Three Paradoxical Truths

Funerals are for the living.
Graduation is for the parents.
Holidays are for the children.


(Photo of two children in Cambridge Bay standing next to a decorated inukshuk in their treeless homeland courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

WW: Winter haws

(Fruit of the hawthorn [Crataegus], these often persist into winter, where they add needed colour to the soggy North Coast landscape. After the leaves fall, the tree's bare branches remain heavily decorated with thousands of these tiny scarlet apples, which, when fresh, are a welcome amendment to jams, jellies, wines, and cider.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Autumn Valediction

to passing autumn
the pampas grass waves
goodbye, goodbye

Shirao

WW: Beautiful feral holly

(English holly [Ilex aquifolium] is a favourite since childhood, though it's invasive here. Owing to sexual reproduction that demands a male and female tree in close proximity, and light requirements hard to meet in our woodlands, most feral North Pacific hollies either bear patchy, uninspiring fruit, or none at all.

But this grand girl grows right out in the open, near a forest well-invaded by others of her kind, and so sets memorable finery this time of year.

Her vibrant berries, scarlet against glossy, forest-green foliage, fairly pulsate in the dreich North Coast Christmastide.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Reclaiming Jimmy

As the world swings into Christmas, I believe justice demands I use this forum to correct a historical inequity that's been allowed too long to stand.

I'm speaking, of course, of the studious ignoring of the important œuvre of Jimmy. (Also known, in possible reflection of his troubled youth, by the nom de street "Jimmy the Crow". This in spite of the fact that he was actually a raven, but that's The Man for you.)

Obscurity notwithstanding, this gifted thespian appeared in perhaps a thousand features spanning Hollywood's Golden Age, including several enduring classics.

Yet, due possibly to deliberate suppression by corporate media, few today have ever heard of him.

Abducted from his parents in 1934, Jimmy was schooled Artful Dodger-style in a variety of nefarious skills, including typing, opening mail, and driving a motorcycle. He also learned to recognise "several hundred" English words, generally acquiring new ones, according to his handler, at the rate of just a week per syllable.

In short order, Jimmy was estimated to function at the level of the average 8-year-old, an accomplishment that, along with his verbal intelligence, would qualify him for voter registration in most nations today.

So why is December the best month to correct the likely speciesist repression of Jimmy's contributions to Western culture? Because at this time of year, arguably his best-known performance plays on television in heavy rotation. I'm speaking of course of It's A Wonderful Life, which production profits heavily from his involvement.

Said leading man Jimmy Stewart, speaking on-set, "When they call 'Jimmy!', we both answer." He also judged Jimmy the Crow "the smartest actor on the set," and added that the consummate avian artist nailed his scenes in fewer takes than mammalian castmates.

So this holiday season, when curmudgeonly older relatives gripe that cinema today is "for the birds", remind them in Jimmy's name that we should be so lucky.


(Photo of Jimmy on the set of It's A Wonderful Life courtesy of National Telefilm Associates and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Christmas card sitting

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Short List of Blessings

(In honour of Thanksgiving.)

that I was a child before helmets and helicopters
Internet radio
brown rice
pinto beans
cats
dogs
all the music
that this world happened after I had twenty years of enlightenment practice under my belt
this beautiful, teeming, engrossing, unknowable planet
dancing Muppets



(Photo courtesy of Samuel Stone and Pixabay.com.)

WW: Late summer sunset

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Koanic Times

Back in 2023 I wrote a post about another post I wrote in 2015 on the topic of forgiveness. As a prime example, I referred to the case of a repentant former Nazi. (Let's be precise: the man had abandoned his dead-end path of his own volition and atoned for his past through public confession and self-condemnation. Such gestures are extremely rare in the judgemental, regardless of their imagined justification for their bigotry, but many in the Internet community chose instead to proceed as if he'd been caught out being an active Nazi by upright citizens who had brought his case to public scrutiny.)

