11:11 Angels Message Board

"If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?" is one of a list of a dozen questions that have been appearing regularly in my email. I think it’s the choice of arthritis, out of all the ills of the world, which makes this particular statement funny. It’s also mildly mocking, making a joke out of the understanding of selflessness. Since mocking is derisive, it occurs to me each time I read it, and chuckle, that perhaps I am being spiritually incorrect. I think, though, that it isn’t a joke about dharma: it’s a joke about jumbling vocabularies. Un-jumbled, in their own contexts, self and no-self, no ego and strong ego, are completely understandable.