Selection
from the Cypress Tree Zen Newsletter, Summer 2000Selection
from the Cypress Tree Zen Newsletter, Summer 2000
In
Japan, Zen practice and the life of a warrior have a long traditional
relationship. The idea is to be as clear as cut glass and just as
dangerous. Today, Zen is equally useful for modern social activists.
Warriors and activists both require the same basic things - a lot of
energy, the ability to make one's personal security a secondary
rather than a primary goal, and the ability to sustain the effort
over a long period of time through defeats as well as victories.
These qualities often arise spontaneously as one attains some
awareness through meditation of this living universe and one's
position within it. Anger and fear may produce energy for a while,
but over the long term they only take the joy out of life, draining
one's strength in the process. And they aren't needed anyway. The
irony is that once a warrior learns to fight with joy, without anger,
s/he will be stronger, more energetic and therefore more effective in
whatever actions are undertaken. Most of us, most of the time, tend
to see the world dualistically, in terms of competing opposites --
good and bad, right and wrong -- and then we choose our preferred
side and find reasons to dismiss the opposing point of view. When a
Zen teacher speaks of putting down our opinions and says that our
ideas of right and wrong are just more opinions, we are shocked. With
that attitude, how can we act in our daily lives, continue on in the
reality that surrounds us? Are we to sit passively and ignore the
problems around us? Or callously dismiss them as karma, blaming the
victims on some cosmic scale? Of course not!
There is a sentient quality in the universe, an aware, compassionate force -- the Chinese call it the Tao, in the West we label it with the word God. It flows as it will. It's not something that humans can intellectually understand, and our attempts to use it to obtain our personal selfish desires are presumptuous. All we can do is learn how to experience it. This is what all religious traditions are concerned with, and many people have had a direct experience of this energy. In the Buddhist tradition, this force is symbolized by Kwan Yin, the Bodhisattva of compassion. She has one thousand hands and eyes that she uses to perceive the suffering of the world and to alleviate it. We are those hands and eyes. The compassionate force is manifested through our actions. It happens when we put down our personal worries and desires long enough to allow it to flow. To experience love, to feel and act compassionately, to be a conduit for that energy -- this is a human being's true job. It operates at different levels -- in how we treat ourselves, in how we interact with the people and other creatures immediately around us, in how we deal with the larger human society and all the other life forms that share the planet. A social activist is somebody who is doing this job, manifesting compassion in this world. The form it takes, whether it's holding sick babies in hospitals or trying to save other species from extinction at human hands or any of a myriad of other activities, is up to the individual. As we come to better understand our interconnectedness with all other beings, the compassion arises spontaneously. Then there's no need to label things as "right" or "wrong."
"Wake
up master, wake up, the crowd is waiting for you."
I slowly opened my eyes and looked around. I was in a large tent, lying on some mats on the ground. A young monk in a purple robe stood over me. The tent was sparsely furnished, a statue of some god or revered elder stood on a small altar in the corner.
"Come on master," said the monk. "It is almost your turn to speak." The air was warm and dry. Probably a desert on Earth or an inner planet of some star system. I looked out through the flap of the tent and caught a glimpse of a large crowd of monks and nuns all dressed in purple. I never knew who I was or where I was when I woke up. I had been leaping through time and space for as long as I could remember, jumping back and forth in human history. Challenging, yes, but it was never boring.
The monk held up a purple robe and I put it on. I fumbled with the sash. The young monk sighed and tied it in a complex knot. "They are waiting we must go," he said. We walked out of the tent. I could see a large blue snow capped mountain in the near distance. Large flying shapes circled the peak. Earth vultures or the bat winged velocidors of Nimmoria 3, I couldn't tell.
We were in a large tent city. The young monk walked down a wide lane between the tents. Ahead was a raised platform surrounded by thousands of monks and nuns. They were listening to a man in orange and yellow. As we approached the platform from behind I could hear him discoursing on some points of philosophy. I tried to remember what I knew of religions. It was possible that we were on a planet founded during the Great Galactic Diaspora when thousands of starships left Earth following the invention of the space-time bubble drive. The air was breathable and the rising sun was yellow, but, as humans had found out in the early third millennium, there were hundreds of earth like planets. It was also possible that I was somewhere in Earth's past.
We climbed up to the platform and sat behind the speaker. A low murmur spread through the crowd. The speaker was discussing whether or not the smallest grain of sand in a desert existed or not. I lost track of his argument and which side he was arguing for or against. At one side of the platform a group of scribes wrote down everything he said. On the other side was a large statue covered in flowers and jewels. A large white jewel in its forehead sparkled as it reflected the rising sun. I had no idea what I was supposed to talk about. I tried to remember what I knew of religions: the Four Noble Truths, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Andorian Creed of the Atari Colony, the seven meditations of the Kol-I-Nor ... What group this was I did not know. I looked at the statue, but it was so covered in flower garlands and jeweled necklaces that I couldn't even tell if it was male or female let alone what god or goddess it represented.
The speaker stopped speaking, having reached some sort of conclusion. The crowd bowed in unison. The speaker stood, bowed and walked to the edge of the platform. My assistant motioned for me to take his place on the black mat in the center of the platform.
I stood up and walked slowly to the mat. I sat in the lotus position and bowed to the crowd. My mouth felt dry and I shivered slightly. I racked my brain for some topic. I saw a flower in a vase beside me. Stalling for time I picked up the flower and twirled it in my fingers, trying to smile benevolently to the crowd. They starred back with blank faces.
After a moment my assistant smiled. He stood up and said, "The master has given us a great discourse." The crowd let out a collective breath and bowed. The soft sound of thousands of robes shifting rippled through the desert air. The scribes scribbled furiously, saving this moment for future generations.
"Well, got out of that one," I thought.
My assistant said, "And now join the master in a few moments of deep meditation."
I sat, cleared my mind and waited for the next leap.