Dear DP: Don't take too seriously anything you read in forums and internet in general. Your questions are difficult questions to be answered by the ones who have not in them the OCD experience. Only yourself can answer all those questions but if you can't find any answer in you yet, then let it be as it is. Accept it as it manifests in you. Don't fight against it. And don't worry because FEAR in general is something we all have in us in more or less measure. Fear of death, Fear of living, Fear of love, Fear losing our employment, Fear of speaking our minds....there is always fear in us. While experiencing strong fear I embrace this emotion through the breathing and by facing it. Perhaps you may like to try too and see what you experience. Mayka --- On Mon, 16/8/10, DP <[email protected]> wrote:
From: DP <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Zen] Namaste- first message To: [email protected] Date: Monday, 16 August, 2010, 14:53 Well, this is what I meant by linguistic tricks. I was on another forum in which I was talking about how my OCD was related to my fear of death. I had two different reactions - one along the lines of "why worry about death?" (telling someone with OCD not to worry or why worry is exactly the wrong thing to do) the other was that I had to admit that my OCD was an illusion. This last one really bothered me, and the poster went further on to say that "disease = dis ease," which I thought was trite and not very helpful. I soon gave up on that forum. --- In [email protected], <billsm...@...> wrote: > > Dave, > > > > My comments are embedded in your post below: > > > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf > Of DP > Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 9:36 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Zen] Namaste- first message > > I have been doing zazen for awhile now, but I've gone weeks and months at a > time without doing it... getting up and doing it regularly is very difficult > for me. > > [Bill!] Difficulty is a good thing - a teaching thing. > > I like to consider myself, in the words of Evelyn Underhill, a "practical > mystic." I find koans sometimes useful, but I find that I am also drawn to > the ideas of Thich Nhat Hanh, of imbuing everything with purpose (of course, > this can be hard with OCD, in which every action seems to have hidden > consequences). > > [Bill!] I would think that anyone with OCD would not find it difficult at > all to 'imbue everything with purpose'. That's what OCD means, doesn't it? > Zen is the opposite of that. Zen has no purpose, no goal. Zen is Just > THIS! > > I'm a little turned off by some of what I find obfuscating in some zen > messages, the people who hide behind linguistic tricks. Is that a little too > cynical? Am I asking too many questions? :) > > [Bill!] What I think you see as 'linguistic tricks' in zen are probably just > the results of frustration at trying to communicate non-dualistic > experiences using language which is based on dualisms. That, or an attempt > at using language in a non-ordinary way (like koans, which you said you find > 'useful' sometimes) to help induce a break in dualistic thinking. > > .Bill! >
