by Om Swami
‘Listen,’ the assistant whispered, ‘there are thousands of monkeys in the warehouse. I keep the count, my master doesn’t. So, if you give me a commission of 50 rupees, I will sell you the monkeys in the warehouse for 500 rupees. When my master comes back in three days, we will buy it for 1000 rupees. That way you will make a profit of 450 per monkey. But you must not tell him, he’ll kill me if he comes to know.’
Not wanting to let go of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the villagers pledged their jewellery, land, livestock and collected money to buy the monkeys. In two days, all the monkeys were gone.
‘Now, tomorrow,’ the assistant said, ‘my master will be back. You come and sell us these monkeys as if you just caught them. Don’t let him know that I sold you these monkeys. One day, when he finds out that there are no monkeys in the warehouse or the barn, just say someone left the door open and they escaped.’
The residents were only too eager to comply and make a quick buck. They had already planned what they would do with all their money.
The next morning, the assistant was nowhere to be found. The rich man never came back to the village either. The duped villagers were left with nothing but monkeys and debt.
So the villagers were basically duped, in an elaborate plan. First, monkeys were bought from them and then, monkeys were sold to them at a higher price at a promise that they would be bought back. But they were no more people there willing to buy the monkeys. And something similar happens with your emotions. When a person forms an insincere attachment with you, he buys monkeys at a low price and you get them back, hoping you are going to sell them at a higher price. But by then, the person is long gone from your life.
One way or another, you have all these emotions stored in a warehouse, not knowing what to do with them. You are hoping they will fetch some price – that one day, another person will come around and accept that he or she hurt you, that they wronged you and ask foryour forgiveness. That is, they would buy your monkeys at 1000 rupees each. That’s not going to happen.
Only one time in a million does a person who has wronged you return to seek your forgiveness, and actually means it – that is, seriously commit to never repeat that offence. Often people will say ‘Sorry, I am sorry, I did not mean to, blah, blah, blah’, but they will go back to their old behaviour the very next day.
To keep any emotion alive requires feeding it and that is done by recalling who wronged you, when they wronged you and what they did to you. It makes you very restless. With all those monkeys running around in your home, how could you be at peace? One day, if you want peace, you need to open the door and let them go. And sometimes, it is as simple as saying, ‘Today I am opening the door and I am letting out all these emotions.’
That’s the only way to be free.
Forgiveness is an emotion that does not depend on whether the other person deserves it or not. It’s very rare for an offender to show genuine remorse and not repeat their action; in that case they deserve forgiveness. At any rate, forgiveness is something that we should keep in our hearts and minds because it’s not worth holding a grudge against anyone. It’s like punishing yourself all over again, first when you were wronged and now when you are hurting yourself by keeping it inside you.
No matter who the offender may be, forgiveness is essential if you want peace and sanity back in your life. You decide what you want. To be proved right or to be at peace? If it is peace and inner calm you are looking for, then there is no way other than practising these core virtues in your life.
Sometimes, people say, ‘I want to do this, but I just can’t.’ For example, you want to stick to the discipline of half an hour of exercise every day, and you say, ‘But I don’t feel like it’. For the life in me I can never get my head around, ‘I don’t feel like it’. You promised to do something, so just do it. Why are you listening to your mind when all it’s telling you is that it doesn’t feel like doing something? How does that even come into play? Just do it. Period. You may procrastinate a bit (like I do when I have to write my blog post), but I still do it on time.
These four key virtues are essential for travelling the spiritual path. If you were a car, your mind would be the engine and these four virtues the four wheels. As long as the wheels are in motion, you will continue moving – ever experiencing new vistas, new roads, new seasons… You may have the most powerful engine and the strongest chassis, but if there are no wheels or the tires are punctured, you can’t move forward.
For a sound philosophy of life, you should have these virtues, and it could be as simple as the first emotion I will chose, the emotion of compassion. After that, I am not going to let go of my humility, and I will stick to a certain discipline.
The Zen Way
Legend has it that Mulla Nasruddin was becoming very famous in his village. More and more people wanted to hear him speak, to gain knowledge and wisdom from him.
He was a carefree man who spoke however and whenever he pleased. At the repeated insistence of one group, he reluctantly agreed to give a sermon on a Sunday. But Mulla was in no mood for this.
‘Do you all know what I am going to talk about today?’ he asked the congregation.
‘No, we don’t,’ came the unanimous response.
‘Well then, what’s the point if you don’t even know the subject matter of my talk?’ And he walked away.
Often people have great reverence, by the way, for anybody who appears cryptic because you can’t understand him; they think, something deep must be inside him, making him behave this way. This was one reason Buddha appealed to so many; he made things simple.
So, the following weekend, the people again persuaded Mulla to speak before them. Once again, he posed the same question to the group who were better prepared this time and shouted with enthusiasm that they did know what Mulla was going to talk about.
