Chao-Chou Tsʾung-shen (778-897, China) was a noted Chan (Zen) master. He was known for paradoxical sayings and outlandish acts. Here is one such act -
Chao-Chou fell in the snow. He called out, "Help me up! Help me up!" A monk heard him. He came and lay down in the snow beside him. Chao-Chou got up and walked away.
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I was mystified at what wisdom this odd tale might share. That is as it should be. After all, it is a koan, or riddle-story. Well, what arose to me was the monk joining Chao-Chou.
In the monk lying beside Chao-Chou, with appears. Distance is no more. The response has joined the request, so something happens before and beyond, for outside, either the response or request, before and beyond the two lying in the snow. Communion [lit., two in union, or oneness] has taken shape in time and space.
What might the monk have done? He could have walked on, ignoring Chao-Chou. He could have given him advice on how to get up out of the snow. He could have chided Chao-Chou for not getting his own self up. He could have tried to pull him up. We humans often respond to others in these ways. Distance remains, like ignoring the homeless person or avoiding someone not of our race, political party, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or social class.
What did the monk do? He joined Chao-Chou. The two created with in time. They each fulfilled their truth. In that with is our true nature. We discover ourselves through with; we enjoy in with. Outside it, there is no love. Outside it, is absence, while love is a fulness.
Outside it, is hell, for hell is the final absence of love. Hell is unmitigated isolation regardless of how many populate hell (I do not speak of a hell in the future). One hundred thousand could fill a church building and appear to worship, and it be hell. A bar or jail cell could be filled with heaven for being filled with the act of with. Heaven could shine inside that bar and jail cell. Hell could reign on Main Street, and heaven brighten the slums.
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With is not merely external. A collective of bodies does not create it, while one person alone can be in the act of with. With arises from the heart. With does not arise from the self but the self-with-God, self-as-we. God appears when with happens. We is actualized as truth.
We, so with, is intimated in the Trinity in Christianity, the three Buddha Bodies (kayas) in Buddhism, and the Tri-Unity (Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu) in Hinduism. There is widespread recognition over time of our essential nature being communal and that needing to be actualized in our daily lives.
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This with is already present before manifesting; hence, I say we co-create it in time. Chao-Chou and the monk manifested it by action. We do not merely create it through ourselves; we create with with. It creates us. It waits for us. We are transformed in the act, either in physical proximity or not.
With knows no distance, no time, so it is not confined by either. Hence, it manifests freely, for the Sun shines freely. The Sun is, so it shines in time by the act. It shines there, two men lying together in the snow. The Sun has arisen out of nowhere and is shimmering right there somewhere. We participate together in making that possible - welcoming the Sun, so ourselves.
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Chao-Chou walks away. With arises and drops, Sunrise and Sundown. Yet, it shines within the heart in silence until we lay beside Chao-Chou again in the snow. Then, it comes out. It brightens the world, still in the silence, through the act.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2023. 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.
