CONVERT! JOIN! WORSHIP! Why do these words seem so unpleasant to me, and yet others are ready to leap in and get with some program. Why does it seem better to me if nobody is on my case with their plans for my life than if there is such a busy Being above that I must convert to, join up with in a Divine Mysticism, and worship? Why, why, why? Genes? Early childhood influences?
There is a story in Zen about the seeker of enlightenment who spends years trying to find a Zen master to follow. Finally he hears of one and climbes the cliffs to his cave with great effort. The master pretends he knows nothing and does not take pupils,but the pupil is persistent. The master says well you can sweep the cave floor and make my tea. For 20 years the pupil does this and finally asks the master why he hasn’t TAUGHT him anything all this time and the master says have you swept the floor and made the tea?
The pupil says yes and all I remember about the end of this story is the master just looks at him and says, “Well…”
I think it means as long as you are looking for somebody to teach you something you are on the wrong track. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear is an old saying. Life and teachers teach you when and only when you are ready. Some people are only ready for assignments, others actually take up the subject.
Apparently paradoxically, however, there is also the Zen tradition that you must get a master and then do exactly what he says. Either this is for those who are only ready for masters and will continue to be passive or it is actual training in at least discipline, which means doing something definite regularly.
In any case, concentration is the key to the universe. For when you can concentrate you have literally lost the part of your self that makes you unhappy, namely your opinions, preferences, points of view. You’re not dwelling on them when you are concentrating on something like art or inventing something, but it can be anything. EVen for people who need masters and assignments, if they can concentrate on these things without thinking or feeling anything else, they are in the position of great mathematicians and inventors and artists and may feel it as bliss or Nirvana.
Zen evades all definitions deliberately. The koans are riddles so to speak like what is the sound of one hand clapping. It doesn’t matter what the pupil answers. The master is able to tell whether the pupil has put his whole self into the answer, in other words is concentrating right in the moment here and now. There are no right answers to these puzzles.