The following writing begins with a story, continues with a story of my own life experience. I end with some sense of failure - not bad or good - I cannot convey what happened, but I tried. "Yay!" Your eyes may see what my words fail to show. If so, "Hooray!" If not now, later. And, yes, the opening haiku hints of truth in the stories - something -
fifty years ago: seeds, before that, nothing - oak trees outside my window
*John Brehm. Dharma Talk: Poems.
Temple Master [or Lecturer, Dharma Teacher] Ryosui ... became a disciple of Master Mayoku. When Mayoku saw Ryosui coming, he picked up a rake and started raking up the grass [or picked up a spade and began to dig under some weeds].
Ryosui approached Mayoko as he was raking. Mayoku avoided looking at his disciple and returned immediately, without speaking, to his own room and shut the door.
The next day, Ryosui went to Mayoku's room again. Mayoku closed the door again. Ryosui knocked on the door. Mayoku asked, "Who's there?" "Ryosui." When he spoke his own name, he suddenly attained the truth [or had an awakening]. Then, he said, "My Master did not deceive me."If I, Ryosui, hadn't come to prostrate in front of you [i.e., become your disciple], I would have wasted my whole life being largely duped by sutras and commentaries [scriptures and comments on them]."
On returning to his own temple, he preached [gave dharma talks, lectured, taught] in the Lecture [Dharma] Hall, saying, "What you monks know, I know. What I, Ryosui, know, you don't know." Afterward, he stopped preaching [or lecturing, teaching] and said goodbye to his disciples [or he then dissolved the study group].
* * *
Recently, I read this story from one of the three Buddhist classics of koans, The Blue Cliff Record." And a door opened. Call it an enlightenment moment, an awakening, an opening - that is not important to me. We can have these moments. We may or may not be able to say what we saw, it being transverbal - not preverbal. The effect, however, is substantial and, to some extent, life-changing.
I began preaching and teaching in Christian groups at the age of 15. Shortly after, less than a year, I was licensed as a clergyperson. I started preaching in revivals, leading Bible studies, and delivering sermons in various congregations on Sundays when pastors were absent, and serving as an interim pastor when a congregation was without a pastor. I received my first invite to be the pastor at the age of 19 - Hammond Baptist Church, Lyons, GA. The congregation numbered some 20 members.
As a teen, I preached in Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia, and later in Louisiana and Mississippi. In high school, I was one of three teen preachers, the sole one of my sect. Students would address me respectfully as Preacher. I had a few friends and was respected for what I did. They kept a distance, and I did, too, while I carried my King James Version Bible with me to read during the day.
* * *
We move in time to about 40 years after I began preaching and teaching Scripture, and was dismissed from the sect I had served 12 years - told, "We decided you do not fit with us, but we affirm you're called and hope you find a place to continue your ministry." Essentially, "You're the real thing, just not with us."
The first sect I served, having been raised in it, was the Southern Baptist Church. I had left it decades before, looking for a less conservative venue and anticipating finding it in the United Methodist Church. With this move, I left Georgia and served pastorates in Florida under my previous ordination. I never became United Methodist, though I did not claim to be Southern Baptist, either. Not being ordained by the Methodists, only licensed in my 11th year with them, I was under a yearly contract, and all that had to happen to send me on my way was a local committee to decide they did not want the contract renewed - and they did decide that.
* * *
I have often reflected on being dismissed by the United Methodist Church and how it took 12 years to decide I did not fit. I had always been one foot inside and one foot outside. Even in seminary, long before, when I was completing Ph.D. studies, I was known as the one liberal in the department. Also, in this broad-mindedness, I was influenced by my family, which stressed integrity, but my parents and siblings never moved on from conservative evangelical Christianity. And my parents' youngest remained a mystery to them, as far as the changes he underwent from the early days later to find his own way. He traveled a long way from Jesus-is-the-only-way, as understood by them. He traveled much farther to arrive at understanding that to be true in a way completely unlike what it seems to mean to most Christians.
To me, living with integrity meant being open-minded and open-hearted. So, the questions about life and faith kept coming, and fitting the answers into church dogma became impossible. I found the United Methodist Church was primarily moderate, but it had a large segment of evangelical conservatives - not much unlike the Southern Baptists. I was dearly loved as a truth-teller and ardently disdained as a heretic - depending on whom you would talk with. I spent a lot of energy finding ways to bridge the gap between what I had learned and where the people were, and some responded and grew. Most remained the same. Again, some loved me dearly, and some seemed to hate me dearly. In between were the most people. They listened to me, liked me, but seemed not to have any intention of seeing what I was trying to share - maybe they wanted to, but could not.
Well, it has been over 20 years since leaving that role. I served as a chaplain until recently. I did preach some memorial services when working with hospice and led interspirituality classes when in corrections and during my last chaplain position, in Maine. Now, I write - until I, like Ryosui, shut it down. When that time comes, I will be at peace with it - already am. In fact, some days I feel I have nothing more to say, or need to say, about this matter I have given my life to.
Anyway, now I write primarily about what no one can say anyway. And how many people want to hear that? It takes a lot more dedication than just showing up and enjoying time with others, meditating with a group, going to church worship, attending a Bible study, or reading spirituality books. Much of religion and spirituality - much not worthy of the label of either - is merely translative, not transformative. In fact, few church leaders likely know how to lead in a transformational manner. In all my religious education, I was not trained to do so, either.
Note: Translation is making surface changes which do not address anything more than what was previously present, while transformation is becoming something new, deeper, wiser, .... With the latter, you become someone you were not before; with the former, you become a better you than you have been, but there is no substantial change. An example I was introduced to many years ago: translation is like shifting the furniture around in the room, and you have the same furniture; transformation is moving out the old furniture and bringing in new furniture. I was trained in translation from three different languages into English, and to do that, I would see to it that I communicated as clearly as possible, even word-for-word if possible. Transformative would be writing something different from what was in the non-English text, like, instead of translating, "He fished in the pond," translating, "He swam in the pond," or "She threw the fish back into the river."
* * *
Ryosui's comment to his group: "I see what you see, and you don't see what I see," and his walking away made perfect sense when reading the story. In reading this, I felt a knowing at a deeper level, and it was not merely about anyone else but about me. The United Methodist said "goodbye," but their "goodbye" did not send me away. What I was and what I did, expressing what I had become and was becoming, sent me away. And, with that, I can walk away in peace with Ryosui and not look back. Yet, I walk not with resentment or blame, but with seeing it in a way I had not previously seen it. Some subtle, inarticulate inner shift introduced me to a deeper release from that past moment.
Still, I cannot put that shift or what was seen into words for it to make sense to anyone else. Yet, if you have had an opening like this, one that arises from the postverbal, not from what you or anyone else says or thinks, you know of what I am pointing to. If you trap what I write into your head, you are way off the mark. If you think about what I have written, then move away, welcoming the emptiness, so you can see what you could not arrive at by thinking, very good. Some clarity may arise, I do not know. If it does, you did not get it; it came to you, as happened to me in studying the above koan for the first time. By striving to understand, we often end up muddying the water. There is a time to think and a time to not-think. To see, trust the clarity inherent in wisdom - the water - itself. The water has always been clear. Sometimes, we are not ready to see, sometimes we are. Doors wait to open of themselves.
