There is a legend about the buddha that one night, on the cusp of attaining enlightenment, he waged a great battle with (Devaputra) Mara, the chief of all demons and master of all human passions. Mara conjured all manner of things to distract Siddhartha. When he fired arrows at Siddhartha they became nothing more than harmless lotus blossoms, showering him. Mara's final test was to ask why he, Siddhartha, deserved enlightenment. Siddhartha said nothing. Still deep in meditation, he stretched out his hand and touched the earth beneath him with the tips of his fingers. The Earth acknowledged Siddhartha and trembled and shook with mighty force, bearing witness to Siddhartha's awakening. Mara had no choice but to abandon his quest and Siddhartha rose that morning the Buddha; the awakened one.Why is this relevant to the discussion? I'm not sure. But something about the touching of the earth suddenly spoke to me. When we touch the earth beneath us, we touch the edge of the universe figuratively and maybe even literally. Cosmology has recently inferred the existence of dark matter. Nobody is sure why it's there or what it does but one thing is sure: it is the most abundant of all "stuff" in the universe. It can be thought of as an interconnected web that scientists quite literally believe binds the universe together.
I don't know why these thoughts occurred to me while thinking about my recently deceased grandfather (other than the fact that it's a perfectly natural course when someone familiar dies) but, rather than fill me with a sense of dread or existentialism about my own existence, I found it a calming, peaceful thought. In that moment I thought to myself "When I touch the ground beneath me - and know that I am touching the ground beneath me - I am touching the whole of creation. From the big bang fourteen billion years ago to Jesus' walk in Galilee some two millenia ago to a galaxy a trillion trillion miles away; they are all at my fingertips. At that moment, the whole existence of the universe is for me to understand that it is there." This isn't meant to be thought of egocentrically; but merely that in this moment, the entire existence of the universe has - for me - come down to this moment of understanding.
Life doesn't have to have a point or a meaning, just the understanding that it is amazing.
So does this make any sense at all?
1 comment:
There are numerous directions I could go with my own response.
The first thing that comes to mind is that it is interesting how you went to talking about the finite universe and matter itself.
There is a certain sense of awe one gets when lying on one’s back and staring up at the stars—preferably on a clear night in the country so one can see the Milky Way in all its splendor.
You can feel the solid, finite earth beneath you, but all you can see is the grand scope of the cosmos. You feel comforted by the familiar grass and solid ground, yet feel wondrous at (and maybe even a little intimidated by) the boundless heavens that we rarely consider in our daily lives. It’s all so majestic, so vast, yet so completely irrelevant and essentially pointless when you get right down to it.
Another thing to point out is the reverent feeling people get when they go to the Holy Land and touch the wall of the temple or whatever in Jerusalem. I've heard stories from various people who went on pilgrimages, though I've never left North America. There is certainly something to the feeling one gets when in the presence of something very, very old. "This is the street Jesus walked on!" Or, “This is the garden where Baha’u’llah declared Himself the Messenger!” Or whatever. Heck, people even feel reverent when they see some castle in Scotland. There’s a connection to the past, simply because it’s still standing. We forget that with trivial things like rivers and boulders. Interesting direction you went with that.
The bedrock beneath Liberty, MO was there long Before Christ and will be there long after Liberty, MO is eroded and erased. And I’m fine with that.
Post a Comment