Puddin'

So what are the "treasures" within the mind that Zen Buddhism attempts to direct us to? They say words can't explain it and I've never experienced it but I want to fucking know!

We are delivered from limitations and elevated to a realm that defies intellectualism as we know it. A mysticism that is found in the everyday, natural life of anything. We are to understand the nature of things so that they are transparent and essentially nothing at all.

And I have to wonder, even though I know its just a foolish thought, why the Zen master isn't the most materially rich person in the world. I mean, the world is full of some pretty sweet treasures. To uncover the nature of being and non being, or whatever exists in the night seas of our mind(s), must be to understand each living thing, right? And couldn't you be pretty successful with that sort of information?

I guess the zen master is not a businessman in spirit and he is not a manipulator in spirit. Perhaps he has no heart, as we think of it, and he has no desire to use true enlightenment to achieve the glories of the secular world. And furthermore, that is probably entirely impossible, because true enlightenment does not translate into the framework of modern society well, if at all.

I am reminded of the embrace of Vasishta and Kaushika. Once a great king, Kaushika spent so much of his life in tapasyana for the sake of revenge and later became one with the very enemy and inspiration of his holiness. Bitter and hot tempered, he tried to undo the son of Brahma who humbled him and stole his pride, by also becoming a brahmarishi himself to destroy him with his tapasyana. Only, in his pursuit he achieved complete compassion and upon encountering his enemy he was entirely at peace and undisturbed by their history. Vasishta recognized him as his equal and also felt no animosity, as he had long possessed the serene, transcendent nature Kaushika had finally obtained.

Now, it could be the pumpkin ale and the wassail, but I see something here. At the end of the journey of the Zen follower (and the Hindu follower?), there is no knowledge at all. Nothing that would help to achieve wealth or power or even an emotional high in this temporal world. If anything exists it is perhaps a restfulness in the sublime. A relief from the body, the mind and this odd world we live in. The things that we identify with in our lives will cease to mean anything at all. Fall to the wayside like intangible lotus petals. I think this is the practical application of seeking nothing.

I'm really only a Zen baby (hopefully a toddler by now). And God knows I'm no philosopher. And from what I can tell Zen Buddhism isn't really a philosophy at all. To name it is to completely lose sight of it. To even think about it beyond general communication purposes is to distort it. If there are no words and there are no thoughts to explain it then it cannot be of this world of intricate systems and structures that we live in. It exists deep within us and it is nothing at all. A way of living life that helps us find nothing to speak of, which perhaps, is somehow the something that is found in every being. Maybe some kind of peace or rapture. Could it be that if we looked with the right mind at the living thing, or any common thing, we could see through it to whatever it is that it belongs to? To what our spirit also belongs to?

But even to try and grasp it in such vague terms is to feel it slip away. I've read that meditation is unnatural for the human mind, and while I completely disagree that it is not an effective means to its desired end, I also, more obviously, see how living is simply an every-man's way of finding enlightenment. But where do I find the right place to start living and what condition should my spirit be in when I begin? I think this is the Westerner's problem with Oriental thinking.

Does this even make sense? Sometimes I wonder if my "perception" of Zen is correct and then I realize that it almost certainly isn't because it is just that: a perception. I cannot tack something down that is made up of such duality and nonsense. Haha, I feel like Peter Pan chasing his shadow.

This has made pudding out of my already beer-soaked brain and I know you guys don't give a fuck about this sort of blabbering so I'ma peace out.

grl