An appropriate response

From the Blue Cliff Record

Case 14: Yunmen’s “Appropriate Response”

A monk asked Yunmen, “What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?”

Yunmen said, “An appropriate response.”

Shunryu Suzuki says: "Buddha's teaching (as attained by Buddhas) in its pure and formless form, is not expressible by word or idea. Hence, the contribution of each sect to Buddhism is to give system to the scriptures, to set up the true words of the Tathagata ... in a consistent way so that people may understand and follow Buddha's way of life." (Wind Bell corrected text)

That is, that which is real is beyond words, but words can point to the real --provisionally.

Words have no meanings of their own, but are assigned meanings in our minds. The slipperyness of word meaning can be demonstrated by examining the almost universal misunderstanding in English that the prostate is to be referred to as the "prostrate," a verb or adjective supposed to indicate "lying down."

The reason we understand someone who refers to the prostate as the "prostrate" is they use it in either an implied or complete sentence, usually within a context. In language the context is a paragraph, in the world the context may consist of prior conversations or locations. Someone saying, at the front desk of the doctor's office, "I'm here about my prostrate," is likely to be understood and not even corrected by the receptionist.

Language is actually algebra, in which something is conveyed by means of an operator and operands.

Just as a=b is an equation, so is "that stick is a hoe handle." In the real world, "hoe handle" is an abstract concept, but the stick really is a thing, and it's useful to know that the speaker sees it as material shaped by human agency toward a desired end, thus having added value by means of the applied concept. A concept is, for purposes of the material universe, an illusion, but in the case of a hoe it is a useful one. 

In order to convey information, which is made up of a mixture of ideas about things and ideas about ideas about things, we must constantly embed the ideas in formulae, in which the operator ties together two operands, a symbolic representation of a subject and an object, in either a metaphorical equivalency -- assertion -- or denial of equivalency -- refutation. 

In other words, we rely on metaphor to get anything said, trusting in the transitivity of equivalency, a tool used both by those hoping to formulate and communicate a truth and those hoping to deceive.

Information is news of difference (Bateson). To form an argument for purposes of convincing someone that we bring them information requires three implied or actual sentences: 

a = b, b=c, ∴ a=c (assertion), 

or 

a = b, b≠c, ∴ a≠c (refutation). 

The three sentences of the argument form the structure of a complete paragraph. This is solving a system with equations (in disguise).

It's very, very difficult for two humans in conversation to solve systems with equations on the fly, especially if one of them is using chicanery in the construction and conveying of some of the information in order to achieve an end at variance with the end that would benefit them both. Often each is trying to do this to the other.

Where there is plenty of greed, anger and ignorance, there is much politicking and commerce, hence advertising, scamming and so on. These are all about broken promises and failure to honor contracts, and are made possible by appeals to greedy illusiveness by means of malevolently employed enthymemes: incomplete or incorrect paragraphs and incomplete or incorrect sentences, many of which are carefully nurtured fallacies. 

Dukkha is Buddha's word for the not-quite-rightness of the world as he has found it; much if not nearly everything about human behavior seems off to him, like a cart wheel set off center on the axle, causing the cart to go down the road jolting itself apart even in the absence of potholes ... "dukkha, dukkha." We all are of the nature to become ill, to become old, and to die. Accepting that this is so, and helping one another home, so to speak, is wisdom -- a centered wheel and a smoother ride for all. But the world's common sense is non-acceptance: ignorance, greed, and anger that our illusory, greedy expectations have not been met.

Buddha offers a remedy for our vulnerability to fallacy and its consequences, from disappointment all the way up to life-threatening danger. He noticed, immediately upon seeing the morning star, that the remedy would be difficult to explain, because even honest use of language involves imprecision: no one has the exact same set of meanings of signifiers. 

And those who do not mean well are apt to capitalize on the apparent similarity between inadvertently imprecise honest speech or actions and purposefully imprecise (dishonest) speech or actions.

Yet he persisted. The risk, to him, was worth the gamble.

This is why Buddha speaks of "expedient means" (upaya). Even his most direct verbal teachings made use of language; even at their most formal they were all expedient means toward the ending of suffering, yet inevitably open to interpretation, leading to perceived contradictions over time; the more so as agreed-upon meanings of words drifted.

