2 November 2009
A Teisho by
James Myoun Ford
A monk asked Chao-chou, "Has the dog Buddha nature or not?" Chao-chou said, "Mu."
Wu-Men's Comment
For the practice of Zen it is imperative that you pass through the barrier set up by the Ancestral Teachers.
For subtle realization it is of the utmost importance that you cut off the mind road. If you do not pass the barrier of the ancestors, if you do not cut off the mind road, then you are a ghost clinging to bushes and grasses.
What is the barrier of the ancestral Teachers? It is just this one word "Mu" -- the one barrier of our faith. We call it the Gateless Barrier of the Zen tradition. When you pass through this barrier, you will not only interview Chao-chou intimately, you will walk hand in hand with all the Ancestral Teachers in the successive generations of our lineage -- the hair of your eyebrows entangled with theirs, seeing with the same eyes, hearing with the same ears. Won't that be fulfilling? Is there anyone who would not want to pass this barrier?
So, then, make your whole body a mass of doubt, and with your three hundred and sixty bones and joints and your eighty-four thousand hair follicles concentrate on this one word "Mu." Day and night, keep digging into it. Don't consider it to be nothingness. Don't think in terms of "has" and "has not." It is like swallowing a red-hot iron ball. You try to vomit it out, but you can't.
Gradually you purify yourself, eliminating mistaken knowledge and attitudes you have held from the past. Inside and outside become one. You're like a mute person who has had a dream--you know it for yourself alone.
Suddenly Mu breaks open. The heavens are astonished, the earth is shaken. It is as though you have snatched the great sword of General Kuan. When you meet the Buddha, you kill the Buddha. When you meet Bodhidharma, you kill Bodhidharma. At the very cliff edge of birth-and-death, you find the Great Freedom. In the Six Worlds and the Four Modes of Birth, you enjoy a samadhi of frolic and play.
How, then, should you work with it? Exhaust all you life energy on this one word "Mu." If you do not falter, then it's done! A single spark lights your Dharma candle.
Wu-Men's Verse
Dog, buddha nature--
the full presentation of the whole;
with a a bit of "has" or "has not"
body is lost, life is lost.
(Translated by Robert Aitken in The Gateless Barrier)
I love Wumen’s little sermon on Mu. He evokes a lively practice and calls us to how important it is for us to find our own way into the great matter. It really is about life and death. And, not some abstract life and death. But our lives, our deaths; yours and mine. The old master gets it right down to his bones and marrow and he conveys it eloquently.
However his very enthusiasm and passion can itself become a snare. For instance there is no doubt many encounter the koan as a red-hot iron ball. Particularly within the context of retreat where there are few other distractions the question, the word, the noise Mu can become the holder for all the burning questions of life, rendered into this one thing. Mu. And hot is how it is encountered.
And, for many, particularly many I’ve spoken with over the years, that red-hot iron ball isn’t at all how it’s encountered. Mu can be confusion itself. Neither burning hot nor freezing cold, just confusion. Mu can be a nagging something in the back of your head. Mu can be a small pebble in one’s shoe. Mu can become the longing inhabiting one’s dreams, emerging in so many unlikely ways. And Mu can be encountered like a blueberry found on a bush. You just reach out, pick it, and throw it into your mouth.
It can be any of these things. And more.
I have one friend who many years before she took up the Zen way, was canoeing alone in Maine’s far northern wilderness. Let’s call her Rebecca. Out there in the wilderness in a moment as her paddle dipped into the water she was caught, first by the sound a small splash, then by the feel of resistance as the paddle slipped deeper into the water, then by the smells of water and air and canoe all so clean they had little connection to the experiences of her life back in Boston. Rebecca was startled into silence. In that silence all that was left was the flow of life itself, a flock of geese, the clouds overhead, the splash of some fish, and that crisp smell.
The moment passed quickly enough, but some part of her never forgot. It seemed as if it were some small secret she and the universe shared. Time passed and things happened. There was a divorce. There were changes in work. Rebecca felt dissatisfaction with her life and who she had become, and wanted to find her way again. She thought what she needed was a spiritual discipline, and for whatever reason came to sit in the Zen style and ended up in one of our sanghas.
