The beautiful dilemmas of life

The other day in New York City I was talking with a friend of mine about possible reasons for such a strong need in humans for an ideology – a religion, a philosophy, a new-age system and alike. Why is there always a seemingly endless queue of happy customers for just about any possible type of ideology?

Then it dawned on me – since the purpose of ideologies is to help us make some sense of the world, they offer us a model of the world and provide us with answers. This way they seemingly take the dilemmas away, especially these existential dilemmas, the most annoying ones. You know, the big four existential dilemmas about freedom/responsibility, death, isolation and meaninglessness.

Yes, this is what an ideology does – if you go for one, you are suddenly provided with all the answers, about life, death, future, nature of things, nature of yourself… Everything is suddenly clear, you have gotten rid of the stressful and frightening dilemmas and you are fine. As long as you stick to these answers you are safe, you will not be disturbed, you will have the comforting feeling that you know what your life is all about. It’s like a drug, isn’t it? Creating an illusion that your existence has no unknown realms, everything has been explored, there’s nothing to be afraid of, everything is clear. Just don’t forget to give some donation on your way out of the temple. And make sure you don’t ever question the provided universal answers.

This may be the reason why I find it so hard to communicate with people who belong to religious or new-age ideologies – whenever I express a dilemma of mine (like, oh, I am really wandering about the purpose of what I am doing in my life, for instance) they instantaneously jump with an answer (yes, but but but you must, you have to, it is like this, it is like that…).

I guess it all has to do with the ability to face and live with the unknown. To face the fact that there are and will always be these existential dilemmas around in our lives and they will not be ultimately answered – until the moment of death at least. Because all the possible insights into the nature of our existence are inherently embedded in so many contexts that they cannot ever be reliable. Yes, letting go of the illusion of knowing and sinking back into the humble role of ignorant explorer can be frightening. But you get used to it and start using the sentence: “I don’t know” more often again. Perhaps this is what Suzuki meant when he said that the true goal of Zen practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind, since only the beginner’s mind, the mind of the not-knower is free of self-centeredness and involves true openness to the complexity of existence. Tomorrow I am leaving for a Zen seshin retreat and I will have plenty of time to climb another few rungs out of the illusion that I know anything at all, and explore the beginner’s mind.

What do you do with friends?

Something rather new is happening in my life and I am a bit confused, when I think of it. I used to move through my life with a handful of good friends around, about the same amount of them most of the time, not too many, not to few, just about right. And I am talking about friends as I have defined them in my Friendship on an island post. I would just add one additional attribute of a friend to the two in the mentioned post, and this would be a “soul mate” quality, an open flow of connectedness, or perhaps immediate recognition of that. A non-erotic variation of being in love, I would say.

Anyway, about a year or so ago this established number of friends in my life started to increase radically. Perhaps I opened up a bit more and started to see, respond, attract, resonate, connect… more than I did before, perhaps something else has changed, who knows, but what firstly started as a noticeable increase in the number of genuine connections, has slowly turned into a waterfall of true and good friends pouring in. I keep meeting new friends while travelling (the last one joined my collection just last week in Warshaw) or in my home town and there’s truly abundance of them nowadays. Plus there is, of course, this blogging tribe that is throwing all these beautiful people at me. I mean, Robin, Sanity, Razz, Jennifer, Hayden…, what else can I call you guys but friends.

And I am being the same sort of a rather introvert and anti-social guy as it has been the case in the last ten years or so.

Well, I hear you say, what is the problem? What is there to not know about that? You are getting loads of friends in your life; enjoy and quit complaining!

And you are so damn right.

But the thing is that I have noticed how my mind has been utterly spoiled by this action-oriented type of modern mentality. The urge to do something about it, to create something out of it, to move and to evolve it, is growing. You know, I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! It is true that I do not have any burning need for helping hands nowadays, nor do I enjoy just hanging around with people, talking nonsense in order for the time to pass. But, but, but, I cannot just sit here and have all these friends scattered around the globe, there must be something to do!

And there goes my mind: “Let’s organize something. Perhaps a gathering. Every month in a different city. Or let’s do a facilitated mind-blowing retreat together. Workshops. Re-unions. Perhaps just simple parties. Hm, maybe not just parties since they tend to turn meaningless, let’s do a facilitated thing. At least a karaoke night. Or, let’s do a Skype conference. Or perhaps I should just invite everybody here… Or, perhaps we can write a book together. Or…”

This mind of mine is really a funny creature: it wants to move and to change things. Even friendships. I mean, how eternally far away am I already from the scene we so often saw on our journey to the East in places like Eastern Turkey. Friends just sitting together.

Now, I do have some doubts whether their wives had the same appreciation of the ways their husbands used to enjoy the company of friends every day from mornings till sunsets, but let us stay focused here.

The thing is that it seems to me I need to re-learn to just be with people, not having to do anything. Even when I am all excited about them for them being so beautiful and for feeling such a fulfilling connection between us. It is OK just to be. When I think back of Zen seshins or dialogue processes and remember the beauty of the moments, when there is interconnectedness between everybody in the room, yet there is no need to do anything. Presence and silence are enough.

But still, it is kind of funny; at 42 learning how to just be with people. How to just be with friends, without having to do anything.

The body is weak. And the mind is even weaker.

My body has been degenerating rapidly for the last couple of years. Not enough rest, not enough exercise, too much junk food.

I like to play with the idea that I just HAVE to work all the time and so, what can I do, poor me, sacrificing my own body to provide for others. Than after a deep breath I come to my senses and realize that it is all within my power of choice; to re-arrange my schedule, re-focus my life, take care of my needs…

And than I make the fatal decision, a statement that always begins with the word TOMORROW… Well, you know the rest of the story, don’t you?

Now, the ultimate blow for my dear ego is when I realize that I would actually be able to carry out most of my plans about how to put my body back in a healthy shape, if I had somebody bossing me into it. A trainer. A coach. A boss. A sergeant. A merciless master.

And I can witness this principle twice a week, when I go for my swimming training with my sadistic coach: this guy always manages to squeeze about six times as much out of me as I am able to do when swimming on my own. I always plan to kill him during the training hour but than feel very grateful and all of that when the thing is over.

So perhaps it is not that my body has been degenerating, but rather my mind. Hm, please do not tell anybody that I am a psychologist, a coach and all of that.

I am leaving now for another Zen seshin. Yet another chance to work on my relationship with my mind. Hm.

OK, OK, I admit, this is not me. But but but, I swim ALMOST like him, really, believe me…