In the microscopic mode I assume that I am either talking to myself or just you alone.
The purpose of the communication is personal in nature. Namely for me to progressively realize my worthy ideal.
That means at the personal level my worthy ideal is health and happiness. That's all that I care. In that sense it is not worthy for me to invoke Rex to tap into this blog.
That is one stream of thought...
The other stream says go ahead and send the 3 postings to Rex because he is part of this operation.
So it is an Apple and No Apple situation.
In this case I will still send the 3 postings but I will no longer listen to TraXX. Hence I concentrate my effort solely on my Vision Quest.
In that sense I am changing my playing field to 247 Continuous. These might as well be the last postings and the purpose is to entice him to tap the blog.
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I finished reading 1/3 of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. I am now convinced that the best way forward is to approach things from the Point of Paradox. Examples upon examples Suzuki Roshi gave suggested that we should thrive in the Apple and No Apple situation. For instance he said the best horse is maybe the worst horse and the worse horse is maybe the best horse.
Certainly I am the worst horse right now. To him zazen is the key to the whole thing. He referred to the specific sitting posture. I however is thinking that anything can be zazen including sleep and everything is Zen. Certainly I don't follow his mold. And yet I still experience satori.
Thus either I am a natural Bodhisattva or I completely miss the whole point of being the Buddha. Well if I am indeed the worst horse, then I am by his definition is the best horse. I however is not confined to the conventional thinking of the traditional teaching of Zen and therefore I define my own Path because I believe in the practice of Shu Ha Ri.
In short Sarah, I don't conform even to the concept of zazen as prescribed by Suzuki Roshi because I set my own definition as long as I produce the desired outcome.
This is the same attitude that I take towards Buddhism and Sufism. I refuse to fit into any preset mold because I believe in the rightness of my Path. In other words I had passed the kata stage and I am going for the do.
Bear in mind there are many paths and many ways to get to our destination. Our job is not to follow the path of others but to walk with them side by side.
So if you are overwhelmed by the teaching of Suzuki Roshi, don't be. That is just another path. Rumi also offered an alternative path. So is Tim Grover with Relentless. Do not feel threatened by the various ways. In defining your Path, you decide what is best for you. That is why although the are many swordsmen, in the end there is only one Musashi. Although there are many martial artists, there is only one Bruce Lee. What do these two have in common? Both are pioneers instead of merely following the rest of the crowd.
I'm [] (not) trying to be cocky or arrogant. My job is to synthesize, synchronize and finally to create synergy. Hence I t[hat] (take) the lessons as if I am going to a buffet. What I like I take, what I don't like I leave behind. I don't eat the whole buffet. If I'm not mistaken this is called selective filtering. At the end of the day we are merely exercising our power of choice.
Remember the word of the Great George Sheehan, "All my life I [] (was) looking for a hero only to realize later in life that the hero of my life is me."
If I can paraphrase it, "All my life I was looking for God only to realize that God is me."
Such is the nature of enlightenment Sarah. As Suzuki Roshi mentioned, when we first became enlightened it was wonderful. However after some time there is nothing to it.
Confucius said, "Before enlightenment chop wood fetch water, after enlightenment chop wood fetch water."
The action is the same but the meaning had changed.
I am not rebelling against the teaching of Zen. However at some point I think Zen Masters like Suzuki Roshi lack the courage to be definitive with their thoughts on form is form and emptiness is emptiness. Thus they stay in the Point of Paradox because it is comforting. Is like saying right or wrong you are both right and wrong. Isn't is comforting to be right and wrong at the same time?
It is the same reason why I am not too hot about the teaching of Buddha. He is noncommittal. While we have to acknowledge there is a Point of Paradox, we have to accept beyond that boundary there are absolutes. We cannot say everything is a paradox.
In that sense Rumi is more acute in his paradoxes. For example when he said, "We are not a drop in an ocean but an ocean in a drop", he is playing with dualism. However his dualism makes sense. We don't want to be a paradox for the sake of being eccentric. Like the example I gave earlier. "To walk one mile to the East is to walk one mile to the West," is not profound. That is a complete garbage!
I also use paradox in my definition of God, "We are One and we are Many. We are within God and God is within us..." However I can explain the paradox when I said, "...It like peeling an onion. At every level there is God..." I then further explain, "...All matters are intelligent and all matters are gods."
What pisses me off with some of the paradoxes in Zen is that they contradict one another. There is no definite stand in Zen. That is why to some, Zen is confusing. In the end they get entangled in their own teachings. So here we are catching bits and pieces and from the swatches we reassemble our quilt. If that is the intention then that is fine. Otherwise the interpretation varies between one student and another.
I'm telling you all these because I don't want you to get disheartened reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Keep having a fresh perspective as you read it. However don't feel it is profound because it is confusing. Fuzzy Thinking is not meant to be confusing. It is confusing because the pedagogy approach to the whole teaching is pretty weak in my opinion.
The students are not allowed to question the logic of the Master because that is seen as an act of defiance or ignorance.
Again I am not bashing Zen. I'm just pointing to you the pitfalls in you quest to attain satori. It is still a good path among the paths towards enlightenment by the virtue that it is fluid. My wish is for i[f] to be rigid as well when necessary.
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