Early on she came in for an interview. We talked about life and practice and her hopes and we agreed settling down and just noticing might be good for her. Rebecca took up the practice of breath counting. After she had been sitting a while counting her breath, I don’t recall, maybe seven or eight months, she thought maybe the koan way might be a right next step for her. And so, as is our usual practice here, she was presented with Mu. She made her bows and left.
Some months later Rebecca came to sesshin. A day or so into it she came into dokusan and said to me, “You know, James. I’m not sure why, but Mu for me is that moment of silence I experienced all those years ago, but made fresh. Instead of honking geese and the smell of forest air, it’s the roar of that car which just drove down the road and that funny off-white color of the wall.”
And she said one other thing. All this caught my attention. We pursued the matter further. I asked her one of the usual checking questions. And she knew the answer. I asked another, and another, and she kept meeting them fully.
Here’s the point. Rebecca never had the red-hot iron ball experience. Didn’t need it. For her Mu was found like a flower opening.
And if you think about it, that should be one of the options. What we’re promised by the teachers of our way is that we and all things, we, you and I, and every blessed thing, share the same root. Mu is just a noise. It is a placeholder. But what it holds for us is a way of being in the world, that actually we’re always experiencing. It’s always here. We just don’t notice it.
The catch is that other way of being in the world, of slicing and dicing, of separating and weighing and judging, well, it’s important, it’s useful. In fact seeing into our shared place isn’t particularly useful. It doesn’t pay the bills. It doesn’t get us a girlfriend or a boyfriend. It’s in fact the most counter cultural thing we can be about. And so, even though we are surrounded by it, often, usually, its very existence slips into the back of our human consciousness. And even though it is the background of our lives, we come to forget it.
Rarely completely, it is after all, also our common heritage, our birthright as we enter into this universe. So, it peeks out at us in our dreams. It whispers to us in the dark. It beckons in the playing of children and the touch of a kiss. And, it appears even in some very rough patches of our lives, sometimes the roughest. You never know when it will present.
Now I want to be clear here. Each of these phrases I’ve just used are metaphors, are pointers. Don’t look for a thing here. Also, this is important. There is also a pernicious oneness, experienced in many ways, although most often as a projection, and of the various projections, most often, of our egos. Be wary. I’m not describing a thing. I’m pointing.
That said, back to the matter of Mu and its utter uselessness. If you’ve presented yourself to a Zen hall, if you’ve come for an interview with a Zen teacher, you’ve probably decided that the culturally correct thing hasn’t proven to be all that satisfying. There’s been some nagging thing at the back of your heart or your head. Something, perhaps only the smallest thing, hints that the life we’ve led up to this point isn’t enough. Or even that phrase “not enough” doesn’t quite express it; some sense of dis-ease haunts us.
So, perhaps you’re ready to let the call of culture, of gain, of success one way or another, fall down a notch or two. Perhaps you’re ready for something that has no value. And so you take up our disciplines of sitting down, shutting up, and paying attention. Sitting is a good thing. Lots of sitting is a very good thing. And taking up the hard way is sometimes very necessary. Throwing our hearts and bodies into the practice, sometimes, can be the most important thing we can choose to do. There is a place for that red-hot iron ball.
But, actually, here’s the secret. All you need do is step out of your own way. That’s the only problem. We stand in our own way. It’s already here. It’s always here. Perhaps you first noticed it as a child, maybe as an adolescent. It’s taught in Buddhism, and Taoism and Judaism and Islam and in Christianity. It’s found somewhere in all religions. And, it’s found in the hearts of people who claim no religion. It is as close as the throbbing in your jugular vein. It is proclaimed in the next breath you draw. It’s found canoeing in Maine and it’s found changing a diaper.
So, the pointers are everywhere. In that most Zen-like of Western spiritual testaments, the Gospel of Thomas, the sage Jesus declares if you want to see him, cut a board in two, or pick up a stone. Saying you can find it when you cleave a board or pick up a stone, doesn’t mean there’s some magical board out there waiting to be found or one rock is more precious than all others. Rather it is just this piece of wood. It is just this pebble.
It is just this breath.
