stitching nothing to nothing

Stitching nothing to nothing....

If you had The Answer, what in heaven's name would you do with it?

Who knows what impetus compels it, this nudging desire to see my name included on some spiritual list, some rivulet of contenders, some ladder of progression? In Buddhism, there is a lot made of the links and lineage that lead, often with a lot of fictional bridges thrown in, from one rung to the next, one teacher to the next, one student to the next, one monastery to the next. In the Buddhist biz, the phrase is bandied about: "leading all the way back to Shakyamuni Buddha."

But as I look back at those who prodded and helped me along the way, not one of them that I count as honored teachers ever laid claim to a rung or created a rung for some successor to stand on ... sort of.

My Zen teacher, Kyudo Nakagawa Roshi, never, to the best of my knowledge, acknowledged a successor, never dubbed him or her as "roshi" or "old teacher." Perhaps Kyudo did and I just don't know, but I find myself blessed in the light of the thought that he never anointed anyone ... and that that is the proper way of a proper Buddhist spiritual adventure.

I am not mentioning this with any other intent than to chew my cud and offer one possibility. It is not as a means of suggesting what might be "right" or "correct" or some other silly "improvement." It's just a possibility among many and may be entirely off-base.

Other helpers I hold close when remembering intimate matters include Dokai Fukui, a Zen monk who, as one observer put it, "would have been made a roshi except that his health was so poor." Slave labor in a Chinese concentration camp during World War II will do that to a man, I imagine. I corresponded with him for years and he was kind.

Or Jack Gallahue, a former Jesuit priest I knew in his subsequent capacity as a shrink. No doubt he sent many into the world who might bless his name and assistance, but I doubt if he would have cozied up to any sort of ladder-like progression.

Or John Blofeld, a man I never met, but who corresponded with me from his home base in Thailand for a number of years. As an author of books about Buddhism, I could hardly imagine he would correspond with a nobody like me ... sometimes playful, sometimes stern, sometimes just thoughtful on the letter's hand-written page. Did he have a long ladder of ducklings trailing out behind him? Maybe so, but I can't imagine he made much of it in the way that Buddhism can anoint its schools and ladders.

Yes, yes -- I can hear the murmuring Greek chorus of those who might say "everyone is the teacher" or "everything is the teacher." Go ahead and murmur. I am looking for a home in a way that no good Zen Buddhist might approve. Where is my ladder? What is the sense and direction of it all? What rung will I be satisfied in grasping ... a 'grasping' Zen Buddhist-- how about them apples?

Or shall we intone the word "meaning?" Poor old threadbare "meaning." No, I don't want anything that comic-booky. Or "answers." Lord love a duck, hasn't that bullshit been around the block often enough to be set aside ... gently, of course, but set aside for sure?

As my lineage that fits no lineage archetype (and hence, I suppose, becomes some sort of archetype)  I am pleased in my mentors for what they withheld. No institution. No stamp of approval. No narrow shelf from which to fall.

Stand up, boy! Stand up and turn as you please. Live, die, sneeze, laugh, cry and wash the fucking dishes. It's your mess: You clean it up. You live with it or die with it -- it's your business, no matter how lovely the temple grounds.

Tough training, that.

But, in the end, what else could possibly be true?

The object of spiritual adventure, where once I adventured, is to see it dwindle and wisp-away. There is no other shore. Buddhism or Zen deserves to be let alone. Let it work out its own destiny. It needs no help and trying to help will only hinder. Is this true for anyone else? I have no clue. It's just a possibility...

Stitching nothing to nothing is lighter than cotton candy -- tasty and devoid and ... oh relax and let the daisies bloom.

For some reason, the tattered, third-grade doggerel crosses my mind: 

Hubba, hubba!

Ding, ding!

Baby, you've got

Everything!

PS. I have to take a bit back. In a wordless couple of seconds between us, I have to count Trungpa Rinpoche among my best teachers. But he was a Tibetan and, in the words of the poet, I don't/didn't-do Tibetan and don't know whether he had 'descendants' or not.