Numinous Nonsense

I was speaking with my Mom this morning, who is a committed martial artist (tae kwon do style) and vipassana practitioner. She was sharing a recent event in which she was sparing with a beginning student and she found herself laughing every time either of them made a mistake. She apologized for doing so because she noticed that the guy she was sparing with was getting more and more frustrated with each mistake. Wondering why she would laugh at something like that, we reflected together on the process of mastery and how with any skill or discipline there is a move toward greater and great lightness, acceptance, and humor. I mean come on, if you do something all the time, and have for years and years, you better damn well be able to have fun while doing it. But I think what she was really getting at is a heightened sense of acceptance that comes with mastery, in which having seen so many mistakes, fuck ups, and less-than-perfect scenarios we start to soften up to the inevitability of the dark with the light, and in the end we may even begin to see the inseparability of these polarities.

That isn’t to say that mastery is simply a move towards greater and greater acceptance, because there is also a movement toward greater and greater subtlety. In my mom’s case she can now see when someone’s stance is off because their right foot is pointing a hair to the wrong direction. An even more developed martial artist would probably be able to distinguish even more in-depth subtleties.

With regards to meditation practice, which is my primary area of interest, this movement towards greater subtlety and deepening of acceptance and lightness are both means by which I’ve come to understand the progress of practice. The acceptance and lightness have mostly to do with the movements of my mind, and the relationship that meditation has uncovered to it. There are many times where I find myself having ridiculous thoughts, or going through patterns of craving & irritation, but instead of getting mad at myself I often just have to laugh. Oh, here is craving again, or here is irritation again. The mind states come and go, can’t ultimately define me, and will never be able to fully capture the fullness of reality. In that sense there is little need to push them away, or take them all that seriously. In a sense the mind is part of a larger cosmic joke.

With regards to subtlety all of the myriad states of heightened consciousness that one can experience (of light and bliss, deep calm, formless experience, or even of radical emptiness) are traversed during the course of meditation. They become more easily accessible and meditation actually becomes enjoyable at a certain point (not all the time, mind you). One also becomes aware of more and more in their experience, and is able to make finer and finer distinctions about mental and physical states. There is also a speeding up and expanding that happens with awareness, in which more and more sense objects can be seen with greater rapidity and in a broader perspective. This fluctuates, but is definitely a development related to intensive meditation practice.

The process of mastery, of moving from the gross, to the subtle, and moving from the stuck to the fluid is a brilliant process. That the lessons learned with one type of mastery can also apply to some many other domains is also quite fascinating. So next time you’re sparing with a middle-aged woman, and she starts laughing at you, just keep in mind that she’s enjoying the process.