Lyrics adapted from a poem by J. W. Goethe Take On A Thousand Forms
Take on a thousand forms hide as you will Oh most beloved At once I know it is you
Conceal yourself in magic veils and still presence in all at once I know it is you
The cypress thrusting artless up and young Beauty in every limb I know it is you
You in the fountain plume’s unfolding tip All playful one What joy to know it is you
When cloud assumes a shape and changes it One manifold in all I know it is you
When flowers veil the meadow ground Oh starry twinkle hued in beauty you
When on a mountain sparks of dawn appear At once great gladdener I welcome you
Then with the sky above rotund and clear Then opener of the heart do I breathe you
What with bodily sense and soul I know Teacher of all I know alone through you
One hundred names of God I bestow With each will echo then a name for you
*
We are all people of paradox. ... Living with paradox may well not always be easy or comfortable. It is not something for the lazy, the complacent, the fanatical. It does however point us the way to truth and life. For as we learn to live with paradox we have to admit that two realities may be equally true; we may be asked to hold together contrasting [truths]. The closer we come to saying something worthwhile, the more likely it is that paradox will be the only way to express it.
*Esther de Waal. Living with Contradiction: An Introduction to Benedictine Spirituality.
Note: I do not favor de Waal's use of contradiction. Paradox is a contradiction only to the mind, meaning it is not a contradiction at all. Truth is a harmony of what the mind sees as polarities. Nevertheless, when truth manifests in the mind, the mind divides it to fit its programming.
*
A Buddhist nun, Nyozen of Tokeiji (Japan, 13th Century), would meditate on the Zen nun Chiyono's (Japan; Mugai Nyodai, 1223-1298) enlightenment poem ...
With this and that I tried to keep the bucket together, and then the bottom fell out. Where water does not collect the moon does not dwell.
After insight into the essence of Zen, Nyozen presented a poem to her teacher...
The bottom fell out of the bucket of that woman of humble birth (i.e., Nyozen); the pale moon of dawn is caught in the rain puddles.
* * *
Chiyono, one of the first, possibly the first, woman ordained in Zen, and Nyozen share something in common. They both had their lives fall apart. Life and self fall apart together. We see the world through how we see ourselves. No space divides us into inside and outside.
The two nuns, like us, put forth much effort to keep the sense of self-identity intact. We tend to be attracted to what validates our temporary sense of identity and away from any challenge to it.
The self that falls apart, persons often refer to as the false self, in contrast to the true self. The false self, however, is not other than the self run off course. There is no true or false self, yet the words help us relate to two tendencies - one directed to joy and contentment, one to emotional suffering.
The Christian Scripture speaks, likewise, of two tendencies, one arising from that we are, the other that we seek to protect, even if it means adding suffering to our lives and others' lives. Galatians 5.17-18 (PHILLIPS) -
Here is my advice. Live your whole life in the Spirit [or 'spirit'] and you will not satisfy the desires of your lower nature. For the whole energy of the lower nature is set against the Spirit [or 'spirit'], while the whole power of the Spirit [or 'spirit'] is contrary to the lower nature. Here is the conflict, and that is why you are not free to do what you want to do. But if you follow the leading of the Spirit, you stand clear of the Law [i.e., you do not need religious dictates to guide you].
* * *
The false self, or what above is called "lower nature," is an absence. No one can find something called ego. This self is illusory. Something was born, and you were told what and who you are. This naming process continues in overt and subtle ways. It is not wrong or bad; it is just limited and misleading. We are trained, however, to be unconscious of it.
Our true identity - what I often refer to as "True Nature" - gets submerged in the realm of matter, aided by family, school system, religion, government, ... Before we can enjoy ourselves as ourselves, we are told who and what we are, how to behave, to what groups we belong, who is our friend and enemy.
One Buddhist writer, Albert Low, in Hakuin on Kensho: The Four Ways of Knowing, speaks of this errant self-identity with the metaphor of a city -
Normally, we live within experience. We learn, we adapt, we shape our lives according to different experiences. We name what we experience, and in this way we build up a whole structure, a whole architecture - indeed, a whole mental city - in which we move around. This city of words, concepts, and relationships is what we normally call our lives, and we look upon ourselves as being “in” this life. Sometimes we look around and we call this city of concepts, structures, experiences, and habits “the world,” and we believe that this is the only world. We are surprised when, for a moment, we encounter the world of another and find how different it is from our own. Most often, we feel that the other is mistaken, has misinterpreted experiences, does not understand, or is a “primitive,” “heretic,” or “foreigner.” The insistence that my structure, my architecture, my plans, my words, my ways, my city is the only city is the cause of so many of our problems.
