MOZO (2): Lying to Myself
In the autumn of 1998, shortly after being conned, primarily by myself, into receiving the transmission of the Buddha-Dharma, I was sitting opposite at dinner a very experienced virtuoso of piano playing and Alexander teaching, a woman of magical hands, named Nelly Ben-Or. I cannot remember exactly what Buddhist subject I was pontificating about but Nelly stopped me in my tracks by saying “You are lying to yourself.”
It was one of this pivotal moments in life that you don’t easily forget. I knew that there was no side to what Nelly was saying. She was simply calling it as she saw it, and I knew what she was saying was true.
So in the years since then I have been struggling to work out how it was that, in the process leading to my receiving the Buddha-Dharma, I turned the Buddha’s truth into its exact opposite, becoming a Buddhist liar, a fake, a poser.
Why does a person lie to himself? What caused me to lie to myself? What was the original root cause of me imitating an imitation elephant?
The original root cause of going wrong, as becomes increasingly clear the more one plays Marjory’s game of not moving out a leg and yet moving it, is an idea. The original root cause is an end-gaining idea.
Of course, the original root cause is also what Alexander called unreliable sensory appreciation. If our coordination were perfect, we could go around end-gaining all over the place and everything would be just tickety-boo... But our coordination is not perfect. Our senses are not to be trusted. And that being so, we can safely say that the orginal root cause of going wrong is an end-gaining idea.
So what was the root idea that caused the habit to arise in me of not being true to myself?
As I have mentioned on this blog before, I think the original root idea that causes me to go wrong is the idea of my own unique specialness. It is this root idea that has made me vulnerable to anybody who led me to believe that they also thought I was The Special One.
This deeply rooted idea in myself may also be why, following the mirror principle, I am bothered by the old testament notion of a chosen people.
I remember once Marjory saying to me, “I am nobody. Who are you?”
She said it under the guise of quoting an Emily Dickinson poem, but actually she was just looking me in the eye and asking/telling me something.
Marjory had my number from the moment I walked through her door. I think she saw me as a typical case of the oldest-child syndrome, but with a few added barnacles to boot -- mainly Buddhist barnacles.
About 20 years ago, Gudo Nishijima told me that “If you can transcend family life, you will be the most excellent Buddhist master in the world.”
“The best in the world.” The Japanese like to discuss SEKAI-ICHI, “World no. 1.” DOGEN ZENJI -- NIHON-ICHI DAKARA SEKAI-ICHI, “Zen Mastaa Dogen -- nambaa 1 Zen mastaa in Japan, zerefore nambaa 1 Zen mastaa in za worudo!”
“Buddhist” is another dubious concept, as are all concepts ending in -ist.
And “master”: master of what? In Fukan-zazengi the virtue that is praised above all others is stillness. But
is stillness something that a person masters? Surely, it is the other way round, isn’t it? Isn’t it the stillness that catches a person?
What Gudo told me he told me in all sincerity, in all stupidity. Gudo was just being Gudo. Responsibity for my bad reaction to that stimulus rested with me. And my reaction to that stimulus was bad, has been bad, and continues to be bad.... except in those rare moments when I am able to give up the idea of being somebody special. Lying on Marjory’s teaching table not moving a leg, for example, I have experienced such a moment.
What I mean by bad reaction is, in the words which Alexander used to describe it, a tendency to stiffen the neck, pull the head into the body, shorten the spine, and arch and narrow the back, thereby restricting the breath. In other words, to experience bad reaction is to be caught in the horns of the original fear dilemna -- fear paralysis vs fight or flight. In other words it is the dialectic opposite of one’s original features emerging: it is fearful subjugation of one’s true self for the sake of an idea. It is not the liberated state of a dragon finding water; it is the fixed state of a person playing statues, a fake elephant.
Even if by obediently following the dictats of a so-called “Buddhist patriarch,” I had assumed the name and form of nambaa 1 Zen mastaa in za worudo, if that meant not being true to myself, what would be the point of that?
And yet, the idea of being annointed as the special one is not so easy to give up. Its roots go deep in me. Some part of me, a large part of me, would like to have remained in denial, continuing to keep a distance between what the Japanese call HONNE, the inner reality, vs TATEMAE, the principle one subscribes to officially, superficially, formally. I wouldn’t have minded, in short, continuing to do a bit of playing the fake elephant.
But that is just how Marjory and Nelly taught me not to be.
Only to the extent that I am able to give up the idea that puts me wrong, do I become free. Only to the extent that I am able to give up the idea that puts me wrong, can my body get itself out. That, in a nutshell, is the teaching that true teachers have endeavored to transmit to me. It is the secret of lying, sitting, standing, and walking in freedom. It is the secret of swimming without stress. It is the secret of sitting in the full lotus posture, bowing, breathing out, swaying, and just sitting truly at ease.
