There Is No Escaping Life

We know from history that Buddha never returned to anything resembling the life he separated from as a young prince. The progression of consciousness that he manifested had made any such arrangement impossible. The conditions of the paths that the people of his time called “the marketplace” and “the householder” no longer promoted his development. 

What a close reading of his life tells us, however, is that having achieved his level of awareness never precluded his having to deal with at least some of the elements of the human condition. It only makes sense, after all, that existing on this plane means confronting illness, infirmity, old age and death. No one escapes the effects of his or her context altogether. What he became skilled at is not being distracted from his enlightened way by any ordinary human concern. 

It behooves us to become clear that we will not escape our lives. Accepting who and where we are is an essential part of the foundation for all of the Buddha-like personal work we will be doing. We are not special, nor do we ever want to feel that we are special in ways that make us fundamentally dissimilar from our contemporaries. We are in the contexts we experience around us in order to grow. Not having them would be like living in weightlessness and expecting that our bones would be unaffected by the lack of gravitational pull.

We still need to be in the marketplace for the resistance it provides to the completely peaceful life. Even monks are made to sweep floors and clean bathrooms. And they have to put up with fellow monks and masters who they might find irritating. Once beyond Eden, there is no going back. 

What changes is our “us-ness.” While we remain essentially the same as always, how we experience the self is the core of our work. It is consciousness that evolves, not the being that is represented by the self. That being merely provides the gravity that assures the health of the support structure of our human awareness.

So, there is no “fast-forward” in the development of consciousness. The self, with its patternistic thoughts and emotions, remains a part of our everyday experience. The capacity for pure observation is in the wings waiting to welcome us in its own time. We just need to watch ourselves as everything arises and then practice letting it all pass. Needs will be reduced to wants, wants will be reduced to preferences, and even preferences will erode into just minor desires that fade when left alone. 

Eventually we will not even feel as if we are choosing, but that we are accepting what seems to be chosen for us in any given moment. There is no “me.” There is only acceptance. Nothing is actually removed. There is just no reaction to animate or strengthen a feeling, thought, fear or desire.