The Art of Being Normal: Where Acceptance and Totality Meet

We often find ourselves trapped in a loop of seeking, convinced that if we just find the right practice or the perfect state of mind, we will finally arrive somewhere else. We look at the world and see it as superficial or vulgar, and we imagine that there must be a profound, transformative experience waiting for us just beyond the horizon of our current boredom. But who is it that finds the world vulgar? Who is it that is tired of commercialized wellness and seeks something "exclusive"? When we look closely at this separate self, we find nothing but a collection of thoughts and tensions trying to escape from what is actually happening. The art of being normal is not a technique we can learn or a state we can achieve through effort. In our daily lives, we are constantly faced with the ordinary—the chores, the interactions, the mundane movement of the body-mind. We might think that a good "spiritual" attitude would be to constantly recognize and accept everything, to stay within an observant process and disidentify from being the author of our choices. We tell ourselves that because there is no free will, because everything is just the movement of the absolute, we should simply accept the unacceptable. But let’s be honest with each other: can a separate self actually choose to accept anything? If we try to accept something because we think it will make us feel better or because we hope it will change the situation, that isn’t acceptance. It’s just another hidden strategy of the separate self to get what it wants. It is a negotiation with reality. We say, "I will accept this pain so that the pain goes away," or "I will accept my partner as they are, provided they eventually change." This is not the art of being normal; it is just the same old game of seeking and avoiding. The separate self only accepts in view of a result. It is always doing something for the sake of something else, forever chasing a "there" while ignoring the "here." However, there is a level of conscious presence that is already operating, whether we notice it or not. This presence does not need to try to accept, because it is the very space in which everything appears. Think of it this way: if a brick falls on your foot, the pain is felt instantly. You don’t have to decide to feel it. The fact that the sensation is there means that aware presence has already "accepted" it. It has allowed it to be. Our most profound nature does not reject anything. It is like a screen that doesn't care if the movie being projected is a tragedy or a comedy. The screen is already one with whatever appears on it. We live in a culture that treats silence and presence as products to be consumed, as ladders to climb toward a better version of ourselves. But silence isn't a practice we do to get a result. It is what remains when the noise of the seeker finally stops. We are like waves in the ocean, exhausted from trying to become the ocean, failing to see that we have never been anything else.