"Teaching is impossible." An excerpt from The Wooden Bowl book.

People often make spirituality into something complex, argumentative, esoteric. They consider there's a right and wrong way to meditate, to worship, to live life. 

I used to be one of those people. I'm a lot less dogmatic now. 

Recently, like today, which is pretty damn recent, I've been both entertained and bemused by a rash of comments on this blog where people have been arguing about this and that. 

I enjoy those sorts of interchanges. Except when I don't. 

In those latter times, I try to remind myself of how simple spirituality can be. And how it really isn't necessary to bring in that often-contentious word, spirituality. 

Why not just say, how simple life can be.

I've started reading The Wooden Bowl, a book recommended to me by a visitor to this blog who emails me interesting messages about what's going on in his life from time to time. 

It's out of print, but I found a used copy on Amazon that cost me just a few bucks. It took a while to arrive by media mail, but it was worth the wait. 

I really like the down-to-earth approach to meditation, and life, that the author, Clark Strand, describes. Here's the first chapter, "Teaching is Impossible."

"Meditation cannot be taught." So said my first teacher, Deh Chun, an elderly Chinese hermit who lived the last years of his life in Monteagle, Tennessee. "Only learning is possible," he said, "sometimes."

What he meant was that meditation can only be practiced. If it is taught, then, by definition, what is taught is not really meditation at all, but something else. Some method or philosophy, but not meditation itself.

When I consider the years of our association, the most remarkable thing is that I cannot recall any particular thing I learned from him. I can't point to a particular conversation we had and say, "Well, you know, then Deh Chun said such and such and everything was clear."

At the time, nothing was clear. When I think back on it now, I realize that his entire teaching consisted of being in the present moment, with nothing else whatsoever added on.

Being with Deh Chun was like dropping through a hole in everything that the world said was important -- education, progress, money, sex, prestige. It was like discovering that nothing else mattered and all I needed was now -- the moment -- to survive. 

Sitting there in the little house, listening to the water boil, to the twigs crackling in the wood stove, I was temporarily removed from the game. That was the genius of his teaching, that he could bring forth that transformation without even saying a word.

His was a state of complete simplicity. Like water, the direction of his life was downward, always seeking lower ground. When I met him he lived in a ramshackle two-room house heated by a wood stove the size of a typewriter. There was no furniture, only a few turned-over crates and several cardboard boxes in which he kept his clothes.

His bed consisted of two sawhorses on top of which he had placed a 3 x 5 sheet of plywood. and a piece of packing foam. I remember thinking once that this bed suited him perfectly, his body was so light and small.

A similar structure in the other room served as a desk for writing letters and for painting his ink-wash Chinese landscapes. Propped against the back door were spades, a shovel, and a rake, tools he used to tend a plot of land the size of two king-size beds laid end to end.

With the exception of tea, soybeans, peanut butter, molasses, and occasional wheat-flour, whatever he ate came from there.

We would sit in his little house without saying much of anything. Early on I learned that he was not disposed to give instruction in any formal way. He would serve me lunch, or sometimes breakfast if I'd managed to get there early enough, and then I'd wash up. 

Afterward we would talk about his garden, or more likely we would remain silent for a long while and then it would be time to leave.

Nowadays, in books on meditation, it has become standard practice to say that your teacher was a mirror that allowed you to see your true self. But that was not my experience with Deh Chun. It was more like floating weightless on the Dead Sea and looking up at an empty sky.

There was a feeling of tremendous peace and freedom, but that was all. I didn't know anything after I was done. Trying to pin him down on some aspect of meditation was as pointless as trying to drive a stake through the air. He taught one thing and one thing only, and that he taught to perfection: meditation happens now.

After the first few visits to his house, I realized nothing pivotal was going to happen, but I kept returning anyway without knowing what it was about him that held my attention.

I was a college student, and fairly typical of other nineteen-year-olds in that I was not particularly interested in spending time with someone four times my age. Especially someone who by ordinary standards was little better than a bum.

Deh Chun was completely simple. He lived on fifty dollars a month. He was a Buddhist monk who never spoke of Buddhism, an accomplished landscape painter who never sold his work. He wore only secondhand clothes and was without pretension of any kind. 

Long after his death, it is finally clear to me that he taught only by example. 

Recently, a friend of mind said of a certain Catholic priest, "He practices what he preaches, so he doesn't have to preach so loud." Deh Chun practiced so well he didn't have to preach at all. 

Comments

[Turan]

For me, if spirituality was to be explained - then this does it. This reflection on simplicity leaves little to say.

[Jesse]

In tea culture there is cha tao. And in cha tao there are people who become "saints" of sorts (though without any of the pretense associated with saints in formal religions) to a small number of people. These saint-like people are often given some amount of attention because they are, simply put, really chill and make tea well.

The Chinese are onto something.

[manjit]

This is a beautiful post, thanks. Very Dzogchen. And it is so.

In regards your comment "Recently, like today, which is pretty damn recent, I've been both entertained and bemused by a rash of comments on this blog where people have been arguing about this and that.
I enjoy those sorts of interchanges. Except when I don't.
In those latter times, I try to remind myself of how simple spirituality can be. And how it really isn't necessary to bring in that often-contentious word, spirituality. "

It is worth bearing in mind this is a blog with many comments. If we're not using concepts to communicate, then we're not communicating!

