The Way of the Bodhisattva (2)

Some have suggested that all of us have our very own question, the question above all others. One that we have to find an existential, living answer to, beyond the intellect. I'm not really sure about this - but if it is so, then I have never found exactly what mine is. Apparently the 13th century zen master Dogen had his very own question, the one that set him on the path. 

It was this:- If we are indeed naturally endowed with Buddha Nature then why practice? 

Dogen set out to find the answer, leaving his home in Japan and travelling to China where he met with, and was taught by, various Ch'an masters. 

Bodhidharma, the man who took Buddhism to China, "Buddhism" there becoming Ch'an. And in becoming Ch'an it was asked "why did Bodhidharma come from the West" - when in fact there is nothing to teach.

Dogen, having actually become  his "answer", then returned to Japan. Reading much of his output - paradoxically, always a good thing to do when studying zen, the "teaching beyond words and letters"- I think the simplest words to sum up Dogen's answer is that the "journey is home", or in his case, "practice is itself enlightenment." Signposts to this can be found in many writings, not least in those of Thomas Merton, who said once that "we already possess God", yet "how far we have to go to find You, in Whom we have already arrived." Intimations of the very same answer can be found in the poetry of T S Eliot and the travel sketches of Basho in his "Narrow Road to the Far North." Could it be that whatever our very own question is, the "answer" will be the same? Which would give a whole new take on the "only way". 

Basho on his travels. There is a lovely section of his book where he speaks of the horse.

Well, I'm waffling as usual, and I think I've even lost track of what all this was a preamble to. Something to do with the Bodhicharyavatara........

Yes, I was reading through Chapter One, titled "The Excellence of Bodhichitta", and after Shantideva speaks of the benefits of "habituating" our mind with his "unskillful prosody" (!) he then speaks of how we now find ourselves with the "ease and wealth" to apply ourselves to it. Our time is NOW. The chance is now ours - when will it be ours again? I always recognise that the urgent call to seize the moment grates slightly upon just "letting things become so of themselves, beyond all calculation". 

Anyway, here is the verse:-

So hard to find the ease and wealth

Whereby the aims of beings may be gained.

If now I fail to turn it to my profit,

How could such a chance be mine again?

Shantideva then moves on to speak of the "marvelous tree of bodhichitta" that unlike every other fruit, "constantly bears fruit and grows unceasingly."

 Here is the verse:-

All other virtues, like the plantain tree,

Produce their fruit, but then their force is spent.

Alone the marvelous tree of bodhichitta

Constantly bears fruit and grows unceasingly

The Plantain tree

Sometimes I think here of the words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, "they have their reward". Yes, each and every virtue, when the product of calculation, receives its due "reward". The pride in it, or perhaps the pride of taking no pride, and the "virtue" has gone. But the love that knows no why, the love of no calculation, grows unceasingly, the flowering of emptiness. Selfless love.

Just a final few words from the text, found in Chapter Two:- 

I will be undaunted by samsara.

Samsara, our world of birth and death, can be pretty daunting at times. If not always for ourselves, then certainly for many others. Here are some images of samsara:-

(This last image contains the idea of "seeds" being found in our world of birth and death. Seeds of what?)

But back to "daunting". Really, "daunting" often seems totally inadequate when I cast my mind over the terrible history of our world. Shinran, one of the fathers of Pure Land Buddhism, had a great deal of honesty. Despite the "daunting" nature of the world, he yet recognised in himself the wish to remain within it, with all its various pleasures. He felt great shame that this was so. On the other hand, he wrote that the greater the ice, the greater the water; the greater the hindrance, the greater the virtue.

Ice and water

He saw that the deeper our "karmic evil" the greater the Vow (grace) must be, and therefore the more terrible our world was, just how much greater was the power of love that held him, redeemed him, had mercy upon him. 

Some argue that faith is a cop out. For me, it gives me the courage to go ever deeper into samsara, knowing that samsara and nirvana are one.

Related Quotes:-

Kindle now the Dharma's light

For those who grope, bewildered, in the dark of pain.