When we talk about Dharma, just as we talk about anything, our talk does not approach the reality of dharmas (phenomena), or, in the case of Dharma, what we might call our secondary reality -- of ideas. 

And yet we trust in Dharma (the set of available truths about dharmas -- Thusness) to hone our behaviors toward the lessening of suffering -- ours and that of others.

There is some truth in truth, enough so that we if we intend be on its side against injuring, lying, stealing, misuse of pleasures, and misuse of resources, a way forward can be found.

Buddhists speak of the paramitas. Theravada traditionally lists ten; Mahayana  six. But it seems clear, as commentators have noted, that the two lists are just two ways of covering the same ground. The main thing is to provide, as best we can -- toward whatever is before us -- an appropriate response.

 -- shonin 

It's a thing

Dogen makes much of shikan-taza as being the whole of practice. "Although it is said that there are as many minds as there are persons, still they all negotiate the way solely in zazen." 

He's not wrong. Stillness is where you find true-ness. At the same time, his monks had to get up and go clean the zendo sometime, and there was also construction, maintenance, cooking, water carrying and farming going on. His explanation was that at the root of all this activity there is still that same stillness. Whether or not you fan yourself, air is air.

When we lived for eight years in the outskirts of one small city and I worked in the larger city across the river, I often biked to work along established bicycle routes and across the wide river on a bike bridge, a scenic round trip of some sixteen miles. In heavier weather, I took the bus.

Bodhidharma splits up practice in much the same way. If wall-gazing does it for you, he says, gaze away! It is, when you do it, the entirety of practice. On the other hand, everything else is waiting for you as practice: the whole of life's activity. One of my hardest-working spiritual teachers, a Hutterite, Barbara Maendel, put it drolly when handing out our farm chores from a seemingly endless list: "a change is as good as a rest."

Zazen is the bicycle. Just get on it and go. In heavier weather, a change is good too. Just get on the bus and go.

Life practice is the bus. If you're sitting in the doctor's waiting room, sure, you can work on your stillness, but also there's the check-in and the visit, which may provide vexations. The arriving and the departing may stress as well -- that near-miss in the parking lot, say. Everything seems to push and pull. To deal with these as Dharma practice, form Dharma life habits.

Bodhidharma breaks life practice into four parts: absence of resentment, acceptance of circumstances, absence of craving, and accord with Dharma. 

To form the habit of not resenting can be a big change in lifestyle for many of us. It means accepting circumstances just as they are, with no craving for them to be any different. That doesn't mean don't swim when you fall into the water, it just means don't spend your swimming energy on uselessly grieving the fall or being angry that you were bumped. Swim. 

Accord with Dharma means embodying Buddha's truth by living the six wisdoms (paramitas). Six tools are available to bring us to the place of non-resentment: giving, ethical discipline, patience, effort, meditation, wisdom.

"Giving" is practice in being kind, a way of cultivating a cooperative, productive and peaceful community.

"Ethical discipline" is self-regulation: holding anger, greed and delusion in check, we foster a cooperative, productive and peaceful community.

"Patience" is practice in accepting circumstances as they are; it's rooted in letting go of the past and especially the future, allowing the community's cooperation, productivity and peace to unfold unforced.

"Effort" here is not the willful struggle that might be envisioned by the ascetic, but the steady self-application to practice that leaves behind the constructed self composed of greed, anger and delusion. This too benefits the community.

"Meditation" in the midst of life practice is that stillness in the doctor's waiting room, increasingly expanding into the visit and the coming and going. You may call it equanimity. It is beneficial to the community.

"Wisdom" here is "prajna," an ongoing appreciation of the ontological truth of the Dharma: "thusness." An insight into thusness is provided by the idea of dependent origination: all things are what they are together, in the same nowness, and nothing exists separately. As our illusion of separateness fades, our actions spring from this realization, and we benefit the community.

shonin painted six rocks, each with a paramita, as mnemonic devices. What, she's 76.

To see Dogen's practical application of the principle of life practice, samu practice, read his "Instructions to the cook," Tenzo Kyokun.

If you only have wild grasses with which to make a broth, do not disdain them. If you have ingredients for a creamy soup do not be delighted. Where there is no attachment, there can be no aversion. Do not be careless with poor ingredients and do not depend on fine ingredients to do your work for you but work with everything with the same sincerity. If you do not do so then it is like changing your behaviour according to the status of the person you meet; this is not how a student of the Way is. (tr. Anzan Hoshin and Yasuda Joshu Dainen)

Hongzhi sums up. "You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the ten­dencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness."

