To laugh at oneself is enlightenment.
This article by Atalwin Pilon was previously published on the Basic Goodness Blog, and is reprinted here with permission.
Chiang Rai, Thailand.
How different do I feel from this morning. How does our interior experience change and flow from moment to moment. I felt so stuck, lonely and unaccepting of what was this morning and it has all dissolved. Things that were experienced as fears and obstacles this morning have now changed into answers and facts. What was a a big problem before was not a problem anymore a couple of hours later.
Sometimes I get tired of the ego in general and my own ego specifically. But sometimes it is funny too. And the joy comes often after I have blown something out of proportion first and having worked through it. Then I gain a new perspective and it looks and feels rather light, amusing and endearing.
This morning I was feeling very disappointed about the lack of integrity that I experienced on an elephant excursion that was marketed as an authentic and integral experience. It was not an intentional evil but it was the scent of commercial glib that rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t like it when something is disguised, when the message is fuzzy or unclear, when I am fooled, betrayed or taken advantage of. When I look at the previous sentence now I can quite clearly see that these are the same things that happened to me as a child. When I am in the middle of it I can’t understand why I can’t let go of the situation and I can’t make the connection. But now, with a bit of hindsight, I can see the charade played by grown-ups and my inability to voice my indignation for lacking the language skills.
When I was a child I could be so angry that I literally would suffocate myself because I would stop breathing. My mom recalls a moment where she slapped me to make me breathe again. When I am put on the back of the elephant and asked to play along with the illusion that I am part of an elite audience that gets to learn how to ride an elephant in the traditional way while the elephant is clearly just walking the same route he walks every day and is not responding to any of the cues (because he knows better) I feel so not taken seriously that it makes me want to explode. That I seem to be alone in this makes it confusing. It is funny how similar these two examples are and also funny to see how little I moved on in the last 36 years.
Somewhere along the path I picked up a lesson that works well for me: “Don’t take yourself so fucking seriously.” Or, as Suzuki roshi put it: “To laugh at oneself is Enlightenment.” So yeah, we carry a lot of crap around with us from times long ago and yeah it sucks when we get caught up in it. But it is is just the ego, it is just our stuff. It is not the final reality and it is not permanent. And right now I find the image of an angry 40 years old child on top of an elephant very funny. And he might still have work to do on his anger issues, getting of the elephant and not playing along the charade was a good decision.
There was more. I am in Chiang Rai now and I am getting closer to Phra Kru Bah, the warrior-monk I want to meet. Because I have seen the documentary about him I had the feeling there would be all jungle here. As you might know I am terrible at preparing myself so I thought I was throwing myself in the jungle today. When I bought a ticket to this city and entered a nice and clean air-conditioned bus filled with nice and clean Thai I realized that the place might not be as remote as I imagined it. (I am laughing again as I type this). For the first time it dawned upon me that even Chiang Rai has hotels and I would not be sleeping on the floor. So I took my iPhone and Googled myself a hostel in 5 minutes, where I am now. The guy at reception knows Phra Kru Bah by reputation. His temple is 45 km from here. He will write a note for me in Thai as indeed nobody will speak English at The Golden Horse Temple. Until now the language barrier was a fear and an obstacle but now it became a fact. So what if the monks don’t speak English? I will just be with them for a while and absorb.
Tomorrow I will go to The Golden Horse Temple, armed with a meditation cushion and a big bottle of insect repellent. Life is good.
Photos of temple and baby elephant courtesy of Atalwin Pilon
Good article. There are causes and principles and ideals that deserve to be taken seriously. Individuals? Not so much, except as champions of the aforementioned. Otherwise we are one small vessel of Id, sloshing with selfish wants and expectation. Even our physical being is fleeting. Why are we to be taken seriously? Only because we want to be. More people need to recognize this, be humble, laugh at their own idiosyncratic nature and try to figure out what higher purpose they are going to try to serve during their short time here.
Or the shorter answer: yes. On the day I wrote the post above I needed the word ‘fucking’ twice. It is an essential word in this post.
One of the funniest people I ever read was the late Erma Bombeck. If you’ve never read her books, I would highly encourage you getting one. I hate reading “books,” but I couldn’t put hers down. Our lives are filled with comedy.
Sigh….
Obviously you’re not a golfer…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/
These posts are taken from my blog http://www.basicgoodness.com. My practice is to be honest with myself, to write from the heart unconditionally and to publish without editing. Self censoring myself is the opposite of that. I rarely curse bit sometimes I do and I have no intention to hold back because other people take offense. If that is ok with you I am happy to welcome you as a reader. Feedback is always appreciated.
Or the shorter answer: yes. On the day I wrote the post above I needed the word ‘fucking’ twice. It is an essential word in this post.
Sigh…. I was quoting the Big Lebowski…
No – it isn’t really. But it gives the article that trendy, “I don’t care what people think so I am going to use obscenities” feel.
I disagree. I feel like the word “fucking,” in a middle paradoxical way, was used to emphasize the point to relax a touch.
Is that some kind of eastern thing?
Far from it.
Everybody could use a good dose of Buddhism in their lives.
There’s just one thing, Dude.Do you have to use so many cuss words?
“Do you have to use so many cuss words?” –> (see title of article)
Good story, Atalwin. I absolutely love the irony in realizing that you were becoming very “un-Zen” on this trip of spiritual enlightenment. Great job catching yourself slipping, man. Another irony, I’m friends with a ton of comedians and comedic actors and many of them are very bad at laughing at their own foibles. Some of then use their bitter weltanschauung as fuel for their comedic perspective but some are just awful to be around. I very much hope you can expand on your personal experience to create a longer essay that develops more of an ethos. How much better would… Read more »
With a hat tip to the commenter BuckHucklebuck on the Guardian Comment is Free site, from whom this is stolen wholesale…
Two quotes have always guided me when it comes to understanding laughter:
“The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.” – Ayn Rand
“Never be afraid to laugh at yourself. After all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.” – Dame Edna Everage
I’ve always thought the world can be pretty easily divided between these two schools
I don’t think that what Ayn Rand expresses is real laughter. I feel it is self-hatred masked as laughter. True laughter is an expression of joy, love and forgiveness. Laughing at something or somebody to ridicule or humiliate has nothing to with joy but with the masking of feelings of inferiority. It is sad that we all possess self-hatred to a certain degree, we all have our ways to spit ourselves in the face and to deny ourselves love, appreciation and acceptance. I do believe we ‘wrong’ ourselves by not fully loving ourselves. But I also feel that compassion is… Read more »