Zen: an anti-rational Buddhist sect developed in India; it differs from other Buddhist sects in seeking truth through introspection and intuition rather than in scripture.
Being a skeptic and a know-it-all, I spent some time in early sobriety investigating other religions and approaches to a spiritual life. I was fed up with the church of my youth and thought it would be cool to pick some obscure, ancient Far Eastern religion to be the new foundation of my life. I wanted to be something that no one else was, I think. I wanted to be different so I bought books and I read a lot. I wanted to strip away all of the dogma and tradition and find Truth. I'm not saying this wasn't admirable -- I think if you're sick of something then you owe it to yourself to go try and find something else. But I was a little arrogant while I was doing it.
I can hear SuperK saying: "You're not a little anything."
Of course what I found was that if you strip away all of the tradition and the dogma and the doctrine everything starts to look pretty much the same. Especially when you get rid of the people: the saints and the leaders and the prophets. It was very illuminating.
Lose the self-interest. Love everybody. Quit pursuing pleasure and running from pain. Try to find a strength outside of yourself. Be quiet and calm and peaceful. It's all been around for 1000s of years. People have come to the same conclusions.
Like what did I think I was going to find?
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