Not Zen 99: Teasing

A herd of mustangs ruled a peninsula with lands bordered by the forest and the sea. The horses raced from grasslands to beaches. They swam in shallow waters, played in the sands by the freshwater streams, and rested in the shades of oak and maple groves. For years, they followed their dappled lead mare. She made the herd decisions. She found them cordgrass and giant reeds to eat. She uncovered safe ferns, explored shrubs and sweet maple saplings, and located new springs of fresh water.

One summer, this boss mare gave birth to a chestnut foal. Although her son was healthy, he was born late in the spring. For months, he was the youngest in the herd.

"Why do the other foals pick on me?" he asked her one day.

"They're trying to play," she said. "You're the smallest now. You're strong and soon you'll be big. Your feeling of being picked on will pass."

She pushed her son with her nose. It was a gesture she had used with her other children. She had nudged them playfully for as many years as she could remember. It got the same response from her chestnut son as it got from her earlier foals. He laughed.

Weeks went by. Her son grew strong. But he did not grow out of the teasing.

"Why does everyone hate me?" he wondered.

"They don't," said his mother. She nuzzled him, nose to nose. "Now that you're strong, you are playing too rough with the smaller horses. You need to be more gentle."

"They're not gentle with me!" he complained.

"Nevertheless," she replied.

More weeks passed, then months. Her son grew stronger. He grew wilder. His father, a roan stallion, barely tolerated the immature males. Her son made himself especially difficult to endure. Other immature males teased and tested one another. They bickered, they pushed, and they nipped at the other young horses. That was hard enough. But with her son, the teasing turned into fighting. Others would laugh and chase one another out of play. Her son turned angry and violent.

"Now even the stallion hates me," he said.

The mare remained silent. Her son had observed the truth. He had developed a bad relationship to the other males, his father included. He would find no help anywhere but his mother. He'd made enemies even among other mares.

"If you could refrain from violence in reaction to teasing," she offered, "in time everything would be better."

"I'm just teasing back."

"When you do it, it's bullying. Don't you see the difference?"

"There is no difference."

"Ah," she said. She stepped closer to him. "I can see that you don't understand what the other horses are doing. When you were the smallest, you were teased in a way that makes you misunderstand your situations now."

"I tried to stop the teasing. I told you that."

"No, that's the wrong way. The other horses' feelings are hurt when you don't tease or don't allow them to tease you. You are showing no trust in them."

"What does teasing have to do with trust?"

"When you don't respond correctly, it shows that you don't trust them. Then they become angry. If you let someone nip your tail or knock you in the shoulder, you show that you trust they will do you no harm. It's a matter of confidence on your part. You need to understand they're not trying to fight you. A gentle poke between friends helps to establish trust."

"Teasing is mean."

"It can be. It can be cruel or a test of strength. Usually, it's neither. Teasing is the first step to establishing friendship. When you allow teasing, you show trust in another's intentions. It is a judgment that the other horse is honorable. When you react appropriately with a similar push or nip, you show that you, too, can be trusted."

"This is a strange way of thinking, mother."

"You haven't thought this way before, so you've overreacted. You pushed the teasers too hard. You've been hurtful. That's a double violation of trust. The other horses expect you to push them or chase them, not to kick them or shout insults."

"Is that why everyone's angry?"

"When other horses your age stopped teasing you so much, you thought that was good. I did, too. But we were wrong. It was a warning sign. They no longer teased you in order to make friends with you. They approached you only when they wanted to do you harm."

"What can I do?"

"Approach them. Tease them. Let them tease you back. Earn their trust." She pushed her son with her nose. He snorted.

She nipped his mane. He laughed.

Not Zen 98: On Reflection

"These folks who are supposed to be wise spend an undue amount of time on reflection," said a young woman as she threw down the book she had been reading. She'd been leaning against the wall. She pushed herself away it.

Her grandmother turned the page on her magazine. It crinkled. Her gaze passed over her grand-daughter.

"At first I thought they must be talking about meditation," the grand-daughter said. She strode to the front door. "Then I read them again and again and there's no mistaking that they are talking about mundane physical reflections. They mention the moon all the damn time. It's always a reflection of the moon."

