Post #526

"It doesn't take long to discover that, for all its innocent connotation, “just sitting” is a violent proposition, challenging most of the automatic, cognitive functions of the brain. “Just” to sit, after all, is “just” to accept one's situation without attempting to judge it, change it or explain it; “just” to be in the present without yearning toward the future or clinging to the past. In other words, to be without ambition and without ego. In fact, Zen is often called “egokilling‐practice,” and most of its pain and disorientation can safely be laid to ego resistance. Don't suspect, however, that Zen nurtures the romantic fantasy of ego absence, which is so ubiquitous in books on “Eastern wisdom.” Its vision of the human paradox is total and uncompromising: We can't live with our egos and we can't live without them; detachment is natural and impossible; “just sitting” is both the easiest and the hardest thing a man can attempt to do. Zen is not a means of solving the paradox but of exploring and containing it. And the “ambush” of Zen monastic life may be nothing more than the experience of meeting the paradox head‐on."