(Shantideva, Bodhicharyavatara, Chapter 3, Verse 5)

O Saichi, what is your joy?

This world of delusion is my joy!

It contains the seeds of relishing the Dharma

Namu-amida-butsu is blooming everywhere!

(Saichi, from his Journals)

The Way of the Bodhisattva

Well, everything up until here is now at the printers and for a few days I have felt like there is just nothing left to say. Much like sometimes with my library of books. Some days I look through the titles, the subjects, and would love to read them and absorb them, all at once. Then, another time, looking through, just a feeling of utter boredom - nothing there of interest. 

Just can't find anything to read

But now an interest stirs. I seem to remember back in this blog writing of my days of holy books being in the past. Even as I waffled I was dipping into the Suttanipata, one of the most very ancient Buddhist texts of the Theravada Tradition and long a favorite of mine. So, reflecting, I was seeing "holy books" as being those that some would claim are the product of a transcendent Being - essentially I was rejecting any such claim, however understood. (I have to admit that the various ways such a claim is "understood" becomes highly sophisticated at times) Well, enough of that. The Suttanipata I will leave aside at the moment - just to say that therein, when the Blessed One is asked to explain his very own "sowing and reaping" he begins with the words:- "Faith is the seed", which, at least for me, says it all. All that is then needed is to have a healthy respect for the difference between "belief" and "faith".

Faith is the seed

 

But leaving aside the Suttanipata, I will move on to another favorite, the Bodhicharyavatara, otherwise known as the "Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life". It's subject is Bodhichitta, which is simply selfless love; of how to know it, how to be it - so as to join those, whose very nature is compassion (as the Bodhicharyavatara says). Which is quite a calling, quite a task. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

Perhaps the basic message

The text was written around the 8th Century CE by an Indian scholar/monk known as Shantideva. Various legends surround the origins of its words, one such that Shantideva began to float at one point, this when he began to expound upon emptiness and suchlike. All good stuff for those who like that sort of thing. 

 

Shantideva begins to expound on the subtleties of emptiness

Coming back down to earth, the Bodhicharyavatara is in fact a favorite text of the Dalai Lama, and within that text his favorite verse comes very near the end:- 

And now so long as space endures,

As long as there are beings to be found,

May I continue likewise to remain

To drive away the sorrows of the world.

A noble aspiration, and quite a daunting one. ("As long as space endures" can take on various hues within a non-linear perspective, but I would drift and wander from my current theme.)

Well, onto my own favorite bits and pieces. This will not be a commentary as such, more a few thoughts on one or two words and verses from the text as they have caught my eye while reading. 

The text begins by paying homage to all bodhisattvas. Well, I think we can all be bodhisattvas at times. In only looking for prime examples, the Albert Schweitzers and the Mother Teresa's, in pouring over the various stories of long gone saints, we can miss those closer to hand. I remember when my mother died. She had left the street where she had lived for 30 years or more a few years before her death. At the funeral no one from that street attended. All that appeared was a small, inexpensive bunch of flowers from a housebound lady who had lived down the street a bit. That little bunch of flowers meant the world to me. It often comes to mind and creates a butterfly effect. 

They could have been daisies. It would not have mattered.

So, all bodhisattvas. Did Shantideva have any such thing in mind when composing the text? Does it matter? While reading the introduction to my copy of the Bodhicharyavatara I came across the words attributed to the translators of the King James Bible:- 

Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we eat of the kernal; that putteth aside the curtain, that we may look into the most Holy place; that removeth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water.

 I was quite taken by these words. There is the word and the Living Word. 

The Living Word

So, just thinking upon this I shall continue with what I find in the words of the text. 

Shantideva next claims that he will say nothing that has not been said before, that he has no skill in "prosody" (floating or not), but speaks "only to habituate my own mind". If others profit from his words, so be it. So as I see it Shantideva and myself are much on the same wavelength. 

But enough for now. This particular blog is long enough, my mind is tired. I will continue it another time as I plough on through the first chapter. 

Related Quotes:-   

Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.

