Part 6 (1/2)

Our understanding of time is just plain wrong-and that misunderstanding leads us to believe that we could could reincarnate, that we reincarnate, that we could could live again after we die, that we live again after we die, that we could could go to heaven, h.e.l.l, or purgatory. That misunderstanding leads us to believe that it is even possible we might have a soul. But every one of these ideas is, ultimately, stupid. They really make no sense at all once we understand what time really is. go to heaven, h.e.l.l, or purgatory. That misunderstanding leads us to believe that it is even possible we might have a soul. But every one of these ideas is, ultimately, stupid. They really make no sense at all once we understand what time really is.

The moment you were born was you. The moment you die will be you. This moment right now is you. There is no difference between this moment and yourself. You live through a million you/moments every single second. Being and time are not two things. Dogen uses a compound to express this just like our buddy Brundlefly. Dogen writes about ”being/time.” In Dogen's words ”being/time is you and being/time is me.”

Moments of you whip by so fast you can't possibly notice them, just like movies create the illusion of movement by showing you a series of still photos in rapid succession. The illusion of time is created by moments of you whizzing by so fast they make the standard film speed of twenty-four frames per second look glacial. The light from an electric bulb is caused by the current flickering through it, on and off and on and off, yet the light seems to be constant.

Real time is just this moment. That's all there is. There's no room for souls or for reincarnation because in order to have a soul, you need to have a past and in order to be reincarnated you need to have a future. But as I've been saying all along: You don't. Past and future are just ideas. When there is no past and no future, the question of life after death in any form including reincarnation becomes entirely irrelevant. This is what Gautama Buddha was talking about when he said, ”The question does not fit the case.”

All the problems I've ever had all stem from being unwilling to stay with the life I'm living right this moment. And the same goes for all your problems. Sort out your misunderstanding of time and all your problems go away. Just like that.

MY WIFE WORKS MOST WEEKENDS and I do not. But last week she had Sunday off. She planned a day out for us at Kunitachi, an area on the far west part of Tokyo where there's a beautiful university with s.p.a.cious grounds and a lovely Chinese vegetarian restaurant. All week I was looking forward to that trip. It was pleasant knowing that I'd get to go out there and spend time with Yuka that day.

It took forever but Sunday finally came. There we were out in Kunitachi walking around, enjoying the suns.h.i.+ne and fresh air. We sat down on a bench on the campus, and all of sudden a bunch of college baseball players decided to change out of their uniforms and into their street clothes right next to us. I found myself distressed: Was Yuka comparing their tight jockey shortsclad teenage b.u.t.tcheeks to my flabby mid-thirties ones?

A bit later I noticed my feet were starting to get sore from all the walking. The thought occurred to me, ”I wish I were home.” ”I wish I were home.”

THIS HAPPENS TO ALL OF US all the time. The only special trick a Buddhist has is to avoid being sucker-punched by these thoughts when they come up-as they always will. A Buddhist learns that his thoughts are just thoughts, nothing requiring any response. But most of us feed into them: a little spark of a complaint appears and instead of letting it die out, we stoke it up. If we work really hard at it, we can make a tiny spark can turn into a raging blaze in no time at all. Then we get upset because it's getting too hot. Once the blaze has gotten that big, though, it's hard work to put it out. What's worse is that we have no idea how how to put it out. Our efforts just end up making the flames bigger and bigger until it's completely out of control consuming every moment of our lives. to put it out. Our efforts just end up making the flames bigger and bigger until it's completely out of control consuming every moment of our lives.

Reincarnation is all very much tied in with this. We're just trying to establish for ourselves the existence of something that has no reality. We're trying to preserve that something that makes us miss out on a beautiful day in the country by telling us we'd really be much happier back in the city, and makes us miss out on the beautiful chintziness of a Muzak rendition of ”Smells Like Teen Spirit” at the dentist's office wis.h.i.+ng we could be at home listening to Kurt Cobain. We try so hard to preserve the very thing that's making us miserable. We cling hard to our pain because we mistakenly think that that pain is who we really are. We define ourselves by what we don't like or we define ourselves by what we like. Either way we miss the truth. We harbor some inexplicable fear that if we start to enjoy everything about life without picking and choosing we might cease to exist.