"Yes, images on still water," her grandmother confirmed. She closed her magazine and laid it in her lap.

"But why?" The grand-daughter ran her hands over the coat she'd left next to the door.

"It's an allegory." The old woman propped up her feet. Her grand-daughter snorted at her words without turning her head. "Those teachers are referring to the inter-dependence of things. They sometimes mean the immediacy of things as well."

"The immediacy part is true, I suppose." The young woman put her arm into the sleeve of her jacket. "It's the immediacy of the speed of light."

"They mean something more. I don't use the analogy much. If I did, I would say that both the immediacy and the interdependence are true. The image of the reflection can't exist without the water, the light, and the object in the image. Neither can those exist as they are, in the moment, without the reflection."

"All things are unified, yes. That's hardly a profound point." She finished with her jacket. Hands by her side, she waited.

"If you say so. You are full of such reflections yourself. I see your teachers in you. I see your mother. I see your son, who needs more of your attention."

"I'd rather not talk about that." She jammed her hands into her pockets and stared out the window above the front door. She caught a glimpse of the pale image of herself in the glass and turned away from it.

"You are an original," her grandmother observed. '"But you are a reflection of others, too."

"This is a pretty good explanation, grandma." She put her hand on the doorknob. With a sigh, she turned it. "I suppose this is your own, original take."

Her grandmother shook her head. She leaned back in her comfortable chair and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry that you've missed the point," she said. She listened for the door but didn't hear it swing open. She peeked at her grand-daughter, who was still waiting with one fist in her jacket pocket. "Each idea is fashioned after another. Not a single person has ever existed without others."

Not Zen 97: True Believers

A flock of crows nested among the other flocks. Together they occupied not only the largest willow-oak but the neighboring oaks and all of the other trees anyone could see from high up in the forest. Each group had traveled for weeks, met other groups, flew together, and joined more.

As the flocks grew larger, more fights broke out. Sometimes the conflicts erupted between small groups that arrived to rest early and larger ones that arrived late and tried to take the best roosts, already occupied. Sometimes struggles erupted over matters of philosophy or the different cultures of the flocks. On the night previous, in a different part of the forest, three war parties had fought over matters of protocol. Two crows had died with a dozen more wounded.

A young crow with his eye to repeating the battle approached a veteran warrior from his troop.

"Old fellow," said the young. "Tonight we must correct the wrong-thinkers."

"If by that you mean 'kill the others because they speak oddly,' no."

"Come, now. You fought on our side when it was a matter of territory. Why will you not join us in holy glory? Are not moral principals greater than a mere the mere twigs and stalks of these boughs?"

"Yes, you and your friends talk a lot about ideals. They are vast, powerful things."

"They are everything. You must live your life for some cause greater than yourself. I have heard you say those words, old crow."

"And I do. I live for others."

"That is not what I mean."

"Yet it is exactly what I mean. Ideals accomplish progress. They help us make tools, heal ourselves, and achieve feats of endurance. But as great as they are compared to any one crow, they are limited. They mislead. They deceive us into a cycle of violence."

"Comrade, we fight for the glory of all creatures."

"You, young fellow, give life to your ideals. Without you and your friends, the concepts would be nothing. Do you not see? Even if your cause encompasses the whole universe, it is small in comparison to the mind of a single individual. All ideas, all transcendent loves, all undying passions, all unbearable depressions, all towering fears, hopes and inspirational ideas that our folks have ever held are combined in a single mind."

"Only one cause can be the just one, comrade."

"Many causes are just. As great as such concepts are, as much as we use them to improve ourselves, they are also so small that they all fit inside any reasonably bright child. The energy that moves you is so slight that it's in every individual. When you kill another, you kill a world of great ideas. You diminish our greatness."

Not Zen 96: Choosing a Path

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Choosing a Path

One morning, a grandmother took the village children out to do chores. She left three girls to sweep the warehouse floors. She assigned four boys to clear branches from the cart path. Then she took her oldest granddaughter to the jungle hedge at the town border. She handed the girl a machete and unwrapped another for her own use.

