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Pink Moutan Peony
Inn Along the Way/Chapman Farm, Damariscotta, Maine
A retreatant asked the Sage, "Briefly, could you tell me what you mean by walking the Way?" Replied the Sage, "Not left, not right." "That's confusing," came the reply. "Yes," said the Sage, "so, walk until it's not confusing."
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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The following koan came as a surprise. The morning of studying the koan, a story I was unaware of before, I had dreamed of a small child - a little girl - asking me how to walk the Way. I leaned down to her height and informed her, pointing out the road before - "Walk straight, and keep walking straight," was the essential message. I told her of the opposites along the Way, such as joy and sorrow, and affirmed for her to keep walking straight ahead. She not only began walking, she started running. To me, this spoke of her enthusiasm. A group, including several others and myself, began running after her. We had Soto Zen Buddhist robes on. She easily outran us. We feared for her safety and, finally, came to a body of water - a dark creek or river. She had been covered in the water. She stepped out, alive, soaked in the dark water. Possibly, this connotes a baptism - a death-resurrection initiation. The dark waters can allude to the unconscious. Seemingly, she had to go through this trial of rebirth - so do we.
Now, the Zen koan ...
An aged woman lived at a crossroads on the way to Mt. Wutai, the highest mountain in northern China. Mt. Wutai, a Buddhist sacred site, was (and is) a destination for many pilgrims. Temples were built on it from the 1st-early 20th Century. A monk walking to the holy site asked the woman, "Which is the way to Mt. Wutai?" She said, "Right straight ahead." The monk took a few steps, and she muttered, "He's a good monk, but off he goes, just like the others." Monks came one after another, and they would ask the same question and receive the same answer.
Later, a monk told Master Zhaozhou Congshen (b. 1779, China) what had happened in meeting the woman. Zhaozhou spoke, "I'll go and investigate that old woman myself." Upon going to her, Zhaozhou asked, "Which is the way to Mt. Wutai?" "Right straight ahead," she answered. Zhaozhou took a few steps. The old woman muttered, "He's a good monk, but off he goes, just like the others."
Zhaozhou returned to the monastery. He told the monks, "I've checked out the old woman of Mt. Wutai for you."
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This koan can support varied understandings. I chose one among several that arose to me.
Pilgrimage to Mt. Wutai connotes a common experience - a yearning and search for something that woos us to find the answer to our deepest longing. We are seduced by something within. We are all destined to walk to Mt. Wutai. Discovering our true home, where we always belong, is a promise held within the urge. After tasting many experiences, many pleasing and many displeasing, we still sense something we have yet to find. I will write more about this "something" later.
The aged woman is within us all. She is always present, though we may not pay her attention. She represents the voice of wisdom. In Jewish and Christian scripture, she - Hokmah (Hebrew), Sophia (Greek) - was with God during creation, assisting him in building the creation, and playing, or rejoicing, in his presence (Proverbs 8.22-31). In the New Testament, Christ is linked with this archetype - "But to those called by God to rescue, both Jews and Gentiles (lit. Greeks; viz., non-Jews), Christ is God's power (Greek, dynamin) and God's wisdom (Greek, sophian, feminine form of sophia)." (I Cor 1.24; cf. 1.30).
The pilgrims are monks - males. The male energies cannot find the way of the Way. The masculine gets confused and can not get unconfused when confronted with the Ineffable. Hence, the feminine must be listened to for us to learn and enjoy Reality, not merely the externals many call life. I see knowing as follows: knowledge is masculine, one acquires it; wisdom is feminine, one receives it. We take on the feminine attitude to receive what the feminine offers.
What is this Reality to enjoy? Often I call it life to differentiate it from mere biological existence or the things we call life, which are simply details - job, marriage, sex, money, interests, ... Rumi, in his Ghazels, clarifies this for us. Kabir Helminski translates his saying as -
Abandon life and the world,
and find the life of the world.
*Rumi. the pocket Rumi. Ed. Kabir Helminski.
