tolle

yesterday at doug's, we listened to eckhart tolle, who talked about the little "me"s we keep creating and imbuing stories and power with. we make up a entire novel populated with "me" protagonists, he said. he also extolled on the virtues of the here and now. his accent made "now" sound like "null", maybe my feverish subliminal imagination, but divorced of its nihilistic tones, null could quite well replace now. he sounded a lot like jiddu, i must say- clear, lucid, simple and not a word out of place, not a filler "um" or "well" or the pernicious "like". too simple, actually.

i was, as usual, getting annoyed with talk (reality) and anticipation of talk (my own projection) about enlightenment that inevitably followed the sit. the problem with jiddu (and eckhart) is they make it (enlightenment) sound so simple and yet in some curious way, their words have the power to delude. eckhart mentioned that the fact that we are here (this was a recording from a retreat) already meant that the process [of enlightenment] has begun. there is always a good reason to motivate people in a retreat. i have experienced it many times, especially after the first day when the monkey mind is looking for loopholes and exit strategies. but it can be misleading after a 20 minute fidgety sit. enlightenment is letting go of things, someone said but in the process, we can easily not let go of that idea. in fact, that makes all the difference. and even that idea itself is attachment. i wished linchi were there to whack me with his stick. or seung sahn sunim who would have probably said, "if you open your mouth i will hit you three times. if you close your mouth, i will hit you three times."

sitting with doug's sangha has been difficult but interesting. i am grappling with the koan of how to express real concern about attitudes of people who come to sit without crossing over into the territory of my ego claiming superiority of zen experience and my own opinions. for instance, i wanted to tell the new guy not to sit on the sofa like someone watching a baseball game but rather keep his back erect and unsupported. is that my ego or is that my genuine desire to help him? same for people moving their limbs, heads, rustling their jackets, scratching an itch, whatever. its a slippery slope. seung sahn sunim's koan of dropping ashes on the buddha cannot be more apt.

what should you do? what can you do? what will you do? I love the subtle change in meaning and tone the different modals impart to this sentence.