What Matters Else but Kindness?

I've been wrestling for months with a blog post that I finally decided not to finish.

It had the grandiose title Oh God (or Whoever You Are), and was going to cover the waterfront, posing (but not answering) questions like, "How can an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving being permit terrible suffering everywhere in the world?"

I was going to take an intellectual dive into the realms of pantheism (everything is God) and panentheism (God is in everything) - this from someone who has studiously not studied philosophy - and somehow end up at nonduality and perhaps even take a brief tour of the Gateless Gate or a little dip into the meaning of meaning.

The goal was not to linger there too long (see, e.g. Gazing at the Ox - Solipsism: Trapped in Tozan's First Rank) but to end up in the world of compassion.

Realizing Knowing all along that I was stupefyingly unqualified to pontificate about the foregoing, ditching the post was the only conceivable outcome.

So, now being without a blog post and still really wanting to say something about compassion, I'm just going to dust off this little poem and re-post it.

A field of swans and ducks and geese,

A twilight picnic meeting,

Together wade and feed in peace,

No thought of time as fleeting

How precious, life, how hard to know,

Yet time I’m prone to squander,

My home is here and now, although

My mind is prone to wander

Let’s open up our guarded heart,

No matter if it’s breaking

And all we cherish falls apart,

We’re from a dream awaking

The lonely wave, it laughed aloud

Then wept with such emotion,

Cried, "Oh my God, I see it now -

I've always been the ocean!"

Compassion is a burning flame

That sears away our blindness,

Though we may never be the same,

What matters else but kindness?

On Formerly Hating Crows (and Other Murderers)

Hate is a pretty strong word, but hate crows I did, for a long time, and so did my whole family.

Soon after arriving in Victoria from Scotland, we were captivated by the goings on in our back yard. From an upstairs window, we watched in anticipation as a pair of robins built a nest in the apple tree below.

Before long, the nest was complete, tiny blue eggs appeared, and instead of twigs, mum and dad robin brought home worms and insects for their hungry new brood. How we loved that little family!

Looking back, I think we identified with them because we were making a new home too.

In less than a minute, right before or eyes, it ended.

The crows attacked, the robins screamed, we shouted and screamed and ran downstairs, but far too late. Nothing remained except one of the babies, dead on the ground. In that moment, crows became evil incarnate.

I took up BB gunnery and would lay in wait in my sniper's nest in the window upstairs, having sworn vengeance upon any black bird that dared to darken our back yard. However, despite my worst intentions, I was a terrible shot and no crows were harmed.

The robins never came back, and the empty nest remained a cruel reminder for several years until my dad replaced it with a tree house. (Although at the outset I said our whole family hated crows, I don't think my dad actually did. He was a very kind man who rarely spoke ill of anyone.)

Our anger and hatred were unthinking reactions to the violence. Emotion over reason. I suppose, to put it in perspective, we might have considered that crow nestlings are also the victims of predators, few reaching adulthood because of raccoons, squirrels, foxes, hawks, owls, bullfrogs and rats.

We might even have considered the havoc wreaked on unsuspecting worm and insect families by the marauding robins.

More to the point, the crows ate the baby robins because they are crows, not because they chose to.

Said a scorpion to a frog, “Please carry me over the river.”

The frog replied, “I’m afraid you’ll sting me.”

“No, I won’t. If I stung you, we would both perish.”

“Well, OK then.”

Halfway across the river:

“Ouch! Why did you sting me?”

“Because I’m a scorpion.”

I sometimes think I have fully forgiven the crows. Although it feels true, it makes as much sense as forgiving the wind for blowing down a tree.

Forgiving humans. Well that's different, isn't it?

In the news reports that the Boston Marathon Bomber had been sentenced to death we also learned some of the victims had forgiven him.

Different, unimaginably difficult, but surely, necessary.

Image: public domain

The Good Oil

In a supermarket buying some plain soy milk for my daily banana / blueberry / cinnamon / oat bran / wheat bran / wheat germ / hemp seed / flax seed smoothie, I went through my usual ritual. Propping the cooler door open, I practically unloaded the whole shelf to get at the cartons at the very back with the latest 'best before' dates.

