Wisdom in Emptiness (revisited)

I was thinking upon the words quoted in the previous blog, those that D T Suzuki called "so important":- Praise be to God that I am not good. It led to me reflecting upon how much the same lesson (or teaching or reality) can appear in different guises. 

Praise be !!

I remember far back in time when in conversation with an ardent born-again Christian who was speaking of what he saw as the universal human recognition of our being "sinners". He spoke of how those in Africa, never having known the Bible, yet "sat in their huts whipping themselves because of their sin." Such were his thoughts. I'm not sure that his assertions would stand up to even a rudimentary anthropological investigation, yet he may well have "gained" from such a belief. Then again, maybe not. 

Who knows?

Whatever, true or not, I wonder how such relates to the words quoted above, of praising God because we are not good. To "praise" or reach for the whip? I'll leave it there and move on.

As I mentioned, I have recently reread the dialogue between Thomas Merton and D T Suzuki, "Wisdom in Emptiness". This is part of my own spiral (or possibly getting giddy spinning in circles) where revisiting various ideas, concepts and expressions help to clarify where I am (because, as Neddy Seagoon said, "everybody gotta be somewhere")  

In this dialogue, Suzuki contrasts the "innocence" of our natural state with the knowledge of good and evil, or in Buddhist terms, discrimination - moral or metaphysical. Such discrimination is "ignorance", which Suzuki claims obscures the original light of "suchness"/"emptiness".

Forbidden or...………..?

As the "Hsin Hsin Ming" begins:- 

"The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When not attached to love or hate, all is clear and undisguised."

But as the dialogue evolves - and as I see it - innocence and knowledge are not opposites, not opposed to each other; nor should we reject "knowledge" as such. But knowledge, and therefore differentiation, must arise from innocence/suchness, or else, in indentifying with our choices, we become lost in the sea of samsara. Identifications and choices will then be used to justify ourselves, others can be judged as falling short or for choosing differently. A persona is built of our own making.

"The Dharma (truth) is for passing over, not for grasping." The truth is never "ours" (though perhaps it can be for "others" - the Tao can be shared but not divided)

Shared but not divided

It often seems that love must have a "why". Our world is linear, it progresses, has purpose, we need to be getting somewhere, "salvation" is always tomorrow, even "the world to come". 

In a slightly different context, Merton speaks of there being no positive idea of personhood in Buddhism, "it is a value which seems to be missing." Yet, as he then goes on to say, Suzuki states that when we become "absolutely naked" we find ourselves becoming once again the ordinary "Tom, Dick or Harry" we have always been. True persons.

Persons. Tom, Dick and Harry?

In another essay by Suzuki, on Pure Land doctrine, he quotes from the Christian mystic Johannes Tauler:- "All that God would have from us is that we be idle and allow him to be the master craftsman; were we to be completely and utterly idle, then we would be perfectly human." 

Leaving aside the word "idle" (which is alluring in its own way, certainly for me) it seems significant that here, for a Christian, to be totally empty of self (idle) is nevertheless to be "perfectly human". 

Has something been lost in the translation?

In Suzuki's essay on Pure Land doctrine, he was in fact speaking of the two "ways" of Buddhism. Of "jiriki", self power, and "tariki", Other power. 

For Saichi, the myokonin (Pure Land saint) the two are known in faith (shinjin) as "one"...…

"O, Saichi, will you tell us of Other Power? 

Yes, but there is neither self power nor Other Power.

What is, is the graceful acceptance only."

Well, it can all become just a little confusing, yet this is only the faith v works question found in Christian doctrine but with an Inter-faith dimension. 

Merton speaks in this way:- 

"The innocence and purity of heart which belongs to paradise are a complete emptiness of self in which all is the work of God, the free and unpredictable expression of His love, the work of grace. In the purity of original innocence, all is done in us but without us. But before we reach that level, we must also learn to work on the other level of "knowledge" - where grace works in us but "not without us".

Within those words, for me, is the Pure Land way of "being made to become so of itself, beyond the calculation of the devotee, where "no working is true working", though perhaps with a little less intent to "learn". 

No calculation

In one of his journals Merton quotes a Church Father, Irenaeus, who wrote:- 

"If you are the work of God wait patiently for the hand of your artist who makes all things at an opportune time.......give to Him a pure and supe heart and watch over the form which the artist shapes in you......lest, in hardness, you lose the traces of His fingers." 

So yes, perhaps too much "idleness" may well put the whole thing in jeopardy! Who knows? Just as with the "raft" of the dharma for reaching the "other shore" ; when reached, the raft can be dispensed with, for it is for passing over and not for grasping. But beware of leaping off in mid-ocean. 

For passing over, not for grasping

But, summing up (perhaps not), to see the journey itself as "home" is not necessarily to discount the whole idea of life being a journey to somewhere; intentional or not. Which leaves it all as Merton and Suzuki leave it, with a slight difference between them, of a realised eschatology in the here and now of Buddhism, as compared with the eschatology of Christian speculation which always lies ahead of us. 

For me, "now" can (perhaps paradoxically) include a subsequent "tomorrow", but living with an eye on tomorrow would seem to exclude the living of now.

Well, that is it. Apart from, believe it or not, the clarity of my own mind.

Reality-as-is is for me infinite compassion, infinite wisdom, infinite potentiality. Whether heading for hell or heading for the Pure Land, all is within Reality-as-is. "Now" is unending. Idle or not.