JUDY: You have to be careful because it’s not that there’s an I and a you.
DIANE: Explain that.
JUDY: So, here’s my hand.
DIANE: Five fingers up.
JUDY: Right. So this finger is angry at that finger. Isn’t that stupid?
DIANE: They’re not going to get very far by fighting.
JUDY: … The point is they’re all on the same hand, so we’re all on the same planet, the same universe, so really we’re not separate. Anything I do is going to affect you. Anything you do is going to affect me. Read More.
STAN: I’m not as reluctant as Judy to use abstractions such as good, but I share her wariness about these abstractions. What really matters is what we do in any given situation. The Buddha always said: I teach the truth of suffering and the end of suffering.
He was not interested in metaphysical questions or philosophical questions at all. And Zen really does come from that deep Buddhist tradition, so insight into the truth of suffering and what can be done to alleviate suffering is primary. So what helps, what is helpful in a particular situation, what works (are the important issues.) It might be different sorts of things in different sorts of situations and with different sorts of people. That notion is so important in Buddhism that there is a word for it, a Sanskrit word …, which is usually translated as expedient means. We all understand means, ways (that) have been developed to help people and ourselves, but expedient is a very interesting word because there is obviously nothing absolute about any of this. It’s changeable, it’s provisional, it’s nothing to cling to, it doesn’t mean that if it worked yesterday, it’s going to work today. You have to be alert and caring and really paying attention. Read More.
I’m not interested in what goodness is because I don’t think there is such a thing. What I am interested in, for example in your situation, you want to write about your childhood. In writing about your childhood, you are writing about these other people, and these other people are still alive. Even if they are not still alive, there are people who remember them in a certain way. And so, you are going to change the way the dead people are seen and … maybe saying secrets that the living people are uncomfortable with other people knowing about them. That’s a very huge issue, and I wouldn’t want...Read More.
When they first confronted me, their words felt like long, barbed whips tangled in my legs. I teetered and strained to keep my balance. Now as I listen to the recording while transcribing the interview, I hear myself struggling. At one point, I replied testily: “I’m not going to get sidetracked.”
But they kept questioning. Finally, Stan asked: “Why do you feel that you personally have to be good in order to write this?” Read More.