When I got home, I realized I had been so wrapped up in getting the freshest cartons that I had bought sweetened soy milk. Bleagh.

In the midst of berating myself for being such an oblivious dolt, I realized there was a second dynamic: I felt like a heel for needlessly seeking out the best for me, leaving the older cartons to go to someone else or even be thrown out... and for taking so long to realize I was doing it.

Then I remembered I had already figured this out years ago but had obviously forgotten the lesson. I had borrowed a car for a week or so from a friend. Before returning it, I went to top up the oil. I had a jug of cheap stuff and a small container of expensive oil. Naturally, I reached for the jug since he would never know the difference and I could save the good oil for myself.

Then, as now, a little nagging voice asked me what was so special about me that I should have the best. The good oil ended up in my friend's car.

When I exchanged the sweetened soy milk for plain, I confess I took a little pleasure in choosing the oldest cartons on the shelf.

I feel a bit awkward talking about 'good' deeds performed. Is this just ego not wanting to appear to be seeking praise? *sigh*

All the suffering there is in this world arises from wishing our self to be happy. All the happiness there is in this world arises from wishing others to be happy.

        -Shantideva (from the Bodhisattvacharyavatara)

Photo credit: Arne Hückelheim

Straying In One Place

Urban Monk Cunningly Disguised as Yachting Enthusiast

There is a patch of water near Cadboro Bay in Victoria where the tide is particularly strong.  Small sailboats race there, and when the wind abates somewhat, it's not uncommon to see them with their sails filled but drifting backwards. Since their direction is the nearby U.S. coastal waters, a rather overused quip from fellow sailors is, "Have you got your American money?"

For the last several months my forward progress has felt like moonwalking - effortlessly striding ... backwards. And the common perception that time seems to accelerate as we age doesn't help matters. I walk into Monday full of hope and ideas and things to achieve, then rest for a moment, have a little nap, and it's Monday again.

One of the things that seems to have been drifting just beyond my reach is connecting with the sangha.

For the longest time, I have been meaning to drag my butt to the Zen Centre and plant it on a zafu, but the weeks have turned into months and I haven't gotten any closer.

Another place I wanted to spend more time is the blogosphere, reading and writing, but haven't done much of that either.

The paradox here is that a big part of the solution to the problem is to simply overcome the problem. What I mean is that interacting with sangha - cyber or otherwise - is a strong motivator to engage in practice, in this case communal sitting in zazen and reading and writing blog posts about practice - i.e. interacting with sangha.

So as we used to say in the hippie days, "nothing to it but to do it." I could go on about this, but I think today is more about action than verbiage. So I'll click the 'publish' button, go sit with the Twitterverse, read some blogs, and trek on over to the zendo.

Hope to see you soon.

The Other Holocaust

Reading Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace by Bernie Glassman Roshi and Eve Marko was an eye-opening introduction to Socially Engaged Buddhism, in particular, the Zen Peacemakers' annual (currently 19th) retreat to the old site of the concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The Zen Peacemakers' Three Tenets are:

Not-Knowing, by giving up fixed ideas about ourselves and the universe

Bearing Witness to the joy and suffering of the world

Taking Action that arises from Not-Knowing and Bearing Witness

Glassman expands on the third tenet:

When we bear witness, when we become the situation — homelessness, poverty, illness, violence, death — the right action arises by itself. We don’t have to worry about what to do. We don’t have to figure out solutions ahead of time. Peacemaking is the functioning of bearing witness. Once we listen with our entire body and mind, loving action arises.

Loving action is right action. It’s as simple as giving a hand to someone who stumbles or picking up a child who has fallen on the floor. We take such direct, natural actions every day of our lives without considering them special. And they’re not special. Each is simply the best possible response to that situation in that moment.

With the greatest possible respect and deference to the victims of the Nazi holocaust, their families and loved ones, my heart will burst if I don’t bear witness to another holocaust that is taking place under our noses. In the spirit of Not Knowing, I won’t say another word about it this year except to share these ten pictures.

