rent-a-monk

Passed along in email ... in some way, a large part of my life is being commodified. This may, in the end, be where spiritual life ends up as a matter of well-worn course. The one question individual students have to face is, " where does it go once you get the drift?" The answer seems to be "Wal-Mart." Intellect, religion, psychology ... pick your playing field and the commodifiers will give you a knock-off TED talk or something similar.

Cutesy Zen students may play koan games with the question. Well, fuck 'em .... seriously, where does spiritual life go after all that effort? What is left in the world that invites serious, persistent, courageous and tear-stained effort? All I can say is that I am glad to have made the effort, played the deep-seated fool, worked at something, however poorly, and not just rented a monk. All lies are good lies, but they require some effort, I think.