'Way back in 1973, Paul Simon released a song called One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor. The lyrics are classic Paul: a Dylanesque flow of images that makes sense on an intuitive level.
But as a many-time flat dweller, it's the title refrain that means most to me. For like the best of Sufic teachings, its significance changes as you turn it in the light.
At base, it seems to mean "walk mindfully, because your tromping will be amplified in other rooms."
Or it could be a social justice message about the people you – wittingly or un- – exploit for your own comfort and well-being.
Conversely, it may be telling us that those limits we allow to confine us, a more visionary person could use to launch him- or herself to the stars.
Or maybe it just refers to the fact that we all live within a vast complex of shared boundaries, where freedom, if it exists, is more a matter of accord than licence.
Whatever the case (bit of a deep-dive Zen pun, there), I like to sit with Paul's one-sentence koan from time to time; see where it lands in that moment.
(Photo courtesy of Rawpixel.com and a generous photographer.)
If you'd like to explore a rich source of provocative, not overly-technical Zen reads, check out Sotozen.com. Among its many offerings is an attractive compendium of Zen stories, presented with penetrating opening commentary. A good start might be this favourite example, starring the decidedly un-Soto Ikkyu.
As you'll see, the infamous Rinzai master strongly recalls Nasrudin – an old friend who figures on this blog – and also Alan Watts.
In any case, the Ikkyu story provides another meditative exposition of conventional authority: sometimes they kick you out and sometimes they lock you in, but in all cases you must be where they tell you to be.
And while you're up, enjoy a good surf around Sotozen.com. It's a valuable resource for our lot.
(Shiba Zojoji, by Kobayashi Mango, courtesy of Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art and Wikimedia Commons.)
This song holds a special place in my heart, because it held a special place in my practice when I first became a monk. As is often the case, my early experiences with meditation were thunderously transforming. I encountered personal peace for the first time in my life, and insights fell from the sky like rain in the spring. (Which was itself falling outside at the time.)
It's typical in this phase to re-experience familiar things as new. Old aversions become less objectionable; maybe downright acceptable. And old favourites shine with a renewed light, as if seen for the first time.
During that period I hungrily re-consumed many former pleasures, chasing that Christmas-like sense of discovery.
Prominent among these was the music that has enjoyed a prominent place in my life for as far back as I can remember. A few artists and albums struck particularly true, and today I consider them part of my foundational practice, though my relationship with some goes back to childhood.
Of the latter, none stand out more conspicuously than The Wind.
I've been a rabid Cat Stevens fan since he first hit back in the late 60s. My own songwriting style (I was a bit of a coffee-house artist in my youth) bore, and probably still bears, the unmistakable marks of Stevens' influence. I was even told I looked like him, though not by any (conscious) design.
So naturally, Stevens' work was among the first I revisited during that period of awakening.
It was all brilliant, but The Wind had something extra. The beauty of the words and music evoked the sensation of sitting, and I lifted the needle over and over to listen again.
There's no real mystery here; Stevens was interested in Buddhism during that era, and much of the compelling catalogue he compiled then is Zen-friendly.
But The Wind is unique. It's so simple, so short… and so bang-on. Stevens himself apparently understood this, because he made it the inaugural track of Teaser and the Firecat, setting the tone for the entire album.
In the intervening years Stevens has had a colourful spiritual journey of his own. In 1977 he converted to Islam, and as part of his religious commitment, changed his name to Yusuf Islam and renounced his musical career.
He may have had a particularly thorny relationship with what I once heard him describe as "my Buddhist stuff".
But Yusuf's spiritual practice has been straight and sincere, as evidenced by his willingness to change his mind. In the early Oughts he decided that music was a perfectly appropriate way to celebrate the 99 Names of God.
So I'm pleased to report that Yusuf (his current stage name) is writing, recording, and performing again, and that The Wind has actually become the centrepiece of those performances. Though I've never practiced Sufism, it certainly does echo the Sufi teaching I've studied, and I don't see why it can't be Muslim as well as – or even instead of – Buddhist.
