I’ve journeyed to Iceland seven times; seems like my bucket list has a hole in it. You may ask: what did you accomplish in your bucket list by going to Iceland seven times. Nothing… number one I do not have a bucket list. And by the way, a bucket list comes from the gallows humor idiom, “kick the bucket.” But I don’t plan on kicking the bucket (dying) anytime soon.
My life is not based on accomplishment. It is based on discovery and the experience of living in relationship with my family, friends and nature. I’ve journeyed to Japan eight times and earned multiple black belts in the martial arts—an accomplishment you may say. On the contrary, my reasons for going to Japan were based on questing for mystical experiences. For magic to happen, you cannot sit in your comfortable home and come up with a list of otherworldly occurrences. They’re mystical, you won’t know about them till you experience them. Just as I never would have thought that an esoteric shamanic priest would have a dream about me and travel to find me on the most sacred mountain of Japan—Kōyasan. And subsequently I experienced an extraordinary descending spirit exorcism in front of Kōbō Daishi’s mausoleum at midnight.[i] Since there is only one other historical documented case of a descending spirit experience, how would I have ever thought to put it on a bucket list? Could you ever imagine doing a prayer and in answer an archangel and two assisting angels would appear as three gigantic pillars of light?[ii] How would you put that on a bucket list?
As you may have guessed, I abhor the concept of a bucket list. The key to life is self-discovery and experience. Life is struggle and our experiences and knowledge of ourselves may help us through this struggle with little or no suffering. “When we begin to view experiences as material objects to be placed in a bucket, something of the experience dies. Just as you can’t put water in a bucket and call it a river, you can’t put experiences in a bucket and call it life.
“Many people are looking to fill their buckets with achievements, not experiences. It isn’t the activity itself that captures the individual imagination; it is the vision of the self[iii] having done it. The bucket has become some kind of briefcase that a person carries around, full of resumes to dole out when requested – or not.”[iv]
So – my opinion and suggestion on bucket lists: throw out the bucket and begin experiencing the experience. And put away your smartphones and let your eyes and senses experience—the magic of life.
[i] Kōbō Daishi was the founder of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism. He is believed to be in eternal meditation in his mausoleum, awaiting the arrival of the next Buddha—Miroku Bosatsu.
[ii] The full story is told in Do You Like Jesus – Not the Church? Jesus: His True Message Not the Lie of Christianity, 160 – 184.
[iii] This is an example of an unhealthy ego.
[iv] Excerpted from Kel Rossiter’s “The case against bucket lists,” The Seattle Times, Saturday May 14, 2016, A11