La Vie de Chrysante

This is not spir­itual activ­ity accord­ing to cur­rent soci­etal con­ven­tions. The cur­rent con­ven­tions are wrong; soci­ety can­not des­ig­nate what is and what is not spir­itual to us, but rather we, ourselves, are the only judge of what is and what is not a spir­itual activ­ity. It is not up to soci­ety to legis­late the nature of spir­itu­al­ity as we are not part of a col­lect­ive consciousness—we have indi­vidual souls. This key dis­tinc­tion between soci­ety and self must be estab­lished before dis­cus­sion of spir­itual activ­it­ies may begin. What I see as a spir­itual exper­i­ence may be com­pletely dif­fer­ent from what another per­son or soci­ety regards as spir­itual. Open your eyes and remove the blind­fold that soci­ety imposes upon us with its rigid defin­i­tion of a fluid activ­ity. Then you will see the nature of indi­vidual spirituality.

The con­crete jungle is a dark place, filled with shad­ows cast by build­ings and people, cars and trains. Delving into it, walk­ing, driv­ing, rid­ing the train—that is how we explore its depths. I walk bare­foot in the con­crete jungle through the cold and wet weather. I am aware of noth­ing but my own thoughts—time seems to slow. I do not notice the rough pave­ment or the cold air—the dicho­tomy between per­cep­tion and real­ity has faded and my per­cep­tion of real­ity is devoid of a con­scious­ness of mater­ial cir­cum­stances. The rain is my bap­tism, the wind is my confirmation.

It is here that I real­ise that cre­ation comes only through destruc­tion. In order to pro­duce some­thing new, some­thing old must be des­troyed. Whether it is the integ­rity of a crayon that is des­troyed to fill in a col­our­ing book or a river val­ley that is des­troyed to cre­ate a lake and gen­er­ate elec­tri­city to feed our con­sumer­ist soci­ety, destruc­tion pre­cedes cre­ation, whether it be through trans­form­a­tion or through anni­hil­a­tion. To pro­gress, we must first des­troy the old order—an action that could be seen as regress. Thus, without destruc­tion, we can­not pro­gress. “Self-improvement is mas­turb­a­tion.” Tyler Dur­den rings in my head—I am Jack’s occu­pied mind. Why is self-improvement con­sidered mas­turb­a­tion? By itself, without the pre­text of destruc­tion, it has no real effect and merely is an illu­sion of improvement—much as the orgasm reached through mas­turb­a­tion brings no effect and is merely an illu­sion of sex. Thus, in order to truly improve ourselves, we must ini­tially embark upon a path of destruction.

Soci­ety views destruc­tion as inher­ently neg­at­ive and places a value on self-improvement in a mas­turb­at­ory sense, and thus, your imme­di­ate reac­tion to the stated pro­pos­i­tion is one of alarm and fear. There is no need to fear destruction—it is merely the pre­cursor to cre­ation. In order for us to truly achieve self-improvement, we must dis­mantle the old order that we are attempt­ing to replace, leav­ing only the pos­it­ive pieces behind for us to build our new found­a­tion upon. Our will­ing­ness to aban­don or des­troy what is famil­iar to us, even if it is neg­at­ive, is what keeps us from pro­gress. Out­dated insti­tu­tions must be dis­mantled and brought to speed. Con­trolled demoli­tion allows us to pro­gress. Reck­less destruc­tion and reck­less cre­ation cre­ate no real last­ing change. Aban­don the neg­at­ive aspects of your pre­vi­ous life —con­trolled self-destruction— and you shall have a plat­form for true self-improvement.

Do not mis­con­strue my words by view­ing them through the lens of soci­ety that casts them as incor­rect. I am not advoc­at­ing sense­less or reck­less destruc­tion. I am advoc­at­ing tak­ing the middle path and des­troy­ing what is neg­at­ive while keep­ing what is healthy—much like how an onco­lo­gist treats can­cer. Everything must be done in mod­er­a­tion as a move towards either extreme leads to regress. A par­al­lel to this would be the abandon­ing of an unhealthy diet in favour of a healthy one. By doing that, we des­troy the old order so self-improvement may occur. I am not a rad­ical thinker. My man­ner of present­a­tion is merely more strongly worded than what oth­ers have proposed.

I am calm. I have found truth amidst the con­crete jungle. My mind is empty.