An English Teacher's Gift to a Stranger in a Strange Land

I wrote elsewhere that part of me (my thinking mind) feels like it's still seventeen. 

Comparing my profile picture to the high school yearbook photo above will confirm that the rest of me definitely is not.

A couple of years before the photo was taken, a very dear English teacher (Mr. W. L. Hardie) made a lasting impression on me. His presentation of Emerson's essay Self-Reliance was a gift that 50 years later, I still remember fondly.

The tenet is simple: don't be afraid to be yourself. Since we are each unique, it also means have the courage to be different.

To an often painfully shy introvert, those words were music. I took the advice to heart - perhaps, I hasten to admit, a tad to the extreme. If you look closely, you may detect some subtle differences from my classmates below (hint: check the hair length, sideburns, glasses, shirt and tie colour)...

Many years later, noticing my tendency to be timid and overly self-effacing, the abbot of our zen centre offered some kindly advice that can be reduced to one word. Manifest!!

Or, in the language of the Heart Sutra, less emptiness, more form.

As we act out our lives and our practice ripens, no doubt maintaining a skilful balance between nonduality and differentiation becomes more natural and effortless. However, a concept that came of age, like me, in the hippie era was that ego is to be avoided and even, to be ashamed of. Consequently, a well-aimed self-administered kick in the pants is occasionally needed to get me 'out there'.

And what a strange world 'out there' can be.

The flip side of being aware of our individuality is noticing the wonderful, the weird and the heartbreaking. Interwoven with wordless beauty and breathtaking kindness are idiotic thoughtlessness, meaningless self-absorption and unspeakable cruelty, all of which, through encouragement, great sorrow, some despair, and yes, anger, kindle our compassion, fuel our resolve and launch us into action.

I admit that when the 'stranger in a strange land' feeling comes upon me, I have a tendency to disassociate myself from the perceived evils of the world, to set myself above them and to cling to an idealistic construct of myself. Before too long, hopefully, I also realize that these are warning signs that I'm allowing unification anxiety to creep into my life and that it's time to dive back into practice.

We can be strangers in a strange land, as long as we keep our hearts wide open and remember that everyone else is a stranger in this strange land too.

May we make the other strangers feel at home.

May we love the ones we're with.

Well, the last bit is true....

Musing over the Rainbow

As the loyal companion of two rescued springer spaniels (see The Rescue of Dallas and Austin), I joined the English Springer Spaniel Lovers Facebook group.

Springers are 99% heart.  Dallas is about as smart as a bag of hammers, but I've never known a dog with more heart.

As you might expect, members of the group tend to post from the heart too. Most of the stories are heartwarming accounts of devotion and loyalty and just plain cuteness.

But as you might also expect, there are heartbreaking stories of the brown and white faithful companions arriving at the end of their all too short lives. This, I learned, is called going to the Rainbow Bridge.

Lately, several Pride parades got me thinking about the rainbow symbol.

The oldest is probably as the symbol of hope for the future.

Noah said it was God's way of saying that He was done with His ethnic cleansing rampage.

Personally, I wouldn't take much comfort in that, coming from a being who had just massacred 99.99% of the women and men on earth and their children. Not to mention what must be the worst example of collateral damage ever - especially coming from an omniscient omnipotent being - killing all but two members of every innocent animal species on the planet.

Oops - ranting. Perhaps another time...

The rainbow symbol that gives me the most hope is as the celebration of diversity.

You know how some people just can't seem to tell you about someone else without being compelled to also mention the person's race, religion, sexual orientation and body morphology?  I remember getting particularly fed up with racial stereotyping one day and saying, "Won't it be nice when all the races have completely interbred and we all look the same?"

After a little reflection, however, I realized that what would be much nicer will be to live in a world where our hearts have opened and prejudice no longer abides, where, with innocent, affectionate curiosity, we can approach strangers and ask them about their racial origins and no offence will be intended and none will be taken.

Here's Eva Cassidy. Sadly, cancer took her to the Rainbow Bridge early, but the songs she left behind have gladdened many hearts.



Photo credit: Captain76 by CreativeCommons.

