I'm not big on the engaged Buddhism thing. It's not that I am not politically in tune with many of the engaged Buddhists' goals. But rather, too much of it is cause tourism - and by that I mean it's something people use as an escape from their own position, if the issues in which they're engaged are far removed from their own existence.
It's kind of like the left-wing version of the right wing's fixation on abortion and contraception, and for all I know serves many of the same goals - that is to say, there may exist those that instigate such things for the sole purpose of distracting. The latter point though is not important at all - that is, whether or not there are people who are intentionally cranking up some kind of Wurlitzer is irrelevant. If there's crankers, let 'em crank - that's not my problem per se. My problem is simply keeping in mind the answers to the three questions, more or less, in such a way that things get done that actually benefit beings.
I'm in the midst of all the things that come with family life at my age in this time, the whole shebang and its various accretions thereon as it were: the joy, the humor, the teaching all around, the frustration, the problems, the worries, etc. This is where practice is. Other folks, I'm sure, have other practices suited to where they are in life. But in no way should we substitute practice where we are, at this point in time, for alienation via distraction.
Tricycle has had/is having some kind of campaign to encourage meditation. All well and good, I say, but how about a campaign to realize the Way moment to moment in one's life?
2 comments:
"To understand intimately one should see sound." - I guess my synesthesia makes me a Zen master then eh? ;)
Adam:
You'd know more than I. :-)
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