It is just this Mu.
Breathing.
Mu.
Presenting.
Mu.
Nowhere else.
Mu.
Easy as falling off a log.
The Very Short Sutra on the Meeting of the Buddha and the Goddess
Thus I have made up:
Once the Buddha was walking along the
forest path in the Oak Grove at Ojai, walking without
arriving anywhere
or having any thought of arriving or not arriving
and lotuses shining with morning dew
miraculously appeared under every step
soft as silk beneath the toes of the Buddha
When suddenly, out of the turquoise sky,
dancing in front of his half-shut inward-looking
eyes, shimmering like a rainbow
or a spider's web
transparent as the dew on a lotus flower,
--the Goddess appeared quivering
like a hummingbird in the air before him
She, for she was surely a she
as the Buddha could clearly see
with his eye of discriminating awareness wisdom,
was mostly red in color
though when the light shifted
she flashed like a rainbow.
She was naked except
for the usual flower ornaments
Goddesses wear
Her long hair
was deep blue, her two eyes fathomless pits of space
and her third eye a bloodshot
ring of fire
The Buddha folded his hands together
and greeted the Goddess thus:
"O Goddess, why are you blocking my path.
Before I saw you I was happily going nowhere.
Now I'm not sure where to go."
"You can go around me,"
said the Goddess, twirling on her heels like a bird
darting away,
but just a little way away,
"or you can come after me.
This is my forest too,
you can't pretend I'm not here."
With that the Buddha sat
supple as a snake
solid as a rock
beneath a Bo tree
that sprang full-leaved
to shade him.
"Perhaps we should have a chat,"
he said.
"After years of arduous practice
at the time of the morning star
I penetrated reality, and now..."
"Not so fast, Buddha.
I am reality.
The Earth stood still,
the oceans paused,
the wind itself listened
--a thousand arhats, bodhisattvas, and dakinis
magically appeared to hear
what would happen in the conversation.
"I know I take my life in my hands."
said the Buddha.
"But I am known as the Fearless One
--so here goes."
And he and the Goddess
without further words
exchanged glances.
Light rays like sunbeams
shot forth
so bright that even
Sariputra, the All-Seeing One,
had to turn away.
And then they exchanged thoughts
and the illumination was as bright as a diamond candle.
And then they exchanged mind
And there was a great silence as vast as the universe
that contains everything
And then they exchanged bodies
And clothes
And the Buddha arose
as the Goddess
and the Goddess
arose as the Buddha
and so on back and forth
for a thousand hundred thousand kalpas.
If you meet the Buddha
you meet the Goddess.
If you meet the Goddess
you meet the Buddha.
Not only that. This:
The Buddha is the Goddess,
the Goddess is the Buddha.
And not only that. This:
The Buddha is emptiness
the Goddess is bliss,
the Goddess is emptiness
the Buddha is bliss.
And that is what
and what-not you are
It's true.
So here comes the mantra of the Goddess and the Buddha, the unsurpassed dual-mantra. Just to say this mantra, just to hear this mantra once, just to hear one word of this mantra once makes everything the way it truly is: OK.
So here it is:
Earth-walker/sky-walker
Hey, silent one, Hey, great talker
Not two/Not one
Not separate/Not apart
This is the heart
Bliss is emptiness
Emptiness is bliss
Be your breath, Ah
Smile, Hey
And relax, Ho
And remember this: You can't miss.
by Rick Fields in Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism & Ecology, pp. 3-7
Jan and I awakened this morning to learn the referendum to reject Maine's legislation to recognize same gender marriage passed.
Jan sighed. I felt a wave of anger. This was so wrong. And of course, our feelings are nothing compared to those of so many people who have suffered from prejudice and worse legal sanction, and have once again seen their neighbors reject their full humanity.
This is so sad. So sad...
Now I know the wave of history will transform this injustice to justice. Every poll shows the younger generation of whatever other political view cannot comprehend the logic of making lesbian and gay people second class citizens.
But I am worried for the short term. We've been working hard toward marriage equality in Rhode Island. This is a setback for us as well as for those in Maine. No doubt...
But...
