Buddhism: (2 of 3) Zen scriptures, here, now

(beginning here)

One doesn’t go on retreat trying to ‘work out’ emotional/personal/intellectual issues or problems. Yet you always have these problems, and oddly enough they tend to come up during retreats, especially in meditation (when you’re supposed to be practicing open awareness). And, if you’re lucky, somewhere along the way a solution or answer comes to you.

Some interesting words from the scriptures:

(with implications on a recent post on self)

“Supreme mind, — in words, — can never be expressed:
And yet to all the trainees’ needs it does respond;

Enslaved by words you fall into a hole.:
If you should go against the basic Truth — you come to a dead end.”

This is how I understand Buddha-Nature (Supreme mind). Any attempt we make to understand it with words or concepts is misguided. It is much like some Christian understandings of God (via negativa – saying that God is beyond our mundane language and concepts; to label Him as this or that is to defile His purity and transcendence). “Enslaved by words” describes me well much of the time! 🙂 Truth is speechless, unspoken, unspeakable.

(and reminding me of my own recent fun with words)

“If you express by fancy words:
It is all stained.
The night encloses brightness:
And, at dawn, no light shines;”

More about words 🙂 But also, the last two lines brought me back to my recent difficulties in school. My difficulties were more a matter of my attitude toward the experiences than the experiences themselves. I was criticized for a poor performance and my big fat ego just wrenched itself around those critical words – it felt as if my stomach was being wrapped in knots around my heart and lungs. Just a couple weeks ago I had been praised for a very good performance, and I only laugh now as I see that my pain in the second instance was pretty evenly proportional to my elation in the first.

So, lacking equanimity, lacking mindfulness, I was manipulated: up the hedonic ladder in one instance, down down down in the next.

It is not as if the retreat has fixed my above lacks – but I am aware of them now, quite clearly (which is why I can laugh about what last week had me on the verge of a panic attack).