For Too Much of My Sitting...

I worried over getting it right.   I really did. I would read something...something of the order of roshi so-and-so saying that you had to practice 無 like Christ dying on the cross...and I would berate myself in thought for not being 無  with all the attendant pain and anguish that goes with being crucified.

That's the sort of thing ... like how this blog hasn't been updated in a while...it's supposed to be, right?

The convergence of my Wing Chun with my 公案 practice has helped with that. And I've always been the kind of guy that says "Don't do stuff just because the 'authorities' want you to!" That is, I always subscribed to the Gandhi thing, being revolutionary as a good thing, and so on. 

I just never realized how much we're conditioned to get nervous about it.  We've got lots of nasty stuff conditioned into us that we're not even aware of.

So,  yeah, stuff matters...but don't kill yourself over it.

For example...there's a lot of people who (obviously to you) don't quite get it. (Like this?)  But ...we're all doing to perish eventually,  and genuine practice will continue anyway, and all that will sort itself out...nobody made me judge jury and executioner.  (I sympathize with Arun, on the point made here, and would up him one by saying it's also quite Western-centric too.)  However...

It is not exactly a matter of life and death.  It is not the Great Matter of Life and Death.  Or to put it better, the matter of life and death is realized in how you approach the endless sewage stream thrown your way every day of stuff is mildly (or severely) frustrating, annoying,  often patently obviously wrong, immoral, dangerous, etc. but is not, in and of itself anything but an opportunity for calm, relaxed practice. That's true even if we're angry and have every right to be.

Thanks for reading this.