How A Rubber Band Ball Frees You From Human Suffering.

zen rubber band ball metaphorThere has been a recent zen like analogy that has become present in my life recently. It came up when I was at work building a simple rubber band ball. I know… really mundane… but that is how zen works. It seems mundane on the outside but with the right looking, it can become pivotal to ones inner peace and to freeing one from human suffering.

Here is the secret to the rubber band ball that I found.

It is like us in many ways and I liken ourselves to this rubber band ball for a reason. A rubber band ball gives the sense that it is indeed a ball. As you slowly take off band after band it becomes lesser and lesser. So entangled it is in rubber bands that it pours out its solid like appearance. It looks, bounces, and feels like a ball right?

This is where it gets interesting.

As you reach the last of the rubber bands it not only is no longer a ball, but it is nothing. There is nothing in the middle of this rubber band ball to begin with.

It is not a ball at all, it was just rubber bands collectively creating the illusion of a ball.

That is the illusion with us. Like the rubber band ball, we are strung together by thoughts, ideas, concepts, and environmental conditioning. But at the very core of us there is nothing. Absolutely nothing. What a beautiful ball we have led ourselves to believe, but despite how “solid” we feel, how real the thought is that there is something there, there is not. There is no you there to perpetuate human suffering.

What is the difference in the rubber band ball?

And there is a difference. Unlike the rubber band ball, its hard to get to the center without tearing all the layers down to reveal there is nothing. With you, it just takes one moment of honest zen looking. You will find all the thoughts strung together with how you should be or how you are, etc. These however are nothing but thoughts that give no evidence of you actually being there.

Everything else is left there in that vast space, which in reality is all there is. However that you, that you thought you were, is not. Just another thought generated by mistaken attachment to the experiencing of truth.

There needs not be an experiencer for experiencing to happen, this is what reality is, this all encompassing experiencing.

How does this relieve human suffering?

Here is how it does so, since there is no you, there is nothing but the story playing out. There is no one to suffer to begin with, just experiencing happening. The story will still play out, there is death of some sort but it is not you for you never existed to begin with. Seeing this, the sense of character unravels like a rubber band ball to reveal nothing but everything at the same time!

There is so much attachment to the character and the story that comes along with it, that human suffering happens because of this “seriousness.” When having this zen like seeing happening, the character still goes on but it is seen that you are not that. The story will still continue but it no longer becomes personal.

So to the rubber band ball, I thank you for your insight, much humbling it is.

If you liked this article, I have this and many other subjects relating in my new book which can be purchased from the amazon kindle store.

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Nick Myers, a 27 year old serial blogger. Also minimalist, zen participant, philosopher, author of Emotional Alchemist, and tea disciple. I am one who sees a potential lesson in every experience in life. Life is who we are and life is our ultimate guru. I seek to bring us together through our own shared experiences. And hope to not only learn deeply who I am but to learn deeply who others are by dropping my ideas from moment to moment about you.

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Posted in Emptiness, suffering, Zen
11 comments on “How A Rubber Band Ball Frees You From Human Suffering.
  1. msayers says:

    Very nice! Just like that. :)

  2. zenkitties says:

    Just doing what it do baby! :)

  3. Johan says:

    Hi, thank you for your topic! But I wonder is that true? “the story will still continue but it no longer becomes personal”
    How (based on other than assumptions) do you know the story goes on for me or for others?
    I don’t know how life is for others. These articles about stories playing out? Then I still would see others as others and act upon these roles and stories as if that is based on some memories.

    How do I know or do you know about the story goes on for you, me, and so for all others? but but but….” There is clinging on the desire to share expressions about memories of a rubber ball. And efforts to share with others as if they are not the light or as if the others are separated from separation or same emptiness?

    Why these fascinations for stories focusing on the story that goes on and on? As if the sun still turns back to the shadows and their language and habits.

  4. zenkitties says:

    Thanks Johan,

    Thats a very good example of the story going on, thank you for that. :)

    much appreciation.

    -Nick

  5. BOING!

    . . . just bouncing through . . .

  6. zenkitties says:

    haha, you appear to be very bouncy!

    Been bouncing off the wall lately doug? :)

  7. [...] It talks about ways of dealing with the inner narrator as I have called it on this blog many times, and to see that the inner narrator is made up through ideas, concepts, and beliefs. That best way to describe this narrator is through the story that was conjured up through The Rubber Band Analogy. [...]

  8. [...] It talks about ways of dealing with the inner narrator as I have called it on this blog many times, and to see that the inner narrator is made up through ideas, concepts, and beliefs. That best way to describe this narrator is through the story that was conjured up through The Rubber Band Analogy. [...]

  9. Nice analogy. I agree, much of human suffering comes from taking ourselves too seriously.

  10. zenkitties says:

    very true, that’s where most of human suffering conflict comes from don’t you think?

    Taking ourselves too seriously?
    And believing in the story inside the mind so much as if it were really happening.

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