"A Quiet Place"... Georgetown Island, Maine, Back River Trail -
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A friend asked this week if I had moved back where I wanted to, after living a year in the far NE of Maine. I replied, "Yes, I moved back into Damariscotta for Winter, until July. Looking into buying a little house - finally, settling down after being on the move since age 19. Just turning tomorrow 65, so maybe a good time to stop moving about."
Now, that is a reply about "settling down." Nevertheless, whether we move from one location to another or not, we are leaving home all the time. Our brain takes unity and translates it into an opposite, so leaving home and staying home do not fit its usual way. So, we step outside our brains to see Truth. That is one thing a sacred path guides us in. Of course, we can try to fit Reality into that illusion of contraries, but that will limit our insight and, thus, way of life. In line with what I say below, a sacred way humiliates our mind so it bows, so to speak, before that which is before and uncontained by what we think about anything.
I can say, after moving forty times since age 19, I have never gone anywhere but home. Possibly, that is a reason why so many diverse places have felt like home to me. When I was 19, such a statement would not have made sense, now it makes perfect sense.
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The following story and comment are from teaching talks by the late Chan Buddhist teacher Sheng Yen (Taiwan, 1931-2001), in The Method of No-Method: The Chan Practice of Silent Illumination. Sheng Yen is exploring a teaching poem by the late Zen master Hongzhi. So, first, Hongzhi's words expounding on Silent Illumination, wherein arises silence and clarity. Then, following an intervening tale, Sheng Yen's comment on Hongzhi's wisdom poem -
Hongzhi -
Therefore it is said:
Like the earth that holds up a mountain, unaware of its steepness and loftiness; like the stone that contains jade, unaware of the flawlessness of the jade.
If one can be thus, this is truly leaving home. People who have left home [nuns, monks] must get hold of the essence in this way.
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There is a story of a high Chinese official who came to pay respects to a Chan master, Xuyun (1839–1959), who lived on a mountain. At the bottom of the mountain, he saw an old monk spreading manure on a vegetable patch. Not respectfully, he demanded the old monk tell him how to get to the top of the mountain so he could visit the Chan master.
Why do you want to see him?
Don’t you know? He's a very famous master. I want to pay my respects to him.
That fellow? Pfeh! Don’t bother. It's not worth the trip! He's nothing.
How dare you say that about a famous Chan master! Look at you and your filthy manure!
Well, if you want to see him, it's none of my business. The path to the mountain is that way.
When he reached the temple, the official demanded to know where the master was. A monk said, “Oh, he's down the mountain spreading manure in the garden.” The embarrassed official hurried down the mountain and prostrated to the old Chan master, right on top of the manure.
Sheng Yen -
So if you see an old monk hauling a bucket of manure, please pay some respect. [Laughter] You cannot tell an enlightened person just by outward appearances, just as you cannot tell that a rock contains a jade just by looking at it from the outside. Thus there’s a saying, "One with great wisdom is like a great fool."
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I am reminded of two prominent scriptures, one from Judaism and the other from Christianity. In the first, a passage Christians - for it is in their Bible as the Old Testament - often claim refers to Jesus: it refers to all of us, including you.
In the historical context, I agree with Jewish scholars and some Christians, the person may be a contemporary person, possibly an "Isaiah," or a collective, such as a remnant of Jews who would survive exile in Babylonia, where they were exiled in the BCE 500s, return to the southern kingdom Judah and its capital, Jerusalem, and be the beginning of a new age of national independence. In either case, the passage is Messianic. Again, nonetheless, it refers, too, to you, as all sacred scripture does -
He was despised and rejected by men [people], a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men [people] hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53.3, ESV)
How could such a one, be it a person or people, be a sign of anticipated blessed times? Who would see hope in the humiliation and humility of such a one marked as despised, rejected, sorrows, grief, from whom men [people] hide their faces, and esteemed him not? Nothing about this sounds like anyone to place hope in. Nevertheless, this is one way Grace works. Grace has a tendency to disappoint our prideful projections of what holiness, enlightenment, righteousness, godliness, awakening, goodness, love ... looks like. Deflation and disappointment are a way through such delusion.