The bicycle in good weather carried me to the entrance of the building where I worked. I arrived exercised and healthy, ready to benefit the community.

The bus, in heavy weather, stopped right in front of the same building. I arrived rested, composed, ready to benefit the community.

Not saying I always rose to the occasion. But that clear circle of brightness -- it's a thing. We should all look into it.

 -- shonin 

Just walk

In a lovely manga I've been reading, the Solo Mountain Climbing Girl, near a three thousand meter summit making and having coffee, asks: "I wonder ... 'why is the mountain beautiful/no matter who lays their eyes upon it?'" (A haiku.)

In the next panel she replies to herself, "You are allowed to ask, but you are not allowed to answer ... to limit nature's splendors with words would be foolish." [sip, sigh]

The first three of Siddartha's Four Sights* are: an old person, a sick person, and a corpse. From these he drew the conclusion that drastic measures might have to be taken to avoid these unavoidables, so he took his hint from the fourth sight, that of a meditating sadhu, and left home. 

These sights and their significance stick with him over time:

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape having ill health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

-- Upajjhatthana Sutta (“Subjects for Contemplation”) 

So far, so good. He's seen entropy and its inevitability. He also experienced the unsatisfactory path of the self-abnegating sramana.

He and I, raised in different cultures, may not have quite the same take on why one does whatever one does next. Buddha, or certainly nearly all his followers then and since, clearly thought there was some kind of afterlife with rewards and punishments, though he denied the unchanging soul depicted in his natal Brahmanic faith.

The legends do seem to show Buddha expecting his new monks to be able to keep to the path of non-harm as soon as they have accepted his positive instructions on how to live. On finding that they would need guide rails, he reluctantly provided them.

Bodhidharma mentions, almost in passing, that precepts are already implicit in awakened behavior:  "Bud­dhas don't keep precepts. And buddhas don't break precepts." But I think we will all agree the bar is high on that one. Perhaps something more alarming was required by a society already steeped in its own juices -- and still is.

The idea of hell is even enshrined in the Sotoshu's basic statement of faith, stated as applicable to all laypersons and priests (and made up of quotes cut and pasted from Dogen), the Shushogi:

When there is a spiritual communication of supplication and response, devas, humans, hell dwellers, hungry ghosts, and animals all take refuge.

I personally have no reliable data confirming an afterlife or multiple lives, and little if any basis for speculation on these matters. As such, I have no notion of extinction as a goal for escaping the wheel of karma. Per Occam's Razor, I try to ascertain if what I see and do in this life will fill the bill for what I might call the "yearning to do well."

Concerning teleology and eschatology, then, I am allowed to ask, but not allowed to answer ... to limit reality's splendors with words risks entangling myself further in the vines of delusion.

Even without the carrot and stick of heavens and hells, we notice how it feels to treat others well or badly, within our circumstances and cultural touchstones. For me, Buddha's admonition to ground my actions in wisdom resonates with my understanding that to assist in slowing inevitable entropy, while ultimately futile perhaps, is nevertheless exactly that which is ethical.

This entails attempting a drastic reduction in environmental and social harm (as perceived), as way opens. I have elsewhere compared Buddhism with Permaculture, to try to elucidate ways and means. 

Everything is "emptiness." But it may be that wise actions help empty out the emptiness of greed, anger and ignorance through a disciplined process of subtraction.

Simplify, simplify, simplify. Simply fail, again and again, to reach into the world with greedy hands.

Hence the various stories in which teachers and abbots say "when eating, just eat. When walking, just walk."

 -- shonin 

 

*Actually this story is originally told of an earlier Buddha, Vipassi, who is said to have lived long ago. It's not told of the young Siddhartha Gautama until centuries later, but, as Siddhartha himself is said to have said, Buddhas tend to follow similar timelines.

Little sips

A repost.

I take a lot of interest in "Occam's Razor," which to me is a base from which we can very fruitfully conduct our explorations. It comes from philosophy and is often used in science, but often also critiqued in science discourse.

Duns Scotus formulated it thus: Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate. "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." I guess "necessity" cuts both ways -- don't complexify but also don't simplify past the point where evidence can be replicated.

