...I went to a weekend retreat to celebrate a particular Zen Master's sixtieth birthday. While there, the 300 attendees were invited to break up into small six-person circles to discuss the retreat, their Zen experiences, and anything else on their minds.
I was astonished to discover that everyone in my group had run the entire gamut of new-age therapies. They had been rolfed, re-birthed, psychoanalyzed, primal-screamed, counseled, and cleared. They had drummed, danced, tranced, pranced, and zazened for years. And the whole bunch was still confused, and didn't know why they were there. After each person finsihed telling their strange circuitous stories, they got to me. I said something like this,
"....well, I'm just a guy who lived in his head for a long time. I got totally lost, didn't know what I was supposed to be doing, and had about a million unanswered questions. Then, I found Zen, started meditating, had some wild and crazy experiences that answered lots of my questions, and now I feel very thankful and lucky. I credit Zen with helping me find my true direction again. Now, just like when I was a little kid, I always know what to do. I'm always 100% straight ahead, even if I'm wrong."
Ha ha! The look on everybody's faces when I finished speaking was classic (they were looking at me as if I had come from some other planet). It was obvious that Zen had not helped anyone else in that little group very much. (Ten years later one fellow from that group told me that he still had no idea why he was meditating!)
On our way back to Tennessee, Carol said to me, "Why do Zen people always seem so serious, or unhappy, or weighted down with psychological stuff?" I replied, "Well, a zendo is like a hospital for serious head cases. You wouldn't be there unless you were pretty sick to begin with. Some people take the medicine and get well, and some don't. The Zen Master whose birthday we celebrated is as happy as a clam and is always laughing, so the medicine worked for him."
Carol thought for a minute and said, "Well, how come nobody else I met there is that happy?" I said, "Bad karma."
I was astonished to discover that everyone in my group had run the entire gamut of new-age therapies. They had been rolfed, re-birthed, psychoanalyzed, primal-screamed, counseled, and cleared. They had drummed, danced, tranced, pranced, and zazened for years. And the whole bunch was still confused, and didn't know why they were there. After each person finsihed telling their strange circuitous stories, they got to me. I said something like this,
"....well, I'm just a guy who lived in his head for a long time. I got totally lost, didn't know what I was supposed to be doing, and had about a million unanswered questions. Then, I found Zen, started meditating, had some wild and crazy experiences that answered lots of my questions, and now I feel very thankful and lucky. I credit Zen with helping me find my true direction again. Now, just like when I was a little kid, I always know what to do. I'm always 100% straight ahead, even if I'm wrong."
Ha ha! The look on everybody's faces when I finished speaking was classic (they were looking at me as if I had come from some other planet). It was obvious that Zen had not helped anyone else in that little group very much. (Ten years later one fellow from that group told me that he still had no idea why he was meditating!)
On our way back to Tennessee, Carol said to me, "Why do Zen people always seem so serious, or unhappy, or weighted down with psychological stuff?" I replied, "Well, a zendo is like a hospital for serious head cases. You wouldn't be there unless you were pretty sick to begin with. Some people take the medicine and get well, and some don't. The Zen Master whose birthday we celebrated is as happy as a clam and is always laughing, so the medicine worked for him."
Carol thought for a minute and said, "Well, how come nobody else I met there is that happy?" I said, "Bad karma."
