On Killing the Buddha

On killing the Bud­dha — This means ‘being with’ myself as I am, with­out judge­ment. I am how I am. And as I go there, I real­ize that, if I do not cling to the idea that I will be this way ‘for­ev­er,’ how I am shifts as time goes by. If I do not invest in my ‘tale of woe,’ I pass through it — until the next time.

Those of you that have read my e‑book, The Watch­er, will know that, from my 20s through my 50s, I had a pro­cliv­i­ty toward depres­sion. Even at my best, I’m sel­dom a buck­et of yuks. 

I am now con­tent for great por­tions of my life, and includ­ed in that con­tent­ment is an under­tone of sad­ness and even despair (… Trump does­n’t help.) What I have learned — since the time I described in The Watch­er — is to accept this under­tone as one way in which I choose to frame my reality.

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The Myth of Happily Ever After

Some might sug­gest that the real goal of life is to live hap­pi­ly ever after. I describe that as “hav­ing the car­toon ver­sion of the blue­bird of hap­pi­ness flit­ting around your head.”

It’s Uncle Remus skip­ping along, singing “Zip­pi­ty Do Dah.”

I, on the oth­er hand, insist that the goal of life is to live it. All of it.

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On Killing the Buddha

Back in the 70s, Shel­don Kopp wrote a famous book based upon a Zen teach­ing, called, “If You Meet the Bud­dha on the Road, Kill Him!” It’s a book about psy­chother­a­py, and about life. 

The Buddha isn’t out there

The idea behind the Zen sto­ry is this: noth­ing out­side of you brings a moment of enlight­en­ment. Noth­ing out­side of your­self brings res­cue (those of you wait­ing for Mr. or Ms. “Right,” give it up!) And if some­thing seems like the answer, then it’s time to drop it in its tracks. 

No reli­gion is going to save you. No politi­cian or par­ty is going to make it “all bet­ter.” (You’ve noticed that, right?) No lob­by­ing orga­ni­za­tion is going to change the world for the better. 

You and your life will always be just what it is.

The Buddha is also not hiding inside of you.

There is an inter­nal aspect, as you might sus­pect, to the Bud­dha on the Road thing. You also have to kill the Bud­dha inside of you.

Often, as we begin in-depth self-explo­ration, we shift from look­ing out­side for answers and res­cue to think­ing we will save our­selves. In oth­er words, that maybe ‘out there’ is screwed up, but ‘in here,’ boy do I know everything! 

My dad used to do one-lin­ers. One of his favourites went,

“Everyone is crazy except me and thee, and sometime I worry about thee.”

Here’s a flash. Your answers are not right or true. They are sim­ply the sto­ry you are telling your­self. If you believe you are enlight­ened, kill the Buddha.

So, what does this have to do with my original, ‘depression’ illustration?

• Well, an exter­nal ‘cure’ for my mood was impos­si­ble. I could have gone to my doc­tor and got some Prozac, but that would have changed noth­ing. (My usu­al Prozac descrip­tion is “Your world still sucks, and you don’t care.”)
• I could have looked for some­one out­side of me (Hi, Dar­bel­la!!!) to ‘make’ me hap­py, and cheer me up, but that would mean she’d have been caught in that role. For­tu­nate­ly, she’s smart enough to laugh and tell me to get over myself.
• I could have gone inside and bemoaned my fate, my life, my lack of… what­ev­er. I could have screamed, “It’s not fair!” I could have gone inside and repeat­ed sil­ly affir­ma­tions, tried to make myself change how I felt.

Instead, I Killed (and continue to kill) the Buddha

This means con­tin­u­al­ly ‘being with’ myself as I am, with­out judge­ment. I am how I am. And as I go there, I real­ize that, if I do not cling to the idea that I will be this way ‘for­ev­er,’ how I am shifts as time goes by. 

If I do not invest in my ‘tale of woe,’ I pass through it… until the next time. 

