Although, I have to add that this is something like what I was trying to do with Dimentia 13 (altho MGMT does it sooo much better). Just sample this from the first Dimentia 13 LP.
I don't have a whole lot of time for a report. We'll be on our way to Warsaw in just a few minutes. It's been raining like cats and dogs the whole time I've been in Poland. I know because I stepped in a poodle!
But seriously, folks, the rain has been so bad that a lot of the roads are washed out, trains are stopped, all sorts of chaos has ensued. But we made it to Katowice last night and had one of the best talks ever with the group from the Bodhidharma Zen Center. As usual with the talks that end up being good, this one was probably not recorded. The iPhone my host Slawek used to record it was acting weird the whole time. So maybe something made it on to the hard drive but probably not the whole talk.
Which is sad because you'll miss out hearing the crazy woman who came in, asked a few bizarre questions and then left in a huff when the answers I gave didn't satisfy her. She was very mystical and was apparently testing my ability to see Beyond The Beyond or some such thing.
After she left the discussion settled a bit. One of the questions I was asked concerned mistakes Westerners make in Zen. I get that one a lot. But last night, for some reason it sparked a memory from when I worked for Tsuburaya Productions.
Ultraman is one of the most incredibly simple designs in the world. Look:
It's very straight-forward and that's why it works and has become so iconic. Even 6 year old kids can draw Ultraman.I have a friend, Hiroshi Maruyama, whose job it used to be to design the new Ultraman characters. He told me once that all he could ever do with that design was mess it up. It was perfect as it was. The only thing you could do was ruin the beautiful simplicity of it.
Here's one of the later Ultraman characters to give you an idea what he meant. This is actually not one of Maruyama's designs. His are a lot more successful. When they got to this character they had someone else work on it and all they did was add unnecessary shit on to what was already complete in and of itself. And this isn't even one of the worst. They'd add horns and noses and big ears and all kinds of crap.
I think this is what often happens with Western Zen. We seek to "improve" something that has already undergone thousands of years of refinement. All we can do is add extraneous garbage to something and ruin its original simplicity.Zen is stupidly simple. It needs to remain stupidly simple.
We do this not only culturally, but in our own practice. At least I do! I'm always looking for something more complex to add to the practice. But it's fine just as it is. You don't need to explain it. You don't need to tack on a lot of pop psychological bullcrap. Just leave it be! Leave Britney alone! And leave Zazen alone!
