The deadliness of doing?

Robert Wright, whose book, “The Evolution of God,” is getting a lot of buzz, talks to the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan about Buddhist meditation, time, and what Sullivan calls “the deadliness of doing,” the eating, drinking, sleeping that slowly kills us. It’s an interesting and short (4 minutes) discussion, but Buddhists would disagree slightly with Sullivan’s […]

Robert Wright, whose book, “The Evolution of God,” is getting a lot of buzz, talks to the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan about Buddhist meditation, time, and what Sullivan calls “the deadliness of doing,” the eating, drinking, sleeping that slowly kills us.

It’s an interesting and short (4 minutes) discussion, but Buddhists would disagree slightly with Sullivan’s disparagement of “doing.” The doing, in Zen Buddhism at least, is all. One of the most famous Zen axioms is “When I’m hungry I eat, when I’m tired I sleep. Fools laugh at me but the wise understand.”

Another saying has it that: “Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water.”


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