<![CDATA[Dzongsar: Meditation is butt rot if you don’t see the truth]]>“To see the truth is the most important [thing]; morality, discipline, even meditation, even so called meditation as precious as it sounds, if your meditation is not making you see the truth, you are basically rotting your butt. You understand? Sitting on something. It’s useless. Okay? Maybe it’s going to relax you a little bit, it may sort of make you calm down a little bit. So what? If you don’t see the truth, a little bit of calm, that you can do, that you can achieve in many ways. To see the truth is always so important. I want to put that to you, because, so called method is always mixed with the culture – culture.”
I support his opinion on this. If all you’re doing is using meditation to relieve anxiety and function better in the world, take a pill. Meditation, indeed the whole Buddhist path, is not an organic form of Prozac, although I dare say many practitioners in North America use it that way. For me it’s all about seeking the truth; it’s satyagraha—truth force—facing the truth about myself, and seeing the truth about society and the world around me.
Dzongsar made this statement in the context of a discussion of homosexuality to an audience in Bhutan. Asian Buddhists are not so accepting of homosexuality. For Dzongsar to support queers in Bhutan is controversial enough and quite courageous.