Zazen

I've been putting off going to visit the Brooklyn Zen center in Park Slope, but I want to make a visit one of these days. I mentioned in an earlier post that I've been exploring spirituality, and I've also been speaking to people from different religions, asking them various questions. At first glance Buddhism seemed pretty depressing: I saw it as just a bunch of monks basically doing chores all day, and then getting together to sit down in front of a wall; not very appealing(this was several years ago). From what I've heard its all about ridding yourself of "worldly desires" and simply existing.

One day though, I was in the bookstore looking through an unconventional zen book and I couldn't put it down for some reason, so I just bought the thing. It's called Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth about Reality. Brad Warner (the author) is a relatively young teacher and made it a point throughout the book to stress there is no such thing as "enlightenment"(the carrot that many other Buddhists dangle in front of you), and that you shouldn't go practicing Zen just to attain it. But then, its often called *the* point of practicing Zen, to attain enlightenment. He talks about his life, moving to Japan, and making monster movies.

Still, according to him, its not what its often perceived to be, and while it will change your outlook forever, everything will still be the same. I liked the way he phrased that. I also enjoyed the way he described his experience of being "enlightened", and it automatically made sense to me somehow. The book was a fun read, and I think it made me even more laid back than I naturally am. It might make you notice how much we stress ourselves out over complete and utter bullshit, that deserves to be brushed off.