In fact "letting go" was part of my impetus for practicing Zen. And indeed, in my mid-twenties, a point came when I could do that. Almost all of the bad things that had practically consumed me, indeed, practically killed me, before that moment (and it was a moment) I "let go" went away as if they had never been, and through Zen practice one learns that those bad times had never been. The sense of liberation was profound. And that's when I gave up and let go of Zen practice as well.
It was available at any time, but I felt it wasn't necessary any more.
I went on a wholly different path, a pilgrimage of sorts, which ultimately led me to where I am now, circling back to my youthful Zen era.
The Enso is apropos, no?
The dharma talk I mentioned and criticized and reconsidered in the previous post was in part about pilgrimage and how in many cases the pilgrim is a "nobody" (consider the word) among "nobodies" on the way to something/nothing different, or not. We don't have to get into the details of "some/nothing." It's not really a contradiction, but some would see it that way. The dharma talk proposed that all of us are ultimately on pilgrimage, even if the pilgrim is only taking one step. That step itself can be or represent the whole of a pilgrim's passage.
In Zen practice, the pilgrimage is an important activity, and many Zen practitioners, sensei and roshi go on pilgrimages to Japan, to India, to Tibet, and some now to China (other places too, but those are mentioned frequently) to, I suppose, inhale the same air as the Buddha, trod the same paths as Bodhidharma, explore the same hills and woods as Dogen and thereby... wait, what's the point of it?
Hate to say it, but there is no point. One goes on pilgrimage... because one goes on pilgrimage. The choice of where to be a pilgrim -- if there is a choice -- is almost always a product of desire. And desire, as the Buddha discovered, is the source of suffering.
Letting go of desire relieves suffering and... can lead to enlightenment.
Yet in my mid-twenties I began a life-pilgrimage not driven by desire, at least not desire I was conscious of, that was often a wild ride, yet was always instructional. Every step -- well, nearly -- a learning experience.
Much of it was risky as if on a mountain precipice. Teetering so close to the edge, then somehow falling back toward if not exactly to safety, then teetering again. And again and again.
The nature of a life's pilgrimage can be that of risk, but it isn't always. A single step, for example, can embody an entire pilgrimage, and that step may or may not embody risk. The individual experience is what it is. We don't know and can't say in advance what it will be. Afterwards, we won't necessarily know what it was. In some Zen traditions, we never know and can never know. It never begins, it never ends.
But I don't much want to get into that right now. There will be a time for koans and contradictions. But not right now.
Instead, for the moment I want to focus on the "Y" of Zen -- the "why." Note: "I want to..." is an expression of desire, and I accept that for the moment.
And because it's Halloween and the little ones are swarming at the door, I'll have to put off that "why" for a little while longer.
No comments:
Post a Comment