Zen and Peace

Love, Peace and Happiness

Zen and peace, love, and happiness.  These are the terms of Eastern spirituality that seem to dominate social media.  Every day, online, I encounter sincere individuals, seeking some kind of spiritual wholeness to mitigate the stress and pressures they feel in living their lives.  Their questions, in various incarnations, always seems to ask; what’s the best way, or fastest way, or easiest way (what app should I use?), to meditate, so that I will be at peace.  I fear that Zen is becoming the twenty-teens fad dieting.  No fat, no wrinkles and no worries is the mantra of today’s social network universe.  I’m not concerned with personal physical goals here, but I feel people’s need for some sort of mental and emotional anesthetization is distorting the essence of Eastern traditions.  Gurus are the new personal trainers; everyone needs one if you expect to attain the much desired, serene persona.

It’s not that everyone on social media, in Zen based discussion groups, are focused on tranquility.  There are serious people engaged in the traditional topics of no-mind, consciousness, and awareness.  Being a relative newcomer to these social groups, I’m seeing genuine give and take discussions with meaningful references to sutras, and quotes from Zen patriarchs and Zen masters.  But these go on under the radar.  The main interest of the people in these groups is finding the means that allows them to escape from the day’s stress and strain.

Serenity Now

As they say in marketing,”Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle.”  The posts on these sites revolve around seeking serenity (now).  Just ignore the unpleasant, and embrace the pleasant.  The trend seems to suggest rejecting and distancing ones self from the things one finds disturbing, and instead focusing on the calming aspects of life.  Zen is looked at as a sort of noise canceling headphones for the mind.  Sunny days = good days, rainy days = bad days.  People want every day to be a sunny day; they post pictures of bright colorful flowers, puffy white clouds afloat in blue skies, cute little animals in forests with rays of light filtering through the trees.  The authentic tranquility of accepting Eastern traditions comes from accepting both the pluses and minuses as part of the totality of existence.  Zen and peace comes from seeing the sun and rain as weather and looking at each day as just a day.

“Under these circumstances, the life that we live is a contradiction and a conflict. Because consciousness must involve both pleasure and pain, to strive for pleasure to the exclusion of pain is, in effect, to strive for the loss of consciousness.”  — Alan Watts