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Thread: Peace and Quiet

  1. #1

    Peace and Quiet

    Hello,

    Two young boys raised in the same village were the best of friends for years. When they were older both left their village and went their separate ways in search of the meaning of life. Many, many years later both headed back to their village from different directions. One was now a Zen Master and the other a highly respected Yogi. They met up and came face to face with each other. The Yogi placed his hands together and gave the traditional greeting of "Namaste". (The Divine in me salutes the Divine in you.). The Zen Master said nothing, he simply bowed his head. After a few seconds, they parted and went their separate ways once more. The Zen Master thought, "That guy still talks too much."

    (I hope this is not too badly paraphrased from a story that I remember from years ago).

    It came to me as I was doing my daily stuff a couple of days ago and I was thinking that it kind of sums up how I'm feeling lately. It's become somewhat of a chore to have an everyday conversation lately. Never thought I'd say that! I'm fed up with the sound of my own voice and the meaningless clutter of everyone else's. I don't really have too much to say to anyone about anything. I'm not depressed, I know those signs very well. This is simply a longing to be quiet. I think that is why I enjoyed the silent retreats that I attended. All pressure was off.

    Has anyone else experience this? Any comments? Anything?!

    Many blessings,
    lora

  2. #2

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Lora,
    Yes, I have experienced this! It is not permanent. I go through times where I step back and become introspective, and have bursts of moments where I just want to reach out and touch somebody. I think this is perfectly normal.

    Gassho,
    Jordan

  3. #3

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    I had to chuckle at this, with the SO close relating I feel to it! Years ago in college I would spend occasional days just wandering from class to class, and around town, in total silence, just because it felt good. Even to the point of taking Amer Sign Lang for a year, so that I'd have a quiet class! I'm an only child (and even an only grandchild). My husband is also an only child. When we first got married, on the days that he worked that I had off, I'd get up at 5 to make his breakfast, etc, and see him off (still do that after many years). On the days that *I worked and he had off*--he tried doing the same thing to reciprocate. Finally, I just told him that I didn't want him up that first hour, and that I need at least the first hour of the day in silence, by myself. Now that we carpool to work together, I still get up a little before him just to have that silent transition time. It's funny now, when I have to talk often through the day at work, my voice just feels tired, and I'm 'out of words' for the day. I learned years back that men & women each have a daily quota for the day...but that's probably a different thread. Gassho deep, Ann

  4. #4
    Treeleaf Unsui Shugen's Avatar
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    Nov 2007
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    Re: Peace and Quiet

    I now exactly how you feel! I lived alone for a long time and would go for days without talking to anyone. Now, I have kids and dogs and employees. My wife thinks the only reason I sit is for the peace and quiet I get.

    There are days I miss it and days I don't.

    Ron

  5. #5

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Hi,

    Thanks Ann and Jordan. Your replies are deeply appreciated.

    This has been going on for me for about 5 years now. It started, or at least when I first noticed, at a retreat (not a silent one) when by the end of the weekend I left everyone sitting in the meeting hall and went outside by myself. I felt like every nerve that I had in my body was jarred. Nothing untoward happened to precipitate this. I spoke with one monk who was there and said it was O.K., nothing to be concerned about and briefly mentioned continuing with my practice (it was Tibetan Buddhism at the time) and reading Shantideva's "Way of the Bodhisattva".

    Anyway, I did and did and nothing much has changed except that when I attended the silent retreats (not alone and three of them over a period of about one year), the feeling deepened.

    Anyway, part of the reason that I joined this sangha was because I felt a need to belong to a sangha of some sort and I liked what I read from others here. I also thought it might be a step to getting back to "normal", whatever the hell that is!

    I'm rambling now, I don't really know how to express what I'm feeling. Thanks again for the input,

    Many blessings,
    lora

  6. #6

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Thank you, Ron!

    Many blessings,
    lora

  7. #7

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    I can relate...my wife left for a conference on Sunday and won't be back until tomorrow, so I've had only a 3 year old as a conversation partner and very little time for sitting!

    Seriously though I do know what you mean. It's hard to find people who will just pick up where you left off if one needs to get away, even if it's just being quiet for awhile.

    Hopefully we provide some of that for you and if so that's a grand thing.

