This picture is portraying a positive stereotype regarding Buddhism. “We’ve done nothing wrong…” implies that everyone who practices Buddhism is perfect. Warner touches on this point in his book.
He states, “Lots of spiritual-type people try to establish some kind of spiritual purity in their lives. In order to do so they often try hard as they can to eliminate anything that might disturb purity…our practice seeks to expose everything…it may look like we’re doing nothing when we sit zazen. But we are actually exposing ourselves to ourselves.” No one is perfect, but abolishing certain things to reach this goal is not the way. Warner talks about his own trials and tribulations, and he acknowledges that it is hard to just simply escape life; you have to deal with it. Through Buddhism he has achieved a better tool of relating to the world. He says, “This is why I do zazen. I’ve discovered that when I didn’t do it, my body and mind were too scrambled up for me to interact with anyone in a sensible way. But there’s another side to that. You’re just like me, an a**hole.” He admits he is not perfect, but through Buddhist practices he becomes aware of himself and his relation to the universe.
He addresses the point of strict adherence to Buddhist precepts. Some people believe they cannot practice Buddhism because of the precepts. In Buddhism the main goal is not keeping the precepts. The goal is to receive these precepts and recognize the value and purpose in one’s life. In Buddhism, morality is reality itself. “We are living in the now so we must find rules that can be used here and now. We must find our precepts every moment”. It is not about striving for a perfect life, but understanding the value of living correctly.
Leah,
ReplyDeleteYour perspectives on the link between the image and Warner's viewpoints is very intriguing. I believe in your supporting evidence from Warner's book. In fact, when I was reading I came across several points that would even support your point. As you imply, he is not interested in finding a sugar-coated explanation for the meaningful things in life, but rather interested in finding out the purpose and meaning of one's life in a truthful manner. After a lot of introspection, he comes to the point that the meaning of death is death itself, and the meaning of life is life itself. The meaning of zazen is simply doing it. It is our intrinsic necessity to live life in order to seek its full purpose and understand the Buddhist precepts, "not escape from it" as you said.
Your viewpoints were very interesting though. It was truly interesting to the see the connection and link you were able to make.
-Kunal
I agree that a common stereotype associated with Buddhist is that they are unattached from all material things. This is related to Annica and the four noble truths, the idea of impermanence; everything is transitory, perpetual perishing of all things. The Noble truth of Dukkha (suffering) that says life is suffering and in order to end this suffering, you must know the noble truth of the path that leads to cessation. This path includes the eightfold path, that states avoid attachment. So it is a part of Siddartha Gautama teachings to avoid attachment. So you the main goals are to avoid attachment in order to end suffering, because life is suffering, until you are able to end suffering by following the eightfold path. This is related to what Warner states in his book “Buddha advises his followers to own only things they absolutely needed to sustain them. These days few Buddhist practice the extremes of poverty he advised. I certainly do not. But to the extent that I ignore Buddha’s advice, I suffer” (22). I believe this quote goes along with the stereotype that Buddhist are in a sense perfect. Well if you follow Buddha’s teachings and understand the four noble truths cessation of suffering will happen, but if you don’t as Warner has, you will suffer. (Dukkha)
ReplyDeleteThe stereotype of a perfect follower of buddha and the ability to completely renounce all attachements to your problems is a common misconception in many ways. No one is perfect and it is wrong to assume that you are when in fact you're far from it. We are all attached to something and so in order to cease suffering, we must realize and follow the principles of buddha when it comes to limiting the amounts of things that we are attached to. If we ignore the principles, then our suffering is prolonged. I also like how you mentioned the part about meditating being not just sitting there in absolute peace thinking about nothing. It's thinking about our thoughts, how we lack perfection, and how we should not ignore the buddha's principles about suffering. cool read
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read….“We done nothing wrong” I was thinking to myself, “Okay. Yea right. Everyone makes mistakes. This religion is a tad bit full of it. ” Then of course I kept reading and my thoughts changed. They are not saying that they are perfect but they are trying to eliminate things in their life that should not be there. He mentions that some people believe they cannot practice Buddhism because of the precepts. I always thought about how they have so many things they have to follow in this religion and that it would be hard for me to maintain but you said that he mention that is not the main goal. The main goal is to recognize our purpose and goal in life. This was a very good blog.
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