On Being Human

   It is very common for people to say that Zen offers you nothing. That what the Zen  experience for them personally  may accomplish is the loss of what the Tibetans call afflictive emotions. Emotions and feelings like hate anger avarice and greed. Of course the list goes on with emotions like envy and probably most important fear. When I talk to people that come to our Zendo and ask them what they want it seems like mostly they want peace. They want to still the turmoil that stirs within their souls. They want to stop being angry and fearful and petty,  because all these things hurt. All these afflictive emotions simply make us unhappy.  I think one of the things that Buddha so clearly saw was that all these terrible feelings and emotions bring us great pain and pain to the people around us. They are truly the root cause of much unhappiness.

Part of the cure for all this unhappiness is the realization of dependent arising, that is to say that all things come and go depending upon circumstances and that nothing ever stays the same. We are taught that this realization can lead us away from attachment to the things and even ideas such as our ideas of God and thus reduce our unhappiness. But insight into this fact of nature doesn’t really help unless there is an underpinning of compassion for both yourself and others. This compassion stays the hand of judgment and opens the door to forgiveness. As hard as it is to forgive others it is much harder to forgive ourselves.

 There are some things that it seems only natural to be attached to. We are attached our ideas of right and wrong and are attached to those we care and love. I think almost everyone has a deep feeling of what is just and what is unjust.  And no matter what you say these things also cause us great unhappiness. This creates a great dilemma for a man without a feeling of justice without charity and is  without compassion for others can barely be said to be a man. A man who does not love his children and weep upon their death’s has no heart and I don’t think would be capable of experiencing joy even if being able to separate himself from these attachments were possible.

I would like to think that being human means that we will suffer in this life from good cause. The clearing away the smoke of emotions that reduce our humanity, ridding ourselves of those emotions that make us small and petty is work for everyone who wants to be human. But it is clear to me that this is very hard work indeed. Even if we were to actually accomplish the eradication of all these afflictive emotions and turn to a completely rational understanding of the pain caused by loving our children caring for the poor and feeling the frustration of our own inability to do more, would we want to end the pain that these things cause. Can there really be any joy without this pain?

Growing up,  becoming mature,  waking up is a painful process in itself. It becomes clear that even for the best of us pain is the fire in which our souls must be forged. It’s simple enough to say we want to be happy and we want the Buddha to show us the way to that happiness. But a soul without turmoil is nothing more than a piece of deadwood.