 (Ian McEwan, author)

Self Cultivation and Associated Waffle

Looking back I see a lot of talk of "emptiness" and "no-self" in this blog. I'm not sure if this is a problem or not. From my own interest in what is often referred to as "eastern thought" I have come to see that such words are easily misunderstood. Criticism even drifts into caricatures of the "east" in contrast to the "west". Possibly each, east and west, have their caricatures. Anyway, this is to be a rambling blog, even a "stream of consciousness" ramble (Although I did read recently that our thoughts actually come in quantum leaps........and not so much a flowing stream)

Is this a representation of a Quantum Leap?

To begin with, something adapted from a recent Facebook post I made. The war in Syria continues (amongst others) with the latest headlines telling us that 16 children and four women have been killed in shelling in Eastern Ghouta. Eastern Ghouta? Its called home by some. Looking things up I found the following on just who are implicated in supplying arms to both sides of the conflict. A quick google reveals:- Russia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qater, UAE, US, UK, the EU, some Swedish guy, Libya, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon. This gives a whole new meaning to the term "our Global Village". It seems that most of us want a piece of the action.

A child in Syria

I often remember when the UK acrobatic air display team the Red Arrows were performing nearby, of how the roar of the jet engines made me just a little uneasy when approaching and overhead. I wondered then just how "uneasy" a child would feel in other circumstances, when the planes were not friendly. Just a thought, (stream or quantum) 

Where does "emptiness" and "no-self" come into all this? 

Such words are not often associated with what could be termed self cultivation, yet in the historical unfolding of the Pure Land way there is a rich tradition of that sort of thing - and not being associated with seeking "enlightenment" or of making oneself worthy in the eyes of Amida, any "cultivation" is purely for the sake of itself. 

Self cultivations

In my own rambling and stumbling path poetry has played some part, particularly of William Blake. Popping into my mind now are some lines from "Songs of Innocence and Experience", from "The Lamb", one of the songs of innocence. 

Little Lamb who made thee 

Dost thou know who made thee

....Blake asks, and answers that the One who made him is "meek and mild" and "became a little child".......and ends with:-

Little Lamb God bless thee.

Certainly a Song of Innocence, and each has their counterpart in any world of dualism. The counterpart, the song of experience, is "The Tyger" (forgive Blake's spelling!), where Blake asks much the same question as before, i.e. just "who" could have made such a creature? 

When the stars threw down their spears

And water'd heaven with their tears

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Did he who made the lamb..........

Quite a question, and perhaps not for the fainthearted; especially if we are comfortable only with the "one" who made the Lamb! Attempts are made by theologians to unite the two "creators", this by such ideas as "the fall" where, apparently, nature fell with "man" and I assume the tiger, before such fall, was herbivorous and did not seek other living creatures for breakfast. Then again, if the "other animals" do not have souls, why should we really care? Nature red in tooth and claw? Food for thought, if you are that way inclined. This makes me think of the opening lines of two texts (holy or not).

Of the Bible, where:- 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

As opposed to the opening of the Buddhist Dhammapada:-

All things are led by mind, created by mind. 

Just where is the beginning?. Just ahead?  Perhaps not.

The Theravada Elder Nyanponika Thera said of these two openings that while one led up, up and away into an imaginary beyond, the other led straight into the heart of man. Can these two ways ever meet, be reconciled, or is east east and west west and never the twain shall meet? Well, maybe so or maybe not. 

For my part, I have found that most criticisms involving the "idle torpid east" are total misunderstandings of its actual heart, a heart that as I have found it protects the "self" from ever departing for an imaginary beyond; that in fact returns it to this world after all its explorations and with the journey as home. 

Forget the "world to come", or at least, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Well, I could keep rambling all day. Just a mention of another favorite poet of mine, Philip Larkin. 

Philip Larkin, who once said that his popularity was in part because he often wrote of unhappiness, "and most people are unhappy"

One of his poems is "Faith Healing" where he speaks, with obvious scepticism, of the "works" of a faith healer , a healer who asks of each "Now, dear child, what's wrong?" A good question. Larkin ends by saying that at the culmination of the service "all is wrong" and continues:- 

In everyone there sleeps

A sense of life lived according to love.