"Our job is to cut a shortcut for the carts," she said. "It's not too far to the road from this point."

The grandmother was frail. She took a slow, deliberate hack at the base of a bush. In two strikes, she knocked it down. Then she had to stretch and rest. Her granddaughter imitated her with whacks at a neighboring weed. But the girl chopped high first, then low. She tried many angles. Her strikes were fast and many but they were not effective.

"You'll learn," her grandmother assured her. "Follow me."

The old woman knocked down the next shrub and then another. Beside her, the granddaughter launched into her job with eagerness of a novice. She continued to experiment with the blade. She changed her chopping tactics every few minutes. After a while, she managed to cut down a spirea bush.

"I need a break," she said. "Why do I have to do this? Why not one of my cousins?"

"Why are you still in the farm school?" the grandmother asked. She felled a small butterfly tree. "You could have graduated by now and gone to the city. Is it a boy?"

"Maybe." The girl paused to rest.

"Does he like you?"

"Yes."

"And do you like him?" The old woman cleared another bush and carried it off to the side.

"I don't know."

"How can you not know something like that?" The grandmother raised an eyebrow. The girl, embarrassed, returned to her job with fury. "You are making things bad for your parents. And your boy can't be too pleased. You used to like school. You were smart. Don't you want to go to the city classes?"

"I don't know."

"You must make a decision. It's past time."

"I don't see why I should have to decide," replied the granddaughter. "Why can't I do nothing? Or do everything? You've done a lot You worked in a factory. You graduated school. You had children. You left town. You came back. Now you make pots and people come from far away to buy them. In your life, you got to do many things. Why should I have to chose one thing?"

"You misunderstand the choices," said the grandmother. "You must begin your life somewhere and make progress. To stop and start all the time, as you are doing with this underbrush and with your schooling, is to live a life of frustration and failure."

The girl renewed her attack on the plant in front of her. She saw that she had made no progress but her grandmother had gotten halfway to the road.

"I don't know that you are right," said the girl. She wiped her brow. "Even if you are, where should I begin?"

"Begin with a decision, any decision. Choose the boy or the school, either one. Or take the boy with you to the city. Do something."

"What if I make the wrong decision?"

"So what?" said her grandmother. "You'll fix it. The starting point doesn't matter. You need to pick a path and start swinging."

Not Zen 95: Bridge of Promise

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Bridge of Promise

Between two small towns by a river, residents wanted to build a bridge. Their great-grandparents had tried. Their grandparents had continued the effort and had left tall pillars a third of the way into the river. Other generations had made attempts in the distant past, too, but no usable bridge had ever finished. For commerce between towns, the residents used ferry boats. Eventually their national government stepped in to examine the problem and decided that the towns would not be permitted to build. Instead, the government would erect a smaller bridge upstream.

The local townspeople filed protests over the decision. They called their government corrupt. They said the ferry boat captains had bought influence in the capital. Nevertheless, the order remained.

One day, a man appeared in one of the river towns saying that he'd gotten a permit to build a bridge. The permit didn't say exactly where he had to build it. He showed his papers to the local leaders.

"You see?" he said. "It says that I can build it across your river. I could put the bridge farther upstream but I could also place it here. It's more expensive to do construction at your location but I know I would make more money in the end."

"The permit says very little," agreed the mayor. "You could build anywhere on the river with this."

The man with the permit wanted to talk about the money to be made. He was not interested in a narrow, civic-minded structure or a floating bridge that would need constant maintenance. He showed them plans for a grand, for-profit span with heavy tolls. Such a bridge would last for centuries although it would need many investors in the beginning. The investors would be paid back from their shares of the tolls.

Everyone in the town grew excited. They had been waiting all of their lives for this project. Only one of the town aldermen sided with the ferry captains against building the bridge. He was shouted down in the town council. The council and the mayor raised tax money to invest in the bridge. Families emptied their bank accounts to buy shares. The town bankers put in their own money. The bridge contractor took a ferry to the town across the river. He drummed up more investors in his project. He created a rivalry between the two towns. He took bids to begin the construction. He awarded contracts for the widening of the local roads.

