Nate wrote:
Interestingly, if you sit in meditation then many people seem to think we are trying to transcend this world and have these out of body or other realm experiences.. for which they think you are a kook...and then when I tell them "nope, I'm just staring at a wall actually"... they think that is even crazier than the transcendental view they had prior..
:lol:
I haven't had any problems yet for a number of very specific reasons. First my wife's family is Nichiren Buddhist and Japanese so not much conflict with culture or philosophy there. Most importantly though is thart I work VERY hard to not let the practice take away time from family life. If I didn't, I'm positive there would be trouble in our home with me on the loosing end! See, I wait until everyone is taken care of and the children are in bed before doing my daily Zazen. Likewise I wake up at 5am on my days off work so that I can participate in our Zazenkai. By the time it's over everyone is waking up and I'm off to change daipers, feed the kids, etc. So most of the time I sacrifice my own time, and rather than sleeping, I do Zazen. Hard to argue against that! So far that's working, though the lack of sleep thing does start to accumulate :shock:
Gassho,
John