On a recent trip to Eureka Springs, a pamphlet entitled The Key of Immediate Enlightenment mysteriously wound up in my shopping bag.  The visage of The Supreme Master Ching Hai appears on the cover.  Ordinarily, I’m the sort of person who politely accepts religious tracts of all faiths, skims through them in a spirit of bemused skepticism, and then deposits them into the recycle bin. This time around there was a glitch midway through my bemused skepticism routine.  To my astonishment, I found it strangely compelling. 

According to The Supreme Master Ching Hai, in addition to daily meditation on light and sound, there are five guidelines required to “progress yourself towards Sainthood” (p.49).   The guidelines are 1) don’t hurt any living being, 2) don’t speak what isn’t true, 3) don’t take what isn’t yours, 4) avoid sexual misconduct and 5) don’t use intoxicants such as alcohol or tobacco.  There is nothing terribly original in all that really, but the pamphlet went on to give one of the most compelling arguments for vegetarianism I’ve ever read from both a moral and scientific perspective.

As a result, I’ve decided I will take the plunge into Sainthood.  So let it be written, so let it be done. Today is day 1 on this path.  I’ll document my travels here until my obvious Sainthood shines through without me having to harp on it regularly…or until the mission crashes and ends in obvious non-Sainthood failure.  Welcome to my spiritual journey.