Freedom

With Respect To All,

Today was a day at the house, my new refuge, where I cleaned up the back yard, moved some furniture around creating a spot to sit under my large tree, and fixed a few things like the drippy faucet in the kitchen.

So, I began streaming “Dead Poet’s Society,” an old favorite of mine, took a break for some dark chocolate and coffee to sit under that tree. While there, Suki hoped up on the bench beside me and sat down. It occurred to me just then how marvelous the “Dead Poet’s Society” film actually was: it celebrates true freedom. The best and most important kind…freedom of thought.

We seem to have denied ourselves that freedom no matter how much we protest we haven’t. Most of us are decidedly not free. We follow. We conform. And we suffer from our own paralysis as our freedom to be free atrophies. We are afraid to be free, afraid to be truly different, and as a result the road less travelled is barely worn.

Zen is an antidote to that failure. In Zen our practice is to cut through our deluded minds, minds that require conformity to feel safe or to belong. The sword of the bodhisattva Manjushri is compelled to swing deep and strong, cutting away the garbage we believe is thought, but in reality is nothing more than talking points at best and bumper sticker slogans at worst.

What have we done to ourselves? Mindless, thoughtless, beings who simply “watch” the news, the dramas, and the comedies while all around us snoring drowns out the sounds of life on our planet. We have only ourselves to blame as each of us has the capacity to set out on life’s journey with enthusiasm, perhaps painting or drawing, perhaps writing, perhaps taking acting classes or literature classes or any other form of personal education that allows us to see differently.

I recall sitting at a cafe counter one time long ago in Miami reading T. S. Eliot I think, when the waitress asked me what I was reading. When I told her she asked if I were a student. When I said no, she seemed shocked and actually asked me why I was reading the book. What’s that about?

And so, dear friends, I ask you, what’s your passion? What’s your path? How can you break out of the bonds of lemming hood and truly walk in your own freedom?

Yours,

Daiho