To some it means the difference they could make

By loving others, but across most it sweeps

As all they might have done had they been loved.

This nothing cures.....

And he speaks of "the voice above" that says "Dear Child"........and all time has disproved.

Which makes me think of Syrian children.

Beyond Calculation

The so called "beast from the east" is now disturbing our English spring - possibly all part of global warming - so I shall compose a blog and waffle and ramble. 

The "beast from the east"

This morning I was reflecting upon the nature of "no calculation". Perhaps this could be seen as seeking to calculate but let me not drift too far away from the subject in hand. Here is the entry on "calculation" (hakarai) from the "Glossary of Pure Land Terms" to be found in the "Complete Works of Shinran":-

Hakarai is the noun form of a verb meaning to deliberate, analyze, and determine a course of action. It further means to arrange or manage, to work out a problem, to bring a plan to conclusion. In Shinran’s more common usage, as a synonym for self-power, it refers to all acts of intellect and will aimed at achieving liberation. Specifically, it is the Shin practicer’s efforts to make himself worthy of Amida’s compassion in his own eyes and his clinging to his judgments and designs, predicated on his own goodness, for attaining religious awakening.

For Shinran, salvation lies rather in the complete entrusting of oneself to the Primal Vow, which works to bring about “the attainment of Buddhahood by the person of evil”. This working is Amida’s hakarai. Hakarai, then, possesses two opposed meanings, as a synonym for both self-power and Other Power, and its usage reflects the core of Shinran’s religious thought, where one’s calculative thinking and Amida’s working are experienced as mutually exclusive. Great compassion illumines everyone at all times, but any contrivance to attain enlightenment by cultivating one’s own virtues or capabilities – whether through moral action or religious practice – will blind one to it, making sincere trust (shinjin) impossible. Only when a person realizes his or her true nature as a foolish being (bombu), all of whose acts and thoughts arise from blind passions, does he awaken to the great compassion that grasps him just as he is. To know oneself and to know Amida’s compassion are, in fact, inseparable aspects of the same realization, and one awakens to them simultaneously. In this awakening, one’s own hakarai disappears and entrusting oneself to Amida’s Vow actually comes about for the first time. Thus Shinran states, “No working (practicer’s hakarai) is true working (Amida’s hakarai).”

As true entrusting arises wholly from Other Power, the practicer is completely passive. Even seeking to know oneself as evil or to rid oneself of hakarai in order to accord with the Primal Vow is itself hakarai, and all such effort is futile and self-defeating. This is the paradox the Shin practicer faces. The admonition against hakarai does not mean, however, that one must renounce the aspiration for enlightenment and do nothing at all. It may be said that the desire for birth arises truly only with shinjin and that prior to realization of shinjin it is overshadowed by attachment to this world. Nevertheless, aspiration even prior to realization of shinjin leads one to listen to the teaching in earnest confrontation of the problem of emancipation. Such listening will at some point be transformed into hearing (mon), which Shinran explains:

“To hear” means to hear the Primal Vow and be free of doubt (i.e., hakarai). Further, it indicates shinjin. 

This hearing, which is the realization of shinjin, is not simply to receive the verbal teaching, but to experience with one’s entire being the very reality of the Primal Vow. When great compassion wakens one to its working, one is freed from the bonds of one’s own hakarai. Conversely, when one’s calculative thinking is made to fall away, all is seen to have been Amida’s working.

Maybe after wading through that lot some will much prefer the far more abbreviated verse to be found in Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work to the good for those who love God, to them who are called according to his purpose." But for me, the dualistic language of Romans, of a God who himself calculates, of those who "love God" (and those who do not?), of those who are "called" (and those who are not?)..........well, each to their own. Anyway, as I was thinking this morning, my mind drifted to the words of children, who rarely seem to calculate. 

