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Bodhidharma, in many ways, is seen as the father of Zen. His teachings are cryptic because they are so simple. This challenges our desire to achieve something through practice which is the main obstacle of meditation. Even here, in this hobby of satisfaction and peace, we promote our subtle dissatisfaction and perpetuate our yearning for more. Tip; read these quotes with no mind. Seek nothing from them. Read them as gibberish and maybe a strange wisdom will come.
This series of transcribed talks, given by Shunryu Suzuki, is a modern Zen classic for a reason! Arranged in a way that makes the great theme of Zen approachable to our busy, Western minds; to read the book is Zen itself.
"There is a cost to medicating away every type of human suffering, and, as we shall see, there is an alternative path that might work; “embracing pain."
“To arrive in the Rocky Mountains by plane would be to see them in one kind of context, as pretty scenery. But to arrive after days of hard travel across the prairies would be to see them in another way, as a goal, a promised land.”
The tourists, Indian and foreigner alike, gawk from all over the city. Some half-marvel from the rooftop restaurants of the surrounding hotels, in between sips of local wine or chai masala tea. Others take the time to ride up the hill in the go-kart-like green and yellow tuk-tuks. Standing within that once living royal artifact, they marvel and I just see the inevitable fate of us all. Degradation.
Because it's an experience, no Zen book can provide its reader with its theme. Yet, I felt quite tranquil and aimless as I read through the 200 pages of Zen's enlightened none-sense, so well organized and explained by Alan Watts.
Essentially, his theory is reduced to an extremely intuitive and reasonable solution to personal dissatisfaction. If you do your best and apply yourself wholly to everything you do from work, to leisure, to the utterly ordinary behaviors of life (brushing teeth, cleaning, sitting, thinking, etc) you will be fulfilled because the challenge of applying ourselves to the betterment of anything is our deepest joy. Powerful thesis!
Just outside Cusco proper, above the shallow valley of the city center sits The Temple of the Moon. Raj, Jamol, Mo, Isa, and I made a plan to drink Yachuma, a grandfather medicine, in a place that radiated ceremony. The low plateau was covered with yellow winter grass, small trees, and massive rocky outcrops.
One day, like a great stag with its crown of nature and stars held high and easily, God comes to behold you - a being that has learned to love itself. Because there is no shame in this achieved person, despite their small stature, and perhaps dirty home, they open their doors in great reverence and humble confidence.
All of a sudden, you’re walking alongside them on the 6-inch ledge of the world’s tallest mountains. You’re haggling with sherpas, speaking to Himalayan Lamas, eating yak meat, drinking Arak, and riding the ups and downs of a true adventure.
Meditation leads to a slew of insights that help us navigate life. At this point, most of us understand life is, at times, stressful, but the reasons for this seemingly inevitable stress are still up for debate. Yesterday, everything was good. Today, while nothing has changed, that goodness has diminished. Why?
Darkness isn't anything at all. Literally. It's nothing and that fact alone tethers it to the essence of our practice; meditation - the art of no mind, no self, no thing. "Let darkness be your candle," Rumi said.
So, how do we develop Santosha-yogic contentment? There are many ways but let's focus on one. Remember, contentment comes from giving ourselves away to one thing and only one thing. It is a needy flower. It demands daily attention, perhaps even daily fixation. If too many options are the problem, this is now a conversation of focus and distraction.
To break our reason and dance with the irrational is the pivotal unpatterning that leads that brave individual to the dance floor of nature and gods where there are no rules and the only hospitable environment where creativity and genius exist.
The complicated answer. No matter how many times we squash our discontent, eventually, it comes back! Meditative philosophy, especially the ascetic lineages of Hatha Yoga, Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, believe the problem of discontent isn't so obvious as taking a bubble bath. It's not dissatisfaction that pains us, it's unquestioned systemic desire.
Ignorant of the reasons why we do the things we do, like the things we like, and dislike the things we dislike, as creatures so proud of our consciousness we regretfully must admit we are more like leaves in a river than salmon swimming against the current.
As I read through the pages I regularly felt as if he were in front of me sitting as a grandparent speaking without pretense, straight to what matters most. Be good. Be happy.
There is a healthy dose of pride and a modest bit of arrogance in thinking the future is ours to shape, but we are a proud species. In our minds, we are all conquerors like Gengis Khan, Alexander the Great, or Atilla the Hun.
The same way we trust Google Maps to take us where we need to go, we trust our minds - the shadow monarch - to lead us forward into our future choice after choice. Sometimes it leads us well, often actually, but we do so under its authority.
When we arrest our movement and shut our eyes, forcing ourselves into perfect, intentional paralysis, our bodies get confused and nervous because they are being forced to do the opposite of what they have evolved to do.
