Being Perfectly Human

Because if you where that you wouldn’t be human, just as I pointed out that a person with no emotions, who has completely controlled his emotions is a ‘stone Buddha’. So a person who would be completely ‘let go’, would also be some kind of inanimate object.

So Zen very definitely emphasis being human, being perfectly human as its ideal.

And so to be perfectly human one must have not a state of absolute detachment, but a state of detachment which contains a little bit of resistance, a certain clinging still. They say in India…of a man who is liberated in this world, that he has to cultivate a few mild bad habits in order to stay in the body, because if he was absolutely perfect he would disappear from manifestation.

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

And so the great Yogi maybe he smokes a cigarette or has a bad temper occasionally, something that keeps him human, and that little thing is very important, its like the salt in the stew, it grounds him.

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.