Cutting the Crap

Among the more dubious traditions of Western Zen is a particularly frustrating custom we might sum up as "crap on Korea".

We needn't look far for its origins. The West was first missionised by teachers from Japan, where crapping on Korea is a national sport. That, coupled with the tedious piety of their Western descendants, about covers it.

And that's too bad, because not only is Korea a world power in actual Buddhism – equal to Japan, both historically and currently – but its take on the matter is refreshingly bold and vivacious.

My first encounter with Sôn – the Korean iteration of Ch'an, the parent tradition of Zen – came very early in my practice, when I discovered the teachings of Seung Sahn. To say he influenced my calling is an understatement; this is the guy who introduced me to 100 Days on the Mountain, which would go on to become the cumulative event of my enlightenment practice to date.

Seung's non-Imperial impact may also explain my love of Korean Buddhist cinema – a felicitous coïncidence, given that most Buddhist cinema is Korean. I've already reviewed one prime example in these pages, and have a few more in the tubes.

But when it comes to the power of compulsive crapping, Wonhyo must be Exhibit A.

Here's an experiment: ask any Zenner for an opinion on my brother Wonhyo. I don't say this to get you in trouble; chances are slim this person will vociferate. Rather, he or she will probably strike a blank expression and seek more information. Korean poet? Sôn ancestor?

Well, yeah. And also one of most influential Buddhist scholars in history.

You know, little stuff like that.

How seminal was Wonhyo? Dig this: few historians identify him as a Sôn (or Zen, or Ch'an) follower. Mostly they sum up his religious training in words similar to those of the New World Encyclopedia:

He entered Hwangnyongsa Temple as a monk, studied Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, and diligently practiced meditation.

Yeeeeah…. that's Zen, son. So why don't they just say Zen?

Well, after delving a bit and observing multiple sources dance around the subject, I've come to the conclusion that there wasn't any Zen/Sôn in Korea at the time.

Or rather, it was in its fetal stages.

Or rather, Wonhyo invented it. (In sangha with others, of course.)

One thing is certain: Seung Sahn refers to him multiple times as "Zen master Wonhyo". (At least in English.)

I could go on. How Wonhyo's works fill a library. How they directed the development of Zen throughout Asia – including Japan. How the man himself practiced a kind of assumption-busting Buddhism that elicits comparisons to Ikkyu.

And how his bounteous, germinal scholarship is only just now being systematically translated into English. (Ahem.)

But I'd rather share a particularly potent fragment of his Sôn. Check out this text, lifted from Wikipedia:

In 661 [Wonhyo] and a close friend […] were traveling to China [when] the pair were caught in a heavy downpour and forced to take shelter in what they believed to be an earthen sanctuary. During the night Wonhyo was overcome with thirst, and reaching out grasped what he perceived to be a gourd, and drinking from it was refreshed with a draught of cool, refreshing water. Upon waking the next morning, however, the companions discovered much to their amazement that their shelter was in fact an ancient tomb littered with human skulls, and the vessel from which Wonhyo had drunk was a human skull full of brackish water.

Upon seeing this, Wonhyo vomited.

Startled by the experience of believing that a gruesome liquid was a refreshing treat, Wonhyo was astonished at the power of the human mind to transform reality.

That-there's a straight-up shot of Korean Zen. It has something – ineffable, powerful – that other Zens lack.

And it busts open my mind.

(Photo of Seoul's Wonhyo Bridge courtesy of Minsoo Han and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: The stain of the past

(I've never been a stain guy. I don't know why; boatbuilders just tend to prefer oil or varnish. If we deny ourselves the natural beauty of the wood, we opt for full-on paint.

But my mom needed an amendment to a piece of furniture, and this was the only way to get it into the ballpark, finish-wise. So I bought a likely can and set up to practice before pitching in to her project.

Above is my turntable platform. It's just an off-cut of cheap Canadian plywood, glued up from truffula trees or some damn thing. Since I've been using it unfinished, I thought, "Beauty, eh?"

But the instant I laid down the colour, the 1970s - stained era if ever there was one - jumped out and started doing the Hustle. And a torrent of PTSD flashbacks came, well... flashing back.

If I'd'a known my turntable would end up like this, I'd'a bought some Chicago to play on it.

oo-oo-OO-oo-no, baby, please don't go.)

