Dive! Dive! Dive!

Listening absently to the radio as I drove to the post office for stamps, I was delighted to run into an interview with Lesley Hazleton, author of the recently-published biography, "The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad."

However lazy my listening ears, still I could feel the presence of a thoughtful person, someone whose thoughts were worth listening to, someone who sprinkled Miracle-Gro on mye mind.

My ears picked up bits and shards ... of the author's desire to find out who Muhammad was as a man as distinct from an icon ... of Muhammad's life as an orphan, brought up in his early life among Bedouins ... of the fact that he won kudos for his peaceful responses to his attackers ... of his keen eye for injustice based on his life as an outsider ... of how Islam, in his lifetime was not a religion but more like a movement -- "Islam with a small 'I'" ... and of how, after his death -- as after the death of all founding figures -- the bickering and dogma and infighting and religion began.

How many letters have I received over time from Muslims curious about Buddhism and yet filled to the brim with the rock-solid pronouncements of the religion they profess? Worse still, how many have I written based on what I knew (and didn't know) about Buddhism?

The founder dies ... and the fragmented and adamantine shit hits the fan. And in these later times, the times after the shit hits the fan, that people encounter the spiritual or religious leftovers of the present, the stuff the founder was miles from representing. There may be yowling and caterwauling about returning to basic, authentic principles, but by the time anyone starts screaming, those tenets and that mind-set are long gone... and the best anyone can do is issue fractious assertions like "this is authentic and that's not" ... more fragmented and adamantine shit.

And the Miracle-Gro that Hazleton sprinkled on my mind made me think: Isn't everyone -- spiritually inclined or not -- always stuck picking through the Dumpsters of what once was rich and nourishing food? And if it is the case that living off second-hand and pre-masticated food is the best anyone can expect when it comes to spiritual life ... then it is invariably left to the individual to be the probing and intelligent investigator that Hazleton sounded like to me. Assuming spiritual life is serious, then serious investigation is necessary.

It's not enough that Jesus was a good guy or Muhammad was a good guy or Gautama was a good guy (or even that Lenin was a good guy). Who the hell were these people and what environment did they teach in and what did they mean? It's not enough to live off Dumpster leavings -- the books and rituals and dogmas and designer robes. Really ... what were they on about in quite ordinary, human ways? Anyone can talk about "God," but what the hell does that mean at 3 a.m. when insomniacs stare at the bedroom ceiling?

As in the submarine movies, I think it makes sense to "Dive! Dive! Dive!"

Don't mewl, don't explain, don't believe ... just dive.