I discovered Zen Buddhism when I was 14 and began practising it actively when I was 16. Best decision I ever made - practising Zen has defined my values and priorities in life moreso than any person or any teaching could. Not as a conviction from anything I've learned but values that I have discovered for myself through the practise of everyday awareness and introspection. Those are values that mean that things like career, etc. seem like rather secondary aims to me. I even consider monastic life a viable option simply because it affords the opportunity to devote oneself fully to this path of mindfulness.
For me, the primary aim of life is devoting to developing one single skill: The art of attending to the present moment. For me, this is tied mainly to beholding one's own mind. Making the effort to be aware of what arises in one's mind throughout the day. I've found the benefits this practise manifold. When mindful, space of mind opens up around what arises that allows you to see behold your thoughts and emotions as they arise, giving me a more detached perspective on my own emotional confusion. I find I don't get so caught up in my own drama as I do in periods when I am not particularly mindful. Proportionate to the amount of mindfulness, I also find that this mindfulness has the quality of peacefulness, a peacefulness that even allows for my emotional vexing to arise without disturbing it.
What it means is that I have, and continue to work towards, a source of happiness independent of what I am doing, whatever moods I am in, etc. I see people all around me define their happiness in terms of their possessions, their activities, their thoughts of themselves. And I define happiness in terms of the backdrop against all this: my awareness of them. Where I see people making their ideal painting through magnificent colours and elegant drawing, I make mine through strengthening the canvas all of this is painted upon.
It's not that I don't have all these same priorities as other people. I do, and I do get caught up in them. For me this path is about uprooting these deepseated habits and simply coming back to being aware of them as they arise. It's not easy, most of the day I fail at it, but even just a short time of it everyday makes a difference to my happiness and peace of mind.
It is for the same reason I cannot agree with a lot of the tenets of the DJ philosophy. I could never make something like the pursuit of women the centre of my life, just like I would never make a career, or fittness training or whatever, the cntre of my life - that is reserved for attending to the present moment. I could never invest my primary source of happiness in anything outside myself like that. I found sosuave because something like women is a fascination I don't see ending anytime soon (from what I have seen from people more experienced on this path, it seems to me that it is possible), at least not within the next 20-30 years anyway, and figure if I am gonna invest any interest in it, then I am best served to learn how to do it properly. I call this path Zen because I identify a lot with the discoveries the old Zen masters made about this path of awareness and I have found that taking hints from them have benefitted me, but really I am not talking about Zen, Buddhism, religion or whatever. I am simply talking about happiness and what paths we find towards that. I'd be interested to hear what thoughts some of you have made about that (I have made many and am happy to clarify why I find other paths unsatisfactory).
rgds
B9
