Some stray thoughts from this morning – what a major difference there is between authentic and inauthentic existence. We allow ourselves to be very easily distracted by the body, i.e. by physical feelings and also by feelings that are less explicitly derived from the body but come from it nonetheless, like seeking comfort, entertainment and, especially, seeking distraction from engagement in everyday matters. I am amazed at the people who wander aimlessly round shopping centres, usually elderly but not always. I suppose they go home and sit in front of the television. I was suddenly reminded of the Zen story of the man chased by a tiger over the edge of a cliff. He grabbed for a vine growing there and hung suspended over the void. Below wild tigers prowled. A mouse came and began to gnaw at the vine. In spite of his desperate situation the man notices a delicious wild strawberry growing just within reach. He plucks it and popping it into his mouth, savours it.
It suddenly struck me that the aimless wanderers in shopping centres are like people wandering about at the edge of a cliff looking for wild strawberries and completely oblivious of the crumbling edge. The point of the Zen story for me is that recognition of the precarious and contingent nature of life does not mean that we are reduced to a state of terrified paralysis, or that the things that fill our lives are either of no significance, or value, or of supreme value. On the contrary, the mice, the crumbling edges, vines and the wild strawberries, are all extremely important but understanding what that importance is and how they relate to each other and how they relate to the void is another matter.
Walking in a dark desert is so difficult. There is nothing to be seen, no landmarks, nothing to measure progress by, if there has been any. Distractions are difficult to resist. This, of course is the raison d’être for the cadre of the monastic life.
Meanwhile we are on the brink of war, an economic crisis looms and the suffering of so many hangs over us like a cloud. To refer back to the Zen story, we have all become very aware of the crumbling edge of the cliff and that many, maybe millions, are going to be falling off it . The temptation to go in search of wild strawberries is almost irresistible because there is nothing an individual can do except add one more voice to the chorus of protest. Meanwhile the majority go off in search of strawberries – why languish in useless anguish when you can distract yourself. But, to think like this is to miss the point. The point is that, like Indra’s net, all is connected. Nothing happens that does not reverberate throughout the cosmos, not the slightest thing. This applies especially to us, straddling as we do the temporal and the eternal, every one, like the jewel in the net’s each eye, catching and reflecting back the good and the evil.