Why is this rel­ev­ant to the assign­ment? It is an example of what I view to be a spir­itual activ­ity and the thoughts asso­ci­ated with it. For me, a spir­itual activ­ity con­trib­utes to exper­i­ence and the devel­op­ment of the soul. It ranges from walk­ing bare­foot within the city, to driv­ing long dis­tances amidst the dis­tressed serenity of the free­way, to nights spent within an embrace of tangled sheets and flesh, to time spent observing the move­ment of people in the roar of the cafet­eria. What do I gain from these activ­it­ies? Peace. Peace through an utter dis­con­nect from the mater­ial aspects of the world. For the moments described pre­vi­ously, all what mat­ters are my thoughts. For these moments, my numer­ous fail­ures are erased from my consciousness—I am free from my insec­ur­it­ies. For these few pre­cious moments, I achieve a release from thoughts of the mater­ial world, then release from my thoughts alto­gether, cul­min­at­ing in emptiness.

There is beauty in empti­ness. Without empti­ness and an escape from myself and my mind, I would end up on a path of reck­less self-destruction. These spir­itual exper­i­ences are what allow me to see the vir­tue in cre­ation and mod­er­a­tion. Without them, I would cease to exist. I know this to be true because of mul­tiple exper­i­ences, most recently being this semester. Without these exper­i­ences, I have no motiv­a­tion to pro­gress or per­form any action what­so­ever. Without the occa­sional release of all thoughts, everything begins to jumble together, cre­at­ing a mess of a situ­ation where noth­ing is clear. I do not know what to think then, and my actions move on the path towards destruc­tion. The irony is that my insec­ur­it­ies stem from actions of self-destruction under­took when in this state of mind—it is thus a vicious cycle.

I gain accept­ance through these activ­it­ies. I accept that I have failed through my own actions—a product of the apathy brought about by a lack of empti­ness. It is not easy to accept that one has failed, but empti­ness allows us to recog­nise that we must accept fail­ure in order for us to pro­gress. This accept­ance comes through an open mind —tab­ula rasa, the blank slate free of any pre­vi­ous writ­ing— that allows us to see the oppor­tun­ity for cre­ation within this destruc­tion. Through the tool of empti­ness, I can pro­gress amidst the ruins of sense­less self-destruction by see­ing the ruins as build­ing blocks to a bet­ter tomor­row. A bet­ter tomorrow—that’s the hope that keeps me going.

What oppor­tun­it­ies for cre­ation do I see in my impend­ing fail­ure of this class? The answer to this ques­tion is also the answer to the ques­tion you have asked about what are the most valu­able les­sons I have taken from this class. My fail­ure of this class has taught me more than any other class that I have ever taken. It has taught me about myself. What I have taken away from well­ness is that I am some­thing that is worth try­ing for. I recog­nised that I should not waste my abil­it­ies by allow­ing myself to fall into a state of apathy. I have real­ised that I am much more than just a mean­ing­less entity within the masses of the human race—I have a name, an iden­tity, a col­lec­tion of thoughts and abil­it­ies that makes me unique.

This course has taught me the prin­ciple of impermanence—all things shall even­tu­ally go to dust. I am not per­fect. I am not infal­lible. I am not invin­cible. I can­not always have the expect­a­tion of suc­cess. Thus, I am not afraid of fail­ure or death—all things must come to pass. If I had not failed this class, I would not have reviewed what I had done and what I had not done, nor would I have intro­spec­ted upon the nature of things. Thus, through fail­ure, I became enlightened.

This is not sac­char­ine. This is not arti­fi­cial sweet­ness. Please do not take it in that man­ner. I write this without ulterior motives. For me, I have pro­gressed in the wake of destruc­tion. Pro­gress is what I ulti­mately desire, and this course, and my impend­ing fail­ure of it, has provided me with an instance of that. Thank you. Thank you for the oppor­tun­ity for self-improvement. Most of all though, thank you for read­ing this far—at least some­body is listening.

Once more, I find myself in the state of empti­ness; I am at peace.

You ask for what reason I stay on the green moun­tain; I smile, but do not answer—my heart is at leis­ure. Peach blos­soms are car­ried far off by flow­ing water; Apart, I have heaven and earth in the human world.

—Li Bai, “Ques­tion and Answer on the Mountain”