In 2022, person or persons unknown outed my article as "hateful", or at least hate-adjacent, whereupon Google fenced it off from search engine indexing and slapped a locked gate on visitors already possessing the link, requiring a second Google sign-in to read it.

This is effectively a take-down, with the added benefit to the taker-down that the piece wasn't literally taken down, perhaps to puncture potential lawsuits.

The whole experience was Orwell-grade surrealism, but I have more important practice, so I posted my mystifiction over it and moved on.

And now it's happened again.

This situation too involves a Nazi reference, but this time the questionable motivation is Facebook's.

Now in the dock: last week's post, consisting of photographic testimony to Nazi vandalism and a call to arms (or at least a proper Zen hell-no) from Canadian literary lion Félix Leclerc.

Facebook's swift condemnation of my anti-Nazism began the instant I posted the link to its server. Within seconds I was informed that it contained offensive content and so had been removed.

This all happened so fast I suspected malfunction, and reposted.

And seconds later, got zapped again.

Given the speed of the response, it's likely that some artificial stupidity-powered hate detector simply saw the swastika and panicked. The boilerplate notice – identical both times – contained a link to something or someone higher up for reconsideration. I immediately complied, certain this possibly human judge would see without difficulty that:

1. The photo documents a criminal act and couldn't possibly be taken for glorification of Nazis or their ambitions, and:

2. The Leclerc quotation below it reflects both the author's and the poster's combative attitude toward totalitarianism and ideologised narcissism.

The next day I received a response, informing me in the same Hal-esque tones that my monkeyshines would remain barred from the service. It too offered further escalation, though frankly, given that my trust in humanity and its instances was exhausted decades ago, I'm just not that invested in it.

Speculation on the origin of such eerie hostility is pointless; the space in which these ghostly arbitrators spin being so far removed from objective reality as to render any attempt to fathom it a waste of time and effort more productively spent on the cushion.

So at the risk of further discipline, let me make my position on the Nazi issue crystal-clear to anyone who might have been disturbed by last week's meditation:

• Nazis are a thing again, and they can be neither ignored nor placated without sacrificing our integrity.

• The global Zen sangha is therefore called to confront them with greater honesty and courage than we did last time.

Because that brought irredeemable shame upon us.


(Photo of 1878 Japanese painting of Fudo Myō-ō, possibly by Kano, courtesy of the Library of Congress and Rawpixel.com.)

WW: Beaver moon

(15 November 2024, 0148AM GMT.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Gale Advisory

« Un mauvais film, on quitte la salle, mais un mauvais siècle?

On le subit, on lui tourne le dos ou on le corrige. »

Félix Leclerc

(English translation here.)


(Photo courtesy of Kamil Czaiński and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Stick vise

(As a warm-up for building myself a new radio, I put this together. It's for securing a printed circuit board while soldering in the components. Dozens of other gadgets accomplish this – I own at least three besides – but this design has the advantage of holding the work so low that the builder can steady his or her wrist on the bench while applying the solder iron. Very useful when populating small, crowded PCBs.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

What It Takes

Long ago, in the first years of my Zen practice, I encountered a teaching that's remained in my mind through the intervening years. Unfortunately, despite my obsession for note-taking and record-keeping, an hour of combing through my files hasn't produced line or author.

So I'll have to report both from memory as best I can.

I recall that the source was a modern Chinese Chàn teacher, born in the 19th century. This makes him almost certainly Xuyun; the more since in the course of my digging I discovered in an early practice folder a text file of his teachings. Sadly, this wasn't one of them.

Whoever it was, the Chàn master in question had this to say:

"You ask why there are so many schools of Chàn. [This was possibly translated as 'Zen'.] It is because people have different natures. They require different practices. That is why there are so many schools of Chàn. It takes that many."

At the time, having just taken the Zen path following a lifetime of convicted Christianity, I was impressed by the wisdom and generosity of this pronouncement.