Sometimes people want to discuss concepts, sometimes they don't, these are the natural ebbs and flow of life. Intellect is useful on the meditation or "spiritual" path but only until it is exhausted, before it realises it has reached it's limit & surrenders....admits it's unknowingness.

To remove a thorn, sometimes a thorn must be used. So it is with intellect. Overwhelm the intellect with intellect until it is silenced.

It seems you have reached that space in your recent blog posts.

Lovely. :)

"I have passed 93 years of my life. I walked on this path to find God. Now, I know it was all my misapprehension (bharam). He was present with me all the time, I was mistaken.

Kabir has said: A fish thirsty in water

I find this analogy very funny.

The goal of meditation (abhyas) is to confirm the idea (belief) that God is not (and never was) separate from you. What did I gain (find) from abhyas and satsang? The realisation that this sense of separation was just an illusion.

You should still your mind rather than seeing visions internally."
Faqir Chand's Illuminations, letter to Harjit Singh.

Beautiful!

[777]

-

Ye,
Like when searching the keys of your Lamborghini while they are in yr hand

While not cumming because U follow a football match on TV

Nice

777

-

[Jen]

Brian you say: "I've been both entertained and bemused by a rash of comments on this blog where people have been arguing about this and that. I enjoy those sorts of interchanges. Except when I don't."

Now there is this post about "Teaching is impossible" and here is a quote from the author... "There was a feeling of tremendous peace and freedom, but that was all".

Made me think, hmm, I enjoyed reading the flurry of differing opinions which kept me very entertained and also learning from these very interesting and knowledgable people commenting here.

Now I am wondering about whether peace and freedom and nothingness would feel so great if we did not have the opposite happening in our lives as well. Life seems to be all about duality.

Can't help myself, have to put a quote because I don't have the literary skills you guys have...

"Without recognising duality, we are missing out on one of the most profound learning tools available. Duality teaches us that every aspect of life is created from a balanced interaction of opposite and competing forces. Yet these forces are not just opposites; they are complementary."

[Tim Rimmer]

Great post Brian

Simpler has got to be good. Captured well Turan. The way the interaction and association is described is really cool and I remember and appreciate that some beings are especially amazing to hang out with. As Dungeness and tucson (apologies for misspelling your name the other day) recently stated we are already ‘it’. The ocean not the drop. What happens however, (quite often :-)) is that mental activity keeps us thinking we’re the latter and not the former. So why not just more often remember ourselves as the former not the latter? Easier and less confusing than clinging to a system of beliefs that tells us we are ‘separated’ and need to go ‘somewhere’? Mind you if you can practice mindfulness(is there a better term?) and always be present here and now 24/7 one is pretty much enlightened in my view - I guess this must also include having such awareness through the sleep states as well?

A friend lent me an interesting small hardback book the other day. ‘An introduction to Yoga’ by Annie Besant 1908 edition i.e. quite old! Putting aside subsequent history re the Theosophical Society, she talks of the ‘unfolding of consciousness’, a description that sits well with me. Over the years, I feel like I’ve moved in a somewhat circular fashion to now more fully appreciate how I used to view consciousness in earlier days - connected, dynamic, supportive, expansive, evolving. People talk of the long and short paths - some of us can just surrender and be ‘there’ others have to do some traversing before we can get a better grasp of the ‘what is’. Sant Mat has obviously played its part for many of us. I acknowledge this. However it’s (SM - RSSB) reliance on tales of separate souIs, spiritual hierarchies etc just doesn’t make sense anymore - to me the ‘soul’ relates to the totality of consciousness and therefore cannot be a separate entity. I agree with Fakir Chand’s view as stated the other day by Manjit (amongst all the RSSB to-ings and fro-ings) - the majority of visions/experiences are all within the mental sphere. From memory, RSSB alludes to this in the teachings - the physical/astral/causal planes are all within the realm of the mind, so to then must also be radiant forms and the like. Getting a handle on thinking and minimising identification with mind is key in my view. Simplifying our lives helps. Some form of meditation is required.

PS - Manjit - I remember discussing Giordano Bruno in a Philosophy of Science class - wasn’t he the monk who espoused the heliocentric theory some time before Galileo (and got burned at the stake?).

[777]

TIM WROTE :
such awareness through the sleep states as well?

YEEEEES

777

[manjit]

Hey Tim, brilliant & thoughtful post, thanks for sharing!

Yes, you more or less have Bruno's story there. Heliocentric theory had been theorised many hundreds of year prior by some Greek or other, and others too. However, he believed in & espoused it based on his occult learning ("Hermetic") & experiences, not some sort of "scientific" process as is suggested by some modern ideologues like Neil Tyson.

He was an interesting fellow, here's some random links about his life that I've skimmed, seem to cover much of it:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2923698/

https://www.nettlesgarden.com/2018/02/17/giordano-bruno-rebel-monk-wandering-magician/

Cheers! :)

Manjit