"Seijo, the Chinese girl," observed Goso, "had two souls, one always sick at home and the other in the city, a married woman with two children. Which was the true soul?" [...]
The clouds and moon are the same.
The mountains and valleys are different.
Each is blessed in its own way.
One is. Two are.
(Wumen Huikai, The Gateless Gate XXXV. The case is adapted by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki, while the verse is adapted by myself.)
A man decays
His corpse is dust
His family dies
But his books live on
(Chester Beatty Papyrus IV, as translated by Susan Brind Morrow.)
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
(Laozi, Tao Te Ching I, as translated by Stephen Mitchell.)
Its definition, in fact, could be only "the indefinable": what is not a thing is not some definite thing. We are in agony for a true expression; we are talking of the untellable; we name, only to indicate for our own use as best we may. And this name, The One, contains really no more than the negation of plurality: under the same pressure the Pythagoreans found their indication in the symbol "Apollo" [a=not, pollon=of many] with its repudiation of the multiple. If we are led to think positively of The One, name and thing, there would be more truth in silence: the designation, a mere aid to enquiry, was never intended for more than a preliminary affirmation of absolute simplicity to be followed by the rejection of even that statement: it was the best that offered, but remains inadequate to express the Nature indicated. For this is a principle not to be conveyed by any sound; it cannot be known on any hearing but, if at all, by vision; and to hope in that vision to see a form is to fail of even that.
(Plotinos, Enneads V v "On the Nature of the Good" §6.)
Gutei raised his finger whenever he was asked a question about Zen. A boy attendant began to imitate him in this way. When anyone asked the boy what his master had preached about, the boy would raise his finger. Gutei heard about the boy's mischief. He seized him and cut off his finger. The boy cried and ran away. Gutei called and stopped him. When the boy turned his head to Gutei, Gutei raised up his own finger. In that instant the boy was enlightened.
(Wumen Huikai, The Gateless Gate, as translated by Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps.)
To write something and leave it behind us,
It is but a dream.
When we awake we know
There is not even anyone to read it.
(Ikkyu.)
I have never understood Memory. Why should one wish to remember or be remembered? The earth is not a place of Memory, it is a place of Forgetting, and it is by Forgetting we become unearthly. Isn't it?
And yet the "Orphic" tradition highly prizes Memory: Hesiod was initiated by her daughters; Homer urges the initiate to remember everything; Pythagoras's prior incarnation, Aithalides, so prized Memory that it was the one gift he asked of Hermes (Apollonios Rhodios, Argonautica 640 ff.; Diogenes Laertios, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers VIII iv); the Delphic god says "Know Thyself;" the Orphics and Platonists emphasize drinking from her pool rather than the stream of Forgetting; the Orphic Hymn to Memory goes so far as to say that it is wicked to forget. But Memory is a thing of the world below: God has no Memory, it simply Is; even Souls have no Memory, they merely survey the entire sweep of their great Life as attention requires.
Memory is, perhaps, simply a paradox. There is nothing that can be said, and yet where would I be if they didn't try?
I briefly mentioned Teiresias's killing of the snakes and Perseus's killing of Medousa as a reference to mastering the fear of death yesterday (note 3B). I spent some time searching up a favorite Zen story which I originally heard from D. T. Suzuki concerning the same thing:
Murakawa Soden tells the story that a certain vassal of the shogun once came to the great swordsmaster Yagyu Tajima no Kami Munenori and asked to become his student. Master Yagyu said, "You seem to already be very accomplished in some school of martial arts! First, tell me which school you've practiced under, and then we can make arrangements."
The man replied, "But I have never practiced any martial arts."
Master Yagyu said, "What, have you come to make fun of me? Do you think you can fool the teacher of the shogun himself?" But the man persisted, and so Master Yagyu said, "Well, I'll believe you, but I insist that you must be a master of something. What is it?"
The man thought for a moment and said, "Ever since I was a boy, it seemed to me that a warrior should be somebody who is not afraid of death. Because of that, I have grappled with the problem of death for many years and now I no longer fear it. That's the only thing I think I can honestly say that I have mastered."
Master Yagyu was deeply impressed and said, "That's it! I know a master when I see one. You see, the ultimate principle of swordsmanship is freedom from the fear of death. I have trained many hundreds of students, but until now, not a single one has mastered that final principle. You need no technical training. I will initiate you right now." And he gave the man a certificate right then and there.
(Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure XI, as adapted from several translations by yours truly.)
The craftsman bowed. [...] "Child, who has taught you?"
"Me? I don't know anything. I just ask questions."
"Then go on asking questions [...]. And remember that it is better not to know and to know that one does not know, than presumptuously to attribute some random meaning to the symbols."
(Isha Schwaller de Lubicz, Her-Bak ("Chick-Pea"), the Living Face of Ancient Egypt XXIII, as translated by Charles Edgar Sprague.)
In Sais, the statue of Athena—whom the Egyptians believe to be Isis—carried the inscription, "I am all that has been, and is, and shall be, and my robe no mortal has yet uncovered."
(Plutarch, Isis and Osiris IX.)
The truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise, and in [the oracle by which Apollo said Socrates is the wisest of men,] He means to say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing: He is not speaking of Socrates, He is only using my name as an illustration, as if He said, "He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing."
(Socrates, as quoted by Plato, Apology.)
Often it is said that it is more important to ask the right questions than to give the right answers, and I feel like I am slowly understanding why this is and must be so...
We may well inquire, then, why the ancients forsook these doctrines and made use of myths. There is this first benefit from myths, that we have to search and do not have our minds idle.
(Sallustius on the Gods and the World III, as translated by Gilbert Murray.)
[Hermes, the Kosmic Thought,] beheld the universe of things, and having seen, he understood, and having understood, he had the power to manifest and to reveal. That which he thought, he wrote; that which he wrote, he in great part concealed, wisely silent and speaking by turns, so that while the world should last, these things might be sought.
(Kore Kosmou ["The Daughter of the Cosmos," that is, "On the Soul"] I, as quoted by Stobaeus I xlix §44, and as translated by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland.)
A koan is simply the time and place where Truth is manifest. From the fundamental point of view, there is no time or place where Truth is not revealed: every place, every day, every event, every thought, every deed, and every person is a koan. In that sense, koans are neither obscure nor enigmatic. However, a koan is more commonly understood as a tool for teaching true insight.
(Eido T. Shimano, Zen Koans.)
The master of Kennin temple was Mokurai, Silent Thunder. He had a little protege named Toyo who was only twelve years old. Toyo saw the older disciples visit the master's room each morning and evening to receive instruction in sanzen or personal guidance in which they were given koans to stop mind-wandering.
Toyo wished to do sanzen also.
"Wait a while," said Mokurai. "You are too young."
But the child insisted, so the teacher finally consented.
In the evening little Toyo went at the proper time to the threshold of Mokurai's sanzen room. He struck the gong to announce his presence, bowed respectfully three times outside the door, and went to sit before the master in respectful silence.
"You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together," said Mokurai. "Now show me the sound of one hand."
Toyo bowed and went to his room to consider this problem. From his window he could hear the music of the geishas. "Ah, I have it!" he proclaimed.
The next evening, when his teacher asked him to illustrate the sound of one hand, Toyo began to play the music of the geishas.
"No, no," said Mokurai. "That will never do. That is not the sound of one hand. You've not got it at all."
Thinking that such music might interrupt, Toyo moved his abode to a quiet place. He meditated again. "What can the sound of one hand be?" He happened to hear some water dripping. "I have it," imagined Toyo.
When he next appeared before his teacher, Toyo imitated dripping water.
"What is that?" asked Mokurai. "That is the sound of dripping water, but not the sound of one hand. Try again."
In vain Toyo meditated to hear the sound of one hand. He heard the sighing of the wind. But the sound was rejected.
He heard the cry of an owl. This also was refused.
The sound of one hand was not the locusts.
For more than ten times Toyo visited Mokurai with different sounds. All were wrong. For almost a year he pondered what the sound of one hand might be.
At last little Toyo entered true meditation and transcended all sounds. "I could collect no more," he explained later, "so I reached the soundless sound."
Toyo had realized the sound of one hand.
(Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories XXI "Sound of One Hand.")
Remember, the trying to understand is more important than the understanding.
(My angel.)
Myths are not history. To treat the gods as murderers and adulterers and child-eaters and other silly nonsense is foolish and impious.
Neither are myths mere allegories. To assign Apollo the name of inspiration and Aphrodite the name of what you feel when you see a pretty girl is idolatrous, mistaking the map for the territory.
