A Peaceful, Happy Gentleman

Change Is Continuous ...

Day by day, one season slips into the next. Day turns into night and night to day. Buildings don’t suddenly grow old; rather, second by second, from the moment they’re constructed, they begin to deteriorate…

Think of beings inhabiting this universe. How many people born a hundred years ago are still alive?…

We see the play of impermanence in our relationships as well. How many of our family members, friends, people in our hometown, have died? How many have moved away, disappearing from our lives forever?…

At one time we felt happy just being near a person we loved. Just to hold that person’s hand made us feel wonderful. Now maybe we can’t stand him, don’t want to know anything about him. Whatever comes together must fall apart, whatever once fathered must separate, whatever was born must die. Continual change, relentless change, is constant in our world.

"I feel like I should want more, but I don't. I want less.

Less stuff, less rushing, less stress, less noise.

I want simplicity."

*Areti*

I’ve met a lot of spiritual people over the years. Spiritual teachers. Students. Seekers.

They seem very calm. Very “present.”

And yet… something important feels missing.

It’s like they’ve lost their aliveness, their edge. Their humour. Their awkwardness. Their spontaneity. Their passion.

All the rough edges have been smoothed out.

It’s like they have no personality.

No individuality.

Instead there’s just a kind of careful, polite, slightly absent neutrality.

They call it peace. They call it enlightenment.

They call it “non-judgemental deep listening.”

They call it “no self”.

I don’t buy it.

Somewhere along the way, spirituality gets deeply misunderstood.

We hear the ego is false. The persona is a mask. Judgements are wrong. Opinions are unspiritual. Nothing is good or bad.

Just rest in awareness. Just listen. Just receive. Just be. Just live in the stillness.

Beautiful ideas, of course. Life changing, some of them.

But taken too literally, they can start to drain the life out of you. This is the shadow side of spirituality.

People begin to edit themselves. Smooth themselves out. Hide anything that feels too much, too sharp, too human, too raw, too bold, too imperfect.

And slowly, something vital disappears.

Their humour. Their awkwardness. Their honesty. And most of all, their vulnerability.

What’s left can look very “peaceful”.

But it often feels frozen. Numb. Deadening.

I’ve met too many “spiritual zombies.” Hell, I used to be one of them!

Soft voice. Careful words. No opinions.

No risk.

No real contact.

No life.

The most deeply alive, grounded, genuinely happy people I know are full of personality. They laugh, they mess up, they have opinions, they show their vulnerability, they feel things fully.

They haven’t disappeared. They’ve come alive.

Yes, parts of the personality fall away. The fake, the defensive, the performative, the unconscious, the inauthentic, the blindly conditioned.

But not all of it. That’s the crucial part.

Not all of it. A healthy, alive personality remains.

You’re not here to erase yourself in the name of spirituality.

You’re here to be real. To be human. To be a little messy, a little awkward, a little wild, a little untamed.

A little fucking weird.

So keep your humour. Keep your edge. Keep your vulnerability. Keep your passion.

Don’t let your spirituality turn you into the walking dead.

Let it open you.

Let it actually bring you back to life.

[Dōgen (19 January 1200 - 22 September 1253) was a Japanese monk, writer, poet, philosopher and Zen master, and the founder of the Soto sect in Japan.]

“Shedding body-mind”

By doing so, you will be able to forget yourself and reach a state of liberation for both mind and body.

So, what exactly is the shedding of body and mind? It means shedding everything—both body and mind. It means casting aside all sense of self.

We all go through life with our sense of self. And when our selves clash, we end up hurting one another. When our 'self' is wounded, we either become disheartened or defiantly insist, ‘It’s not my fault,’ in an attempt to repair it. This in itself is not a bad thing, but the problem is that it leads to a sense of rivalry and competition with others. So why not simply cast aside such a self? That is what “shedding body-mind” is all about.

If we were to liken the self to a sugar cube, your interactions with others are like sugar cubes colliding. That is why the sugar cubes get damaged and crumble to pieces. Even so, you strive to repair them and maintain your sense of self.

Dogen's concept of "shedding mind and body" is an advice that instead of attempting such repairs, you should simply throw a sugar cube into hot water. The hot water represents the world of enlightenment. The world of truth, the universe itself. Throw your entire being into the world of enlightenment. That is "shedding mind and body."

The shedding of mind and body is not the annihilation of the self. When a sugar cube dissolves in hot water, the sugar cube doesn't disappear. It simply ceases to exist as a sugar cube; its total quantity remains unchanged. It simply dissolves there.

In the same way, you should throw yourself into enlightenment and dissolve into it. By doing so, you will be able to forget yourself and reach a state of liberation for both mind and body.

ー 道元 (1200年1月19日 - 1253年9月22日) は、日本の僧侶、作家、詩人、哲学者、禅師であり、日本の曹洞宗の開祖である。

『心身脱落』

そうすれば自我が脱落した状態になれるだろ。

では、心身の脱却とは一体何なのだろうか？それは、身も心もすべて脱ぎ捨てることを意味する。つまり、自我という感覚をすべて捨て去ることである。

わたしたちは皆、自我を持って生活している。そして自我のぶつかり合いでお互いを傷つけ合っている。自我が傷ついたことで落胆したり、「自分は悪くない」と開き直って自我を修復する。それ自体が悪いことではないが、問題は他人との対抗意識や競争につながることだ。それならば、そんな自我は捨ててしまえ！というのが心身脱落だ。

自我を角砂糖に例えるなら、あなたと他人の接触は角砂糖のぶつかり合いだ。だから角砂糖が傷つきボロボロに崩れる。それでも修復をはかり、自我を保っている。

道元のいう心身脱落は、そんな修復などせず、角砂糖を湯の中に放り込めばいいじゃないか、という忠告である。湯の中というのは、悟りの世界だ。真理の世界、宇宙そのもの。わたしという全存在を、悟りの世界に投げ込んでしまう。それが「心身脱落」だ。

心身脱落は自己の消滅ではない。角砂糖が湯の中に溶け込んだとき、角砂糖は消滅したわけではない。ただ角砂糖という状態では無くなっただけで、全量は変わっていない。ただそこに溶けているだけなのだ。同じように、自分を悟りの中に放り込み、そこに溶け込めばよい。そうすれば自我が脱落した状態になれるだろ。