We might think our life is not enough; the answer is far away, or even far back in time, or maybe even in the future. Maybe in a holy book written many centuries ago. As penned by a Buddhist Teacher regarding a long-ago spiritual seeker ...
He did not imagine that much of value might be found in his own life, and he thought that he had to reach far away and long ago to arrive at a starting point for the connection he sought. So he asked a question about a long-dead spiritual ancestor.
*John Tarrant. Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life.
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Now, the encounter -
Someone asked Zhaozhou, "Why did Bodhidharma come from the west?" Zhaozhou replied, "The cypress tree in the garden."
Zhaozhou Conghsen (China, 1778-1897) was a Chan Buddhist Teacher. Going to him was like someone going to a theologian, roshi, guru, pastor, priest, rabbi, or someone else considered a spiritual guide.
Bodhidharma, semi-legendary Buddhist Teacher (India, b. ca. 5th-6th Century), is regarded as the founder of Zen Buddhism in China. Zen in China is called Chan.
Possibly, it will help to revise this story for persons of today, especially for those in predominantly Christian cultures -
Someone went to the archpriest of the local Orthodox church and asked, "Why did Jesus come from heaven to earth?" The archpriest replied, "See those clouds coming from the east?"
How disappointing?! What if you asked someone you considered an expert an important metaphysical question, one that had long been haunting you, and got an answer about a tree or clouds?
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Tarrant says, reminding us that the tree or the clouds can come alive for us, the things of everyday life live, while we think we must have the "big" answers -
If you just see your own kitchen without fear and longing, without veils, then it could be intensely alive. ... When you look at the counters, the verticality of the walls, the window, the tiles, the precision of the corners of the room, the cypress tree outside the window, the branches of the laurel entwined with it and the pickup with big wheels parked in the drive, ... [t]he thusness of things steps forward out of a surrounding darkness. Whatever you see might seem to have ... an emphatic quality of being precisely what it is. This is not the usual way to think of an inheritance: it isn't the armchairs and titles to land that are handed down, but the eyes to see with.
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Jesus often spoke metaphorically of hearing and seeing. He would say things like, "Those who have ears, let them hear," and "Those with eyes to see, let them see." He acknowledged not all with hearing ears hear, not all with seeing eyes see.
Nothing is wrong with asking the "big" questions. Like, "Why is there so much suffering?" Or, "Is there a God?" Or, "If the universe is timeless, how did it begin when timeless means no beginning?" Or, "Why are we here?" Or, "Why is something here rather than nothing here?" Or, the biggie for many, "Is there life after death?"
Yet, these questions are diminished in Zen for reasons. One is Zen says, as noted above, everything is alive. There is nothing that is an inert, dead object. If there is a heaven somewhere, it is no more or less alive than a leaf on a tree beside the highway, a mountain, a mud hole, a song, a pair of pajamas, or sunlight streaming through your window. The world is not divided between the dead and the living.
Some religions seek to focus one's attention on an afterlife, a place to go after death. Zen says, "Let's become intimate with what is present." Anything you touch can be a communion with life: life meeting life. This aliveness invites intimacy with yourself as well. You are of the same suchness, or thusness, as everything.
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What, then, is this suchness? Buddhism speaks of it as the sameness in everything. Though a tree is not a person, both are connected in an underlying unity. So, if a person connects with the aliveness of a tree, they are connecting with the aliveness that enlivens everything seen and unseen. There are no suchnesses, only one suchness. This means if you are kind to one person, you are kind to every being - and yourself. So, Jesus spoke, "When you've done it to one of the least of these, you've done the same to me."
In theistic terms, if you touch anything, you touch God and God touches you. So, suchness is experienced through the particularity of something or someone. Suchness wears a variety of costumes, yet it is one suchness. Everything is a gate. Yet, you do not run through the gate. The gate opens through your intimacy with something or someone. And you find the other side is this side, and this side is the other side. So, if a theist cannot enjoy heaven now, how so after death? If you cannot experience aliveness through a tree in the garden or clouds arriving from the east, how so through anything else?
Again - What is suchness? See, can we answer? You could come up with many words - God, spirit, energy, life, ... - none are the answer. Yet, if you take a sip of tea or coffee wholeheartedly, the answer can appear for you. If you look at that apparent stranger in the store, someone you have never met before, the answer can arise for you. The answer is everywhere, not somewhere else, like in Jesus' or Bodhidharma's time. Nothing is back there or onwards somewhere.
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So, yes, Zhaozhou is trying to get the seeker's head out of the clouds, so to speak, out of Bodhidharma's time, right into the present situation. He is saying, "What you seek is right there in the garden?" And, yes, "What you seek is here, too?" And I have discovered, through connecting here with what I sought before elsewhere, the "big" questions are not as big, even if they are still legitimate questions.
Now, do you see why I chose the song above? If not, please watch again. As for me, I welcome anyone to come live on this planet, where trees talk and clouds sing and God sits in an old rocking chair on an old porch in an old one-stop-light town. EnJoy!
