I have a habit (defense mechanism?) that kicks in when I begin to get frustrated with not being able to communicate with someone, or when discussions get too abstract and heady, or when rightness or wrongness becomes the focus of any interchange (internal or external). My mind lets go (runs away?) and then the rest of me can remember La - la -la and dance - dance - dance. Sometimes it takes a while before I realize I am caught up (in the self-centered dream), but it is always a relief when the "optical illusion" of life flips and "big picture" reasserts itself.
So today, for your pleasure I present the following:
First, an excerpt and paraphrase from a famous Zen koan -
Bodhidharma
(the first Zen patriarch) met Emperor Wu, (5th century
CE) when he first reached China on his dangerous voyage from India.
When
Bodhidharma appeared before him, the Emperor said to him, “I have
built temples and ordained monks; what is my merit?”
Bodhidharma
replied, “No merit.”
The
Emperor then asks Bodhidharma, “What is the first principle of the
holy teachings?”
Bodhidharma
replied, “Vast emptiness, nothing holy.”
When
the Emperor heard “Vast emptiness, nothing holy”, he was
flummoxed. Finally he rallied and asked, “Who is standing before
me?”
Bodhidharma
said, “I don’t know.”
Then Bodhidharma promptly turned and left the
non-plused Emperor, found a cave and sat 9 years facing the cave
wall, until his first disciple appeared............but that is
another story for another time.
And Second, a modern rendition of the same tune in counterpoint dance -
I grow tired of the self imposed conflict between concepts and words. La - la - la........ lets just be the dance :)
I love Bodhidharma. In Japan they have Bodhidharma dolls that are weighted on the bottom, so that one may hit them and push them over but they spring up again, just like a Bozo doll I had as a kid. On each of these Bodhidharma dolls the following verse is inscribed:
7 times down - 8 times up
(Isn't it wonderful we woke up today?)
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