, very hard not to. All you have to do is tune into the noise all around you. It is easier now than it ever has been in human history. You can hear buzzing from the moment you wake until the moment you fall asleep.
The sound comes to me often, when I’m on that thread of thought, of the buzzsaw in the Tarkovsky’s movie Nostalghia. It’s off in the distance. It might be a leaf blower in the present era.
I can’t live in a cave, I don’t think. I need people. But that is certainly not a bad solution in many ways. If I might echo Tolstoy, how much do you really need?