Interesting article on Robert Aitken Roshi (Zen)

Cloud

Just got done reading a 4-page article about Zen master Robert Aitken, which took place at age 93 shortly before his death (I think). Interesting read! Here's the blurb (free Tricycle e-mail newsletter) and the link:

The Goddess of Mercy

Unpack karma and you get cause and effect. Unpack cause and effect and you get affinity. Unpack affinity and you get the tendency to coalesce. Unpack the tendency to coalesce and you get intimacy. Unpack intimacy and you will find that you contain all beings. Unpack containment and there is the goddess of mercy herself.

-Robert Aitken Roshi, "No Mean Preacher", full article at http://www.tricycle.com/ancestors/no-mean-preacher?page=0,0

Cinorjer

Thanks you for pointing this out to me. Beyond being a unique glimpse of Aiken Roshi, one of the great Zen Masters of the west, it reminded me of some great books of his that I read a long time ago and need to rediscover.

What's even more interesting are the comments immediately following a very nice article, where a lot of the readers blast the reporter, obviously angry and even resorting to name calling without really making any case that this report was either inaccurate, mean, or biased.

This is a skilled reporter who showed us the humanity of a Zen Teacher in the last days of a long career, and the anguish of the people around him, knowing he would not be around much longer. It is, in fact, as Zen as the bird singing outside their window that interruped the interview briefly.

I shake my head at the comments that show us the most devoted disciples can spectacularly miss the point of Master Aitken's teachings.

Simonthepilgrim

I came across Robert Aitken Roshi through his conversation with Brother David Steindl-Rast and was immediately delighted.

The quotation above (thank you @Cloud) does give me pause, coming as it does just as I am writing about "loving the world". At the heart of so much that we disparage, as we unpack it, layer by layer, coming to deeper structure-less structure, we come at the last to compassionate wisdom and mercy. And Eliot's words resonate again:
"And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

So much of what is written about karma and Dependent co-arising is negative that we often fail to see that they are the source, also, of all that is wonderful and saving. We are whirled away in the country dance so that we cannot see the patterns that we weave. When we learn to dance and to stand outwith the dance, we can engage and see at one and the same time.

fivebells

When we learn to dance and to stand outwith the dance, we can engage and see at one and the same time.

...which ends becoming, which ends dependent origination, no? I agree with you on the karma, though.

Simonthepilgrim

When we learn to dance and to stand outwith the dance, we can engage and see at one and the same time.

...which ends becoming, which ends dependent origination, no? I agree with you on the karma, though.

What you call "origination", I call "co-arising" and it is without end or beginning, arising from moment to moment. If our way in to this dance is through ignorance, the bodhisattva way in is through compassion. So, "will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"