Gateway To Eastern Philosophy & Religion (November 2012)

From the book Gateway to Eastern Philosophy & Religion, excerpted and reprinted with permission from Good Karma Publishing, and available on www.gkpub.com.

~ A Story: Your Last Thought ~
There was a very greedy Indian businessman who had three sons. He knew that throughout his life he was only interested in making money while alive, but he was also interested in having a good life in his next life and in salvation. Thus, he figured out a clever scheme so he could have his cake and eat it too. He reflected, “My last thought as I die is going to determine my next birth, so I’m going to make my last thought of God. Now how do I do that? I know! I’ll name each of my three sons after God. I’ll give each one a name of God. Here is Krishna and here is Rama and ahh, Ganesh.” He then said, “I know when the end comes, that my last thoughts will be of my sons and I will be saying to them, ‘Farewell, Ganesh, farewell, Rama, farewell, Krishna,’ and I will die with the name of God on my lips!” Pretty clever scheme. The businessman went along through life. Krishna, Rama, and Ganesh worked in the business and helped him. Finally he grew old and ill and was put to bed. The doctor told the businessman’s sons he didn’t have long to live. Then finally the doctor suggested he’d better say goodbye to his sons, the time has come. The man sent for each of his sons to come to his bedside. The three of them arrived and as they approached his bedside, he said, “Ahhh, Ganesh, ah, Rama, ah, Krishna – who’s minding the store?” [laughter] And with that he died! His last thought was “Who’s minding the store?” It was a good scheme; it just didn’t work. He gets an “A” for effort, though.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

~ Those Are Not Your Mistakes! ~

One time I was talking to Ramamurti Mishra, the Indian teacher, and he told me some positive things that were going to happen to me in the future: “Well, you’re going to do this and that … ” I responded with surprise, “Gee, for a man such as myself who has made so many mistakes … ” He answered, “Those are not your mistakes!” That’s pretty provocative, isn’t it? “Those were not your mistakes!”

Don’t ask me in a question, “What did he mean by ‘Those are not your mistakes,’” because there are many possibilities. They could be God’s mistakes. They could be mistakes of the past incarnation, which are unloaded upon me. We have that in Western teaching: the sins of the fathers. That is the meaning of Ramamurti Mishra’s statement.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

~ A Story: Five Fingers ~

I’ll give you an example from my own Zen Master. This interaction occurred when I brought two people to meet him. The woman asked him a very nice, very logical question: “Roshi, why must there be English and French and German and Russian? Why must there be wars?” He held up his hand and said, “I have five fingers, why do I have five fingers?” I went over to him. I counted, “One, two, three, four, five. Yes, he has five fingers!” Afterwards when we’d left, this woman, who was from Latvia, said, “Why didn’t he answer my question?” I replied, “He gave you the only possible answer!” If you’re going to get into a discussion of why you have five fingers, you can see how ridiculous it is.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

~ Introduction to Chapter Three: ZEN and Snowballs and Darts ~

Now we’re going to address Zen Buddhism, both Chinese and Japanese. You cannot have a logical exposition of Zen because Zen is not logical! What I’m going to try to do (and which I think will be sort of fun) is throw out a lot of snowballs and hope that they hit here and there. There’s a lot of humor in Zen and a lot of insight. It is my hope that it registers to the degree where it will help you in your own spiritual practice.

Zen is down-to-earth and matter-of-fact. You’re going to have to change your whole orientation of thinking from the material on the Indian philosophies. I’m going to give you some examples of Zen’s earthiness to start. First of all, Zen is very definitely life-affirming. Yunmen, a great Chinese Zen Master, said, “Every day is a good day.” Even if you’ve got a bill since your car was banged up. “Every day is a good day.” Zen affirms life. When we get to Indian Buddhism, you’ll find that Indian Buddhism is life-negating. Indian Buddhism is really only fit for monks and those willing to give up the world. But Zen, which is part of Buddhism, is a sect of Buddhism (such as Protestants, Catholics, and Baptists in Christianity), and definitely believes life should be affirmed. My Zen Master used to get that across quite a bit. There’s no metaphysical speculation. It must come with your own insight and your own realization. I’m going to illustrate that with several stories.