Aristotle sought to find the lowest common denominator in his search for first principles from which to build arguments: "We may assume the superiority ceteris paribus of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses." Galileo found it so, as did Newton. 

"Necessity" does arise in physics from time to time, as when Einstein outperforms Newton on gravity calculations, something useful to know about when doing orbital mechanics. But the differences between their results are so small that as a rule of thumb we may continue to use Newton in daily life, even the daily life of construction engineers and airline pilots.

I think it's a strong principle when applied judiciously in life decisions.

In popular culture, our Occam par excellence is Sherlock Holmes. In pursuit of his quarry, Holmes gleefully abandons complex explanations in favor of simple ones, not because the simple is always true, but because the complex is apt to be loaded up with irrelevancies, thereby likely wasting effort: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Stripping away specious explanatory principles improves his chances of arriving at an explanation that correctly describes what actually happened.

Society is struggling right now with a cornucopia of misinformation and disinformation, aimed at preventing rather than encouraging sound decision-making on the part of target populations. This is in fact a war, one we're all losing, and we are most likely entering a period of unprecedented suffering brought on by desire for and addiction to political and economic hegemony. 

Buddhism says we are subject to three poisons in our social setting (for our purpose they pretty much require the presence of others to be venemous): greed, anger and ignorance. I think of two of them as subsumed under the third: anger and ignorance serve greed.

Complex, or rather falsified, explanations are mustered to increase ignorance and foment anger in service of greed. Where someone has been duped by the greedy with such explanations, we have misinformation. The misinformed more easily harbor racism, sexism, anti-semitism, trans- "phobia," science denial, and the like, and can be recruited, wholeheartedly and with the belief that they are doing good, into campaigns against the commons, in the form of democratic elections, public health, public education, libraries and more, all of which may tend to equip us to resist the greedy.

Disinformation is the misinformation which is knowingly propagated by the greedy to boost ignorance and anger, so as to create and direct mobs -- armies that can serve as the shock troops -- in informal warfare to serve a will to power, the will of the greedy whose aim is rule in service of their greed.

Even those who recognize the caveat of "beyond necessity" may attack the razor for its imprecision. Such may have thoughts along these lines: "Occam has an out and therefore cannot be entirely trusted as it stands, hence it is misinformation and therefore its choice of theory is ultimately no better than the alternatives." This can be a reason why disinformers remain entirely within their comfort zones while laying waste to whole realms of the commons.

But it's not the micro-scale accuracy of our tools of inquiry that concerns humanity here. It's the motivation behind the uses to which they are put. We don't simply seek to know; we seek to know for benefit, and the majority (rightly, I submit) seek to benefit the many rather than the few.

When Buddha intuited that there is no permanent soul of the individual, he was applying something like Occam's razor. Dependent origination is for him the simple ontological explanation of existence, as opposed to a more complex and less demonstrable dualism, and gives rise to his four truths.

Buddhism does have an ethical position, but it's maybe hard to describe because we are used to prescriptives. The default Buddhist ethic is to show by example. As in, in case y'wanna try this stuff.

Buddha said "come, monk" to anyone who showed up. And then there was a knowledge commons. But whenever anyone took an action that was outside the bubble of right action arising from right view, he found it necessary to proscribe such actions in future, and from this arose the precepts.

Well and good; the precepts are a magnificent set of "skillful means." But Buddha and Occam both appreciate simple adherence to first principles, and at the center of first principles, I think, there is something like a still point. Bodhidharma says (in effect) Buddhas don't obey precepts because they are the precepts.

Here is the ground of minimalism; non-harm through simplicity. If you sit a lot of zazen, by that much you're avoiding being trapped in consumerism and the burning down of the surface of the planet.

When I sit zazen, I'm not ... shopping. 

If I'm not shopping, I'm not under the influence of advertising. Therefore the ontological parsimony of sitting zazen resists the illusions promoted by the greedy, and by extension may be said to be resistance to fascism.

That sounds strenuous, but we're learning to adapt (ableism can be its own form of seeking power). Here is my current not-shopping zazen, in progress.

This is zero-gravity-chair-zazen, practically-reclining-in-bed zazen, very-intermittent zazen. 😁

Some might object that this cannot be zazen on the grounds that I'm not sitting up straight. Some might also object to it on the grounds that I'm probably only really doing it for a few moments at a time, rather than the full half hour of most of the Zoom zazen periods I attend. I'm just not up to much, as I've been deteriorating for some time. 