Down Judgment Road

I'm becoming a grumpy old man.

At least, the warning signs are there. A new addition to my watch list of troubling tendencies – joining old friends procrastination, avoidance, timidity, gluttony (a.k.a. Sweet Tooth) and sloth.

Because I propounded the old adage, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” I had my last cigarette and drink 26 and 16 years ago, respectively.

However, being judgmental is one of those awkward necessities – along with procrastination, avoidance, timidity, gluttony and sloth - that you can’t quite drop cold turkey if you tend to overindulge.

I mean, some things just have to be put off or avoided, caution is often called for, and without eating or sleeping, we wither and die. And judging is a necessary part of rational thought.

So it comes down to practice: our efforts to give energy and direction to our everyday lives to do the ‘right’ thing – as in the right speech, right livelihood, right concentration, etc. of the eightfold path, making our way through the currents of cause and effect in the ocean of form and emptiness, otherwise known as our ordinary lives.

Zen master Yunmen was once asked, “What is the teaching of the Buddha’s entire lifetime?” Yunmen answered, “An appropriate response.”

Eshin Godfrey likened our moment to moment efforts to stay on course to sailing a small boat. Responding to the movements of the wind and tides and waves and currents, adjusting our weight, the pressure on the tiller and the tension in the sails.

Of the possible responses to the specific annoyance of intrusive unhelpful judgmental thoughts, making sure my mouth remains shut is a big one. Refraining from scowling is also big, as is refraining from rolling my eyes (unless it's at my ridiculous penchant for judging...).

Then there is the standard repertoire for dealing with unbidden thoughts in general - acknowledging them, evaluating their immediate usefulness (yes, judging them!), and for the most part, letting them go their merry way without following them.

But many (of my) judgmental thoughts tend to be unkind, and these call for more extreme measures, namely a concentrated blast of kind thoughts at the judgee.

Here's Pema:

The next time you go out in the world, you might try this practice: directing your attention to people—in their cars, on the sidewalk, talking on their cell phones—just wish for them all to be happy and well. Without knowing anything about them, they can become very real, by regarding each of them personally and rejoicing in the comforts and pleasures that come their way. Each of us has this soft spot: a capacity for love and tenderness. But if we don’t encourage it, we can get pretty stubborn about remaining sour.

Here are some related posts:

You Must Forgive Them All

Lifeless or Just Leafless?

Too Bad for You, Buddy!

And here's Sarah:

Top Photo Credit

Profoundly Ordinary (and other Zen Oxymorons)

Insight into the great matter, sometimes reverently called the The Great Matter of Birth and Death, has likely been pursued for millennia, ever since humans became self-aware.

Enlightenment, satori, kensho, seeing into one's own nature, self-realization, illumination, awakening, seeing one's original face, epiphany, reaching God-consciousness, or, as Robert Aitken Roshi put it, noticing something important.

It can be a gradual shift in perception spanning decades or a sudden realization as quick as the opening of an eye. It can follow years of diligent meditation / zazen / mindfulness, or it can happen for no apparent reason at all.

Although much sought after, it is not infrequently, I suspect, the elephant in the room. After all, “Whoever knows does not speak; whoever speaks does not know.”

Which means whoever spoke those words (Lao Tsu) obviously didn’t know (?)

Which means the statement might be false. Which means … hmmm … entering a place where words fall apart.

On March 15, 1958 In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, Thomas Merton was suddenly overwhelmed with a realization “like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.”

Over at Monkey Mind in his post A Bit of What Kensho is and A Bit More of What it Isn’t, James Ford Roshi wrote, “…what we get is a discovery of our ordinariness. And, like for Father Merton, finding our deepest connection.”

Bodhidharma’s answer in the first koan of the Blue Cliff Record  to the emperor’s question, “What is the first principle of the holy teaching?” was, “Vast emptiness, nothing holy.”

The oxymoron ‘profound ordinariness’ might have been used by St. Augustine. (I’m flitting about here, fearful that this piece may descend into rational analysis in a place where rational analysis has no business being.)