    Gassho,
    Scott

  8. #8

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Hi Lora. The main thing I guess, is that you keep practicing Zazen.

    When someone speaks, it can be music. What is really getting annoyed?

    Think of all those yelling and preaching voices as a symphony to enjoy.

    Nothing wrong with quiet, to an extent it helps us see the beauty of the chatter and noise.

    All kinds of sounds are everywhere. Echos, squeeks, grainy, grinding voices, and so on.


    Have a good day

    Gassho Will

  9. #9

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Hi,

    Thanks everyone. It occured to me that I'm making too many judgements, putting opinions on things, making them solid. We manifest exactly what we give our attention to. I shall view others voices and my own as a symphony and not a cacophony! I will accept what is off the cushion as well as on it.

    Many blessings,
    lora

  10. #10

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Will's wisdom notwithstanding, which I certainly can't disagree with, but as a practical matter some peace and quiet time can be very healthy and beneficial. As I get older I find I need more of it, or maybe I just appreciate it more. As a young adult I had to have noise and people around and quiet time was something to be tolerated, but now going on 50 I am just the opposite.

    Also as a practical matter, quiet is better for zazen. My neighbors' TV is always playing in the morning when I do my zazen. It's not blaring, usually, but Good Morning America is loud enough to come through the walls and leak into my head. I know I am to be One with the noise, but my practice has just not evolved yet to place where I can do that at all consistently. I am somewhat torn between learning how to deal with it better, be with it, or just moving my practice place farther away where it will be quiter.

  11. #11

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Hi everyone,
    this is definitely something I'm experiencing at th emoment, and something that has been building in me for some time as I look back on it. I've even gone as far as moving out of London as I just stopped being able to deal with people everywhere and the noise.

    I agree that you can see all the noise and siatractions as a symphony of life. That an aversion to it is just a form of judgement that our monkey mind is making. I've tried to tell myself as I've struggled with feelings of claustrophobia etc that the noises are simply signals from the world to my brain and that beautiful things such as music produce the same signals as someone shouting aggressively or traffic etc.

    I would say though that I think its maybe a bit too simple to say dealing with this is about letting go of your judgement. I think its similar to the idea that when we sit we are trying to attain a perspecitive of non-attaining. We sit with some kind of intention relating to a goal, whether the goal is enlightenment or being a good zen student or whatever. But in sitting we try to let go of that intention and striving. Its a contradiction.

    So for me I know that the things I was seeing as being negative aspects of living in London were matters of my mind making judgements and that in an ideal zen world my mind would not make those judgements.

    But on another level there were aspects of those negative qualities which were on a very real level damaging to me psychologically, emotionally, even physically when you consider the pollution etc. I ended up seeing it as a matter of self-preservation to get out of there.

    And I truly believe that my zen practice actually helped me realise in myself how damaging I was finding living in London.

    To me part of zen practice is about accepting things as they are, but I think that also includes that our monkey brains have preferences and limits to what they can accept. Its the same idea that even when we have chattering thoughts, these chattering thoughts are manifestations of our monkey mind, and our monkey mind and true mind are not separate, but the same.

    A distinct self may not exist, but we still have basic needs for comfort and health which our environment plays a significant role in. I don't think its goes against zen practice to consider that.

  12. #12

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Quote Originally Posted by AlanLa
    Will's wisdom notwithstanding, which I certainly can't disagree with, but as a practical matter some peace and quiet time can be very healthy and beneficial. As I get older I find I need more of it, or maybe I just appreciate it more. As a young adult I had to have noise and people around and quiet time was something to be tolerated, but now going on 50 I am just the opposite.

    Also as a practical matter, quiet is better for zazen. My neighbors' TV is always playing in the morning when I do my zazen. It's not blaring, usually, but Good Morning America is loud enough to come through the walls and leak into my head. I know I am to be One with the noise, but my practice has just not evolved yet to place where I can do that at all consistently. I am somewhat torn between learning how to deal with it better, be with it, or just moving my practice place farther away where it will be quiter.
    I have tried to practice zazen while drum and base music blares at top volume from a room above me in an old house. Does practice ever evolve to a place where you can be one with very loud drum and base? hmmmm

  13. #13

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Hi guys. I also stated there's nothing wrong with a little quiet. Especially in the beginning of practice. However, when is anything really quiet?

