Contending

In honor of the terrific snowstorm we had this week, I am featuring one of my favorite haiku, by Takai Kito, a disciple of Buson.

Contending –
temple bell
winter wind

I encourage you to read it through a few times. To assist you, here it is again:

Contending –
temple bell
winter wind

My understanding of this poem has changed over time. I once wrote a sermon (as a lay leader at the Unitarian Universalist church I used to attend) based on this haiku, essentially exploring key moments of my life in terms of contention between "temple bell" moments, in which transcendent reality broke through, and "winter wind" intervals of harsh existence. I imagined myself as a hermit, huddled in a hut while a winter storm raged, hearing both the howling wind and the bell of distant temple calling the monks (or nuns) to practice. A chilling picture of the world indeed. Thank heavens for those temple bell moments!

Then, at some point, I had one of those temple bell aha! moments about that word "contending." The poem is saying something much more interesting about life than that the sacred and profane (or mundane) are in contention with one another.

No. I now interpret the poem's imagery this way: the winter wind is the force that is allowing the bell to ring in the first place. Suffering is the very capacity which allows -- invites -- the bell to ring. We think of the peaceful bell and the harsh wind as if they are opposed to one another, but they are working together, in dialectical collaboration (to get all grad-student on you). The harder the wind blows, the louder the bell rings. The wind may gust, bluster, and fume; the bell will only clang and peal with equal urgency. Wake up! Wake up! The music is calling you!

I now also picture myself a practioner within the temple, or at least, as a hermit affiliated with the temple. Missing sangha because of the storm. ("Missing" in both senses of the word.)

Here is the scene out my back window, during the height of the storm.
























But I think that this image captures the scene more exactly:



















Because it was really blowing out there!


From Wikipedia: "Another way to understand dialectics is to view it as a method of thinking to overcome formal dualism and monistic reductionism. For example, formal dualism regards the opposites as mutually exclusive entities, whilst monism finds each to be an epiphenomenon of the other. Dialectical thinking rejects both views. The dialectical method requires focus on both at the same time. It looks for a transcendence of the opposites entailing a leap of the imagination to a higher level, which (1) provides justification for rejecting both alternatives as false and/or (2) helps elucidate a real but previously veiled integral relationship between apparent opposites that have been kept apart and regarded as distinct."

The Heart Sutra

In sangha, as part of the ceremony of the recitation of the Five Mindfulness Trainings (and of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings), we chant the Prajna-Paramita, or the "Heart Sutra." Thay has a short book about the sutra, but I am now reading the book that Red Pine (aka Bill Porter) wrote, with his own translation and commentary.

It is interesting -- and useful -- to read the sutra rather than chant it. I find I can reflect on the phrases more deeply. Here is Red Pine's translation:

The noble Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva,
while practicing the deep practice of Prajnaparamita,
looked upon the Five Skandhas
and seeing they were empty of self-existence,
said,

"Here, Shariputra,
form is emptiness, emptiness is form;
emptiness is not separate from form,
form is not separate from emptiness;
whatever is form is emptiness,
whatever is emptiness is form.

The same holds for sensation and perception,
memory and consciousness.

Here, Shariputra, all dharmas are defined by emptiness
not birth or destruction, purity or defilement,
completeness or deficiency.
Therefore, Shariputra, in emptiness there is no form,
no sensation, no perception, no memory and no consciousness;
no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body and no mind;
no shape, no sound, no smell, no taste, no feeling, and no thought;
no element of perception, from eye to conceptual consciousness;
no causal link, from ignorance to old age and death,
and no end of causal link, from ignorance to old age and death;
no suffering, no source, no relief, no path;
no knowledge, no attainment and no non-attainment.

Therefore, Shariputra, without attainment,
bodhisttavas take refuge in Prajnaparamita
and live without walls of the mind.
Without walls of the mind and thus without fears,
they see through delusions and finally nirvana.

All buddhas past, present and future
also take refuge in Prajnaparmita
and realize unexcelled, perfect enlightenment.
You should therefore know the great mantra of Prajnaparamita,
the mantra of great magic,
the unexcelled mantra,
the mantra equal to the unequalled,
which heals all suffering and is true, not false,
the mantra in Prajnaparmita spoken thus:

'Gate gate, paragate, parasangate, bodhi svaha'."

[Stanza breaks are mine, for ease of reading.]

I haven't gotten far into the commentary yet. But two things caught my notice.

First, the artwork on the book cover. The painting is titled, "Zhao Mengfu Writing the Heart Sutra in Exchange for Tea." There's tea again! There is a legend here that I will need to look into.

Also, the acknowledgments note at the end of the introduction. "Thanks and an always ready pot of oolong tea to .... and to my wife for supplying me with the Chinese texts and tea." Well, he is a student of Zen, so it shouldn't be surprising, perhaps, that tea plays such a role in his practice and work.

He goes on, "Thanks, too, to all who have continued to support me and my family while I worked on this book, including the Department of Agriculture's Food Stamp program, the Port Townsend Food Bank, the Earned Income Tax credit program administered by the Internal Revenue Service, and the Olympic Community Action's Energy Assistance program."

Wow. I have never seen anyone admit to needing food stamps while working on a book, never mind thanking the government for them. Or a food bank, or the IRS, or an energy assistance program.

Would I be willing to persist with a project that was leaving me in such need for assistance -- public assistance? I don't think so.

Would I be supportive of my spouse persisting in such a project with such results? I don't think so.

More to reflect on.

Credit: The Heart Sutra: The Womb of the Buddhas, translation and commentary by Red Pine. Copyright (c) 2004 by Red Pine. Counterpoint Press, Berkeley, CA.

Jacket art from scroll by Qui Ying, Chinese, Ming Dynasty, 1492/5 - 1522. (c) Cleveland Museum of Art.

Red Pine photo (c) Damon Sauer 2004

Poetry Friday: Chuang Tzu And The Butterfly

A quick post today, as I am busy revising a manuscript.

Chuang Tzu And The Butterfly

Chuang Tzu in dream became a butterfly,
And the butterfly became Chuang Tzu at waking.
Which was the real — the butterfly or the man?
Who can tell the end of the endless changes of things?
The water that flows into the depth of the distant sea
Returns anon to the shallows of a transparent stream.
The man, raising melons outside the green gate of the city,
Was once the Prince of the East Hill.
So must rank and riches vanish.
You know it, still you toil and toil — what for?

— Li Po

"And still you toil and toil -- what for?"

I think that even if I were working on this manuscript only in a dream, I would toil and toil. Actually, it's not "toil": it is joyful effort striving toward clarity rather than rank and riches. Maybe that makes all the difference.

Li Po was a Chinese poet who lived from 701 to 762 CE, during the Tang dynasty. His many poems are heavily influenced by Taoism. He is considered one of the two greatest Chinese poets. (Yet another great poet to add to my reading list.)

The poem refers to a well-known passage from the work of Chuang Tzu (also written Zhuangzi), a fourth-century BCE Taoist philosopher whose work was important in the development of Chan Buddhism. (More for the reading list ...) The famous butterfly dream:

Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things. (2, tr. Burton Watson 1968:49)