The didactic, the secular sceptic, and the Buddhist polemicist like to point out that bodhisattva mind is always in us, and it's possible to hear it even in the grief, elation, and tumult of society.
It's also possible to boil water in a paper cup. So what?
(Adapted from 100 Days on the Mountain, copyright RK Henderson. Photo of a busy samovar courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
I'm told this is a fad in China now. That first glance is a bit revolting to round-eyed sangha, but as I understand it, this desktop-sized sculpture sends folks into uncontrollable fits of laughter in the Middle Kingdom.
What's the matter, don't get it?
Well, according to the Internet, when this lump of topical kitsch heaves into Chinese view, the observer immediately hears a voice say, "I'm the best Buddhist, simply the best Buddhist. Everybody says so. I'm like the Buddha of Buddhism. I know everything about Buddhism. I'm totally enlightened. Always have been. Ask anybody. You want Buddhism, you need me. Because nobody else has any. It's all me. I'm the yugest Buddhist. Simply the yugest."
In other words, this is a statue of my ego.
Strange; doesn't look a bit like me.
(Photo of unknown provenance.)
"I don't seek to follow in the footsteps of men of old... rather, I seek the things they sought."
Matsuo Bashō
(Photo courtesy of Rawpixel.com.)
(Corylus cornuta
. Open the photo in a new window for better effect.)
Appearing also on
My Corner of the World.
According to Wikipedia's Chàn article, Zen's progenitors identified not one but two paths, or "entrances", to enlightenment. The first is via teaching, an intellectual process in which one reasons one's way to freedom. The second is practice, a Zen synonym for meditation and supporting effort.
This œcumenical perspective is undoubtedly Indian in orgin. Contemporary Hinduism, for example, recognises four equally-valid devotional systems, amounting in essence to four discrete religions, but all accepted as legitimate Hindu worship.
But modern Zenners will find that First Entrance challenging, given that intervening generations have rejected all but practice as authentic Zen. We may attend to teachings – particularly those given in-person by ordained masters – but we justify that as fuel for our Second Entrance zazen practice. (Although to be entirely candid, Soto for one has allowed a substantial whack of intellectual pursuit back in through the kitchen. So perhaps we should call the two Chàn approaches the Front Entrance and the Back Entrance.)
As for the Second Entrance, the Wikipedia entry illuminates four levels of primordial Chàn meditation:
- Practice of the retribution of enmity: to accept all suffering as the fruition of past transgressions, without enmity or complaint
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Practice of the acceptance of circumstances: to remain unmoved even by good fortune, recognising it as evanescent
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Practice of the absence of craving: to be without craving, which is the source of all suffering
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Practice of accordance with the Dharma: to eradicate wrong thoughts and practice the six perfections, without having any "practice"
The continuity here is stunning, as all of that's readily recognised in current Zen. If it's true that we've largely abandoned the First Entrance, here we are 1600 years later, still practicing the crap out of the Second.
And it's still working.
Proof that in spite of our comfortable fallacies, the human mind hasn't changed over the past several millennia. That all by itself is sufficient cause to mind the Ancestors.
(Photo courtesy of Kari Shea and Unsplash.com.)
