I shouldn’t read before 10am

This is a post for Twitter people especially for tonight because we’re talking about it, and it’s fun. So…

This morning, I had one of those moments where I read something and thought it was something else. I’m on Twitter (in case you hadn’t noticed), and one of the people I follow is His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Now, I really don’t think the Dalai Lama actually posts a great deal on Twitter himself. He probably has a minion – or whatever senior Buddhists have instead of minions, because ‘minion’ as a concept isn’t very Buddhisty – who tweets lots of wise sayings from his books. They’re a really nice, comforting thing to read.

It so happened that I picked up my iPhone after meditation and had a look. There was a tweet from His Holiness, saying something about ‘the fluffy enlightened person can do X*’. What? I thought, and blinked. What’s ‘fluffy enlightenment’? What does that mean? How does one become fluffily enlightened? Maybe it involves not shaving your legs or armpits or chin or wherever you happen to do shaving. Maybe it involves acquiring a soft down all over your body to keep you warm whilst meditating.

Actually, it said ‘fully enlightened.’ Sometimes my eyes seem to get bored of reading what’s actually there and just mix up all the words and sentences into an exciting and unexpected jumble.

But that gives me a thought. Maybe there should be a thing called fluffy enlightenment. A special kind of enlightenment for people who don’t want to do the orange blanket thing (see footnote**) or sitting on cushions for hours. Maybe it could be for people who liked meditating in a comfy armchair, wearing big fluffy slippers, soft pyjamas straight out of the dryer, and a bathrobe. All in the comforting knowledge that what awaited them after doing all the Deep Stuff they had to do was a warm bed and a duvet. That would be fluffy enlightenment.

Rather like Havi Brooks’ ‘non-sucky yoga’, it would be enlightenment for people who are just a bit baffled about all this ‘all life is suffering’ stuff and think ‘comfy’ is a word that doesn’t get enough mileage in the whole personal development world. Not all of us want discomfort all the time. Some of us want to face our fears and change the world in fluffy socks, possibly in nice, gentle little chunks.

I would market this as an idea but I’ve got no idea what it would involve. Maybe I should call Liaison and say I’ve got a great idea for a new thing for him to invest in. He really digs the whole Buddhisty thing. And when I was famous for it and everybody was being fluffily enlightened, I’d have to say to Michael Parkinson (who’d come out of retirement just to interview me – and insert the Daily Show if you’re in America), that I thought it up because one day I woke up and totally misread the Dalai Lama’s**** tweet on twitter.

*I can’t remember what it was he said they did. Perhaps they can defeat Sauron or Voldemort or bake really great cookies. Maybe they’re just really, really good at sitting still and wearing orange blankets**.

**Please don’t be insulted, Buddhisty people. I really like Buddhism, in fact. Not that Buddhists should be mean… Think of these footnotes as an opportunity to exercise not causing harm when you really want to***.

***I can’t believe I’m scared of getting mean emails from Buddhists.

****I wrote this while drinking vodka. I thought it went rather well except that I couldn’t type ‘Dalai Lama’. I came up with ‘Dalia Lama’, then ‘Dalai Lam’ then ‘Dala Lam.’ My fingers get drunk first.