Sixteen

Attempted manslaughter and doing some shopping

It was a winter evening, a long time ago. My father had a fire burning in the grate, and was sitting in his armchair watching the flames. I had brought home two guests for the weekend, friends of my own age, nineteen or twenty years old.

“And what would you like to become?”

“A merchant,” one of my friends said. “A merchant in the old style. With a business in a seventeenth-century house, and a warehouse with a hoist to be worked by hand so that I could have some exercise. An office with old beams supporting the ceiling. And goods which can be exported so that I could go on a journey every now and then. To smoke cigars and to approach people in a friendly jocular way. To grow a little fat maybe. To be solid. A watch chain. To have mail, every day, from all parts of the world. To trade in some speciality.”

My father nodded and looked pleased.

“A writer,” my other friend said. “To travel all over the world, carrying one suitcase and a typewriter. To live on a yacht in the Mediterranean. To publish a book every now and then which produces enough money to finance another trip. And a loft in Amsterdam, and a beautiful woman sometimes.”

My father nodded again but he hesitated and he didn’t look very pleased.

“And you?”

Perhaps I said it to annoy him, perhaps I meant it. I said I would like to be a hermit, that I wanted to meditate in seclusion, in a cave or in a small hut in a forest, for months or even years on end. To detach myself from everything, to be free, especially free of myself, of the restless monkey-like jumping about, free of being excited now by this, now by that. And then to find the real peace which should exist somewhere in every man: the great silence.

My father grunted.

“Something ridiculous, of course,” he said. “Very nice and most extraordinary, but a dream and no more. You’ll never be able to do it. You can’t be still and by yourself. What you could try is doing something you find on the way. To sit, alone, in a cave, for years on end. Ha!”

Perhaps my father was right.

Not only would I have been a miserable failure as a hermit, and rushed from the cave or the forest to start moving about sadly in the “world”; here, in the monastery, in spite of the pushing of advanced disciples and the pulling of an everlastingly encouraging master, I couldn’t be exactly proud of my progress.

There was, as a daily beginning, the endless fight against laziness. That I had to get up so early hardly mattered. I would have had the same difficulties if I had had to get up at seven instead of three o’clock. Every morning it was the same: my alarm went off, I pressed the button and went back to sleep. Then Peter came in, put me on my feet, sleeping bag and all, hit me gently in the face, waited till the sleeping bag had slid down, and then pushed me to the bathroom.

I kept on submitting to this treatment till I began to feel really humiliated and my pride forced me to be clever. I placed the alarm on my chest of drawers, well out of reach, and made myself get up that way. The trick paid off. After that I did sleep late a few times, but I don’t think I was to blame then. I was probably too exhausted to wake up and couldn’t hear the alarm. But even this success gave little reason for pride. I did get up, and also I meditated regularly, and cleaned the house, but not out of my own free will. I kept to the rules because my environment expected me to keep the rules, because I was being supervised. Voluntarily I did nothing at all, except study Japanese, and I was spending more time on this study than my program allowed for.

I was, and the discovery pleased me, no exception. Peter had a Zen monk from another part of Japan to stay at the house. What the monk was supposed to do in Kyoto I don’t know, but he came to stay for ten days and he was given a room to himself in the back of the house. He told me that he had joined a monastery because his father and relatives wanted him to, and that he had stayed on after the prescribed three years were over as he wanted to continue his koan study. Because of that he had the same status as I could claim: he was a volunteer, a really interested party.

Every morning he stayed in his room till about 10 o’clock. Aha, I thought, he must be meditating. He gets up, just like we do, at 3 a.m. but he is so advanced that he doesn’t even bother about a cup of tea and a quick wash; no, he sits down, and meditates for seven hours on end.

Then I heard him snoring one morning. I went to have a look and found him fast asleep. Near his cushions I saw a couple of books, novels by the look of them, and a full ashtray. So he was reading till the early hours and slept till deep in the morning, exactly what I would do if nobody bothered about me.

“You are not meditating, are you?” I asked him when we were raking the garden together.

“I do in the monastery,” the monk said. “There I meditate during the prescribed hours and also by myself, in the garden, or in my room, for at least an hour a day.”

I looked at him.

