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Androscoggin River
Brunswick/Topsham, Maine
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A Zen student habitually contacts his Teacher monthly about his spiritual progress. His letters take a turn when he writes, "I'm experiencing a oneness with the universe." The Teacher glances at it and throws it away. The following month another letter arrives. The student writes, "I've discovered that the divine is present in everything." The Teacher uses the letter to start his fire. The following letter reveals an even more ecstatic tone: "The mystery of the one and the many has revealed itself to my wonderment." The Teacher yawns. The following monthly letter has, "There's no self; no one is born, no one dies." The Teacher throws up his hands in despair.
The Teacher does not receive another letter for a year. Concerned, he writes, asking the student to inform him of his spiritual progress. The student writes back, "Who cares?" The Teacher smiles, saying, "At last! He's finally got it!"
* * *
One arrives at a seeing that spiritual experiences are only experiences. There remains no felt need or wish to be spiritual.
She is enough. That her god is enough is the same as her being enough. Experiences that before she longed for may even be seen as, at best, a fleeting enjoyment, at worst, a distraction from the quiet, uneventful bliss of the felt sense of being - Presence.
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*©Brian K. Wilcox, 2023.
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photograph.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
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