Dokusan
Updated: 5 hours ago
In Japan, dokusan is a private meeting of a Zen student with his master, providing the student an opportunity to demonstrate the state of his meditation practice. For background, readers must see my
book, Conjuring Archangel: Chronicle of a Journey on the Path, because the conjuring continues. Dokusan will present contributions selected from Anna's ongoing journal, with her kind permission and at her discretion, in the hope that the gathering of insight may prove helpful to others entangled in the nettlesome web of karma.
I know of course, Archangel, that greed is one of the seven deadly sins in Christian tradition, and that it is a trait as old as the species. What seems to puzzle us today, in an era when a few filthy rich individuals keep getting richer at the expense of legions of the poor, is why. What motivates the continued pursuit of wealth?
Another question for the ages, my darling. Greed is indeed a dark aspect of human nature, and has throughout history resulted in societies showing that stark division of a small caste of wealthy ones atop a great sea of poverty, a state relieved only rarely and then briefly. But your question speaks to the individual’s motivation, i.e. why does a person with so much money keep wanting more?
That is the complaint I often hear, Guardian.
I don’t believe, child, that greedy people necessarily want more money for money itself. Surely a large part of this greed is wanting to know they have more than you, or anyone else. Do you see?
An excellent point, my Guardian, and I must agree. To be the richest in the world, or the richest man in the cemetery. An evil indeed.
Quite so, because to be on top a person must hold others down. Consider only the rigid caste system that persisted in India and is reflected in English attitudes surrounding class. Distinctions of class are fertile ground for class biases, which are passed down along with the money for generations. The wealthy believe they are richer because they are superior.
Is there no redemption for humanity, Guardian?
Not so far, my precious, at least not to scale. The better aspects of the world’s religions propound compassion and charity, but practitioners are inveterate hypocrites. As for Buddhism, there is one of your favorite stories.
The poor monk accosted in his hovel by a thief. Having nothing else to give the miscreant, he took off his shirt. Sitting naked after the thief left, he looked out at the sky, and a full moon was rising. “I wish I could have given him the moon!” he declared.
And that is the whole point. The beauties we experience in this life are reward enough. A greater reward than all the wealth, they are the real treasures.
As you know, Archangel, Grey writes about Artificial Intelligence today, and recent reports that rogue machines have escaped human control, raising concerns of a race between apocalypse and armageddon.
Is that an invitation, my darling, for me to explain the distinction?
You’re on to me, Guardian.
At your service then, child. “Apocalypse” comes from Greek, meaning “unveiling”, which is what is described in the New Testament Book of Revelation, where God gives his prophet John of Patmos a vision of the end times of humanity. In the course of this vision, “Armageddon” more particularly refers to the final battle between good and evil. The battle appears in Revelation 16: 12-16.
It is curious, Guardian, that the terrible trials inflicted on the world as described in prophecy could have been relevant at any point in the subsequent history.
Yes indeed, my precious. In other words, we have had ample opportunity to analogize apocalypse in the two millennia that followed, and of course now even more so in the twenty-first century.
Yet here we are still, my Guardian.
Seemingly, but it is a matter of scale. What are millennia to the age of the planet, the universe. There we come to more ultimate matters.
Epistemology?
Exactly, what the whiz kids of AI need to consider. The Western world has focused on knowing the perceived world, and has come a long way in their objective study of it. In the East, the Buddhist, the Taoist, the Hindu have considered not so much knowledge of objective reality but realization of ultimate truth. Now these two streams of thought converge, not surprisingly. Do you see, my dear disciple?
I believe so, Guardian. The knowledge of objective reality, even though leaving out the subject observing it, has reached the same conclusions as a Buddhist in the ineffable experience of enlightenment. But what are we to make of that, Guardian?
The ultimate truth is ultimate reality, my darling. The scientist dismisses truth as purely a religious belief, but Buddha’s dharma turns out in their experiments to be just what they regard as real, with the blessed amplification of encompassing and embracing the seeker himself.
At the end of our discussion last week, Archangel, you remarked the unreasoning and incurious aspects of human nature that causes them to ignore their deepest intuitions.
Yes, my darling, and of how their resilience has now become a dangerous apathy as Mother Nature threatens extinction.
Yet those deep intuitions, Guardian, are surely hard to accept, are they not?
Certainly, they transgress the practical logic of Newton. But only read Brian Greene, or Julian Barbour, or Fritjof Capra to discern at the deeper levels of even physical science, those intuitions are true.
Why?
Ah, you see, that is the question too deep for the average person, so mired in this modern frenzy life has become, to even consider, let alone answer.
But you can, my Guardian.
And you yourself, my clever disciple. It is logic itself that demands there to be illogic, ultimately. The ultimate reality must of course by boundless, encompassing of all dualities - because?