‘I suppose the topic is over then,’ Mulla replied and left the stage.
They tried one more time and again Mulla asked the same question the next Sunday.
‘Do you all know what I am going to talk about today?’ he yelled from the dais.
Half the people said, ‘Yes, we do know’, while the other half said, ‘No, we don’t’.
Mulla went quiet for a few moments and then said, ‘Please, those who know tell those who don’t.’ With that he walked out of the hall.
Naturally, I have to ask you, do you know what I am going to talk about in the next few chapters? Oh, so you are silent? Good on you.
I couldn’t resist slipping in this little joke in this ultra-short chapter where all I am saying is that I’ll introduce you to the principles of Zen. Almost like a preface to the four final chapters of this book.
Like any other school of thought, Zen too has a framework. Beyond Zazen, Kinhin and Chado, it has four principles you can follow. Simple, doable and very Zen. If you follow these principles, you are on the right track.
It is normal that we falter sometimes with the virtues that I elucidated in the previous chapters. Some days being compassionate, grateful and forgiving may feel like a breeze while other days it can be hard to even smile. Life can be like that, and often is. Failing is okay sometimes. You get up again.
Let me walk you through the four core principles of Zen. To expound on these, I have taken some poems from a Zen master named Tai Sheridan.
Sit anywhere and be quiet:
on a couch, a bed, a bench,
inside, outside
…
in your office chair,
on the floor, in your car.
Meditation cushions are okay too.24
Sit Quietly
A seeker approached a master and asked, ‘Can you teach me meditation?’
‘Take a seat,’ the master instructed. ‘Sit next to me.’
So he sat and asked what the next step was.
‘You see this grass?’ said the master. ‘Just watch it grow.’
He waited. There was silence. Nothing further came from the master.<
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‘That’s all?’ the student exclaimed in disbelief.
‘Yes, that’s all there is to it. You just watch it. Don’t do anything about it; don’t analyze it; don’t think about it; don’t contemplate it. Just become a witness. The rest is all commentary. You can do without all that.’25
Zen is just about being present in the moment and, more importantly, living with awareness. Often this is misconstrued. What does that mean? Does it mean that you can’t think about the future, that you can’t plan? Does that mean you should not progress?
No, it doesn’t. It simply means that whatever you do in life, you do it with awareness, with mindfulness.
Therefore, if you were to ask the question, ‘What am I doing right now?’ you would say, ‘I am reading right now. I am trying to sleep. I am eating. I am breathing. I am just sitting,’ and so on. The first principle of Zen is more a practice than a principle, and it takes as little as ten or fifteen minutes each day. If you adhere to this practice, you are following the Zen way of life.
Here it is, as the chapter title says: ‘Sit Quietly’.
The Zen master Tai Sheridan in his wonderful little book, Buddha in Blue Jeans, has put it more eloquently than I ever could and in a truly Zen-like manner. As follows:
Sit anywhere and be quiet:
on a couch, a bed, a bench, inside, outside,
leaning against a tree, by a lake, at the ocean,
in a garden, on an airplane, in your office chair,
on the floor, in your car.
Meditation cushions are okay too.
Sit at any time: morning, night,
one minute, three years.
Wear what you’ve got on.
Loosen your waist so that your belly
can move with your breath.
Sit as relaxed as possible.
Relax your muscles
when starting and during sitting.
Sit with your back straight but not stiff.
Keep your head upright with your ears level.
Respect all medical conditions.
Only take a posture you can.
All postures are okay.
Do what you can do.
Keep your eyes slightly opened and out of focus.
That’s the fundamental difference between wall gazing and Zazen. In wall gazing, you focus on something. In Zazen, you are just sitting quietly, letting your mind rest.
Imagine shaking a piece of jelly with your hand, and watching it wobble. The pursuit of every thought makes our brain move like jelly. Drop the thought and it remains still and serene. The art of sitting quietly would perhaps solve a majority of our life’s problems. Blaise Pascal once said, ‘All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.’
One day, you will get what I am trying to say. You will know what I mean if you practice it a little. Right now, you may be thinking, ‘How do I keep my mind in a natural state?’ It came to me after a few thousand hours of practice. And it will come to you eventually as well because I did not have the guidance I am trying to provide you with. Hopefully, that guidance would make some difference.
Keep your eyes slightly opened and out of focus.
Closing them will make you sleepy and sometimes busy.
Opening them wide will keep you busy.
This is key to proper Zen meditation. When your eyes are closed, you sometimes pursue a whole chain of thought, and you connect to it. You might even think about things you don’t want to think about. Excessive thinking is a grave and common disorder. Or you might feel sleepy and lazy at times. Opening your eyes wide will make your mind busy because, you are receiving too much sensory input. So keep your eyes half closed.
Breathe naturally through your nose.
Enjoy breathing.
Feel your breath.
Watch your breath.
