"I am the mountain. The mountain is me." --A homemade Zen saying.
Look closely for me at the bottom of this photo of the Matterhorn, taken in 1973.
I did not have the faith to move this mountain, but I did have the faith to be in awe.
Zen
almost silenced me. Or it did, and still
I’m blogging!
I’ve
written several posts about a book on Zen Buddhism I’ve just completed reading.
I found myself becoming quieter and quieter as I read a brief section each day
during morning prayer. Part of it was that Zen was telling me to shut up, just
be. And part of it was that the whole enterprise had the effect of a Zen koan like “the sound of one hand
clapping” to still the mind.
I
especially loved this example of Zen mondo (questions and answers): “What is it
ultimately?” “Willows are green and flowers are pink.”
“Willows
are green and flowers are pink.” I wish I had thought of that when asked some
outlandish question during Q&A’s in the church or equally, in the LGBT
community, on whether one can be gay and Christian. Or another, “Only those who
know it know.”
“Willows
are green and flowers are pink.” Also a good answer for thorny theological
questions like, how can a good God allow suffering in the world?
“The
‘beauty’ of Zen is the inner power that unites nature and life from within,”
Abbot Zenkei Shibayama writes.
I
have only an inkling of what that means—some intuitive, receptive neuron in my
brain that may or may not get it.
And
that’s why I became quieter and quieter as I read. I often get quiet when I
don’t understand something, which has saved me from embarrassing moments of
pretense.
But
I liked it. Like witnessing a magnificent waterfall cascading from verdant cliffs
down the face of a grey stone canyon wall to a valley below. Like hearing a
musical composition caringly played that lifts the soul to cosmic, heavenly
realms. Like the final gasp of an instance of prolonged lovemaking so profound
as to put the most elevated sacred texts to shame.
I
don’t need to understand something to see its beauty.
Years
ago, I occasionally worked with another activist who sometimes questioned my
thinking with the words, “Help me understand…” Given the context of our
connection and other put-downs of me, I always thought the words were
patronizing, as in “Help me understand how you can come to such a crazy
conclusion.”
Only
recently have I thought perhaps the phrase came from PBS and NPR, whose news interviewers
often use the phrase, “Help us understand…” to aid interviewees to better
explain their thinking to viewers and listeners.
A
seminary professor with whom I served on a school committee told me privately
that I sometimes seem to speak aloud mid-thought, mid-thinking process, so that
what led to my conclusions were unclear. Perhaps that’s what was happening with
my fellow activist. Perhaps that’s what happens on this blog!
Long
ago I learned that my own need to understand something could be a means of
control. In college, French existentialist author and philosopher Albert Camus spoke
to me when he described “true understanding as ‘standing under,’ receiving without
being in control (as understanding or ‘superior’ knowledge often implies).” I
wrote this in Henri’s Mantle (p 94).
So
I have been standing under Zen Buddhism, hoping a little of its wisdom and
beauty will gently fall on me.
A
final thought from Abbot Shibayama (A
Flower Does Not Talk, p 122):
Zen asks us to open our eyes to the realm where
subject and object are not yet separated, and I and you are one; and then to
live and work in this new dimension.
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Copyright © 2018 by Chris R. Glaser.
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