Ordinary Mind
Repeatable mysticism rests on the foundation of Ordinary Mind. The “repeatable” part of repeatable mysticism makes it sound like we can create a result. Like we can do something that affects our spiritual well being. In Buddhism though this is not possible. Buddhism is fundamentally opposed to lacking. We lack nothing. Right now as you are, reading these words, you have a perfect, enlightened, fully developed spiritual home. With you. In you. Because you have a mind, because you are sentient, you are part of perfection. Same with your dog, cat and the nearby ladybug.
Spiritual development in Buddhism is more like washing a shirt than alchemy. The shirt came fundamentally clean, so it has some stains, underneath it is clean, just wash it. We are fundamentally clean with some stains, but we are required to wash ourselves.
The height of spiritual development, after all of meditations fireworks, traveling to other galaxies, discovering super human powers, bliss, mind reading, seeing the future or your past lives, seeing you body from afar, the very pinnacle of achievement is when we finally relax into Ordinary Mind. What you are. The rest is distraction.
This is revolutionary. If we are fully developed, then all of our actions either help cover ourself up or help uncover ourselves. If this is so then there is some type of universal spiritual development, things we can do that help uncover our true nature. This is how I live, wondering what these things are. Everyday, every transaction, every house build, or piece of land bought, is helping cover me up or helping reveal my true nature. Every conversation with my kids or compromise with a partner. But before you even get to the actions, the how to, you have to wrap your mind around the foundational belief.
Intuitively this sounds so normal. It is saying that people are the same, physically we are coming to believe this more. We know that a broken leg heals the same if the leg belongs to a Canadian or a Somali, they need the same care. The same type of cells work in similar ways to create bone and mend fractures. We can do things that help or hinder, but fundamentally humans are the same.
Generally speaking it seems we do not believe this about spirituality. We intuit it, but it is hard to reconcile, this is what I want to do in the world, to work on this reconciliation.
Since I was a kid, all I wanted from my religion was for it to be logical and explain the whole world.