THE DENIAL OF REINCARNATION might sound like a terrible thing, a promise that nothing's waiting for you at the end of your life but bleak, black nothingness. In fact, I don't know what's waiting at the end of our lives. No one does. But it's not the future that matters. Right now is what counts. If you want to believe in reincarnation, you have to believe that this life, this life, what you're living through right now, what you're living through right now, is is the afterlife. You're missing out on the afterlife you looked forward to in your last existence by worrying about your next life. the afterlife. You're missing out on the afterlife you looked forward to in your last existence by worrying about your next life. This This is what happens after you die. Take a look. is what happens after you die. Take a look.

You can get hooked on afterlife ideas just like a drug. The reason to avoid ideas about life after death isn't because they couldn't possibly be true. Maybe they could. How would I know? It's because ideas like that promote a kind of dreamy fantasy state that distracts us from seeing what our life is right now.

”The question doesn't fit the case.”

Look at your life as it is right now and live it, right now.

THAT'S ZEN MASTER ZEN MASTER KNOW-IT-ALL TO YOU, BUDDY! KNOW-IT-ALL TO YOU, BUDDY!

I'm a cop. You will respect my authority.

ERIC CARTMAN ON SOUTH PARK.

DHARMA TRANSMISSION is a very controversial subject within Zen circles. Back when Gautama Buddha was alive there was an incident in which he stepped up to give a talk. As was customary in India, flowers had been strewn at his feet before he began to teach. Instead of speaking, Gautama just picked up one of those flowers and held it silently aloft-and a guy named Mahakashyapa, one of his long-time students, smiled.Then the Buddha winked at a him, called it day's teaching, and walked away.

This little scene is viewed by Zen Buddhists as the moment when the Buddha recognized that one of his followers had attained the same level of understanding as he had himself. The Buddha's silent wink was taken to be the start of the formal acknowledgment known today as Dharma Transmission.

But 2,500 years have pa.s.sed since then and a lot of things have changed. In j.a.pan, it's not all that hard to find the head of some temple, some guy who ”has transmission” who will give it to you if you can show him you've got a good reason to have it-and unfortunately having just inherited the family temple from your old man counts as a good reason. Oh, and you also have to have enough bank to pay certain a.s.sociated ”fees” to the head temple. Many j.a.panese priests today give transmission for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with real understanding of Buddhist truths; a lot of it's simple politics, business, or nepotism.

To me, though, as for a lot of American Zen students, Dharma Transmission was always a big deal. So when Nis.h.i.+jima told me, very casually one day, that he wanted to give me transmission, I was taken aback. I resisted the idea. It scared me. Who the h.e.l.l was I? How I could possibly ”deserve” that? But Nis.h.i.+jima made it clear that while I could delay the actual ceremony, as far as he was concerned I had already ”gotten” transmission. Still, I put it off.

I TOOK NEARLY A YEAR to decide to accept Dharma Transmission. To accept such a thing is to become an authority figure and I've always had a problem with authority. I never liked authority figures, never wanted to be an authority figure, and never gave a s.h.i.+t about the people who did. Never trusted 'em. In my whole life I've hardly ever come across an authority figure who really deserved the power that had been conferred upon her or him. My teachers and school administrators had by and large shown themselves to be hardly worthy of my contempt let alone my respect. Mister Walters, my junior high princ.i.p.al, once put me through such intense psychological torture I nearly puked all over his floor-and in retrospect I wish I had!-and then he revealed that he had no idea who I was or why I'd been called to his office. It's hard not to feel contempt after such an experience. The few people in positions of authority I did respect never played the whole Authority Figure role.

And as authority figures go, religious authority figures were definitely the worst-and now here I was about to become one. I was conflicted, to the say the least.

Of course rebellion against authority, as any pop-psychologist will tell you, is just an immature and maladjusted psychological reaction to the traumas of a childhood, when the Big Bad Adult told us we were forbidden from doing something or other we wanted to do, and learning not do everything we want all the time is part of the normal process of socialization. Every child rebels against this to some degree, but eventually, a mature person accepts some amount of authority.

Unfortunately, what happens to most people is that they don't just accept accept authority, they authority, they believe believe in it. We have, buried within us, an unspoken, unacknowledged belief that there are some people who are somehow better than others, more deserving than ourselves-that authorities are somehow in it. We have, buried within us, an unspoken, unacknowledged belief that there are some people who are somehow better than others, more deserving than ourselves-that authorities are somehow worthy worthy of the authority they wield. of the authority they wield.