And this misdirection from the lower nature is not necessarily bad morally. A false self might be an outstanding citizen, an excellent parent, a philanthropist, or a pastor, priest, guru, or roshi.
The most subtle of this lower nature might be when dressed up in religion or spirituality. We are not essentially spiritual or religious: we are. This means nothing added: this is our native purity, not because we are outstanding moral examples, but that we are ourselves organic. When we are acting naturally, we are acting ourselves.
* * *
Chiyono's poem introduces us to an essential process of spiritual awakening, what the Christian Scripture calls "spirit": "With this and that I tried to keep the bucket together." "This and that" includes our spirituality and its practices. I wrote above "essential process" for disassembling the false self, which means negating how this self seeks to protect itself and subvert our natural being. I have written elsewhere, therefore, that the success of meditation is in its failure; meditation must fail to succeed.
Meditation, like other spiritual practices, is a way to whittle away at our ego-fascination. We see how our fascination with this fantasy self is like a bad dream, for it entails so much suffering. Yet, it is what we think we are; hence, we seek to rebuff the emergence of our true self, for the true self appears as a threat to the fabrication. I wrote "think we are," for the only way the imposter self exists is as a thought. Think on this - who you have been trained to think you are has never existed and cannot exist.
* * *
We adopt a spiritual path for who we are wishes to be free from what we are not, its suffering, and limitations. Rumi (1207-1273) speaks of the urgency of heeding this Calling -
Listen, oh drop, give yourself up without regret, and in exchange gain the Ocean. Listen, oh drop, bestow upon yourself this honor, and in the arms of the Sea be secure. Who indeed should be so fortunate? An Ocean wooing a drop! In God's name, in God's name, sell and buy at once! Give a drop, and take this Sea full of pearls.
* * *
Jesus refers to this Calling as an intangible inspiration from his God - Rumi's Ocean. He says, using a parental metaphor, "No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; ..." (Gospel of John 6.44, NRSV).
In Rumi's poem, the Ocean summons to itself the drop; the drop - you, me, everyone - became a drop to be reunited with the Sea - Jesus' Father. The major obstacle to this reunion is the drop identifying itself only as a drop separate from the Sea rather than a temporal manifestation of It. Between saying, "I am God" and "I am not God" is an unspeakable truth.
* * *
Some Christians have spoken of the fortunate Fall. This Fall is the loss of innocence in the Garden of Eden. In Chiyono's language, the mythical Adam and Eve had the bottom of their bucket fall out. We can surmise that without a Fall, we do not know the sweet taste of grace nor have a conscious, chosen relationship with Life. We are fortunate when our efforts to keep life and self together fail, and we listen closely to the summons to turn back homeward, which means, at the same time, going onward.
* * *
Chiyono and Nyozen differ in the ending of their poems. The former had written that water no longer reflects the moon after the bottom falls off the bucket. This is so because there is no water - water representing sensory phenomena. She may have referred to the formlessness of the Dharmakaya, or formless, ultimate Reality. Nyozen says, in contrast to Chiyono, that the moon is reflected in all the rain puddles - everything is sacramental, to use Christian terminology. Nyozen points to the relative mirroring the Absolute, matter reflecting Spirit.
Nyozen sees moon-reflections everywhere. We hold in unitive awareness "drop" and "Ocean," bounded and boundless. We err to forsake either pole while growing into the recognition that oneness includes differentiation, and that differentiation includes oneness. Either getting lost in oneness or in diversity is a fallacy. Nonduality is not the negation of duality. We live with the tension of drop and Ocean, self and Father, and we may feel a pull one way and then the other.
* * *
Nyozen speaks of direct experience. We know by encounter, not belief. Nyozen reminds us to remain faithful to the direct experiences we have of the moon. We mature to have no interest in quibbling about theology, philosophy, or spiritual teachings, in grasping how we understand the Sacred in contrast to others, or in trying to prove others wrong in their understanding of Life. This does not mean we do not have ideas or disagreements with others; we are just no longer interested in the fuss of it all. Yes, we can debate or discuss differences in views, but it will not be querulous; it will be friendly, more like a game, when before it might have been more like emotional combat.
* * *
Last, of import for us ethically concerning others... Nyozen reminds us we are the other. We are puddles made of the same waters, and we each mirror the one Self. Realizing we each reflect the Sacred, we honor persons equally, regardless of what appears different about us, such as gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, and other biological and social traits. Thus, it is good news when the bottom of the bucket falls off. We are fortunate to fall out of the individual self we are not and meet the Self we all are.
Still, again, a tension. We are all the puddles. Yet, we are still the puddle we each are. When you begin to feel the tension, the truth is tapping you on the shoulder.
