Profoundly Ordinary

 Bernadette Roberts

In some ways, the fact I always appeared so completely ordinary may have worked to my disadvantage when, on occasion, I went in search of help and found that no one could take me seriously. I wasn't a monk or a nun; I didn't "practice" a thing; I had no charisma and exuded no light; I was just a woman geared to a teenage milieu – in short, I inspired no one. According to one Zen monk, the reason I had to have a self was because I was not omniscient and omnipresent. Since this is the Christian notion of God, I thought he was joking and laughed heartily, only to discover he was in earnest, because this is indeed the Buddhist notion of someone who no longer has a self! Evidently I was in the wrong camp – but how did he know? I think he was only telling me I was just too unspectacular, too ordinary, and too common to have come upon no-self.

Experience of No Self