    Perhaps we might live in a noisy place and say "Well I can't practice here." so we move to a more quiet local. Eventually we notice the buzzing, and creeking of the bugs outside or perhaps there is a cow that just won't shut up. So we sound proof our house. Then we hear the blood pumping in our veins. At that point we pretty much go crazy.

    I have tried to practice zazen while drum and base music blares at top volume from a room above me in an old house. Does practice ever evolve to a place where you can be one with very loud drum and base? hmmmm
    I live in a building filled with loud, drinking college students who sometimes blast Drum and Base all day.

    It's not a matter of seeing the noise really any specific way ie. symphony. It's just opening to it without judgement or reaction. Eventually we forget that it is noise.

    Take the water drop in the sink for example.

    It's just ego's (or self image's) ability to complain, judge, or try to solidify itself.

    Gassho

  14. #14

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Quote Originally Posted by lora

    It's become somewhat of a chore to have an everyday conversation lately. Never thought I'd say that! I'm fed up with the sound of my own voice and the meaningless clutter of everyone else's. I don't really have too much to say to anyone about anything. I'm not depressed, I know those signs very well. This is simply a longing to be quiet.
    Hi Lora,

    An important part of our Practice is our becoming less dependent on words and thoughts, the constant chatter in our heads morning to night (I sure am less "hooked" on words, compared to 20 years ago).

    So, so long as your silence is not part of depression or the like, it sounds fine. However, here is a rule of thumb you can use to tell if this (or --any-- aspect of our Zen practice really) is on a sound path ...

    Ask: looking long term (not just on any one particular day or for a short time, because we all have days or even weeks when we feel "off" or "depressed" or discouraged or like we "got up on the wrong side of the bed"), does it feel to you "balanced"? Does it feel "right" and healthy? If it feels to you balanced, right, healthy and natural ... it probably is!


    For example, if it feels to you inside like it is somehow "wrong" or uncomfortable when you have to leave a room of people, or if you feel like you are psychologically compelled to do this (for example, that you break out in an agoraphobic sweat if you are around people), or if it feels "off balance" or anything less than natural and "right" ... Then you may just be running from something, instead of simply abiding in silence. The same if it is seriously having harmful effects on your life, family or work. That is a good rule of thumb for what is not "good" practice.

    Our way is a way of balance and moderation. There are times we push ourselves to extremes (for example, I once did a self-enforced 30 day "vow of silence". For the most part, I was extremely faithful in doing it). But, for our day to day lives, we return to moderation.

    In that state, when we speak we speak, when we are quite we are just quiet. While we find ourselves less dependent on words and thoughts than when we first started Zen Practice, there are still times to express ourselves, laugh, talk and babble. In that state, we do not run away or toward one or the other. There is a time for all.

    Which leads to our next topic ...

    Quote Originally Posted by AlanLa
    Also as a practical matter, quiet is better for zazen. My neighbors' TV is always playing in the morning when I do my zazen. ... but my practice has just not evolved yet to place where I can do that at all consistently. I am somewhat torn between learning how to deal with it better, be with it, or just moving my practice place farther away where it will be quiter.
    Yes, generally, it is better to sit Zazen in a quiet room, with soft lighting and atmosphere, not too hot or too cold. Calm and quiet surroundings facilitate calm and quite in our Practice. (If you really can't find such a quiet place, just sit with "whatever is". That is your Genjo Koan. It is as Will describes, and we always practice with whatever is ... which is rarely if ever truly quiet and "ideal").

    However, I also recommend to folks that, at least once or twice every couple of weeks, they take their Zazen on the road to some really unpleasant, noisy, smelly (I am planning one at the garbage dump) or otherwise "disturbing" place. The reason is simply that, if this practice is only for when we are in a quiet setting, it misses the point. It is for, precisely, when we are "in the world". Thus, not all the time, but every few weeks, we sit Zazen like this ...

    http://treeleafzen.blogspot.com/2007/06 ... xxvii.html

    and

    >http://treeleafzen.blogspot.com/2008/05 ... ntown.html

    I also recommend daily "insta-Zazen" ...

