(Narcissus garden blooms have long become wildflowers here on the North Coast, punching up in lawns and pastures, along roads, and, as here, in open forests. Most years they announce the coming of spring just a few days before it actually arrives, their bright yellow blossoms chiming like bells in the cold dark wet of late winter.
Each year I'm sceptical, and each year I'm wrong.)
So here we are on another Bodhisattva Day. The statement has subtly become more emphatic in the current environment; even a touch confrontational, in a world where any call for steady hands is suddenly fighting words.
Perhaps that's why I chose my father's cardigan this year, though the thought only just now occurred to me.
My best to all who agree that discretion and mindfulness are the essence of morality.
(That's me in my cardigan on Bodhisattva Day 2014. This year Bodhisattva Day falls on Thursday – i.e., tomorrow. For information on the bodhisattva principle, Bodhisattva Day, and how to participate, click this link.)
Enlightenment is the stated goal of Buddhism, possibly the only doctrine we all share, though variously defined.
As far as I know, all Zen lineages, diverse though we are, uphold the conviction that enlightenment is possible in this life; that it comes irrespective of social and material distinctions; and that meditation is the fundamental discipline of enlightenment practice.
In theory, we also hold our leaders to a "maximum illumination" standard; that is, the teacher must be the most enlightened person in the zendo. The old Chàn chronicles preserve accounts of itinerant peasants summarily unseating exalted abbots in dharma combat. And if that martial art has now mellowed to ritual sparing between genial sanghamates, in those old Chinese records it's presented as deadly earnest.
All of this goes to the strength with which the Ancestors cleaved to a central principle. To wit: if we're going to dropkick the Buddha's explicit orders for an egalitarian sangha, then the brother or sister monk we perch precariously on that perilous peak must at minimum embody awakening.
And it's at this point that we slam smack into the Christian concept of antinomianism.
For among the many commonalities our two religions share is an insistence on the possibility – nay, obligation – of attaining a superior spiritual state in this life. We call it enlightenment, they call it salvation, but though our understandings of those states differ in important ways, our certainty that they exist prompts coreligionists to announce themselves special and demand extra-scriptural privilege.
Specifically, they declare themselves leaders.
And this is where the antinomianism comes in. Because upon their ascension to secular power, two unproductive phenomena abruptly co-arise:
1. Their conduct becomes demonstrably unenlightened.
2. They insist this unenlightened conduct is in fact the height of enlightenment; it's just that the sangha are too pedestrian to grasp their higher wisdom.
And that second one is antinomianism. You see, it's really very simple: treating others like doormats is the soul of bodhisattva practice. It's just what arhats do, and if you were one, you'd get that
And there-in lies a crisis. Because it's not.
Not that defining enlightenment isn't hard. How can you tell if a person has attained a state that can't be comprehended, or even defined?
As the ancient Zen joke would have it: how do you eff the ineffable?
I've thought about this a lot. I've scrutinised my own experience; what's happened on the cushion, where my heart moves during and after kensho, what's changed in my personality in two decades of mindful practice.
I haven't become enlightened, but I've grown measurably, and the Buddha said that's evidence of nascent awakening.
So becoming a better person than you were pre-zazen is the test. Are you less judgemental now, more empathetic? Less uptight, more patient? Calmer? More loving, less ambitious?
Has your ego diminished, or inflated? Are you supple or brittle? Do you fret more in social contention, or less?
How do you measure up on the 8 Worldly Dharmas Illumination Indicator?
If these lights aren’t green, why waste your life becoming an even bigger ass than you already are by being boss?
In the end, I've gained one practical insight into the quandary of human limitation:
–––> It's what you do with it.
(NB: Not a new concept on these pages, but a new application of it.)
Annoyance, impatience, disappointment, despair, frustration; what do you do when they happen?
Do you use or manipulate others? Do you make cutting remarks or determine to get even?
Do you apologise when you've behaved in an ignorant, superior, or abusive fashion?
These are universal human challenges, but a moral authority must own and publicly grapple with them. And by this standard, you can see the risk you run to your own practice when you set yourself up as a guru.
Which is why my brotherly counsel is not to.
Of one thing I'm sure: selfish, inconsiderate, preëmptory behaviour is not a sign of enlightenment. And refusing to confess, apologise, and atone afterward indicates you're not even on the road.
It's not that I don't yet know enough about enlightenment.
I had never heard of this alt hymn, or the artists who built it, or even the television series that launched it, before I first heard it on Celtic Music Radio some weeks ago. (Or maybe The Whip, or Folk Alley? Apologies to the unknown programme director with the sound judgement to add this track to the rotation.)
Which is probably for the best, as I understand the climactic scene behind which these poignant verses run would have superseded any connexions my own mind might have made.
And the work is deeply moving on its own.
In the meantime I've listened to it over and over again – I'm listening to it now – and suggest you do as well.
Listen without the lyrics. Let the chant flow through your skull. If the current moves you, listen a few times more before you engage your binary drive.
Just savour the oracular growl of Jake Smith (aka The White Buffalo), voicing the literary dexterity of lyricist Kurt Sutter. (While we're up, let's also note that the titular "murder" refers to a posse of corvids, not a capital crime.)
Those birds – crows, jays; ravens above all – were sangha during my forest ango; omnipresent, providing a guidance hard to quantify in the Red Dust World.
But you can take my word for it. These words–
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
–arrested me.
Never mind that the story puts a darker spin on it; for me this quatrain encapsulates my experience on the mountain, taking me back to that time and place.
Therefore, for the good of The Order, I say in brotherly communion:
Let us clear our minds of discrimination, and contemplate this wisdom.
Wu Ya's commentary:
"Look, it's just a song."
–烏鴉
Come Join The Murder
by The White Buffalo and The Forest Rangers
words and music by Kurt Sutter
There's a blackbird perched outside my window
I hear him calling
I hear him sing
He burns me with his eyes of gold to embers
He sees all my sins
He reads my soul
One day that bird, he spoke to me
Like Martin Luther
Like Pericles
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king
On a blanket made of woven shadows
Flew up to heaven
On a raven's glide
These angels have turned my wings to wax now
I fell like Judas
Grace denied
And on that day he lied to me
Like Martin Luther
Like Pericles
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king
I walk among the children of my fathers
The broken wings, betrayal's cost
They call to me but never touch my heart now
I am too far
I'm too lost
All I can hear is what he spoke to me
Like Martin Luther
Like Pericles
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king
So now I curse that raven's fire
You made me hate, you made me burn
He laughed aloud as he flew from Eden
You always knew
You never learn
The crow no longer sings to me
Like Martin Luther
Or Pericles
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
Come join the murder
Come fly with black
We'll give you freedom
From the human trap
Come join the murder
Soar on my wings
You'll touch the hand of God
And he'll make you king
And he'll make you king