As my practice grew deeper and broader, I would come to see the very soul of Zen in it.

Such freedom from jealousy and turf-warring is rare; nowhere more so than in religion.

In the course of my subsequent Zen vocation, I've been a bit disappointed, if not surprised, to find that this is not in fact our party line. The truth is, though Zenners score higher on the many-paths test than Christians (low bar that they are), our reflex too is to malign teachers in other schools; even other teachers in our own.

The error in this goes beyond fundamental insecurity and egotism. At the end of the day, like all we purchase with that two-sided coin, it deprives us of wealth.

Because other schools, lineages, denominations, even faiths (that's right, I said it) encode centuries of enlightenment instruction. Buddhism isn't like other religions; our founder said enlightenment comes of action (meditation), not faith. The clear implication is that the world is full of people very unlike us who must nevertheless be enlightened.

And that means an honest seeker won't simply tolerate superficial differences in doctrine and dogma, he or she will welcome them as a blessing, delving into them to profit from the insight they embody.

In the end, I'd suggest we go Xuyun one better:

Given that our species is still stumbling around in the dark, 2500 years beyond the Buddha, screaming war and weeping bitter tears, it's obvious we don't have enough schools yet.

WW: Backyard buck

(This guy came by one hot afternoon last July and spent the evening in the backyard.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Sehome Hill observation tower

(Iconic Bellingham viewpoint, looking out over the northern Sound, San Juan Islands, Canada, and Olympic Mountains. Constructed while I was in college at the foot of the hill, sometime in the Pleistocene Era.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Virtue Koan

The Sword of Righteousness has a D handle.

Wu Ya's commentary: Only true warriors can lift it.


(Photo of a Land Girl at work courtesy of The Imperial War Museum, the UK Ministry of Information, and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Fire suppression

(While walking off-trail in a local forest park, I was surprised to find this sprinkler head in the middle of the woods. After some contemplation, I realised it must be part of a fire-suppression system.

The entire forest is probably sown with these at regular intervals, most camouflaged by fallen vegetation. I'll warrant we'll see a lot more of this kind of thing as global climate disruption intensifies.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Killing the Buddha

"If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him."

This well-worn Chàn koan, attributed to Linji Yixuan, has the sting befitting the ancestor of Rinzai. (Which word is just "Linji" pronounced badly.) Down the generations, this single sentence has attracted a wealth of commentary in the Great Sangha, and has to some extent even become familiar to the world beyond it.

Shunryu Suzuki – Soto priest, founder of San Francisco Zen Centre, prominent ancestor of Western Zen – inflected it in at least two directions: “Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else" (an invocation of things as they are), and "Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature,” a timely reminder that you're the only one who can save you.

Others rush to insist that the Buddha in this directive isn't the actual Buddha, i.e., the man Gautama (though I believe he is, but more on that in a second). In this reading, it's really a warning against mistaken Buddhas: inferior teachers, your own delusions, received wisdom.

Perfectly sound, but a bit churchy for my taste.

So I've been turning this commandment in the light for about twenty years now. To me it does in fact refer to the historical Buddha. Because he's much more likely to hurt you than anyone else.

Some huckster in a plaid sport coat could con a minority of seekers with his pious salvation scams, but most of us will walk past that. No, to screw the majority, you need the real thing. That'll get us all worshipping when we should be practicing.

'Fore you know it, robes and gongs and incense will be all that's left of Buddhism. We'll be anointing statues, chanting names, venerating relics. At last some clever-dick will bust out the sutras and start telling us the Buddha said this and the Buddha said that, all in defence of this massive religious folk dance we will all have to complete before we're allowed to seek enlightenment.

Hell, with a little luck, we might even get the Buddha to straight-up end all Buddhism on Earth.

Which is why you want to kill that mofo good.

One good whop with your monk stick.

Because the fact is, Gautama left us 2500 years ago. He spoke his piece, left his treasures, and sensibly died.

