The Zen master was nearly
Finished with his instruction
When he got to non-seriousness
I was greatly relieved
For I was taking nothing
He was saying
Seriously
This short poem gets at one of the great paradoxes of enlightened spirituality: serious playfulness. Zen Buddhists have a rare reputation among spiritual-religious folks as having a sense of humor inherent in their spiritual practice. They refer to this as nonseriousness. Theologians and philosophers are poorly equipped to adequately describe humor in their systems of thought. This is not an accident. First of all, there is a seemingly built in seriousness and rigorousness in philosophy and theology that doesn’t play well with humor. Trying to capture humor in a system of thought leads to our own imprisonment in humor-free zones. This is analogous to the self-limiting trap of trying to capture spirituality through materialistic methods. Materialism is literally no joke. Taking things literally is the limit of science and the beginning of theft, stealing from ourselves as well as others. Fundamentalism is a disease that routinely infects any ideological project, whether claiming a materialist or spiritual aim. I have a great respect for the brevity and poetry of the Tao Te Ching as a sacred text. Taoists and Zen Buddhists have a lot in common. First, the Tao Te Ching begins by stating its fundamental limit — and, in some sense, its blessed futility — by stating that any way which can be described is not the Way, the Tao. Then, quite laughably, and with utter seriousness, gives its best shot at manifesting the Tao through words. The Tao Te Ching’s singularly poetic approach to the sacred is unparalleled among major faith traditions. Surely, other faith traditions have poetic elements, but poetry or obvious metaphor are often relegated to “mystic” subcultures within a dominant and domineering tradition. The powerful drift toward fundamentalism or militant ideology makes a cruel joke of mystics. Through the centuries, fundamentalists have taken the lives of mystics literally.
I view mysticism as the heart of spirituality. Mysticism is simply a view of transcendence, seeing beyond what can be merely grasped by our hands or minds. This is inherently dangerous to fundamentalism, and virtually any ideology. That is, dangerous to anything which tries to put the human heart or God in a box and declare “I’ve got it!” Humor and nonseriousness is perhaps the best way the deflate such puffed up claims. Of course, humor is infinitely more useful than merely deflating another’s unrightful claims; humor is fun! Fun is good in and of itself. I think it is safe to say that a life devoid of humor is a life far from fully lived. Humor is a fundamental spiritual experience, playing off the oft experienced reality that paradoxes, apparent contradictions, coexist in everyday human life. We can wring our hands, rack our brains, and even cry at the vexing nature of this reality; or, we can laugh, recognizing that oneness underlies such fractious appearances. This lightness of being is consonant with enlightenment and peace or wholeness of mind. Seemingly paradoxical with such peace is its unmatched counter-cultural power. The experience and recognition of oneness stirs into any given culture, with its myriad of rules and customs, something that it cannot fully take in. This is mind-busting and heart expanding. A sense of arbitrariness of any given culture’s rules can trigger a new-found freedom to exist both within and beyond those rules without being bound by those rules. This nonseriousness about any given set of rules sets up any culture at any given moment as the “but” of a joke. What such a transcendent attitude infuses into any human culture at any given time is nothing but life itself, the Tao if you will.
As a student of human culture, I see widespread contradictions and hypocrisy, even amidst our more sane enterprises. I find an ability to laugh at such realities profoundly therapeutic, especially given that the leading alternative is crying. In a tip of the hat to seriousness, crying can be a profound emotional manifestation of compassion in a broken world. Yet, there are other ways. Freedom is not trapped by seriousness. Non-seriousness offers a form of salvation to both redeem our experience into something more whole, and to manifest this more whole being attained into the workings of the everyday world.
My poetry is driven by a passionate exploration of human contradictions and unfulfilled humanity. While the veneer of my poems may seem strikingly cynical at moments, relentlessly pointing out weak spots in humanity, my intent is to juxtapose apparent hopelessness with authentic hopefulness. To survive such an epic project, I try to remember that we are already won, a wholly laughable proposition!