“Yes,” the monk said, “it isn’t as it should be. But that’s the way it always is; when I’m not in the monastery I don’t practise. I would like to meditate and try to be aware all the time, and try to do everything as well as I possibly can, and be detached and all that, but I forget everything. I read, and I smoke, and I eat, and I sleep a lot.”

“Doesn’t your conscience bother you?”

“It does,” said the monk, and got busy again with his rake. I had wanted to ask him if he had solved his koan, but I thought better of it. Anything to do with koans is dangerous ground. If he said “no” it might mean that he had solved his koan. And if he said “yes” he might be trying to show off. And whatever he said, it wouldn’t bring me any closer to solving my koan.

Traditionally Zen monasteries will only admit wandering Zen monks if they can show proof of having solved a koan.

It seems that a monk once knocked on a monastery gate. The monk who opened the gate didn’t say “Hello” or “Good morning”, but “Show me your original face, the face you had before your father and mother were born.” The monk who wanted a room for the night smiled, pulled a sandal off his foot and hit his questioner in the face with it. The other monk stepped back, bowed respectfully and bade the visitor welcome. After dinner host and guest started a conversation, and the host complimented his guest on his splendid answer.

“Do you yourself know the answer to the koan you gave me?” the guest asked.

“No,” answered the host, “but I knew that your answer was right. You didn’t hesitate for a moment. It came out quite spontaneously. It agreed exactly with everything I have ever heard or read about Zen.”

The guest didn’t say anything, and sipped his tea. Suddenly the host became suspicious. There was something in the face of his guest which he didn’t like.

“You do know the answer, don’t you?” he asked.

The guest began to laugh and finally rolled over on the mat with mirth.

“No, reverend brother,” he said, “but I too have read a lot and heard a lot about Zen.”

During my last visit to Leo Marks, when I had been wined and dined again, read another book by van Gulik, and been driven about in his limousine, he had given me a foot high antique wooden statue of a Zen master in meditation. I placed the statue on a special table in my room, burned incense sticks for it, and used this altar, which I decorated with flowers and fruit, as a support for my training. The depicted master had a stern expression on his face and sat rigidly in the lotus position, but he did spread a certain measure of comfort and rest. He symbolized so I thought, my own attempts, for everything in the monastery connected with my training had been created by others while this statue had been installed by myself, as proof of the striving of my own soul, even if that soul did not exist.

The statue also helped when, at the end of a long day, I returned to my room. The little master would welcome me with his glass eyes. A little kindness wouldn’t be wasted, for Peter seemed to grab any occasion to criticise, and often corrected me when others were present. I made, so he said, too much noise when washing up. I allowed tools to lie about in the garden. I left crumbs on the kitchen floor. I made a mess in the bathroom. I didn’t park my “Rabbit” in the right place. I forgot to close the doors.

I didn’t protest, I didn’t argue, and I didn’t go for his throat. It may have been fear, for he was strong and he had an overpowering personality. But it may also have been because I kept on trying to remember that (a) Peter was only obeying orders, he did what the master had told him to do and I might use this criticism to better my being and thereby empty my being so that I could realize the Buddha nature, and that way achieve satori, and (b) nothing is important enough to get upset about.

(b) was more help than (a). With (a) I had some trouble because it went dead against my former way of thinking. As a child and as a boy I had consciously, so far as a child or a boy can be conscious, tried to go against authority. As soon as I had to face criticism I told myself that whoever was supplying criticism had to be wrong, whether he was a parent, a teacher or some other official bearer of truth, and wrong a priori. I had come to this conclusion by reasoning that the world in which I found myself was wrong; it was a world filled with injustice and greed, and its inhabitants were murdering, exploiting and torturing each other in many different ways. Anyone who tried to force me to accept this world, whatever method he might be using, could not be right for he was trying to make me accept the unacceptable, and the only way I could save my soul was through anarchy, by trying to destroy the establishment, hoping that something better would grow out of its ruins. Another reason I may have had was that I liked destruction. It seemed more fun than building ugly concrete castles, consisting of money, fame, power and other illusory nonsense which would come to nothing anyway but were grim and forbidding while they lasted. And if I couldn’t destroy, I could at least resist.