Don't let a zombie eat your brain.


(Photo of an arrestingly Buddhic road in Uzbekistan courtesy of Arina Pan and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Red-flowering currants

(Ribes sanguineum. Common native food here on the North Coast. Eponymous flower here.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Autumn self-portrait

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Poem: Doves

doves flush from the maples
art deco airframes torpedoing through the branches
rolling left and right


(Photo courtesy of Imran Shah and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Evening sky

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Curriculum Vitae

No board, no checkers
Calligraphy worth nothing
Round-eyed hermit monk

WW: Ancient oil can

(Found this all-steel imperial quart motor oil can on a recent walk along a former logging road – now in a protected natural area. Judging exact age is hard with no labelling left, but Internet-roshi says cans of this type were standard from the 20s through the 50s. All things considered, I'd guess 40s – early 50s for this one. Note the distinctive hole left by the old-school oil can spout. I threw at least one of those spouts away a few years ago, when I moved my mom out of the house she'd lived in for nearly 40 years.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

The Mountain Kyôsaku

"Although we say mountains belong to the country, actually, they belong to those that love them."

Dōgen

WW: Relics of childhood

(I recently captured this scene in a part of the county that was urbanised well after my own stretch of woods. It made me nostalgic. Notice the signpost pointing off the highway down a long, squirrelly dirt road, along which multiple houses are identified by number. And behind it, the old shelter where the children from those houses waited for the school bus, out of the rain.

Today young families can no longer afford to live there, and what few may stray in consider making kids walk up the road and interact with other kids abusive. Thus the state of this shelter, which seems last to have been used not long after I left for university.

By which time the signposts and shelters had long disappeared from my part of the county.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

The Show

Practice isn't just sitting; nor is it just form.

Practice is what happens in your head while you're out living.

This truth may be a little more accessible to hermits, who seldom congregate for zazen, and whose indulgence in other forms is necessarily spare and simplified. But the stuff you do at Zen centre, while valuable and worthwhile, is only a rehearsal for practice.

The actual practice begins when you leave the zendo.

Or the cushion, for free-range monks like me.


(Photo courtesy of Petr Sidorov and Unsplash.com.)

Taking Delivery

It's been a long time since I had a dramatic sit – the thing Zenners call kensho. This is mostly down to lifestyle constraints that have made practice scattered in recent years, as well as the fact that I've been doing this for 22 years. (After the first few, your brain acclimates to the meditative state, becoming simultaneously more inured to and less precious about it.)

Which is why the other night thrilled me as I've seldom been since those early days.

The set-up was predictable: I'd had an opportunity to sit regularly and deeply for several days, and also to sit outdoors, in a quiet, rural setting, which is always productive for me.

If the sea is also involved, so much the better, result no doubt of a lifetime as a bay boy, itself the product of my family's centuries-deep maritime tradition. And as it happens, I was sitting on a bluff over a particularly active passage – a narrow channel where the tide runs like a river, during a week of deep, still summer nights. But on the last one the temperature plummeted, a storm blew up, and I found myself sitting at midnight in a tearing wind, bundled to the chin. Still didn't help my hands, frozen in dhyana mudra.

I did this because I'm a macho Japanese-trained Zen hermit, determined to log half an hour of pointless suffering to prove my monastic manhood.

But that's not what happened.

Instead, my mind spent about twenty minutes (I imagine; could have been ten, might have been 50) confronting the gale, complaining about the cold, starting at alarming sounds soft and loud in the dark around me.

And then I slipped into The Zone.

My mind settled into an equanimous hum. My consciousness assumed high alert, a sort of excitement that's neither fear nor expectation, just… receiver-on. I thought nothing, but noted everything. The gusts iced my face, roared in my ears, yanked my clothes, tore branches off the huge firs around me, and I neither defied nor surrendered to any of it.

The storm, the night, the planet, and I, just, like, were.

