All Together Now (One by One)

My Alexander head of training between 1995 and 1998, the late Ray Evans, used to tell a story from World War I:

A captain in the trenches barks a message back down the line:

"SEND RE-INFORCEMENTS, WE'RE GOING TO ADVANCE!"

Several transmissions later, the message arrives at field HQ:

"SEND THREE AND FOURPENCE, WE'RE GOING TO A DANCE!"


Over the years several requests have come in from people wanting to translate Shobogenzo directly from the Nishijima-Cross English translation into a person's own native tongue. For my part I have always refused to sanction this, attracting criticism from below and above that I am too stingy with the Dharma. But it took me four hard years before I twigged that there was no way for me to turn what Gudo had written into an authentic translation just by doing a re-writing job. To go back to the origin was the only way. To go back to the origin is the only way.

Most people, of course, don't feel inclined to go through the time-consuming process of a translation from the original. They feel that they haven't got the time, and would prefer to go directly for the result they want, regardless of whether the means are spotlessly true or not. End-gaining bastards! I hate the lot of you.

I hate you because I am you -- one who tends to see value in ends rather than in means. That is why I call myself a fraud. It is not false modesty. The grim-faced guy in the mirror constantly confronts me with my fraudulence. I preach non-endgaining, because I have understood intellectually that it is the secret. In the actual conduct of my life, however, no sooner has any little stimulus reached my consciousness than I have mobilized and sent to the front all the grim-faced armies, navies, and air-forces that constitute the only modus operandi that I know.

There is a chapter of the Lotus Sutra called ANRAKU-GYO, or "Living Life At Ease." The characters ANRAKU are these:



These are the characters ANRAKU in ANRAKU-no-HOMON, the Dharma-gate of ease, in Fukan-zazengi.

I am trying to draw your attention to what these characters mean, in terms of freedom from end-gaining. That man FM Alexander, I do not doubt, from having been in contact with people who knew him, was a true dragon who really woke people up to the problem of end-gaining. FM knew a thing or two about how to put people at ease. I do not doubt that he knew a thing or two about how to put people at ease.

But at ease is not how I have lived my own life. By the end of my 13-year stint in Japan I had practically ground myself to a standstill by my end-gaining. When I started my Alexander teacher training I was totally, in Ray's words, "tight and right." And I still bloody well am. I don't know what the Buddha meant by ease; I only know that I have a constant tendency to turn what the Buddha meant into its opposite.

Since buying our place in France I have experienced the odd moment. But it doesn't take long before I revert to type. Three or so years ago, I felt I was going quite well. But then, having invested so much emotionally in the Shobogenzo translation and in Alexander work, I found it too difficult not to throw my toys out of the pram in response to ... well, enough said already.

I have now got to the end of my character-by-character exposition of Fukan-zazengi Shinpitsu-bon on my webpage at www.the-middle-way.org. I hope it might be useful not only to English-speakers but also perhaps to any French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Catalan or maybe even Chinese sitters out there who might be inspired to translate Fukan-zazengi into (or back into) their own language.

Follow the links to Fukan-zazengi on the right of your screen, and if there are any questions, please ask them here.

Get working, fellow lazy end-gaining bastards: get back to the origin ... character by character by character. Good luck!