Another scripture, James 4.10 (ESV), from my childhood that has remained deeply entrenched, thankfully, in my brain: "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." We do not have to read this as a "Lord" or a "he" outside us, giving us good for our being good, obedient children. I once interpreted this in that way. This is how life works, how Grace graces. No deity apart from us has to exalt us for our being humble. In the up, the down remains, as the low is in the high.
Life will allow the prideful "I" to get walked on, to be crushed, to be treated as of no worth, so the "I" can yield to the Truth. So, while humiliation may seem too mortifying to be thankful for, being pushed down can be an opening to a lovely, unpretentious, and genuine posture of uplift. One put low is weaned of the wish to be a spiritual or religious show-off; these persons prefer hiddenness and are attracted to beings who prefer hiddenness.
This hiddenness does not mean hiding in seclusion. What does it mean?
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Meditation is a process of chastening for anyone who meditates. Meditation insults the ego, not for the ego is bad, it just tends to claim center-stage. The uncentered ego, what we sometimes call egoism, even wants God to serve it. I know this might sound depressing, but sit in Quiet daily for even five minutes and notice what happens. Or go to the local religion and spirituality section of a bookstore or visit one online - just look. The ego dons a myriad disguises to appear enlightened, holy, or right.
I have been meditating for over thirty years, and the Light is still exposing egoism and to increasing subtle degrees. Yet, I know that the Light is Love. The Light does not judge the darkness; it casts itself upon it and not to denigrate but to heal. The sense of humiliation arises from the ego, not the Light. The Light cannot but love. I write this as someone speaking from experience, not from theory. I have spent thousands of hours watching the ego play. I write as someone who is growing but always at home in the Light, even when the exposure does not feel pleasing at all. Home does not always feel wonderful to me, but the wonder is unceasing. To feel the healing and healed is wonderful.
So, what do you do in meditation? Relaxing with nothing to gain or lose? Now, that does not sound depressing. Then, out of that, you may do something or do nothing; life has a way of moving pole to pole, it all belongs. Yet, the push will be over, whatever is done is done at home and not to get to home anywhere else, and you know every experience will disappear even as it came. This is leaving home while not going anywhere. Not claiming a ground but living with the ground as it moves. That is the groundless ground.
Wherever you are, it is, wherever you go, it is.
The Isness supports movement, so becoming, in all directions; to move is to become a you you have never been.
Your eyes drop out and you see anew. Wow!
All things always renewed.
A Jesus is walking out of a dark tomb. A Buddha is born from a lotus. Do you see?
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For a time, when young, Soto Zen teacher Dainin Katagiri (1928-1990) studied under Yokoi Roshi, or Yokoi Kakudō. The teacher was often harsh with Katagiri. Writes Katagiri's disciple Dosho Port, in Keep Me in Your Heart A While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri -
While he was with Yokoi Roshi, Dainin-san felt that his life, his sense of himself, was shrinking and that he might disappear. He felt like he was suffocating. One day Dainin-san asked Yokoi Roshi why he never praised, only scolded. Yokoi Roshi said, “I scold you so that you might be a normal person.”
While one could reason that never praising, only scolding, is not recommendable to help another develop as a human being, can we argue with the pureness of intent, the wish for one who would be a spiritual guide to others to be as fully human as those he would exemplify wisdom before and for? Later in life, Port refers to Katagiri's appreciation of how his teacher treated him, but initially, he was not prepared to do so. Likewise, can we look back and appreciate how Life has wounded us to where our beauty could come out of the shadows and shine?
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Humbleness has no agenda to be humble. And we are not walking around trying to appear humble, as I did for a time after being vowed in the mid-90s. I wanted to be seen as a humble-monk-like.
Life, by means gentle and fierce, transforms vanity and pretentiousness, so it lifts up. And we would be wise not to equate spiritual maturity with what appeals to most persons, but rather with what most persons would totally miss seeing as spiritual. In fact, the more spirit-aligned, the less you will fit the consumeristic, materialistic - and certainly holier-than-thou - image of a spiritual being. How fortunate are you if common, ordinary beings see you as one of them - common, ordinary.
The wise one and the Sun need no esteem to be and keep being what they are and give what they give, while being seen and praised by some and ignored by others. A Sun-being does not look around for praise. They quietly shine. The Sun recognizes the Sun, for within the meek-hearted is the space to see.
