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HENG CH’AU: June 1, 1977.
When your meditation reaches the point that the mountain are leveled, the seas disappear, and you doubts that there’s a way at all, then suddenly, there beyond the dark willow and the bright flowers is another village. -Master Hua
My t’ai chi teacher said, "From the unnatural you find the natural, the Tao. From something you reach nothing and then maybe in nothing you truly find something." I used to think being "natural” was pretty laid back, indulging whims and desires, doing what felt good. I know differently now.
To develop the supple, graceful balance and ease of t’ai chi requires months of unnatural stretching, hard work and clumsy postures. Moreover to really make it natural involves a regular schedule of meditation and practicing everyday. "When you feel good and want to do four sets and two hours of meditation, do two sets and one hour of meditation. When you feel not so good and want to do only one set and skip meditation, do two sets and one hour of meditation. Then you will make progress."
Bowing along Wilshire between rows of dead soldiers on one side and rows of commuting cars on the other there seemed t be nothing natural going in this artificial scene.
To live in harmony with nature is simple living and hard work. It’s also being nose to nose constantly with birth and death (your own and others). We are all in a very precarious state of being. Ultimately what is the natural nature, anyway? I used to think it was some idyllic pre-industrial garden of eden. And what is harmony with nature? Who really knows? What we call "natural" is ultimately bound up with our minds, not some state independent of us. It’s pretty obvious what it isn’t but a long, hard trek back to what it is and you do it alone, solo in the finale.
To be born and die seems "natural" but then why have sages and wise men for aeons maintained that to be free of birth, not to be reborn, is the true nature? No karma, off the wheel, and the twelve conditioned links and suffering--that’s natural. Ultimately the natural is freedom-freedom from birth and death, death and birth repeating without cease. This is described as a state of purity, genuiness, and bliss. And in the end even that is gone--voluntary extinction. Wonderful existence; true emptiness.
Well I don’t know about all this; just glimpses now and then. But the glimpses are strong and more "natural" than anything else going. Enough so to make me cultivate the bitter, unnatural to explore it. Enough to stop eating meat, smoking weed, and trade in my nice "easy life" and clothes for the life and clothes of a monk. Enough so to be out bowing with Heng Sure through Los Angeles to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Mendocino. Like T’ai chi, what at first seemed very unnatural now seems second nature. So too with bitter practices. My t’ai chi teacher said once, "Some day you will know that after t’ai chi, after all of it, Ch’an is the highest."
Just before leaving home my oldest sister Cece visited San Francisco. This was our last conversation together in a vegetarian restaurant in North Beach about being a monk and about Buddhism:
Cece: "Well I still don’t understand."
Me: "Understand what?"
Cece: "What you are doing. I think you are still just searching. It’s just that you aren’t sure yet and you’re searching, right?"
Me: "Aren’t you?"
Cece: "What?"
Me: "Searching."
Cece: "Well no. I mean I’m pretty settled. We have our house and the kinds and financially we’re finally getting to a place where..."
Me: "What about dying?"
Cece: "What about it?"
Me: "You got that settled?"
Cece: "Well the way I see it, you die and that’s it. Not much you can do about it, right?"
Me: "How should I know. I’m searching, remember?" Cece: "Let’s eat."
Me: "The food’s not here yet. Really, honestly, does that way of dealing with your death…I mean how does that feel to you?"
Cece: "It terrifies me. I sit in bed some nights trying to imagine being dead and it scares me. I don’t know: I would like to not feel terrified but…"
Me: "So you are searching."
Cece: "Well, yes, but…" (squirming)
Me: "So when mother and dad ask you what I’m up to with all this Buddhist stuff don’t sit back and say, ‘Oh, he’s still just searching…doing his own thing’ (Cece smiling) because if you say that then you had better be ready to tell them that you’ve found the answer to the problem of dying, so now you are not searching. You know mother isn’t satisfied with the whole issue of her own death, right?"
Cece: "I know."
Me: " Make you a deal."
Cece: "What?"
Me: "We both keep searching and whoever finds out first promises to tell mom and the other."
Cece: "It’s a deal. But I still don’t understand."
Me: "What?"
Cece: "Well you’re going to become a monk and give up all these nice things you have--your job and friends and clothes, good food, and it’s so cold there too. It’s like all the things you used to do you don’t want anymore."
