The Best Buddhist Writing 2010 - Melvin McLeod [102]
In my own training, I’ve practiced with about 700 koans over a period of twenty-five years. Often there were additional challenges involved besides “seeing” the koan. We did koan study in a tiny room called the dokusan room. Very early in the morning an assistant would announce dokusan and everyone would run from the meditation hall to the dokusan line, elbowing and pushing for the privilege of getting in line and, hopefully, into the dokusan room for a one-on-one meeting with a teacher. The practice was even more challenging when Maezumi Roshi was in the dokusan room. I would finally make it through the line into the room only to hear Maezumi Roshi whisper, in his strong Japanese accent, words I could not decipher. I had to ask him to repeat himself over and over again. Outside the window, birds were singing, insects buzzing, water burbling. All these sounds mingled with Roshi and my koan. It was disorienting and magical. Perhaps Alice felt something similar on her way down the hole.
One of the koans asks the question, “The world is vast and wide. Why do we put on a seven-paneled robe (a traditional monk’s robe) at the sound of a bell?”
This question could be translated as: We are free. Why do we tie ourselves up? But looking more deeply, the question might lead us to more questions. There are so many ways in which we’re used to thinking about things, and so much we take for granted when we use language. The purpose of a koan is to wake us up from taking language—and the world around us—for granted.
What is the meaning of rain? Why do we walk in the woods? In Buddhism, we cultivate something called aimlessness, which is being and acting for the sole purpose of being or acting in that way, without further purpose, motive, or ambition. We put on the robe to put on the robe. We love simply to love.
The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: “—that begins with an M, such as mousetraps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say things are ‘much of a muchness’—did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?”
“Really, now that you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think—”
Muchness is another word for a term we use in Buddhism: suchness. It means “things as they are,” thus, before conceptual thought intrudes, separates, judges, and elaborates. For example, we see the white snow and we think we are purely seeing just snow, the “suchness” of the snow. But by naming it and putting it in the category “snow,” where we already have a preconceived notion of what snow is, we are putting a filter over the thing itself, separating us from fully experiencing its “suchness.” Mind creates all separation. Yet even the thing we call mind is just a word for what can’t be grasped or put into a category of existence or nonexistence, large or small, collective or individual. Therefore, anybody’s stupidity is just as good as anybody else’s. Anybody’s completely constructed view of reality is just as good as anybody else’s—with one exception. If we create a reality that hurts other people, puts them on the outside, or makes them feel pain in any form, that view of reality creates an effect. That is what separates one reality from another: each perception bringing about a different consequence.
This is what is meant by karma. Karma is often explained either too magically or too simplistically. I like to think of it as simple cause and effect.
Cause and effect isn’t something unique to individuals. A country, a time period, or an idea can all create cause and effect. In our own life we can clearly see that our actions toward others have a lot to do with what we get back from them. Showing sensitivity and kindness to others will not only please them, it will also transform us. The minute we stop believing that everything unpleasant that happens to us is someone else’s fault, everything will change.
When I was a kid, I used to bounce a ball and chant: A, my name is Alice