For various reasons I'm not really with Wordsworth, with his:-

trailing clouds of glory do we come, 

from God who is our home

(lines from "Intimations of Immortality") 

Perhaps trailing eons of karma? Maybe, but let me not calculate. Back to children and their words. Time for waffle. Once, when my own daughter was young, we were walking across a rather large field. Right in the middle I asked her if she wanted to play any games. Indeed she did. "Hide and Seek"!! "Where on earth can you hide here?" I asked, to which she sank down and pulled her coat over her head.

Anyone for "Hide and Seek"?

 So it is with children. Another time, during our "pre-go to sleep" chat, she suddenly said to me:- "When people die they go to shops", which astonished me for a moment, before remembering a visit to a museum the day before when we had taken time to look at some to the exhibits on display of stuffed animals. Putting two and two together and getting five, my little one had come up with a complete pile of nonsense - which just might have much to say of our own calculations, but let us not go there. "Oh no" I cried, "the people in shop windows are dummies, they have never been real." Responding, she then asked:- "Then why do they wear clothes?" This was now putting great demands upon my wisdom......"Its so the shop can display what they have for us to buy" I said. "Oh" she said, "so if you want something they take it off of the dummy and give it to you." Well, eventually I managed to explain about the shop having stock of various sizes inside, and at last my daughter was off to the land of nod. 

Dead or Alive?

Rambling on, last year my daughter got herself married. Not a moment too soon I thought as she now had two children of her own - even Pure Land Buddhists have standards. When I first heard of the intended nuptials I realised with terror that a speech would be demanded of me. I dreaded it. Mrs Dookie made light of the whole affair, just suggesting that I offered a few anecdotes of our daughter when young and then thank the staff and whatnot. The suggestion of anecdotes got me thinking and one popped into my head, one I had in fact never shared with family, one I had always kept close to my heart. This one took place during the days of Band Aid and Bob Geldof, when every night we heard news and saw pictures of the terrible famines in Ethiopia. 

Sir Bob Geldof - bodhisattvas come in all shapes and sizes

I was walking our six year old to school. She happened to look up at the sky and said:- "I wonder if God is up there behind that cloud". 

Time for a father's wisdom! "Oh, God is not like that, God is everywhere".

"Cor, he must be a fat bloke" she said.

 We walked on a little, then:-"Why did God create wasps?" 

Immediately I got the drift. A couple of days before, eating jam sandwiches in the garden, a wasp had dive-bombed proceedings causing mayhem and fear. Time again for the wisdom of age:- "Oh, we shouldn't judge the worth of anything just by whether we like them or not. There's a reason why everything has been created." 

This time we walked on for a minute or two and then my little one, just six, asked:- "Why did God create the people of Ethiopia?" Her question still has the power to break my heart; still I am totally unable to remember exactly what I said, but really, no wisdom on earth could have given an answer - not, that is, if it issues from "calculation". 

Well, I told the anecdote at the wedding, with all the guests settling in for a four course nosh. I'm told it went well. 

Time for a anecdote on famine?

Well, just to finish, a couple of anecdotes from our grandchildren. The generations come and go, children remain children. Playing in the park with my grandson, then four, we both lept into a wooden play boat. Me, in my very best "pirate" voice cried out:- "Ah ha me hearties!!" to which the little lad said:- "There's only one hearty"! Indeed there was. 

Anyone for a breadstick?

And just to even things up, one from our grandaughter, then three. We would often give her pizza for tea and our daughter told us that she often liked a breadstick with her meal. So we offered her the packet, she took three, ate them, then left most of her pizza. "Next time we'll hide the breadsticks" said a stern Mrs Dookie. A few days later it was pizza again. In her very best "this is for adults only" voice Mrs Dookie said to me:- "I've hidden the breadsticks right out of sight" to which the little girl said:- "They're NOT out of sight, they're in that cupboard over there"

Our two little grandchildren

Related Quotes:-

 "The spirit of this time would like to hear of use and value. I also thought this way, and my humanity still thinks this way. But that other spirit forces me nevertheless to speak, beyond justification, use, and meaning."