To give up my end-gaining idea is to be like a dragon that found water. But how to give it up, I honestly do not know. Whatever tactic I come up with, it always turn out to have been just another bit of fake elephantery.
In principle, the black dragon’s pearl exists just under my own chin. But in practice my process for the past ten years or so seems to have been one primarily of struggling to make friends with, and getting to know more deeply, a fake elephant.
KOINEGAWAKUWA SANGAKU NO KORU HISASHIKU MOZO NI NARATTE SHINRYO O AYASHIMU KOTO NAKARE.
“Noble school of people who learn from experience: after long ages studying under fake elephants, please do not doubt the true dragon.”
It was one of this pivotal moments in life that you don’t easily forget. I knew that there was no side to what Nelly was saying. She was simply calling it as she saw it, and I knew what she was saying was true.
So in the years since then I have been struggling to work out how it was that, in the process leading to my receiving the Buddha-Dharma, I turned the Buddha’s truth into its exact opposite, becoming a Buddhist liar, a fake, a poser.
Why does a person lie to himself? What caused me to lie to myself? What was the original root cause of me imitating an imitation elephant?
The original root cause of going wrong, as becomes increasingly clear the more one plays Marjory’s game of not moving out a leg and yet moving it, is an idea. The original root cause is an end-gaining idea.
Of course, the original root cause is also what Alexander called unreliable sensory appreciation. If our coordination were perfect, we could go around end-gaining all over the place and everything would be just tickety-boo... But our coordination is not perfect. Our senses are not to be trusted. And that being so, we can safely say that the orginal root cause of going wrong is an end-gaining idea.
So what was the root idea that caused the habit to arise in me of not being true to myself?
As I have mentioned on this blog before, I think the original root idea that causes me to go wrong is the idea of my own unique specialness. It is this root idea that has made me vulnerable to anybody who led me to believe that they also thought I was The Special One.
This deeply rooted idea in myself may also be why, following the mirror principle, I am bothered by the old testament notion of a chosen people.
I remember once Marjory saying to me, “I am nobody. Who are you?”
She said it under the guise of quoting an Emily Dickinson poem, but actually she was just looking me in the eye and asking/telling me something.
Marjory had my number from the moment I walked through her door. I think she saw me as a typical case of the oldest-child syndrome, but with a few added barnacles to boot -- mainly Buddhist barnacles.
About 20 years ago, Gudo Nishijima told me that “If you can transcend family life, you will be the most excellent Buddhist master in the world.”
“The best in the world.” The Japanese like to discuss SEKAI-ICHI, “World no. 1.” DOGEN ZENJI -- NIHON-ICHI DAKARA SEKAI-ICHI, “Zen Mastaa Dogen -- nambaa 1 Zen mastaa in Japan, zerefore nambaa 1 Zen mastaa in za worudo!”
“Buddhist” is another dubious concept, as are all concepts ending in -ist.
And “master”: master of what? In Fukan-zazengi the virtue that is praised above all others is stillness. But
is stillness something that a person masters? Surely, it is the other way round, isn’t it? Isn’t it the stillness that catches a person?
What Gudo told me he told me in all sincerity, in all stupidity. Gudo was just being Gudo. Responsibity for my bad reaction to that stimulus rested with me. And my reaction to that stimulus was bad, has been bad, and continues to be bad.... except in those rare moments when I am able to give up the idea of being somebody special. Lying on Marjory’s teaching table not moving a leg, for example, I have experienced such a moment.
What I mean by bad reaction is, in the words which Alexander used to describe it, a tendency to stiffen the neck, pull the head into the body, shorten the spine, and arch and narrow the back, thereby restricting the breath. In other words, to experience bad reaction is to be caught in the horns of the original fear dilemna -- fear paralysis vs fight or flight. In other words it is the dialectic opposite of one’s original features emerging: it is fearful subjugation of one’s true self for the sake of an idea. It is not the liberated state of a dragon finding water; it is the fixed state of a person playing statues, a fake elephant.
Even if by obediently following the dictats of a so-called “Buddhist patriarch,” I had assumed the name and form of nambaa 1 Zen mastaa in za worudo, if that meant not being true to myself, what would be the point of that?
And yet, the idea of being annointed as the special one is not so easy to give up. Its roots go deep in me. Some part of me, a large part of me, would like to have remained in denial, continuing to keep a distance between what the Japanese call HONNE, the inner reality, vs TATEMAE, the principle one subscribes to officially, superficially, formally. I wouldn’t have minded, in short, continuing to do a bit of playing the fake elephant.
But that is just how Marjory and Nelly taught me not to be.
Only to the extent that I am able to give up the idea that puts me wrong, do I become free. Only to the extent that I am able to give up the idea that puts me wrong, can my body get itself out. That, in a nutshell, is the teaching that true teachers have endeavored to transmit to me. It is the secret of lying, sitting, standing, and walking in freedom. It is the secret of swimming without stress. It is the secret of sitting in the full lotus posture, bowing, breathing out, swaying, and just sitting truly at ease.
