The Fatberg

Chenrezig, The Buddha of Compassion

Intellectualizing as usual, it occurred to me that this claim about having available monkey mind and pure consciousness raises the interesting, difficult question of what connection exists between them. You, me, humans are the platform where they meet, necessarily, or the whole system would not work.

Ajahn Sumedho says that pure consciousness does not judge, but it is always available for us to recognize, which I know to be true from my own experience. So, um, why do we have to have a consistent meditation practice for years to recognize it? Why does it not just grab us by the neck and make itself known to us?

My inner historian wants to find the origins and the reasons why, which seems impossible. At least, the Buddha did not offer any such explanation that I know. So, to borrow from Heidegger, we find ourselves thrown where we are without complete explanation for how we got here. But the Buddha talked about the person who gets shot with an arrow and refuses to allow the removal of the arrow until they learn who shot the arrow and its characteristics. He makes clear that this is absurd, in case you couldn’t figure that out for yourself.

But there is some blockage between monkey mind, which is the default for humans, and pure consciousness. I immediately thought of a fatberg, or a huge agglomeration of sewage and items that end up in sewers and can clog sewers when they…