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.Fantasy built upon fantasy, and beforethey knew it, it was much later almost time for evening rushhour. No point in going anywhere now.We ll hit terrible traffic,said the one who had to go in the first place. May as well staywhere we are and order more dessert.This is exactly the way fantasies affect us.They can grab us,grip us, immobilize us, present amazing pictures (which usuallyhave very little to do with reality), and either stop constructiveaction, or prompt us to take actions that lead into a maze.The sisters and brother were bathed in their fantasies.Theirconfusion about where to go was not based upon this Zen teaching.Going somewhere doesn t take you anyplace else. Ancient Zen sayingThis quote refers to the fact that we take our fantasies with uswherever we go, and asks us to find the place where we are trulyat home.The Basis of DelusionWhat is the basis of delusion, of feeling we must run here andthere seeking our good? What keeps it so rooted in our lives?Why do we cling to it so tenaciously?The sense that what is in front of my eyes is real, that there issomething I lack and must find in this world is the nature of alldelusion.This kind of misunderstanding comes from not know-ing who I really am, what life is, and what I am doing here.It isa yearning to become someone important, to make life seemworthwhile.This craving is, of course, based upon the feeling that I amnot someone important already, that life, as it is, is not worth-while.This craving implies that it is up to me to  make myselfShoshanna_13_149-160 01/07/02 12:15 Page 155PUTTING TOYS AWAY 155into someone, that who I am now is not full and complete.Itdenies my intrinsic Buddha Nature.Buddha Nature exists within us forever.It cannot be created byus, just found, lived from, realized.The way we realize it, in Zenpractice, is to eliminate, to pay no attention to the delusions aboutourselves that we foster.We ignore the persistent feeling that weare insufficient, that we must become something or someone else.As we experience boredom, just sitting doing nothing, lettingdreams come and go, seeing them for what they are, simply illu-sions with no basis, our self-created identity, or ego, dissolves.Sit-ting there in that manner we become nothing, with nothing todo, nothing to think, nowhere to go.Our social identity is vacated.Our dreams of ourselves have no place to stick.Although painfulto many, this is an excellent first step for reaching the palace whereour true selves reside.All of man s troubles and anguish arises from his being unableto be alone with himself in a room, with nothing to do. Franz KafkaRealizing Buddha NatureIn order to realize and live from our Buddha Nature, we must firstrealize that the life we are living is false, filled with toys that donot provide the sense of meaning we long for.It is a life of hyp-nosis, addiction, and slavery to the outside world, a life dominatedby dreams, fluctuations, illness, and loss.Truly we are living ourprecious lives caught inside of a mirage.As we search for lastinghappiness and peace, through the tangles of everyday experience,sooner or later, we grow disillusioned and weary.Our searchseems to bear no fruit.But this is not entirely so.Like boredom,disillusionment is a wonderful experience, a necessary step beforewe are ready to plant our two feet firmly on the earth.It is absolutely necessary to be able to tolerate boredom, orwhat feels like a lack of stimulation or emptiness.This emptinessShoshanna_13_149-160 01/07/02 12:15 Page 156156 ZEN MIRACLESwe feel initially is not the true emptiness, but the silence and sim-plicity we live our lives so frightened of.It is simply the relin-quishing of delusions and the false excitement they generate.A famous koan that relates to the question of the world ofdelusion and practice is: A monk said to Ummon  The world is vast and wide whydo we put on our robes at the sound of the bell? The world is vast and wide, so many pleasures, so many won-derful things to do.Why do we stop at the sound of the bell, puton our robes, and sit on a cushion? Why are we exchanging rigorand boredom for so-called freedom? Why are we tasting the bit-ter as well as the sweet? Are we running away, leaving the world?Where is this world that is vast and wide? How do we reallyenjoy it?What s the Case?When a Zen student, Maya, was asked to give a talk at a sesshin,the head monk wanted to know what koan she would be talkingabout. What s the case? he asked. I m the case, she said.We are all the case.Our own lives are the case.Our koans aregiven to us every day.Part of the wonderful medicine of this prac-tice is to find the truth in everything that happens.Our practice is not about somebody else.Our koans are notabout men in the old days.Here we recover our own lives, takeourselves back from enchantment, from the many spells we havebeen placed under and put ourselves under day by day.To do thisit is necessary to be willing to see delusions as the bubbles theyare, which, although beautiful, must burst eventually.We have tounderstand what is medicine and what is poison [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]