Inner Game - Thursday, November 19, 2009 16:48 - 7 Comments

The Zen Dilemma

Got a very interesting email from a friend today. This gets a little inner game-ish/spiritual, so fair warning to you guys.

“Entropy,

I have been reading Eckhart Tolle’s book on The Power of Now and It has got me thinking about Zen philosophy again. I heard that you used to practice meditation quite a bit and I wanted to ask you about it.

Zen is contradictory to most of the philosophy I invest in but, its unclear whether or not it has to be exclusive. One struggle I have is the idea that ruminating in the past or future is detrimental to one’s overall consciousness-even when it is positive. Tolle says, the idea of a future heaven creates a present hell. Does attachment need to be taken to this extreme? Can my finding meditation boring be explained as unenlightenment?

hmmm-I’m still very skeptical,”

- Cross

First of all, I’ve been meditating regularly since I was 16. I was VERY into it and reading a lot about spirituality and eastern philosophy in college, so this isn’t another, “LET GO OF YOUR EGO, BRO!” type of posts. I honestly believe that spirituality is something that can hardly be conveyed with words, but only lived or experienced, so I usually shut the fuck up about it.

That being said… here’s a two page post about it. lol.

This is a pretty common dilemma for people… that the idea of “unattachment” isn’t exactly practical or even applicable in modern life. You have to remember that a lot of these philosophies were developed 4,000 years ago when their were far fewer demands and complexities to life. So the idea of going and sitting in a cave for nine years and staring at a wall wasn’t exactly giving up a whole lot.

With that said, the common sticking point for everyone is, “if I’m supposed to be attached to nothing and desire nothing, how the hell do I get anything done?” Hell, how did Tolle write mutliple 300-page books if he was completely unattached to the future? Wouldn’t he just stare and smile at the typewriter?

Continue…