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Friday, October 15, 2010

Ordinary Perfection

Ordinary mind is the way.

- Nansen

Those who love themselves above all others, who place themselves at the center of a self-created 

universe, are those who cannot love. They are left anguished, alone and bereft.

- Chris Hedges

A Zen student used to tell me, "I want to be special." She saw her failure to be special, to be

outstanding in some unspecified way, as the cause of her discontent. If only she could be special,

she said, she would then be happy.

Outwardly, her life was enviable, compared with the lives of most people in the world. She was

healthy, had a comfortable home, was financially secure, was loved by her family - but it wasn't

enough, because she wanted to be special, and, as she got older, she would cry over the

knowledge that she was ordinary.

She didn't understand that nothing and no one is special. An exploding star is an ordinary

exploding star. A magnificent mountain is an ordinary magnificent mountain. Einstein was an

ordinary man with an aptitude for science. Shakespeare was an ordinary man who wrote

exquisitely.  Elvis Presley died on a bathroom floor.

Success and failure are both fictions. This woman tormented herself by thinking that her life

wasn't enough, that she wasn't enough, because of her imagined failure to become special.

Little boys want to be Superman, because they forget that Superman is also Clark Kent. To

become a man is to grow out of that narcissistic desire. Some never grow out of it, never

experiencing the perfection of life just as it is, never understanding that perfection is ordinary.

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Posted by Dogo Barry Graham at 5:08 AM 

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Labels: ego, narcissism, samsara, suffering, zen

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"The awesome Barry Graham" - American Book Review

Dogo Barry Graham

Author, journalist and Zen teacher. Native of Glasgow, Scotland, now based in Phoenix, Arizona.

Abbot of The Sitting Frog Zen Center.

This blog contains various writings, Zen teachings, reporting and commentary on politics,urbanism and sustainability.

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