Who Are We?
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
With palms together
Good Morning Everyone,
What is left when we peel back appearance? I am sitting at my desk in my Zendo at home and I notice a small scratch in the wood where the arm of the chair strikes it. Under the beautiful 'wood' is something not the same. This expensive piece of furniture, so beautiful, is laminate, a deceit. I think of Truman's World and how he peeled back the laminate of his reality to discover reality. I recall leaving Miami decades ago alone in the night fleeing from the superficiality of that tinsel sort of town. It seemed like everything was a fake.
I sought out rural America. I lived in a small southern town. Lots of reality there, but lots of superficial and disingenuous politeness, as well. I moved to a big city, midwestern, northern, and there found some seekers of truth in graduate school at university. I became a therapist and helped people to get underneath their surface.
Finally, moving to the southwest, I had horses, alpacas, a goat; a life without electricity, where to keep warm I split wood daily for the fire. We lived in accordance with the sun and moon. We shared living space with stellar jays, skunks, and bear. There, I used the tools of Zen to find ways of living without a surface veneer.
Back in a small city it is so easy to slip on a mask, a false face. It is work to remain authentic, but Zen is a way, perhaps not the only way, but a really effective way. As a long marriage to a brilliant Little Honey who is tenacious, a sangha of people who seek the truth of their reality, are a challenge, so too, they are a wonderful partner in the process.
So, what do we do with in-authenticity? What do we do when we notice a difference between belief and behavior, or the hollow ring of belief alone?
Religion must address this. Thus far it has failed miserably in my humble opinion. It parades its finery which secrets away the truth of the people who hold its doctrine. We often mistake the dress for the person and this includes the cost of the car we drive, the house we live in, or whether we attend a church, synagogue, mosque, ashram, temple, or coven...or not.
So in need of believers, churches sell themselves, Zen Centers dress up, synagogues get more and more ostentatious becoming more like museums of the Torah than living communities. When do we address the truth? When do we explore our humanity? Our actual relationship to the Infinite?
I fear this we must do alone, at home in the darkness of our closet. That is a very sad state of affairs.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
What is left when we peel back appearance? I am sitting at my desk in my Zendo at home and I notice a small scratch in the wood where the arm of the chair strikes it. Under the beautiful 'wood' is something not the same. This expensive piece of furniture, so beautiful, is laminate, a deceit. I think of Truman's World and how he peeled back the laminate of his reality to discover reality. I recall leaving Miami decades ago alone in the night fleeing from the superficiality of that tinsel sort of town. It seemed like everything was a fake.
I sought out rural America. I lived in a small southern town. Lots of reality there, but lots of superficial and disingenuous politeness, as well. I moved to a big city, midwestern, northern, and there found some seekers of truth in graduate school at university. I became a therapist and helped people to get underneath their surface.
Finally, moving to the southwest, I had horses, alpacas, a goat; a life without electricity, where to keep warm I split wood daily for the fire. We lived in accordance with the sun and moon. We shared living space with stellar jays, skunks, and bear. There, I used the tools of Zen to find ways of living without a surface veneer.
Back in a small city it is so easy to slip on a mask, a false face. It is work to remain authentic, but Zen is a way, perhaps not the only way, but a really effective way. As a long marriage to a brilliant Little Honey who is tenacious, a sangha of people who seek the truth of their reality, are a challenge, so too, they are a wonderful partner in the process.
So, what do we do with in-authenticity? What do we do when we notice a difference between belief and behavior, or the hollow ring of belief alone?
Religion must address this. Thus far it has failed miserably in my humble opinion. It parades its finery which secrets away the truth of the people who hold its doctrine. We often mistake the dress for the person and this includes the cost of the car we drive, the house we live in, or whether we attend a church, synagogue, mosque, ashram, temple, or coven...or not.
So in need of believers, churches sell themselves, Zen Centers dress up, synagogues get more and more ostentatious becoming more like museums of the Torah than living communities. When do we address the truth? When do we explore our humanity? Our actual relationship to the Infinite?
I fear this we must do alone, at home in the darkness of our closet. That is a very sad state of affairs.
Be well.