But now I could no longer resist. I even had to cooperate, as consciously as possible, because this would be the way which would lead me to a point where injustice and greed would be unmasked, as divine or mystic apparitions, useful illusions once I recognize them as illusions.

A moment came when I was busy cutting meat in the kitchen, using a long, very sharp knife. We had a visitor that day, one of Peter’s pupils, a Japanese girl who took singing lessons at the school of music where Peter taught. I thought she was a lovely girl and wanted to make an impression. I knew she was coming that day, and I knew who she was, as we had met before. I had prepared myself by putting on a shirt which I thought would look well on me, brushing my hair and shaving carefully, and I had been aware that I had been doing all this to make an impression. Everything had been done consciously: I had been proud of my awareness, aware of my pride, and proud of that awareness again. It went on like this: how clever I am that I know I am so stupid, how stupid I am to think that I am clever, and how clever I am that I am aware of my stupidity, etc.

But while I was busy cutting the meat Peter made a humiliating remark. I can’t remember what it was, perhaps he told me to hurry up or pointed out something which I had forgotten. It wasn’t so much what he said as the way he said it, for his way of talking was often cutting and derisive. He, the master, I, the slave, the little servant, the tenderfoot supposed to help the experienced wizard—but the tenderfoot couldn’t do anything right. Frustrated humiliations surged up in me and erupted in a burst of anger which flashed right through me. I don’t believe I raised the arm which held the knife, but I did twist my arm so that the knife pointed his way and there must have been a murderously nasty expression on my face for the girl stepped back and Peter approached me as if he was going close to a vicious dog. He spoke to me, using soft and pleasant words, and my hand relaxed a little so that the knife fell on the floor. When I served lunch I dropped two plates, but Peter said nothing while I gathered up the pieces. I have the impression that his attitude towards me changed from that day, and his method became more positive. Rather than jumping on me when I did something wrong he would praise me when I tried to do something well. Gerald followed this new adventure with interest. He had never been an intimate friend of Peter’s but now that I was staying in Peter’s house he came to see us regularly. During the weekends he would meditate next to me on the veranda and Peter sometimes joined us. We would sit “formally,” and even use a temple bell which we rang at twenty-five minute intervals.

“You’re raving mad,” Gerald said, one afternoon when he had dropped in unexpectedly and we were having coffee together in the moss garden. “Why do you submit to this guy? Do you think it will get you anywhere?”

“I think so,” I said. “It’s part of the training, and since the master thought of this arrangement, I can assume that the master knows what he’s doing.”

“Hmmm,” Gerald said. “I wouldn’t be able to do it. I should leave. I can put up with self-discipline, but they mustn’t push me around. But perhaps you need this type of treatment, maybe you’ll get self-discipline this way—for one thing is certain, you haven’t got it. If they put you in a house by yourself you would just mess about.”

“Thank you kindly,” I said, “Peter is friendlier than you are.”

“Nonsense,” said Gerald and gave me a cigarette. “I am your friend, he is your boss. If a friend makes an unpleasant remark it’s all right.”

I began to realize that I should never be able to solve the koan, although I was quite convinced that the koan did have an answer. My visits to the master had degenerated into a dumb silence on my side. I had given all the answers I could think of, so what else could I do? I went because the visits were part of the daily routine, because I enjoyed riding through the silent city, because I admired the master, and out of irritation. He knew the answer, I did not know the answer. Every morning I saw a man who knew all the answers, sitting on a little platform, an old man with slanting eyes and pouring out strength.

My lack of a result didn’t depress me. I was far too busy digesting the new impressions of my life with Peter, with the many different tasks of which my life consisted, and which in themselves were all exercises. Best of all I liked the daily shopping. Before the scooter arrived I would walk, every morning, through a narrow street formed by many stalls, jostling each other for space. I bought vegetables, meat, tea and all sorts of Japanese specialities which formed, because they were cheap, part of our daily menu. I carried a basket on my arm but I only felt ridiculous the first day. The shopkeepers didn’t laugh, and the general friendliness which I encountered everywhere put me at ease. When I had the scooter I would ride her slowly through the street and the stallholders would put my purchases, very carefully, in the basket which I had tied behind me. Everyone knew what and how much I needed, and kept small change ready so that I could pay quickly. The quiet rhythm of this daily trip fascinated me and every day I tried to perfect the many small activities which were part of this practice. I think it was one of the very few at which I became more or less an adept.