His particular usage of oxymoron, found in the prayer to God, is as follows: "(You are) deeply hidden yet most intimately present, ... immutable and yet changing all things, ... always active, always in repose, ... you love without burning, ... you are wrathful and remain tranquil. You will change without any change in your design” (Conf., 1,4,4) …

Augustine uses the oxymoron for glorifying God. The phrase "(You) deeply hidden yet most intimately present" contains contradictory and incompatible words. Yet it is with these contradictory words that he was able to express God. God is absolutely ineffable. Nevertheless, "if that is ineffable which cannot be spoken, then that is not ineffable which can be called ineffable." (Doct.Christ., 1,6,6)

Hikasa Katsushi – Augustine on the Aesthetics of Ambivalence

Speaking about shift in perception, here is an autostereogram (remember them?) The slightest change in view brings alive a vivid three-dimensional image from a bunch of coloured dots.

 

Hint: enlarge the image and experiment gazing at it slightly cross-eyed.

[Spoiler alert: It’s the image of a shark, cut into, not standing out from, the flat surface.]

Perhaps here might be a good place to mention, for those interested but who haven’t read it yet, The Book of Mu – Essential Writings on Zen’s Most Important Koan by James Ford Roshi and Melissa Myozen Blacker – a collection of over 40 wonderful essays, each pointing at the moon.

And finally, another grateful nod to James for introducing me to Peter Mayer’s Holy Now.

The Children Shall Lead

“It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world.

It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.”

― L.R. Knost Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages

A big part of my job is persuading people: judges to grant what I’m asking for, opposing lawyers to be reasonable, clients to get real. It spills over into daily life as I bend the ears of friends, family, colleagues and strangers, trying to sell my particular brand of The Right Way to eat, live and think.

All for a good cause, of course, to end the suffering of all beings, everywhere. Probably a smiley face should go here.

Human evolution. Leaving behind cannibalism, slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia, war, the death penalty, exploiting animals. We can give it a push, or at least, get out of the way. 

It dawned on me that I've spent quite a lot of energy trying to change opinions that were formed back when I used a slide rule. Pushing molasses uphill comes to mind.

I can relate to the inertia, as I suffer from the same opposition to change - clinging vainly to a version of the English language that's crumbling before my eyes, and I feel as helpless as my forebears who watched in dismay as “you” relentlessly replaced “thou” and “thee”.

It further dawned on me that evolution won’t come by changing the tightly held views of old people, but by encouraging the amazing hearts and minds of those who have never seen a slide rule, an eight track tape or a brick phone.

I went looking for statistics about the views of different age groups and found these:

Statistcbrain (2013): 

Age demographics of the the 8.3 million vegetarians/vegans in the USA

42.0% 18-29

40.7% 35-54

17.4% 55+

Pew Research Center (2013):

Americans opposing the death penalty

43% 18-29

38% 30-49

33% 50+

Gallup (2012):

Americans who believe same sex marriage should be valid

73% 18-29

49% 30-49

51% 50-64

39% 65+

Taking the cynical view, it could be argued the statistics mean our liberal ideas become more conservative with age, but I don't buy that.

If we encourage our children and if we seek out and nurture the child in us, I believe the human race will evolve beyond our wildest imaginings.

A Field of Swans and Ducks and Geese

A field of swans and ducks and geese,
A twilight picnic meeting,
Together wade and feed in peace,
No thought of time as fleeting

How precious, life, how hard to know,
Yet time I’m prone to squander,
My home is here and now, although
My mind is prone to wander

Let’s open up our guarded heart,
No matter if it’s breaking
And all we cherish falls apart,
We’re from a dream awaking

The lonely wave, it laughed aloud
Then wept with such emotion,
Cried, "Oh my God, I see it now -
I've always been the ocean!"

Compassion is a burning flame
That sears away our blindness,
Though we may never be the same,
What matters else but kindness?

The Sinclair Effect

I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other.

- Barack Obama

In fact, how we treat our animals affects how we treat each other.