One day, the bridge contractor left to get the large equipment that would be needed to build support structures in the depths of the river. He said he would return in a week. Two days later, the national police arrived.

"We came to investigate suspicious money transfers," a police officer told the town councilmen. "Now we find that you're building a national bridge without a permit."

"We're not building it!" explained the council members. "We're only investing. The contractor you hired is doing all of the work."

"The government hasn't decided on a contractor," reported the police after they confirmed their suspicions.

"Impossible!" shouted the mayor.

"Tell us about this person building a bridge."

The police spent several days investigating what they decided was a scam. When they understood the scope of the deception and the money involved, they called for more investigators. The analysis lasted for weeks. Eventually, it became clear that the vast majority of residents in both towns had been duped. That meant the citizens who hadn't fallen for the scheme came under suspicion.

Some of the residents had been too poor to invest. Those who hadn't come into money in the meanwhile were dismissed. Likewise, the ferry boat operators were questioned briefly and released. Only a handful of citizens remained suspected of being accomplices to the scam.

One of them was the alderman who had spoken against the bridge project in the first place. As it turned out, he had placed a substantial bet against the construction of the bridge. He stood to collect more than a year's worth of salary.

"How did you know this was a scam if you weren't part of it?" the police asked him.

"The national government said it was against the bridge here," he said. "There were good reasons for the decision. The river is wide, so it's easier to build upstream. The sediment runs deep, so there are hundreds of feet of silt to go before reaching solid rock. A bridge would need to be built on large pylons at great expense. It could also be a floating structure but that probably wouldn't last through our storms. Everyone knew these things. No one wanted to think about them except for the ferry boat captains."

"Why were you not fooled?"

"This is the way of our lives. Everyone wanted to fool themselves. I did, too. But I made myself look at how things are. I knew that bridge would never be built. I knew it couldn't be built even if the bridge contractor wasn't a crook. And because I knew that, I was sure he was a crook."

"Are you against having a bridge here?"

"I'm all for having a bridge. But still I'm against ignoring how things really are."

Not Zen 94: Crazy Advantage

A psychiatrist and her patient rose from their chairs in her office. They left the second floor suite and strolled down a flight of steps. Outside, they found bustling sidewalks and traffic-filled streets. They skirted the pedestrians and a convoy of bicyclists. The glare of the sun cast confusing shadows. Around them, people moved from place to place. There were sounds of metal on metal, of children yelling, of shoes on the sidewalks. The patient talked about his observations.

"I thought I was going to hate this," he admitted. "But I like how everyone's keeping their distance. They're ignoring us."

"Just to confirm, you were initially anxious about seeing the crowds?" his doctor asked.

"Of course. I was hiding it."

"You think so? Well, we're all limited. Not everyone can see themselves in the mirror."

"Not everyone is afraid of crowds the way I am."

"I meant something different," she said. She led them toward an outdoor cafe. Smells of food drifted on the breeze. Customers huddled together in groups as they ate. "Everyone knows a little bit of your feeling. But mostly, other people have different problems. I see a lot of problems in my line of work."

"Do other people hide their disabilities too?"

"They try. Their problems aren't hidden for anyone who looks. No one really conceals mental issues."

"I hide mine. I do it every day."

"You might think so but no, you don't. How can I explain?" The psychiatrist sighed. She took them around the sidewalk to the other side of the crowds. Her patient stepped out in the street at first. It took him in a few seconds to build up the nerve to follow her. "You wouldn't be under this illusion if you were missing a finger. You would know that people must notice. It might take them a minute or two but it would be inevitable. With emotional problems, it's the same."

"My fears aren't as noticeable as a missing finger."

"If you and a friend sat down for lunch, in time your friend would forget the missing finger." She pointed to a group of diners. They spoke animatedly with their upper bodies and ignored everyone else. "But mental problems become more obvious over time, not less. They're in every choice you make, every word you utter, every glance, every gesture."

"That's awful."

"No, it's natural. Your actions are shaped in every instant by your perception of the world, same as they are for everyone else. And that's why I now feel sure you'll improve."

"I don't follow. How can you train me to lose my fears simply because everyone else is messed up?"

