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'The Flowing Light'
River De Chute, Easton, Maine
Again and again I am stirred by some experience of tenderness, some simple act of gratuitous kindness moving from one person to another, some quiet deed of courage, wisdom or sacrifice or some striking movement of unstudied joy that bursts forth in the contagion of merry laughter.
*Howard Thurman. Meditations of the Heart.
One of the definite characteristics of the Buddhist tantra, on the mahamudra level at least, is not running away from sense pleasures but rather identifying with them, working with them as part of the working basis. That is an outstanding part of the tantric message. ... There is a self-existing pleasurableness that is completely hollow if you look at it from the ordinary point of view of ego's pleasure orientation. Within that, you don't actually experience pleasure at all. All pleasure experiences are hollow. But if you look at it from the point of view of this nakedness, this situation of being completely exposed, any pleasure you experience is full because of its hollowness. On the mahamudra level, pleasure does not take place through the pores of your skin, but pleasure takes place on your very flesh without skin. You become the bliss rather than enjoying the bliss. You are the embodiment of bliss, and this contains a quality of your being very powerful. You have conquered pleasure, and pleasure is yours. One doesn't even have to go so far as to try to enjoy pleasure, but pleasure becomes self-existing bliss.
*Chogyam Trungpa. Illusion's Game.
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02-23-2021 -
I read a hilarious story today during quiet time. I read it and began laughing. Here it is -
Kodo Sawaki, later to become an eminent Japanese Zen teacher, was listening to other monks at Entsuji monastery. They were having an intellectual discussion. Sawaki, now a young, ordained monk in his twenties, showed little patience with haughty monks. He would engage antics around such fellow monks; he behaved like a gadfly to the arrogant. This day, sensing the vanity of their intellectualized discussion, he lifted his robe and one leg, and he let out a huge fart. He quietly walked out, saying nothing, apparently confident he had said enough.
Likely, the young Sawaki had learned by then Zen tends toward discouraging intellectualization of spiritual matters. Zen prefers engaging practice over conceptualization. In Zen, his one fart was more attuned to the spirit of Buddha dharma (truth, teaching, wisdom) than their many words. His gaseous display was a dharma rebuttal for his dharma brothers, was a performance of crazy wisdom.
After morning readings, I went into a time of the Prayer of Quiet. In the calm, remembrance of the Sawaki anecdote arose to mind. The scene began playing itself out. I could see Sawaki lift his leg and fart, then walk out. After the scene was over, suddenly, I could not keep quiet. I began laughing out loud. The laughter, lasting only a few seconds, arose from and returned into the silence.
Earlier in my meditation practice, I would have felt this laughter a breach of the silence - something not welcome. Now, not. Instead, after sinking back into the quiet and calm, I realized from the laughter had arisen a sense of expanded consciousness, embracing more than before. I, next, noticed a big smile resting on my face. The laughter had been an opening, not merely a detour or an interruption.
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After retreating in silence and solitude in October 2020, I offered a prayer to receive the "spirit of laughter." This aspiration arose from the copious laughter that came over me during the retreat. Over 25 years, I had never enjoyed so much laughter while in silence in all prior retreats. I would be sitting at night in the little cabin in the woods, read something, and start laughing uproariously: as we say, laughing my head off.
* * *
Someone could rightly ask, "But is not such gaiety a contradiction of the silence?" No, not when it arises spontaneously. When arising naturally out of silence, laughter is a sound of silence; it is a way Life plays.
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Above, Chogyam Trungpa speaks of tantra - Mahamudra - and bliss. In tantra, one seeks to use the energy rather than deny it or let it go. So, here, one welcomes a new experience of pleasure-as-energy - the pleasure of joy, including welcoming the world into oneself, transmuting that energy into the qualities of Life. Here, bliss is not something you enjoy or have or receive - bliss is you, you are bliss. The subject-object duality "I" and "joy" is no more. Your body, your whole being, is exposed in the Light, and a quality of the Light is bliss. Of course, one does not have to practice tantra officially. This energy transmutation can be practiced by anyone prepared to do so.
* * *
Laughter is no more an interruption in silence than is a burp, a sneeze, a nose itch, or the sound of a barking dog or breeze blowing through tree limbs and leaves. So, one does not seek any cause to laugh in silence, but she does not deny its rightful place.
The strictness that is essential earlier for many Way-walkers can be relaxed later. Then, one witnesses how phenomena express the one Life arising from and dissolving back into the heart.
So, it seems we could see Sawaki's fart as the play of silence - I do. And we could see my laughter in silence as the play of silence - I do. And laughter is one of the most healthy things we can welcome as part of our daily life and spiritual practice.
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Simply put, to laugh is good for us physically, mentally, and spiritually. It is good for us relationally. Laughter is healing. Laughter reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously, that hilarity is worship when it arises from the heart and returns to the same. I have seen how genuinely humble beings appear to have this sense of humor, the spirit of laughter.
Possibly, we all need to pray for this spirit of laughter. We know the world needs us to bring to it the gift of gaiety. We need to breathe laughter into the darkness and joyfulness into the widespread discontent and malaise. So, let us do so. Let us welcome the glee of gladness.
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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, predominantly Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
*Story of Kodo Sawaki from Kodo Sawaki. Discovering the True Self. Ed. and Trans. Arthur Braverman.
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