..续本文上一页 a zendo. I came from Australia, which is probably one of the more secular cultures in the world. Much more secular than the U.S. Australians hate to do things like bow. They think it”s all bullshit. So I came in and said, "You want me to bow
Sure, I”ll bow. Whatever it is you want me to do, I”ll do it. I just want to get enlightened." I think that was an attitude of the time. The seventies were when I first ran across a temple. Then I found that these stupid forms like bowing, which are by definition always nonsensical. Ritual is always nonsensical or otherwise it would be a practical activity and wouldn”t be any use for ceremony. These nonsensical things were changing me. That it was good for me to let go of my idea that I came from a secular culture and was much more rationalist and immune to the seduction of these things. The key moment for me, I remember, was that I would go along to my teacher with my question. It was the koan Mu, which some of you may know, where you basically hold this one word Mu which doesn”t mean anything to you and you have to find out what it is. Any answer you give will be rejected so it”s a very simple practice. I would come along almost every day to my teacher. I was in hard training. I”d work all day and sit much of the night and do a lot of meditation. It was a kind of joyfully insane life. I”d come in and I”d do my three full bows before him and he”d look at me and I”d say, "I don”t know." He had a little hand bell that he”d ring when you were through and he”d ring his bell and I”d bow and leave. It was a perfect relationship, really. For some time I was doing this. The first time I came to see him, I”d come from Australia and I”d been meditating for years on my own, inventing the wheel, and I walked into see him. And he said, "Well, what do you want
" And I said, "Well, I think I want to get enlightened." And he said, "Well
" I said,"I”ve already started working on the koan Mu." He said, "Do you have any questions
" I said, "No," and he rang his bell. So you can see at one level there is something stupid going on because nobody”s talking about anything, but at another level something very deep is going on and good because somehow it is given back to me and I”m empowered by that. As I would come along--first I would think, "Well, if I”m just in the right frame of mind when I go along to interview my teacher, I”ll be enlightened," and things like that. Gradually, these ideas, of course, fell away and I knew they were ridiculous, but I couldn”t help holding them. That was, again, an experience of character. I realized that I was not immune to the stupid ideas that everybody else in the zendo had, that I had to honor my own kind of foolishness and allow it and somehow be sweet with it. I knew better than that, but I couldn”t help holding that idea, couldn”t help preparing myself to go into the interview and somehow get it. Gradually I noticed that as I was just working and meditating and I”d come in and say, "I don”t know" and he”d ring his bell, then I realized that I was already living the great life. That there was something beautiful and shapely about this life that I”d never experienced before, that I really cared about something, really going for it, and I was failing. There was an honor in that, a strength in that, and that I was prepared to do it for the rest of my life. I”d always had the idea before that I wanted to get it and run. I wasn”t even aware I had that idea. Some people call it spiritual materialism.
Realizing that I was quite happy, then suddenly it didn”t matter if I got enlightened. It didn”t matter--any of those things. I became who I was. If I had a taste for chocolate or lingerie or whatever it was, then I could look at that and start to experience my life instead of try…
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