Buddhism 496: Life is not a transaction…  

You don’t have to make a deal. You can just be, in silence or with sound, no winners or losers, just humans being human, sharing secrets and fears, drinking coffee or beers, no more thrill in a magic pill, this is it. And, if I’ve learned anything from a decade of Buddhism, then that probably sums it up as nicely as I can. In brief: accept life, as it is, without fear nor favor, without sweetness nor savor, just ISness, not bizniz, nor busy-ness, unless that is what’s required for daily salad, with or without dressing. 

But it’s the hardest thing sometimes, normalcy, and the universal requirement for sanity in the face of adversity, that is the birthright of our species, articulation and clarification, in the form of language, that which is our most powerful invention in this world. And the Buddha himself knew that simple ISness would be difficult, especially when someone had tasted the thrill of sex, so that we would naturally try to emulate that intense feeling in some way artificial, to forego the foreplay that may or may not yield results. 

And so, we have the Buddhist Middle Path, to remind us of our sanity, our normalcy, and our downright decency, when left to our own devices. And that is all that we need, our human-ness, our humanity when the temptations exist to tempt fate and call in late, hoping to be granted a reprieve of our normalcy, in order to shoot for the stars of fame and fashion, not from any innate need or necessity, but just the ego rush of kingliness, when all others are paupers or pawns in the game of life. Sometimes it takes training to resist temptations.