The Ordinary and the Extraordinary...

The mind believes that enlightenment is something other than this present experience. It keeps looking for the next moment. It can’t believe that enlightenment could be as simple as taking out the trash right now. Yet it is. Enlightenment is overlooked in each moment simply because we are expecting something extraordinary somewhere else, in some later experience.

Then one day, after all that movement towards some other moment in the future, the mind utterly fails. It sees that it cannot know. It gives up. It doesn’t give up because some guru said that enlightenment happens when the mind gives up. It gives up because it sees that no matter what the question, the answer will not be enough.

When the mind fails, it is like falling into a ditch. A hand reaches to the water and mud. “What is this? It’s like I’ve never seen this before ...” All of a sudden the water and mud appear alive for the first time. “That’s me. I am that water! I am this mud!” Joy, love, wonder and innocence arise.

The person who was looking for enlightenment drops away completely and all that is left is what was always here . . . this ordinary life in this moment. But now, because there is no one living it, and no one looking for some later moment, it is extraordinary.


~ From: Reflections of the One Life, by Scott Kiloby www.kiloby.com/