Hardcore Zen_ Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality - Brad Warner [46]
We take it for granted that our perceptions are accurate and our interpretations true. We believe very strongly, literally beyond doubt, in these personal boundaries. Religions tell us that these boundaries remain intact forever and may tell us that even God too has specific boundaries.
But I don’t think this way of conceiving of ourselves and others is very realistic. It leaves too many things out of the picture. I think a far better (though still necessarily incomplete) way of looking at it is as I have illustrated in Figure 2.
Reality is kind of like a sea that has waves on top of it. These small, temporary disturbances on the “surface” of reality are what we call people and things, and we conceive of them as having some kind of permanent substance or enduring individuality. We draw boundaries, rather arbitrarily, and say that the stuff within these boundaries is “me” or “you” or “that guy who used to be in The Eagles.” But the waves can’t really be separated from the ocean of which they are a part. In this way we can say that even our minds are made of the same stuff as everything else we encounter.
Figure 2
Celebrities don’t become famous just because of the size of their chest or the force of their personality. The entire society creates the celebrity.
In fact we are all as much the creation of those around us as we are independent beings in our own right. The neat thing about famous people is that a lot of them seem to have a vague understanding of this fact. Most of them make the mistake, however, of believing it’s something unique to them in particular or at least something unique to celebrities in general.
Nishijima likes to say, “When you establish the balanced state, you become the king of the world.” Most of us think you need to be a celebrity for that to happen. While celebrities can do pretty much whatever they want because of their social status and their money, the rest of us feel oppressed, repressed, put upon. Gene Simmons may be king of the (nighttime) world, but you and I certainly are not.
And yet in another sense, no matter how wealthy celebrities are or how much power they seem to have, we are all absolutely equal. The only difference is that some people understand this and others do not. The entire universe is created by us and we rule over it unopposed—but for the opposition of our own minds.
The trick is we’ve also created certain conditions that we have to obey. In Buddhism these conditions are traditionally called the rule of the universe (or sometimes the law of cause and effect). To follow the rule of the universe is to act in a truly moral fashion. When you realize that morals are rules you have willingly imposed upon yourself, it’s easy and natural to act in a moral way.
Because they are able to focus on doing a particular activity, artists of all kinds as well as athletes, scientists, and some others can come to understand much more of the fundamental truth of life than the average guy on the street. The problem is that while they are able to feel the balanced state of the universe when pursuing their art, they usually fail to notice it at other times. The very thing that is the source of their mental and physical balance becomes a hindrance: they begin to believe that balance is something that only occurs when scoring a basket, acting a demanding role, or strapping on a guitar and whaling away.
Lots of Zen students also fall into this trap by the way: they think that balance occurs only when they’re “deeply” in zazen and at no other time. Students like this often spend far too much time doing zazen and the practice ultimately leads them further and further from true