The Zen N! #35 - The EZ Question I
1 - Question, 2 - Meaning, 3 - Feedback.
The Focus of The Newsletter
Hey There! 2 Big Updates,
1 - I’m shortening the newsletter into 1, 2, 3.
2 - I've refined the core focus to Meaning and Understanding.
This Week,
1. The EZ Question: I've simplified this into short pieces for easier reading.
2. On Meaning and Understanding: A quote from Gurdjieff on Understanding.
3. I ask 3 Feedback questions for the newsletter.
Next Week,
The website name will change to The Zen Master Newsletter. This name better describes the content of the site.
I've refined the focus of meditations on the site to:
meditations about remembering your constant, unchanging self.
1 - The EZ Question I
A Strategy: Looking At the Top. Listening Without Conclusion.
Without Self-Bias, Learn from The Top of The Top.
"What is The Question of Questions?"
This question comes first—before anything you ask or do. Otherwise, your results will be less optimal than they could have been.
Why?
From the last piece,
Life is a simple game. Life is non-biased. All Life is, is how quickly you can receive simple wisdom and simple ways of operation to become simple and more effective.
In short, knowing what decisions you want to make before you make them.
The Game: Caring About Meaning
1
In Fight Club, Jack's apartment explodes.
"..then a volcanic blast of debris
that used to be your furniture and
personal effects blows out your floor-
to-ceiling windows and sails flaming
into the night."
He felt he had it all,
and it’s all gone.
He’s lost everything.
And none of it made him happy.
If you were in that situation, everything you had didn’t make you happy, your life felt meaningless, now you’ve lost it all and now all you feel is embarrassment. You’re stuck, you have nothing, you’re desperate,
Would you pick up the phone,
And call Tyler Durden to save you?
2
Jack: “I was close to being complete.”
Jack: You buy furniture. You tell yourself: this is the last sofa I'll ever need. No matter what else happens, I've got the sofa issue handled.
Tyler: This is how we fill up our lives.
Jack: I guess so.
Tyler: And, now it's gone.
Jack: All gone.
Tyler: Oh, yeah, you gotta start making the list.
Jack: What list?
Tyler: The "now I get to go out and buy the exact same stuff all over again" list. That list.
Jack: I don't... think so.
Not only did his life not bring him any meaning,
Now he has lost his life and knows that if he tried to get it back, it would still be meaningless. He has no option but to change the game.
But he has to ask the question.
Tyler: We're on our third pitcher of beer. Just ask me.
Jack: Huh?
Tyler: You called me so you could have a place to stay.
Jack: No, I...
Tyler: Why don't you cut the shit and ask if you can stay at my place?
Jack: Would that be a problem?
Tyler: Is it a problem for you to ask?
Jack: Can I stay at your place?
Tyler: Yes, you can.
3
There is another game.
There are other ways to operate than the ways we think we have to operate.
Subconsciously, there is a way you think you have to play the game, but
What if you didn't?
We are conditioned to take the answers given to us.
As Tyler Durden asked,
Is it a problem to ask questions?
Asking a question gives results.
The Struggling and Many Take Answers.
The Easy and Few Ask Questions.
What Was The Change of The Game?
In Fight Club, Tyler helps Jack stop caring about meaningless things.
A Change of The Game is,
Caring About Meaning.
Caring about meaning is about caring about things that have meaning in your irreplaceable life.
Why?
Meaning is the fundamental human motive behind all actions.
To seek Meaning itself, you have to ask the fundamental question,
"How do I find meaning?"
Tyler Durden's first step to answering this is to stop caring about what doesn't matter.
The first step to finding meaning is to stop caring about what has no meaning to you.
Many Lives are full of Pain in Meaninglessness.
Few Lives are full of Fulfillment in Meaning.
End of Part I.
There is an inquiry,
“Is there evidence that when I ask a question I later receive an answer?”
If you can find evidence to this inquiry in your life,
then you have found a law,
if I do this, then this happens.
If you know the result, then you can create the outcome you want.
If you try something new, you have no idea whether or not it will work out,
but if you knew for a certainty that you would receive an answer to a question,
you can control a future outcome.
What if life was actually simple, what if life was a input - output system?
What if life was as simple as give life a prompt, and life returns an answer to that prompt?
The questions you ask become your focus.
2 On Meaning and Understanding I
"Knowledge is one thing, understanding is another thing. "
People often confuse these concepts and do not clearly grasp what is the difference between them.
"Knowledge by itself does not give understanding.
Nor is understanding increased by an increase of knowledge alone."
Understanding depends upon the relation of knowledge to being.
Understanding is the result of knowledge and being.
And knowledge and being must not separate too far from each other,
or else understanding will be far removed from either.
At the same time, the relation of knowledge to being does not change with a mere growth of knowledge.
It changes only when being grows simultaneously with knowledge. In other words, understanding grows only with the growth of being." - Paraphrased - George Gurdjieff
In short:
When your being grows, your understanding can grow.
Then, you can understand your knowledge –your collected information.
For most people, the word being means your soul.
3 - Feedback
1. What questions would you like to see on a feedback form?
2. Would you like there to be another section on an area of interest?
3. Would you like a section of the newsletter that has members Q & A - Questions and Answers?
You can answer on the Google Form Here:
Google Forms
Or Email Me at TheZenMasterNews@gmail.com.
P.S.
The Newsletter will remain in this format for the next few weeks to come.
It will take time to make meaningful changes to the publication.
Thank you so much for your support and time!
Remember that you are valuable!
How Can I help?
Join the newsletter to help grow an audience, share a message of hope to the world, and invest in You.
Add your email below and click Claim. You'll receive an email activation link. Click it to activate your account.