It's been a long time since I saw that place.

Why I did that night, in that location, is an open question. Certainly, I was awash in 190-proof oxygen; the stuff was practically forcing itself into my lungs. And the very fact that the storm was an unremitting distraction probably made it a trigger; the symbiotic relationship between concentration and disruption being well-documented in Zen.

(This would be a good time to remind fellow seekers that your meditation practice is your own and so are the results. The cushion stories of others can infamously cue feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction, leading some to conclude they're no good at practice or not doing it right or using the wrong incense or whatever. If my account inspires you to go sit in a windstorm, and the result is nothing more than a head cold, you might just have more common sense than I do.)

But one way or the other, I took delivery. Thanks for the encouraging experience. On to the next.


(A Storm Off The Normandy Coast, by Eugène Isabey, courtesy of The Eugene Victor Thaw Art Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Invasive snail

(Cornu aspersum, the brown garden snail. Originally imported to the North Coast from Europe to be eaten as escargot; now it's eating us.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Pacific sideband snail

(Monadenia fidelis.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Hermits and Hotdogs

In the fifty-odd years I've worked with pets and farm animals, I've learned that anxious and abused ones often fear men – but women, not so much.

Some of this gender-specific apprehension may be down to the fact that we're bigger, louder, and maybe don't smell as nice. But a lot of men also appear to believe the world is an action movie, of which they're the beefcake.

They hurt everything that doesn't meet their approval, usually while shouting. And those guys create dread and disconsolation in many creatures.

Catch enough of that, and any sentient being learns mistrust.

You can accomplish a great deal with their victims by just sitting nearby, not reaching out, speaking quietly or not at all. It takes steady patience, but often eventually works. Perhaps the target simply concludes, based on available data, that we're not really "men". (Or maybe that we're just not failed men, which would be accurate. Brothers barging around hotdogging for the camera snatch the lion's share of attention, which is why we non-gnawers of scenery tend to fade into it.)

I was put in mind of this recently during a night sit in the back yard. First, a coyote stepped into view 30 feet away. He seemed unconcerned, not just with the intense human habitation all around him, but even the intense human right in front of him. I hissed, and he ducked away.

Then not one, but two squirrels almost climbed into my lap, in the course of whatever before-bed routines they were pursuing.

As a Zenner who sits outdoors whenever possible – it's a form in my hermit practice – I've had countless similar experiences with wildlife. I've also used this technique intentionally, with lost or traumatised cats and dogs; nervous horses; and at least one refractory laughing dove.

The grace of these encounters never ceases to thrill. For a brief instant I'm freakin' St. Francis.

Very brief, to be sure. But a flash of kensho all the same.

And a reminder that true warriors are silent and watchful.


(Photo of a true warrior courtesy of Wikipedian Petr Novák and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Summer rest stop

(Stopped for a rest on a long bike ride the other day and noticed the picnic table pretty much told the whole story. Helmet, gloves, granola bar, Alan Watts' autobiography. These are the sweet days of summer.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: 2024 teeshirt

(Every summer I issue myself a new teeshirt. Here's this year's pick.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Street Level Zen: Attainment

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Abraham Lincoln

(Photo courtesy of Radek Skrzypczak and Unsplash.com.)

WW: Mummified crab

This hand-sized specimen of Puget Sound kelp crab (Pugettia producta) quite startled me on the high tide line, far from its habitat on the low tidelands, till I noticed that it was completely dead and dry. Probably thrown up there by the waves, then dried by the sun in this lifelike posture.

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Swordsmanship

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

I've recently been pondering this Philip K. Dick line. A lion of literary science fiction, Philip's life was dogged by mental illness complicated by drug use. This led, as such things often do, to a fascination with metaphysics and transcendental philosophies. And an enduring preoccupation with reality, that thing human brains are singularly ill-suited to detect.