    I would also like to encourage everybody to try Jundo's Patented "Insta-Sittings" © throughout each day. You don't even have to "sit" for these "sittings", but can sit while standing, lying down, jumping on the bed or hanging by one's feet. "Insta-Sittings" © can be of any length, starting from but a moment until infinite time (which may be the same!). We "Insta-Sit" © at times in our day when just a bit of "Zen Mind"© will change our perspective on all things, when a touch of balance will bring life into balance ...

    Just standing in a creeping postal line, in the dentist's chair, when the car won't start on a cold morning, when driving and stuck in traffic, when the computer crashes, wherever and whenever ... just do what you do in Zazen, with the Lotus Position fully optional (it tends to get in the way while driving or having a root canal, although it might work in the postal line if you keep pushing along.).

    This is actually not such a radical departure from "traditional" practice. Life in a Zen monastery, for example, is filled with countless opportunities to bring the "Way of Non-Seeking" tasted on the cushion into daily activities ... what's the difference between the "Dokusan" line and the postal line? Even monks need the dentist. If dropping the incense during the big ceremony at the temple, or dropping the water glass at dinner, just pick it up! Each place is a place for Practice. In fact, if what we do on the cushion stays on the cushion, what's the point??

    So, please try Jundo's Patented "Insta-Sittings" © throughout your day. In fact, for a limited time only, three (3) "Insta-Sittings" © can subsitute for one (1) traditional sitting (if sitting 2 or more traditional sittings each day).
    Gassho, Jundo (who cannot manage a posting in less than 2000 words!) ops:

  15. #15

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Quote Originally Posted by Godzilla

    I would say though that I think its maybe a bit too simple to say dealing with this is about letting go of your judgement. I think its similar to the idea that when we sit we are trying to attain a perspecitive of non-attaining. We sit with some kind of intention relating to a goal, whether the goal is enlightenment or being a good zen student or whatever. But in sitting we try to let go of that intention and striving. Its a contradiction.

    So for me I know that the things I was seeing as being negative aspects of living in London were matters of my mind making judgements and that in an ideal zen world my mind would not make those judgements.

    But on another level there were aspects of those negative qualities which were on a very real level damaging to me psychologically, emotionally, even physically when you consider the pollution etc. I ended up seeing it as a matter of self-preservation to get out of there.

    And I truly believe that my zen practice actually helped me realise in myself how damaging I was finding living in London.

    To me part of zen practice is about accepting things as they are, but I think that also includes that our monkey brains have preferences and limits to what they can accept. Its the same idea that even when we have chattering thoughts, these chattering thoughts are manifestations of our monkey mind, and our monkey mind and true mind are not separate, but the same.
    I believe this is well said. We practice without goals, to the marrow, not trying to change a thing. We embrace all situations "just as they are" without judgment of good or bad.

    Yet we also must constantly make choices during life. The two ways of being (no choice/choice) are not in conflict, and exist as one.

    So, yes, when you choose to live in London, just live in London. And when you choose to move to another place, just be in that new place. And when you want to move to another place, but you must live in London ... just live in London!

    The one word of caution, whether about changing towns (or changing wives/husbands for the matter! :? ): Don't do what modern people do, namely, just run run run from one thing to another, always believing that happiness is "over the next hill", that the grass is greener over the fence. People have lost the ability to be content where they are. So, if you make the decision to leave London for a more healthful environment, then leave London. But do not run from London. Got my point?

    Our Zen Practice does, I find, make us more attracted to quiet places, the country, nature. That is why I now live more in the country (though we still have a big town right here ... I am not a hermit in a cave!), not in downtown Tokyo as I did for many years.

    Gassho, Jundo

  16. #16

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Thanks Jundo and Will,
    I do see this as being an issue of balance.
    There are environments which I see as being more suitable for me to live in, but as you both say you can't keep running away from perceived unpleasant situations. But then again I'm also not entirely comfortable with the idea of locking myself up in a monastery away from the world. I think the treeleaf tagline sums it up well.

  17. #17

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    It's not so much the "noise" that disturbs my zazen as it is the nature of the noise, so true peace and quiet is not the goal or issue. I moved zazen into the living room today, where I am away from my neighbors TV noise and now more surrounded by all the apartment noise. So the clock ticking, refrigerator running and AC turning on, etc. are all better than the TV sounds. I know this is just another thought/judgment, but the noise in my head is enough without adding TV noise to it.