The doctors tell me they've finally located the problem(s), which are leukemia and cardiac amloidosis. I'm not in much pain, but I'm definitely sort of weak and woozy as a regular thing, so I've adapted my zazen accordingly. In like case, such as Long Covid, others may do the same. The important thing, as any Zen teacher will tell you, is not to be doing much. 

Not traveling to the lake to zip around on jet skis, say.

The goalless goal, I think, for anyone interested in ontology at least, is to not be fooled. I admire those who aren't fooled for a whole half-hour at a time. I like to think I've been there and done that. If socially acceptable practice is in the rear view mirror, though, I can at least, for the time being, be not fooled in little sips. 

Do you know the story of the tigers and the strawberry? Little sips can be very tasty.

-- shonin  

 

The "thusness" zone

(Continued from Just Fail)

In response to the four sights, Buddha formulates four truths, the first three being about the first three sights, and the fourth being a critical response to the fourth sight. Rather than be a self-punishing sadhu, just join the sangha -- the community of those embodying the dharma, that is responding to reality realistically. He details the ways of doing this: see rightly, resolve thoroughly, speak sense, behave, work honorably, see it all through to an honorable conclusion, bear in mind those things that matter, and sit, stand, walk, and lie down with a centered stillness.

These are mutually supporting and overlapping activities, the positives that are later joined by prohibitions that arose as needed because human nature, embedded within the ongoing system of greed, anger and ignorance, finds these positives difficult to apply to all of one's life.

Chinese monks and nuns found that it helped to go and spend some time alone, and so adapted some of Taoism's hermetic culture -- "leaving behind the rest dust (of the cities)" -- for years or even decades in many cases. But the eight practices were intended to be carried out in the midst of society, as the point of behaving well is to behave well toward others.

Bodhidharma is said to have similar instructions in a document know as the "Two Entrances and Four Practices."

In it, he notes that an intellectual appreciation of Dharma, combined with zazen, can serve as a way into the life of thusness, but he seems to prefer the other Entrance: four recommended practices of what could be called applied Dharma. These are: acceptance of suffering, such as from injustices, acceptance of circumstances as we find them, ignoring cravings, and according with Dharma, that is to say, practicing the six perfections. Those are: giving, ethics, patience, effort, meditation, wisdom.

I sometimes think all these instruction, especially if one throws in the Vinaya or at least the precepts, amount to busywork to stave off the three poisons.

Buddha's early instructions, and Bodhidharma's instructions, if followed, certainly seem to be capable of bringing one's life away from the worst effects of these poisons and into the "thusness" zone.

If we need to put it in less verbose form, though, I think that can be done.

 -- shonin 

(To be continued)

Just fail

We face a world which is threatened not only with disorganization of many kinds, but also with the destruction of its environment, and we, today, are still unable to think clearly about the relations between an organism and its environment. What sort of a thing is this, which we call ‘organism plus environment?'   -- Gregory Bateson

Since the question was asked in the 1960s, evidence has continued to accrue that organisms are dissipative structures ("me") made up of dissipative structures (organs, tissues, cells, biosyntheses, gut bacteria)  and also constitutive of dissipative structures (families, tribes, cities, nation-states, ecosystems, biospheres). 

All these accumulate matter and energy for reproduction at their constrained scales (negentropy), and all continually drop crumbs down their shirt fronts (entropy).

You can "rewind" a video or movie but you can't rewind life; there are no prior frames except in the form of constructs in your brain, running on the electrical potential between synapses. 

Likewise, you can't fast-forward. There's no "there" to jump to.

Everyone you meet is already, in a sense, dying; you encounter them in the now on an arc of motion: the energy they accumulate, perhaps while having lunch with you, also dissipates; and it's eventually going to dissipate at a greater rate than their capacity to maintain stasis. 

And then there's a corpse, and it too begins immediately to disincorporate.

We have, to a greater or lesser degree, an impulse to live forever; but DNA's brief does not support that. 

It jumps to new substrate, beginning from a single conjoined cell in each instance, and leaves prior generations like so many bugs on a windshield. 

Looking at it this way, we might conclude that DNA, not us as organisms, is what's alive. 

