For the past two years I’ve been enjoying my retirement. I don’t rush, I find joy observing miracles of nature as well as beauty of passing women, eating well and watching quality TV – mostly documentaries about nature. Most of all, keeping my mind free of clutter of everyday life. I still have a couple of unresolved things, though I’m able to wait until they happen – I’m in no hurry to push. I’ve written a few blog articles which will be published later on by my students and it is for them that I care to explain and clarify a few little nuanses of difference and detail to help them kick start their own (lightbulb moment) understanding. However I feel, that for others I’m becoming less and less intelligible. But for my purpose, it is important that I continue provocatively rambling on, and I do it from a sheer compassion (I know that they will understand it later..) to them and to those on their Journeys.
So I keep rambling on, finding new words to say what I need to say because I care about those who haven’t yet mastered the way to reach their happiness. I know how little would be enough for them to understand the mistakes they keep repeating and how much they are ruled by their own egos and hormonal imbalances, because they are too lazy to admit they’re wrong, let alone start making changes. It would be so beneficial to them to start making changes to better themselves and let their own ego to learn to lose a battle. Finally it must be clearer even to those who don’t read my blog (as I found in a newspaper article): for an optimum development of anyone’s personality, it is crucial to learn to lose. It is even more important than learn to win.
Similarly as when a master carpenter tells his apprentice (who made wonky table legs) – no, it’s not like this. Do it again please until it is perfect. And like a kind teacher who understands resentment of her student since she gave him low mark again, but she cares about him so much that she keeps pushing him to learn to add up, deduct and multiply because it will be a very important skill all throughout his life. She is strict with him because she cares. And I have been strict and made it known that I was unhappy with my bandmates who got drunk to get rid of their anxiety before the concert, that they messed it all up. And I am persistent and compassionate when I keep encouraging the right questions, encouraging to learn to meditate (to de-clutter your mind), most importantly positive thinking (because it so matters), and keep learning throughout the whole life.
I am convinced with absolute certainty that my method is both correct and purposeful. Though one thing I am guilty of is bustling. I haven’t been patient enough and I kept pushing. That is why all my bands fell appart, so I played mostly alone. When I started self publishing and printing magazines after the velvet revolution, no one could keep up with my tempo. Then my second wife, despite enjoying eleven blissful years with me started pulling away and after 3 years of silent treatment and sulking she finally divorced me – I admit I was too pushy in my ways, though I meant well. In the 80’s I set up several zen seshin events and managed to push a few individuals to attain kensho (a deeper insight or understanding – comparable to a small satori, elightenment), however they were not ready. Even though they took off in a good direction (and one of them went to spent time with his zen master in Korea and became a buddhist monk), nothing much happened out of it.
And so, or despite the fact that I’ve written and said everything I wanted many times, nobody listened. People today can’t read – I mean, they read but don’t understand or they read just so that they can criticize) and so I feel that what is important needs to be repeated again. The masters of repetitions (and achieving perfection) were Chinese and Japanese caligraphy writers. One of them, named Hokusai, in his eithties famously said: now (after a life long practice and repetition) I can draw the bamboo leaf in its true sense.
If my student resists and leaves rather than hearing what he has done wrong again (because he wasn’t attentive a week ago and missed what was important), I feel love and compassion for him and I don’t say anything (though may write something that only he would understand if he ever brought himself to read my work again) and what will help him on his Journey and understanding. And if another fails me time and time again I will send him away so that he can learn in his own way. I’m not worried about him though, because the seeds of curiosity, understanding and the right direction have been sowed. Today I meet people who tell me how they recognize my students by the smallest things – for example by how straight they sit and walk (because it matters… straight back helps straight thoughts). I receive emails from women who slandered me years ago and who understood that the mistakes they made were all theirs… and they apologize for their hateful emails from the time when I provoked them with my direct approach and unorthodox opinions.
I have learned to be happy in my life. I don’t take so seriously a handful of hateful trolls – beginners and keep on explaining and provoking thoughts of those who are more advanced. I will use the opportunity to mention one of my favourite koans: two buddhist monks were arguing who should keep a kitten they found playing in the garden. The wise Nansen was compassionate enough to break one of the most sacred buddhist vows (of not killing) and to teach them their lesson he proclaimed that he will kill the kitten unless somebody says the right (zen) word. Because nobody could say find the right zen word, he cut the kitten in half. The end of the koan is…later that evening, another monk was asked to help them find the right zen word. He took a shoe off his foot, put it on his head and walked away. Nansen saw this and said – if you were here earlier, the kitten would have lived.
PS: And here it is – the right thing at the right time! As usual I write several articles at the same time and then finishing up and changing here and there as needed, waiting for the right thing to present itself, and today I found this picture. It doesn’t matter whether it is meant as a provocation or a joke – as in Britain they say to discourage somebody of doing something shady or wrong: everytime you do it, God kills a kitten! – so, if you were British, who would you vote for? And I hope that us Czechs, will perhaps after another fourty years be able to get a sense of insight and zen-like humour as Nansen and the British…
