The Myth of the Very Calm Guru and the Freedom of What You Already Are

An environment where nothing is asked of you. No questions, no chats, no judgment. Just being. This is the simple reality that the separate self often overlooks while it is busy trying to build a better version of itself. We live in a world that feels like an aggressive noise, a constant overstimulation that demands we wear masks and pretend to be something we are not. Socializing becomes a performance, and the pressure to react correctly to every stimulus creates a deep, underlying anxiety. In the midst of this, we find ourselves searching for a way to stay very calm, as if this state were a fortress we could build to protect ourselves from the chaos of existence. We have inherited a collective imagery of the imperturbable person, a figure who moves through the world with a dry understatement. Think of those characters who face the most bizarre or dramatic situations without a hint of wonder or distress, never losing their cool regardless of the circumstances. In the spiritual marketplace, this has been elevated to an extreme ideal. We hear stories of Zen monks who, when accused of fathering a child, simply respond with a brief acknowledgment and take the child in, and later, when the truth is revealed and the child is taken back, they offer the same brief response. This is often presented as the gold standard of spiritual achievement—a state where the ups and downs of life do not cause an emotional imbalance. But we must ask ourselves: who is this person we are trying to become? Is this imperturbability a goal to reach, or is it just another mask for the separate self to wear? There is a certain irony in the way we turn "being very calm" into a spiritual trophy. We see this in the critiques leveled against those who don't fit the mold. There are those who claim a person cannot be truly awakened if they still feel a sense of awe or veneration for the beauty of a landscape. They argue that a "real" enlightened being should be completely indifferent, even to the majesty of nature. If the ideal of being very calm becomes total indifference, we have moved away from life and into a sterile imitation of it. The separate self loves to turn everything into a journey. It wants to believe that through certain practices, it can eventually reach a destination called enlightenment. But the truth is that there is no path to where you already are. Practices like meditation or sitting in silence may certainly bring comfort now; they can offer a respite from the noise of the world and help the body-mind feel more at ease. However, they are not ladders to a higher state. They do not lead to a "more aware" presence, because presence is not something that can be measured in degrees. You are already the aware presence in which all these thoughts of anxiety and calmness arise. The wave does not need to do anything to become the ocean. It already is the ocean, even when it is crashing against the rocks, and even when it is a still ripple.