Having no destination,
I am never lost.
--Ikkyū.
I am an iconoclast and a heretic. I reject all
claims and assertions of supernatural religion and authority. In the words of
Thomas Paine, my own mind is my own church. So, it is no surprise that I have a
soft spot—no, not that one—for other iconoclasts, heretics and freethinkers. Ikkyū
[pictured left] was one such man. He was a 15th century Japanese Zen Buddhist
monk. He not only revitalized Zen but also had a profound influence upon the Japanese tea ceremony.
Now, Zen has always sought to cut through the crap so as to arrive at a
direct, immediate and largely intuitive experience of life, but Ikkyū’s radical approach was really something to behold. He was an iconoclast extraordinaire.
In any field of any endeavour we need the man or woman who says, ‘But the Emperor has no clothes!’ That is why I’ve always loved the American comedian Groucho Marx, who spent his entire life deflating the pompous, the pretentious and the
phony. We need more people like that.
Here’s the second most profound
piece of metaphysical wisdom---there is nowhere to go. I’ve told you this story
before, but I’ll tell it again. A
young man is on his way home. He comes to the banks of a wide, and very deep,
river. He finds he is on the ‘wrong’ side of the river. The river is fast
flowing, with numerous rapids. There is no bridge or other means available for
crossing the river. The young man sees an elderly Buddhist monk standing on the
other side of the river, so he yells over to the monk, ‘Oh, wise one, can you
tell me how to get to the other side of this river?’ The monk ponders for a moment,
looks up and down the river, and yells back, ‘My son, you are on the other
side.’ Yes, wherever we
want to 'go', we are already there. The young man wants to get to
the other side of the river, only to be told that he is already on the other
side of the river. To reach the other side
of the river is to see that this very side here is the
other side. When there is no separation in our mind between one side and the
other, then in that very moment we are one with the very livingness of
life flowing through us and all things.
The author at a Japanese tea ceremony.
And the first most profound piece
of metaphysical wisdom is this. Well, it follows directly from the first. It is
this---truth is right where you are. People strive for worldly success and for
the approval and admiration of others but those things will not take you away
from yourself—not for long, anyway. Truth—also known as reality and life—is right
where you are. All we need to do is to see things as they really are in all
their directness and immediacy. That’s where mindfulness comes in.
Listen to these words from Ikkyū:
Like vanishing dew,
a passing apparition
or the sudden flash
of lightning -- already gone --
thus should one regard one's self.
The folly and blind hope of supernatural religion is that we
are going to live forever in one place or another, with one such place
supposedly being more attractive than the other. I do not believe that. We come
from dust and to dust we return. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
In one sense, we remain part of life’s self-expression—for life cannot other
than be. That, as I see it, is the true meaning of those words, ‘The spirit returns to God who gave it’ (Ec 12:7), but
I am in absolutely no doubt that at
the point of death our consciousness as a separate, thinking, feeling
individual together with what we call our personality, comes to an abrupt and very final end. If you want to believe
otherwise, that is your prerogative. As I see it, we are, in the words of Ikkyū,
like ‘vanishing dew’, a ‘passing apparition’, a ‘sudden flash’. In the words of
Shakespeare, taken from what is my favourite play of his, The Tempest:
… … … … We are such stuff
As dreams
are made on; and our little life
Is
rounded with a sleep.
Ikkyū is, however, saying more than that. He is
making a comment about how we should regard ourselves. Most of us take
ourselves far too seriously, thinking that we will be remembered long after we
are gone. A few of us will live on longer in the memories of others. As George Eliot expressed it in her poem 'The Choir Invisible':
Oh, may I join the
choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's search
To vaster issues.
That is very sweet sentiment but the plain and simple truth of the matter is this---most of
us will be completely forgotten in two or three generations. How's that for a reality check?
Lake Ashi, Kanagawa
Prefecture, Honshū, Japan.
Photo taken by the
author.
Ikkyū had much to say about so-called sacred
texts. Now, don’t get me wrong. Most sacred texts contain some helpful advice
on the art of living—along with a lot of unhelpful and divisive nonsense. The
task is to separate the wheat from the staff. Listen to what Ikkyū has to say
about sacred texts:
Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose
your Original Mind.
A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an
invaluable treasure.
Dusk rain on the river, the moon peeking in and
out of the clouds;
Elegant beyond words, he chants his songs night
after night.
… … … …
I've burnt all the holy pages I used to carry
but poems flare in my heart.
The concept of ‘original mind’ in Zen is a most important
one. Imagine for a moment that you had not been brought up in the faith or
belief system of your parents or particular culture. Indeed, imagine that you
had not been inculcated in any way to believe this or that about life. You
would then have a mind which was entirely culturally free and unconditioned.
Such is the nature of your ‘original mind’. Is it possible to have such a mind
today? Well, people such as J. Krishnamurti say that it is indeed possible for
the mind to decondition itself entirely. For my part, I am still working on the
task.
I love what Ikkyū has to say about poetry. My
late father used to say that there was more wisdom in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
than in The Bible. Maybe. Maybe not. I think Dad was telling me more about what
he didn’t or couldn’t believe as opposed to which work contained more wisdom.
After all, The Bible contains some great poetry as well, and the Book of Ecclesiastes
has a similar tone to much of its writing as the Rubáiyát, although the latter does seem to be promoting a more earthy approach
to life and its fleeting pleasures.
Take a good look
at the religious fanatic. It does not matter which religion he or she is
fanatical about. The fanatic has completely lost their original mind. He or she
can no longer see and appreciate things as they really are. Everything gets
filtered through, and distorted by, their belief system. Yes, the same thing
can happen to the atheist and nonbeliever. However, Ikkyū is making
the point that any study of sacred or spiritual books, as well as meditative
practices, can result in your losing your original mind. One good way of
deconditioning your mind, and returning bit by bit to your original mind, is to
spend more time communing with nature. That is very good advice.
Well, I haven’t burnt all the ‘holy pages’ in my
home library. There are still hundreds and hundreds of books on religion and
spirituality, as well as on many other subjects, on my bookshelves. However, I
have burnt something, and that something is this---the mindset that says, ‘This, you must believe’, ‘The Bible says
…’, ‘God has spoken His final word in …’, and ‘There is only one way … .’
You are never lost when you know the way home. And
where is ‘home’? Well, it is right here, where you are now. Look around you.
Look within you. What do you see? What do you feel? It is life. You are an
expression of the spirit of life. That life did not begin with your birth. It will
not end with your death. Recover your original mind, and start seeing and
experiencing things as they really are.
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