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torquillEvery time I read R. A. MacAvoy's "Tea With The Black Dragon", it means something different for me. I have read it maybe a half dozen times, and it resonates at a different frequency based on where I am in my life. But this is the first time I feel that I really understand what underlies it.
That undercurrent is what has kept tugging me back to it over the years; it's unlike any other story I've read, except perhaps a couple of Patricia McKillip's novels. Its setting of 1980s San Francisco highlights the difference -- everything else is so familiar that the oddity of its tone is thrown into stark relief.
The first few times, I identified with Mayland Long. This time I understand Martha, in a way I never really expected to. And in understanding her, I understand the meaning of the book, like seeing through the narrative of a parable and grasping the truth in it.
Running like an underground river throughout the book is a current of Zen.
Martha does zazen, and admits it fairly early on. Mayland Long sees that stillness in her, and absorbs her unconscious teaching like catching the sparks from a falling star. So many moments in this book resonate for me now, where they seemed like irrelevant statements of fact before, blunt storytelling lacking in grace. It's not storytelling at all. It's a nod to Zen.
I was looking up Zen on the web last night, trying to grasp what other people mean by it. It's an ancient practice, dating back about a thousand years, and having a teacher is a major part of studying it. I wondered why. I ran across a couple of descriptions of zazen (sitting), and one which argued that zazen is not meditation, it is simply the act of sitting in the lotus position -- that when you do it properly, you sit in that posture with your body, mind, and heart. But the posture is the primary focus of zazen, not a mental state. To reach an understanding of Zen, to bring forth one's Buddha-nature, one must sit in exactly that way.
That clashes with my own infant understanding of Zen. Perhaps I am more aligned with the Soto school, which teaches that Zen can be part of daily life -- that one can seek it not just by sitting, but by eating, cleaning, walking, and everything else we do during the day. One does not have to sit for nine years facing a wall to become one with everything; that awareness can be brought into each facet of a normal life.
I speak of my infant understanding, because although I'm not sure anyone can truly grasp Zen itself (it's one of those fractals of understanding which has no finite limit) I'm still trying to line up what I've touched with the experiences others have had, which they call Zen. I'm trying to outline in broad strokes an insight which doesn't lend itself to words, whose edges blend into my life as though it's always been there even as it stands out like a lamp suddenly lit in a dark room. Like love, nothing said about it makes any sense until you experience it yourself, at which point all of it makes perfect sense. It is a fundamental shift of perception.
That is part of what makes me rebel against the notion of seeking Zen only through the strict practice of zazen. My body literally cannot sit in full lotus, and I would damage myself if I tried. And yet, I can sit still, and touch on the same awareness described (inadequately, of course) by practitioners of zazen. I stumbled on it by accident, or perhaps by the inevitable progression of a different path.
The fact that I found it as I did fits with my basic understanding of Zen: that one finds it via a shift in perception, but that it is always there, a potential available to everyone. It pervades every part of life, and by that token, it is everywhere. It doesn't reside only in the monastery or the dojo. It is the other side of every facet of existence -- the only barriers to it are the ones we erect ourselves.
I think that strict practice is a means by which many people have found they can tear down the barriers between them and Zen -- but if you rotate that ninety degrees, the ritual of strict practice is in itself a barrier to understanding, a focus on how the self can pursue the goal of Zen, not a focus on Zen itself. I find that when I sit, I spend half my time trying too hard, absorbed in the mechanics of the practice, and it takes many minutes before I let go of that effort; then I am able to attain what I seek. Only by letting go of the desire to get to that place can one actually get there. I suspect if I had a rigid ritual I would never be able to get past it.
As it is, I haven't gone to sit in the same place twice. That's not intentional, it's simply because I haven't found one place I like yet, and sometimes when I have time I'm not at home. Sometimes it's on a bench, sometimes at the base of a tree, once it was on my bed. My main goal is to be comfortable enough that I can put my body's requirements aside for a time, and focus outward rather than inward.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say; one can argue that I won't master the deeper levels of Zen without a teacher, but on my own I have mastered the hardest part, which is just grasping the existence of it. It has enormous potential to change every part of my life, even in the form I currently perceive. Like teaching myself cello and harp, I may never perform in a concert hall, but the act of practicing itself brings me happiness and fulfillment, and that is enough.
