The Special of the Day

Baker Roshi says that the greatest obstacle to enlightenment is the desire for enlightenment. The Zen fondness of paradox approaches, maybe, a vice. But you can see what he means. Once you get firmly in your head a notion of what enlightenment is going to be like, what chance would actual enlightenment have of finding a clear space to unfold itself?

But we’re being too crude and peremptory here. I do sit down to meditate in hopes of a “special experience,” and really I don’t think I would sit at all if I didn’t have that hope. It’s all very well to knock away the crutches of a novice in a monastery who has lots of other things (rules, master, companions, a daily rice bowl) to hold him up. Kicking away the crutches of a homeless man is quite another thing.

I do want the experience again: the sunrise through the dripping twigs, each random twig picked out by the sunlight to form a perfect circle of radiance. That tree glittering in the wind, in Olympia, fifty years ago, all the leaves shivering. Of course I do. That and more. I’m a wanty little creature, and life rolls very rapidly to its drop-off.

Seriously, I don’t think I can afford to dismiss the desire for special experience. And I don’t think I have to: I think I just need to hold it lightly. I do wonder if psilocybin might give me an experience to steer by. A jolt, a reminder. Of course, you can’t order a psychedelic experience like you order your breakfast at Tom’s. You get the special of the day, Honey, and you sit there and eat it, whether you like it or not.