Zen Outside the Box
I think it’s safe to say that, for
any given individual, Zen practice is an ever-changing dynamic. During my
tenure helping out with the instruction of beginners, it was quite common to
find people hoping to gain something, whether it be refuge, meaning, knowledge,
enlightenment, peace of mind, community, an escape from the chaos of modernity,
or a means to cope with pain, grief, anxiety, depression and substance abuse.
And how could I possibly claim exemption from a good number of those!
As practice progresses, however,
(toward what?) one begins to realize change. But what exactly has changed? If
anything, what is gained via Zen practice amounts to addition by subtraction –
a dropping off of ideas, concepts, beliefs, expectations, unnecessary stuff and
unnecessary activity. But what happens when we begin to drop off huge chunks of
what we once thought Zen practice was all about?
In another century I might have
been one of those monks who headed off into the mountains to live as a hermit up
above some little village. But even as my mind is such, the life that I am
living includes a house, a job, a partner, and so many other predictable worldly
connections.
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| Ox-herding Picture Number 10 |
My practice these days is a
solitary one. I have a zendo set up in my study where I sit in meditation
daily, most often alone. On the other hand, it’s difficult to say that my practice
is truly solitary when I’m sitting with the entire world each time that I do –
not unlike that monk up in the mountains practicing for the sake of all of the
townspeople down below and the world all around.
Now, some might say that I need a
teacher. In fact, I have many. The entire world is my teacher. Some might
say that I need a community to practice with. In fact, I have one. The entire
world is my community. Such ideas have gotten me labeled individualistic, arrogant,
egotistical, and delusional. More often than not, though, such labels are assigned
to me whenever I refuse to stay inside the box that has been created for me by the
mind of another.
This past week, while driving home
from Colorado, my partner and I listened to a series of lectures by Ram Dass packaged together as Experiments in Truth.
Somewhere along the way, Ram Dass suggested that the ideal method for becoming
free would be one that self-destructs once it is no longer needed. In other
words, the method frees the self from clinging even as it leaves nothing behind
to cling to. Of course, this is not necessarily an original idea. The Buddha himself
remarked that once you’ve used the raft of the teachings to reach the other
side it no longer makes much sense to go around carrying that raft on your back.
The following is an excerpt of what the Buddha reportedly said:
There is the case where the man, having
crossed over, would think, 'How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in
dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have
crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don't I, having dragged it on
dry land or sinking it in the water, go wherever I like?' In doing this, he
would be doing what should be done with the raft. In the same way, monks, I
have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over,
not for the purpose of holding onto. Understanding the Dhamma as taught
compared to a raft, you should let go even of Dhammas, to say nothing of
non-Dhammas. (MN 22)
What does the Buddha mean by
“crossing over”? Some will say that he is referring to anuttara samyak sambodhi, unsurpassed right awakening. But such a
person – with the understanding of a Buddha – would not need to be told what to
do with the raft at that point, would she? I tend to think, then, that he is
referring to ordinary monks, with ordinary understanding. He is telling us the
attitude we should have toward the very method that leads to our liberation.
There is a scene in the remade film
version of Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s
Edge in which Bill Murray’s character is sitting reading at the entrance to
a cave high up in the snow-packed Himalayas. He sits in lotus posture,
dutifully reading the words of some holy book, no doubt. His fire burns low,
and he is starting to shiver. He has no fuel left to burn – save for
the book in his hands, and the stack of others at his side. Slowly, with a
half-smile on his face it seems, he begins to tear pages from his book and
throw them on the fire. The words of others can only take us so far. At some
point we have to stand on our own two feet, so to speak, and look our very
existence right in the eye that we might finally resolve the “great matter.” At
such time the words of another will mean not a whit.
A skilled psychotherapist will have
a client convey his story just enough to be able to guide him beyond it to greater
psychological health. On the other hand, an unskilled therapist will have a
client mired in his story, mired in the telling of his story, and mired in a
perceived need to have the psychotherapist hear his story. Bad psychotherapy,
then, involves an endless rehashing of stories of victimhood or brokenness to
the point where those stories have more power over the individual than the
actual experience(s) of harm ever did.
So, have we become attached to our
deluded nature, our suffering self, our need for dependency on a teacher, our
teacher’s need for our dependency on her, our need for a parental figure to
guide us, our need to associate with others just like us, our journey toward
some presumed perfect way of seeing and being, the retelling of our story,
etc., etc.? Are we like vultures – always
circling, always ready to dive in and snatch a morsel that never seems to
satisfy our insatiable hunger?
Dogen resolved the “great matter”
to his satisfaction and then went on to teach so many others – including me.
The man depicted in the Ox-herding Pictures found his mind and walked off back to
the marketplace. How much more do you need to know in order to enjoy the
freedom of your birthright? The answer will come to you. In the meantime, I’ll
be sitting quietly in meditation and looking for you out in the marketplace!
Images
Ox-herding
Picture 10 via:
References
Majjhima Nikaya 22 (MN 22).
Alagaddupama sutta: the water-snake simile (Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Tr.). Access to
Insight (Legacy Edition), 17 December 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.022.than.html
Copyright 2015 & 2021 by Mark Robert Frank
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