Part 8 (2/2)

People are very much alike. Our brains are all similar in a very deep way. What appeals to one person will pretty much appeal at some level to just about anyone else. Certain fantasies are universal and very compelling-like the Coca-Cola of our minds, flavors that tap something so basic it's hard to find anyone who doesn't like them at least a little. of our minds, flavors that tap something so basic it's hard to find anyone who doesn't like them at least a little.

These basic human fantasies have been with us since our species first arose. Stories that tap into these fantasies have tremendous power to appeal to huge numbers of people. But the truth is more powerful. Always.

So the question becomes this: How do we know what is true and what is fantasy?

And the answer: Take a look at where you are, at who you are, right here and right now. That's it. That's the truth.

HARDCORE ZEN.

You ain't no punk, you punk.

You wanna talk about the real junk?

”GARBAGEMAN” BY THE CRAMPS FROM THE ALb.u.m BAD MUSIC FOR BAD PEOPLE

ZEN IS A PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION. That means it isn't just a philosophy you read about and think about. It's a philosophy you do. do. You can't possibly truly understand Zen Buddhism without practicing zazen. You can't possibly truly understand Zen Buddhism without practicing zazen.

It's not enough to read about it. It's not even enough to understand it. You have to live it.

So why don't more people do it? The scholars, the armchair masters, the people who love the idea idea of meditation, but who just can't commit to actually doing it-why don't they sit zazen? In of meditation, but who just can't commit to actually doing it-why don't they sit zazen? In Zig Zag Zen, Zig Zag Zen, psychologist Charles Tart says, ”It's clear that many of us Westerners have such hyperactive minds and complex psychological dynamics that it is very difficult to quiet and discipline our minds enough to make any real progress along the meditative path.” psychologist Charles Tart says, ”It's clear that many of us Westerners have such hyperactive minds and complex psychological dynamics that it is very difficult to quiet and discipline our minds enough to make any real progress along the meditative path.”

”Westerners can't meditate” is a favorite excuse for not doing zazen-but man, I hate racism especially when it pretends to be rational and philosophical. In j.a.pan, where they obviously can't use this excuse, folks like to believe that only priests can do zazen, that other folks are somehow unqualified.

Another excuse I hear is that modern people just ”don't have the time” for it. Why would you want to waste time sitting on a cus.h.i.+on staring at a wall when there are so many ”important” things you could be doing, like watching a rerun of The Simpsons, The Simpsons, logging on to the internet to see if anything crucial has been added since this morning, or hanging out getting into a condition you'll regret the next day? logging on to the internet to see if anything crucial has been added since this morning, or hanging out getting into a condition you'll regret the next day?

You may be busy with work and family and responsibilities and all that, I sure am, but I'll bet you also waste a h.e.l.l of a lot of time every day. You devote hours and hours each week to ”relaxing” in ways that aren't relaxing in the least. You kill time. You steal a nap. You screw off.

If you were bound and gagged inside a wooden barrel just about to head over Niagara Falls, you'd pray for just one minute more to live. And yet, while you're alive, what do you do? You get bored. You wish to be elsewhere. You wish to get whatever you're doing now over with. You want to speed by those boring minutes like your life is a video where you can fast-forward through the commercials. When the end comes you'll be wis.h.i.+ng you could have back all those boring moments you zipped through. But you killed them. Dead and gone. Try putting some of that time to good use and see what happens.

The fact is, the great Eastern masters of times gone-by are no different from you. Their minds were just as hyperactive as yours and their psychological dynamics every bit as complex. The heights of enlightenment they reached are absolutely accessible to you. This stuff is tough work for anybody, regardless of where they were born or when. Cut out just a bit of those empty distractions and see how much time you create.

TIM ONCE TOLD ME A STORY about Kobun Chino leading a zazen practice. Kobun showed up late and everyone else in the room was already doing zazen. Kobun came in, sat down, looked around at everyone diligently practicing, chuckled and said, ”What a stupid thing to do.” Then he rang the bell signaling the start of the zazen period.

No doubt about it, though, zazen is a stupid thing to do. Zazen is also boring. You couldn't possibly find a duller practice.

And you don't have to do it at all, but if you decide you want to try it, here's how.

It couldn't be simpler, actually. Go to a quiet place. It doesn't need to be completely silent, but quieter is often better, at least in the beginning. A fairly bright room is good, because it tends to prevent dozing off. Find yourself a cus.h.i.+on to sit on. Take one off your couch or use your bed pillow. Rolled up blankets do nicely, too. Fold or fluff or do whatever you need to make your cus.h.i.+on a few inches high, just enough to lift your b.u.t.t off the ground and tilt your pelvis downward a little. Sit on it facing a blank undecorated wall. Cross your legs in front of you. If you know how to do the full-lotus or half-lotus positions, and you really feel like it, you can twist your legs up like that.

Modified Cross-Legged Position If you can manage the full-lotus, this is the most ”stable” position. If these positions don't feel comfortable, don't do them. Just sit in a modified version of what we used to call Indian-style with your legs loosely crossed and your ankles flat on the floor. The most important thing is to make your spine straight. It should feel as if your vertebrae are balanced on top of each other. Find a position where you are using as little energy as possible to maintain your erect spine. You want to balance all your meat and bones on top of your pelvis. Now tilt your head down slightly, tucking your chin in a bit.

The Complete Posture The traditional hand-position is what's called the universal mudra universal mudra.

