Basic Goodness

"If we are willing to take an unbiased look, we will find that, in spite of all our problems and confusion, all our emotional and psychological ups and downs, there is something basically good about our existence as human beings. We have moments of non-aggression and freshness...it is worthwhile to take advantage of these moments...we have an actual connection to reality that can wake us up and  make us feel basically, fundamentally good."  Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

It always happens when I least expect it.  I am going about my routine on some ordinary day in some ordinary way, when I am suddenly and inexplicably flooded with the goodness of life, of my life.  In those few minutes, and sometimes just a few seconds, the reality of the goodness of existence, of my existence, is the only thing that matters.

I guess it's possible to feel  this way most of the time, or at least much of the time.  Cognitively I can accept  that if this goodness is true for a few minutes then it's true for all time.  In reality, in the reality of my own emotions, I don't feel this way very often.  And that's a good thing. But the experience always leaves me understanding that there is something more, there is another dimension that is just as real as the everydayness of every day that exists parallel to my own existence.

For the Buddha it was that experience under the Bodhi tree. For John Wesley it was when his heart was strangely warmed on Aldersgate Street.  All through history people have had a moment  when the  fabric of the known human experience ripped open and something beyond themselves spilled into them, In every case nothing for them was ever the same.

My emotions, spirit and psyche must be more stubborn than that.  I have sat under such a tree, only it was sitting against a tombstone in a cemetery in Owensboro, Kentucky.  My heart has been strangely warmed, only it was in the balcony of the sanctuary of a Baptist church in Dothan, Alabama. For about twenty minutes on a sailboat in Panama City, Florida I was transported somewhere else. I became something else.  For about three seconds on Barnhardt Circle in Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia this other dimension I speak of found me. I felt a joy that I didn't know existed. For about two hours on my sofa in my den in Ringgold, Georgia,  I had a dream or a dream had me. I felt an indescribable love, perhaps the love I felt for my mother as a child. Perhaps the love she felt for me.  Then near midnight on I-65 north near W. Lafayette, Indiana on Good Friday, my anticipation of seeing my son and his three year old daughter spilled over into the love of God dying for me.  Good Friday indeed.

Then shouldn't I know by now the goodness of my life?  How many Bodhi trees does it take for my transformation?  What will it take for me to wake  up for good?

Actually I am awake.  I have been transformed.  I have been touched and changed to the point that I don't require those otherworldly experiences any more to affirm the goodness of my life.  I find that goodness in "the everydayness of every day".  I'm working at a computer that's connected to you by nothing but air. This cup of coffee is fresh and hot. This ceramic heater is warm and comforting. My clothes are clean and dry. My eyes aren't perfect, but I can see this screen. This music I'm listening to is the same music I was listening to that marvelous night on I-65.  I  typed the title into a search box, I clicked on it and the music just started playing. I typed?  I have ten fingers that do my bidding. They need no instruction to find the letters that I think up. I learned those home keys in high school forty five years ago. The fingers and the keys have served me well.  I haven't eaten anything this morning, but I can when I get ready. There are millions of people in this world who would trade places with me in a second.  And never ask for much of  anything more. They aren't looking for some magic tree or heart-warming experience, they are looking for something to eat and a place to sleep.  They have learned something about basic goodness that I pray I never know.

Rinpoche said that "if we will look...we will find that there is something basically good about our existence as human beings."   Yes, we will find.  But we do have to look.