Slumdog Buddha #2
“Right Now, It’s Like This”: It’s a phrase whose usage is catching on, especially among members of the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society community, and related groups like Dharma Punx and Refuge Recovery. You may have even heard non-Buddhists using it.
Read the rest of the article featuring Vinny Ferrano of Against the Stream at Lion’s Roar.
What if I don’t want salvation or enlightenment?
What if what I want is to awaken to the ugliness and brutality of the world and still be glad to be alive?
What if misery is bliss on a cloudy day?
What if what I want is to completely embrace the brutal reality of the world and turn it into poetry?
Maybe I’m a slum dog buddha.
I spent most of my life wanting to change the world and make it a better place. But just now, something’s different. Maybe instead of changing the world, I could accept it just as it is. More than that, I could love it just like it is. I could see the beauty in all of it, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ together.
I don’t need to live in a utopian bubble. ‘Right now, it’s like this.’
I don’t need to be shielded from the finality of death.
‘What comes next?’ the student asked. ‘Nothing,’ the Zen master said, ‘nothing comes next. This it it.’
I don’t need to be free from suffering or to end it; I need to embrace it with love.
Maybe the real enlightenment is realizing I don’t need to be enlightened.
Engage! 
Recent Comments