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By "feminine," I do not mean gender, but qualities associated with females in the past, and oft in the present, hence called traditionally "feminine." Some men are feminine in their heart posture, while some women are masculine in their heart posture. Most of us, if not all, have some of both. Accordingly, some women and men will have to learn to be more feminine in a psychological-spiritual sense as part of walking a spiritual path.
What is the wisdom the woman - feminine - gives? "Walk straight ahead." Knowledge cannot grasp this (interesting that Zen has been seen as mostly led by males, while koans address our feminine perceptivity). She and the pilgrim stand at the crossroads. Objective knowledge says, "I go left or right to Mt. Wutai." Yet, true to the feminine, the woman offers intangible guidance (recall, "What Does not Fit Anywhere," June 13, 2022, on this site, the analogy of the slippery fish). The sagacious female does not get caught in dualism. She embodies and communicates unitive truth. Duality says, "Left or right"; wisdom says, "No, a way that is neither just left or right." The Way is this way.
To welcome the intangible (lit., un-touchable; by extension, what the mind cannot grasp, ca. 1888)- including the Way not a way or ways -, one makes space for it. Palms open represent readiness to receive. One hand posture, or mudra, I was taught when learning meditation is to place palms up on the thighs. This signifies receptivity. The palms are open and cupped as though waiting for someone to drop something in. One purpose of this mudra is to communicate this receptive tone to the entire body. You might wish to try this posture now, sitting where you are.
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One meaning wisdom gives us through this story is ... just keep walking... and walking... and walking - as in the dream about the little girl. The spiritual pilgrim - you and I - keep walking, regardless of the directions we take. Fidelity is not first about success, as though we are faithful, if we reach a goal; instead, fidelity is first about not quitting on our lives or ourselves, even when we seem to be failing or do not know. Anyway, "failure" and "success" are socially-constructed and, in a spiritual sense, then, illusions. Living without a thought of either is a relief. And have we not each had a time when we thought we succeeded, only later to regret it? Or thought we had failed, only later to see we had not?
What is this Way neither about success or failure but faithfulness? The Way encompasses all ways. Some of these ways are outside us, some inside. The inner or outer landscape can shift often. Walking the Way is more about how we walk than where. We can move about many addresses, inner and outer, and live true to others and ourselves.
If we cannot sense trueness to our hearts, we may need an outer or inner change in landscape or both. I have been in places - internal and external - I could not, no matter what I did, get my heart to. These places were just not suited to me and my calling to Life. If a place feels off, and nothing you can do makes you feel at home, this is something to listen to intently. Being true to yourself is never selfish, and seeking what fits your soul is best for everyone.
Again, this could be inner or outer landscapes. Some external places are not for us or were for a time. We never did or never again will fit. Where we live, relationships, job, religious affiliation, spiritual practice, physical vitality, ... can change dramatically over time - and suddenly. Likewise, we can have turnings regarding our psychological make-up, sense of gender or sexual orientation, political and religious beliefs, attitudes, mental health, spiritual aspirations, ... . The Way is constant, while the details change.
In a sense, there are constant shiftings in the landscape, and the more attuned we are to Life, the more we recognize this. Unfortunately, most persons are socialized to be insensitive to this movement. The consequence of materialism is this deadening of sensitivity and tenderness. As the skin can become callous and unfeeling, we can, too. Spiritual awakening, then, is not some out-of-world or out-of-body experience; instead, it is the awakening of this natural perceptiveness as a whole-body awareness, the unifying of all we are in intimacy with Life. This awakening is not into some amorphous home-is-everywhere. Home is here, in this body, at this time and place.
* * *
We can name Mt. Wutai many things - God, Christ, Buddha, nirvana, heaven, paradise, New Jerusalem, liberation, freedom, ... All sacred spaces signify something other than the physical space. So, let me return to that "something" I said I would address.
Zen Buddhist teacher, Brad Warren, in The Other Side of Nothing, refers to a saying by Zen Master, Dogen Zinji (1200, Japan, esteemed as the founder of Soto Zen). Warren writes, "... Dogen said in his essay 'Inmo': 'We ourselves are tools that it possesses within this universe in ten directions [i.e., every direction, everywhere].' Well, that sounds somewhat like a Stephen King book. Warren continues to clarify - or try to? -, "'It' in this case is inmo, a Chinese word that means something like 'something.' [Dogen's] talking about the ineffable and unnamable something that is the mind of the universe." Well, that clears it all up - ha! ha! Well, some of us do not want it cleared up, for we love "it" as "it" is, even though we have no idea what "it" is. Well, let us move onward, straight ahead, now, as the old woman says to us.
