At any rate, it seems to me that we're all wired differently. Meetings that appeal to me, like tosos and Gosho study, would bore the pants off of some people. In my mind, let them have their colourful dances, I'll take dissecting the Gosho for 500 please Alex.
I'm feeling a bit low these days, forgive the unusual melancholy. Not that anybody should bother reading this cruft anyway, seeing as how it really is just my personal space to vent and all. They even delisted this blog from the main site so proof positive that it matters precious little...
In signal processing, there's this notion that noise (undesirable stuff) and signal (desirable stuff) are intermixed in the entire signal being broadcast. As such, we look at the ratio of signal to noise as a qualitative measure, with higher signal and lower noise being better. This is quite natural and entirely intuitive to my left brain tendencies. I've noticed that my noise-sense filter seems to intercept a large amount of cruft at meetings these days. It's like a buzzing noise that picks up when leaders announce grandiose campaigns, or when contributions or publications subscriptions start being discussed. Am I a bad Buddhist for patently ignoring such things? I don't think so, and here's why.
Usually I speak up and patiently dispute unreasonable things I hear in small meetings, but one gets tired after a while, and I just don't have the energy to do it in a large meeting. Not to mention that being known as a wild-card has a double-edge to it, and one must use care in order not to wound the beast into becoming defensive. The cornered animal is far more deadly than the one being gently dissuaded.
Certainly this new tendency toward lunacy has contributed to my aversion to attending "fufu" meetings like WP Gongyo, in favor of attending "real" meetings where study and practice take place. The latter activities just seems to suit me better - they refresh my spirit, and that is the whole purpose of activities in the first place. I've rediscovered the "New Members" and "Gosho Study" meetings, and "Tosos" (hour long chanting sessions for you newbies out there) are high on my do-not-miss list. Faith, practice and study - it would seem I have my bases covered. So what am I missing?
In the end, no one else is fit to judge anyway, so I guess it will do. I'll go one making my contributions to kosen-rufu the way that appeals to me, darn it. That way, I won't feel like I'm wasting my time, and yet I'll still remain positive. More or less, anyway.