Dead Zen Masters

 

January 30.

It is only about 11° outside, after snow yesterday. 

The coldness exists as an actual condition that can be felt even in the midst of the warmth of the household, because everything is connected and even though it's warm in here, and I’m in my pajamas, the objective condition on the planet here is that it is cold, and the warmth of the house and the coldness of the outside are not separated. They are together here.

I have parts in me that are cold and warm too, and they are not separated either. For example, my feet are colder right now than my heart. I can feel the difference quite distinctly just by putting a light touch of attention on each one.

This is what it means to be human, to have parts that are a different temperatures. Temperature is a function of the vibration of molecules. Even thoughts can have different temperatures. This is why we say that some people are hot tempered. Others are for example passive aggressive, and although this is equally oppositional, it’s a cooler condition. 

The temperatures of thoughts affect one another; some thoughts can raise the temperature of other thoughts, and then there are thoughts that can cool things down. Ideally, one reaches an equilibrium of temperature in which there is not so much chaos and convection. Meditation can help with such things. It’s useful, however, to think about this from time to time: to take the temperature of my thought, to see how things are in me.

I was reading The Other Shore by the Zen Master Thich Nat Hanh last night. He says many right things and had very good insight — some would call it enlightened insight. However you look at it, his thoughts were of a much more homogeneous temperature than those of most other individuals. He correctly assessed the nature of being — calling it inter-being, which is another word for relationship — and he knew essential things about the universe, such as the fact that the entire universe is contained in the period at the end of this sentence, although he didn't describe it quite the same way I have in other pieces years back. 

Well, he wasn't me — despite a similarity in the temperature of our thinking, we are different people, and we think somewhat differently — and it's perfectly OK that we each use our own descriptions. It's good that we do, because we should not repeat what others say like parrots, but rather find our own way of saying things.

What strikes me about Thich Nat Hanh isn't that he was a Zen Master. In many ways that’s a bad turn of phrase because it obscures his true nature. 

His true nature is that he became a human being. Even as a dead human being, he is still a human being, because there is not as much separation between living human beings and dead human beings as as there might appear to be. That is a long subject and rather too much to discuss here, but it's pretty interesting and maybe I will write about it later.

When we use the label "Zen Master” we create a separation of sorts. The aim in life isn't to become a Zen Master; it is to become a human being. The minute you have Zen Masters, already you have creatures that are distinct from and supposedly somehow “above” other human beings, and who really needs that? What we need are more human beings, not more Zen Masters. Zen Masters, as it happens — the real ones, that is — basically know this and are constantly trying to get their disciples to become human beings, not Zen Masters. We have more than enough Zen Masters, but we are desperately short of real human being on this planet. 

It reminds me of the story about the Zen Master whose disciples found themselves together in the dojo when one of the disciples came back from a trip to another country. They brought an exemplary wooden Buddha back with them. The Zen Master was suitably impressed and spent time praising the excellent qualities of the wooden Buddha.

Finally one of the disciples became irritated. "Why are you making such a fuss over the wooden Buddha?” he said. “it's just an object. Not a real Zen Master.“

“Real Zen Masters are a dime a dozen," replied the Zen Master. “A good wooden Buddha is hard to find.”

Underlying this whole conversation is one of the meanings of the phrase, "if you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him." The aim of practice is to become a human being, not some artificially elevated creature. 

The etymology of the word master is from Latin magister, which likely derives from magis, meaning more. So the master has more of whatever it is that he has mastery over. 

Yet to be a master of being human is simply to be more human than the next human being; and this aim of deepening our humanity ought to be what we strive for. This means coming into a deeper relationship, a more connected and concentrated state, with both our thinking, our feeling, and our bodies. It produces a kind of humility in which the mastery is not over the outer world, but over the temperature of our inner being, the confusion of our thoughts, the conflict of our emotions, the desires of our body. We do not need to overcome these things but rather to come into a balanced relationship with them. This is a complicated and difficult task, being human, it is no easy thing. It takes many decades of living and many years of practice in order to begin to approach it.

The successful master becomes the servant of what it means to be human, not the overlord. To become a servant is different. 

Yet of course, everyone is trained from childhood to want to be the overlord of something, anything, just as long as they are allowed to have control over it. This is a terribly childish impulse that stalks human beings throughout a lifetime and causes them to do reprehensible and tragic things.

These are my thoughts for this morning.

Hoping that you find yourself in good relationship today,

warmly,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.