(From "The Red Book", C G Jung)



I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infants cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlets curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

(William Blake, "London")

Holy Books

In the past I have had quite a love of Holy Books. I do appreciate that many will argue that the plural rather than the singular (i.e. books, not book) would be incorrect. They would seek to argue that there is just one Holy Book, inspired by just one God, and more, with just one correct interpretation. 

Take your pick

The problem with such a claim is simply that more than one group of believers make such a claim, yet each supporting the claims of different books, with each claiming their own interpretation is the only way. I observe that more often than not those who make such a claim have been born into the culture that gave birth to their book, which makes you think (if you are that way inclined)

Anyway, maybe enough. Who actually cares these days? The Bible may well be a perennial best seller yet who actually reads it? I have noted that the very simplest question concerning the Good Book often leaves people floundering as far as an answer is concerned! And more, in the USA I have seen that though a very large percentage claims to believe the Bible to be God's "word", many of these same people are also unable to answer the simplest questions concerning its contents. Which seems strange, at least to me. If I actually believed that a book had been inspired by a transcendent Being I would at least seek to open it occasionally to find out what "he" was trying to say. Then again, possibly many are happy to be told by others. Who knows?

As I said, once I was an ardent reader of Holy Books. Now, for me, the only "revelation" is Reality itself. I cannot help but seek to read it. Yet with my past, I cannot but help dredging up various words, verses and lessons from the various "holy" books I have dipped into in days of old. In doing so I love the parallels that I find. One dear to my own heart is the little verse from one of the Parables of the Kingdom from the Gospel of St Mark in the New Testament, which goes:- "for the earth brings forth fruits of herself". This has its echo, at least for me, in the Pure Land phrase that "things are made to become so of themselves, beyond our calculations". Both witness to trust, to faith, of letting go. If others wish to plot their path, so be it; if others wish to think the way ahead has been charted and prescribed in great detail in a particular book and fear slipping from such a straight and narrow way, so be it. I'm with St John of the Cross:- "If you wish to be sure of the road you tread on then close your eyes and walk in the dark". The Buddhists would say that we must stand upon the firm ground of emptiness!

Do apples "calculate" in order to grow?

But apart from such echoes, it is the world around me, this Universe, this Cosmos, that is for me the only revelation. To know it is to come to know ourselves. Maybe the smile of a child will have a greater message than, say, a dogs turd, but each moment has its time. We respond with empathy, with communion, with openness - or we close up in a tight ball, fearing the river of change.

Always the Best

Sometimes while reading some little phrase will pass by me with little attention being paid. Yet it seems to cling in the memory and refuses to pass into oblivion. One such phrase recently was of some zen master. Alas what book it was I am unable to recall - just his words have continued to echo. As I remember it, some "searcher" was asking questions, and asked the master what was the best cut of meat in the shop. The master said:- "every cut is the best". 

Is there a best? Perhaps we find one tastier?

At the time I skimmed past, my mind in search of more profound "answers", deeper insights, whatever the mind searches for when not content with what is already "the best"!!

But as said, the words of the master (and I do not even like "masters") have stuck, or at least have continued to pop into my mind as cakes have been baked and other pursuits indulged in.

 "Every cut is the best".

Who is the best master?

I think comparisons can be pernicious. Which flower do we like the best? Who is our best friend? When can I get past this moment and get onto something better? So it goes on. In such a scenario when will anything ever be "the best"?

The master's words have resonance with many other pearls; not quite the very same point being made yet having parallels, correspondences, connections. 

If you wish to know the truth then cease to cherish opinions

Judge not lest you be judged

Beginner's mind

Made to become so of itself beyond our calculations

Nothing like a good calculation

Obviously, if we love "calculating" we can continue to judge, continue to reach for the "better" - surely, surely, surely that is how we "improve" and wend our way towards that "self" that will finally gain our approval. Or the approval of the great Lawmaker in the sky. The self that will be "the best".

But to me the "best cut" means acceptance, trust, faith, grace, mercy, all in the unfolding moment. Which some have called the flowering of emptiness. Maybe that is why the words of the master kept popping up. All I was seeing was that which I already was, for better or for worse.

Trust. But what about jumping from the top of a 100 ft pole without a safety net (as the zens say)?