No on 1 campaign manager Jesse Connolly is quoted in the Boston Globe. “We’re not short timers. We’re in for the long haul. We will regroup. This is about love and commitment and family, and so we’ll stay the course. And I ask you to stay the course with us.’’
And I can respond.
We will.
We will.
THE STORY OF THE ELDEST PRINCESS
A Life in Stories
A story loosely adapted from A.S. Byatt’s story
Together with a Homily by James Ishmael Ford
1 November 2009
First Unitarian Church
Providence, Rhode Island
Cathy: Here we are, at the time which in the ancient Celtic calendar is known as “Summer's end.” In more recent Western spiritual calendars it has become the time to recall all those who have died, and particularly those who became examples for us and showed the ways of generosity and love and attention.
One of those truths is that the barriers between the worlds of the living and the dead are not so firm as we often say. How many of us have been touched by the dead one way or another? But within our hearts this is time where that already tenuous barrier wears so thin that small and occasionally large tears appear, and there is motion between the worlds, dreams become more wild and magic erupts into our lives.
James: This is a time for fires and for stories. This is a time to consider the deep currents of our lives, who we are, and who we might become. So, perhaps of course, the regular pattern of our Sunday worship shifts. Today we tell a story. And we reflect a bit on what it might mean for us within the context of knowing what our real goals are, and then finding our way. Then later we will within the context of meditation and the deep prayer that is attention recall those whom we love and who love us who have died.
But, let's begin with a story. This one comes from the writer A. S. Byatt.
(Byatt’s original words in regular type, additional materials by James in italics.)
Cathy: Once upon a time, in a kingdom between the sea and the mountains, between the forest and the desert, there lived a King and Queen with three daughters. Their eldest daughter was pale and quiet, the second daughter was brown and active, and the third was one of those Sabbath daughters who are bonny and bright and good and gay, of whom everything and nothing was expected.
Then one day the sky turned green.
James: The ministers said nothing could be done, though a contingency-fund might usefully be set up for when a course of action became clear. The priests counseled patience and self-denial, as a general sanative measure, abstention from lentils, and the consumption of more lettuce. The generals supposed it might help to attack their neighbor to the East, since it was useful to have someone else to blame… The witches and wizards on the whole favored a Quest.
Cathy: After thinking about it the King and Queen decided for the quest, which the wizards and witches said should be for a single silver bird in a nest of ash-branches. By general assent the only appropriate person to go on this quest would be one of the princesses. Each agreed, but as this is a fairy tale the parents decided to send their eldest first.
James: They gave her a sword, and an inexhaustible water-bottle someone had brought back from another Quest, and a package of bread and quails’ eggs and lettuce and pomegranates, which did not last very long.
And off she went on the road which led to the silver bird’s nest.
Cathy: However she began to think. She was by nature a reading, not a traveling, princess. And she was well aware of stories about princes and princesses who set out on Quests. What they all had in common, she thought to herself, was a pattern in which the two elder sisters or brothers, set out very confidently, failed in one way or another, and were turned to stone, or imprisoned in vaults, or cast into magic sleep, until rescued by the third royal person…
James: She sat down by the side of the road to work things through. That’s when she heard a small stone beside her cry out for help. She lifted the stone. Pinned underneath it, in a hollow of the ground, was a very large and dusty scorpion, waving angry pincers, and somewhat crushed in the tail.
Cathy: They had a long conversation. The scorpion knew of a wise old woman out in the forest who should be able to heal him. And, most important, they decided to leave the road, even though the rule for this kind of Fairy story dictated they should stay on that road. Instead they walked on into the forest. Well, the princess walked carrying the scorpion in her basket.
James: Turned out the scorpion knew what berries to eat or not. So that was a good thing. Then they came upon a big fat toad who had been attacked by a human and had a terrible gash on its head. They talked about the Quest, but mainly about the wise old woman who could heal the scorpion. They agreed she should be able to heal a toad, as well. The toad warned the princess it would not turn into a handsome prince, although it considered itself quite a handsome toad. They all agreed it was handsome, and that they were what they were and as they were, they would go on together.