Perception challenges notwithstanding, I think the writer wields a sharp Zen katana here. We humans are especially apt to mistake ourselves – our cultural assumptions, our half-experienced experiences, the truisms we were taught as toddlers – for objective truth. "That's the way of the world," we say. Or, "That's just the way the world works."

Problem is, we're not talking about the world, or anything like it, when we say that. Far less any rule the world may impose.

For the benefit of those still struggling with the concept, let me take a page from Philip: the world is that thing that remains, unmoved and unchanged, when the last of us has died.

Which could be rather soon, at the rate we're going.

I find this principle a productive "empty" meditation. You know, those paradoxes we Zenners like to chase on the cushion as calisthenics for our power of perception:

"Picture an empty mirror."

"What was your face before your grandmother was born?"

"Mu."

So I sit and imagine a planet millions of years hence, unmarked by human striving.

Endless global landscapes that bear no trace of our passing.

The utter inexistence of economics or religion, art or technology, love or hate. And the profound absence of any recording witness whatsoever, anywhere on the planet.

An Earth returned to the ground of being, removed that single self-centered force of denial that dominated a second of its lifecycle, its pan plumb flashed out.

As Philip conjectured: a vast and infinite reality, entirely innocent of human delusion.


(Photo courtesy of Vadim Mivedru and Unsplash.com.)

WW: Hummingbird in hand

(Photo courtesy of my friend Laura, who rescued this guy from a cat. Prevailing theory is he's a juvenile black chin [Archilochus alexandri].)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: View out the front door

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Rock Groups 2024

Welcome, honoured sangha, to your annual festival of potential rock group names here on the Ring. This makes an eleventh year of this odd and inexplicable July ritual, which is offered in the cause of the entertainment of all sentient beings.

Those needing reminder will find an explanation, such as it is, of this phenomenon here, as it first appeared away back in 2013.

As for rules and regulations, I suspect the 2021 post stated them most clearly.

Remember that any suggested genres are just that; there is no obligation of any kind, moral or financial, associated with this list, in whole or in part. You're a group as yet unnamed, you grab anything you like, with no apologies.

Let's crack on, shall we?


Rock Groups 2024

Roobar (Australian alt-country)

The Riot Dogs

Synesthesia (acid rock jam band)

Visible Filth (seems like it's gotta be punk, but hey, why not a boy band?)

The Drop Bears

Albino Platypus

Palindrome

Head Cannon

None More Black (Spinal tap reference)

Farmer John and the Weeds of Concern

The Sea Lions

No Thru Traffic

Demogorgon (metal)

Prometheus (hair band)

Bedfellow

House Hippo (Canadian twee pop)

Fingerstop

Matthew

Drywall

Maßkrug (metal band too sophisticated for an umlaut)

Ziggy Says

Monitor (the lizard, not the teacher's pet or computer screen)

Apeechequanee

Pantser

The Brothers German

Rook

Crankover

Ten Penny Nail

Blork

Menȝies (pronounced properly)

Gar Ye Grue (Scottish punk band)

Elementary Penguin

Viaticum (death metal)

Fustibalus

Номенклатура

Article 58

Alice Blue (dream pop)

When Ready Fire

The Pump Jacks

Puck Bunny

Fox 3


(Photo courtesy of Kelly Sikkema and Unsplash.com.)

WW: July mountain

(Mt. Rainier, icon of much of the Puget Sound Basin.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Fearless Practice

"I'm going to try speaking some reckless words and I want you to listen to them recklessly."

Zhang Wuzi

Quoted in Zhuangzi: Basic Writings, translated by Burton Watson.

(Photo courtesy of Rawpixel.com.)

WW: Old City Hall

(Brilliant summer day in Bellingham, Washington.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

The Way

Master Dongguo asked Zhuangzi, "This thing called the Way – where does it exist?"

Zhuangzi said, "There's no place it doesn't exist."

"Come," said Master Dongguo, "you must be more specific!"