It's also allowed me greater insight into one of the most enigmatic books I've ever read, and that's worth something.
That undercurrent is what has kept tugging me back to it over the years; it's unlike any other story I've read, except perhaps a couple of Patricia McKillip's novels. Its setting of 1980s San Francisco highlights the difference -- everything else is so familiar that the oddity of its tone is thrown into stark relief.
The first few times, I identified with Mayland Long. This time I understand Martha, in a way I never really expected to. And in understanding her, I understand the meaning of the book, like seeing through the narrative of a parable and grasping the truth in it.
Running like an underground river throughout the book is a current of Zen.
Martha does zazen, and admits it fairly early on. Mayland Long sees that stillness in her, and absorbs her unconscious teaching like catching the sparks from a falling star. So many moments in this book resonate for me now, where they seemed like irrelevant statements of fact before, blunt storytelling lacking in grace. It's not storytelling at all. It's a nod to Zen.
I was looking up Zen on the web last night, trying to grasp what other people mean by it. It's an ancient practice, dating back about a thousand years, and having a teacher is a major part of studying it. I wondered why. I ran across a couple of descriptions of zazen (sitting), and one which argued that zazen is not meditation, it is simply the act of sitting in the lotus position -- that when you do it properly, you sit in that posture with your body, mind, and heart. But the posture is the primary focus of zazen, not a mental state. To reach an understanding of Zen, to bring forth one's Buddha-nature, one must sit in exactly that way.
That clashes with my own infant understanding of Zen. Perhaps I am more aligned with the Soto school, which teaches that Zen can be part of daily life -- that one can seek it not just by sitting, but by eating, cleaning, walking, and everything else we do during the day. One does not have to sit for nine years facing a wall to become one with everything; that awareness can be brought into each facet of a normal life.
I speak of my infant understanding, because although I'm not sure anyone can truly grasp Zen itself (it's one of those fractals of understanding which has no finite limit) I'm still trying to line up what I've touched with the experiences others have had, which they call Zen. I'm trying to outline in broad strokes an insight which doesn't lend itself to words, whose edges blend into my life as though it's always been there even as it stands out like a lamp suddenly lit in a dark room. Like love, nothing said about it makes any sense until you experience it yourself, at which point all of it makes perfect sense. It is a fundamental shift of perception.
That is part of what makes me rebel against the notion of seeking Zen only through the strict practice of zazen. My body literally cannot sit in full lotus, and I would damage myself if I tried. And yet, I can sit still, and touch on the same awareness described (inadequately, of course) by practitioners of zazen. I stumbled on it by accident, or perhaps by the inevitable progression of a different path.
The fact that I found it as I did fits with my basic understanding of Zen: that one finds it via a shift in perception, but that it is always there, a potential available to everyone. It pervades every part of life, and by that token, it is everywhere. It doesn't reside only in the monastery or the dojo. It is the other side of every facet of existence -- the only barriers to it are the ones we erect ourselves.
I think that strict practice is a means by which many people have found they can tear down the barriers between them and Zen -- but if you rotate that ninety degrees, the ritual of strict practice is in itself a barrier to understanding, a focus on how the self can pursue the goal of Zen, not a focus on Zen itself. I find that when I sit, I spend half my time trying too hard, absorbed in the mechanics of the practice, and it takes many minutes before I let go of that effort; then I am able to attain what I seek. Only by letting go of the desire to get to that place can one actually get there. I suspect if I had a rigid ritual I would never be able to get past it.
As it is, I haven't gone to sit in the same place twice. That's not intentional, it's simply because I haven't found one place I like yet, and sometimes when I have time I'm not at home. Sometimes it's on a bench, sometimes at the base of a tree, once it was on my bed. My main goal is to be comfortable enough that I can put my body's requirements aside for a time, and focus outward rather than inward.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say; one can argue that I won't master the deeper levels of Zen without a teacher, but on my own I have mastered the hardest part, which is just grasping the existence of it. It has enormous potential to change every part of my life, even in the form I currently perceive. Like teaching myself cello and harp, I may never perform in a concert hall, but the act of practicing itself brings me happiness and fulfillment, and that is enough.
It's also allowed me greater insight into one of the most enigmatic books I've ever read, and that's worth something.
