The more spiritual you become, you become until having no interest in being spiritual, and you do not have interest in being unspiritual. You have lost all such interest, all interest in being a someone or a something. This kind of being appears to others as being wholly unextraordinary; he or she has no interest in being a spiritual side-show. One way we defend ourselves against Truth is creating it to be something special, something otherworldly. Then, we create special holy persons, which we esteem to be something other than us, something unattainable for us, at least without a long, arduous spiritual journey. Yet, the holy one is fully in this world, fully in the body, and fully having no intents to be holy in any remarkable manner. The holy one is not an end of a long process, but is now and present. Being now and present, that you are. Yet, still, you do not care about it, and you do not do not care.

A Zen story tells of a Zen student who had the habit of monthly contacting his Teacher about his spiritual progress. His letters take a mystical turn when he writes, “I am experiencing a oneness with the universe.” The Teacher glances at it and throws it away. The next month another letter arrives. The student writes, “I have discovered that the divine is present in everything.” The teacher uses the letter to start his fire. The following letter, revealing an even more ecstatic tone, has, “The mystery of the one and the many has revealed itself to my wonderment.” The teacher yawns. The next monthly letter has, “There is no self, no one is born, no one dies.” The Teacher throws up his hands in despair. The Teacher does not get another letter for a year. Concerned, he writes, asking the student to keep him informed on his spiritual progress. The student writes back, “Who cares?” The Teacher smiles, saying, “At last! He’s, finally, got it!”

Finally, there really is nothing to get spiritually. Everything arises and disappears as Gift. And we know the Gift is a passing experience. Yes, we can be grateful for what we could call extraordinary experiences. Still, they are only experiences. No experience can survive, each expends itself. Every spiritual experience, no matter how amazing, carries in it its own death sentence. We learn receptivity is the openness in which Life gives Itself and in which the experiences of Life disappear back into Emptiness, or Nothingness, the fertile Void. We grow to appreciate this, to relax with it, no longer to be seeking anything special spiritually. Truly, we come to see the loveliness of ordinariness, so much so we no longer feel need for anything else, not even a heaven later that would be anymore than Life Itself now. In fact, heaven is now, always, for heaven is not an experience before or after life, but Life devoid of all experience, so untouched by life or death. This, I see, is the Eternal Life central to the teachings and life of Christ.