-
Ted Mancuso
One
of my favorite Taoist stories is from the philosopher Chuang about
the stinktree.
It
seems there was a man who came upon a "stinktree" on his
property. Looking up to its tangle of leaves and branches, his first
impression was, "This tree is truly ugly. The leaves look like
they have blight and the thing bears no fruit at all." He considered
for a moment whether he might be able to cut the tree down and use
it for building material. But as he scanned the branches he could
not find a length of limb that wasn’t gnarled, and impossibly
distorted. He reached up and plucked down a leaf, tasted it and
instantly spat it out. This thing was only good for shade but not
even nice enough to sit under. "Useless! Absolutely Useless!"
he thought as he turned his back on the tree and walked away. After
he’d walked a bit he turned for one more look and noticed that
this tree, sitting alone on the hillock, was by far the largest
tree on his property. It had been there long before he was born
and would probably be there when his grand children were playing.
Suddenly it struck him. The life of the tree was insured by its
uselessness. No ax would ever chop it. No carpenter would ever build
with it. No one could gain anything by it so it was allowed to live
and thrive and be itself without interference. Uselessness, he realized,
could be very useful.
The
same story with the same conclusion could be told of meditation:
useless in almost every way. Economically it has no use because
it’s basically free. You can teach someone for a while but
it isn’t exactly conducive to signing anyone on a Lifetime
Membership.
And
you get no aerobics advantage from it. Meditation doesn’t make
you more beautiful or desirable. It’s not interesting to watch
and it’s darn difficult to make competitive so there’s
little chance of a sponsorship by Coors.
Can
you make more money from meditating? Yes, probably you’ll be
a little more productive, happier, and less stressed. But, really,
that’s not the point of meditation. And you certainly won’t
gain a lot of new friends.
Even,
strangely, meditation is completely useless from the point of view
of religious organization. You don’t pay dues or tithing and
you’re definitely not on the Bingo Squad or the Church Clean-up
Comittee.
Meditation
doesn’t even allow you to impress people with your intellectual
attainments since the only one you’ll be quoting is yourself.
Meditation
just is. As the tree of the story was useless, meditation only accomplishes
one purpose, it allows you to communicate with the "useless
you", the one that’s not a mother, a professor, a maintenance
worker, a son, or a party member.
It
lets you "rest in yourself" and reacquaint yourself with
the person you were before you learned all the reactions, rules,
manners, and schemes. Meditation is based on a simple idea: that
there is an "original nature" in you separate from your
personality, psychology, and intellect. Meditation proposes that
this original nature is not only valid, but tremendously valuable;
and worth knowing even though it won’t make you a star.
Overall,
an almost entirely useless practice, and it has been so for 5000
years.
Try
it and see how useful uselessness can be.