Dharma Zombies
So, I saw the Transformers movie last night. As promised, it was more than met the eye. Definitely a fun summer movie.
There's two terms I thought you'd never see together in an article. However, the dharma zombie is a unique and real phenomenon. I know, because for a long time, I was a dharma zombie. Do you want to know what a dharma zombie is? As usual, things in Zen are best defined in terms of a story.
The year 2002. I'm an "intelligent man" at the University of Florida. At that time in my lackluster career at U of F, I'm a serious student of the martial arts and I've read every book on Asian thought that I could lay my grubby little paws on. I considered myself both "deep" and "liberated". Through my own dilligence (read: incompetence), I'd manage to mess up my knees pretty badly with martial arts training way above my pay grade. (Even now, when my knees occasionally give me fits, I wish I could go back in time and tell that younger idiot to slow down and give his ego a rest.)
The downwind was that I suffered from joint pain bad enough that I could no longer delude myself out of a rest period. I needed a break for my battered form to heal. However, since I considered myself so deep and disciplined, I couldn't just spend this rest period playing video games and reading books. No, I had to so something consistent with my current set of "isms". I looked on the internet and found that there was a Zen teacher in Gainesville, who lead meditation sessions and gave dharma talks.
I decided to go, figuring that I'd fit in like a pea in a pod, given my voluminous book-knowledge of Zen Buddhism.
When I arrived, I observed a clean room with wooden floors that shone from obvious polishing. Zafu (sitting cushions) and their accompanying mats formed a neat U-shape around an altar. The man sitting on one of the cushions, cross legged, was tall and lean. He had gray hair and a leathery face. His mouth seemed permanently twisted into a half smile.
He introduced himself to me and then gestured to one of the cushions. He told me that the period of sitting meditation would begin in just a moment. I'd never sat on a zafu before, so I kind of settled down and crossed my legs in front of me. It hurt. I was recovering from knee injuries, remember? Of course, I couldn't let this Zen teacher or any of the other people there see that. I was young and tough, you see. The old lady across from me was sitting without any problems, and I wasn't about to be out-toughed by an old lady.
The period began. The teacher announced that it would last for 30 minutes. I settled down and tried to focus on my breath, letting all my other thoughts taper off.
5 Minutes in. My thoughts: "Geez, my knees are killing me. Why can't we just talk about dharma? Meditation makes me want to bang my head against the wall."
Ten minutes: "I think my knees have somehow caught fire... and the old lady across the way looks peaceful like a friggin' lotus. I... must... win!"
Fifteen minutes: "I can't stand this anymore."
I took a look over at the teacher, then looked around the room. Everyone else seemed to have their eyes closed. I thought I could chance a moment of weakness. I slowly extended my right leg to alleviate the screaming pressure in my knee. I then did the same thing with the left knee. I took a quick survey around the room. Everyone still had their eyes closed. I'd gotten away with it.
Masculinity preserved!
Of course, a few minutes later, my knees started complaining again. Given that sweet nectar of stretching, they wanted more. After another cursory visual sweep, I indulged them.
Finally, thirty minutes was up. I composed myself, trying to keep my face as blank as possible and my back straight, so that when the teacher snapped out of it, I'd look way more Zenner than grandma across the way. He opened his eyes, looked at me, and started guffawing.
"Boy, this ain't samurai zen! If your knees were hurting you, you should have just asked for a chair!"
He laughed heartily, and the sangha (other people there) joined him. My face, like my knees, now felt like it was on fire. That chair option, which now seemed so obvious that it was stupid, had totally eluded me because I was so focused on putting forth a good "zen image", whatever the hell that is. I'd gotten so caught up in the form of Zen and my own egoistic quest to better myself that I'd totally taken leave of common sense.
At that time, I first came to realize that I was a dharma zombie. Someone totally entranced by the ideas of Eastern thoughts and their strange forms that I'd totally taken leave of common sense, and more importantly, the joy and compassion that are an essential part of a healthy Zen practice.
From that point on, both in Zen and the martial arts, I always made sure to laugh at myself and speak up when it hurt. That one embarassing incident totally changed the way I practiced both things.
(Of course, the funny afterward to this story is that the Zen teacher was actually a retired life-long infantryman and was tougher than I could ever approach; he's also a lot smarter than me.)
But the point is this:
If you don't approach Zen practice with a sense of humor and a willingness to be compassionate towards your own failings, it ends up just being self mortification. And then, one day, you'll be at Barnes and Noble having very serious thoughts about the dissolution of your own ego. Someone unknown bodhisattva will walk by and ask, "What the hell is wrong with you?" and you will reply, through clenched teeth, "I'm really experiencing the joy of freedom!"