But while I amused myself with novelties, Gerald had reached a dip in the path, and seemed very depressed. His eyes were dull, he began to walk in a slouching manner and his conversations were toneless and negative. To cheer him up I told him a story which I had heard Peter tell some time ago, when I was still living in the monastery.

Once a Zen monk drew attention to himself by his supreme diligence. He got up earlier than the other monks, spent more time on meditation, sang the sutras with concentrated awareness, excelled at playing the temple drum, never lost his temper and tried to do everything as well as possible. He behaved like this for a number of years and was made head monk. One morning, when he was walking in the temple garden, he admitted to himself that he had spent sixteen years in the monastery and that he hadn’t solved his koan, his first koan, the Mu-koan. The other monks, and most of them had spent only three years in the monastery, had not only solved the Mu-koan but many other koans as well. He was the only one who had never shown any progress, real progress, for all his other achievements didn’t count.

He had, of course, thought of this before, but he had never allowed himself to become depressed. Buddhism, when practised well, creates two feelings, two pillars on which the Buddhist life is built. It creates compassion, and it creates detachment. To be detached is to be free. To be free leads to equanimity. But now, after sixteen years of continuous trying, the whole thing became too much for him. “A moment will come,” the monk reflected, “when one has to admit failure. My monastic training has lead to nothing. I have wasted sixteen years. And if this is true, I am leaving.”

He went to the master’s room and, without asking for permission to enter, strolled up to where the master was sitting and said “Master, I am off.” The master looked at him. He didn’t seem surprised or disappointed. He nodded and said that the monk should do as he thought best. The monk gathered his few belongings and left the monastery. He found a deserted temple in the mountains, moved in, and gave up all further attempts to solve his koan. He got up at six in the morning, worked in the garden, repaired part of the roof so that it stopped leaking and fixed the sagging floor, and twice a week he went to the nearest village to beg for a little rice and money. He didn’t give up Buddhism, for he still believed that Buddha had successfully finished the eightfold path, but he was sure that he, the monk, would never go that far and so he stopped caring. He intended to live the rest of his life in complete indifference, without being irritated by master or koan.

After a few months the monk was sweeping the courtyard of his temple and his broom struck a pebble which shot against the bamboo fence, making a sharp sound. This unexpected sound broke something in the being of the monk and suddenly he knew the answer to his koan. He dropped the broom, ran all the way to the city, and arrived panting at the monastery gate where he found the master waiting for him.

“Yes,” Gerald said, “and not only had he solved his first koan but he knew all answers to all koans and he lived long and happily. He became a Zen master and he had many disciples. But I also know a story, about another monk, not so long ago. This monk was given a modern version of an ancient koan. The ancient koan is ‘Stop a wild horse which is charging straight at you’; the modern version says ‘stop the Inter-city train coming from Tokyo.’ Do you know what this monk did?” Gerald asked. “I’ll tell you what this monk did. He meditated for years and years on this train, and one day he walked to the tracks and threw himself at the Inter-city coming from Tokyo. And in one split second there was nothing left of him and he was quite dead.”

I must have looked startled, and got up to go to my room.

“Wait,” Gerald said, “I know another real life story. In Tokyo there are some Zen monasteries as well. In one of these monasteries, quite recently you know, last year, or the year before, there was a Zen monk who happened to be very conceited. He refused to listen to whatever the master was trying to tell him and used the early morning interviews with the master to air all his pet theories. The masters have a special stick for this type of pupil. Our master has one, too, you will have seen it, a short thick stick. One morning the master hit the monk so hard that the monk didn’t get up any more. He couldn’t, because he was dead.”

“Isn’t that against the law?” I asked.

“Law, what law?” Gerald said. “The head monk reported the incident to the police, but the master was never charged. Even the police know that there is an extraordinary relationship between master and pupil, a relationship outside the law.”

When Gerald started his motorcycle and rode slowly through the gate I understood that I hadn’t cheered him up.