This week’s Zen story is another one about ordinariness. It’s a story about Bankai from a long time ago. It’s about how we are always hankering for miracles and magic.
Islam includes this
An interesting little tidbit about Mohammed, and tribal society at the time of Mohammed, was they didn’t like miracles either. The reason was that there were so many tricksters around who would pretend that they were making miracles and trick people.
As any good magician will tell you, it’s easy to fake magic. It’s easy to fake a miracle. There were so many fakers then, and there still are today. So they didn’t trust miracle making in a spiritual teacher. What they valued instead was poetry… because you can’t fake good poetry.
Do we want magic?
So this is something to think about. How much are we hankering after magic. After something to come save us. We want prosperity, and healing or health. If we are looking for that it’s easy to find fakers.
You find what you look for.
On the other hand, if we strive to discover the value of ordinariness – that totally changes our day-to-day life. All day long we are ordinary anyway! We’re not that fabulous. It brings us close each time we remember.
Everyday Miracles
There is a lot of wisdom in finding miracles in everyday life. There’s a point where we can see that all life is a miracle. But that’s that’s a totally different thing. I’m talking about hankering after a miracle. Believing that the spiritual master is going to be this magical being who swoops in and fills you with… what ever you are looking for: prosperity, or love or what ever.
Ordinariness is way easier. This is this is who we are. This is what makes us part of everything not separate. A simple, ordinary part of everything.
It’s one of the most valuable teachings of Zen.