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The rarity of the spiritual life
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I went to a high school reunion the other day, there were a few people from my year and many from earlier years. A lot of the talk was about careers, comparing how far people had gotten, it was very materialistic.
I was surprised to find that these were not my kind of people anymore. Very few of them had a spiritual life, and those I tried to talk to about Buddhism didn’t seem inclined to listen. I also noticed that the things that they respect I didn’t feel anything for.
I was surprised that they all seemed to be like that… all young people made to fit society’s mold, grown into old people with unfortunate habits.
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My experiences with school reunions were pretty similar but I think its because this particular form of gathering tends to better represent the conditioned views of our ego's past, than how we have actually moved beyond them today.
The herd gathering of such reunions tends to re-link us to attitudes that we largely held and shared during those formative years of early socialized behavioral conditionings.
It's not quite as dramatic as the mob behavior of a lynching but it partakes of some of the same shared absence of true equanimity.
You might also be surprised at how many other people report much of the same disappointment in such gatherings that you found.
What better teaching could you have received on how much spiritual adolescence lurks just below the surface of any of our beliefs in our own spiritual adulthood?
As far as our conditioned propensity to judge self and others through a materialistic lens, It is one of the reasons I see that the "right livelihood" of the Buddha's 8 FP could be more practically represented today as "right relationships".
The thing is, I’ve been to other reunions from earlier schools which were a lot less materialistic and more fun. But my high school was in quite a well-to-do place, lots of families with money, lots of ambition from those who didn’t have it, so maybe that had something to do with the general ambience.
What other common ground do you think your ex classmates could meet on other than career and financial gain?
I would have thought family and children would be big topics, hobbies and the things that make you happy, the places where you live, community, those kind of things.
One of my best friends since high-school moved abroad three years ago. He was my drinking-buddy, but also spiritual friend, especially once we both mostly quit drinking. Yesterday he and his family came back home for the first time for holidays. When he said "I'll call you, let's go for a beer!", I experienced a surge of un-equanimity: desire (to have a few beers like in the "good old days", anxiety (that I will drink), pressure (to behave like we used to do)... Ay carumba, as our dearest @lobster would say!
Luckily, we did not meet yesterday, and will maybe go for a coffee today. That sounds much better
I'll still have one or two beers with him while he is in the country, but just once, and hope to be much calmer about it.
I'm pretty much the only person in my friend group that's spiritual or seriously interested in religion. Kind of lonely, but it's not meaningful for everyone.
Spirituality (not religion) is not inculcated as significant as we are herded through our education and "Life Training". Often it is addressed, if at all, as some esoteric thing to be dallied with as leisurely game or side interest after the "important stuff" is acquired.
Thus spirituality is not addressed as a significant and important part of our daily life and our endeavors.
How often do people conflate religion and spirituality. Though quite often intertwined, that are not the same. So, at our reunions or other "social" events, we notice that people fail to see the actual value of spirituality.
This is why, when some false gurus package up a facade spirituality and sell it as a commodity, they are able to mislead or enable folks to parade their tabletop "spirituality" as a trophy, brought out for show then set aside for the next amusement.
We are so inundated with the "need to succeed" in the strictly materiel sense, that we are drawn, like moths to the mega stars and business tycoons - "Look at Him, Look at Her...", and pay little or no heed the the quiet acts of mercy and compassion, of spirituality carried out in broad daylight, in the quiet night. The simple acts that say, "I am worthy - you are worthy, we are worthy."
The quiet assurance,curiosity, humbleness, compassion and caring that are the great manifestations of Spirituality and are more prevalent in Buddhism and among less materialistic societies, get too often passed by for the bright, sparkling, gaudy baubles distracting us from ourselves and our fellows.
Those who brush us off when we try to talk about Buddhism, are also seeking. They just haven't arrives at the point where they are able to realize their baubles are paper and rocks and their castles are mearly sand easily washed away by the ocean's waves.
Feel compassion for those who have eyes yet do not see, ears yet do nit hear, tongues yet do not taste. They have been led upon a bramble path with no lantern in the night.
Peace to all
thanks @Lionduck
Absolutely so! I'll have what he's having to misquote from When Harry Met Sally 🤭
So well said. 🫵🫶😌