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'Sunset Over The Hill'
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Shunryu Suzuki (1904-1971) was in his last days; he had cancer. The following interaction between his wife, Okusan (or Mitsu), and Suzuki-roshi ends on a fully human, delightfully humorous note.
"How could someone with your intuition choose to marry someone as difficult as me?" Okusan asked.
"Because you are ridiculously honest," he said.
"What should I do when you die?" she asked him.
"Stay here," he said. "Don't go back at all." He said everyone would be happy if she stayed, that her ten years in America would make it hard for her to adjust to Rinso-in [their previous temple home in Japan]. But how could she be helpful at Zen Center [in San Francisco]? she wanted to know.
"You are fair in your dealings with people. It will work out naturally."
"Should I become a nun?"
"Oh, that would be best."
"I'm too old for that. Maybe I'll be a monk in my next life."
That got him laughing, which started him coughing. Okusan helped him over onto all fours so she could pound his back. He stopped coughing. "You're lucky you have someone to take care of you to the last moment," she said in a teasing voice.
Suzuki raised a hand in a faint gassho [a ritual hand gesture]. Then he farted loudly. "That's for you," he said.
*David Chadwick. Crooked Cucumber.
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I had read this story days prior and did not know how to respond to the ending - pointedly, Suzuki-roshi's farting and words to his wife. It seemed disrespectful. I returned and reread the story. This time, I burst out laughing. I reread it. I began laughing again. I could see the humorous interaction between two persons who had been friends and, then, lovers, their relationship covering decades. I could see the wisdom in the pairing of the gassho, a hand gesture of reverence, and the fart. Do the two belong together? Suzuki believed so.
So, the fart is a sign of the sacredness of much we might want to exclude from Spirit. Yet, the word "God" and "flagellation," even as the act of prayer and of a runny nose, both have a natural, rightful place in the Whole. That something does not appear to us sacred, that does not mean it is not sacred; it means we have yet to recognize its sacredness. We have likely been informed in advance - indoctrinated - of what we can and cannot welcome as holy. So, we are socialized to exclude from the Way ways It shows Itself as a Wholly Presence.
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Sufi, Kabir Helminski, shares the following, as told by a close friend, in his The Knowing Heart -
When I was young Ihadashaikh, one of the greatest human beings I have ever known. I had met him quite by accident. He lived in a small shack in a poor neighborhood. I had to deliver some medicine there for my father's pharmacy. Once inside this man's quarters, I realized I was in the presence of someone quite unusual. For one thing, he possessed the relics of several great shaikhs of different orders. The day I met him he was having a conversation with two other young men about my own age. Their names were Metin and Refik. After hearing their conversation, I began to lose interest in the things that had occupied me. I wanted only to attend these conversations. The three of us were learning so much that we wished that more and more people could also hear these conversations. We begged our shaikh to allow the size of our circle to increase.
One day we were attending the prayers at a great mosque. It was the feast of 'Āshūrā, the twelfth of Muharram. We were just leaving the mosque when our teacher paused on the steps because he noticed that a pigeon had just dropped dead from the sky. He picked up the poor bird, which was totally lifeless, held it tenderly in his hands, breathed a long Huuuuu . . . and the bird came back to Life and flew off into the sky.
Well, this act did not go unnoticed, and before long there were many people interested in our shaikh. Many of them asked to attend his conversations, and our circle grew. It was not long before we found that we had very little time with our beloved shaikh. He was too busy to see us, attending to the needs of so many people. Then one day, while doing the night prayer after our zikr, our shaikh let out a loud and smelly fart. People were astounded that this holy man could do such a thing. In a short period of time most of them had lost their faith in him, and our circle returned to nearly the size it had been originally.
One night when just the three of us were sitting together, our shaikh remarked: "You see, my sons, those who come because of a pigeon, leave because of a fart!"
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To be spiritual, holy, enlightened, godly, righteous ... whatever ..., we may have a conception of that we wish to be. We project this idea onto others. We become dependent on others who inspire us through our projection. So, likely, we do not see that other as fully human. Likely, our conception does not include farts. If it does not include farts, it excludes something. If I cannot fart and it belong wholly to the Way, I am less human than human and, hence, cannot grow toward the wholeness the heart desires.
So, it is an auspicious place to be when you can sense the holiness of humanness. Spirit does not exclude humanness but includes it. Each aspect of humanness reflects, to varying degrees, the Good, True, and Beautiful. Yet, this sense is not special necessarily. I mean, there is not only one sense of sacredness. So, to sense the essence of anything begins with sensing it as it is - its suchness. Then, you can say, "It is not special; yet, it being itself is special." Then, everything can be included, for they are what they each are.
If you are seeking fart-free spiritual salvation, that will not work, however. The Way, instead, leads us to include more and more that belongs already. So, what we are doing is surrendering ourselves more into the whole, rather than excluding ourselves through our effort to exclude what cannot do other than belong. Of course, this effort is futile, for what belongs cannot not-belong merely due to our not wanting it to belong.
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We need to take back our ideals, including rejecting our humanness by projecting non-humanness onto others. So, we can see clearly and fully embrace our earthiness as essential to our becoming. Then, we know within the healing of the split between "sacred" and "profane," or "spiritual" and "secular" - even "God" or "not-God."
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on mystical traditions, especially Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the teachings and imagery in the poetry.
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