Notes from "A Tragic Sensibility" on "The Ten Thousand Things"

• Awakening can’t be done by an “I”, an identity.
• There’s no path, only this, right now.
• Awaken to the human condition, it’s sadness and tragedy, rather than attempting to transcend anything.

Notes from “a tragic sensibility” on “The Ten Thousand Things”

Speaking broadly and generally, spiritual students and retreat attendees may say they want to “awaken,” but they don’t mean it. They seem to want to remain in the same old trance state: “myself the witness, or myself the realizer.” But call it what you will; identities like that are impediments to understanding, not a path to it. There is, I say, no path. There is only this right now, precisely as it is, like it or not.

the trance of transcendence, as I call it, which entails and is sustained by seeking ever subtler justifications for the natural defense mechanisms against despair, hopelessness, and just plain sadness about the human condition.

This is the opposite of transcending anything. This is the unavoidable embrace of a tragic sensibility. Explanations notwithstanding, this sadness and the tragic sense of life, not transcendence and victory, is what we awake ones are really dealing with.

In light of this fraught situation, it is little wonder that so many people who consider themselves sensitive and “spiritual” want to be hypnotized, and the deeper the trance, the better.

Added 2024-08-10.