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'She Who Is Compassionate - Kuan Yin'
Opening - a term for moments of spiritual breakthrough. Openings are of a variety and range from mild to pronounced. Persons who are theistic are more likely to have breakthroughs they experience anthropomorphically as divine intervention, while persons of a nontheistic worldview are more likely to have openings they experience and interpret as abstract. Hence, while openings may point to the same Source, how we experience them is based on prior conditioning. Hence, the opening may be non-mental, yet we interpret it based on prior learning. The interpretation overlays the opening itself. The mind seeks a known to frame the naked event in. One, for example, might have an experience of "God" and another of the "Light," yet the opening itself is not how one experiences or interprets it. The contemplative way is to drop the story of the opening - that is, how we interpret it -, and be-with the revelation itself free of our ideas of what it could be, is, or must be. What we want is to listen to the opening. What happened? What is it saying? Let it speak, rather than your speaking for it. Then, no problem with reframing it. Yet, we need to unframe it, to receive it free of our compulsion to fit it into our worldview.
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A disciple was always talking about someone or the other saint, holy man, or holy woman he admired and wanted to be like. Hence, the Sage interrupted him one day, saying, "We put up a ladder. We place a few great spiritual achievers at the top - at least, we think they are. We say, 'They got there.' Then, rather than get there, we worship those whom we say got there. It is best to be here." Protested the disciple, "But I am here!" "No you're not!" exclaimed the Sage. "You're always sitting at the top of that ladder!"
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The following story is from Henry Shukman, One Blade of Grass; he shares from a dharma talk by one of his teachers.
One night the teacher gave a talk about Master Kyogen. Kyogen had been a clever young man, she said. He went to see Master Isan, a great figure of classical Chinese Zen, with a battery of scriptural knowledge at his back. Isan, who led a large monastery, asked the brilliant young Kyogen a question: "What was your original face before your parents were born?"
This is a famous "barrier" koan in Zen, the teacher explained: a question given to novices that may help precipitate a breakthrough. Kyogen took the question to his scriptures and commentaries and searched for a quote to bring back to Master Isan by way of an answer. All night long he pored over his texts and searched through his papers, but he found nothing. Crestfallen, in the morning he went to the master to confess his failure.
Isan said, "I could answer the question for you, but you wouldn't thank me later."
Kyogen was despondent. Here he was, a gifted young man, at an impasse. He did what many of us might do - packed his bags and left.
Convinced he was unworthy of being a monk, he wandered the countryside as an itinerant laborer. Years passed, and he found himself working as the caretaker of a rustic shrine. One morning as he was out sweeping the yard, a piece of broken tile got caught in his broom and flew against a bamboo stalk, where it struck with a hollow knock.
Tock. The teacher tapped her lectern to illustrate it.
When Kyogen heard that sound, something unexpected happened. He and the sound became one. The whole world was swallowed up in the knock. He was ready. The soil had been tilled.
He wrote a verse afterwards: "One knock, and I have forgotten everything I ever knew."
She repeated that line. "He means everything is forgotten. But everything."
I didn't think I had heard the story before, but something about it resonated.
Apparently Kyogen then bathed, changed his clothes, lit incense, and bowed in the direction of Master Isan's temple, saying, "Thank you, Master, for not having told me the answer before. Your kindness was greater than that of my own parents."
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To live our sacred ideals seems out-of-reach, regardless of our effort and sincerity. No matter how hard we try, we may seem to fail. The early Christians adopted a Greek word for this, harmatia: to "sin" means "to miss the mark," not "I can't get this right, so I'm unworthy, unfit, inept, hopeless." Spiritually, we may see others as having achieved some special state we have not. We might feel they have something we do not have that makes them a success, unlike us. We see a few lucky ones as the spiritually elite, and we are among the plebians of the spiritual life.
Our ideals are out of reach, and we do fall short of what we wish to be. So, where does this lead us? Here. ... "One morning as he was out sweeping the yard, a piece of broken tile got caught in his broom and flew against a bamboo stalk, where it struck with a hollow knock." And, there at the rustic shrine, going about his humble daily task as caretaker, Kyogen's heart-mind opened. What all the sacred scriptures could not do for him, the sound of a broken tile meeting a bamboo stalk did.
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Kyogen's sudden, unexpected opening reminds me of a like story in the Christian Bible. In the Gospel of Matthew 13.44, Jesus says -
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.
Here, again, we have the element of surprise. And Jesus could have spoken of an awakening at the temple, yet he placed it in a field.
And my sense is the awakening occurred for Kyogen was prepared for it to happen; before, he was not prepared, so the scripture and Isan could not help him. Kyogen had to become ripe, and daily life, including a humble daily work, was part of the alchemy of preparation. So, with us.
Hence, the Grace-full life is a gift, and this gift is given when we can receive it. It is never about our worthiness. Then, we never can know what can happen, even something unremarkable, to provide a knock that opens self to Truth.
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What is true of me seems true of others who devote themselves to the Way via a spiritual path. Out of the many openings I have received, I was not expecting a single one. I do sense they have arisen when I have been ripened to receive them. And the openings leave a residue - like a lingering scent of perfume -, but any felt-ecstasy resides as the sensible experience of the opening dissolves. And these awakenings serve as confirmation and encouragement. They confirm our path and encourage us to remain faithful to it even when it seems the door will possibly never open again.
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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.
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