zen, seymour, muriel.

Lagusta P. Yearwood (ly001f@uhura.cc.rochester.edu)
Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:14:24 -0400 (EDT) 

i am definately not an expert on this, but i have always thought
that one of the primary reasons seymour loved muriel so much was because she 
was was so incredibly **in** the world. zen tells you to simply be, that
it is not necessary to leave the world to achieve enlightenment. seymour
was into zen, and i think he loved muriel because she just was. she was
nail polish and clothes and ringing phones, and
he admired this because she was happy with this, she did not mind this
earth bound existence, she welcomed and embraced it.

of course, on one hand, she was opposite of a zen ideal because she did not 
realize that those things are transparent, and that perfection is
nothingness, as zen would say. she was seemingly the opposite of a zen
protagonist because of her ties to the world of phonies and egos,
but at the same time, i think she had zen-like attributes. it seems that
the glasses sometimes do love people simply because of their ties to the
world and it's silly creations. think of ms. glass. she was a bathrobe and
an apartment and washrags ("cloths!"), and she was loved dearly by all
her nutty zen fanatic kids. bessie just was. 

i just looked in the book __Mondern Critical Views: JD Salinger__
(article title: "zen and 9 stories") and it said basically the opposite as
me. it said that seymour commits suicide because he is stifled by the
phoniness and egotism of muriel's world and the only way to escape it is
suicide. perhaps that's true, but...

"Followers of the Way, as to Buddha-Dharma no effort is necessary. You
have only to be ordinary with nothing to do -- defecating, urining,
putting on clothes, eating food, and lying down when tired.
		fools laugh at me, but
		The wise man understands."
			--zen master rinzai

i think sometimes those books of salinger critism just go for the least
common demoninator, the most obvious answer and never look for anything
deeper. 	

please feel free to shoot this theory to hell, because simply by writing
it i've convinced myself that it's pretty dumb (i'm reminded of course of
the quote at the beginning of __seymour: an introduction__: "the actors by
their very presense convince me that the words are false..."). but it has
some good points, i think.  

:)

lagusta