So: "something 'like' something." And as we walk more intimately with it - this it, this something -, our ideas of it begin to blur. That something becomes less distinct, more intuitive, and more real. We open and yield to it progressively, increasingly, as it draws us into itself. Accordingly, we find we sense more the walk is less about effort and more about surrender. We could say, "I was walking; now, I'm being walked" or "Walking is happening"- which is, also, to say, "I'm happening." The more insight we have into this something, the more a felt-mystery it is. The mystery gets into our bones, so to speak. The Mystery is no longer an idea. It has gotten us and tamed our tongue from the previous ideological parroting of inherited ideas about it. So what is "it"? "Something." This is not problem for us, but a cause for joy and, possibly, laughter.
* * *
The domestication of Spirit - the Ineffable, the Intangible - in much religion is the opposite of the living felt-mystery Life is - it is, something is. Most religions have been shaped by men, alongside the suppression of the feminine. Our dear saint, pointing the way to Truth for us today... she would not be allowed to share her wisdom in many religious circles, though she might be allowed to bake cookies and tend the kids. The silencing of the feminine and, so, wisdom, has created an imbalance in many religions and governments and to our common injury. We are much lost, for we have few leaders teaching us how to walk the Way straight ahead. Accordingly, we languish in longing, and longing dishonored leads to the sickness of soul and body and, thereby, society.
For this I say to you: unless your righteousness (harmony with others and God) surpasses that of the religion (or, bible, scripture) scholars (or, scribes) and pious ones (Pharisees; of the two leading religious parties in Jesus' time, the conservative), there is no way you'll ever get a foot into the reign of the skies (lit.; often rendered, heaven).
*Gospel of Matthew 5.20
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Buddhist teacher, Nancy Brown Hedgpeth, says her teacher, Seungsahn (b. 1927; Korea), ended retreats and began letters with the words, "Only go straight, don't know; try, try, try for ten thousand years nonstop; soon get enlightenment and save all beings from suffering." "Don't know" means what Buddhists often call "don't know mind" or "beginner's mind." This mind is the mind taught by the aged woman to pilgrims. When one with the walking, you become the walking. You are not concentrating on walking - this is why mindfully to walk does not mean to be mindful (mind-full; i.e., concentrating on) of walking.
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We know little about the Way or our way. Still, what are we to do? Walk. And we walk more not-knowing than knowing. Hence, we truly know. So, the more you can say, "I don't know," the more insight you receive. But those who act like they know a lot, what we often call a "know it all," cannot remain open to spiritual insight. To walk the way is not-knowing, and not-knowing means knowing that is intimacy.
* * *
Jesus speaks of this walking the Way. The Jesus of Luke's Gospel says, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks behind him is fit for god's kingdom" (9.62; Sarah Ruden. The Gospels). "God's kingdom" can be seen to be like Mount Wutai - an archetype. The agricultural metaphor is fitting, for, as I learned as a youth on the farm, one cannot plow looking back. To keep the rows you are plowing relatively straight, you look ahead. One has a relaxed focus and can plow well when skilled. Yet, the rows get jagged easily by even brief times of looking rearward. Therefore, "god" does not exclude us for looking back, we do that ourselves. We screw up our lives through a lack of wise attentiveness. Thus, we keep plowing - walking - straight ahead, looking in the direction the heart leads us.
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Disciple: I am trying to be faithful to my spiritual path but am really confused. What can I do?"
Sage: Confusion is the Way.
Disciple: I thought you said we gain clarity by walking the Way.
Sage: That, too, is the Way.
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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*©Brian K. Wilcox, 2022.
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox, and title and place of photograph.
*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.
*Nancy Brown Hedgpeth. In Susan Moon. The Hidden Lamp.
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