Carl Sagan was inclined to suspect so, though in summarizing the available evidence he left the question open in a way that suggests it can be tested:

 It is not known whether open-system thermodynamic processes in the absence of replication are capable of leading to the sorts of complexity that characterize biological systems.

That said, here we are, replicating, accumulating, dissipating, and, while doing these things, possibly mostly hallucinating. 

The hallucinating appears to be built in, one of DNA's strategies for protecting itself by giving us consciousness, an interplay of hormones and synaptical storage that statistically safeguards our reproduction rate.

If we find all this disheartening, well, it's where we are in the game, so to speak. Religions in general tend to deny all of the above, by doubling down on the hallucinating: play the game this way (insert doctrines and commandments) and thermodynamics will no longer apply to you (insert version of Heaven). 

Or don't, and we'll ply your ghost with clubs and matches (Hell).

Sagan's job was to prepare us to defend scientific method, the ground of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, against profiteers who, while themselves beneficiaries of the "modern miracles" of flight and laser surgery, nevertheless would, in search of bigger profit margins, upend the ballot boxes in favor of a return to medieval hierarchy -- God, angels, masculine rich men, and the rest of us, who can look forward to bullying maybe the family dog at best -- a hierarchy threatened by the discovery, which science could hardly eventually shirk, that everything is exactly equal in "intrinsic" value and utility to everything else in an interpenetrating and cyclical universe.

And Sagan was among those who had noted that neo-Darwinism, propped up as the justification of sociopathic rich men in their hyper-accumulative and hyper-dissipative activities, was flawed. 

Lynn Margulis, who was married to him at one time, had found evidence of symbiosis as the origin of eukaryotic cells, work that was resisted for decades within the scientific community, much of which had fallen under the spell of the rugged individualism of neo-Darwinists and their boosters among the profit-minded. 

If every living thing is made up of tiny cooperatives, what implications might that have for the model we are now living under, of maximized exploitation within a finite ecosystem?

Even the not-very-rich, embedded in economic structures created by and for the very rich, defend the structures vociferously when nature's networks are shown to be at least as cooperative as competitive. When Suzanne Simard merely found that birch and Douglas firs were sending carbon back and forth, it was enough to end her career with the governmental agency that employed her at the time. 

It is easy at this point for us, contemplating the effects of the activities of the very rich, to become angry at the state of the world and angry with those we have identified as the principal actors. Motivated by such anger, many become active in seeking out and applying strategems for opposing the rich, from boycotts to revolutions.

We can see from the history of applied Marxism in the twentieth century that the cure can be equivalent to or worse than the disease, taking into consideration the usual measures of human misery and environmental degradation. One might cogently observe that these revolutions and their subsequent political evolutions show evidence of a reversion to authoritarianism linked to the protected well-being of the authoritarians and their families and friends, much the same as the conditions that had engendered the revolutions. 

Greed, anger and delusion are not the peculiar province of the rich. They are endemic to all, and come to a boil when we too, impelled by impulses instinctive to us, subsequently become the rich, or at least those ensnared by the leavings of the rich.. 

I have some sympathy for us all. We're born dupes -- The process of replication that we call life has, in all living beings, its own project, and requires of us that we cooperate by being deluded as to our individual aims in life, reaching greedily for resources to further those aims, and angrily defending those resources from others who appear to be reaching for them. We're mightily stressed by all this. Is there a way out of what we may reasonably describe as our plight?

This is where Buddha comes in. Having seen the old, the sick and the dying, he gives up his possessions, his relationships and his United Health Insurance policy and heads for the hills, making his clothing from rags pilfered from a dump in a cemetery. Correctly surmising that the fourth sight -- a self-denying sadhu -- harbors a clue to a cogent reaction to his distress, he nearly starves himself to death, and then realizes one cogent reaction need not be the only cogent reaction. There's no need to stop eating. There's only a need to stop eating greedily. There's no need to snub society. There's only a need not to react to the foibles of others angrily. There's no need to tilt at the windmills of delusion. There's only a need to refrain from behaving in a deluded manner.

"The Way is actually very easy," declares the author of the Xinxin Ming. "Just fail to have any preferences." 

Ha-ha-ha, we reply and skip down to the, mostly, to us, incomprehensible verses that follow, looking for an out.

-- shonin

(To be continued)