No, the myths are koans. The purpose of them is not to understand, it is to participate; by participating, we give our minds as an offering; by giving our minds, we embody the gods; by embodying the gods, we become like them; by becoming like them...
My spiritual path in life has, to date, wandered near or through each of the following:
While each of these has a fragment of truth to it, none of them have been entirely satisfactory to me. I was pondering, today, what I might say if somebody asked me to describe my religion in a single sentence. This is what I came up with:
[The gatekeeper of the Lower World] sprinkled Ishtar with the waters of life and took hold of her.
Through the first gate he led her out and returned to her her dress.
Through the second gate he led her out and returned to her the bangles for her hands and feet.
Through the third gate he led her out and returned to her her belt, studded with precious stones.
Through the fourth gate he led her out and returned to her her breast-ornaments.
Through the fifth gate he led her out and returned to her her necklace.
Through the sixth gate he led her out and returned her earrings.
Through the seventh gate he led her out and returned to her the large crown for her head.
[Descent of the Goddess Ishtar into the Lower World, as translated by Morris Jastrow, Jr., and adapted by yours truly]
These men are like the Greeks who say that Kronos [Κρόνος, the Titan father of Zeus] is but a figurative name for Chronos [Χρόνος, "time"].
[Plutarch, Isis and Osiris XXXII, as translated by Frank Cole Babbitt and adapted by yours truly]
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
[Zenrin-kushu?]
Why is it, do you think, that cold Saturn is the last of Hades' seven gates?
There is no act to perform.
There is no word to speak.
There is no truth to believe.
There is no identity to possess.
Time is the only gatekeeper:
Merely let yourself ripen.
Some things, though right, were considered wrong for generations. Since the value of righteousness may be recognized after centuries, there is no need to crave immediate appreciation.
(Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories LXXVII)
Let us suppose all influences flow down to us from divinity. Let us further suppose that all influences below the level of divinity are subject to time. Then, to be "ahead of the curve" implies that one receives those influences before others, and in turn that one is closer to divinity than others (at least along the path of those influences).
For example, I've had severe autoimmune problems for a couple decades. Now, it seems everyone has them. I was subject to those influences first, and therefore it may be surmised that I am closer to the source of that influence than others are.
It is worthy to consider what good such an apparently-negative influence may carry with it from divinity; but even ignoring that, there is good it can bring even here in isolation in the sensible world: since I have a lot of experience with autoimmunity, I can teach those who are new to it how to bear it. Thus, one who is ahead of the curve is the teacher of those who are behind.
Laozi says (Tao Te Ching XXVII), "What is a good man but a bad man's teacher? What is a bad man but a good man's job?" As divinity teaches mankind, so too does an experienced person teach an inexperienced one. And this is just what I mean when I say that being "ahead of the curve" is to be closer to divinity.
So if one is out of step with the times, they should not be concerned. Do your work and don't worry what others think. Help where you can.
No god is responsible for a man’s evils, for he has chosen his lot himself.
(Porphyry to Marcella XXIV)
Two hands clap and there is a sound, but what is the sound of one hand?
(attr. Hakuin Ekaku)
Suiwo, the disciple of Hakuin, was a good teacher. During one summer seclusion period, a pupil came to him from a southern island of Japan.
Suiwo gave him the problem: "Hear the sound of one hand."
The pupil remained three years but could not pass this test. One night he came in tears to Suiwo. "I must return south in shame and embarrassment," he said, "for I cannot solve my problem."
"Wait one week more and meditate constantly," advised Suiwo. Still no enlightenment came to the pupil. "Try for another week," said Suiwo. The pupil obeyed, but in vain.
"Still another week." Yet this was of no avail. In despair the student begged to be released, but Suiwo requested another meditation of five days. They were without result. Then he said: "Meditate for three days longer, then if you fail to attain enlightenment, you had better kill yourself."
On the second day the pupil was enlightened.
(Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories XXV "Three Days More")
I repeatedly think that this present moment in time, when everything is on fire, is a high-risk, high-reward time for souls: so many billions choose to incarnate now, not because it is a good or fun time, but because the three days before killing oneself are the most productive of all.
So, sit. Meditate for three days longer. Hear the sound of one hand.