The Path

"I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren't paved."

Will Rogers


(Photo of the Palouse courtesy of Gleb Tarro and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Hollygrape in flower

(Mahonia aquifolium.)

Good video: Yellow Submarine, Zen-style

If you've ever been to a Zen centre or monastery, you will immediately recognise this man's genius. What you're seeing here is a conservative Zen take on a Beatles song. And not even one of the "deep" Beatles songs; rather, one of the fun inane ones. You know, with a Ringo lead.

I don't know what possessed my brother to turn this Western pop hit into a sutra, but I'm glad he did.

The best part is that it seems to be a sincere offering; with allowance made for a subtle playfulness, Kossan's spoofing neither the music nor his religion. Just what you'd expect from a Zen monk and musician. (One with classical bona fides, no less. If you click on his channel, you'll find he's a shamisen devotee.)

In short, he's offering us an opportunity for insight. The meditation at the end drives the point home, and elevates a merely brilliant performance into an awesome one.

WW: Marketing genius

(Spotted in a local department store. Somebody in Wilson's design department has a promotion coming.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Primo Makyo, Dude!

As I've said before, it's dangerous to listen to others' meditation experiences. You end up feeling like your own practice doesn't measure up, or imagining you're experiencing stuff you're not. Which introduces further delusions, when you were trying to eliminate some.

This is why such talk is discouraged in Zen.

But keeping makyo moments mum can create other obstacles, notably a sense that you've received special dispensations when you experience them yourself, when in fact all you've done is dream awake. And getting attached to such phenomena can be as damaging to your Zen practice as tales of others' accounts; possibly more so.

Therefore, today I'm going to buck the trend and relate a few groovy trips I've had when I was supposed to be sitting.

Surely the most entertaining was the time I entered satori and had an argument with a bird. The bird – an actual one, who was real and everything – was perched on a tree at some distance and calling boldly, as songbirds are wont to do. And I was rebutting his assertions. (Silently; in my mind.)

I'm fairly certain my opponent was unaware he was engaging in dharma combat. Any road, most birdsong is one-sided communication, meant to warn others of the arse-kicking that awaits if they overstep some invisible territorial limit.

But the experience was very real to me. And amusing; I almost laughed out loud.

A few minutes later I felt my hand open a door to a deep, infinite black cellar, whereupon I shouted into the emptiness, and found great meaning in the lack of echo.

That was just one occasion, though enhanced and intensified by satori. In less cinematic instances I've entered the classic state of oneness; the bliss high; the disappearance of ego and attendant evaporation of the tribulations it catalogues; and the expansive awareness of Creation in all its numberless galaxies. If some of these images crop up on the old blog here, doubtless they're inspired, at least in part, by these lapses in monastic discipline.

But sadly, human beings have long taken such falderal for "visions" or "the voice of God" or "gifts of the Great Mind" or any number of other self-aggrandising misapprehensions. Whole religions have sprung from this crap.

And crap it is. You may in fact find insight in such hallucinations, but only if they jar something else loose in your skull, and only then if you pay close attention to your reaction. It's like a koan; the tale itself contains no teaching. It's the things your head does in response that lead to opening.

There's a famous story of a Zen monk – one of the more prominent Ancestors; I forget which one – who became enlightened after years of intensive practice by a pebble bouncing off his rake. The same principle is in play when you trip out on the cushion. Pebbles hit stuff.

Because sitting, like sleep, ploughs up the silt. And as in your night dreams, clods of it can acquire significance, generally by apophenia. The result may lead to useful insight, but all the action is inside your head, and no more substantial than anything else that happens in there, however spacey and novel it may feel in the moment.

I think most serious meditators experience such flights from time to time. I had them more often in the beginning. In recent years they've become fewer and less dramatic. If such things don't happen to you, maybe you're just better at this zazen thing than the rest of us.

Either way, don't get attached. Smile at the pleasant visions, raise an eyebrow – figuratively speaking – at the distressing ones, and watch both of them pass.

Then return to the breath.

We're not here to be Awesome Zen Masters. The job description is: sit still and do nothing.

And all that 60s-era far-outtedness sounds like something, to me.


(Photo courtesy of Jan Meeus and Unsplash.)