Author Archives: Genju

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requited injury

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Continuing with the Bodhidharma Anthology by Jeffrey Broughton: Entering by practice.

This is the second way to enter the path.  Having established ourselves in the practice through principle, we have four ways to enter the path through practice.  The first is the practice of requiting injury or (Red Pine) suffering injustice.

I don’t like this practice.  It requires me to give up my self-rightness.  You read that correctly.  I am frequently right.  And when I’m not, I use all my left-brain power of data crunching to baffle-gab you with statistics so that you can’t deny that – at the very least – I am a formidable foe.  Some time back a friend sent me this amazing photo.  It pretty much sums up my reaction to being unjustly treated.  Don’t you just love it?  I know you’re not like that at all.  You probably meet injustice exactly the way Bodhidharma says you should, by letting go of  – unrequiting – the injury.

Actually, of the two translations, I do prefer Jeffrey Broughton’s version to Red Pine’s “suffering injustice.”  It feels less like I’d run the risk of being a doormat.  And in that little snippet is the truth of needing to defend madly against injustice (perceived or real).  There is a fear that if I let this one in, a legion of injustices will rampage through the door.

However, to face the injustice, to look deeply into its causes and conditions reveals things about me that I may not want to know.  Bodhidharma teaches that the cause of present injustice lies in the myriad unknowable actions I partook of in the past.  I’m not much of an adherent to the theory of direct karmic consequences but it is worth while reflecting on the ways in which I was one of the motley characters in the drama of my ego’s demise.  

The sutra says: “When you meet suffering, do not be sad.  Why?  Because you comprehend the underlying reason behind it.”

That opens up many doors of discernment, doesn’t it?  The underlying reasons can be as simple as blind dumb luck or being in the wrong place at the right time to learn a lesson about mindfulness.  In my case, it’s more likely being delusional about the level of power I hold that seems to confer a sense of invincibility or rightness to my actions.  

When (the above) thought arises, one is yoked with principle.

You remember “principle” from yesterday’s post: all beings are “identical to the True Nature” and we are blinded to this by the dust storms in our heart; that is supposed to mitigate our choices of the wrong-headed path.  However, it’s probably more likely that because we are blinded to the reality of our interconnections, we act in ways that create injustice and suffering.  Regardless, the arising of a perception of injustice is a powerful mindful bell of this reality of interconnectedness.  

The take-away lesson is that if I don’t learn this the good karma way, I will get a chance to learn it the tough karma way.

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blowing away the covering of adventitious dust

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From the Bodhidharma Anthology by Jeffrey Broughton, Text 2: Two Entrances

Now, in entering the path there are many roads.  To summarize them, they reduce to two types.  The first is entrance by principle and the second entrance by practice.  Entering by principle means that one awakens to the thesis by means of the teachings, and one deeply believes that all living beings, common and sagely, are identical to the True Nature; that it is merely because of the unreal covering of adventitious dust that the True Nature is not revealed.

Bodhidharma continues, saying that “wall-gazing” or “those who meditate on walls (Red Pine)” come to this realization that we are, none of us, different or separate from each other.  

I’ve read this passage over and over.  It makes sense; it doesn’t make sense.  I know it but I don’t sense into it.  I know it as I sense into it.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve sat with the question of my path.  What is it?  What is its form, its content, its texture, its sound, taste, touch, smell?  I am well-enough versed in the zennish jargon to spin some yarn around this questioning.  And I’m sufficiently high-functioning in my delusional process to believe it – and skillful enough to draw you into a folie à deux.  And then it hit me: it’s all dust.

There’s nothing to resolve.  I’m dust.  You’re dust.  We all fall down!

Earlier last week, I was consulting with a friend whose profession comes in very handy when I need to have tight-lipped conversations about threat assessment and ways to create safety.  (Apparently hiring a hunk of a body-guard is not part of the plan!)  I mentioned that all this talk about threat and protective strategies ran counter to my principles.  As difficult as it may be, I work hard at not launching my strategies from a base of fear.  That path of gut-wrenching anxiety, fear, is well-known and not one I care to travel because it’s viral and an accelerant to an already volatile and unpredictable process.

Besides, I understand what’s happening in this dynamic.  We respond from our suffering and project its cause on the nearest, closest, most intimate target, I explained.  Caught in our delusion, we believe the suffering to be the threat and conflate it with the person we believe is causing that suffering.  It’s handy.  It’s the adventitious dust that grinds into the eyeballs and has us shaking a fist to the Fates and all beings.  If there is any difference between me and the other, it is only in the shape of the dust piles.

And a resolution only needs one of us to know this.