    I do insta-sits (c) periodically and love them!

  18. #18

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Hey Lora, and everyone else who wrote in this thread.

    took me some time to finish reading this post since i have been busy lately, but better late than never...


    i also feel sometimes an affinity to peace and quiet.
    sometimes i actually notice the limitations of words... i feel that words lack the ability to truly express what i wish to say.
    actually its not just what i want to say, but what needs to be said... somethings are beyond words and no amount of words could ever explain it. the more i speak or write i feel i have gone further from the point and what i wanted to convey.

    sometimes i even sit with people and have nothing much to say. i am just quiet, i pay attention. it is like watching everything from afar yet being in the middle of it, seeing everything from a wide angle is more accurate.

    i also sometimes stop in the middle of the street or during something i do, it can be anywhere any time.
    in the train, on the street, in the house, in the garden, alone or with people... no matter the situation.
    i just stop and absorb it all. it feels bitter sweet, a warm melancholy feeling. it feels like everything is connected everything is part of everything else and the universe is just what it is. i feel i understand or i am so close to understanding everything but i just cant grasp it. although i know deep in my heart what it really is... with time i stopped caring and let it be.
    the interesting thing is that it makes me ant to cry sometimes. it is not tears of happiness or sadness, but rather tears of awe of the beauty and splendor of life... i just let go of everything and see the world just like it is, and it amazes me each and every time.

    Gassho, Daniel.
    thanking you for listening to his pointless rambling about pretty much everything.

  19. #19

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    I think this has been posted recently? It's the Shunryu Suzuki Sound and Noise link.
    If you haven't seen it or want to see it again, click on clicky


  20. #20

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Quote Originally Posted by lora
    Two young boys raised in the same village were the best of friends for years. When they were older both left their village and went their separate ways in search of the meaning of life. Many, many years later both headed back to their village from different directions. One was now a Zen Master and the other a highly respected Yogi. They met up and came face to face with each other. The Yogi placed his hands together and gave the traditional greeting of "Namaste". (The Divine in me salutes the Divine in you.). The Zen Master said nothing, he simply bowed his head. After a few seconds, they parted and went their separate ways once more. The Zen Master thought, "That guy still talks too much."
    The story that started us off came to mind when I read the below today ... You have to read it through toward the end to see why ...

    How the child of an atheist found God
    By Martha Woodroof
    Chicago Tribune

    08-02-2008

    CHICAGO — My father did not shake his fist at God so much as thumb his nose.

    Pop was born in North Dakota to dirt-poor farmers: devout, German-speaking Mennonites for whom God's comfort must have been one of the few. It's not clear to me when Pop decided God was not for him. His four sisters certainly stuck by the Almighty.

    Aunt Ruth became a Baptist missionary in the Congo (newly liberated from Belgium at the time). One evening while studying in my prep school library, I picked up The New York Times and read that both of her hands and feet had been chopped off by her ungrateful native "children." This later turned out not to be so. While her companion had, indeed, been hacked to death, my aunt was airlifted out safely, dangling from a helicopter rope above her dead friend and a howling mob, which, like Pop, had had it up to here with the Christian religion.

    Pop didn't hack or howl; he simply left. At 19, he stuck out his thumb and began hitching east, ending up a student at Columbia University in New York City. It was there, I suppose, that he transformed himself into my father: handsome, urbane, erudite, the husband of my mother. By the time I got to know him, the only discernible mark left on Pop by his childhood was a visceral antipathy toward religion.

    Pop was pure Marxist in this respect. Religion, to him, had been the opium of his people. He had grown up among those who praised the Lord for not sending them enough to eat. Faith, God, religion — they were all the same, and all nonsense, to Pop.

    Pop was, however, ethical to the bone. His insistent, loud-mouthed conscience cost him both money and social prestige. When I look back, it seems strange to me that Pop, who was curious about everything else, seemed to have no curiosity at all about the nature or origin of a person's conscience. His conscience was there, he obeyed its directions to a fault, and that was the end of it. He had no interest in exploring the presence of this mystery inside himself. Either that, or its presence made him nervous.

    My parents moved to North Carolina shortly after they married, so I was raised godless in the Bible Belt, becoming such a worrisome heathen by the 2nd grade that my public school class would pray over me.