We don't believe in divine kings anymore but we still believe in our celebrities in much the same way. Intellectually we know they're just like us. But on a deeper psychological level we regard them somehow as special special beings, endowed with some kind of extraordinary powers lowly creatures like ourselves do not possess. beings, endowed with some kind of extraordinary powers lowly creatures like ourselves do not possess.

Why did so many people take notice in 1966 when John Lennon said The Beatles were bigger than Jesus? Because he was a celebrity. He was special in our eyes because he wrote good songs and so he became an Authority. Happens all the time.

I was personally shocked to discover this particular belief buried in my own psychological makeup, despite the fact that I'd spent much of my life penning sarcastic ditties about stupid people who trusted their stupid leaders and prayed to their stupid G.o.d and stupidly wors.h.i.+ped their stupid pop heroes.

It never occurred to me to examine my unspoken belief that my my heroes-John Lennon, Syd Barrett, and Robyn Hitchc.o.c.k-were obviously heroes-John Lennon, Syd Barrett, and Robyn Hitchc.o.c.k-were obviously worthy worthy of reverence and that therefore my unquestioned belief in them was duly called for. I also believed in Eiji Tsuburaya, special-effects man behind the G.o.dzilla series, and subsequently in his son, n.o.boru who became my boss when I started working for Tsuburaya Productions. These men were obviously something apart from ordinary humanity. They were Authority. of reverence and that therefore my unquestioned belief in them was duly called for. I also believed in Eiji Tsuburaya, special-effects man behind the G.o.dzilla series, and subsequently in his son, n.o.boru who became my boss when I started working for Tsuburaya Productions. These men were obviously something apart from ordinary humanity. They were Authority.

n.o.boru Tsuburaya's death from cancer in 1995 brought home to me in no uncertain terms the fact that I still believed in Authority. I was truly stunned. I had erected an imaginary barrier between Him and me that prevented me from even asking if I could make a visit to His bedside. How could a lowlife like me presume to be in the hospital room of such a great man? I made up all kinds of excuses-until time finally ran out and he was gone. Not having said goodbye to him is one of the greatest regrets I have.

But my belief in Authority went even deeper than I'd suspected. Even after throwing away what I'd thought was the final vestige of my belief in Authority, I still had one category of Authority Figures left: Zen masters. Zen masters had always been above the stuff I hated in other Authority Figures. Tim and Nis.h.i.+jima certainly had shown themselves worthy of real respect. The ancient Zen masters I read about in books were mythical figures, towering above the rest of mankind. In short, they were Authority.

My belief in the Nis.h.i.+jima's authority prevented me from being able to speak honestly with him for many years. I used to wonder why he often fell silent during our conversations. I'd always break out in a cold sweat whenever that happened and try desperately to come up with something clever or insightful that might impress him. But when I did come up with some little nugget, he'd just c.o.c.k his head and give me a quizzical look. So I'd end up saying a nervous goodbye and racing out of the room feeling like a real schmoe. It took far longer than it should have for me to learn that all he was waiting for was for me to speak sincerely, person to person. When I did that, conversation with him was totally natural.

NOW HERE HE WAS offering to make me me a ”Zen master.” Not even offering, really, here he was saying I was already a ”Zen master” and he just wanted to do a formal ceremony acknowledging that fact. To make matters even worse, not only did Nis.h.i.+jima want to give me Dharma Transmission, he wanted me to go through a ceremony called ”receiving” the Buddhist precepts first. a ”Zen master.” Not even offering, really, here he was saying I was already a ”Zen master” and he just wanted to do a formal ceremony acknowledging that fact. To make matters even worse, not only did Nis.h.i.+jima want to give me Dharma Transmission, he wanted me to go through a ceremony called ”receiving” the Buddhist precepts first.

The ceremony of receiving the Buddhist precepts is the closest thing you'll find in j.a.panese Zen Buddhism to what's called ”being ordained” in most religions. Nis.h.i.+jima wanted me-me!?-to become an ordained priest in a major world religion?

Pull the other one, it's got bells on it!

NO s.e.x WITH CANTALOUPES.

Never let your sense of morals keep you from doing what's right.