Subject: Crabby Hermits
From: Cecilia Baader (ceciliaann@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Sep 17 2000 - 21:03:01 GMT
Josh Stott wrote:
>That's, maybe, the whole problem. If what you're saying is true, then he
>should have learned in all of his studies of Zen, Christianity, etc. that
>the way to live what you believe isn't through sheer will or even desire.
>It's through humility and being guided and
>led to do what is right.
Is it? Do you think that the will to improve, the steel backbone necessary
to live ones beliefs, is an integral part of any sort of serious
spirituality?
It's something that I've thought about on more than one occasion. The
spiritualists, the people that we're supposed to look up to and admire, are,
culture across culture, those who denied themselves the pleasures of the
flesh and concentrated all their attention on attaining goodness.
The Mother Theresas of this world, I guess.
So I'm a big fan of things like ice cream and music and comfortable
mattresses. The people who can go without such things, and in doing so,
find happiness, have my utmost respect. And I wish that I had the sort of
backbone to become a saint or a sannyasin or a boddhasitva or whatever you
want to call it. But I'm thinking that a necessary ingredient is the desire
to want to do it.
Scottie doesn't think that it's necessary to worry about the man's privacy
or treat him any differently than the rest of us, but I'm feeling like he's
not like the rest of us. (Or most of the rest of us.) None of them are--
this class of people who decide that they're going to commit to it.
I keep thinking that it's unfair, that everyone should be granted an
opportunity to make their own happiness. If you're going to aspire to
sainthood, you cannot be like everyone else. So then you're not allowed to
inflict this on anyone else? Go join a monastary?
I guess that I just wonder, why can't you be a happy man with a family *and*
try to attain nirvana? Why is self-denial so important? And is the
self-denial really sometimes selfishness? Because you're working so hard on
your own perfection that you make those who love you miserable? Is
spiritual perfection/sainthood/nirvana a community thing and you can never
just work on yourself?
And who is to assign the final blame for the actions of a lifetime?
Yourself? G-d? St. Peter? Your children? The society that is spending
too much time examining a life that is not their own? I don't think it's
such an easy question. And depending upon who is asking, I think you'll get
a different answer. Every time.
But I don't think it's for us to assign. That answer seems clear to me.
Regards,
Cecilia.
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