    Every Monday morning, my teacher would ask anyone who had not been to Sunday school to stand so that the class might intercede with the Almighty on his or her behalf. Every Monday morning, I stood up alone. I asked my father once if I could lie by staying seated, and he said certainly not, that I was always to stand up for what I believed. And he emphasized that "always" part.

    Standing up for my beliefs — both literally and figuratively — was hardship duty when I was a 2nd grader, but it was the only way my father knew to operate. For better or worse, we are our fathers' students.

    The experience toughened me in what I think are good ways, and it also contributed mightily to my growing curiosity about the nature and origin of the human conscience—that touchstone against which, according to my family's tenets, all actions are to be tested.

    As I got older, I increasingly felt a need to give this touchstone a name that signified not just what it did, but what it was. So, sorry Pop, but in my early 40s, I decided that this voice embedded in us that didn't seem to be of us, this voice that drives us to relate to our fellow humans in ways unrelated to surviving as the fittest, this voice that you, Pop, called your conscience, I would now call God.

    I don't mean to imply that I believe God is some mysterious entity somewhere else that speaks through my conscience; I believe God is my conscience. God is whatever it is in me — and was certainly in you, Pop — that constitutes the commonness of my humanity, that tells me clearly what the next right thing to do or think is, urges me to do it or think it (even when it runs counter to my own self-interest), and gives me the capacity to do it with what feels suspiciously like joy. I don't get to understand why this still, small voice is there, or how it gets there; I just get to accept that it is there.

    I am not now, nor — God willing — ever will be, conventionally religious. In this I remain my father's younger daughter.

    I have no desire to participate in any of society's attempts to corral the Almighty. It has always seemed to me that Yahweh, the great I Am, is the one truly unfathomable mystery of the universe, and as such can best be related to by me through wordless faith, rather than through religion's limiting show. God is not something I can explain, but something I accept and live with and listen to. Unlike my father, I enjoy the presence of mystery in me.

    As for Pop, he has been dead a decade. I sometimes wonder what he would think now that his daughter has come out of our family's closet as a person of faith. I'm sure he would applaud me for standing up for my beliefs, but I suspect he would go right on thumbing his nose at God.

    I don't for one moment believe that Yahweh — in whatever way Yahweh considers these things — would think any less of Pop because he never called God by name. We are how we do by each other, after all, and my father did just fine.

  21. #21

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    Hi, Everyone,

    Thanks for your postings, they are well taken.

    I read your post, Jundo, and I get it.

    I read something everyday, preferably Buddhist stuff, but not necessarily and I came upon this, it's from a book translated by Thomas Cleary called "Zen Essence". Zen Master Yuanwu wrote, "What is most difficult to rectify is half-baked Zen, where you stick to quiet stillness and consider this the ultimate treasure, keeping it in your heart, radiantly aware of it all the time, carrying around a bunch of mixed-up knowledge and understanding, claiming to have vision and to have attained the approval of a Zen master, just increasing your egoism."

    Now, I don't claim to have the "ultimate treasure", I don't, but I wonder if I am looking for approval from somewhere, perhaps not necessarily approval but a sense of belonging. I also increased my egoism (like I needed any more of that!). I feel now as if I've been cast adrift with no map, no guidelines, stumbling around in the dark. I'm trying to rectify the "half-baked" part, (not Zen), but leftovers from a previous group.

    I don't think this is making much sense, Master Yuanwu says it better than I.

    Yours in confusion,
    lora
    Many Blessings

  22. #22

    Re: Peace and Quiet

    I have to admit that I have a bit of a ocncern about these kinds of forums as being platforms for ego, for people to show off their knowledge and make themselves look smarter than other people, or better. They can be a space to win arguments and be a bit of a big shot. I've done it myself in the past on music forums and things. But hopefully Treeleaf won't be like that.
    I met someone recently who has said to me a couple of times that maybe she should just find a bunch of Buddhist friends ot hang out with and they''ll be peaceful and respoectful. I try to tell her that Buddhists of any kind are still just people with the same flaws as everyone else, we just intersperse the mistakes with periods of zazen
    Maybe it all boils down to the difference between walking the walk rather than talking the talk, and doing the walking without having to be noticed by anyone else in so doing.

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