Cathy: This is a fairy tale And we know the princess needs three magical helpers. And so, indeed, further out in the forest they stumbled upon a giant cockroach which had been snared in at hunter’s trap. As the princess freed it she saw its stomach had been torn in the trap. So, they all agreed they should go together to find the wise old woman who could heal. By this time they seemed to have forgotten about the Quest.
James: Then they came across a handsome young Woodsman cutting logs in a clearing. And the princess thought she would like to leave the shelter of the woods and talk to him. But the cockroach whispered a warning. He had five wives, all buried behind his hut. The other two agreed and added details. So, thanks to the companions she avoided occupying the sixth grave.
Cathy: And so on and so forth, the four companions wandered through the forest, the elder princess and her three wounded friends. Then finally, it seemed out of nowhere they came to the old woman’s house. She healed the companions. Then the old woman and the elder princess sat down with a cup of tea and had a long talk.
James: She said There are young women who would never have listened to the creatures’ tales about the Woodsman… And maybe they would have been wise and maybe they would have been foolish: that is their story. But you listened to the Cockroach and stepped aside and came here, where we collect stories and spin stories and mend what we can and investigate what we can’t, and live quietly without striving…
We have no story of our own here, we are free, as old women are free, who don’t have to worry about princes or kingdoms, but dance alone and take an interest in the creatures.
Cathy: The conversation went on long into the evening. And eventually the elder princess decided the Quest to return the sky to blue wasn’t her work; that belonged to her youngest sister. Rather she would stay here and investigate the great mystery of life and death and become, in time, a wise old woman. This was her Quest, the quest of the heart.
And so she did.
James: And for those who want to know about that other story, the one about the original Quest, and how it turned out. Well, after the middle Princess had her adventure, which was really interesting, the youngest Princess finally left, and indeed she was able to turn the sky back to blue and was hailed as a heroine and lived happily ever after. Although they didn’t say it, there were some in her kingdom who found they missed the green sky…
HOMILY
Jan and I often while away the late evening propped up in bed with books resting on our tummies. When I have my way the television is also going, although Jan wants the volume really low. Me, I take comfort in the noise and pale dancing light, and sometimes with what is actually going on, on screen. Jan, not so much so. But, the real magic of the evening for both of us, requires that book held or resting. And, for Jan, I should add, a sleeping cat stretched across her midriff.
These days Jan reads several ways. She loves paper and boards. But she doesn’t disdain the Kindle Santa brought her last year. And, when she wants hands free reading, such as when she’s knitting, she’ll just use her iPod. Me, its always paper. Also, while I’m stuck nearly perpetually in the murder mystery universe, preferably those with the killing decently off stage and a clergy detective, or failing that, a well-drawn historical backdrop, Jan is literarily omnivorous. As they say you only need one intellectual in the family. And for us that’s Jan’s job. A quiet late evening supine in bed with our books is heavenly. Well, except for when the cat finds herself displaced for one reason or another. She can express resentment at her pillow moving, and it can involve teeth.
Among our small pleasures as we nest up there in the bedroom is sharing with each other a line or two from our current book. For instance having been tricked by a review on NPR I was reading a mystery by Philip Kerr where the detective is a Raymond Chandler type hard boiled but relentlessly honest private eye, in the first of this series trying to survive and do his job in Hitler’s Berlin. More shadow and a lot more violence than I usually like in my mysteries. But, what language! With unlikely metaphors piled high one upon another. “Jan,” I said. “Listen to this: He ‘sat at his desk, smoking a cigar that belonged properly in a plumber’s tool-bag. He was dark, with bright blue eyes, just like our beloved Fuhrer, and was possessed of a stomach that stuck out like a cash register… He shook me by the hand as I introduced myself. It was like holding a cucumber.’” That’s the sort of thing I read to Jan.
Jan, well, the sort of thing she reads to me tends to go more along the lines of, “You had the sense to see you were caught in a story, and the sense to see that you could change it to another one. And the special wisdom to recognize that you are under a curse – which is also a blessing – which makes the story more interesting to you than the things that make it up.”
Okay, when she read that to me, it caught me cold. Wow, I thought, perhaps I should read more of that literary fiction. “What’s that from?” I asked. “A. S. Byatt.” She replied, waving the book at me, a strategic finger guarding her place. “It’s in a collection titled The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye. The story is the ‘Eldest Princess.’”