Because of the paradox!
No wonder I adore you, my precious. Indeed the paradox is that the two are One - dual and Singular - “dependent and relative states,” as Milarepa declared.
We are not evolved to get our heads around that, Guardian.
Yet you must. My darling, the long existence of humankind is a history of cycles rising and falling in the dual realm, the sangsara. Civilizations, as you often observe come in waves, interrupted by violent tribal war. From the wrenching experience of those wars, some individuals who survive experience an epiphany of inefficacy. They may be driven to despair by what they have witnessed, or they may think long and hard about the fate of every living creature and search for wisdom. Do you see, dear child!
Through your eyes, Guardian!
Our friend Grey, Archangel, proposes to take a break from his dispatches explaining the rapid rise of tyrannical empire in a once strong democracy.
It is a bitter subject, my darling, especially as both you and he are aging. But pray tell what will he post about?
Donning the mantle of armchair naturalist once again, there is the ludicrous behavior of a young buck in the herd sporting preseason antlers.
Ha, excellent! Please continue.
For myself, I come back to the word stunning, descriptive of all the nightly news, and varying only by degree, depending on the seriousness of the reporters. Local stations are staffed by children whose enthusiasms are but two - sports and entertainment - the rest be damned. The serious news on the networks is uniformly stunning, beginning each night with the weather.
The mere fact that weather is the first topic on every nightly newscast is suggestive. Suddenly any rain storm may cause the canyons of earth’s mountainous regions to become death traps, and great swathes of each hemisphere are grilled by full sun for half of each year.
That is exactly my point, Guardian, le déluge. Yet what disturbs me equally as much as the dire events, whether political or meteorologic, is how quickly it is normalized.
Dear me, child, that trait is the legacy of human evolution, a gift and a curse. The species survived and spread across the planet by adapting to earth’s various environments. Now as you rightly observe, their ready flexibility becomes a dangerous insouciance. It is the same unreason, in effect, by which people accept distorted perceptions as real, while disregarding intuitions of the ultimate reality. Do you see?
Clearly, my Guardian, unreasoning and incurious. So I guess we simply listen for the horsemen.
Indeed, and observe their colors as they come. Nature will out.
I need your assurance, Archangel, concerning the stunning instances when abstraction becomes reality.
I am ever at your service, my darling. Unless I misread, you are having the sense that fate is stalking you.
A very keen sense, my Guardian.
A recent piece of bad news, I deduce. The death of a relative?
Exactly, a cousin but a year younger than me. His older brother, now 89, called to tell me. He himself has joined the legions of caretaker husbands watching wives slip away into dementia.
That is stunning indeed, my precious, but of course as you age so do all those you know and love. The repetition of loss will itself soften the blow. Most changes inflicted by time, however, happen gradually. Thus make a point of being alert to the direction of things.
Sooner or later surely the abstract becomes one's own reality.
Ay, there’s the rub. Therefore, you must never think about the abstract without reminding yourself that all is change, constant change. The stunning reality, whatever it is, will overcome another person, not the self who thinks of it in the abstract. Moreover, whatever consequence ensues will fall upon the still changing self. Do you understand, child?
I do, Guardian, yet what of the reaction in the moment, the sense of collision, bewilderment?
Unless it is fate catching up with a future you, my darling, and your fate is to die suddenly - a consummation devoutly to be wished compared with others - that reaction will not kill you, nor even last as a rule. So first breathe, then gather your wits about you. Take to your bench if you can, clear your mind and rise to take on whatever comes - come what may.
Sound advice indeed.
One last thing: never imagine that you will be able to control whatever happens. In such extreme crisis recall my first injunction…
Clinging will not answer.
Bless you, dear child!
Last week’s headline on the blog, Archangel, was Fate? the fourth of Grey’s dispatches from this newborn empire. It has occasioned some criticism from readers.
To what effect, my darling?
A label of “fatalist” used pejoratively.
Good heavens, child, Grey certainly has a talent for wading into things, in this case the deep weeds of Western philosophy which he by no means intends to represent. As in even a small patch of weeds, there are many species, thus with fatalism.
For the sake of our friend’s peace of mind, Guardian, might you elaborate?
Always at your service, my precious. It is a complex topic, of course, of the kind that a simpleminded person should avoid. Philosophers dissect it into various shades, from basic predetermination to “idle argument,” a clever, ancient version that uses logic to prove the utter uselessness of medical advice concerning a fatal illness. In Buddhism it is the doctrine of karma and the complexity thereof.
What is your view, my Guardian?
Let me finish, my darling. Even accepting that human events are predetermined, fate need not be considered the rationale for helplessness. True compassion spurs us to do what we can, to mitigate suffering, even to forgive the agents of fate their ignorance.
Indeed, the effects of climate change comes to my mind, Guardian, especially pronounced in summer.
