My customer was enlightened - humbled by humility

[kieranperez]

So I currently work at REI (which if you live in the USA you probably know what that is) in the San Francisco Bay Area in Marin. Yesterday I was helping a customer with shoes and as I was just casually answering this man’s questions (he was 72 by the way) we were talking about the benefits of saying barefoot running and all this stuff and, I don’t even know how it got here, we started talking about meditation and I said ‘if people were told what real meditation is they’d never do it.’ We then brought up how he used to live in a Zen monastery that’s part of San Francisco Zen Center in Tassajara California for close to 2 decades and left the monastery 32 years ago. This caught me off guard and of course raised my excitement because I just took this guy as some any other old customer that comes into the store. There was no beaming radiance or simplicity that we often fantasize as still some mark of a divine person. I then asked him “did you find what you were looking for?” And he just responded with a casual giggle “yeah and then some.” I then immediately asked “was it worth it?” He just casually smirked (not meaning anything by it) and said in the tone of voice of any ordinary person his age “of course. It’s the only thing there’s is worth anything. But it’s not a big deal or anything.” Wishing I wasn’t at work and I could just ask him more questions about how I can do the same thing he switched the conversation and asked a couple more questions on the shoes and then thanked me and headed back downstairs and left. 

I think the part about this whole thing that took some time to really sink in was how ordinary he was and blended in with everyone. He was just an old 70 year old man who knows who he is. Nothing special. No wise words. No mission. And that’s what I loved. He didn’t need to talk about it. He didn’t need to live as anything or be anything. It’s been on my mind this whole time. 

Its funny because my biggest drive is to both do these certain things in life and also at the same time I want to be a total nobody. I want to be absolutely nothing. 

[peanutspathtotruth]

That sounds exciting, thank you for sharing  Definitely an experience away from all the comfy theory. It's hard to say how "far" he really went of course. But that doesn't matter.

It's so crazy if you walk down the street you have no idea who is a realized being, ...or a mass murder. Makes all those internal judgements about people looking so arrogant and insignificant.

[Sven]

That's amazing to hear. Thank you for sharing. I can imagine how at the same time you feel like someone special is in front of you, yet, there's not much really to say, right? Well- you can ask him questions like people are doing to @winterknight

I love the questions you asked as well, "was it worth it?" is such a good question actually.

What else would you have wanted to ask him?

[kieranperez]

1 hour ago, Sven said:

What else would you have wanted to ask him?

More personal stuff and logistical stuff. Don’t want to go into here

[Nahm]

@kieranperez Awesome story. Btw, there are no “divine people”.  There’s only ordinary people. Sometimes ordinary people do extraordinary things. Every person is divine. 

[Forestluv]

@kieranperez Nice, I like how he didn’t need to talk about it or to be anyone or anything. Yet, you sensed it in him and were aware. If you spot it, you got it.

[ajasatya]

there you go. no urge to be known as enlightened and no self-promotion of any kind.

i wonder if the "ask me anything" series of topics that are popping up on this forum are doing more harm than good for two reasons:

1. they're distorting enlightenment into a highly intellectual and conceptual thing, misleading those without enough discernment
2. it may strengthen the egoic illusion of those who start such threads as an attempt to seek external validations

there are reasons behind the fact that nobody is allowed to claim themselves "enlightened" in monasteries. i don't know what leo and the moderators think about it, though.

[Leo Gura]

What if God -- that humble bastard -- came to your store, bought some shoes, and left without even saying hello?

[kieranperez]

57 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What if God -- that humble bastard -- came to your store, bought some shoes, and left without even saying hello?

That would make a great koan

[kieranperez]

2 hours ago, ajasatya said:

they're distorting enlightenment into a highly intellectual and conceptual thing, misleading those without enough discernment

I also 100000% agree with this. I’ve actually been falling into this the last few months. It turns nonduality a belief system which when you’re doing whatever practices you do makes them harder cause now you have a whole cosmology and those beliefs become very sticky. For me this is a problem (particularly) because I grew up under a dad who I learned this horrible dogmatic habit of hard debating and I can’t stand this habit in myself for all the different reasons it toxifies my life but also because I tend to be good at understanding what concepts are really pointing to intellectually and I have almost this thing, it’s almost like this subconscious talent, of being really good at understanding what’s really being spoken on a conceptual level and tying all these pieces in my mind and can see in my mind how they connect and now I have this whole elaborate cosmology that I tend to lie and pretend I know better than I do and defend those ideas. It’s a really nasty habit but also conceptualizinf this whole thing is just such a trap, especially on here where we by necessity have to use language which indulges the mind to map everything and unconsciously confusing the map for the territory. However, I’m getting pretty good at contemplating and grounding myself in the present and that the truth of what I’m after is right here right now and nowhere else which regrounds me in not knowing and curiosity.

[purerogue]

Why do you think that  truth is only in present, it is past too. 

[kieranperez]

3 minutes ago, purerogue said:

it is past too. 

Contemplate what time is. Anything time bound is not real. Time itself is not real. There is no past and there is no future. 

I don’t know what that this question has to do with anything on this post but there you go. Please stick to the topic

[purerogue]

1 minute ago, kieranperez said:

Contemplate what time is. Anything time bound is not real. Time itself is not real. There is no past and there is no future. 

I don’t know what that this question has to do with anything on this post but there you go. Please stick to the topic

It does not matter  what time is in nothing, you experience time and when you will find what you are looking for you will understand that clues were everywhere both in past and present. 

[kieranperez]

5 minutes ago, kieranperez said:

I don’t know what that this question has to do with anything on this post but there you go. Please stick to the topic

@purerogue ?

[purerogue]

6 minutes ago, kieranperez said:

@purerogue ?

How I can stick to topic if it has no question just story without any remarks of what exactly I should discuss here, anyway good luck . 

[Preetom]

6 hours ago, ajasatya said:

there you go. no urge to be known as enlightened and no self-promotion of any kind.

i wonder if the "ask me anything" series of topics that are popping up on this forum are doing more harm than good for two reasons:

1. they're distorting enlightenment into a highly intellectual and conceptual thing, misleading those without enough discernment
2. it may strengthen the egoic illusion of those who start such threads as an attempt to seek external validations

there are reasons behind the fact that nobody is allowed to claim themselves "enlightened" in monasteries. i don't know what leo and the moderators think about it, though.

I feel otherwise. It's motivating to see that Enlightenment is not only exclusive to monks who have renounced everything, but people from all walks of life can have a go at it.

If Enlightenment in it's bare bones is simply knowing what you are at the most essential level and living from that place, then this thing should be one of first things everyone should take a look at. It must be taken out of it's exotic fetishes and esoteric cultural baggage and made more available. Not as some superhuman accomplishment, but as the most humane and natural way to start and go about in life. 

[Blissout]

How do you know he is liberated?

If you truly think that, you have to ask him if he still suffers. if he answers there is only peace and bliss and no more suffering. then yes he is liberated.

[Preetom]

1 hour ago, Blissout said:

How do you know he is liberated?

If you truly think that, you have to ask him if he still suffers. if he answers there is only peace and bliss and no more suffering. then yes he is liberated.

Can you define both the peace/bliss and suffering here?

Is this peace and bliss a physical/mental/tactile sensation?

Is physical pain=suffering?

[Blissout]

End of suffering = end of psychological pain.

No more anxiety, future/past worries. no uncomfortable emotions.

 

Of course physical pain like injury continues.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Blissout

[ajasatya]

5 hours ago, Preetom said:

It's motivating to see that Enlightenment is not only exclusive to monks who have renounced everything, but people from all walks of life can have a go at it.

this does not contradict what i said