Anyway, as this modest little treasure has been instrumental (no pun intended) in my own enlightenment practice, I hereby commend The Wind to others, in the brotherly wish that it bring the same peace and encouragement it brought me.
It really does capture a deep experience that evades words.
A traveller paused in a forest clearing beside a stream, where a dervish sat meditating.
Sipping from his waterskin, he saw the dervish rouse and scoop a wasp from the stream's surface. But as the holy man transferred the insect to the bank it stung him; flinching, he shook it back into the water.
Taking a breath, the dervish reached for the wasp again; again it stung him before he could get it to the bank.
The traveller watched this scenario repeat itself several times. At last, seeing the holy man reach into the stream another time, he could contain himself no longer.
"Baba!" he exclaimed. "Don't do that! It will only sting you again!"
The dervish raised an eyebrow.
"It's the wasp's nature to sting me," he said.
"And it's my nature to save it."
(Painting by unknown Indian artist, circa 1630, courtesy of the British Museum and Wikimedia Commons.)
Zen is famous for its koans, those quirky, inscrutable Chinese stories that make no sense but are somehow profoundly true. My own devotion to it is rooted in this classic literature: the thunderous wisdom encoded in The Blue Cliff Record, The Book of Equanimity, and The Gateless Gate.
But the Sufis (Zen Muslims, more or less) may have us beat; not only do they have a prolific koanic tradition of their own, theirs are funny. All while sacrificing none of the point.
These teaching stories, collectively known as The Tales of Nasrudin (نصر الدين خواج , خواجه نصرالدین , نصرالدین جحا ; Nasrudeen, Nasreddin, Nasruddin, Nasr ud-Din, Nasredin…), chronicle the continuing misadventures of an Islamic scholar of that name. Like all academics (to say nothing of religious leaders), Mullah Nasrudin can be long on theory and short on practice, but his gift for brilliant, backhanded insight always makes for a worthwhile visit.
Back in November 2012 I ran one of my favourite examples in Rusty Ring's Kyôsaku series of observations by noted teachers. Others include:
The host of an elegant feast required all guests to wear fine clothes. When Nasrudin arrived, he began stuffing food into his shirt and trousers. The host confronted him angrily:
"What do you mean by this?"
"Since clothes are more important than people," Nasrudin answered, "they should eat first."
Two children arguing over a bag of marbles came to the mullah to settle the matter. "Would you like Man's justice or Allah's?" asked Nasrudin.
"Why, Allah's, of course," replied the children.
"Very well," said Nasrudin, and gave three marbles to one and nine to the other.
"Mullah," asked a townsman, "is your theology orthodox?"
"That depends," said Nasrudin. "Which heretics are in charge at the moment?"
"Nasrudin," said another, "four years ago you told me you were forty. Today you still say you're forty. How do you explain this?"
"I am an honest man!" said Nasrudin. "Whenever you ask me a question, you shall always get the same answer."
One day Nasrudin was walking along a river when a man cried out to him from the far bank:
"How can I get across?"
"You are across!" shouted the mullah.
(Note that there's a classic koan virtually identical to this, but not the least bit funny. The Sufis took the same wisdom, employed exactly the same imagery, and added a rimshot.)
In Sufi tradition, contemplators are frequently invited to offer commentary of their own, in the form of a suggested moral. In some fora, the list of these responses can be longer than the actual story, each one subtly spinning the punch-line into new – even conflicting – teachings. (Indeed, scholars as august as Idries Shah have even mined the humour of other cultures for that nugget of sanity that all comedy contains.) What a refreshing challenge to our own tradition, where only recognised scholars are permitted to comment.
"We learned a number of lessons, the most important of which is this: the real battlefront is not between the West and the Muslim world. It's between the moderates of all faith traditions and the extremists or radicals."
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, reflecting on his experience as planner of the cancelled "Ground Zero" mosque and interfaith partnership centre.
(Photo of the Sabah State Mosque minaret in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
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