"It is in the ant."

"As low as that?"

"It is in the panic grass."

"But that's lower still!"

"It is in the tiles and shards."

"How can it be so low?"

"It is in the piss and shit."


(From Zhuangzi: Basic Writings, translated and with commentary by Burton Watson.)


(Photo courtesy of Donald Giannatti and Unsplash.com.)

WW: Native rhodendron

(Rhododendron macrophyllum, the Pacific rhododendron, is the state flower of Washington. In late spring it bursts out in the grey-green twilight of the North Coast jungle, where its pale pink blossoms seem to glow above the undergrowth. When my mom was in high school, kids in her small Puget Sound town used to cut truckloads of these from the forests along the bay, to fill the gym for prom.

Open in a new tab for greater impact.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Strawberry Moon

(24 June 2024, 0454 GMT.)

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Poem: The Frog Sutra

Could they be sutras?
In the temple well
frogs chant

Kansetsu


(POV photo of well courtesy of Gary Meulemans and Unsplash.com.)

WW: Whatcom Falls

(Bellingham, Washington.)

One-Armed Pathfinder Huike

So I've been at it again – diving into the Ancestors and the movement that produced them. And once again I've come up with a gem: Second Chàn Patriarch Dazu Huike, known in Japan as Taiso Eka.

Huike appears to fit the global definition of hermit, as his Wikipedia article says he was "considered enlightened but criticised for not having a teacher." He eventually filled this gap in his c.v. by convincing none other than Bodhidharma to take him as a student, though folklore says he had to amputate an arm as collateral. (Still cheaper than an American university.)

But if we assume that at least the part about becoming Bodhidharma's student is accurate, that makes Huike typical of the anti-scholasticism of early Chàn. Bodhidharma, Huike, Huineng, Layman Pang – this renewalist rebellion is lousy with hermits. Huike's own teachings, heavy on meditation, light on sutra study, underscore this theme.

Tellingly, upon his assumption of Bodhidharma's teaching duties, our ancestral literature tells us that another Buddhist teacher – i.e., a "certified authority" – sent an assassin to kill him, on suspicion of disciple-poaching. Thus are preserved two useful historical points: that Buddhism has always been a religion like any other – worldly, fallible, hypocritical – and the koanic notion of a Buddhist assassin. (Or near-assassin; in the end, Huike defused this bomb Buddha-fashion: by converting the hit man.)

These and other stories (including "Bodhidharma's Skin and Bones", perhaps the most foundational parable in Chàn/Zen) can be found in the concise and readable Wikipedia entry. If you're interested in Zen's origins, it's worth the visit.

(Huike Thinking, attributed to Shi Ke [石恪], courtesy of the Tokyo National Museum and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Bullfrog

(Rana [Lithobates] catesbeiana. Invasive and destructive here on the North Coast, but extremely common.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Boom Town

Where it swelled near its confluence with the Willapa River, Wilson Creek bore incongruous signs of heavy industry: breastworks of peeled cedar, crumbling now and wrenched apart by ramming drift, and a few pilings left standing midriver, where log booms once floated.

Here in the 1850s, Daniel Wilson built the area's first mill, to rip the logs that ox teams skidded off the surrounding hills. It would have had a sash saw – essentially, a giant handsaw, pumped back and forth by a cranky steam engine that chugged so slowly the sawyer could almost fish the river between passes. The planks it wore off this way were stacked on scows tied along the breastworks, to be taken first to Raymond and South Bend, and then the ports of the world. Soon steamers were stopping here as well, and the busy town of Willapa sprang into being, complete with shops and hotels.

It all happened in weeks. And a few years later, when the big trees were gone, it unhappened just as fast.

What remained – a sleepy village and a small primary school – is now called Old Willapa.


(From an earlier draught of my book, 100 Days on the Mountain. Photo of the Willapa country courtesy of Tony Webster and Wikimedia Commons.)