Re: Another way

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...The Buddha, in fact, did invite people on all occasions to test him. "Don't believe me because you see me as your teacher," he said. "Don't believe me because others do. And don't believe anything because you've read it in a book, either. Don't put your faith in reports, or tradition, or hearsay, or the authority of religious leaders or texts. Don't rely on mere logic, or inference, or appearances, or speculation."
The Buddha repeatedly emphasized the impossibilityof ever arriving at Truth by giving up your own authority and following the lights of others. Such a path will lead only to an opinion - whether it's your own or someone else's.
The Buddha encouraged people to "know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome and wrong. And when you do, then give them up. And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome and good, then accept them and follow them."
The message is always to examine and see for yoruself. When you see for yourself what is true - and that's really the only way that you can genuinely know anything - then embrace it. Until then, just suspend judgment and criticism.
The point of Buddhism is to just see. That's all.

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Re: Another way

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Elizabeth: ...If you look at what's been revealed over the last couple of years about all the people with titles, you can see just how hard practice is. I personally have no interest in making a big deal about "enlightened" people. That's a notion that implies permanence and solidity. The issue is only whether we're awake in THIS moment. And this moment. And this moment . And having been awake in 1975, perhaps so awake you were given a title, doesn't mean you're awake in 1985, or in all situations.

Lenore: Yet we get caught in the notion that there's somebody who knows, who knows better than we do, and who can tell us, or show us the way.

Elizabeth: Yes. so many of us have suspended our discernment in the interest of thinking there was someone out there who could do no wrong or might be doing the most outlandish things, but they were "just to teach us" and there was clearly a purpose behind them. I feel badly that I've actually supported people in being outlandish because I thought there was something I just didn't see. So I've colluded by putting them outside my common sense. It's sad to see how diligently we've deluded ourselves in the name of practice. When practice itself should be the work that clarifies the hurt, the anger, or the confusion - and brings understnading and growth. Many Americans are now nineteen years old spiritually and we're ready to leave home and be on our own.

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The weekend I was in San Diego, during formal talks and later during our informal interviews, Joko said some pointed things about a number of possible distortions in Zen practice. "We think too much about breaking through to the absolute," she told me. "I think that's a very premature consideration for most people. Even if they do it, they don't know what to do with it. And for some people, the shock is too great." Her primary consideration is the kind of mature development that makes this realization possible. When the mind loses interest in its attachments, "then very naturally, what is called samadhi increases. And at some point there may be an 'opening,' but this is not a goal to be sought- it's just a natural occurrence when practice matures; and after it happens, we go right back to working with the basic problem."

And the basic problem we're working with in Zen practice is attachment. Yet our whole life is nothing but attachment. That's the terrain of the ego, and practice, Joko believes, is simply a matter of constantly turning back to our everyday actions and asking, "What's really going on here? How can we look at it? How can we sit with it? Where are we attached?" The line between this kind of endeavor and psychotherapy is not sharp. But there's a major difference that comes with serious sitting, and that is a total shift in our view of who we really are. There's a subtlety and an ability to observe that makes it a "totally different ballgame." And there comes a point when the depth and intensity of the process move beyond most therapy.

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Re: Another way

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Of course, if you start to read alot about Zen, you are going to have a certain amount of conflict with the Guru concept. It just doesn't seem to be the same at all.

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Zen

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I'm just living life. We, in the West, have way too much time on our hands to worry about our spiritual life. I'm only concerned with my immediate reality. I'm so much happier not worrying about where I'm going to end up. Who cares?

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