“You must neither strive for truth nor seek to lose your illusions.”
The Shodoka
So this is telling me to do the opposite of what I feel like I’m always trying to do. I’m always trying to find truth and strip myself of the illusions that plague my mind.
Don’t!?
But why not?
I don’t know if it’s the beautiful naivete of a child that the Shodoka wants me to retain (or retrieve) so much as to understand that what we think is truth and what we think we’re striving for (that truth) when we attempt to leave our illusions by the wayside is is not actually so. Perhaps by identifying an end as truth we detract from its ability to be so.
Alternatively, the truth may just not be the goal. Freeing our minds from absolutes like truth or the existence of truth is the goal. Though I don’t think that Buddhism or Zen is meant to be so relativistic, I do think that my simplistic analysis of this quote turns it into relativism.
What are your thoughts on this quote and matter?
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Filed under: Zen Talk Tagged: | Buddha, Buddhism, illusions, relativism, Shodoka, truth, Zen, Zen Talk
