Being enlightened doesn't make you right

The last few days I've been reading Mark Richardson's Zen and Now, a retrospective and commentary on Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Actually I bought the book a while ago -- I no longer remember quite when -- but never finished it; and lately I've been browsing through it at random in the mornings instead of getting to work on time. Slovenly habit.

 

This morning I lighted on a paragraph where Richardson describes Pirsig's hospitalization for schizophrenia, an episode which Bob Pirsig himself described as "hard enlightenment". His wife Nancy commented that no-one who knew Bob -- besides Bob himself -- confused his mental illness with enlightenment. But she went on to say that she understood why he did. After all, once he had decided that he was enlightened, he no longer had to take seriously anybody else's contrary opinions. If she ever disagreed with him about anything he would no longer argue ... just stare her down and then walk away, because after all he was enlighteed and she wasn't. So of course she couldn't be expected to understand why he was -- inescapably -- right.

 

Yeah, I get it too. It's a great solace to tell yourself that you are deep enough and smart enough to see into the true nature of things, while the trolls around you toil away in muddy confusion. But that's just a story ... one more of the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world, one more of the stories which enchant us and intoxicate us if we take them too seriously. It's just one more form of delusion, subtly masquerading as freedom from delusion.

 

The point is that enlightenment is an experience. It can be a profound experience, like orgasm. But it doesn't make you God. Though you see deeply into the nature of reality, that everything changes, that attachment brings suffering, and all the rest ... none of that helps you remember any more clearly whose turn it is to take out the garbage. None of it helps you know what to say to your kid's teacher, who has called a conference because your kid is acting up in class. None of it makes you a better husband, or father, or employee, or friend. None of it makes you right. It's just an experience.

 

There are ways to build on it, of course. There are ways to build on all our experiences. If you wake up one morning to find yourself enlightened, there are libraries full of advice on how to live now: how to be compassionate, how to tell the truth, how to pick your way through the day without stumbling or falling back asleep. But, like anything, it takes practice.

 

That part is less exciting, of course. But without it, enlightenment is just another intoxicant.