Teachers say that in Buddhism once the thought arises to pursue enlightenment the very structure of mind changes. The goal may not be reached until after many lifetimes but the impetus once created never goes away again. So unlike its course in North America and Europe, Buddhism in Asia became inextricably linked with just the ordinary living of life, sometimes fun and exciting, sometimes momentously sad or monotonous, but like the dominant figure in the carpet background that most people no longer sees, the aspiration ticks away indecorously slow but always there. I remember a Tibetan shopkeeper in the village in New York City telling me how the Dharma among his people was as ordinary and unobtrusive as sunshine and rain. It is part of life; it is life. They prepare supper at night, might spend 50 years building up a trade, but in the background is this unspoken goal to seek the Ultimate and become free at last from life's vicissitudes. Unspoken because it is so taken for granted until one day the bud opens and the muddy water drips away as water drips away.
It has been thirty years since I encountered Buddhism not in the land of its birth but in my adopted country. Buddhism was a big part of my going home again, home where I had thought I never belonged. I like the simplicity of its practice, the barebones approach that depend solely on one's effort and utilizing only one's own mind and body. Anything else is excess. A cushion to sit on does help. Rituals inherently human can support the most genuine aspiration for simplicity. They create a feeling of what is sacred, recreate the awesome experience of something beyond words, beyond desire, beyond the very habits of being alive.
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