At the turn of the 20th century, Upton Sinclair exposed the devastating work conditions and living environments of those who toiled in Chicago’s stockyard slaughterhouses. In The Jungle he made a connection between the numerous after-work fights instigated by slaughterhouse workers and the killing and dismembering of animals all day at work.

This is from the introduction to Slaughterhouses and Increased Crime Rates – An Empirical Analysis of the Spillover From “The Jungle” Into the Surrounding Community by Amy J. Fitzgerald from the University of Windsor and Linda Kalof and Thomas Dietz from Michigan State University (Organization & Environment, 2009 v. 20).

Their study concludes,

The findings indicate that slaughterhouse employment increases total arrest rates, arrests for violent crimes, arrests for rape, and arrests for other sex offenses in comparison with other industries. This suggests the existence of a Sinclair effect unique to the violent workplace of the slaughterhouse, a factor that has not previously been examined in the sociology of violence.

Albert Einstein had a suggestion:

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

and

If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.

Others have written in a similar vein.

We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

- Immanuel Kant

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

- Gandhi

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.

- Albert Schweitzer

As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.

- Isaac Bashevis Singer

But slaughter and beauty do dwell together, among us.

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness or abilities that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

- William Penn

Contagion - or, When You're Smiling

I have to admit that when I worked for a couple of years as a microbiologist not too long ago (Car 16 - a Reminiscence), I thought it was really cool to be in a place that had creepy biohazard symbols posted on the doors and refrigerators. We worked with some fairly nasty critters living in test tubes and petri dishes that, if they made it from the lab into the coffee room, could turn the latter into Ground Zero of our very own epidemic.

On the subject of spreading, I was pleasantly surprised to read these words and then learn who wrote them:

Goodness always tends to spread. Every authentic experience of truth and goodness seeks by its very nature to grow within us, and any person who has experienced a profound liberation becomes more sensitive to the needs of others. As it expands, goodness takes root and develops. If we wish to lead a dignified and fulfilling life, we have to reach out to others and seek their good.

…

This is always a slow process and we can be overly fearful. But if we allow doubts and fears to dampen our courage, instead of being creative we will remain comfortable and make no progress whatsoever. In this case we will not take an active part in historical processes, but become mere onlookers as the Church [or the world, or society, or the individual] gradually stagnates.

                 - Pope Francis (Evangelii Gaudium Nov. 24, 2013)

I think this applies to each of our own efforts to influence the spread of compassion, whether in general, or in specific undertakings like promoting gender equality and animal liberation, or working to eliminate the death penalty and war.

We sometimes wonder, in acts of kindness, does size matter? Just sharing a smile, or, like Mother Teresa, living a tireless life deeply dedicated to relieving suffering. I think if we act with our whole heart when an opportunity to be kind presents itself, perhaps the question doesn't matter. (By the way, Mother Teresa said, “I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much.”)

Little things can add up to a lot. Tipping points are reached when small things reach a critical mass. Videos of random acts of kindness can go viral.

A life full of kindness of any kind is a full life.

A little tubbier then, with elbow in the Listeria monocytogenes

The Doorstep Cross-Examination

I've been told by a certain household member that having a discussion with me is like being cross-examined on the witness stand. While I don't entirely agree, I have been known to take a rather direct approach to piercing bafflegab.

One of the most baffling varieties is literal adherence to the words of a religious text, whether it's the Bible or the Buddhist canon.

Although I usually just bite my tongue, nod and smile pleasantly (assuming I've been trapped and didn't have a chance to escape first), occasionally a demon possesses me to jump in with both feet.

This was one of those times.

Two or three members of a religious group showed up at my door and wondered if they could invite themselves inside to tell me something important. I had a bit of time to spare, but not that much, so I engaged them on the doorstep. I'm afraid what followed was essentially a cross-examination.

