never so glad to be disappointed

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An email to the practice leader of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Zen Sangha :

Josh,

You wanted me to write you a summary of comments that I made after a recent dharma talk. Instead, I will take some time to expand on them.

I turned to Zen in some desperation and despair. I was hoping that with rigorous practice I could escape from my painful emotions, and from a general sense of malaise. Under your supervision, these hopes have been dashed. I felt disillusioned and disappointed to learn that Zen was not promising a magic bullet to end the unsavoriness of my life's cares. I was even more disappointed to learn that Zen was actually inviting me to embrace these aspects of my life, that rather than driving out my demons, it was laying a place for them and cooking for them in the home of my heart. But this disappointment was no news to you. You commented wrily that the reason why the Buddha is so often depicted laughing is because of the success of his mischievous "bait and switch" tactics. And then I too had to laugh.

It does seem that Zen's exalted promise of enlightenment evaporates into merely an encounter with what is. Not getting anywhere, not even moving from where one is -- what kind of enlightenment is that? Brought up in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, I am used to long marches in the wilderness, surviving on the hope that someday I will arrive upon some promised land, or that the kingdom of God will land on earth with all of the surprise and strangeness of a martian spacecraft. But this! Not getting anywhere, not even moving from where one is? It was very disappointing.

Yet I have never been so glad to be disappointed in my life. Learning to embrace the unsatisfactory elements of my experience, watching the light of awareness melt the fixed wax of my fantastic desire for happiness, I now see that the last thing I needed was something that would keep my hopes up, something that would spur me on to another manic crusade. Zen is good medicine, strong medicine, the medicine of disappointment. It disappoints, gradually, but the warmth of its kindness also dries the tears of our discontent. What we have in place of our phantom hopes, our castles in the clouds, is real and enduring, a true, close, tender encounter with all that it means to be human. Safe and contained within the great stillness, we can laugh and cry more freely, more abundantly, with greater abandon. Finally, we can save ourselves from the distracting effort to make our selves or the world something other than what they are. For this relief, much thanks, and may we all be disappointed into deeper and deeper peace.

Sincerely,
Kevin