Then Human Beings came along. And decided to complicate life. Because they had a superior brain. And needed to do more than what animals did – eat, drink, sleep. They invented fire, started to farm, built communities, picked the strong and beautiful to lead them and divided them from the weak and maimed, created work hours and rest time, work days and holidays and most of all, gave rise to the importance of Result.
Result, as Merriam Webster states, is “to proceed or arise as a consequence, effect, or conclusion
We live a life of consequence. Nothing comes from nothing any more. Everything arises out of a cause and effect that is pre-planned. No wonder there is so much stress.
If a flower doesn’t produce an x number of buds, it doesn’t wither in shame. If a tiger hunts a boar instead of a deer, it doesn’t hide from its kin. The results in Nature don’t matter. If one thing doesn’t result, they evolve into something else. They live, day to day, their ambition being only to enjoy the sun, air and water that’s available to them, and within it, to bloom or live.
V was reading something yesterday, and mentioned this line from it. The author said ‘There is no result in Zen practice. That is not the point. It is the effort that you make to prove yourself that is measured.”
Perhaps that is why the Zen Masters are so peaceful. If they meditated only to get Enlightenment as the Result of their meditation, they would indeed be miserable. They meditate. That is it. As the Hindu scriptures say ‘Karm kar, phal ki chinta mat kar’. (Do, don’t worry about the fruits of what you do.)
Not making your life about Results, but about action or karma is a productive thought. An action oriented one. It’s like a mountaineer who wants to climb Mount Everest. If he focuses on the Mountain, he will not be able to take a single step because he is not at the starting point. To make it to the peak, he needs to be aware of every step that takes him there, and when he does that, his mind is not on the Result but on the journey. And step by step, he will reach where he wants to.
Today, most of us are constantly exhausted or tired, awaiting that weekend or a break from life. A Zen Master needs no break from life. That concept is alien to a lot of my friends who enjoy the journey as much as the destination, the grind as much as the award ceremony. For them, life is. Not will be.
The Result of our Life is Death. But if we lived by that thought, we would not progress. The same applies to everything we do. I wonder if we all put the ghost of Result out of our minds, and worked in the ‘is’ rather than the ‘will be’ would it lead to fewer depressions, less suicides, less running away for breaks from our life. That if we did our thing for now, for the moment, without constantly tabulating Results in our mind, we would perhaps be more rested, more peaceful, and ironically more productive.