Q:    You folks believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible, don't you?
A:    Yes.
Q:    Every word in the Bible is true, right?
A:    Yes.
Q:    So in the beginning, Adam and Eve were the only people on the earth, weren't they?
A:    Yes.
Q:    Then they had two sons, Cain and Abel, right?
A:    That's right.
Q:    Then Cain slew Abel?
A:    Yes.
Q:    Then, the Bible says, Cain took a wife, correct?
A:    Yes.
Q:    Sooo... Where did his wife come from?
A:    Adam and Eve had more children.
Q:    Oh. You mean Cain married his sister?
A:    Yes.
Q:    But I thought the Bible says incest is a sin?
A:    Well, God made an exception in Adam and Eve's time.  It became a sin later.
Q:    I see.

Soundly defeated, I nodded, smiled sweetly and wished them a nice day.

[Note to self: Remember law school? Courtroom 101? Never ask a question you don't know the answer to?]

Gratefully, a Third Time Around the Blog

It's a bit dizzying to realize that the earth has gone around the sun three times and I've gone from being 61 to 64 since I first timidly clicked the 'publish' button on this blog.

It's also rather humbling to discover that folks from 129 countries have paid a visit - 53,672 visits to be exact - with over half of them this past year. Particularly since, out of the 75 published  posts, only 14 went up this year. While it would be nice to believe that quality has replaced quantity, I think a simple shortage of effort and focus on my part is the reason.

I've noticed this before (Lifeless or Just Leafless?), particularly at the end of this summer (Missing in Action). Despite a little flurry of activity in September, I seem to have made a fairly easy transition from aestivation to hibernation.

Do I suffer pangs of guilt thinking about the posts I haven't published? Definitely. Do I plan on going gentle into that good night? Definitely not.

Once again, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has stopped by for a read, and to the cybersangha for the generosity that has come my way in the form of kind social media comments, shares, +1's, mentions, RT's and likes, and of course, the thoughtful and encouraging comments left on the blog. Thank you so much.

Oh, and speaking of humbling, it's hard to describe the feeling I get when I check out a favourite blog and discover a link to lowly Snow Branches on the blogroll alongside my all time blog heroes. Perhaps a combination of surprise, grateful affection and apprehensive butterflies hoping I won't blow it and get deleted.

I just had a thought: It's not very Zen to express my feelings like this.

Then I had another thought: What a dumb thought.

Wishing you the very best for the New Year!

Zen and the Art of Debauchery

Every summer on Salt Spring Island, the Saturday market brings droves of tourists in their cars and campers to the village of Ganges. Much time is spent circling the blocks hoping someone else will leave the market and vacate their spot. Inevitably, someone came up with an apt bumper sticker: Zen and the Art of Motor Vehicle Parking in Ganges.

Ever since Eugene Herrigel's book, Zen in the Art of Archery, and later, Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a plethora of  "Zen and the Art of ..." books have sprung up, ranging from Zen and the Art of Knitting to ... Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating.

Much has been said about the "Zen" of activity beyond effort. Two of my favourite bloggers wrote about it this month:

In letting go of “trying”, in letting go of any intellectual idea of how archery should be done, these archers are simply totally, wholeheartedly merged with their activity. The years of practice in a very easy way, in a relaxed way, comes through.  The archer, the arrow ... are all one movement and one whole. Subject and object merged. This is what one might call effortless effort.

- Beyond Effort by Judith Ragir at Byakuren's Zen Practice Blog

... Dogen Zenji propounds the concept of ... gujin ... which means “the full exertion of a single thing.” That may sound like yet another form of striving, but it is actually quite the opposite. Far from adding another burden, the practice offers a path toward total rest.

Gujin has been variously translated as “total realization,” “total penetration,” “total manifestation”—and, most often, “total exertion.” The scholar and translator Francis Dojun Cook, an authority on Dogen, explains the concept in this way:

From the angle of the person who experiences the situation, [gujin] means that one identifies with it utterly. Looked at from the standpoint of the situation itself, the situation is totally manifested or exerted without obstruction.

- The Labyrinth of Exertion by Ben Howard at One Time, One Meeting

I suspect we all experience this from time to time. Splitting wood with an axe, no matter how hard I try to hit the centre of a log, I always seem to miss, but often as soon as I stop trying, the axe splits the log exactly in the middle, even cutting the little dot in the centre of the growth rings in half.

