The Everyday Miracle

Samsara is Nirvana.  Waking up is as ordinary as swatting flies.  It doesn't require beads and robes, exotic names and ceremony.  It doesn't require anything, really.  It's just ordinary and simple.  I imagine we encounter sages all the time throughout our lives, we just don't recognize them because we are seeing bus drivers and beggars, lawyers and nurses.  Imagine Jesus sitting on the bank of a river, or a lake in the park, fishing with a cane pole.  They say Babaji lives in a Himalayan cave.  Surely he isn't looking for anything, or drilling yoga in search of enlightenment.  Or consider Han Shan, wandering the Chinese countryside, writing poetry on the side of barns with broken pieces of coal.  To borrow from Joan Osborne, "What if God was one of us?"  Could we then slow down and take it easy?

Truth is a product of perception, not necessarily of looking, searching, struggling.  Our practices and paths, while quite precious to us, have limited value in terms of Ultimate Reality.  Maybe we should be willing to ditch them altogether in order to find what has been right under our noses for all of eternity.  At best, we can reconsider their purpose, or even better realize that everything is Dharma, that everyone is our teacher, and all our teachers are Satgurus.