I received this photo from Ryan MacMicahel who writes a vegetarian themed blog called Veg Blog. It's of his daughter Rasine who spontaneously chose to pick up and read a copy of Hardcore Zen from her dad's bookshelf. Maybe she will learn to be as angry and hateful as I am! Wouldn't that be sweet?I was reading the comments section of the last post sorta scratching my head about why this whole "Brad is so angry" business had started up again. Then I remembered that I had called Genpo Roshi a scumbag. I guess that makes people think I'm angry at him. I'm not angry at him. I just think he's a scumbag for deliberately lying to people about Zen practice in order to make himself rich, that's all. You don't need to be angry at someone to feel that way about them. Whatever.
Oh and to the commenter who thought the bird in the photo I posted last time was "about to take a shit in that girl's mouth." That's no girl in the picture, it's me! And Sunny was such a cool bird that he would not take a crap on you. He'd fly away somewhere else and do it. We never taught him that, but he somehow worked it out that we didn't like him pooping on us so he stopped.
Oh & before I begin, another reminder that the usual zazen at 10 am this Saturday July 18th at 237 Hill St. Santa Monica 90405 will happen & I'll be there. But don't park in the lot because it's being used that day for some event at the church. This will be a regular sitting not one of the all-day things. The all-day one will be on July 25th. Sunday July 19th at 11am I'll host zazen at Against The Stream, 4300 Melrose Ave LA 90029.
I've been thinking about the subject of ego lately because it keeps coming up in my writing for the new book I'm working on. When Eastern religions, including Buddhism, first started washing up on our shores the buzz on the streets said that meditation was all about giving up, transcending or sometimes even destroying the ego.
There is some truth to that. But a lot of times the word "ego" is used as a synonym for self-esteem. In fact if you look it up using the thesaurus tool on MS Word that's one of the synonyms that comes up. It's often paired with the word hubris, which means excessive pride.In some of the interviews John Lennon gave in the early Seventies you can see that he, for one, picked up on this meaning of the word ego. So he spent a lot of time cutting himself down, destroying his self-esteem and the natural pride he felt in his work. I'm sure a lot of people did this and probably are still doing it.
This is one reason why I avoid using the word "ego" in this context. It's unhealthy to try and get rid of your self-esteem and there is no sin in pride as long as it doesn't get out of control.
Ego, in the sense that it's used in Buddhism, is not self-esteem. In fact, your ego can often be enriched even better by a negative self image than a positive one. I am worthless, I am ugly, nobody loves me. All of this just builds it up even more.
Also, in a somewhat related topic is the idea of using positive thoughts to try and combat negative ones. This never works either. Because every thought includes its opposite. White is white precisely because it's not black. "I am a good person" is what it is because it contrasts with "I am not a good person." And so on and on and on and on. It's all just more thought.
If you're absolutely drowning in negativity maybe the contrast can lift you up a little. But it's not going to hold for long. The trick is to see that none of the ways you characterize yourself are ultimately any better than any other.
