The Busless Bus

Chàn fascinates me. Founded in China during the 6th century CE, it's the parent tradition to the three current national schools of Buddhist dhyana practice – Seon, Thiền, and Zen – as well as to China's own recently reconstituted Chàn movement. Every time I dip into these waters, I find new challenges to my own assumptions and to those that contemporary gatekeepers insist are fundamental to Zen. It's a deeper and more braided source of these than anything else I've found except the historical Buddha and primordial Buddhist practice models.

Case in point: I lately learned that the early Chinese chronicles sometimes affixed the label "One Vehicle School" to the amorphous movement that would eventually coalesce into Chàn. This in reference to the Buddhist concept of ekayāna, a Sanskrit term that also translates as "one path".

Seems shockingly doctrinaire for a loose affiliation of fellow-travellers, scattered throughout the then-existing Chinese Buddhist denominations, whose defining practice was to sit on their backside and cast off delusion.

Until you realise that their "One Vehicle" has rather a lot of seats.

Specifically, it has all of the seats.

For the essential tenet here springs from the Buddha's own teaching that we all eventually attain enlightenment, whether in this life or another. It therefore follows that all paths lead to the summit.

And therefore all paths are valid.

And therefore condemnation of others' practice is not.

Ekayāna doesn't get much ink in the Buddhist press these days, for reasons any incisive student of religion can grasp. As comforting as it is – we all make it through one day, regardless of the errors that occasionally set us back a thousand years – One Path is a lousy business model.

How can you profit, in gold or glory, if all you're selling is something folks can get for free somewhere else?

But this early doctrine of proto-Chàn does tend to explain all those ancient accounts of illiterate hermits coming down off the mountain and besting the local master – and also the continuing Zen strain of "you're not the boss of me" that current-day teachers' pets so haughtily deride.

As a hermit, I might be expected to cleave to the ekayāna viewpoint myself, and of course it has always been a keystone of my perception and practice, even though I only just learned the word for it. However, like all truth, it becomes false when distilled into dogma.

It isn't true that all paths are valid, even if we do ultimately survive them. You can build a cage of freedom.

But it's a cogent corrective to the invalid paths the Great Sangha, chasing worldly objectives that have little to do with saving all sentient beings, collectively stumble down.

May we each strive to practice more and preach less.


(Photo of ancient sculpture of Bodhidharma – founder of Chàn – courtesy of Buddha Tooth Relic Temple [Singapore] and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Bedtime

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Hibernating snake

(Found this garter snake [Thamnophis sirtalis] asleep under a tarp that had been pulled over a stack of gardening supplies sometime last year. He didn't even flinch when I lifted the tarp, put it back, or lifted it again later to get the photo. So the dude's out for the duration.

I'll look for him out and about after things warm up.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Good Teisho: Tim Minchin's 9 Life Lessons

"Arts degrees are awesome. They help you find meaning where there is none. And let me assure you, there is none."

So says Tim Minchin, yet another on that long list of my personal heroes, at the top of a brilliant 2013 keynote speech to his alma mater.

And it stays that good. Every line of this 12-minute teisho (the last six being his honorary doctorate ceremony) is Zen-grade insight. Meditate on them. I hope in particular that some will consider his musings on the relative value of science in human striving. (Spoiler: it's not sovereign.)

Props to the University of Western Australia for displaying bold vision and impeccable taste in its conferral of honours.

And also to me, for having the discipline to avoid posting every sentence of Tim's brief comments, and so demonstrating the faith and generosity to let you discover them for yourself.

WW: Beaver mandible

(The dogs found this up on the summit above the beaver ponds. It's impressive; larger than a man's fist, with industrial entheses, and those big yellow incisors are 3 inches long. So I guess this proves what was already evident: that the forest here is ideal cougar habitat.)

Meade's Conundrum

In my university days I T.A.'d for a professor whose insights would have an enduring effect on my understanding of the Path. (Shout-out to Dr. Robert D. Meade, professor – and now sadly, human being – emeritus, who parlayed his position as ostensible psychology instructor into a successful conspiracy to overclock young minds.)

Among his many maxims – always delivered straight-faced – the following was a favourite with his gung-ho squad of student teaching assistants:

"Half of what I'm telling you is lies, but you don't know which half."

I think this is a foundational koan for Zen students, one we should hold in mindfulness. It comes into play whenever the old Zen centre vs. free range practice question is broached, or when I'm asked to discuss Zen with interested others, or when conflicts within the Great Sangha overspill their partitions.

I do believe you can't practice Zen effectively without accepting and practicing this teaching.

By the way, when transmitting Meade's Conundrum to my own students, I always appended Henderson's Corollary:

"…and neither do I."

I'm certain Dr. Meade would applaud.

My very best to the very best: those who are determined to do their very best.


(Photo of the hallowed halls courtesy of Andrew Kvalheim and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Window casualty

(Happened upon this young grouse on the deck in front of a small uninhabited cabin well back in the woods. It must have smacked into the large windows. Window glass takes out a crushing number of birds. Doesn't seem much to be done about it.)