Me: "Do you want your tricycle or old boyfriends back?"
Cece: "Well no, but that’s different."
Me: "How?"
Cece: "Let’s eat."
Me: "Let’s talk. It will be our last time for a while."
Cece: "Well what if you find out you gave all that up for nothing?"
Me: "That’s it!:
Cene: "What’s it?"
Me: "By getting rid of all that, you get nothing and from nothing…well it’s like if what you got his cold tea in your cup there and you want fresh hot ea, you got to empty to cup first right?"
Cece: "Right, I suppose so."
Me: "Well?"
Cece: "Let’s eat." (smiling)
Me: "Remember our deal?"
Cece: "OK."
Bowing through the smog and hostile vibes that also seem to follow people home from their jobs the other day, I began to get down on how unhappy people seem to be. At that moment an old eccentric wrinkled lady came up, beamed a genuine happy deep--inside alive smile, patted me on the should and ambled on.
"What You See is What you Get."
There haven’t been any reaction to three steps, one bow that are identical. People see what they want, what they can, and sometimes not at all. Some seeholy men, some see morons, some see weirdos, some see prophets, some see hate, some see compassion, some see "cute dresses" (our robes), others freak out over shaved heads. "Hey, I got shoes just like his-easy walkers, neat!" Others ask if we are sick, trying to find the beach, kissing the ground. They try to convert, divert, run over, and ignore. Some try to make us laugh or tremble--it’s endless. They all get what they see and what they see is mostly themselves.
Today as I rounded a corner after parking the van, I saw tow men gesticulating widly and slowly pacing off steps, jabbering and arguing all the time. Heng Sure was down half a block from them slowly bowing. As I got in range here’s what I heard. (One man was huge with a handlebar mustache named Mario, the other was short and squat named Pepe--brothers connected with the Italian restaurant they are arguing in front of.)
Mario: "I a tell ya it’s a four--a four steps."
Pepe: "No, no, no, no--I counta tree, tres. No more."
Mario: "Whadya know? Nothin’, you don’t know a nothin’ Watch! One, duo, tres--see! Quatro!" (pointing to Heng Sure.)
Pepe: (imitating Heng Sure) "Open your eyes, Mario. Wow look. One, tro, tres, fine. Sometimes you a so stupido." (hands fly in the air)
Mario: (grabs me and lines me up between himself and Pepe, pointing to Heng Sure). Nowa you tell us. Watch real close. You a playin too--witha that guy right? (I nod). Okay, so now watch. (I can’t move pinched in between them staring down the street, waiting, sweating with anticipation-what a sight!) They count. When Heng Sure does his three steps Pepe peels off dancing and shouting, "Three, see? I told you. It’s a three. Ha! Thre steps." When Heng Sure brings his foot forward to complete the third step Mario peels off on the other side yelling, "Quatro, quarto! I’ma right. I’ma right." Turning pleadingly to me, "I’ma no right, huh?” I hold up three fingers. Peple slips into a smug teasing sigh. Mario flips and stamps, "You don’t know nothin’ either. You all can no count, can no see. I, Mario, say it’s four." He imitates again. Pepe contradicts. And around they go again. I would like to say something profound or even explain a little but they could care less. All the space is filled with their things. "Three!" "Ia tell ya it’s four."
I sneak towards Heng Sure--their brotherly battle fades like everything else we encounter. I’m smiling because they were so accepting, unusually so, of us-more than most we encounter, and yet they had no idea what or why we were bowing. It didn’t matter--all they saw was a chance to bet and compete. They have probably been doing it all their lives.
I thought of a line from Shih Fu’s gatha in the Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra:
Because of the finger, gaze at the distant moon; the finger is not the moon.
These guys were fighting over a hang nail. They never even saw the finger, much less the moon.
Mario: (distant but distinct) "Nobodya knowsa nothin’."
Disciple of Billing Bright stopped (Campus Crusade for Christ). "I saw you all workin’ so hard here to get to heaven, I thought I’d do you a favor. Here, now, read this. It’s a shortcut. No need to work so hard. Just take hold of Jesus here."
The problem with shortcuts is they usually leave you short. No one saves you but yourself, Billy, even Jesus had to do it himself.