Academic model

Sometimes you are just so tired you can’t even think straight. I am sitting here almost falling asleep whenever my fingers aren’t typing.

We only get to experience fatigue because we are in magnificent human bodies. The mundane of human existence is at the same time the apex of human existence. Daily life is where it is all at. Our academic culture trains us to learn something then take the test and then be done with it. We have this fascination with being done.

We start to awaken, see a glimpse of Nirvana and then want to jump to the end of the journey because we are pretty sure that is where the happiness is. Learn about enlightenment, study it, take the test then you will be there and the hard part is over. That is sure what I thought. “Let me just back up the truck, dump all my garbage in it then I will be pure, and enlightened and happy”.

I see now, though, that this academic model to enlightenment sure leaves out a whole lot of living. If one of my lessons for this lifetime is to learn compassion, then my living has to bring about something that helps me learn that. My life needs to evoke an evolution of awareness and expansion into compassion, otherwise, it will just be at a standstill. It will be a life lived for sure, but maybe not a soul expanded.