I am not a moody, or depressed, or sad, or hap­py, or any oth­er kind of per­son. I am just who I am right now, and part of that is this:

I tell myself stories about myself, the world, and others. As do we all. Every time I attach to a story, and give it validity, I create a false self (the internal, false Buddha) that needs to die. 

Because every­thing shifts, changes and dies.

Take some time to notice how tena­cious­ly you cling to the cer­tain­ty of the sto­ries you tell your­self. See how ridicu­lous all of it is. 

If you see your­self as a vic­tim (of anoth­er per­son or of your ‘genet­ics,’) what changes? How does this help? Is it even true, in this moment? 

Rather, kill your belief in the cer­tain­ty of your sto­ries, and accept the ‘whole cat­a­stro­phe.” After all, stomp­ing your lit­tle feet­sies and say­ing “No!” does­n’t change anything.

What changes things is walking your path, celebrating your self, your learnings, and your life, without attaching to or believing one bit of it.

Here’s some more Shel­don Kopp stuff; his “escha­to­log­i­cal laun­dry list.” He wrote these for a mag­a­zine arti­cle, and they were lat­er pub­lished as a book with pho­tos. It’s out of print, but Ama­zon can find you a used copy. It’s full name is No Hid­den Mean­ings: An Illus­trat­ed Escha­to­log­i­cal Laun­dry List

1. This is it!
2. There are no hid­den mean­ings.
3. You can’t get there from here, and besides there’s no place else to go.
4. We are all already dying, and we will be dead for a long time.
5. Noth­ing lasts.
6. There is no way of get­ting all you want.
7. You can’t have any­thing unless you let go of it.
8. You only get to keep what you give away.
9. There is no par­tic­u­lar rea­son why you lost out on some things.
10. The world is not nec­es­sar­i­ly just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no com­pen­sa­tion for mis­for­tune.
11. You have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to do your best nonethe­less.
12. It is a ran­dom uni­verse to which we bring mean­ing.
13. You don’t real­ly con­trol any­thing.
14. You can’t make any­one love you.
15. No one is any stronger or any weak­er than any­one else.
16. Every­one is, in his own way, vul­ner­a­ble.
17. There are no great men.
18. If you have a hero, look again: you have dimin­ished your­self in some way.
19. Every­one lies, cheats, pre­tends (yes, you too, and most cer­tain­ly I myself).
20. All evil is poten­tial vital­i­ty in need of trans­for­ma­tion.
21. All of you is worth some­thing, if you will only own it.
22. Progress is an illu­sion.
23. Evil can be dis­placed but nev­er erad­i­cat­ed, as all solu­tions breed new prob­lems.
24. Yet it is nec­es­sary to keep on strug­gling toward solu­tion.
25. Child­hood is a night­mare.
26. But it is so very hard to be an on-your-own, take-care-of-your­self-cause-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up.
27. Each of us is ulti­mate­ly alone.
28. The most impor­tant things, each man must do for him­self.
29. Love is not enough, but it sure helps.
30. We have only our­selves, and one anoth­er. That may not be much, but that’s all there is.
31. How strange, that so often, it all seems worth it.
32. We must live with­in the ambi­gu­i­ty of par­tial free­dom, par­tial pow­er, and par­tial knowl­edge.
33. All impor­tant deci­sions must be made on the basis of insuf­fi­cient data.
34. Yet we are respon­si­ble for every­thing we do.
35. No excus­es will be accept­ed.
36. You can run, but you can’t hide.
37. It is most impor­tant to run out of scape­goats.
38. We must learn the pow­er of liv­ing with our help­less­ness.
39. The only vic­to­ry lies in sur­ren­der to one­self.
40. All of the sig­nif­i­cant bat­tles are waged with­in the self.
41. You are free to do what­ev­er you like. You need only to face the con­se­quences.
42. What do you know … for sure … any­way?
43. Learn to for­give your­self, again and again and again and again…

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