Debauchery.  One definition is "seduction from virtue or duty". Also, debauch: "to make disloyal", "to lead away from virtue or excellence" and "to corrupt by intemperance or sensuality".

I realize they are only human, but fresh (to me) news of Zen masters behaving badly always triggers a little letdown.

In the ‘60’s, Philip Kapleau’s The Three Pillars of Zen was the first Zen book that really touched me. Kapleau’s teacher Hakuun Yasutani Roshi, who founded the Sanbo Kyodan school, became one of my Zen heroes. I even wrote him a letter asking for advice (he didn’t reply).

One of the little letdowns was learning that, as most notably published in Brian Daizen Victoria's book Zen at War, both Yasutani Roshi and his teacher, Harada Daiun Sogaku Roshi, held extreme right wing, militaristic, and in the case of Yasutani, anti-Semitic beliefs.

Kubota Ji'un, the 3rd Abbot of the Sanbo Kyodan wrote:

I personally became Haku'un Yasutani Roshi's disciple at the age of 17 and kept receiving his instructions until his death. So I know very well that Yasutani Roshi did foster strongly right-winged and anti-Semitic ideology during as well as after World War II, just as Mr. Victoria points out in his book.

- Apology for What the Founder of the Sanbo-Kyodan, Haku'un Yasutani Roshi, Said and Did During World War II

I find the following quote from Harada Roshi particularly disquieting, perhaps because it takes the form of “Zen and the Art of …”:

Forgetting [the difference between] self and others in every situation, you should always become completely one with your work. [When ordered to] march -- tramp, tramp; [when ordered to] fire -- bang, bang; this is the clearest expression of the highest Bodhi-wisdom, the unity of Zen and war.

- quoted in Daizen Victoria, "Japanese Corporate Zen," Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 12.1 (1980:65)

Victoria’s book has not been without criticism:

It is right to uncover actual corruption, and Victoria has done a great service in shedding light on a dark time in our history, but nearly destroys his argument by his questionable methods and exaggerated conclusions. … Let’s keep up the good fight to uncover wrongs, reflect and atone, make things right. But let us do so in a forthright and honest way. One must not manipulate and straighten twisted vines.

- “Zen At War” Author Brian Victoria’s War On Zen by Jundo Cohen at Sweeping Zen

We practice Zen for the benefit of beings. Selflessly seducing a student or skilfully slaughtering another being - on the battlefield, the electric chair or the barnyard is using Zen as a means to an end that doesn’t justify the means. To me, this is Zen and the art of debauchery.

Bodhin Kholhede, dharma heir of Philip Kapleau, has this to say:

Now that we’ve had the book on Yasutani Roshi opened for us, we are presented with a new koan. Like so many koans, it is painfully baffling: How could an enlightened Zen master have spouted such hatred and prejudice? The nub of this koan, I would suggest, is the word enlightened. If we see enlightenment as an all-or-nothing place of arrival that confers a permanent saintliness on us, then we’ll remain stymied by this koan. But in fact there are myriad levels of enlightenment, and all evidence suggests that, short of full enlightenment (and perhaps even with it—who knows?), deeper defilements and habit tendencies remain rooted in the mind.

- Yasutani Roshi: The Hardest Koan Tricycle Magazine, Fall 1999

And finally, thanks to Koun Franz for this kindly reminder:

There is another conversation in all of this, one that I find more troubling: “He wasn’t a real Buddhist, because a Buddhist could never do something like this.” The math behind this is very simple: If a Buddhist could never do this, and if I am a Buddhist, then I am incapable of doing [this]. And if he and I do not share the same capacity for doing good or bad, then he and I are fundamentally separate.

It doesn’t work that way. We may want it to, but it doesn’t. The fact is, there’s nothing that a human being (any human being) cannot do. The difference, if there is one, is that Buddhists might know that. …

I wanted to say there’s a limit and I’ve found it, that here, finally, I can say, “I am not that.” But that’s not the truth. I know. Whether through practice or the constant asking or just advancing age, I know better. ...

The question for us is how—not just, “How could he do it?” but “How could I do it?

- What Are the Depths to Which You’ll Go? at Nyoho Zen