Namaste
Nirvana
I was cloistered away on retreat as the outside world continued to turn and tragedy struck. During a week of meditation practice at the Esalen Institute, my fellow seminarians and I studied the roadmap to Nirvana -- the state of mind in which cravings have ceased and worldly desires have been brought to extinction.
Beyond the polar opposites of winning and losing, Nirvana is the condition in which life has no scorecard. When life finds its balance, scores no longer matter and engender no painful sense of deficiency. Envy and competition are replaced by selfless compassion for others.
Upon my return to Monterey, I learned of the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and of the impending threat of the Chernobyl computer virus. Disgruntled computer hackers sought to even the score with society just as teen terrorists sought to even the score with high school icons. In an hour of desperation, the teens in Colorado attempted to obliterate the disparities on life's scoreboard by reducing everyone, including themselves, to lifeless bodies.
Some time ago, in my own office building, a gunman hiding in the loading docks fired at innocent coworkers walking from the parking lot. We understood he suffered gambling losses. Perhaps this made him feel that his score was less than zero and marked him as a loser in the game of life. In a jealous rage he sought to even the score.
We have witnessed disease begetting disease. During the 80s, one yuppie introduced the notion that "life is a game and money is how you keep score." Legions contracted his illness. Though we have professed recovery, we see a continuing quest for bigger houses, flashier cars, and higher social status, with increasing disparities between the haves and the have-nots.
Ironically, beneath the disparities on the surface, the greatest and the least among us are not different at our core. The high achievers who fought hard to become "winners" in life may have fought only to compensate for an inward feeling to the contrary.
Seeking balance and wholeness, we yearn for what we feel is missing. We strive to be winners to the extent that we feel like losers. We try to be "somebody" to the extent that we feel like a nobody. We seek validation only to the extent that we question our self-worth.
Hence the quest for worldly attainment: the college degree... the gold medal... a day in the sun... a moment in the limelight... to fill the void within. But how long shall we march among the walking wounded? Even the winners in life scorn to rest on their laurels. Even the winners in life strive to post higher marks on life's scoreboard.
How much honor, how much accomplishment, and how much acknowledgement from the world will it take to fill the void? Whether "winner" or "loser," when will any of us ever be healed? When will any of us ever be whole?
Unfortunately, some consider their mark on life's scoreboard to be dismally low -- the cause of chronic humiliation. Some even feel that the game of life has been rigged. In despair, they throw up their hands. In a fit of jealous rage, they attempt to erase everyone else's scorecard... with guns in a Colorado high school... or with a bomb in an Oklahoma City federal building.
My prayers go out to them and to their victims. My prayers go out to both the greatest and the least among us in the game of life. At our core, we all suffer the same malady and we are all driven by the same void we feel within.
Lastly, I pray for myself -- someone who has resigned from life's competitions in order to seek Nirvana -- the perspective from which life is seen to have no scorecard. When Nirvana is attained, selfless compassion abides where envy and competitiveness once took hold.
Perhaps one day, we shall all find healing and end our parade of the walking wounded. In my finite intelligence, I do not pretend to have our final destination in sight. I do, however, have faith in the vision revealed to us by the sage Kahlil Gibran:
"... Even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also... Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self. You are the way and the wayfarers. And when one of you falls he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone. Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone."
