"When you give up, when you enter into complete despair with hopelessness after hopelessness, just before despair and laziness take you over, you begin to develop a sense of humor." Chogyam Trungpa (Illusion's Game, The Life and Teaching of Naropa, pg. 62)"
In this quote, Tibetan Buddhist Teacher Chogyam Trungpa (1939-1987) is speaking on a particular kind of spiritual hopelessness that seizes those who struggle for spiritual Awakening, beyond the identification of a separate self or ego. I find this insight on humor helpful in humanity's, collective and individual struggle with despair and hopelessness. Humor is a form of spiritual salvation.
This Sunday, I encourage you to follow the humorous. Like beauty, humor is sprinkled about. It often takes us by surprise (surprise is one of it's qualities), but also like beauty, it is more likely to find us when we are open to it. Most people can't just make themselves laugh, but we can give way to it when it happens, from mild amusement to uncontrollable delight.
The great Hasidic Master, the Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760), expressed humor as "that thing that ushers a person's mind from a place of constricted consciousness to a place of expanded consciousness." Despair and hopelessness are rooted in constricted consciousness, where life seems hemmed in, framed in rigid barriers of limitation. Those barriers may have their concrete reality, but ultimately life is not bound by our emotions or concepts or social construction (including religious beliefs). Humor is one way that life bursts free--crossing polite boundaries, breaking collective barriers cemented with rules that prescribe what we can talk about and what we are supposed to ignore--we encounter the paradoxical, the irreverent, the outrageous, and we can heal when we learn to poke fun at ourselves and our situation.
There are many studies that show the psychological value and healing quality of laughter, but the point here is not to analyze humor but affirm it. Today, consider the comedy of life. Find something funny, or let its expanding, healing power find you. Don't be afraid to laugh. (Susan Nettleton)
For a bit of Larry Morris' spiritual humor from our website, follow the links below.
https://hillsidesource.com/daily.../2018/6/14/who-is-it?
https://hillsidesource.com/daily-thoughts/2018/6/14/ask
https://hillsidesource.com/dai.../2018/6/14/explain-yourself