We have met the enemy, and they are... US.

So, let's talk about feet (or pick a body-part, I suppose) of clay.

Very briefly: every single person who's ever taught, every person that's ever written down a thought, wrote an exposition, poem, article or ditty, every person who's ever stood in front of someone or some few thousands and spoke the most inspiring and stirring word, trod down street (high or low) or ambled through a glade, climbed Everest or rode a bike through Death Valley, every astronaut, president, Pope or Lama. Everyone. Every last blessed one of them.

Was
full
of
shit.

Flawed to the core.

Weak. Petulant. Insolent. Gullible. Not really worth their own afterbirth, frankly.

Yes. Siddhartha Gautama included.

Don't really have any better handle on things than you do.

'Fraid so.

That, however, is what makes this whole thing--this whole existence--worth it. We are just nothing more than, well... "nothing more than" has two extra words than it needs. "We" are these irritating egos getting in the way of direct experience. And so often our experience latches itself on another mere ego-projection that we somehow allow ourselves to believe has better, or more, answers to questions that we want answers to so desperately. We want so badly to believe that someone else has a better handle on all this than we do. So we look to writers, speakers, "experts", gurus, et al, as a method of allowing us to feel that "the answers will always be out there". We even went so far as to project that ego into the sky, or out in space on some other plane, named it "god" and said "There! Now we feel better!"

But back down to earth. While one could argue that the whole "god invention" is--in fact--the greatest and most dangerous example of misplaced trust, for me, right behind it has to be the horrible misconception that people of cultural or religious note, particularly religious authors, must have some kind of samsaric immunity, and are somehow much closer to "it" than we are. They wrote a book on it! you think to yourself.

Folks, they ain't all that. His Holiness, The Dalai Lama included. Yes, he's closer to enlightenment than you or I, no question. But it's a matter of scale.

Let's say that "0" is the start-point for measuring. "Enlightenment/Nirvana" is 10 million.

He's at 9,999,998, and you're buts-to-nuts with His Holiness.

That's just how close we ALL are to being free.


What a miracle that is...