Related Quotes:-

"Simply the best, better than all the rest" (lyrics from "The Best", Tina Turner)

Just pondering the above and for my own benefit - the words, understood within a Universe of duality, would issue in suffering. While "within" non-duality they can be enlightenment itself. (If I understand Dogen correctly duality can "be" within non-duality, or, better, duality needs non-duality to be known without suffering)

Continuing with another quote, from "Zen Cosmology" by Ted Beringer, which relates to this:- "Of all distortions concerning nonduality, the antithetical polarization of 'duality' and 'non-duality' is the most common and most pernicious. This antithetical polarization results from mistaking coessential foci of nonduality (i.e. nonduality/duality) as independent entities (or unrealities), and thereby seeing them as two distinct, exclusive positions....." 

Well, there you are. We can have our cake and eat it too.

Seriously, it seems to me that much of this complexity is simply to do with language being essentially dualistic and thus not entirely suitable for expressing - or capturing -  reality as it is. Yet life is lived, not thought, and therefore, as the Good Book says, "a little child shall lead them". Or can do, if we let them. 

                                                                                                 

Chiasmus and the Kalogenic Universe

Well, what is the point of extending our vocabulary day by day, weighing ourselves down with new words, thoughts and ideas? Possibly no point whatsoever. But sometimes my own mind drifts to the story of the Jewish scholar who, awaiting his execution in the morning, nevertheless sits studying the Talmud until late into the night. 

A Jewish Scholar though perhaps not awaiting execution

(Or is it the story of the man who sermonises of the world's end on the morrow who is spied that night planting his next crop of vegetables? Not sure. But no matter) 

Does there have to be a point? If Meister Eckhart is correct in saying that love has no why does there have to be a point in extending our vocabulary, any particular point to any learning? Musing further, possibly we all have our own mental map of "things that are important" and "things that are not important". Ah yes; this is good, useful, valuable......whereas that is bad, useless, worthless. And so with all things, and people too. Dogen had something relevant to say on all this, that flowers fade no matter that we think them beautiful, while weeds grow even though we dislike them. This has its affinities with the Pure Land saying that things are made to become so of themselves beyond our calculations. 

Good advice - or not?

Chiasmus and Kalogenic, two new words, at least for me. The dictionary definition of "chiasmus" ( ky-az-muz) is that it is a linguistic twist or turn that you can use to express a crosswise mode of thought, as in:-

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

Recently I was dipping into a book where the author sought to demonstrate that the concept of chiasmus "can be generalised so that it is not only a figure of speech but also, and more importantly, a figure of thought and a figure of reality."

In doing so he approached the thought, once again, of Dogen, a man I have been quite engrossed in lately, a man whose thought - like all - issued from his own concrete reality in time and space, from his own attempts to find meaning and significance within a limited time span of just one age and no other. 

Onto "kalogenic", from kalos, the Greek word for beauty, and genesis, which of course means bringing into being. Many now are seeing that our reality is a Kalogenic Universe, in which we live and move and have our being. Maybe to see this we must needs think crosswise and not simply align our thought to a simple linear progression. Then again, there can be a linear progression of some sorts. An example of our Kalogenic Universe is the butterfly, as mentioned by Hyatt Carter in one of his many little books. The butterfly, or the mariposa in Spanish, or again, a dealbhan-de in Gaelic, which translates as "Fire of God". Here we have some images of the butterfly.....

Which here is the weed and which the flower? This can possibly show just how limited our own judgements can be when our minds seek to stand still within a world of becoming.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless:

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, 

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

(T S Eliot, lines from Four Quartets)

 

The still point of the turning world

The still point of the turning world - again

John Keats once said that if something was not beautiful then it could not be true. He also spoke of "negative capability", the ability to live with uncertainties and mysteries and doubts, "without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." 

For now, I must go. Just two more images to finish.....of two modes of thought, one of letting things BE, and one of "calculation":-

Yet what do you see as your own finger points at the moon?

