From Here On Out, Nothing Goes According to Plan
Seeing spiritual practice as pure process
One of the reasons I write is to dwell in a space of perpetual surprise.
I originally thought my novel Bodywork (coming next year from Sentient Publications) would explore the overlaps between loving touch and spiritual practice. But as the manuscript took shape, the characters took over and told me that they wanted something different.
As it turns out, the story is not primarily about massage, somatic therapy, or sex. It’s about awakening as pure process.
Greg, the main character in Bodywork, is a longtime student of Buddhism. He’s practiced sitting meditation for years and gone on extended retreats.
One day he realizes that he’s bored with it all. While he’s had some pleasant altered states of consciousness on the zafu, Greg concludes that meditation has turned into an isolating head-trip. He longs for a more embodied practice, one that allows him to connect with other people, to touch and be touched.
Eventually Greg turns to bodywork. He plans to continue meditating but to do it in a new setting. Instead of spending hours on his butt in a meditation hall, he’ll lay on a massage table. He’ll bring mindful awareness to the sensations of being touched by another human being. As a good Buddhist, he’ll learn to see those pleasant sensations as impermanent and to experience them without grasping.
It’s a perfect plan. And it crashes.
Greg’s quest leads him to a variety of therapists. While most of them offer conventional services, several do not. They do things that Greg doesn’t understand. They touch him in ways that seem sexual but at the same time yield profound insights, more than he ever got from sitting meditation.
When one of Greg’s therapists brings him to an orgasm with her hands, he has a vivid experience of non-duality. He feels moved — and confused. Though he’s been transparent with Susie, his wife, about his bodywork, Greg decides to withhold this experience from her until he understands it better. Meanwhile his intimate life with Susie flourishes. They grow closer emotionally and start making love with the passion of teenagers.
One day, after a Bloody Mary-fueled brunch with her best female friend, Susie accuses Greg of having an affair. She demands to see Greg’s main therapist on her own to find out what exactly what’s going on.
At this point Greg and Susie enter a new territory with no map. Their lives as individuals and as a couple transforms in ways that neither of them could ever predict.
While writing Bodywork I thought a lot about spiritual practice. Like Greg, I had experience with Buddhism and meditation. And, my practice was starting to crack at the seams.
Mainly I struggled with the idea of nirvana as a point of arrival, the end of suffering. Though meditation helped me to experience a wide range of emotions with less reactivity, I still suffered and acted like a jerk at times. Nirvana was nowhere in sight, and I got worried.
Then I encountered the teachings of Kenneth Folk — in particular, this Q and A for Dharma Overground. Here Kenneth articulates an insight that was fomenting in my subconscious and fueling Bodywork, even though I didn’t see it at the time: In spiritual practice there is no point of arrival, no end to the path, no definitive experience, and no one who “gets it” once and for all. And awakening is simply seeing this on a gut level.
As Kenneth puts it: “No experience is more real than any other, or prior to any other; there is only experience, always moving, referring back to no one.”
This rings true for me, and I find it immensely comforting. I can freely admit the experience of feeling so ordinary, even after years of meditation and yoga practice.
This is what Kenneth gives us — permission to be ordinary. Even the greatest spiritual teachers are mortal human beings like me, with their own hopes, foibles, and fears. Like Greg, Susie, and the rest of us, they struggle with sex, time, money, and marriage. We can all practice for a lifetime and still have blind spots and make mistakes. Nobody is special, and it’s all okay.
As Kenneth notes: “It’s terrible when Santa Claus dies, but at least you don’t have to drag him around anymore.” That resonates with me: I no longer need to drag around any fantasies about arrival and perfection. I can drop that load and lighten up (enlightenment). What a relief.
Awakening is simply pure experiencing without clinging or resistance — the full flowering of our humanity, not our perfection. There’s peace even in that.
For more thoughts on this topic, see Awakening as Pure Process — Insights from Kenneth Folk.