|
Maple Tree in Fall
Damariscotta, Maine
Brian K. Wilcox
Zen Teacher Dizang asked the monk Fayan, "Where are you going?"
Fayan replied, “I'm wandering about.”
The Teacher inquired, "What do you think of this wandering?"
Fayan said, “I don’t know.”
Dizang smiled and said softly, "Not knowing is most intimate."
* * *
At Hsieh Cave
by Yang Wan-Li (Ch'an Buddhist, China, 1127-1206)
The ox path I’m on ends in a rabbit trail, and suddenly
I’m facing open plains and empty sky on all four sides.
My thoughts follow white egrets - a pair taking flight,
leading sight across a million blue mountains rising
ridge beyond ridge, my gaze lingering near then far,
enthralled by peaks crowded together or there alone.
Even a hill or valley means thoughts beyond knowing -
and all this? A crusty old man’s now a wide-eyed child!
*David Hinton, Trans. Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China.
* * *
Wandering is the way. Jesus said to his first students, "Come, follow me." That is wandering. Where to? Jesus did not say. No one can say. Not saying means we can return to our native innocence, living as "a wide-eyed child." Knowing "All this" beyond knowing. Wan-Li is enthused to have his eyes so wide open and welcoming in his old age. He has returned to the beginning.
Wandering leads to wondering. Wondering is intimate. Intimacy means within. Nothing is outside. Even the way is not outside the way. Spirit is not outside spirit, and the tree, rock, and breath are not.
Not knowing is intimate. When we think we know, we do not know. Knowing we do not know is knowing. Knowing arises in the spaciousness of non-grasping for knowing. Non-grasping welcomes the arising of a welcome for life to show itself.
Can you relax one moment not knowing, not even knowing you do not know? That is not knowing of not knowing.
Not knowing means the space is close, and we are part of the space, so we are close. We cannot find a place between self and space. How can you meet someone and share a conversation without the spaciousness for presences, smiles, and words to arise? Everything lives together in the wallless and celingless spaciousness. Without what appears as distance, there could not be closeness.
Even in the physical realm, how can a tree arise without space to welcome it? Can you find where the tree ends and the space begins, or vice versa? The appearance of separation is appearance. Bark and skin is connection, not distance.
* * *
So, we do not know what to think about this wandering, and we cannot not wander. We can sit by the road, but since where we sit moves, we do too. We cannot know how we got here or where we are going. We cannot avoid the intimacy. We were given words to captivate our world, but that has failed us. Words have endings, arising and dissolving in the seamelessness of "all this."
Silence is practice in not knowing. Robert Sardello, in Silence, reminds us, "Silence bears the wholeness we keep looking for while we do not know exactly what we are looking for." And, "Silence is prior to sound, not the cessation of sound. It is already present. If we drop into quietness for just a moment, we feel the presence of Silence as an invitation." To feel "Silence as an invitation," we practice "Silence as an invitation." We revive this native sensitivity.
* * *
We can have ideas, even certainty. And the certainty arises when we do not know. We discover we are found when we get lost. Getting lost is most intimate. Otherwise, we do not see, we think. Otherwise, we think we know where and who we are, and we think we know who and where the other is.
We may jump from one ideological boat to the next, but we remain lost at sea. Nothing wrong with riding on an ideological boat knowing it is an ideological boat. Such a boat can help, but it will ultimately sink. They are not built to last forever. The logical end-point of all religions and all thought systems is their own unraveling.
Seeing is intimacy; knowing the limitations of thoughts, words, and teachings is knowing not knowing. No amount of words - thought given shapes - equals or can beget this seeing, this intimacy which is knowing. This intimacy comes as given to us.
There are two truly important things to notice. The first is not knowing. This opens the secrets of the way. Our deep curiosity, that longing in our hearts, becomes a way of vulnerability, of simplicity, of openness. And this invites that other phrase, most intimate. On this way we discover our path is one of ever-deeper intimacy: Intimacy with each other. Intimacy with ourselves. Intimacy with the cosmos.
*James Ishmael Ford. The Intimate Way of Zen: Effort, Surrender, and Awakening on the Spiritual Journey.
* * *
*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024
|
