See the irony of the juxtapositions in life, laugh, forgive and let it go.
It would be interesting to examine this subject in terms of what is not a sense of humor. Lack of humor seems to come from the attitude of “Hard Fact,” things that are deadly serious. It’s like some people have experienced such a hard fact of life that they lose their souls as a result. They act like someone is standing behind them with a sharp stick ready to poke them if they don’t do it just right…if they are not praying just right, sitting still and upright, if they don’t have the right friends, join the right clubs, (you fill in the blanks) there will be hell to pay. Then they try to project their state of mind on others around them.
But actually behind this kind of person is nothing more than their own self-consciousness, the watcher, always in judgment, always ready to strike. It’s not Big Brother watching, it’s me. And, while we might immediately crack a joke, trying to ease our own tensions at this statement, we all tend to do this very thing…we tend to judge ourselves, even unto sickness and death. This is a byproduct of our culture, not of our religion.
Because of cultural attitudes, some of us believe that if we align ourselves with the right crowd, conform to the right church, punish evil in the world, we can stand upright before God and man. However, I submit, if we go too far in this belief we eventually find that we are unable to fulfill these high ideals. What is worse, we also believe that if we cannot fulfill our obligations we will be condemned, reduced to a shrunken pathetic being. Thus with too much solemnity there is a death, a death in the sense of an end to any further creative process, resulting in feelings of limitation and rigidity where there is no room to move at all…thus, people become like a living corpse.
So we ask, “What about the great religious traditions and teachings? These speak of discipline, rules and regulations. Aren’t these hard facts? How can we reconcile this in terms of having a sense of humor?”
Well, let’s begin answering by asking other questions. “Are these disciplines, rules and regulations we hold so dear really advocating that we fight evil because we are on the side of light, the side of peace? Or, are they really based upon purely judgmental attitudes of “Good” as opposed to “Bad?” that we inherent from our culture?
If there is any wisdom in the sacred teachings it is that there should not be any conflict, either between people(s) or within our own psyches. So it follows that as long as a person is involved with fighting, trying to defend or attack, then this person is not at peace; rather the fight is mundane and not in keeping with the needs of the soul. One would not expect the sacred teachings to be as simple minded as teaching us simply to be good, or fighting the bad. Such is the approach of a Hollywood movie…even before you have seen the conclusion, you already know that the ‘goodies” will be glorified and the “baddies” will get smashed. While this approach is obviously simple minded, it is just the situation that we create in terms of our own internal struggles. We, thus, reduce our spiritualism to what I call spiritual materialism…a spiritualism focused only on getting your hands on the goodies. Unfortunately, this is the teaching of culture, not of Christ.
If we regard the path of spirituality as a battle field either internal to ourselves or external to the world, then we are weak and feeble, as a result. Our progress in spirit will depend upon how great an area we have conquered, on the subjugation of our own and other’s faults, upon how much negativity we have eliminated. One could hardly call this walking the path of Christ.
As I speak of having a sense of humor, I certainly don’t wish to make a sense of humor into something solemn. People do this already. Sense of humor means seeing both poles of a situation as they are, without judgment, as if from an aerial point of view. There is good and there is bad. As you see both polarities with a panoramic view from above, you see the little people on the ground killing themselves and each other over ideologies; it is only then we begin to see the ironic aspect of their clamor.
Actually, a sense of humor seems to come from all-pervading joy, joy that has room for expansion because it is not involved with the battle between this or that. Joy develops into the panoramic situation of seeing the whole ground, the open ground. Because the open situation has no hint of limitation, no hint of imposed solemnity. And if you try to treat life as serious business, if your try to impose solemnity upon life as if it is a very big deal, then it is truly funny.
A person might try to pray just the perfect way…big deal, funny. Or, on the other hand, a person might try to develop a sense of humor, always trying to poke fun at things, but isn’t this in itself a deadly serious game? Again, big deal…funny. It seems that extreme intensity in anything becomes humor, automatically. Remember, our comedians make a lot of money getting us to laugh at our extremes.
