Many of us I suspect are 2 x 4's at times, myself included. We shut ourselves down, live, or rather exist, behind suits of heavy and cumbrous armour that have taken us many years to put together, piece by painful piece. We analyze our feelings, our actions, our relationships, until they turn to dust and then wonder why that doesn't help. Or we try to shut down our feelings or simply indulge them to the hilt. Either way the result is the same - a creeping numbness that some mistake for clarity and non attachment or wisdom of some kind. Some traditions, including Buddhist ones, tell us, or at least imply, that emotions are somehow bad, somehow wrong and that we should be free of them, and to be free of them we should be without desire, sexless, opinionless and 'detached'.
A genuine practice on the other hand gradually (or not so gradually) dismantles the armour. It allows us to begin to step outside our fabricated boundaries and insecurity and actually touch, actually feel, as if for the very first time. We start to become simpler. We learn to talk simply, walk simply, feel simply. Instead of running away from life, we open to it. We learn that trying to live as if our own humanity is an enemy is not only a waste of time, it's impossible. This is one reason why Zen talks of the way of the Bodhisattva, the open way. This is a way that engages life fully, opening us to all that it has to offer, whether painful or pleasant, but without feeling that there is something solid to grasp or defend. Then we can begin to realize that whatever we are feeling, wherever we are - we are at home, and have been from the very beginning. The kindest Bodhisattva isn't found in a vision, or sitting on a lotus in some heaven, but right in the middle of hell. Never forget: we walk in hell, gazing at flowers. - Issa Genryu ----- Original Message ----- From: ventouxboy To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2005 5:01 PM Subject: Re: [Zen] Breaking attachment ---Thanks for the advice Genryu. Maybe I'll have to alter the basics to a bowl, a spoon, a robe, and a condom.lol. Seriously though, aren't relationships a form of attachment? And consequently a begining of suffering? In my job i see a lot of relationships based on all the wrong reasons(money, looks, abusive behavior, etc), so maybe it's just me. But between that and wood, Hell, i'm a 2x4.; )Guy [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater? Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good! http://us.click.yahoo.com/WwRTUD/SOnJAA/i1hLAA/S27xlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Livelihood Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZenForum/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
