"People want so much. We want to be someone else. 'I want to be stronger.' 'I want to be more directed.' 'I want to be Superwoman.' But it's not possible. You must accept your condition. But 'accept' is active. Who you are is active. Passive acceptance--that's the immobile, inanimate Zen. It's not the Zen I'm talking about. There's passion here. Spirit for the quest. This is important: The sincerity of our quest and how we go about it. It's a long path. Are you prepared? Do you want to walk on this path? Don't think about it too much. Just walk! C'mon, let's go! That's Zen."
Jakusho Kwong, a successor in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, the author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, said this, and it is already among the most precious pearls of wisdom I have ever been given. Not because I want to be someone else but because, through this quote, there is a beauty expressed in it about what it means to become who you are. What do you think?
Monday, February 6, 2006
What does this mean to YOU?
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2 comments:
Wow, what a tremendous thought! Scary? Maybe. To acquire and to use that thought one has to sit with himself and pretty much wash the toxic influences out of his thinking. We are each of us a compendium of all that we've learned thus far; those things that have helped us to survive ... if we're truly surviving at all. If we accept this Zen thought in practice we're going to have to walk out there naked to the world, and the world, as it already is, will see some new weaknesses in us. If that sounds paranoic to some, I see it as truth. It may be, however, that if we were to post this in a spot to be seen daily, and refer to it each day as we shoved aside the curtain and stepped out onto the stage, that we might slyly discard one or more bad habits each curtain call, neh?
Whatever, one may not, if one is to keep any eggs in one's basket at all, step forth in politically incorrect dress in a politically correct world. It just ain't done!
One might, however, step forth wearing a mask that tells everyone that he is just like they are while working hard to maintain his own pace under the new and more peaceful thought. In the Desidirata (sp) the thought goes something similar. "Go placid amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence."
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