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.Aroshi recently said to me in Japan, "That's a terrible book,because it tells you everything.It gives the whole secretaway." But in the course of this book, he says, "There isno such thing as a progression in time.The spring doesnot become the summer.There is first spring, and thenthere is summer." So, in the same way, "you" now do notbecome "you" later.In T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets, he says that theperson who is settled down on the train to read thenewspaper is not the same person who stepped onto the train from the platform.Therefore, you who sit here arenot the same people who came in at the door: these statesare separate, each in its own place.There was the"coming in at the door person," but there is actually onlythe "here-and-now sitting person." The person sitting hereand now is not the person who will die, because we are alla constant flux.The continuity of the person from pastthrough present to future is as illusory in its own way asthe upward movement of the red lines on a revolvingbarber pole.You know it goes round and round, and thewhole thing seems to be going up or going down,whichever the case may be, but actually nothing is goingup or down.When you throw a pebble into the pond andyou make concentric rings of waves, there is an illusionthat the water is flowing outward, but no water is flowingoutward at all.The water is only going up and down.What appears to move outward is the wave, not the water.So this kind of philosophical argument says that ourseeming to go along in a course of time does not reallyhappen.The Buddhists say that suffering exists, but no onewho suffers.Deeds exist, but no doers are found.A paththere is, but no one follows it.And nirvana is, but no oneattains it.In this way, they look upon the continuity of lifeas the same sort of illusion that is produced when you takea cigarette and whirl it in the dark and create the illusionof the circle, whereas there is only the one point of fire.The argument, then, is that so long as you are in thepresent there aren't any problems.The problems existonly when you allow presents to amalgamate.There is away of putting this in Chinese that is rather interesting.They have a very interesting sign it's pronounced nin(nen in Japanese).The top part of the character means"now" and the bottom part means "the mind heart," theshin.And so, this is, as it were, an instant of thought.InChinese they use this character as the equivalent for theSanskrit word jnana.Then, if you double this characterand put it twice or three times, nin, nin, nin it means"thought after thought after thought." The Zen masterJoshu was once asked, "What is the mind of the child?" Hesaid, "A ball in a mountain stream." He was asked, "Whatdo you mean by a ball in a mountain stream?" Joshu said,"Thought after thought after thought with no block." Hewas using, of course, the mind of the child as the innocentmind, the mind of a person who is enlightened.One thought follows another without hesitation.The thoughtarises; it does not wait to arise.When you clap yourhands, the sound issues without hesitation.When youstrike flint, the spark comes out; it does not wait to comeout.That means that there's no block.So, "thought, thought, thought" nin, nin, nin describes what we call in our world the stream ofconsciousness.Blocking consists in letting the streambecome connected, or chained together in such a way thatwhen the present thought arises, it seems to be dragging itspast, or resisting its future by saying, "I don't want to go."When the connection, or the dragging of these thoughts,stops, you have broken the chain of karma.If you think ofthis in comparison with certain problems in music it isvery interesting, because when we listen to music, we hearmelody only because we remember the sequence.Wehear the intervals between the tones, but more than that,we remember the tones that led up to the one we are nowhearing.We are trained musically to anticipate certainconsequences, and to the extent that we get theconsequences, we anticipate it, we feel that we understandthe music.But to the extent that the composer does notadhere to the rules and gives us unexpectedconsequences we feel that we don't understand themusic.If he gives us harmonic relationships that we aretrained not to accept, or expect, we say, "Well this man isjust writing garbage." Of course, it becomes apparent thatthe perception of music and the ability to hear melody willdepend upon a relationship between past, present, andfuture sounds.You might Say, "Well, you're talking abouta way of living that would be equivalent to listening tomusic with a tone-deaf mind so that you would eliminatethe melody and have only noise.In your Taoist way oflife, you would eliminate all meaning and have onlysenseless present Moments." Up to a point that is true; thatis, in a way, what Buddhists also mean by seeing things intheir suchness.What is so bad about dying, for example? It's reallyno problem.When you die, you just drop dead, and that'sall there is to it.But what makes it a problem is that youare dragging a past.And all those things you have done,all those achievements you've made and all theserelationships and people that you've accumulated as yourfriends have to go.It isn't here now.A few friends might be around you, but all the past that identifies you as whoyou are (which is simply memory) has to go, and we feeljust terrible about that.If we didn't, if we were just dyingand that's all, death would not be a problem [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Aroshi recently said to me in Japan, "That's a terrible book,because it tells you everything.It gives the whole secretaway." But in the course of this book, he says, "There isno such thing as a progression in time.The spring doesnot become the summer.There is first spring, and thenthere is summer." So, in the same way, "you" now do notbecome "you" later.In T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets, he says that theperson who is settled down on the train to read thenewspaper is not the same person who stepped onto the train from the platform.Therefore, you who sit here arenot the same people who came in at the door: these statesare separate, each in its own place.There was the"coming in at the door person," but there is actually onlythe "here-and-now sitting person." The person sitting hereand now is not the person who will die, because we are alla constant flux.The continuity of the person from pastthrough present to future is as illusory in its own way asthe upward movement of the red lines on a revolvingbarber pole.You know it goes round and round, and thewhole thing seems to be going up or going down,whichever the case may be, but actually nothing is goingup or down.When you throw a pebble into the pond andyou make concentric rings of waves, there is an illusionthat the water is flowing outward, but no water is flowingoutward at all.The water is only going up and down.What appears to move outward is the wave, not the water.So this kind of philosophical argument says that ourseeming to go along in a course of time does not reallyhappen.The Buddhists say that suffering exists, but no onewho suffers.Deeds exist, but no doers are found.A paththere is, but no one follows it.And nirvana is, but no oneattains it.In this way, they look upon the continuity of lifeas the same sort of illusion that is produced when you takea cigarette and whirl it in the dark and create the illusionof the circle, whereas there is only the one point of fire.The argument, then, is that so long as you are in thepresent there aren't any problems.The problems existonly when you allow presents to amalgamate.There is away of putting this in Chinese that is rather interesting.They have a very interesting sign it's pronounced nin(nen in Japanese).The top part of the character means"now" and the bottom part means "the mind heart," theshin.And so, this is, as it were, an instant of thought.InChinese they use this character as the equivalent for theSanskrit word jnana.Then, if you double this characterand put it twice or three times, nin, nin, nin it means"thought after thought after thought." The Zen masterJoshu was once asked, "What is the mind of the child?" Hesaid, "A ball in a mountain stream." He was asked, "Whatdo you mean by a ball in a mountain stream?" Joshu said,"Thought after thought after thought with no block." Hewas using, of course, the mind of the child as the innocentmind, the mind of a person who is enlightened.One thought follows another without hesitation.The thoughtarises; it does not wait to arise.When you clap yourhands, the sound issues without hesitation.When youstrike flint, the spark comes out; it does not wait to comeout.That means that there's no block.So, "thought, thought, thought" nin, nin, nin describes what we call in our world the stream ofconsciousness.Blocking consists in letting the streambecome connected, or chained together in such a way thatwhen the present thought arises, it seems to be dragging itspast, or resisting its future by saying, "I don't want to go."When the connection, or the dragging of these thoughts,stops, you have broken the chain of karma.If you think ofthis in comparison with certain problems in music it isvery interesting, because when we listen to music, we hearmelody only because we remember the sequence.Wehear the intervals between the tones, but more than that,we remember the tones that led up to the one we are nowhearing.We are trained musically to anticipate certainconsequences, and to the extent that we get theconsequences, we anticipate it, we feel that we understandthe music.But to the extent that the composer does notadhere to the rules and gives us unexpectedconsequences we feel that we don't understand themusic.If he gives us harmonic relationships that we aretrained not to accept, or expect, we say, "Well this man isjust writing garbage." Of course, it becomes apparent thatthe perception of music and the ability to hear melody willdepend upon a relationship between past, present, andfuture sounds.You might Say, "Well, you're talking abouta way of living that would be equivalent to listening tomusic with a tone-deaf mind so that you would eliminatethe melody and have only noise.In your Taoist way oflife, you would eliminate all meaning and have onlysenseless present Moments." Up to a point that is true; thatis, in a way, what Buddhists also mean by seeing things intheir suchness.What is so bad about dying, for example? It's reallyno problem.When you die, you just drop dead, and that'sall there is to it.But what makes it a problem is that youare dragging a past.And all those things you have done,all those achievements you've made and all theserelationships and people that you've accumulated as yourfriends have to go.It isn't here now.A few friends might be around you, but all the past that identifies you as whoyou are (which is simply memory) has to go, and we feeljust terrible about that.If we didn't, if we were just dyingand that's all, death would not be a problem [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]