Glimmerings II: Pull-up Diapers for Everyone!

I like stories. I like the story about the crazy astronaut who drove across the country in Depends so that she could get right to attacking her romantic competition with pepper spray. Yes, there is evil lurking in the darkness (of the parking garage). Then there's also the story of Jesus saying we can't get into heaven unless we become like children. So, then, diapers for everyone?

While you can do what you like on that subject, I systematize. It's not always entertaining, but it can be helpful. Something I've figured out is that gross-level affirmation of a subtle self is important for developing what I consider to be an adequate understanding of self, consciousness, the world, etc. Mindfulness trains one in equanimity, and equanimity is good for allowing one to deconstruct the up/down reactive interpretation. Communion is good for by-passing the in/out division, rejection, by bringing people in. In a psychological sense, then, equanimity and communion structurally counteract or can't really exist simultaneously with the up/down/in/out complex of reactions. So that's part of the goal, but how do kids get that sort of thing across without writing long blogposts?

Kids often work in and with glimmerings. It's so natural, they often don't know they're doing it--which makes them good at it because glimmerings are faster than thought. Think of how many times you were told to stop fidgeting or to be consistent or pay attention or whatever. When we introject that domination, we learn to deafen or blind ourselves to glimmerings. Dogs have glimmerings, and we can teach dogs to sometimes ignore their glimmerings. Glimmerings are nearly universal--they aren't limited to people. And there is a magical life-energy that comes with glimmerings, an energy that is diminished in our world when we blind and deafen ourselves to it.

Probably my favorite biblical quote is the one where Jesus talks about glimmerings, fairy dust. Did you know that Jesus told his disciples about fairy dust? He did. He said that they would not be ruined by what they put into themselves (the way they had been taught that shellfish and pork were defiling) but by what they did not bring out of themselves. In other words, heaven is not an absence of pork (what kind of heaven would heaven be without bacon?) but rather a magical life lived by bringing the fairy dust within you (which we feel as these glimmerings) out. Jesus liked stories, so he also talked in metaphors about keeping your light going, not hiding your light, etc. Show your glimmerings. Other than wanting sons who will one day play in the NBA and take our last names into glory and history forever, we love kids for bringing out the life they feel.

I won't necessarily suggest Depends, but Jesus and I believe in wine and fairy dust. That just leaves us with the difference between play and subtle awareness. In Hui-neng's words, "Going and coming freely--the substance of mind without blockage--this is prajna."