Become your breath.
Be like a cat purring.
Follow your breath like ocean waves
coming in and out.
When you get distracted,
come back to the simplest
and most basic experience
of being alive,
your breathing.
Breathing is fundamental to Zen meditation in particular. When you feel distracted, don’t worry. You shouldn’t feel guilty or bad. Don’t feel frustrated or irritated. Simply listen to your breathing again, feel your breath. As you feel it, you’ll feel your life. And the moment you feel your life, you’ll know what a blessed life this is – you will experience the beauty in your life. All will become quiet and bearable then.
That’s it.
No belief.
No program.
No dogma.
...
Just sit quietly,
connect with your breath,
and pay attention
to what happens.
You will learn things.
Do it when you want.
You decide how much is enough for you.
Don’t sit for ten minutes because I say you should. Maybe you want to sit for fifty minutes, or only five minutes. You can work around your schedule. The idea is simply to sit and be quiet.
If you do it daily, it will get into your bones. When something gets into your bones, it becomes your second nature – eventually becoming effortless. To get to that stage of effortlessness in any field, you have to go through a good deal of purposeful effort. The more mindful effort you put in, the quicker you will reach that stage of effortlessness, whether that’s in playing the flute or meditating or mastering any skill at all.
Please enjoy sitting quietly.
The only way to learn sitting quietly is to do it.
You will be amazed if you can just sit quietly; what a marvellous break it is for your mind. It’s like your mind going for a relaxing day at a spa. It needs a break too. We are constantly being fed so much information from the moment we get up to the moment we sleep. Even while sleeping, we dream, so when we wake up, most people don’t feel rested. This excessive thinking leads to a lack of energy, and then your whole day feels like a drag. While you might use caffeine, drinking tea, coffee or some such items to give you energy, that zest for life is still missing. This is because your mind is tired.
Sometimes when your body is tired, you can’t enjoy even the most basic of things. Similarly, when the mind is tired, it can’t enjoy life. Answers to some great questions are usually not found by doing something grand in your life or leaving for the Himalayas and meditating there. It’s mostly about sitting down and being quiet. That’s all it takes. If you do anything for about six weeks at a stretch without fail, it starts to become a habit, progressively becoming easier.
So the first principle is to sit quietly and regularly.
With regular practice, you will start to enjoy your quiet sessions. The more you enjoy them, the less you will feel the need to go out and mingle with people who will love you today but might hurt you tomorrow. It’s a pendulum, this world. One day you are feeling good, the next day you aren’t. One moment you are happy, the next you are full of sorrow.
To be more in control of yourself, of your thoughts and feelings, the only way to go is inward. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy life. It just means getting in touch with yourself. When you are silent and aware, calmness and wisdom dawn on you like the golden sunrise that brings in its wake light and a new day.
Care for Your Body
In my humble view, this principle is far more important than any other, and it’s commonly overlooked. I meet so many people who are unwell, especially in our culture, in India. Often, someone will come to me and say, for example, ‘I have this problem’, ‘My body is aching’, or ‘I am overweight’, or ‘I have high BP etc.’ Well, you have not taken care of your body. Anything you neglect will hurt you, and if you are unwell, no guru, swami, sadhu or god can do much. They can maybe give you a blessing. They can give you something spiritual or something psychological and that may even work,
but it can only work temporarily.
If you are overweight, for example, naturally, your joints, shoulders and back will hurt. If you are eating junk food and you haven’t been exercising, your body may take it until you are forty-five or fifty, but thereafter you are going to suffer from hypertension, diabetes and all kinds of disorders. Your chances of having a heart attack are much higher, too. If your arteries are clogged, there is nothing I can give you to open them up. You have to take care of your health.
Your body is your first point of contact to do anything in life. If you are not exercising and not eating and sleeping well, you are not taking care of your body.
If you spend one hour meditating and eat fried or unhealthy food during the day, for example, I would recommend meditating for only twenty minutes and exercising for forty minutes. Please remember that meditation or any spiritual activity is not a substitute for a proper diet, sleep and exercise. It’s more a supplement – it’s supposed to complement your life and not take it over.
Until you are forty-five or fifty, your body seems to tolerate anything. But after this age, all the fooling around you might have done over the years will begin to show itself. If you have abused your body and you fall sick, then it’s only natural. I don’t have to tell you, too, that if you are unwell, there is absolutely no joy in anything. And when you are unwell from within, there is little anybody can do to help you, beyond giving medication and the like. Spiritual blessings are meant for greater causes like somebody fighting a grave ailment, or grappling with some deep psychological issue.
You have a duty: care for your own body as you would for your society. If you are going to neglect your body, how would you do anything? How would you meditate? How would you walk? How would you enjoy? How would you live? As you know, I never give people routines or programmes. I may give someone a framework, but never a set of steps, such as ‘Do this, do that, and then you are good.’