Hardcore Zen

I am reading a book called Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner. There are a couple of things that struck a cord with me that I would like to share with you. A warning first. Don't go with your first gut instinct that denies what the text says. Think about it for a minute and see what you come up with. Let me know what you think. Oh, all black text is mine, .

In the context that we are working toward achieving the promised land, that we were expelled from paradise and must now serve pennance to once again attain paradise...
<font color=blue>Zen teaches that we are living in paradise right now, even amid all the s**t that's going down. This world is the Pure Land. This world is paradise. In fact, this world is better then paradise--but all we can do is piss and moan, and look around for something better.

But it's not just "Buddhism" or "Zen" that says that. It's me, right now to you. And I'll say it again: This world is better then paradise, better than any utopia you can imagine. I say that in the face of war and starvation and suicide bombing and Orange Terror Alerts. This world is better then Utopia because--and follow this point carefully--<font color=green>you can never live in Utopia. <font color=blue>Utopia is always somewere else. That's the very definition of Utopia.

Maybe you can go to a paradisiacal island, far away from your boss and your bills and anything else you want, but pretty soon you'll be complaining that you've got sand up your *****, or the Coke machine ate your dollar, or hermit crabs stole your thongs. You'll always find something wrong with wherever you are because it will NEVER QUITE MATCH your idea of what it "should" be.

<font color=black>Ok now with that in mind think about this:

<font color=green>We always imagine that there' got to be somewhere else better than where we are right now, the great "Somewhere Else" we all carry around in our heads. We believe Somewhere Else is out there for us if only we could find it. But there's no Somewhere Else. Everything is right here.

Maybe your lot right now could be improved. I know mine could. And working to make things better is great. But we don't JUST work to make things better and leave it at that, do we? We live in the idealized world inside our heads. And THAT keeps us from ever really enjoying what we have right now, from enjoying the work that we're doing to create our better tommorrow. It's as if we're afraid to really commit to this moment because a better one might come along later.

<font color=black>Ok, I am almost done. Just one more paragraph to finish the train of thought that I am trying to carry over to you.

<font color=blue>Whenever I used to hear buddhist teachers saying we shouldn't strive for money or fame I used to think it was some kind of admonition that we shouldn't have any fun. It's really not that at all. Thinking that money and fame<font color=black>(or the ever elusive state of Mental Health)<font color=blue> are the keys to the perfect situation is a kind of deep confusion. Fame and Money can actually stand in the way of real joy because rich people tend to get more and more easily suckered into the state of mind that IF ONLY they could acquire just the right house or object or lifestyle, THEN they'd be happy. Why else would movies stars who already have more money then G*d demand multimillion dollar contracts year after year? What could anyone possibly do with all that money? What makes even the richest, most famous and most powerful people still want more and more? In the end, what did money, power and fame do for Kurt Cobain...or Keith Moon...or Sid Vicious...or Elvis? If this isn't a lesson that fame and money are a dead-end street, I can't imagine what else could possibly be.

<font color=black>I know that comparing fame and fortune to mental health may seem like a leap but it isn't the object of desire that matters it is the obsession to obtain that object and once we get it and life still isn't perfect like we thought it would be then the obsession takes hold again because really if only we were truely "Healed" or truely "Mentally" healthy wouldn't we be happy? Meanwhile we forget to revel in the beauty of what we are learning RIGHT NOW. We forget to marvel at the fact that last week answering the phone was impossible but this week not only did we answer the phone but we even made a call out. So what if next week the phone becomes an object of fear again the thing is RIGHT NOW, TODAY we could answer the phone. WHOO HOO! And what if RIGHT NOW is a miserable place filled with pain and torture? I think we have to ask ourselves "What can I do in the RIGHT NOW that will make things better in a constructive manner." If we can let go of If Only I was better all ready or if only I hadn't grown up among rapists and thieves and unresponsive parents than maybe things will be better now. It is good to know about our past but we aren't living back then we can only live RIGHT NOW and I know I forget that all the time. How can we make tomorrow a better day if we can't live in today and concentrate on where we are now?

I better stop now because I could go on forever, so what do you all think?
Carrie

To whom do I owe the biggest apology? No one's been crueler then I've been to me.
I am sorry to myself, my apologies begin here before everybody else.
I am sorry to myself, for treating me worse then I would anybody else. --Alanis Moresette