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Practice is not about being anything. So unless we see that we cannot aim at being “spiritual,” it can be a seductive and harmful objective.
We all hope to change, to get somewhere! That in itself is the basic fallacy.
Our interest in reality is extremely low. No, we want to think.
to sit on that cushion for fifteen minutes is a victory.
All I can be is who I am right now; I can experience that and work with it. That’s all I can do. The rest is the dream of the ego.
practice isn’t a search. Practice is to be with that which motivates the search,
Suzuki Roshi said, “Renunciation is not giving up the things of this world, but accepting that they go away.”
The key is not to learn to die bravely, but to learn not to need to die bravely.
To move from being selfish and greedy to trying not to be that way is like taking down all the drab and ugly pictures in your room and putting up pretty pictures. But if that room is a prison cell, you’ve changed the decorations and they look a little better; but still the freedom you want isn’t there; you’re still imprisoned in the same room. Changing the pictures on the wall from greed, anger, and ignorance into ideals (that we should not be greedy, angry, or ignorant) improves the decoration, perhaps—but leaves us without freedom.
In times of confusion and depression the worst thing we can do is to try to be some other way.
