Was pondering Buber’s I and Thou at work not long ago, and had recently listened to Teaching Company lectures on nominalism vs realism in the Middle Ages, along with the Christian mystical tradition of the Middle Ages. The lecturer has a very interesting classification system for mystics — but of course, are those categories “real” or nominal in and of themselves? Probably nominal, i.e. “in name only”. The lecturer himself admits that his classifications are ad hoc, many other academics would disagree.

But as to what is real, what is fundamental: Buber appreciates that existence / being, as we know it, requires relationship, and relationship requires some level of dualism. To talk of “oneness”, of monism, is to talk of an abstraction. Perhaps our minds, tuned as they are to abstractions, can conceive of one-ness in some weak, distant fashion (see thru a glass darkly).

But our lives and everything we know of in the universe lives in relation to something else, we live in a sea of duality. If there is an “edge of the universe”, if the universe is like a ring of connected things, and then  »  continue reading …

My Zen sangha meets every Sunday morning for Zazen, and we usually chant the Heart Sutra at the end of our sitting. One famous line from the Sutra goes as follows:

No Old Age and Death,
And No End to Old Age and Death

Whatever that means. Still, I am now in my “old age”, and death has taken on a personal meaning in my life, for obvious reasons — i.e., if I’m lucky, I have left maybe 1/3 of time that has already passed since I graduated from college. It goes quick! You can tell that I’ve led a fairly sheltered life, that I was never in the military, am not a medical professional, and am not a homicide detective, all of whom become very familiar with death at a much earlier age.

However, I did work for a law enforcement agency that has a homicide unit, and I always respected the people that work in it. There is a recent article in the local newspaper about a former homicide detective and supervisor from our agency who recently retired, who now looks back on the estimated 1,000 dead bodies that he came across in his years on the streets. Worth a read — this is a guy who had no time for stuff like Zen and the Heart Sutra, but could now perhaps use a bit of it. (I actually knew this fellow a little, he was very well respected; like most people in law enforcement, he’s a lot more real than most of the “snowflakey” types in my sangha, myself included!)

But OK, back to to the navel-gazing into my own approaching mortality. At this age, a person needs to come to grips with death — no more ignoring it (although I suppose that you can, if you’re really healthy and have a lot going in your life — both of which categories I don’t fit into anymore). So how to feel about it? I suppose that depends to a large degree on how you feel about life, about being alive, and about being alive with other people. If you like being alive, if you’ve enjoyed the experience of living a conscious, sentient life, if you’ve generally enjoyed relating to other people (despite the occasional negative human interactions and experiences that are unavoidable in any social context), then perhaps  »  continue reading …

Our Zen sangha recently discussed a koan called “Kyogen Mounts The Tree“. It’s about a sage named Kyogen who describes a man hanging onto a tree branch with his teeth, while dangling over a steep cliff. The koan did not specify why this man could not grab on to the branch with his arms and hands — perhaps he was disabled? And just how did the guy get into this predicament? That would require a sensible answer, and koans are not in the business of providing sensible answers.

Anyway, according to the koan story, someone else came along and saw the poor fellow up in the tree, hanging on for life. The sojourner did not make any attempt to rescue Kyogen’s friend — perhaps there isn’t much that could have been done in ancient times, a time without cell phones and body harnesses and helicopters. So, the passer-by decided to ask the hanging man a question: Why does Bodhidharma come to China from India? This question puts Kyogen’s man in a quandry — if he stays quiet, he “fails” — presumably he misses his chance to spread the dharma and perhaps attain his own enlightenment (for it is in teaching that we learn the most). But by staying mum, he keeps alive the hope that somehow, something will rescue him. If he does decide to answer, he goes down into the chasm, and dies on the rocks below. But in the few seconds of his fall, he might attain enlightenment (or at least bring the passer-by to it — assuming that Kyogen’s man has a good answer).

Various members of our group argued that the answer is obvious: let go and answer the question! Being a true Zen student means taking the risk, accepting the worst, and letting go. Even if that means making a sacrifice for the cause. We should not get hung-up on what seems most obvious — i.e., putting self-preservation first. The fear and struggle caused by mindless self-preservation holds us back; it can be worse than the consequence itself. This would seem most consistent with the Buddha’s teachings that grasping and desire are the ultimate cause of suffering, and  »  continue reading …