Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
get serious!
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
Maybe it's fair to say that everyone is serious about whatever they're serious about. Even those who claim "not to take things too seriously" can be pretty serious about it.
My guess is that it is good to take things seriously -- to open the heart and mind to one thing or another, to really dig in. Mediocre effort brings mediocre results.
But there is an interesting fly in the 'seriousness' ointment: It may be OK to be serious, but expecting others to be serious about what I am serious about, to seek out their agreement or approval as a way of elevating my sense of seriousness, doesn't work well. Yes, we may sit in the same meditation hall. Yes, we may encourage and support each other. Yes, we may each be quite serious. But does that imply that the matter at hand somehow IS -- in some universal or chiseled-in-stone sense -- serious?
Maybe it's OK to be serious.
But it's not that serious, do you think?
My guess is that it is good to take things seriously -- to open the heart and mind to one thing or another, to really dig in. Mediocre effort brings mediocre results.
But there is an interesting fly in the 'seriousness' ointment: It may be OK to be serious, but expecting others to be serious about what I am serious about, to seek out their agreement or approval as a way of elevating my sense of seriousness, doesn't work well. Yes, we may sit in the same meditation hall. Yes, we may encourage and support each other. Yes, we may each be quite serious. But does that imply that the matter at hand somehow IS -- in some universal or chiseled-in-stone sense -- serious?
Maybe it's OK to be serious.
But it's not that serious, do you think?
0
Comments
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I used to arrive early at the Zen center I attended and, because the doors were not yet unlocked, I would sit on the stoop and watch the New Yorkers headed off to or returning from work. And I would be flabbergasted in some part of my mind that they could be doing something other than waiting with me to go inside and practice zazen or seated meditation.
And then there were the times when people would comment on the navel-gazing, mental masturbation aspects of meditation. Their comments would sometimes sting because I was not yet entirely sure they were wrong. They were calling me out and I was not yet settled or assured enough to counter their criticisms, which I dearly wanted to do. I wanted someone or something to tell me with an assurance I could credit that the whole exercise was not a crock of shit.
As regards Buddhism, I think the only answer to such criticisms and the doubts they can raise is to keep on practicing. I'd say it's worth the price of admission. But that's just me. I think a bunch of drivers speeding around a NASCAR track, endlessly turning left, is serious only to the extent that someone might get killed, but I can see that others might take it quite seriously indeed.
I am serious about some things and not serious about others, just like you.
But is it that serious -- serious enough to demand agreement?
Your life, your call.
My life, mine.
But also....
1. Is Zen a religion? Etymologically, as I understand it, "religion" depicts a connection ... as between man and gods ... or at least that is one aspect of its roots. A "connection" by its very nature requires a separation. To the best of my knowledge, Zen, like life, is not in the separation business any more than it is in the connection business.
2. Is the tradition of Zen something that demands agreement or disagreement? I breathe in, I breathe out. You breathe in, you breathe out. I may like you quite a lot, but I would be a fool to rely on you for my breathing.
3. Everyone starts a spiritual effort with belief and hope ... the belief and hope that partake of habitual and long-credited separations... man and god, old and young, joy and sorrow, smart and dumb, etc. But over time and with practice, belief and hope begin to take a back seat to plain old experience. No one who knows how to ride a bicycle gets on believing or hoping they can ride. They know they can ride ... so they just ride. Of course when they are beginning to learn, they believe and hope they can do what they see their friends already doing ... and they fall off ... and they get back up...and they fall off ... and they shed tears ... and they issue swear words ... and they begin again... and ... then one day they just ride.
And too, no kidding around or Buddhist flim-flam: If something is missing and you don't know what it is, is anything missing? Or, put another way, if something is missing and you do know what it is, how could it possibly be missing?
same as above.
Abu