Category: by Sangha Writers

In Gratitude To Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli                            

To understand what is sacred in our lives, it is useful to begin with an understanding of what is not sacred, or profane.  If what is sacred are those moments of full presence when, with all of our faculties, we come into connectedness and openness to the reality of our moment-to-moment experience, then what is non-sacred is its opposite.  It is those moments of being totally immersed in discursive thought, generally oriented toward our ego self, for the purpose of attaining specific goals and objectives in life.  Most often, it is for the attainment of pleasure or the avoidance of pain in the sense of living our lives in accordance with Freud’s Pleasure Principle.  At a more basic level, discursive thought functions as the vehicle by which we acquire the pre-requisites for survival and propagation in the world.  In the most fundamental Darwinian sense, rational or purposive behavior is the means by which we maximize our potential for survival, dominance, control, power, and pre-eminence.  By means of strategy and calculation rational behavior becomes the means for attaining our objectives of survival and power. Thus, the issue of what is “profane” is not a moral issue, but rather a description of the very condition, the very warp and woof, of the lives that we live.  It is the “theatre” of our lives, lived out in the competitive pursuit of survival, efficacy, power, and control.  

To experience moments of sacredness, therefore, is to step out of an outcome-oriented, self-centered way of thinking and “connect” to the larger web of environment and circumstance (time and space) that we find ourselves in and become “present” for the actual moment to moment reality in which we find ourselves, whatever the emotional tone of that reality may be.  It is to forget the exigencies of survival and dominance and become one with time, the universe, and the larger karmic processes that created us and work through us.  It is to see ourselves in the larger evolutionary flow of the universe.  It is those moments of epiphany and vision that allow us to burst our constricted ego selves and actually see ourselves in our intrinsic reality as well as within our place in the infinite flow of space and time.  It is those moments of seeing that begin to allow us a sense of spaciousness, wisdom, compassion, and love, both for ourselves and all that surrounds us.  Most fundamentally, it is about seeing through the delusion and demands of our ego-oriented conventional selves.  

However, to see our lives as fundamentally or intrinsically profane or to escape into a life of unalloyed purity oversimplifies our fundamental complexity as human beings.  It is only in the context of our humanity that we can truly appreciate the value of what is sacred and what is profane, how they can contribute to our awakening, and how they can create a sense of meaning and purpose that goes beyond the purely mundane demands of physical survival.  

It is then that we understand and resolve the ongoing tension between being, or presence, and action, or doing.  Like Paulo Friere’s distinction between reflection and action, they are not mutually exclusive but are integral elements of a life lived fully in the world, fully informed with a sense of presence, understanding, and purpose that go beyond the demands of survival and control.  

To live fully as a human being is to allow a full integration of the sacred and the profane in our lives in order to attain the fullest potential of our innate humanity.  It is to integrate the elements of being and doing so as to fulfill the requirements of survival and efficacy, but with a sense of spaciousness, understanding, wisdom, and compassion.  It is to have the kind of wisdom that allows us to see essentially two things:  First, that we are not alone in time and space…that we are connected in every conceivable way to people, circumstances, and the environment, so that we should never behave as if we were the only persons in the world, isolated and alone, or thinking only of our own benefit or advantage.  Secondly, it is the kind of wisdom that allows us to truly see the impermanence and evanescence of all things… that nothing is everlasting, immutable, and unchanging…that nothing is immortal… that all reality, including the entire cosmos, is constantly in an ever changing flux of transformation, and that the root of our suffering is our inability to let go of what in our hearts we already know never lasts forever, including our own selves.  In that sense, the quality of our lives at the moment of our death is conditioned by the choices we have made concerning the integration of the sacred and the profane in our lives.  The “mystery” of our own meaning only unfolds in our surrender and openness to the reality of our circumstances, whether pleasant or unpleasant, throughout our lives.  It is only then that spaciousness, understanding, wisdom, and compassion can begin to unfold.  And it is only then that grace, serenity and peace begin.

So, bringing the sacred and the profane together in our lives allows us to bring into full acceptance all the aspects of our life that are revealed in the flow of present moment reality…our pain, our suffering, our anxiety, our desires, wishes, dreams, and aspirations…to accept what Jon Kabat Zinn calls the full catastrophe of our lives, or to see, as Saki Santorelli, that all the moments of our lives are grist for the mill. It is to see all the moments of our lives as opportunities for unfolding, as opportunities for finding a sense of understanding and compassion for ourselves.  It is in the living of those moments that our lives unfold, but with the kind of spaciousness, meaning, direction, and purpose that only comes from a true understanding and compassion for ourselves.  It is from that core, that we can begin to come to a sense of wholeness and healing from within ourselves, begin to truly understand and love others, and begin to build a better world for all those around us. 

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