A Tale

Shunryu Suzuki, founder of the San Francisco Zen Center in 1960, was asked the essence of Zen. “Two words,” he said. “Not always so.”*

The Tale Wagged

Every time I think of that, it just cracks me up. He knew it was three words in English. So why did he say that? He wasn’t flippant ‑ he respected the questioner ‑ but his understanding of truth included fun, the imperfect. He was not attached to the kind of perfect, enduring, bulletproof stability most of us grew up expecting from “truth.” Suzuki took his mental activity less seriously than I take mine; he had The Twinkle.

If you want to learn about this kind of play, don’t examine most sports. Sports have become anything but play: in play, we’re not attached to the outcome. Yet we can still do it to the best of our ability. Why? Because it’s fun to do well in our own eyes (play) when we don’t have to please some kind of Judge (work). It's even fun to do something that’s difficult because stretching feels so good. But it isn’t fun to have to do something difficult with The Outer (or Inner) Judge sternly criticizing every move.

I know some folks who work very hard, but they enjoy letting their mistakes show. No one would ever call them "slackers", but they seem to accept “truth” as a process, changing, playful, and imperfect. They are clearly not intimidated by the Judge. They seem to feel their inner monitor is more like a Coach.

*The only book I've ever read more than twice is Suzuki's biography, Crooked Cucumber, by David Chadwick. If you harbor any curiosity about Zen, this is the way into the heart of it; the philosophical stuff and techniques for practicing can come later if you're interested. It's a great read, too: it conveys much about East meeting West, about San Francisco in the '60's — and it's funny.

Yeah, but how do we put it into practice?

Echoes

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Rumi

Steve Martin, in the film, Roxanne, plays his way into truth (and helps others see truth, too).

Truth (big capital letter ‑ your Religion or Behavioral Model or Politics) seems to require bulletproof perfection, every brick cemented into its inarguable place. Play, on the other hand, is fun, imperfect, changeable, loose; the child laughs when a grown‑up’s tower of wooden blocks topples. But for the Big Stuff I have to Get It Right, and Getting It Right, can't really be fun . . . . right?