B. B. King does a signature song of his called The Thrill Is Gone. He’s singing about a love of his, and he’s lamenting the fact that she “done him wrong” and now the thrill he experienced when he was with her is gone for good. It’s a great blues classic. Singing about being done wrong is pure, classic blues.
We must remember that the purpose of singing the blues, singing about hard times, is to create an antidote to the power of hard times to bring you down. The blues are magical incantations to ward off the blahs, the heartaches, the sorrows, the disappointments, all the hard times that are part of every life. Sort of a prayer, a prayer that makes you feel better when you are feeling worse.
Living in a small community of elderly and disabled, in a small New England town, as my health returned to normal, the blues set in for me. No, I was not done wrong by anyone. I was done wrong by the fact that I had finished my stay in Natick. I had recuperated my health. Every minute one stays where he can no longer live his life fully is a minute that does him wrong. Chiang Mai, Thailand has become my song for chasing the blues away.
The Thrill Is Gone? Yes, the thrill of all we did at Cedar Gardens, Natick, is gone. But the thrill goes on! What is the thrill that goes on for me, my Blueberry Hill, my theme song that I sing with full heart here in Thailand? For me, it’s what the ancient philosophers called my tabula raza, the blank slate upon which I can write whatever moves my spirit.
Here I sing my song, where I know not the language and am surprised every day by what I see, hear, and feel. A child again, with the experience and wisdom that comes from many years of experiencing and reflecting on life. In the 73rd year of my life, I find that all the habits, means of evaluating truth, and assumptions that have so often worked for me, everything from what a smile means to what kind of fruit I’m eating, no longer perform their expected functions. Yes, I am a child again, trying to figure out just what a kid is to do in just about any situation I encounter.
I had become bored with knowing too much about where I was. Actually that has occurred five times in my life. Even more so, I was missing something vital to my happiness. What was that? The opportunity, indeed the necessity, to learn something that would require all my resources and energy, something which I dearly wanted to learn.
It is my conviction, after 42 years in the educational profession, that a human being will learn best that which he believes will lead him to what he so wants with deep, deep passion. The stronger the passion to have access to something, the greater the passion to learn that which will bring about what is so deeply desired.
The Buddhism I follow teaches that “desires equal enlightenment.” Desires as such are based on illusions, and they are, according to traditional Buddhism and the common understanding of Buddhism, to be avoided. However, the insight of “desires equal enlightenment” is that the passion one has to stir up in oneself the desire to attain the thing desired is itself the very end and, indeed, beginning of Buddhist practice: Enlightenment.
One way to think of enlightenment is as the state of happiness, what B. B. King calls “the thrill”; that is, a happiness which one hopes will never be gone. But, as the song laments, when “the thrill is gone,” one is left “singing the blues.” The Buddhist thrill and the thrill sought in all spiritual practices, however, is for an absolute happiness, a happiness which nothing can disturb or take away. Ever. But a thrill is a thrill, whether temporal or eternal.
Once the great Catholic theologian Theresa the Great of Spain was asked how it is the she sings and dances yet aspires to be a saint. Her response, “If one does not know how to enjoy the joys of live here, how can she ever expect to enjoy the joys of the hereafter?”
In reality, one thrill is gone only to be replaced by yet another thrill. In George in Thailand I will continue to share my new thrills in life with my friends and family.
