The Lazy Yogi

I have been thinking a lot about dharma lately, in the way that Stephen Cope defines it as a vocation or sacred path.  In The Great Work of Your Life, he writes, “Yogis believe that our greatest responsibility in life is to this inner possibility—this dharma—and they believe every human being’s duty is to utterly, fully, and completely embody his [her] idiosyncratic dharma” (p. xxi). 

In the book, he gives examples of famous people (including Gandhi, Harriet Tubman, Robert Frost, Susan B. Anthony among others) and non-famous contemporaries who have, in his descriptions, initially struggled with and then came to embrace their dharma.  Finding and walking one’s true path is not easy, he concludes.  There is still plenty of struggle along the way.  Many of these folks went against the expectations of society to serve a specific, higher purpose; often for art, often for social justice.  There is a resolve, an obsessiveness, to each of the men and women he cites. 

People who live their dharma stand out.  This week, Mat Johnson (no relation—that we know of anyway), author of Pym and other novels, graphic novels, and nonfiction, visited our campus.  Pym was the campus-wide book selection.  Full disclosure:  I did not read the novel since I wasn’t going to be teaching it this fall and had heard some negative reviews from colleagues.  By a quirk of fate, I was invited to dinner with Johnson and so attended his talk beforehand. 

He read the first chapter and it was electrifying, funny, satirical, and smart all at the same time.  I found out later that we were the last stop on a two-year campus tour, which could have meant that he phoned in his performance. However, it was clear he meant every word and his answers to questions were generous and sincere, even though he had no doubt heard them hundreds of times before.  At dinner, he answered questions from faculty with the same authenticity and engaged in conversations about the differences between literary fiction (creates new structures) and genre fiction (performs the genre as well as possible).  It was clear to me that this dude found his dharma.  His study of 19^th century fiction in particular (he has a thing for Poe) and deep knowledge of contemporary authors meant that he didn’t have much time for much else in his life beyond his family and his work.  And that’s just fine for him, as it was for Gandhi, Tubman, Frost, etc., whom Stephen Cope writes about.

So I wonder about the rest of us. For the folks listed above, finding her/his dharma meant a combination of tenacity, creativity, and perhaps luck, being born at the right place, at the right time, with the right skills.  When I asked Johnson about the ratio of creativity versus stamina in his writing process (I was really asking whether it was more about talent or hard work), he said it was more about obsessiveness.  When he’s working on a particular project, which can be for months at a time, that’s all he thinks about.  This matches what Cope says about his case studies.  Each one of them had a singularity of purpose that translated into copious hours of work.

I have come to the conclusion that I am too lazy to reach my dharma, if that’s what it takes. I lack singularity of purpose.  I like to do a lot of different things, some of which are contradictory:  Write.  Run.  Yoga.  Teach. Create new ways to work within and against systems. Collaborate. Work by myself.  Read books, sometimes magazines. Take naps.  Drink coffee.  Drink beer.  Watch narrative television.  Study educational research. Meditate. Make popcorn on the stove.  Eat dark chocolate.  Daydream.

Obviously, I don’t have the time or inclination to achieve my dharma, whatever it might be. Luckily, according to the yogis, I have a few other lifetimes to figure it out.