“Haven't you met people who are consistently wrong but are convinced they're right? And they refuse to check the facts?”

“A few. They're very irritating.”

“But you check the facts. I'm sure you'll succeed because you allow for the possibility that your perceptions are wrong. That puts you ahead of people who are fooled by their senses all the time but never question what they perceive."

Not Zen 93: Connection

Several practicioners of philosophy sat at a light dinner. The star student of the last few years finished his bowl of soup so that he could speak. Then he expounded to his roshi on his newest thoughts. His friends and his spiritual guide, the roshi, all nodded in agreement.

"Very good," said the roshi to his student. "Your words show great progress."

"But I have just had the same realization that your fellow teacher had last year!" the student complained. He felt his comprehension had marked the end of a journey. "Then you declared it was a sign of enlightenment. Now it is just progress."

"You have expressed the same realization. That does not mean it is the same."

"How can it be different?"

"You have expressed a realization of the mind. That is progress. When you understand it completely with all of your emotions, that is better progress."

"Is it still just progress? What can you say lies behind the mind and emotions?"

"Some might express it as a realization of the body, of the whole self. When you realize love for another with your mind, body, and all of your spirit, is that not close to total love?"

"Just close? Whether it's total love or total enlightenment, what progress can there be beyond realizing it with all of our mind, body, and spirit?"

"As you realize that your body extends outward as part of the whole universe, that everything you do is connected with everything else, then you can love someone with the force of the universe. Likewise, you can realize your enlightenment with the whole of creation. It is not a matter of understanding with your mind that you and the universe are the same. It is not a matter of the heart. It is not just an action of the body."

The student laughed. His friends looked bewildered. The roshi responded to the laughter with his own.

"When I completely realize that I am so very connected, maybe there will be no 'I,'" the student said when he was calm.

The roshi nodded. They sat in silence for a while. Then others continued their conversations.

Not Zen 92: Ideal People

Stoics gathered on the porch of a park building. The building overlooked a grove of trees and a meadow in the city.

It was a rare gathering because the Stoics hardly ever came together as a single congregation. More often, they met in small schools of a dozen or fewer. In daily or weekly sessions, teachers organized discussions and strove to show their followers how to align their spirits with the nature of the world.

This day was a holiday. The observances had finished and, at the end, one school occupied the western quarter of the wide, marble porch slab. Some members stood in the sun, others at the edge. Along the edge there was shade provided by poplar and cottonwood trees. Occasional breezes stirred the leaves of the trees and relieved everyone from the summer heat.

Several Stoic women had gathered in the shade to talk. One of the teachers nodded to them as he passed. It was out of concern for one of their number who had not been appointed successor of her school that this leader had decided to approach.

He met his fellow instructor in the corner of the porch.

"You want to know why I've announced no successor?" said the one who had been approached. "It's simple. I have none."

"Everyone has been expecting the announcement for months."

"I know who you're talking about." The first one shook his head. "No. Her understanding of my approach is terrible. She learns everything by rote, not at the level I demand. I will never bless her. I will never let her inherit my mantle."

"You shouldn't say such things." The younger fellow rubbed his short, brown beard.

"Because she is a woman? Or because I might hurt her feelings? I thought you were made of sterner stuff. I suppose you've only been fortunate to have had better students."

"You need to choose the best you can."

"Absolutely not. I will only choose an ideal candidate."

They discussed the matter for few minutes but with no resolution. The teacher who had brought up the subject of succession bowed and left. Behind him followed the members of his school.

"Their stoa has a long tradition in this city," he said. "But it must come to an end with this generation."

"Do you say that because their leader is your rival?"

"I know that he considers himself my rival," he said, testing the idea in his mouth. "I've never thought that."

"Why do you think their school of thought must end?"

"If one achieves a little wisdom, one must deal with the problem of bequeathing it. In every attempt to communicate to the next generation, hard-won wisdom must be entrusted, not guarded jealously. In that school, their teacher hoards wisdom like a miser hoards gold."

"I think he only awaits the ideal student."

