Business to the Buddha

Tag: Who am I?

  • Why Do You Do What You Do?







    I have written earlier too on the topic – why do we do what do we do? I asked this question to some other people – who are near and dear to me – too, the answer were never satisfactory to my curiosity or yearning. Yes I added curiosity in the sentence, it had all been yearning, however, when you read the end of the post you too may start asking these questions as curiosity.

    I came across this wonderful story thought to share it here. I have been asking many questions to myself and to my mentors. Some questions are specific and some questions are general and few others are completely useless. You can put those useless questions into any category – specific or general. Either ways those questions seem either too complicated or too deep; instead these questions could be nothing more than “actually useless”. Instead of asking ourselves or someone else these questions – who created the world, does God exist, why do we do stuff; we must do something else! What is that something else? Read it below.

    Poison Arrow

    seung-sahnZen master Seung Sahn said to an assembly of students, “Many people think that intellectual understanding can help them, and help this world. But that is not possible: intellectual understanding is only someone else’s idea about something. Whatever you read in books and hear in lectures, that’s not your thing. If you understand things only intellectually, then you will not understand this world, as it is. Then you will suffer, and make suffering for others”

    “You’ve heard about how the Native Americans dipped arrowheads into poison, and then shot them at something? Having too much intellectual understanding is like being hit with one of these poison arrows. You have to pull it out quickly, correct? But most people who have this arrow stuck in them only think about the arrow, instead of pulling it out” ‘Where did this arrow come from?’Who shot it?’ ‘How was it shot?’ ‘How was it made?’ ‘Is this arrow like other poison arrows?’ ‘What kind of wood is this?’ ‘How tall was the shooter?’ ‘Was his nose long, or flat?’ Lots of thinking, thinking, thinking.”

    “But soon the body will die! This thinking and analyzing are not necessary – first pull out the arrow, and then the poison cannot spread any further/ But many people won’t take out the arrow of suffering that is in their minds; they only spend time and money energy analyzing and thinking and reading about it! ‘Where did this arrow come from?’ ‘Who made it, and who shot it?’ ‘Where was it shot from?’ ‘Why was it shot?’ ‘Why was it shot?’ ‘How does an arrow move through the air?’ ‘How fast did it travel here?’”

    “That kind of mind is like most human beings: ‘Why is there suffering?’ ‘Were does suffering come from?’ ‘Why is this world so complicated?’ ‘What does so-and-so write about it?’ All this checking, checking, checking and not one bit of ‘What am I” They do not look into their not-knowing mind. People don’t realize that this don’t-know mind already cuts off thinking, already pulls out the arrow. If you first take out the arrow, then a thinking mind is no problem. But if you don’t take it out, then any kind of thinking and checking mind that appears will kill you. And everybody dies, because everyone is checking their mind like this. Only very few people actually try to take out this arrow, so you who do meditation are all very special, very lucky. Your ‘What am I?’ cuts through this poison.”

    So many a times the conclusion was – Just do it… ok try it. Life is a trouble only death is not, To be alive is to undo your belt and *look* for trouble. Still the intellectual mind keeps on bothering.

    The topic of LBC – Loose Bloggers Consortium was a question I posed to my fellow twelve authors. Currently only two write regularly, read their take on this topic at Ramana uncleji and Shackman uncleji.

    Story Source – Wanting Enlightenment is a Big Mistake: Teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn

    Image source – Twitter @ZMSeungSahn

  • Identity crisis







    A person wrote on his matrimony profile on defining a suitable match – “Preferably a doctor or an engineer…” Sounds funny isn’t it?

    I was talking about this topic with my wife and she had contention on the subject not on the content. I gave it another try – I told her, remember Golmaal old movie? In that movie Utpal Dutt has a perception – people with mustache are good in character. That is a way of creating a perception, an identity. Let me put more types of identities – say I identify myself as an Indian. You identify yourself as a CA or a Marwari or a born Bengali. These are all identities. What if one fine day morning we remove these identities of each individual? Would world be a better place? Perhaps yes. Let me give you an example –

    Say two people waking up in Gaza strip and Jerusalem on Monday morning – both of them identifying themselves as

    A – Muslim, inhabitant of Palestine, suppressed etcjust-be-597091_640

    B – Jew, Original inhabitants of Jerusalem etc

    If on a Monday morning A and B both only know that he/she is supposed to do xyz activity. Remember this activity is not killing the other. The activity is for survival and comfortable life perhaps peaceful and progressive life. Would there be a solution to Middle Eastern problem?

    Take another example – if followers of ISIS forget they are following the commandments written in Kuran! They get into the crisis of identifying themselves as someone who is fighting a holy war. Would we have a solution in Syria?

    In the context of religion, if every human being forgets that he / she is associated with a religion – though keeps on following the suggested practices – wouldn’t we have far lesser organized, religion based crimes in the world?

    In political sense the identification can be – he is a democrat and she is a republican. Should we define ourselves or others in these lines? Why should one be identified by such labels?

    Let me go a step further, what if we stop identifying ourselves from Nation A or Nation B, we just remain a nobody.

    The crisis are mostly created by the identities we have created around ourselves, isnt it? If we get rid of our identities wouldn’t that crisis be a good solution?

    At a very basic level, the identity could be – I am an engineer or you are from Vernacular medium of education. Yes these small things become identity and at times do or die reasons; recent example is Rohith Vemula. In India we identify people with their castes too. The other definitions are – I own a BMW, he has a Maruti 800 1998 model and that guy doesnt even have a car. I am rich, he is poor. On me this could be – com’on I write blogs! I have an identity on the internet. Isn’t it too shallow?

    We need to get rid of all these labels.

    Well, I had written the sentence “Preferably a doctor or an engineer…” on my matrimony profile. I had most serious discussions with an Arts graduate, I got married to a commerce graduate. That sentence I wrote because some or the other site made it mandatory to write partner preference, my full sentence was – “… There has to be understanding and matching of thoughts…” I wrote those two criteria because I after stretching enough I was not able to complete some word limit, I think 200 words!