"Therapy" 5 of 200 from Robert Aitken's book Miniature of a Zen Master.
I was with my dharma friends this last Saturday and I was moved to share that I see all my views and ideas as crap! Yes crap! I felt strongly about that and had plenty of examples and felt righteous because I even remember a sutra or two that sort of say that ideas and views are crap! Any ways the group was somewhat resistant to this and that even spurred me on more.
It all came crashing down when someone was so kind as to point out that even the view that my views and ideas are crap! is a view that is crap! Hearing that in the moment brought me up a little short and warm smile grew on my face. Drop all that and come back to the present. It sort of felt like the floor falling away or "stepping off a hundred foot pole". I still see were my views are not helpful but I'm less fervant about how crap! they are. (I see now crap! is too loose of a term. Delusional and sometimes bordering on stupidity would be more accurate.)
This miniature is about therapy. Many linage holders and leaders in Robert's tradition are therapists. I try and not hold that against them but it does seem odd to me. Robert is not nor was ever a therapist. He seems to point to therapy in a slightly different sense that traditional Western psychotherapy yet maybe he includes it. Letting go of attachment to body and mind, where is there a need for therapy? (See above!)
Got my cholesterol test results back today. Low Lousy (LDL), low Healthy (HDL) and low total cholesterol. Mostly good. Any one have tips on how to bring up HDL's?
Uchiyama roshi said that our thoughts are "Secretions of the brain." I liked that, so going from that point of view, perhaps our thoughts are more like sweat. Which gets quite stinky and sticky if we don't wash it away regularly. Much like crap.
ReplyDeleteGreat analogy, stinky, sticky thoughts. Washing thoughts? That sounds like kind of therapy Aitken Roshi talks about in this miniature.
ReplyDeleteReminds me that eyes see forms, ears hear sounds, noses smell, tongues tell salty from sour, minds secrete thoughts -- so it is with everything everywhere.