And in terms of Zen practice, you might as well just be saying, "Braaaaaaaains..."
- Ken
There's two terms I thought you'd never see together in an article. However, the dharma zombie is a unique and real phenomenon. I know, because for a long time, I was a dharma zombie. Do you want to know what a dharma zombie is? As usual, things in Zen are best defined in terms of a story.
The year 2002. I'm an "intelligent man" at the University of Florida. At that time in my lackluster career at U of F, I'm a serious student of the martial arts and I've read every book on Asian thought that I could lay my grubby little paws on. I considered myself both "deep" and "liberated". Through my own dilligence (read: incompetence), I'd manage to mess up my knees pretty badly with martial arts training way above my pay grade. (Even now, when my knees occasionally give me fits, I wish I could go back in time and tell that younger idiot to slow down and give his ego a rest.)
The downwind was that I suffered from joint pain bad enough that I could no longer delude myself out of a rest period. I needed a break for my battered form to heal. However, since I considered myself so deep and disciplined, I couldn't just spend this rest period playing video games and reading books. No, I had to so something consistent with my current set of "isms". I looked on the internet and found that there was a Zen teacher in Gainesville, who lead meditation sessions and gave dharma talks.
I decided to go, figuring that I'd fit in like a pea in a pod, given my voluminous book-knowledge of Zen Buddhism.
When I arrived, I observed a clean room with wooden floors that shone from obvious polishing. Zafu (sitting cushions) and their accompanying mats formed a neat U-shape around an altar. The man sitting on one of the cushions, cross legged, was tall and lean. He had gray hair and a leathery face. His mouth seemed permanently twisted into a half smile.
He introduced himself to me and then gestured to one of the cushions. He told me that the period of sitting meditation would begin in just a moment. I'd never sat on a zafu before, so I kind of settled down and crossed my legs in front of me. It hurt. I was recovering from knee injuries, remember? Of course, I couldn't let this Zen teacher or any of the other people there see that. I was young and tough, you see. The old lady across from me was sitting without any problems, and I wasn't about to be out-toughed by an old lady.
The period began. The teacher announced that it would last for 30 minutes. I settled down and tried to focus on my breath, letting all my other thoughts taper off.
5 Minutes in. My thoughts: "Geez, my knees are killing me. Why can't we just talk about dharma? Meditation makes me want to bang my head against the wall."
Ten minutes: "I think my knees have somehow caught fire... and the old lady across the way looks peaceful like a friggin' lotus. I... must... win!"
Fifteen minutes: "I can't stand this anymore."
I took a look over at the teacher, then looked around the room. Everyone else seemed to have their eyes closed. I thought I could chance a moment of weakness. I slowly extended my right leg to alleviate the screaming pressure in my knee. I then did the same thing with the left knee. I took a quick survey around the room. Everyone still had their eyes closed. I'd gotten away with it.
Masculinity preserved!
Of course, a few minutes later, my knees started complaining again. Given that sweet nectar of stretching, they wanted more. After another cursory visual sweep, I indulged them.
Finally, thirty minutes was up. I composed myself, trying to keep my face as blank as possible and my back straight, so that when the teacher snapped out of it, I'd look way more Zenner than grandma across the way. He opened his eyes, looked at me, and started guffawing.
"Boy, this ain't samurai zen! If your knees were hurting you, you should have just asked for a chair!"
He laughed heartily, and the sangha (other people there) joined him. My face, like my knees, now felt like it was on fire. That chair option, which now seemed so obvious that it was stupid, had totally eluded me because I was so focused on putting forth a good "zen image", whatever the hell that is. I'd gotten so caught up in the form of Zen and my own egoistic quest to better myself that I'd totally taken leave of common sense.
At that time, I first came to realize that I was a dharma zombie. Someone totally entranced by the ideas of Eastern thoughts and their strange forms that I'd totally taken leave of common sense, and more importantly, the joy and compassion that are an essential part of a healthy Zen practice.
From that point on, both in Zen and the martial arts, I always made sure to laugh at myself and speak up when it hurt. That one embarassing incident totally changed the way I practiced both things.
(Of course, the funny afterward to this story is that the Zen teacher was actually a retired life-long infantryman and was tougher than I could ever approach; he's also a lot smarter than me.)
But the point is this:
If you don't approach Zen practice with a sense of humor and a willingness to be compassionate towards your own failings, it ends up just being self mortification. And then, one day, you'll be at Barnes and Noble having very serious thoughts about the dissolution of your own ego. Someone unknown bodhisattva will walk by and ask, "What the hell is wrong with you?" and you will reply, through clenched teeth, "I'm really experiencing the joy of freedom!"
And in terms of Zen practice, you might as well just be saying, "Braaaaaaaains..."
- Ken