The Moon and the Fingers that Point

No one can wander far on any so called "spiritual" forum without stumbling upon the words:- do not mistake the finger that points for the moon itself. I have used it myself. Now I find that there are some who call into question its profundity! In fact, assertions are made that "finger" and "moon" are both part of a non-dual reality. 

Here we go again. Yet which is important? Finger OR moon OR both?

Dogen, who I have mentioned before, wrote a famous little poem, much admired by those who live in the land of zen:-

To what shall I 

Liken the world?

Moonlight, reflected

In dewdrops,

Shaken from a crane's bill.

Dogen - cause of all the trouble

We are told that the entire world is fully contained in each and every dewdrop, each one symbolic of all impermanent moments, yet each "not an illusion in contrast with reality", this simply because they are "liberated by their reflection of the moon's glow". Conversely, the moon as a symbol of Reality-as-is is not an aloof realm since it is fully merged in the finite and individuated manifestations of the dew. In fact, "the poem itself becomes one with the setting it depicts."

A crane, perhaps seeking for a tasty dewdrop

Again, we are asked to pay attention to the word "shaken". We are not to understand all this as some sort of static image but, by virtue of being shaken, the metaphor becomes "dynamic and interactive". 

Putting any further analysis aside, I open here to the sheer richness of my being here, where assertions of "eastern pantheism" and "quietism" must yield to a very dynamic and transformative way of being in our world.

It does seem that if we wish to pay attention to much of the "new physics", of "quantum leaps" and "superstrings", then such a Reality as evoked by Dogen can act as a guide. 

It seems that in Reality's "ceaseless advance into novelty",  finger and moon are "dual" movements of a non-dual reality. Just as well that the actual living of Reality can be so simple.

Speaking of the simplicity of reality, perhaps it could be asked as to whether much of this is purely academic, of no consequence. As I see it, yes, in some cases that is so. When everything valuable is given, is gift, some can well find themselves naturally expressing such a way of being (or non-being!) without any exploration of various ways and means, dewdrops or moons. But I find such thoughts can add clarity, and I think again of the words of Jane Hirshfield which I have already quoted in a previous blog on "Zen Poems". 

Jane speaks of the potential of great art or poetry "to evoke, a truing of vision, a changing of vision. Entering a good poem, a person feels, tastes, hears, thinks, and sees in altered ways.......by changing selves, one by one, art changes also the outer world that selves create and share." 

I also think here of just what it is that we should seek to communicate to others, again of what was said in a previous blog. That true communication is communion, that what can only be truly communicated is that which we already are. Often children can see the truth of us no matter our words. We are communicating all the time, like it or not. Whatever helps "true" our vision is therefore of worth. 

Two takes on "communion"

So, whatever, no matter. We have all eternity so there is no time to lose.

Related Quotes:-

Hee-Jin Kim, writing of the "deeper matrix" of Dogen, that it was.......a passionate search for liberation through concrete activities and expression.

(Kim is widely recognised as one of our greatest authorities on Dogen)

......the aim is to discourage the 'craving for generality' - to encourage people to look before they think. 

(Ray Monk, on Wittgenstein, from his biography of the latter)

Language is a poison that can be used to seduce, mislead and bewitch us, but it can also heal, as when we speak truly. 

(Wittgenstein)

Dogen's emphasis is not on how to transcend language but on how to radically use it.

(Hee-Jin Kim)

Ultimate speech is to be rid of speech; ultimate action is to be rid of action. 

(Zhuangzi)

Words and letters, however socially constructed, are never mere signs in the abstract, theoretical sense, but alive and active "in the flesh and blood." Contrary to the conventional view that language is no more than a means of communication, it is profoundly internal to an individual's life. Language flows individually and collectively through the existential bloodstream, so much so that it is breath, blood and soul of human existence. Herein lies the essence of Dogen's radical phenomenalism. Thus knowledge becomes acesis, instead of gnosis or logos - "seeing things as they are" now means "making things as they are." In this light the indexical analogy of "the finger that points at the moon" is highly misleading, if not altogether wrong, because it draws on a savifically inefficacious conception of language.

(Kim-Jin Kim)