To give up my end-gaining idea is to be like a dragon that found water. But how to give it up, I honestly do not know. Whatever tactic I come up with, it always turn out to have been just another bit of fake elephantery.
In principle, the black dragon’s pearl exists just under my own chin. But in practice my process for the past ten years or so seems to have been one primarily of struggling to make friends with, and getting to know more deeply, a fake elephant.
KOINEGAWAKUWA SANGAKU NO KORU HISASHIKU MOZO NI NARATTE SHINRYO O AYASHIMU KOTO NAKARE.
“Noble school of people who learn from experience: after long ages studying under fake elephants, please do not doubt the true dragon.”
posted by Mike Cross at 9:51 AM
6 Comments:
Mike,
Everyone wants to believe they are special. It's what their parents taught them. That doesn't mean it's accurate.
Most people spend the rest of their lives as if it were true and go to great lengths to prove it.
Some men and a room taught me just how not-special I was. It was like finding out that Santa wasn't real. There could be no more pretending from that point on.
Meanwhile, I know that if I want to eventually bed a certain Miss Pierce I wont do it by telling her that she is just like all the other women and that she is nothing special.
No, instead she wants (like everyone) to hear how special and wonderful she is and she is liable to be quite willing to sleep with a guy who lets her go on believing that. So maybe I should leave the Dharma talk until breakfast...
Great post Mr. Cross.
As I've said before, the honesty in your blog is worth more to me than 8 million statements of "ultimate reality" made by dead zen masters.
Mike, you often speak of that moment when a leg moves, not because you're thinking "I'm going to move my leg", but because the leg simply moves.
I would equate this to the moment just prior to thought where decision making occurs. In other words, before we think, "I'm going to go get a sandwich," and move to do so--we already KNOW we are going to get the sandwich.
There is a decision making process that occurs prior to thought, and then thought labels those decisions.
So it would seem to me that being able to move ones leg without thinking, and yet KNOW that we are moving our leg. By practicing this way of moving, we come more into contact with our REAL decision making apparatus, without being confused by the thoughts that might be intertwined.
Is this similar to what you are driving at?
Thank you, Mike Doe, for a perceptive and thought-provoking comment.
If I reacted against what I perceive in your words as a tendency towards psychological exploitation of others and towards seeing an attractive woman as primarily an object of sexual desire, that would say something about what I feared I myself might be like.
I think every pimp knows the secret of how to turn a woman into a prostitute. But the teaching of Fukan-zazengi is pointing in exactly the opposite direction, whereby a prostitute can become a woman again, and a pimp can give up being a pimp.
I think that Master Dogen wrote Fukan-zazengi very much with women in mind. The FU of FUKAN-ZAZENGI means not only male monks and not only laymen, but also women. Going further, I think that not only women but also even pimps are included in the target audience of Fukan-zazengi.
Thanks Aaron,
The essence of Marjory’s game, as I understand it, is to make a definite decision to do something -- it could be joining hands and bowing -- and then see to what extent it is possible not to react to the idea of doing it. This part of the work is wholly preventive -- not doing the wrong thing, not stimulating those wrong inner patterns of stiffening, fixing, twisting down, contracting, of subtly arranging oneself, organizing oneself, trying to be right, aiming to be buddha. One repeatedly comes back to the decision to act and at the same time repeatedly gives up the idea of acting in order to stop the wrong reaction off at source. And then, at some point, the action is performed. On a good day, the action is allowed to perform itself -- a practice sometimes called “non-doing” or “letting It do it.”
Alexander called the whole thing an exercise in finding out what thinking is.
Eminent people have said that what Alexander discovered in the field you are interested in -- around REAL decision-making -- was as important as anything Einstein and the like discovered in the realm of external science.
And, incidentally, although Alexander himself was not Jewish, a disproportionate number of Alexander teachers are Jewish, and Israel is a hot-bed of Alexander teaching. Why should that be so? Maybe you can tell me. I think it has something to do with a tendency in Jewish culture to inquire into the fundamental laws of human existence, without and within.
Mike C:
Indeed.
But it was the best illustration that I could think of.
The problem is that I could not actually do such a thing because like you say it is exploitation and in my view of the worst kind. To exploit another's sufferings for your own perceived personal gain and in the end increase both their sufferings and yours.
Like you say there is another way.
Mike (Cross),
And i say this with a smile--you seem to know more about what's going on with Jews and Israel then I do--so I'll take your theory for what it's worth.
I dont worry or concern myself with what "the jews" are doing, or what "the arabs" or protestants are doing.
Believe me, i have my prejudices, but they dont keep me awake at night.
I tend to worry more about my health.
Aaron
PS. Thats what most neurotic jews worry about anyway.
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