The Universal Mudra You put your hands together facing palms-up at about belly-b.u.t.ton level, then make a little circle with your thumbs together on top. The advantage of the full- or half-lotus posture here is that you can use your feet like a little table to rest your hands on when doing the mudra. Rest your wrists on the tops of your thighs.

Now sit there and breathe normally, not real deep, not real shallow. Not fast, not slow. Just let it go on, in and out. Don't make any effort to stop your thoughts. But if you find yourself drifting off into some reverie, straighten your spine. In all my years of sitting, I've never found myself drifting off without my spine going correspondingly slack or out of alignment. When your posture is right, thoughts slow by themselves. Or they don't. And if they don't, don't worry too much. Just keep on sitting.

You may find that your legs fall asleep. No big deal. If that happens you can do one of two things: not worry about it and just take your time standing up after zazen, so you don't fall over, or you can s.h.i.+ft your legs a little. Personally, I s.h.i.+ft my legs and get back to zazen. Just be careful you don't spend your entire time s.h.i.+fting around.

If you've absolutely gotta scratch, scratch. If you've absolutely gotta fix your legs cuz you're just in excruciating pain or something, fix your legs. Whatever stuff like that needs doing, do it with as little fuss as possible and return to the position. But also experiment with not worrying about all that so much. Do this for as long as you can stand it, but no more than forty-five minutes at a stretch. And consistency on a day-to-day basis is far more important than duration at any one time.

Morning is the best time for zazen but evenings are also good. Twenty minutes in the morning and twenty before bed is good for starters. I try to put in an hour a day, but I'm a gung-ho kinda guy.

This style of zazen is traditionally called s.h.i.+kantaza s.h.i.+kantaza, or ”just sitting.” This is the real deal, sisters and brothers. This is hardcore Zen. There are other forms of meditation where you're given objects to concentrate on, mantras to recite, special ways of breathing and so on. There are practices that grade certain levels of concentration, leading students from the lowest levels up to the most exalted. There are temples where they come around and whack you with a stick if they think you're not sitting right. Hardcore Zen isn't like that. Everything non-essential has been stripped away. That other stuff is like swimming with Water-Wings or riding a bike with training wheels. You won't really learn to balance on your bike until you take the training wheels off, and you'll never learn how to keep yourself afloat if you don't you ditch the Water-Wings or riding a bike with training wheels. You won't really learn to balance on your bike until you take the training wheels off, and you'll never learn how to keep yourself afloat if you don't you ditch the Water-Wings. When you're ready for the real thing, you've gotta lose the props. No two ways about it.

The practice of zazen has to be approached with care. Remember those demons I told you about? You've got 'em too. And if you're not careful they can do real damage. If things start getting a little too heavy, back off for a while. Stop doing zazen if it really starts to bug you. Or seek out a good teacher or even a therapist if that's your thing.

Probably, though, zazen will just be boring.

But as simple as zazen is, it's best to have a teacher. Your teacher is a friend who can help you deal with the things that come up during the practice. Good ones aren't that hard to find. The best Zen teachers don't go making fools of themselves by writing books, like me. They're mostly quiet, una.s.suming folks with little groups. Don't worry whether the teacher you find is going to be the Best In The World or not. Go and see what he or she is all about. If it's not right, you'll work that out soon enough.

Sit zazen.

And rest a.s.sured, by sitting staring at blank walls you can transform everything. Everything. Everything. This is not a metaphor. This is not exaggeration. This is the simple fact of the matter. This is not a metaphor. This is not exaggeration. This is the simple fact of the matter.

ZEN REPLACES ALL OBJECTS OF BELIEF with one single thing: reality itself. We believe only in this universe. We don't believe in the afterlife. We don't believe in the sovereignty of nations. We don't believe in money or power or fame. We don't believe in our idols. We don't believe in our positions or our possessions. We don't believe we can be insulted, or that our honor or the honor of our family, our nation or our faith can be offended. We don't believe in Buddha.

We just believe in reality. Just this.

Zen doesn't ask you to believe in anything you cannot confirm for yourself. It does not ask you to memorize any sacred words. It doesn't require you to wors.h.i.+p any particular thing or revere any particular person. It doesn't offer any rules to obey. It doesn't give you any hierarchy of learned men whose profound teachings you must follow to the letter. It doesn't ask you to conform to any code of dress. It doesn't ask you to allow anyone else to choose what is right for you and what is wrong.

Zen is the complete absence of belief. Zen is the complete lack of authority. Zen tears away every false refuge in which you might hide from the truth and forces you to sit naked before what is real. That's real refuge.

Reality will announce itself to you in utterly unmistakable ways once you learn to listen. Learning to listen to reality, though, ain't so easy. You're so used to shouting reality down, drowning it out completely with your own opinions and views, that you might not even be able to recognize reality's voice anymore. It's a funny thing, though, because reality is the single most glaringly obvious thing there is. As the woman said in those old Palmolive commercials, ”You're soaking in it!” Yet we've forgotten how to recognize it. commercials, ”You're soaking in it!” Yet we've forgotten how to recognize it.

All your life you learned to deal with reality by excluding certain things, dividing things up into categories, differentiating between this and that. But reality includes all those things we call ”wrong,” all those things we call ”evil,” all those things we hate because we know in our hearts they are bad things. We can only know what's ”bad” when we discover it within ourselves and label it as such. But what happens is that we establish psychological blinders that prevent us from even seeing that what we consider bad is part of our own psychological makeup. To face reality as it is means we must face even the bad things about ourselves, the things we desperately want to believe are not there because we so desperately want to cling to the idea that we are ”good.”

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