Subject: A Half Baked Theory
From: Cecilia Baader (ceciliaann@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 17 2000 - 03:34:44 GMT
A Half Baked Theory, or the connection of Zen, Charlotte, Teddy & German
pistols.
******
One of the things that has always puzzled me about the Seymour myth is why
he threw that rock at Charlotte. That, and his method of suicide, just
don't fit the rest of what we know about Seymour.
Buddy mentions in "Seymour: an Introduction" that, when he wrote "Teddy",
more than one family member recognized Seymour in his description of Teddy's
eyes. So it follows that we can perhaps make other connections to Seymour
as well. Sure, Teddy is not Seymour, but perhaps Buddy uses Teddy to
explain a lot of Seymour. "'I met a lady, and I sort of stopped meditating'
(188)" Teddy says, and it's not unlike Seymour's experience of meeting
Muriel.
So women can be detrimental to peace of mind. (Ha. Serves you right,
fellas.) The point is that if something takes your mind off of what you
need to do, Teddy believes that you need to get rid of it: "'Only because
he's quite spiritual, and he's teaching a lot of stuff right now that isn't
very good for him if he wants to make any real spiritual advancement. It
stimulates him too much'" (195). Give up that which you love if it gets in
the way of whatever you need to accomplish in this lifetime. Not as easy as
it sounds, but then Seymour isn't one of your normal folks.
Dying is not such a tragedy, so far as Teddy is concerned:
"'All you do is get the heck out of your body when you die. My gosh,
everybody's done it thousands and thousands of times. Just because they
don't remember it doesn't mean they haven't done it' . . . 'What would be so
tragic about it, though? What's there to be afraid of, I mean? I'd just be
doing what I was supposed to do'" (193). So if you're done with whatever you
need to do in this life, you get out. Maybe you know that your little
sister is going to push you into a swimming pool and you walk down to the
pool deck and let her do it. Or maybe you just know that you're going to
bring a gun with you on vacation in Florida.
(I'd just like to note, in a brief aside, that just typing 'Florida' irks me
a little right now.)
It's been a year since I've read his book, but Eberhard Alsen mentions in
his discussion of Zen Buddhism that there a principle that sometimes a
person needs to experience pain in order for understanding to occur. I've
read more than one koan where the teacher whacks the student a good one and
suddenly the student understands. (Anyone willing to fill in the blanks
here for me as to why?)
So the violence of the rock and the violence of the death? Perhaps Seymour
has decided that each action is totally necessary in order to advance.
Maybe this is the life that Buddy writes into Teddy's past, where he met a
lady and just stopped meditating. Perhaps it's a flaw in Seymour's makeup,
and to counteract it the first time, he heaved a stone at the object of his
affection. Maybe the second time required a little more drastic measure.
And maybe the violence of the death, in spiritual terms, was something that
Seymour the teacher decided was necessary not only for him to learn
separation from that which he found "too stimulating" but also to provide a
slap in the face for certain students who needed to learn a lesson.
So perhaps that's it. Perhaps Seymour decided that he'd learned all he
needed to learn and that it was time to move on. And the violent method of
doing so is simply because certain people needed to learn something
Important.
So Seymour the teacher used his death as another lesson. Cripes. I'm
annoyed. I think I hate this theory, but it makes a horrific kind of sense.
Regards,
Cecilia.
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