I'm not sure what compelled me to search out this particular quote - it
must have been something we spoke about. Its from another one of my other
Book Boyfriends is George B. Leonard. He was Senior Editor of Look
Magazine for 17 years. David has this book in his house - I think in his
office area.
For me this passage represents the stages of waking up to a conscious life:
THE TRANSFORMATION - A guide to the Inevitable Changes in Humankind
by George B Leonard (pg. 158-160)
And so I walk the streets, aware of the pervasive ugliness of the people in
this most fortunate nation, the lines of hurt and anxiety and greed around
their eyes and mouths, the imbalance of their walk, the deformation of
their bodies. Oh no, it is not genetic. Civilization has twisted and
scarred those bodies as surely as it has damaged and tortured the face of
the planet. And I consider the subtle hate that often underlies the most
casual interchange. And the specific karma we have built up in this
country by our specific treatment of blacks and Indians and Orientals, the
result of which we suffer and will go on suffering. And the
self-righteous hostility among some of those who march for peace ("Peace On
You," one of the signs reads). And the bristling animosity in some who
would loose their "love" on the world. And the physical and psychic
garbage in the dwelling places of some who proclaim the new life styles.
And the elitism and divisiveness among the theorists and activists who
would create a reformed culture. And the growing intransigence of those
who would maintain the old culture. And the impersonal greed of the giant
corporations and unions and governing bureaucracies. And the weight of the
past, the ponderous, ever-pressing, immovable weight, as heavy as the earth
itself...
If numbness offers no real sanctuary, awakening promises shock and vertigo.
Added to the Gift that civilization has bequeathed us is the intolerable
pain of the gap between what we could be and what we are. We all feel that
now, but some fail to recognize it for what it is, and try to find
something or someone to use as a scapegoat for what exists in them I am
under no illusions. When I curse the old culture, I curse that culture in
me. When I hope for the Transformation, I hope that I may be transformed.
And sometimes it is hard to hope...
What if each of us could share the feelings of all humanity, simultaneously
and with full force? First there would be a terrible prolonged scream of
pain. And then something far more awesome: a shock of recognition. Would
realize that we had already felt it. Somewhere within us, however veiled,
all of us know. This knowing pervades our being. Unacknowledged and
struggling for release, the common consciousness of humanity exhausts our
energies and numbs our perceptions. Experienced to the full, it would
bring clarity.
And with clarity there would be tears. After the scream of pain, after the
shock of recognition, all the world would weep, not just for the needless
torture, but for the moments squandered, the beauty overlooked, the
potential realized. The world would weep for the words unspoken, the
painful confrontations eternally postponed, the fathers fallen with their
secrets locked in their dying hearts; for all the walls between us that we
have no pulled down. Feeling this and far more for which no words exist,
all the world would weep (for a week? For a month?) until the last tears
had soaked into the earth. And in this flow humanity would know at last
the true meaning of the Flood, the universal and saving catastrophe which
is not the end but the beginning of the world.
And after the flood of tears - we know this too - there is joy, the simple,
matter-of-fact joy of existence. The tears of loss would turn to tears of
joy. For beyond the pain, beyond all the man-made walls, there is always
the elemental vibrancy. To attain contact with it, pure and clean, seems a
miracle. Once attained, as Suzuki Roshi tells his students, it is nothing
special. It is existence. It is the sheerest, most miraculous ecstasy.
It is nothing special.
