Part of Zen is not only living simply, but living courageously as well. We look through the spectrum of human experience without trepidation, knowing our control and level of indulgence is reasonable without doubt. A Church of Satan statement is that Satan represents all of the so called sins, as they all lead to mental, emotional, or physical gratification. While apathy I do not believe is a part of this within moral views, I do believe this statement to be the case. This is specifically in reference to the seven deadly sins of the Catholic church.
We can utilize the seven deadly sins and “lower” emotions such as hatred and anger, as an intellectual focus of cathartic proportions to relieve the id, a concept discussed by Sigmund Freud.. I believe people have inaccurately looked at the ego and id, as the Id contains our basic instinctual drives, and morality and posturing is largely based upon the Ego, where classic Satanist statements have actually focused on from Antol Lavey's definition of a ritual and Peter H. Gilmore uses of transformative psychodrama as a definition of ritual.
While I believe them to generally be the case only from a certain perspective, I do believe morality has definite relevance to the benefit of the human species aside from altruism or benevolent factors. Too often people have simply latched on to Church of Satan theology and statements as pretenders to the throne and green eyed hamsters, who want the glory without the effort of figuring things out themselves.
Thus I cannot pretend that I am unique in my aspirations here, as it is the case that I am not the inventor of either Zen or the Church of Satan, or the Satanic Temple. I am simply putting together things that make sense to me in the ways that I know how.
Seven deadly sins of the Catholic church can be used to gauge ourselves with where are motivations lay. Envy and Greed are interesting to reflect upon. One would understand on advanced emotional levels that Envy is actually a hatred of what one has, it is a form of projection and displacement of emotions about the desire to have what another has, and can gauge the levels of inferiority and superiority within an individual. Somebody totally complacent with life who has nothing to lose and is entirely confident with themselves, is in a much better position than someone who always has to have more. Or are they? Will they experience the benefits of life if they don’t strive to achieve something at least?
Fully living anger in indulgence is a dangerous topic. One must be in severe control of their emotions to folly experience the aptitudes of full anger, to completely destroy their enemies upon reprisal. How many people go through these situations successfully and regret that they actually did what they did? I think there is something definitely wrong with society for punishing the victims of criminal activity who successfully tread through those muddy waters.
Consistent comparison of yourself and others is insecurity in large respects, but you can use envy to apply yourself to what you want to achieve in your life. Why aren’t you happy with where you’re at? Why aren’t things working to the degree that you want them too? What is the real point of everything?
Greed is simply wanting more than what you already have, and admitting your instinctive drives to excel is a good way to bolster security within yourself as to your direction and overall purpose.
It is this type of logic followed throughout all of the seven deadly sins that we can achieve a measure of success with life, and push ourselves in the right direction, but always with control in our indulgence.