I stumbled upon a nice article from a buddhist about how folks who work hard at finding the extraordinary in the exceptional are looking in the wrong place: the miracles are in the mundane.
In Zen, meditation is the space in which the ordinary comes alive with a near fathomless vibrancy.
Source: The Miracle of Mundane: Everything is Extraordinarily Ordinary | The Tattooed Buddha
This is indeed how I think. I remember a Zen saying of “When you wash the dishes, wash the dishes.” As in, “be there, experience that moment, that action, and nothing more.” This is quite in line with how I think. While I do not practice Zen or Buddhism, I am very much observant of the miracles of the ordinary.
Seeing more
There are some quotes that I carry with me, pointing to this thinking. For example, Feynman said in different ways how he sees more because he knows more. Say, look at a twinkling star. Yes, it twinkles beautifully. For Feynamn (and me), though, it’s an amazing ball of gas, shooting light across millions of years, born-grows-dies thru extraordinary processes over long periods of time, from small atoms in mind-blowing numbers (that’s “fathomless vibrancy” for you).
I also have a quote* from Shakespeare, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” This ties in with my love of Transcendentalism (Emerson, Hawthorne), which I learned about as a teenager, and the line from Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter “There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.” There are wondrous things beyond what we can imagine, just behind everything we see and touch.
Fearsome wonder
Most recently I have been reading about the Sublime. Interestingly, so much of what I’ve read of the philosophy of the sublime seems to circle back to Jesuits, whom I have long been fascinated by (disclaimer: I studied at a Jesuit college, and had Jesuit professors).
In relation to the mundane, encountering the sublime awakens a sense of fearsome wonder in the ordinary. From the Jesuit perspective, the sublime is inextricably tied to coming face to face with God. For me, the sublime is that feeling when the ordinary sparks a whole body-mind-heart feeling that connects to the deep wonder of Nature.
Like Feynman, when I see the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn on a lovely July night, I am not only enamored with the beauty of their light, but awed by how far and big they are and that their light are of different times.
Tangible experiences
Making this miracle of the mundane more tangible is a thread across some of the projects in my current Challenge. Here was something to make contagion and #BLM more visible. And here is my trying to show the ages of the lights reflecting of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn.
The mundane is what we live in but spend so much effort avoiding. In these pandemical stressful chaotic times, the mundane is grounding, calming, and full of moments of awe. There is no magic to connect to the mundane. Just be and do.
“When it’s time to get dressed, put on your clothes. When you must walk, then walk. When you must sit, then sit. Just be your ordinary self in ordinary life, unconcerned in seeking for Buddhahood.”
Source: The Miracle of Mundane: Everything is Extraordinarily Ordinary | The Tattooed Buddha
Yeah.
*I thought, until now, this quote was from Brother Karamazov, dunno why
Image from: laterjay
