It's a trap!

[Stephanie]

Re: It's a trap!

I tend to bounce between extremes, and I think it's an easy pitfall to veer between being too aggressive and goal-oriented in practice and too passive. I've seen a lot of people (and I've been one of them) use Buddhist teaching to justify a passive stance in a situation where action is called for... the equivalent of standing before your burning house and saying, "I am at peace, I needed this teaching in impermanence," rather than calling the fire department. I still struggle with the disconnect between my experiential wisdom (some things are broken and need to be fixed) and the teaching that everything is already perfect as it is. I mean, I get a taste of that sense of perfection sometimes... tasted just as well looking at a scene of post-industrial ruin as an idyllic field... which makes the whole thing even more puzzling, as it's clear also that if everyone approached life with the attitude that nothing needed to be changed or fixed, things wouldn't work as well. Aren't there things that are worth fighting for?

[Jundo]

Re: It's a trap!

I tend to bounce between extremes, and I think it's an easy pitfall to veer between being too aggressive and goal-oriented in practice and too passive. I've seen a lot of people (and I've been one of them) use Buddhist teaching to justify a passive stance in a situation where action is called for... the equivalent of standing before your burning house and saying, "I am at peace, I needed this teaching in impermanence," rather than calling the fire department.

Ours is the "Middle Way", which might be called "both and neither, at once".

Some people may hear the name "middle way" and think it means a compromising, half-hearted, muddling, namby-pamby fence sitting up the middle between extremes. Far from it!

The "Middle Way" might be seen as "calling the fire department, grabbing a garden hose and charging into rescue someone from a burning house (if that needs to be done), all while simultaneously knowing within some peace there, tasting and allowing the impermanence" and that "nothing need be done" (or, at least, tasting the peace there after the fire is out, the adrenalin settles and one is catching one's breath standing over the smoldering ashes of one's house. In midst of a crisis, when the heart is pounding, the adrenalin flowing and the roof caving in on one's head ... well, one can sit with the impermanence after one gets out! :shock: Still, maybe one can taste a bit of stillness even in the middle of the storm ... which I have experienced when right in the middle of a few emergencies such as a couple of car crashes, rushes to the emergency room, a hurricane in Florida [after first boarding up the windows and checking we had sterno and batteries], room shaking earthquakes and an actual fire. ).

Action, non-acceptance and acceptance, at once. The calm eye of the hurricane. The stillness and silence heard through the ambulance's siren.

Gassho, J

[spinpsychle]

Re: It's a trap!

I often forget to sit. So, I guess everything out in the real world is a trap to me!

[Tobiishi]

Re: It's a trap!

Tobi's pitfall: diving off Christianity, sitting zazen, but the momentum of my flight from God carried me right on through into atheism, where I have apparently broken my leg... I'm in the process of trying to gnaw it off so I can figure out where I am.

gassho

[Jundo]

Re: It's a trap!

Tobi's pitfall: diving off Christianity, sitting zazen, but the momentum of my flight from God carried me right on through into atheism, where I have apparently broken my leg... I'm in the process of trying to gnaw it off so I can figure out where I am.

gassho

Well, you are just there. And if there is a God, She knows where you are I suppose. If She does not, you are still there anyway.

I hope the leg heals, because it is all just a matter of how you walk through life from here. Try not to break too many limbs, although we all do (I am in mend today too).

Gassho, J

[will]

Re: It's a trap!

Stephanie

burning house

It's funny you should say burning house because I was thinking of that exact thing. Why didn't he just run inside?

Gassho

W