I had to wait ‘till Jan had finished the book, then I read the whole story. And I thought, as I’m inclined to do at such moments of discovery, “Oh, there’s a sermon in here.” Now you’ve heard it. The story is about stories. The Eldest princess is sent off on a Quest, but being well-read, she knows this is actually a story about a youngest princess, and wanting her own story, she steps off the path.
And it sure seemed this is the time to share it. I think about this season, both Halloween and All Saints itself. I think of the layers that are even more ancient that go back to my Celtic ancestors and their celebration of Samhain, “summer’s end.” All these celebrations are about the touching of the worlds, more, the meeting of worlds, where all our stories collapse into a mysterious presence. Ghosts and saints crowd up with us, that great cloud of witnesses. And to what do they witness? To the reality of the world we encounter, and to the truth we need not follow in the ruts that have been laid before. We can break free and see anew, to find a better way. We’re all invited to go off the path, into the woods, into our own hearts and imaginations.
We then get some advice along that way. Just look at her magical companions. Not doves and unicorns, not even scarecrows and cowardly lions; those all belong to people who stay on the path, who color inside the lines. No, her companions are those found when one wanders away from the well-trodden path, a scorpion with a crushed stinger, a toad with a hole gouged into its head and a cockroach with a tear in its stomach. There’s a lot to be gleaned from these magical creatures. The only point I’ll make here is that if you look at the lives of the saints, the magical companions of our hearts, few turn out to be made of plaster and without blemish.
But nothing caught me so much as when the Eldest Princess finally made it to the point of her story, not the story of the youngest princess, or of the middle princess, but to the point of her story, found in an old woman’s hut in the middle of the forest. And that point echoes for all of us, for you, and for me. It is the real secret at the heart of all stories.
There’s little doubt in my mind we live and breath and take our being within stories. I love stories. In one very true sense they’re how we think. We use metaphor to extract meaning. The catch is that stories often instead catch us like that cockroach in the hunter’s snare. I’m too small, I’m too weak, I’m not smart enough, I’m not strong enough, I’m not good enough. There are snares for everyone in the stories that are laid out for us, but only as long as we’re willing to go along.
But, if we’re willing to step off the path, if we’re willing to listen to anyone who can speak wisdom, no matter who they might be; then we make our way to that hut in the woods. And there we can find something so, so important.
The most important line in that story about stories and about how to be free A. S. Byatt puts into the mouth of the old woman. “We have no story of our own here, we are free, as old women are free, who don’t have to worry about princes or kingdoms, but dance alone and take an interest in the creatures.”
Stories are woven out of our lives, and are meant to be used. Listen to them. Remember them. Sing them. Dance them. But know, in your heart of hearts, the stories are also just stories. Notice that, and magic follows like dawn follows the night. Holding the stories lightly, we find a certain freedom. Like last night when the children put on their costumes and wandered the evening streets, bands of witches and fairy princesses, spider-men and ghosts, among swirling leaves and brightly lit doorways. They collected their treasures. Then they returned home, took off their costumes, brushed their teeth and went to bed; once again boys and girls.
Just like that, we join the ranks of the saints.
Amen.
In A. S. Byatt's lovely story "The Eldest Princess," all the eldest princesses magical companions are wounded.
I read of these encounters and my mind reeled. I think of all my magical companions, really my spiritual guides over the many years, the ones who were actually of use on my way. Not one of them without a wound. One ate too much. Another had anger issues. Another liked the opposite sex way too much. Some whose wounds were, are so great they’re constantly in danger of overwhelming them.
This story pointed out something important for me, and I think, possibly useful to you. These magical companions, spiritual friends and teachers, while they’ve been important to me, critical in fact; they’re actually each of them following their own story, making their way toward their own healing. I think of this and I find myself thinking of all those who have gone before, all those who would be honored on a feast of the saints. And I can’t help but notice how on our way we find ourselves united. Each of us as we try to be authentic, to be real, to find our way, in doing so becoming a sorority, a fraternity, companions of the Holy Spirit.
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