"The hippie-mind is only one hair's-breadth away from enlightenment."

DaltheJigsaw

True hippies have no hindrance. If I have no money, that's okay. If I don't have a house or a bed, that's okay. I can sleep anywhere, I can eat any food. My whole life is freedom. I am free to do anything. Having no hindrance means not being attached to anything. So this hippie-mind is very good; it is a very high-class mind. But many young people are attached to hippie-style or natural-style living. This is no good. If you are attached, then hippie-style becomes a hindrance. You must cut off all thinking and all desires for yourself. Then you will soon attain enlightenment. The hippie-mind is only one hair's-breadth away from enlightenment. If a hippie could cut off his attachment to being a hippie, he would soon discover, 'Oh, this is enlightenment!' One of my first students in America had very long blond hair, which he wore in a pony-tail. One day I said to him, 'I think it would be good if you cut your hair.' He said, 'No no, I like my hair the way it is.' I said, 'If you are attached to your hair, you cannot attain enlightenment.' 'Okay, then I will cut my hair.' 'Fine. Now you don't need to cut it.' So he learned that being a true hippie is having no attachments. Afterwards, he did hard training and soon understood.

Seung Sahn (Korean Zen Master)

tjampel

Well...are there any true hippies left "on the bus" or are they all "off the bus" by now?

I did happen to see Wavy Gravy in a bathroom in Central Park several years ago during one of its annual "Change Your Mind" days (local and some international Buddhist figures lead the audience in meditations). He was in his 70s by then but he might actually embody this kind of mind. Well, I can't say he looked enlightened but still maintained that prankster-ish bemused (or amused?) look and...no, he hadn't cut his hair either.

It's true that there was this brief moment in time where some people happily cast off their burden of American-style materialism in search of something deeper, something that felt freer, less constricting. Unfortunately, that something else evolved (for most) into attachment to drugs, sex, lifestyle, but there was some of that mind arising for a brief time---that kind of genuine openness and expansiveness. I think that if you examine Robert Hunter's lyrics of that period (lyricist for many Grateful Dead songs) you'll find that "hippie" mind in its most positive sense that (conjoined with a mind of a spiritual seeker):

From "Ripple", Music by Jerry Garcia; Lyrics by Robert Hunter

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup is full may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of man

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go, no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

shanyin

awsome post Leon

DaltheJigsaw

awsome post Leon

I am a Hippie, or more like a Urban Hippie! wanna be!:)

pegembara

"Don't worry, Be happy"
"No drugs, No sex"

SattvaPaul

I feel nostalgic about the 60s, although I was born 20 years later!

AMH

Well after 13 years in Boulder CO I can say I know a few things about hippies. It was great until I realized the very strict rules some had about hippy-ness. And I never liked the smells that some exuded (a few were not attached to bathing)>

What is interesting to me is being the generation after the hippies and having my own sense of non-attachment in my tribe. There were people very attached to how we looked and others who could care less. I went to shows with anyone, and sometimes my friends would ask if they needed to 'dress up', naw, come as you are if you like the music. From the outside many people thought we had the strict rules since we looked the same, but most of us didn't. For me it wasn't cutting long hair it was letting my hair grow out from a buzz cut (I am a girl). There was some confusion as the rascist punks starting to be more widespread and us non-racist kinda peace punks were being seen as them, so I grew hair!

It is fascinating to me that I still cannot relate much to this hippy mind, for me my path into buddhism was really about not seeing the flowers and butterflys as much as it was seeing the dirt and the homeless guy on the street. Reminds me of how we used to see Rocky Horror Picture show on the weekends downtown. Some of the homeless people would scrounge up enough to get into the movie and be warm for a few hours. We generally did not sit too close, another group challenged by bathing. But we treated them like people, just people with a lot less stuff and a lot more dirt than the rest of us. We weren't getting all bleeding heart and going with hippy parents to the shelters to serve soup, but we would bum them a smoke or get someone a sandwich and sit on the streets with them. Not one way better than another, but that was my real.

(there is my longwinded of the day)

federica

There is a saying in Taoism, (I believe) that states that "Women are 99% spiritual, and 1% practical, and that men are 99% practical and 1% spiritual. But it is as much Effort for the women to conquer that final 1%, as it is for the men to overcome their 99%"

The Hippie Mind is only one hair's breadth away from enlightenment, while the non-Hippie's mind, has a thousand miles to go.....I would say that it is as much effort for a Hippie to overcome that 'hair's breadth' as it is for a non- Hippie to overcome the thousand miles.

tjampel

There is a saying in Taoism, (I believe) that states that "Women are 99% spiritual, and 1% practical, and that men are 99% practical and 1% spiritual. But it is as much Effort for the women to conquer that final 1%, as it is for the men to overcome their 99%"

The Hippie Mind is only one hair's breadth away from enlightenment, while the non-Hippie's mind, has a thousand miles to go.....I would say that it is as much effort for a Hippie to overcome that 'hair's breadth' as it is for a non- Hippie to overcome the thousand miles.

Like with a rocket, there are certain trajectories that can put you in orbit and others that can get you very high (in altitude!) but have no chance of ever reaching orbit. Hippies were able to experience a kind of temporary cessation of some forms of clinging, especially to money, power, belonging to the "outside world". Had their minds contained the wish for enlightenment or for liberation from samsara they would have started out with a real head start simply based on a lack of excessive desire (in the beginning, at least). Unfortunately most of them sought enlightenment in pleasurable objects of one sort or another, whether blissful encounters with each other, drugs, art, dance, music, etc. They immersed themselves with a different aspect of samsara and experienced the suffering of change, the pervasive suffering of conditioned existence and, for many, the pure hell of drug withdrawal and the like.

grout4cake

It is probably many times harder to live a middle path in America than to be a Korean monk,in which your appearance,and actions are circumbscribed by centuries of tradition.

Who was more attached to the young man's hair more?
He or the Zen master?

Apparently the Zen master

Azidonis

There is a saying in Taoism, (I believe) that states that "Women are 99% spiritual, and 1% practical, and that men are 99% practical and 1% spiritual. But it is as much Effort for the women to conquer that final 1%, as it is for the men to overcome their 99%"

The Hippie Mind is only one hair's breadth away from enlightenment, while the non-Hippie's mind, has a thousand miles to go.....I would say that it is as much effort for a Hippie to overcome that 'hair's breadth' as it is for a non- Hippie to overcome the thousand miles.

Wonderful words.