There is a story of a holy man who renounced his worldly confused life and went into a monastery with a vow of silence. Prior to this he worried continually about all the pain and suffering in the world. Amongst his friends he was called the Black Faced One, because he never smiled at all but saw everything in life in terms of seriousness. He remained in retreat for many years, very solemn and deadly serious, until one day he gazed upon his statue of a praying Christ. That morning someone had given him a beautiful hand carved wooden cup and as he sat there looking at his good fortune he thought of the Last Supper; 2000 years ago this cup might have been the cup of Christ, who knows. But as he sat in thankfulness and prayer a little mouse crept into his hermitage and tried to move the cup. But the mouse failed. It wasn’t long until the mouse returned with another mouse. Both tried to drag away the cup and couldn’t do it. So they squeaked together and called eight more mice who came and finally dragged the cup into their hole. Then for the first time in his life Black Faced One began to laugh and smile. This was his introduction to openness, a sudden flash of Joy. Suddenly he understood his own irony towards life, what he, with all his seriousness, was doing to himself.
So a sense of humor is not merely trying to tell jokes or make puns, trying to be funny deliberately. It involves seeing the irony in the juxtaposition of extremes, so that one is not caught taking those extremes so seriously, playing the games of hope, fear and despair. This is why the spiritual path is so significant and why forgiveness is the most significant of all.
We must understand that our areas of concern are not always our areas of influence. And to confuse the two is crazy making. Christ had an answer to our crazy making. “See the lilies of the field, neither do they toil nor reap. Yet God…”
So what do we do with our seriousness, our intent on how life is supposed to be, how we as individuals are supposed to behave, how others are supposed to behave? Is a sense of humor related in any way to the teachings of Christ? I would say, certainly!
Here’s a story of a hermit who lived in a faraway land:
This hermit’s goal in life was to witness God by direct experience and he decided to build a hermitage in a cave in the mountains in order to devote himself to meditation. In his quest the hermit procured a sponsor to help provide food and the necessities of life. During the months that followed, however, the sponsor sent his wife, daughter and son to take the hermit his supplies; but one day the hermit heard that the sponsor himself was coming to see him. The hermit thought to himself, “I must impress my benefactor. I must clean and polish the shrine objects and make my room very tidy.” So he did just that. He scrubbed, cleaned and polished, and when he finished he sat down to admire his work. But, now, everything looked unreal. Suddenly, to his surprised, he realized he was a hypocrite. So he went into the kitchen and got handfuls of ash and threw the ash onto the shrine and all over the floor, walking back and forth to make them mess appear normal. When his benefactor came, he was very impressed by the quality of the room. Finally the hermit could no longer contain himself and laughed uproariously. Finally he said, “I tried to tidy both myself and the room, but then, after I did I realized that I was a hypocrite. So, I thought you should see it this way.” Where upon the patron burst into laughter, too. It was a great moment of soulful joy for both of them. The hermit then knew that God doesn’t care about appearances, or dress codes, or most of the things we humans worry over. Further, God doesn’t care about our neurosis.
You see, the whole point is this, if we are seeking a way out all the time, then we are dealing in fiction, the dream of escape. We need to be practical. We need to examine what is here, right now. Because once we acknowledge the negative aspects of our state of being and life in general, we know the way out automatically. The way out is what Christ taught us, Forgiveness. See the irony of the juxtapositions in life, laugh, forgive and let it go. This leads to Joy, the path of the Soul.
Perhaps the most important lesson that I’ve learned in my life is that all Forgiveness begins with Self-Forgiveness. Why, because all my judgments are self-judgments bound by the limits of my physical brain. Also, consider this: what culture is really good at is teaching us to take everything to an exaggeration...even our religion.
To me this is all very funny! And you can believe it!
I usually don't comment on religious articles or essays like this one unless they are sanctimonious or abusive, and then I like to poke holes in their logic.
On the contrary, I found this essay to be quite enlightening, showing me that religious people who look at the facts for what they are and pointing out hypocrisies can have a sense of humor.
Unfortunately, especially in this political season, so many people, in spite of facts to the contrary, think that the world is in very bad shape and that they are losing their identity and those things that they have culturally held dear. It doesn't help that the two primary American political parties have selected candidates for president of the United States that are unsatisfactory to most citizens of the country. One is being characterized as a buffoon, claiming he will solve all the problems dictatorially with promises that he will be unable to keep and using harsh language to demean people in the process. The other candidate is a member of a political dynasty and what is considered to be "the status quote" accused by association to be a "criminal" by the opposition.
Your essay is a refreshing light in the darkness. To all those who accuse and are too serious minded, I always ask them, "What would Christ do?"
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