being too spiritual

we must honor the world if we are to awaken to the truth of reality.
this is an important spiritual lesson, for if we assume that the
material is an obstacle to spirituality and position ourselves in
resistance to it, we'll come to an impasse in our practice.

the buddha realized this, and summarized this teaching as the "middle
way." history tells us that he wasted plenty of time avoiding material
realities and repressing physical needs before seeing the imbalanced
nature of his efforts and changing his course for a more moderate,
inclusive approach.

but many lessons must be experienced personally before they can be
fully integrated. it's perhaps unavoidable that spiritual seekers will
fall into the trap of forming a preference for the spiritual over the
material; of mistakenly believing that the word "material" stands for
the game they've already been playing their entire lives and that the
key to salvation or liberation, then, lies in the denial of this
aspect of life in favor of its opposite.

but the material and the spiritual are not opposites; they are
manifestations of the same reality - they are the same reality. this
truth is pointed to in the buddhist heart sutra, which tells us that
form includes emptiness and emptiness includes form. these are
inseparable and only appear to be opposing realities from a limited
point of view. if we resist the material, we also limit our experience
with the spiritual.

the common western approach to life shows us the other end of the
spectrum: an overemphasis on the material to the exclusion of genuine
spirituality. this creates its own set of problems, for ignoring
spiritual reality has dire consequences in the material world. ironically, the
materialistic mentality is often criticized by spiritual
practitioners, who in essence commit the same mistake by failing to
open their hearts to materiality and becoming overly "spiritualistic."

a more balanced way of being includes an integration of spiritual
truth and an acceptance of material reality. from the human
standpoint, both go hand in hand and one cannot be whole without the
other. both should be honored and celebrated equally, as well as taken
in measure with respect to one another.