This is forwarded from Brad Warner's website THE ZEN OF KISS
I talked with Gene Simmons from KISS again this Monday. I met him once before two years ago when he came to Tokyo. We got together because he's interested in producing a KISS animated series and wanted to talk to Tsuburaya Productions (the company I work for) about the idea. The first time I met him Gene Simmons impressed me as a very realistic person. A lot of artists are like that. They have the ability to see things more clearly than most people you meet. Of course, Gene has a lot of illusions as well. But even here he seems surprisingly realistic. He has a vague awareness that his illusions are no more than that-his own illusions. And that's rare too. He's no Zen master by any means, but there's a bit more than just breathing fire, vomiting blood and offending feminists. Any time you practice any kind of art in a very concentrated way, you learn about reality. Sports can work the same way. The problem with artists and sports people is that they usually can't extend the balance they find in their art into the rest of their lives. This is why so many rock stars turn to drugs to try and extend the high they get from being on stage. Gene Simmons doesn't do drugs, but he uses sex and "business" in much the same way other rock stars use chemicals. The average rock star or sports sensation doesn't realize that that "high" is just the simple thrill of being fully present, and that it's not really all that hard to learn to do this all the time. Anyhow, Gene (see, we're on a first name basis, me and Gene) offered us tickets to see KISS's show at the Budokan and I jumped at the chance. It was my fourth time to see KISS. The first was on their first post make-up tour with Vinnie Vincent on guitar, the other three times have been on their seemingly endless "final tour" which has hit Japan about once every two years. A KISS show is an amazing thing. There's lights and fire and explosions and noise. Gene Simmons flies up onto the lighting rig and sings God of Thunder a hundred feet above the crowd. Paul Stanley sails out over the audience and does Love Gun on a platform right in the middle of the floor seats. Peter Criss's drums levitate. If Ace Frehley wouldn't have flaked out this time we would've seen his rocket launcher guitar too I'm sure (Tommy Thayer did a terrific job in his place, though, but no rocket launcher). All those lights and noise are exciting, but not for the reason most people think. What all that banging and flashing does is it forces you to stay with the moment. And that's what people really want most out of life, to be right where they are, right here and right now. It's the most exciting thing there is. This is precisely why the things we consider "exciting" in life are so enjoyable, because we're really there and not drifting off somewhere else in our brains. I was talking to Nishijima Sensei once about this kind of thing. It wasn't KISS we were discussing. I think we were talking about video games with all their bright lights and noise. "Those kinds of things are very dangerous," he said. Most of the time if you hear a "religious" person tell you that video games or rock concerts are dangerous it's because they're afraid those things will turn us all into devil worshipers or something. But Nishijima's not that kind of guy so I knew that wasn't what he meant. The problem is not really noise and bright lights in and of themselves. Not really. They're just the symptoms. The danger is that stuff like that encourages the belief that we can only be happy when we're having some kind of big peak experience. We tend to structure our life around these big experiences and miss out on everything that comes between. The big concert is what matters, the walk to the concert hall just sort of disappears into a haze of thought. We think of our lives as a series of big experiences with a lot of unimportant stuff in between. It's like there's a graph we've made with the big moments as the peaks and all the dull ones down at the bottom. That stuff doesn't really matter --the peaks are what's really important. Zen practitioners are famous for running after the wonderful peak experience of Enlightenment and looking at the rest of their lives as a lot of drudgery just to get there. That's just sad. It's a really miserable thing to miss out on the vast majority of your life and focus on a few little incidents here and there. What's more, that kind of thinking can lead you to do all kinds of dangerous and hurtful things to yourself and others just to achieve the thrill of being in the moment. People will go to almost any length just to experience the sensation of being in the here and now. Gamblers will risk their life's savings for the thrill of experiencing that extremely present moment when they don't know if the dice are going to come up with their number or not. Daredevils risk their very lives just for the thrill of being in the here and now, that little moment of not knowing if the parachute might not open on time. The reason some people are so fixated with sex is because the one time when they're really right there in life is when they're boinking (or being boinked). The fact that we feel like we need such incredibly huge stimulation so often just to feel alive is a symptom of how dull and un-alive we are as a culture. We think we must always be entertained, that we have to have the TV or the internet there at all times to stimulate us. We've become far too accustomed to escaping reality whenever and wherever possible. The noise all around us is a reflection of the constant noise inside our ever busy brains. Anything to keep from having to experience what's really here. The danger is that when the noise outside dies down too far we can't just live with it, we've got to go out and create some more excitement, like a war for example. The practice of zazen is a practice that allows you to learn how to make every single moment of your life as thrilling as a KISS concert or a parachute jump or a night of having a greased hot Yahoo bottle shoved up your rectum - whatever turns you on. You gradually learn to appreciate every little thing without making distinctions between the stuff that's dreary and unimportant and the stuff that's real exciting. What happens then is amazing. The "middle way" often talked about by Buddhists tends to sound dull. But it's not at all. Walking the middle way you learn how to return to the way you were when you were a child. "Wow! Look there's a bug!" "Gosh! Look at this big booger!" The sky is sooooo blue, the grass is soooo green, those stains on the tub are soooo -- what the hell color is that anyway? Zen isn't about learning how to be dispassionate, about aspiring to some grand ideal of complete detachment from the world like some dipshits claim (hello, Mr. Wilber). It's not about shutting yourself off from life, turning into some silly little Zen robot who doesn't care about anything at all. Zen is about having fun all the time. You become happier and better able to enjoy everything. Your life becomes a hell of a lot more fun when scraping wax out of your ears is just as thrilling as having breakfast in one of Tokyo's swankiest hotels with a rich rock and roll star you've idolized since you were 12. You learn that you don't need to do anything special at all to have a good time. All your time is a good time. That's the real benefit of Zen practice. http://homepage.mac.com/doubtboy/kiss.html [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/hjtSRD/3MnJAA/i1hLAA/S27xlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Current Book Discussion: Appreciate Your Life by Taizan Maezumi Roshi 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/
