On 8/20/2012 9:04 PM, Joe wrote:
Bill,
Not at all.
Busy methods are good for wearing us out; then, samadhi can come on,
when we are truly worn out.
Some related non-Zens on this theme from another [SufiMystic] group:
Cleverness and complexity are not necessarily wisdom.
Bowl of Saki, August 20, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
Man likes complexity. He does not want to take only one step; it is more
interesting to look forward to millions of steps. The one who is seeking
the truth gets into a maze, and that maze interests him. He wants to go
through it a thousand times more. It is just like children. Their whole
interest is in running about; they do not want to see the door and go in
until they are very tired. So it is with grown-up people. They all say
that they are seeking truth, but they like the maze. That is why the
mystics made the greatest truths a mystery, to be given only to the few
who were ready for them, letting the others play because it was the time
for them to play.
For spiritual attainment we do not need to pay a tax, it is ours, it is
our self, it is discovering our self, finding our self. Yet what one
values is what one gets with difficulty. Man loves complexity so much!
He makes a thing big and says, 'This is valuable'. If it is simple he
says, 'It has no value'. That is why the ancient people, knowing human
nature, told a person when he said he wanted spiritual attainment, 'Very
well; for ten years go around the temple, walk around it a hundred times
in the morning and in the evening. Go to the Ganges, take pitchers full
of water during twenty or fifty years, then you will get inspiration'.
That is what must be done with people who will not be satisfied with a
simple explanation of the truth, who want complexity.
We read in the Vadan, 'Simplicity is the living beauty.' Man today has
made life so complex that whatever he seeks after, he wants to find in
complexity. All things in life which have importance, beauty and value
are simple; and simplest of all things is the divine truth. ... The
truth is not a newly invented theory, not a dogma, not an idea; it is
reality itself. At the back of it is the self of man; therefore it is
simple. But it is not simplicity that man seeks, he is longing for
complexity. Anything which will confuse he is glad to take interest in.
If it is simple, he says, 'I know it already.'
Man loves complexity and calls it knowledge. A great many societies and
institutions in the world which call themselves occult, esoteric and
psychic, and by various other names, knowing that everyone is interested
in complexity, cover the truth. Instead of covering the truth with one
cover, they cover it with a thousand covers to make it more interesting.
... Therefore, a mystic very often appears to be simple because
sincerity makes him feel inclined to express the truth in simple
language and in simple ideas. But because people value complexity, they
think that what he says is too simple and that it is something which
they have always known, that it is nothing new. However, as Solomon
said, 'There is nothing new under the sun.'
