Reading and responding to a series of transcripts of talks given more than 100 years ago by the Zen Buddhist Abbott Soyen Shaku:
Deep into the night, as other things cannot unfold, the cause of the full-on blockage appears:
I wake up in the morning with the thought that I am living a lie. A big one. The portraits, the blog, the performances, the movement, the participation, the friendships, the art, the writing, the letters, the telephone calls, the thesis, the intelligence, the teaching, the mailing-list-postings, the lectures, the workshops, the recordings, the social awareness, the travel, the online presence, the relationships, the projects, the listening to the heart, the living and the dead, the exercising (the swimming, the yoga), the eating (picking and choosing healthy things), the parenting, the collaborations, the archiving (preserving an empty past), the saving of money (preserving an empty future), it’s all a lie, a big fuckin’ lie. This is not a text about it being a lie, this is a lie.
It’s all about preserving the Self. Self-preservation. Sure to bring sufferation, yet it is how Life maintains itSelf on the planet. The retreat from pain is about Self-preservation. The fear of the Unknown is about Self-preservation.
It appears such, in the Buddhist system/model, that the very motivational essence of Life ensuring its projection into the future (to be, vis viva) is the source of suffering.
Shaku, S., 1906. Zen For Americans