Nirvana For All!

Not yet become a Buddha,
    this ancient pine tree,
          dreaming --Issa

Issa was a great poet, my favorite haiku master, he's very "human." But while the image here is beautiful, I don't like the philosophy underneath it. Okay, so: the Hindus believed that one must be born in the Brahmin caste in order to attain Moksha, enlightenment. Buddhism arose out of that milleau, asked, "why wait?" and said Nirvana is there for all, always. But it was said that all other beings, from gods to demons, angels to the grasses and insects, were stuck in the wheel of Samsara, waiting to be human; for only humans could attain Nirvana. Now, this seems pleasant, for a moment-- even the gods envy our auspicious position; good for us, we're in the right sphere of life. But there are implications (aren't there always?).

I look out my window at the oak growing up through the lawn, and wonder what this tree could ever do to produce the karma, good or bad, that is required to keep it in this wheel of samsara, the round of suffering. It's just a tree! It grows exactly as it does, perfectly. No ulterior motives, no nothing. Likewise the birds in its branches; they are simply themselves. Even if they do have glimmers of recognizable consciousness, they act on instinct, they live in the moment, as the Buddhas instruct. Karma is translated as "action," understood as acting with expectation; trees and birds don't act that way. Crossing into Taoism, the central idea is to attain a state of wu-wei, or "non-doing," in the sense of just going with the flow of the situations, of the Tao; it is the mark of a sage. And yet this is exactly what the tree is doing out there.

So one must wonder: if a tree or a bird or any other living thing dies, after its life of pure existence, is it reborn as a human again? It there, between one human life and another, a one-life interlude as some other creature or plant? It leads to a ridiculous chain of logic: imagine how many insects die every day, how many rodents, or any of the smaller creatures. A seed, an acorn, is alive, it is a baby tree; but most do not live to adulthood, most don't make it out of the seed. What about individual cells? In my body, untold numbers of cells die every day, both my own cells and the bacteria. They didn't ring up any karma, surely. Point is, there aren't enough humans to be born to offset the supposed progression from plant to animal to human.

And on the other hand, if a man is bad in this life, accumulates much karma, he is often imagined to be reborn as a worm or a bean plant or whatever. This is seen as bad. I say, hey, great! To live as anything other than a human is to live in peace. Ever seen an irritated tree? Or a spiteful worm? A bird miserable about his lot in life? Animals, and of course plants, don't worry, don't plot, don't stress, don't agonize over decisions, don't act out of hatred (or out of compassion for that matter). They simply do their thing, purely. Wu-wei.

The difference is the difference between pain and suffering. The former is physical, but the latter is purely mental. It's the build-up of all suffering into one moment, through memory and the miserable, self-centered "why me?" thoughts. Animals feel pain as pain, but they don't worry about hurting; they simply hurt. Only humans suffer. We're the ones out of sync; the trees are doing just fine. And if bitter old grandpa was reborn as a dung beetle, good for him! He's escaped the wheel.

All kidding aside, it's kind of a natural progression of thought, I think. From class oriented salvation, to human oriented salvation, to Buddhahood for all that lives, and for the rocks as well. Ever farther from the heirarchies we go. To leave behind the human centered concepts has been a theme of the past few centuries, thanks to telescopes and microscopes and science. It's good; it lets us shed such confusions and contradictons, it leads to a more honest spiritual system, a more reasonable philosophy.

Wu Wei

You know, I've noticed I breathe very shallowly usually. The last two days, I wake up and notice how very deeply (and slowly) I'm breathing. Yet every other time during the day, I hardly seem to breathe at all. Really shallow, I don't understand it. I used to wonder if I have asthma, but really, I think I just need to work on consciously breathing deeper. Maybe I wouldn't always feel so tired if I did. Also, I notice I tend to clench my jaw a lot. And, I find that when I'm hungry, I'm often touching my lips. It's funny how little attention we pay to our bodies, which are there all along telling us about ourselves. If we'd only pause and take notice.

I mean, think about how much effort is wasted on tension; vast volumes of energy spent in rigidity. Instead of looking at things, we stare. Instead of being attentive, we try to pay attention. In both case, the only difference is the muscle tension. As if you could muscle your eyes into seeing, or your mind into recieving sensations. We only have so much energy at our disposal, and to put so much into wasted effort must take its toll. In the end, not only does it get in the way of these actions, but it is also all the while sapping our energy reserves. We come home, spent.

I remember trying to focus in school, to make myself pay attention. I'd get all tense in my neck, furrow my brow, and generally end up not really hearing the lecture, I was concentrating on concentrating. I always did far better by just doodling all class, relaxed, and letting the words come in passively. That's what sensing really is, after all; passive. The eye sees best when it doesn't get in its own way.

It's all very Zen, all very yin. It always makes me think of one of my favorite chapters in the Tao Te Ching, that little book of Taoism that holds so much wisdom.

11

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Making that void within yourself; relaxing yourself and stepping back and letting things flow, this is the meaning of the Chinese term wu wei, or not-doing. Take the lesson from your own senses: the eye is not a darkness, but neither is it light. It is a void, it makes a space within itself and the light comes in on it's own accord, according to its nature. The ear accepts passively the sound waves, because it waits; to get all tense by trying to hear would block hearing. Thoughts flow of their own accord into the mind, which is like a great void; try to force the thoughts and you'll grow confused and knotted up.

The body is always there, seeming to dangle from the neck, hanging forgotten from the mind. But it's always present with its lessons, and all we have to do is be present with it. Life flows. The body is still one with nature, with life, no matter where our minds have drifted off to. If we can tune in to that, and understand what it's saying to us, we can untie those knots a little bit. Maybe we'll find a lot more energy in our lives.