"Do you not understand what that means? Other people have flaws. They can never never meet the ideals we envision. That teacher will never meet an ideal student." The philosopher shook his head. "Think of marriage or maybe of your work. We all must marry someone real. And we must hire real people to do jobs, not ideal craftsmen who work for free. Anyone who does not attend to real people in the hope of meeting an ideal one is not wise enough to pass on their traditions."

Not Zen 91: Imitating Serenity

Two women grew up in the same neighborhood of the same town, one a year older than the other. After they finished school, they each went into the business of nursing to the sick and elderly. Both had reputations for kindness. The younger of the two women, shorter and stronger, grew nervous over the years. Her sleep grew restless. Her health had been excellent when she was young but, finally, one day on the job she passed out from exhaustion.

The next morning, she lay in bed recovering. She improved as she talked with her first two visitors. However, the next person who came to her bed was the thin, older and more famous nurse. In a few minutes, the younger one began throwing up.

She didn't stop vomiting until her friend left. The other nurses noticed her symptoms. They conferred and decided to call for their boss.

“I hear that you're unhappy with your visitors,” said the senior nurse when she arrived.

“Who said that?”

“Never mind. Is it true?”

“I don't know. I don't think so. I'm just unhappy in general, I think.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea. I mean, just look at my friend who came earlier today. She does the same things I do. She's satisfied and at peace with herself.”

“I know her. And I know you. I see a great difference in the way you do things.”

“No, there's no difference.”

“You think there isn't because you compare yourself to her. You mirror what she does. You're careful that there's no gap between her achievements and yours, right down to the small, virtuous habits that make her so good.”

“Yes.”

“Can't you see that's the difference? She loves you but she doesn't measure herself by you. She doesn't act nice to others in order to compete with you. She does it because she feels that's it's right to be that way.”   

“I do that, too.”

“Sometimes, yes. But when you try to imitate your friend, it wears you out.”

“It shouldn't. She was always the sickly one when we were growing up. If anyone is getting tired, it should be her.”

“Really? Who is going to be better at being her? Who needs to work hard and who can just be herself?”

Not Zen 90: The Laughing Master

“Why do you laugh so much?” complained a disciple to his roshi. “Other devotees are much more strict than you.”

“I am not a master in a temple,” replied the teacher, “and that is one reason. Also, I am strict when there is a need, which is fairly often. When I do not have cause, I see no need to hide my joy. I learned this view from my teacher. When I was young, I felt he was far too carefree."

“You also had a master who laughed too much?”

“He laughed when it rained. He laughed when it snowed. He laughed when a cloud passed over the sun. He laughed when the sun reappeared. He laughed at butterflies. He laughed at his foolish students. Sometimes, I thought, his wanton mirth was simply too much. One person should not be so happy all the time. Such happiness could be a sign of foolishness instead of wisdom.”

“Exactly.” The disciple nodded. The other students of Zen, all seated around a table eating their lunch, did the same.

“I prepared a short speech on the subject, which I dared to give in the dining hall." The roshi smiled at the parallel since his group of students was seated. "But thankfully before I could give my speech, one of the other students, a fellow who had been ordered to bring our food, slipped. He was carrying four small tureens of soup. Each tureen had a lid. When he went down, the containers and lids flew up. The soup flew out. Of course, the pots and utensils came back to earth. They made a lot of noise. A spoon hit the poor student. Then a tureen landed on his head like a dunce cap. A lid clanged off the tureen while it was still on his head.”

The roshi’s students began to giggle at his story.

“Yes, it was very funny. I had never seen anything quite so funny looking. And then a second lid came down, too, and hit him on the head almost where the other one had hit. My fellow students burst into laughter. We fell almost in tears with laughter. Only one man did not laugh.”

“The student who fell?”

“My master did not laugh. He had not been standing close to the spill but he nonetheless arrived in time to catch the second lid before it hit the floor. He set it aside gently and checked to make sure that his student was not hurt. Truly, none of the rest of us wanted to see that fellow bruised or burned. He was a friend to us all. But his fall … to this day, the memory of it can make me smile. Then I think of my old master. He, who took joy in nearly everything, had simply taken action. Who can doubt that he was right?”

The students turned back to their places at the table and ate their lunches in silence.