On Wednesday for the first time in weeks I had skipped my early morning sitting. I had gotten to bed late. I thought on the way to work, I reported in my journal, about whether I had persistent fear, anger, or sadness that I ignored or suppressed or avoided. I had read in the morning newspaper that an estimated 100000 deaths in Iraq would not have occurred without the U.S. attack and occupation in 2003. In the paper there had been a story, too, of a local man who killed his nine-month-old baby with punches to its chest and stomach.
"I heard something pop," the man said, "when I punched the baby in the stomach."
"Both the local man and the baby are you, Bob," the master remarked.
In one sense yes.
Yes.
In another no.
No.
"You are not separate from the local man, the baby, the confused compeers."
In one sense yes.
Yes.
In another no.
No.
"You are them, they are you."
Yes and no.
Yes and as the master himself sometimes added—
No.
I was back where I usually ended up—I wrote to begin my journal entry for Thursday 11 October—glad to be alive, hoping to be able to help, with few desires, few fears, amazed by the horror and beauty of the universe, curious about others, incurious about myself, essentially content, feeling grateful for my privilege and for my good fortune, thankful, blessed, glad to be able to tinker with words, with serious conflict neither in my job nor in my main relationship, hoping to set a good example when I experienced old age, suffering, and death—
"Things will change," the master interrupted my sentence to state.
Yes.
"Then what?"
"—and grateful to you, Kudo," I had concluded, "for helping me learn to sit."
Things will change.
Plato:
Let me tell you that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before. The tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him. But now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true. Either from the weakness of age or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things. Suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others, and when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great, he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings.
"Then what?"
Socrates:
But the truth has been saved and has not perished and will save us if we are obedient to the word spoken; and we shall pass safely over the river of forgetfulness and our soul will not be defiled. Wherefore my counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward, and it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing.
Reason.
For Saturday I included an excerpt from a text by the Buddhist master Ajahn Sumedho on the Four Noble Truths. In his commentary Sumedho had discussed a fellow monk.
It reminded me of my feelings about the master.
Sumedho said:
I remember that in Thailand I used to have quite negative thoughts about one of the monks. He'd do something and I'd think, He shouldn't do that! He'd say something and I'd think, He shouldn't say that! I'd carry this monk around in my mind and then even if I went to some other place I'd think of that monk; the perception of him would arise and the same reactions would come: Do you remember when he said this and when he did that? He shouldn't have said that and he shouldn't have done that!
"This sounds like me," I admitted.
"So he was judgmental, too!" the master exclaimed.
Yes.
"How did Ajahn Sumedho free himself from these attitudes?" the master asked.
I did not know.
"What are you doing to free yourself from these attitudes?" the master asked.
Inquiry.
Inquiry.
Ajahn Sumedho had discussed his attitudes toward his teacher and because his reflection reminded me of my own difficulty with the master I included in my journal an excerpt from this as well.
Having found a teacher like Ajahn Chah, I remember wanting him to be perfect. I'd think, Oh, he's a marvelous teacher—marvelous! But then he might do something that would upset me and I'd think, I don't want him to do anything that upsets me because I like to think of him as being marvelous. That was like saying, Ajahn Chah, be marvelous for me all the time. Don't ever do anything that will put any kind of negative thought into my mind. So even when you find somebody that you really respect and love, there's still the suffering of attachment. Inevitably, they will do or say something that you're not going to like or approve of, causing you some kind of doubt, and you'll suffer.
"This sounds like me, too," I observed.
Idealization.
"The cause of this suffering is?" the master inquired.
Too easy.
I concluded my entry with an excerpt from Ajahn Sumedho which I anticipated might provoke a negative reaction from the master. Sumedho had kind words to say about reason.
We are conscious, intelligent beings with retentive memory. We have language. Over the past several thousand years, we have developed reason, logic, and discriminative intelligence. What we must do is figure out how to use these capacities as tools for realization of dharma rather than as personal acquisitions or personal problems.... When we are developing Right Understanding we use our intelligence for reflection and contemplation of things. We also use our mindfulness and wisdom together.
"This sounds like me," I wrote a third time.
Thinking.
"This is your major practice issue," the master remarked.
Thought.
Reflection and contemplation, explained the master, did not lead to the realization of our true selves. When we went beyond reflection and contemplation and we ended our tenacious clinging to our own views, ideas, and opinions, he said, then prajnaparamita manifested.
Wisdom.
"Tenaciously clinging to ideas, opinions, and views about yourself and others or about the way things should be or the way they are supposed to be," added the master, "keeps you from going deeper and manifesting your true nature."
Stuck.
F—.
President Bush, the newspaper reported, planned to keep 140000 soldiers in Iraq until at least 2010.
New dead—
kkkkkkkkkk
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Still with me:
"I heard something pop," the man said, "when I punched the baby in the stomach."
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