after the end

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Several days ago, an email friend reminded me of some words our mutual Zen teacher, Kyudo Nakagawa, had used in an interview:  

You need to be cheerful, courageous and patient. When these things are achieved, there's no need to study Zen.

Without what might be called an "end," what good would spiritual efforts be? Those who work hard to get to the essence of things, or even those who believe with a soaring fervor, may find the question ... well ... out of the question. It can even piss them off. Their answers can be filled with a smoldering anger or a desperate fear ... all under cover of a deep 'understanding' or an encompassing and somewhat smarmy 'compassion.' But I think the question needs to be asked and answered. Not to my satisfaction, but to yours. There's no rush about it, no need to push the river, but when, as I think it naturally occurs, the question rises up, it does not deserve to be treated like some smelly, pesky or apostate dog.

You need to be cheerful, courageous and patient. When these things are achieved, there's no need to study Buddhism.

You need to be cheerful, courageous and patient. When these things are achieved, there's no need to study Christianity.

You need to be cheerful, courageous and patient. When these things are achieved, there's no need to study Islam. 

You need to be cheerful, courageous and patient. When these things are achieved, there's no need to study Judaism. 

You need to be cheerful, courageous and patient. When these things are achieved, there's no need to study Hinduism.

I am not laying down some challenge or gauntlet here. Just asking in ordinary terms: Don't things in anyone's life have usefulness and perhaps necessity in their time and then, without pushing or shoving, that time has passed? When I eat some food, I sit down with gratitude, eat, and am nourished. I don't keep eating and eating and eating. When I was a kid, I adored cap pistols and had quite a collection. Today, there's not a cap pistol in sight. When I had a Zen teacher, I was grateful for his counsel. But now I have a feeling he would box my ears if I kept chewing that cud.

A beginning and an end ... a time to set off in hopes of something or other. It is a worthy something or other, something worth beginning for. But if something is worth beginning for, then it seems to me it must also be worth ending for. Nothing sexy or profound ... isn't that the way things happen? Where are the cap pistols now? Are they any longer beloved and necessary? Is there a need either to disdain or elevate them? They were a hell of a lot of fun in their time, but time passes. Time simply passes, so to speak. If you can pick it up, then you must also long to put it down. So ... 

The "alpha and omega"
Has such a scrumptious ring
But when you stop and take a look,
Can this be more than bling?

Don't get me wrong. I love my bling.

But bling is just bling, right?

Cheerful, courageous and patient bling.
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