"Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. By making us drink right from the fountain of life, it liberates us from all the yokes under which we finite beings are usually suffering in this world. We can say that Zen liberates all the energies properly and naturally stored in each of us, which are in ordinary circumstances cramped and distorted so that they find no adequate channel for activity.
This body of ours is something like an electric battery in which a mysterious power latently lies. When this power is not properly brought into operation, it either grows mouldy and withers away, or is warped and expresses itself abnormally. It is the object of Zen, therefore, to save us from going crazy or being crippled. This is what I mean by freedom, giving free play to all the creative and benevolent influences inherently lying in our hearts."
D. T. Suzuki,
Zen Buddhism, 1956 (interestingly enough, William Barrett wrote the intro)
"Myths of the heroes are cosmic creation myths in microcosm. They depict, in no matter how subtle variation, the eternal battle we wage to release the creative energies within ourselves and in the world.
In direct opposition to traditional fertility rites, man's perennial preoccupation with the heroes' quest has to do, above all, with the quality of life to be lived, rather than its quantity.
Not only has our insatiable search to become more fully integrated been mirrored in multiple forms in diverse cultures and eras but, to this very day, we comprehend what has been expressed only partially...."
Dorothy Norman
The Hero: Myth/Image/Symbol, 1969
"The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors, odd beings, terrors and deluding images up into the mind - whether in dream, broad daylight or insanity; for the human kingdom, beneath the floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling that we call our consciousness, goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves. There not only jewels but also dangerous jinn abide: the inconvenient or resisted psychological powers that we have not thought or dared to integrate into our lives. And they may remain unsuspected, or, on the other hand, some change word, the smell of a landscape, the taste of a cup of tea, or the glance of an eye may touch a magic spring, and then the dangerous messengers begin to appear in the brain. These are dangerous because they threaten the fabric of the security into which we have built ourselves and our family. But they are fiendishly fascinating too, for they carry the keys that open the whole realm of the desired and feared adventure of the discovery of self. Destruction of the world that we have built and in which we live, and or ourselves within it; but then a wonderful reconstruction, of the bolder, cleaner, more spacious, and fully human life - that is the lure, the promise and terror, of these disturbing night visitants from the mythological realm that we carry within."
Joseph Campbell
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 1949
No comments:
Post a Comment