If you identify with your body, then everyone is separate from you. If you identify with your soul, then everyone is your brothers and sisters. If you identify with the Intellect, then everyone is you. If you identify with the One, then there is nobody at all, not even you.
So often I feel like I'm wandering aimlessly, and yet those aimless wanderings always seem to lead in the right direction. Thinking about this today, I was reminded of an old Zen poem (which I think belongs to Bukkoku Kokushi):
Although not consciously guarding
the cornfield from invaders
The scarecrow is not
standing there for no reason.
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conjunctio, I mentioned a technique that I’ve been exploring concerning assigning a score to a chart to help give context to how positive or negative a day should be assumed to be. The technique was ignored, with all of the commentary instead going towards my choice of scores. This was surprising to me, since I had assumed that part to be uncontroversial! I thought I’d expound a little bit over here.
I’ve been casting daily and monthly charts for a couple years now. It’s hard to do this and not develop some sort of Pavlovian response to the figures, as one sees them and then feels their effects over the course of the day or month. In meditation the other week, I was exploring how I’ve come to see the figures:
| Very Positive | 
| 
| ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mildly Positive | 
| 
| 
| |||
| Neutral | 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|
| Mildly Negative | 
| 
| 
| |||
| Very Negative | 
| 
|
This is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't really pass the smell test to me: something feels very off about it. For one, there's no balance between paired figures at all; for another, the Dragons (traditionally very malefic) are things I see as neutral-to-positive, while the Fortunes (traditionally positive) are things I tend to see negatively, and arch-malefic Acquisitio is almost literally the opposite of where it is traditionally considered. (But I can't see where else it ought to go! I am very nearly afraid when I see the figure in a chart, as its effects are so detrimental.)
So, I took this as a sign that I got turned around somewhere and needed to recalibrate my perceptions. The most obvious way to do this, or so I thought, was simply to use each figure's astrological associations and try to see them through that lens:
| Benefic |
|
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|
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| |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neutral |
|
|
|
|
|
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| Malefic |
|
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|
When I posted about this, I got some push back, with people mentioning that Amissio is traditionally negative, while Fortuna Major is traditionally the most positive figure of all. You can see from my first chart that these associations strike me as suspect, and so it never even occurred to me to look at the geomantic tradition and see how it sees the figures—though, in my defense, I've don't think I've ever seen a table of these anywhere! I took a stab at looking through various texts (and especially Geomancy in Theory and Practice), though, and think this is more or less how the figures are described:
| Very Positive |
|
|
| |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mildly Positive |
|
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| |
| Neutral |
|
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|
|
| Mildly Negative |
|
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| |
| Very Negative |
|
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|
I find quite a bit of fault with this set of descriptions, but that should not be a surprise given my first chart. Over on conjunctio, somebody was wondering if perhaps my astrological natal chart could shed some light on the discrepancy, but I couldn't find anything obvious: my Jupiter is positive (not negative, like my perception of Acquisitio would suggest), my Sun is mixed (not negative, like my perception of the Fortunes would suggest), and my Venus is very negative (not positive, like my perception of Her figures would suggest). I'm still digging into it.
Anyway, in all of these ways of looking at the figures, I should probably note that I should expect true mastery of the system to be achieved when all of the figures appear to one as neutral. After all, they're just energies: neither good nor bad of themselves. Rather, the question is what are they good or bad at? All of them have their place, and it is only proper to use the appropriate tool for the situation at hand. (It should be noted that this is explicitly how The Art and Practice of Geomancy describes the figures, to it's merit in my opinion.)
| Neutral |
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|---|
These four ways of looking at the exact same thing reminds me of an old koan from the Tetteki Tosui ("The Iron Flute," compiled in 1783 by Genro):
An old hermit lived in a small hut in the mountains. As a reminder to himself, he labelled the door, the window, and the wall of the hut with the word "mind." As time passed, the hermit died, and another came to take up residence in the hut, but he was dissatisfied with the labels he found. He replaced them such that the door read "door," the window read "window," and the wall read "wall." As time passed, this hermit also died and another came to take up residence in the hut. He, also, was dissatisfied with the labels, and he simply erased each one. As time passed, this third hermit also died and a fourth came to take up residence in the hut. As with the two before him, he found the situation unsatisfactory, and labelled the door "window," the window "wall," and the wall "door."
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