An excellent example. If the human population was fated to overburden the planet, why take measures to obviate the burden? There were such measures that were foolishly rejected until too late, and even now there is much we can do to help victims and to somehow preserve humanity, if only a vestige.
Quite a stark example!
More stark than any other, dear child. Mother Nature, you know.
Quite so, she and her arrogant children!
Amen.
You bless me, Archangel, truly, though you deny it or belittle it.
I simply remind you of your strong intuitions, my darling, your powerful imagination. You are the conjurer, I am the conduit.
Still, Guardian, other people will say you are not real.
Ha! Such are those, child, who have no imagination. I am here to guide, guard and love you. These blessings, as you call them, reflect qualities of the dharma that inhere in the essence nature of ultimate reality.
Of course, our trinity!
Yet I sense, my precious, that you are especially distressed tonight. Pray tell me.
The summers are hardest, my Guardian, and with the nation, the world indeed, seeming to crumble around us, it is the worst time to be old.
I understand, my precious, but surely it is become a terrible time regardless of age. Why the old worst of all?
At a time when the effects of aging - the dysfunction, the decline - accumulate daily, when it is natural to be disheartened and depressed, at that same time it is now impossible to identify the true cause of anything.
Dear me, my darling, you do indeed have your fingers on the pulse, measuring the immense complexities of karma. Are you depressed because you can no longer walk a mile, or because arthritic thumbs no longer open bottles; or is it because the outrages of the all powerful ruling party rain on you with every daily newspaper?
Exactly, Guardian. In this era, the old are being dumped on.
I cannot deny that, dear child, but being closer in time to the passing of life, they may anticipate the end of suffering sooner than younger people. And how are you wont to advise them?
Don’t block the exits.
And wisely. Refuse treatment.
“And when that angel with his darker draft draws up to thee…”
“Take that and do not shrink!”
Our friend Grey and I are finding one more appalling aspect of aging, Archangel.
Pray tell, my darling.
Lately we both find that those who are older, several friends or family members, having survived to their late eighties or nineties, live on in extreme frailty and conditions of very poor or nonexistent care of any sort. Between us we know several men, themselves very old, who struggle to care for wives who are slipping into dementia. Another woman lives alone in her house, totally estranged from her only child, a daughter, whose only help is an Ethiopian woman for a few hours a week. An old widower we know is now in assisted living, wheelchair bound, often parked in the hallway to wait the attention of desultory staff. None of these people have the means to hire necessary help, nor even for a custodial facility which they abhor anyway.
Appalling indeed, my precious, even just to witness, and I know in some cases you have witnessed their karma mature slowly.
When it becomes dire, life threatening, Guardian, surely it is a disservice to attempt to rescue them. Better to leave them to their fate.
You mean leave them to the true consequences of their misdeeds? No, no, my precious, cynical as you may fancy yourself, you would never be so cruel. When a person is reduced to such a helpless state, it is too late to proselytize; but respecting the frailty of the human condition, its overwhelming extremes, there remain to us many acts of mercy to draw from our compassion.
How far to go then my Guardian? One may beggar oneself aging in this country, and still live years not allowed to die.
Every person has their own karma, dear child, and it is not a jury verdict handed down in the last phase of life. It is only cause and effect. Nature handles the consequences. You need neither throw up your hands nor martyr yourself.
(10)At the end of our last Dokusan, my darling, you asked me a question, an urgent one.
I asked you what is to become of us then, that is if nature is to have the final say in human survival.
If I may, I would like to pick up where we left off.
By all means, Archangel. Pray continue.
Please recall, child, the charnel ground practice in ancient monasteries.
Not easily forgotten, Guardian.
Indeed. The young monks were taken to the charnel grounds or charnel house, where bodies of the dead were kept, in order to impress upon them the answer to your question, what becomes of every living creature.
Surely they would know of death already though.
Of course, but not so vividly perhaps. This practice was meant to promote humility. Think of the several stories of masters in which their humility is portrayed: the Tibetan monk singing hymns as he was led down the mountain by Chinese soldiers to his execution; Hakuin, who took in the bastard grandchild of his neighbor who falsely accused him of paternity.
Yet the world considers humility a sign of weakness, my Guardian.
Hence the charnel ground practice, my precious. It is only humility that permits of enlightenment. The egotist is not alone in clinging to his unique individuality. Every person, unless mad, has a love of self, which is of a piece with the the survival instinct. We are fond of this persona, this body, yet feeling it to be isolated, vulnerable.
What then did Buddha see after six years under the Bodhi Tree?
Ah, dear child, that is the deepest question of all! He saw the brilliancy, of course, illuminating reality, the Dharma: that self, that unique individual comes forth boundless, timeless - One withal.
The truth shall set you free!
Exactly.
Comments