Zen Living: Living on the Edge
Dharmshala. Photo by Anagha M.
Zen and the Art of Making a Living by Lawrence G Boldt is a celebrated book that speaks directly to young people and speaks more about professional growth then about Zen as such. But whatever it says about Zen it says meaningfully, powerfully, beautifully.
Zen and the Art of Making a Living by Lawrence G Boldt is a celebrated book that speaks directly to young people and speaks more about professional growth then about Zen as such. But whatever it says about Zen it says meaningfully, powerfully, beautifully.
One of the things it
asks us to do is to live free. Live free, live dangerously, live on the edge,
live refusing to be tamed, refusing to be bound, says Zen. One of the names for
Zen masters is crazy clouds – crazy because they do not follow social
conventions that appear meaningless to them and for that reason they do not look
normal to people For instance when everyone works for security and safety, they
choose to throw safety and security to the winds and live facing insecurity
every moment. For they know that it is in insecurity that we grow, we need the
challenges of insecurity for reaching our full maturity, for unfolding all the
possibilities within us. They are called clouds because they go wherever the
winds of life takes them.
In the days of their
greatest growth, when they were world conquerors, Europeans insisted on young
people travelling – and facing the dangers and insecurities of travel – before
they got married and settled down. A generation or two ago, men like Jack
Kerouac
One of the wisest men
ever to live on this earth said, “Look at the birds of the sky. They neither sow
nor reap, nor gather into barns.” That is what we call surrendering to
existence and living dangerously. Living on the edge.
I understand that
such a life requires more courage than most of us have. But that is what Zen
asks us to do. Remember, the original founder of Zen was a prince who lived in rich
comforts and securities but decided to leave it all and follow the road, letting
it take him where it did. The Katha Upanishad too speaks of the need to choose
the road less travelled and not follow blindly the path everyone treads. After
all, the teachings of the Upanishads were given to a boy who rejected kingdoms
on earth, the highest possible wealth and pleasures beyond the imagination of
man.
Boldt says “it’s
society’s job to tame the individual and the individual’s job to get free.”
What does free mean? It
means freedom to choose and make decisions. About job, about marriage, about
the kind of family you will have or to live a life without a job, without
marriage or family too, if that is your calling. The right to follow the path
one was born for, which ancient India called swadharma, a word that means one’s
essential nature, like burning in the case of fire, seeking level in the case
of water. It means following what each one us is born for and not following
just what society asks us to. I have asked hundreds of bright young boys and
girls I taught in some of the top educational institutions of the country if
the subject they were studying is the one in which their heart was – and rarely
have I received the reply yes, it was. And I have asked officers in scores of
corporate houses I have trained if what they were doing was what they wanted to
do and I hardly ever have received the answer yes it was. Rather than following
their passions, pursuing what they were born for, the vast majority of our
students follow professions that are fashionable at the moment and ‘safe’. And
after they complete their studies, they take up professions that these studies
lead to. This is what Zen speaks of as being bound by society. Freedom would be
choosing what one has natural inclinations for, aptitudes for, what one is born
for in spite of all pressures on you.
Lawrence Boldt says
these in an essay about Bodhidharma, the great Zen master who too was born a
prince, who took Zen to China from where it went to Japan, Korea and other
places. “It’s about being personally
free and socially active. “It is not for wimps. It takes the courage to say no
to every attempt to fit you into a category and make you a carbon copy of your
next door neighbor. It takes the courage to say no to every attempt to turn you
into a beggar, pleading for the approval of others. It takes courage to say no
to the needless suffering of your fellow man. No to becoming hypnotized and
tranquilized. No to becoming greedy and indifferent. No to becoming clay in
somebody else’s hand.”
“Things were no
different in Bodhidharma’s day”, adds Boldt. “Society has always been the free
man’s greatest enemy. And the free man has always been society’s greatest
friend. How did society treat Jesus or Socrates, Galileo or Martin Luther King?
Yet look what they have left mankind.”
Cultivate silence of
the mind and listen to what your inner depths have to tell you and follow that.
Follow the path your inner satisfaction shows you. Contentment is a good guide.
Joyfulness is a good guide. When you follow the path you were born for, your
life will be filled with joyfulness.
This is because that
path will connect you with your true being. And our true being is ananda,
joyfulness. And everything we do in life we do seeking ananda.
0o0
The
author is a direct personal disciple of the world famous gurus Swami
Chinmayanandaji and Swami Dayananda Saraswati. He is also a direct grand
disciple of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. For the last several years he has
been teaching a course called Zen and the Executive Mind for the senior students
of one of the top management colleges in the country.
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