[AUDIO AND TEXT]
During a recent gathering of friends, the subject of discarding old stuff came up among us. This “stuff” might be in the form of books, unopened and unread for years; clothes, unworn since then (whenever “then” was); photos, unseen since we carefully and lovingly pasted them in scrapbooks (which many of us are old enough to remember) or moved them to some form of digital cloud storage.
In some cases, this old stuff might be notes or other writings that we once considered important but which now are superseded by new growth – new knowledge, new perspectives, new insights. Maybe our old written stuff does have historical or cultural value, which we might offer to others in our circle or in the world at large. But then again, maybe it’s just old stuff: dusty, outdated, no longer needed. Nostalgic, perhaps, but otherwise representative of a time and a world that exists now only in memory. It’s possible that by hanging onto this old stuff, we are impeding the further flowering of the selves we are today, in the present moment.
Let’s look at a snippet of Mumon’s presentation of Case 28 of the koan collection known as The Gateless Gate, or Mumonkan. In the Koun Yamada version of the Mumonkan, Case 28 is titled, “Ryutan’s Name Echoed Long.” The koan relates an incident in the life of Tokusan, then on the path to awakening, and Ryutan, an acknowledged Master in the lineage of Huineng, the sixth patriarch. In this story, Tokusan comes to Ryutan and asks for instruction.
Now, Tokusan considered himself an expert on The Diamond Sutra, and carried his commentaries around with him everywhere he went. He relied upon the scriptures for his understanding of the Dharma, and most likely for his own sense of himself, as well. In the story, the two men have an encounter, which ends with Tokusan burning his notes and commentaries and giving the following declaration:
“Even if you have exhausted [meaning fully ingested] abstruse doctrine, it is like placing a hair in vast space. Even if you have learned the vital points of all the truths in the world, it is like a drop of water thrown into a big ravine.” He then burned all his commentaries and notes … and left [Ryutan’s assembly hall].
Tokusan realized that all his study and supposed learning were of no use to him in the present moment of his existence, or of existence – period. They didn’t tell him anything, and this was his great awakening. There’s more to the story, but we won’t go into that now; you can look it up if you’re interested.
Those of you who are familiar with Christian theological history might see in Tokusan’s experience a kind of parallel to the story of St. Thomas Aquinas who, after a particularly stunning experience (we don’t know what actually happened to or within him), is said to have declared:
I can write no more. All that I have written seems like straw.
And, it is said, Thomas Aquinas wrote nothing more and died within months of this experience.
I’m likening Tokusan’s act of burning his treasured commentaries to our own opportunities to let go of the supposed treasures we’re carrying around from our past, whatever they might be. Now, this doesn’t mean that we must or should throw away all the learning we have picked up over the years. If that were so, we wouldn’t know anything about what historians and philosophers and scientists and even artists have left us throughout the human journey.
What these scenes do reveal to us, though, is the unerring value of our lived experience in the present moment, this moment. Now. It’s not necessary to cling to our past glories and honors and learning and achievements in order to sustain our sense of identity. Likewise, it’s not necessary to cling to our past failures or future worries. We are who we are in each moment we live, and we move at the moment, without the benefit (or the dead weight) of whatever story of ourselves we have constructed over the years.
By all means, we should treasure the accumulated life experience that makes us who and how we present in the world. But if we lose the record of our journey, in whatever form we’re holding it, what have we really lost? Our accumulated life experience manifests itself Now, as we are in this moment.
In Mumon’s commentary on Case 28, an old woman selling rice cakes by the side of the road asks Tokusan this question:
In that sutra [The Diamond Sutra], it says the past mind can’t be caught; the present mind can’t be caught; the future mind can’t be caught. Your Reverence, with which mind are you going to take [these rice cakes]?
That simple question brought Tokusan up short, the story says, and then he went on to meet Ryutan and his great awakening. Burn, baby burn! A totally different sense for a totally different scenario, of course. But possibly a triggering moment for each of us. Shocking us into the present.
Freedom! Hallelujah!!!
Thank you.
EMPTY CLOUD ZEN 