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Peace Lily & Dancing Shiva
* * *
If someone asks
My abode
I reply:
"The east edge of
The Milky Way."
Like a drifting cloud,
Bound by nothing:
I just let go
Giving myself up
To the whim of the wind.
*Taigu Ryokan. Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf. Trans. John Stevens.
* * *
Ryokan became a Zen Buddhist monk at age 18, after being a sensuous youth. After excelling in monastic life, he was offered the position of head of the monastery, following his Teacher, Kokusen. He declined the offer and the title Master—used of Zen teachers.
Ryokan chose to move about the countryside as a hermit, begging for a decade. Stevens summarizes his way of life - In his early forties, Ryōkan drifted back to his native place, and he remained there the rest of his days, living quietly in mountain hermitages. He supported himself by begging, sharing his food with birds and beasts, and spent his time doing Zen meditation, gazing at the moon, playing games with the local children and geisha, visiting friends, drinking rice wine with farmers, dancing at festivals, and composing poems brushed in exquisite calligraphy.
Ryokan refused to criticize others or listen to others do so. During his hermitage days, an area lord wanted to build a temple and Ryokan be the head of it. Ryokan declined the offer. He eventually moved into a hermitage at the foot of Mt. Kugami. In his last days, he lived in a patron's dwelling. There, he fell in love with a nun. She remained at his side the rest of his days, until his passing on at age 73.
* * *
Ryokan's giving himself up to the "whim of the wind" echoes the Christian teaching to be led by, to walk by, and to live by the spirit. Also, Jesus says, "The wind (or breath, spirit) blows where it wants to. You hear its sound. Still, you don't know where it comes from or is going. This is like those born of the spirit (or breath, wind)." Christian contemplatives speak of the teaching "abandonment to divine providence." This teaching speaks of relinquishing personal control.
Ryokan replies with a humorous but telling reply to the question of his address. His address could be anywhere or nowhere-it is a matter of how you perceive. Physically, his body is at a particular place. Otherwise, he is everywhere. He is in the ancestors, all beings, and future generations. He is in space somewhere out there and here. He could also be saying he does not want people to know where he lives. He wants to preserve his solitude. How do you protect and honor your need for solitude?
To be like the "drifting cloud," he gives himself to the wind. Abandonment is the key to freedom. For an awakened life, there is no way to bypass surrender. If we cling to a personal idea of freedom, we are not free. If the ultimate does not claim us, something lesser will. To be claimed, we yield the illusory right to a personal life, a life in opposition to the collective life in the One. In ourselves, we are bound; with others, we are free. In this freedom, we live free of polarity between self and other.
Then, we can better take care of ourselves and share with others. With ourselves or others we lose nothing. Then, there is no longer an opposition between "I" and "you," "I" and "them," "I" and "everything." There is differentiation but not separation or opposition, for it is not in you.
* * *
If Ryokan does not give himself up to the wind, he cannot move about like a cloud in the open sky. The same is true of us. Ryokan is not free in his solitude, away from others, unless he can be free within himself. Then, he is free among them. His solitude goes with him. Solitude is not merely about being off to oneself. That is the surface. Deeper, solitude is a state of being, of heart. Solitude is like a cloud moving across the sky or a river flowing downstream.
Your essential nature is solitude. Your capacity to enjoy subtle communion with others depends on that solitude. If you do not honor that, your interactions with others will lack depth. They and you will only be surfaces interacting, while communion is left uninvited. You can be with many and not enjoy communion with them. You can be off to yourself and enjoy communion with everyone.
* * *
We can practice this letting go. When we feel tied down again, captive to our thoughts and feelings, personalizing, we can respect and feel that. Then, we can return to the open sky. With practice, we stay grounded less and for less time. Our natural way is the way Ryokan shares with us. That we might find it so impractical can indicate how we have forgotten how to live naturally.
Buddhists call this practice "aimlessness" or "wishlessness." We can practice by doing things and being fully in the moment of doing. In this practice, we can see how we are controlled by the thought of time and of accomplishing. Yet, through this practice, we can live more free of such constraints and enjoy more the timelessness of the moment, and there is only one moment. If we forget this moment, we forget our whole life. When we return to this moment, we return to our whole life.
The reason we can return to the wind is simple. The wind is always present. The wind never abandons us. The sky is always waiting. And we are not here to manage the wind, only give ourselves up to it.
* * *
Tao Te Ching 20 -
I anchor my being to that which existed
before Heaven and Earth were formed.
I ... like a newborn babe.
Unoccupied by worldly cares,
I move forward to nowhere.
...
Indeed, I have the mind of a single person!
Calm and self-contained, I am like the vast ocean.
Free and seemingly aimless, I am like a gentle wind.
*Lao Tzu. The Complete Works of Lao Tzu. Trans. & Commentary, Hua Ching Ni.
awakened ones
picking up throwing out
mind weeding
not puffing up
mistaking living for arriving
*Tai Sheridan. Snow Falling in Moonlight.
* * *
*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024. Permission is given to use photographs and writings with credit given to the copyright owner.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The book is a collection of poems Brian wrote based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
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