Gender & The Tao ~ A Revisitation (page two of three)
Continued From Page One
In commenting on this zen parable, Zoketsu says:
“So what is nice to me about this story is that Miaozong takes all this on quite directly and dramatically and courageously. As someone who was soon to become a nun, she was probably not indulging herself in sexuality. But, she wasn't rejecting it either. She challenged the head monk's narrow lack of imagination. There are rules and limits. Sexual restraint is a necessity. [Imagine a world without sexual restraints. Pain and confusion would abound. People get hurt.] But restraint need not be rejection or demonizing. "All buddhas and bodhisattvas are born from this place." The womb. All life flows from it. “
He then offers another interpretation, by a woman student in Seattle:
“She said, “I thought it was so poignant when Wanan says ‘May I enter?'" On the surface it seems that he is coming on to Miaozong and that she is rebuffing him. But this woman in Seattle heard something completely different. She heard Wanan's awesome appreciation of Miaozong's presentation of femininity. She felt that Wanan was really sad. That as a man, he couldn't participate in the connection, that - this woman said - women feel. Women give birth and carry life in their own bodies. She thought it was sad and that he was asking for a way to understand this.”
I’m going to structure my own reading of Miaozong’s Dharma Interview around the homework questions that Zoketsu assigned to his community. He invited them to
“Explore the phrase, "May I enter?" What does it mean to you? May I enter what? Are you outside of anything that you want to enter?”
So, first, how do I hear the phrase -- spoken by Wanan -- “May I enter?” What is he wishing to enter?
Though I can hardly imagine sexual innuendo not being woven into the question, as it was addressed to Miaozong, laying there in her fully-resplendent nakedness -- no doubt double, triple, quadruple entendres were proliferating wildly -- I’m going to give Wanan the benefit of the doubt, and assume that -- as a Senior Monk, who presumably had devoted his life to the practice of Dharma, that his aspiration and intentions as a spiritual practitioner were indeed authentic and deep (even though he still lacked the capacity to see nakedly).
Assuming this pure and authentic intention, his deepest wish could have been none other than to “enter” the womb of all Buddhas -- the tathagata-garbha -- the prajnaparamita: the perfection of wisdom that abides in nondual realization.
But entering and abiding in the womb of nondual wisdom includes seeing that who we truly are is not-male and not-female -- because who we truly are is not a body-as-object (with defining characteristics, e.g. male or female).
Entering the womb of nondual wisdom -- birthplace of all Buddhas -- requires the resolution of all dualistic fixation, including the male/female mental polarity -- along with (a la case 52 of the Blue Cliff Record) the stone-bridge/log-bridge and asses/horses polarities.
So: by displaying an attitude of discrimination against Miaozong, based solely upon her being a woman, Wanan has already placed himself clearly within the realm of dualistic, deluded (in a word: samsaric) thinking/perceiving -- where the seeming differences (those at the level of appearance) between men and women, stone bridges and log bridges, asses and horses -- are granted an authority, a “reality,” which is not in alignment with the deeper truth of the matter.
Miaozong’s reply -- “Horses may cross, asses not” -- plays off of Zhaozhou’s response in case 52 of the Blue cliff Record, pointing, first and foremost, to Wanan’s dualistic and hence deluded stance -- to the fact that he has made exactly the same mistake as did the monk in case 52: the mistake of perceiving dualistically and then rendering a judgment based solely upon the most superficial of criteria, namely, the appearance of a physical body. And then, within the realm of duality, Wanan didn’t even have the good taste to choose the high road (the beauty and elegance of a horse) but instead was displaying the most untoward (relative) attributes of an ass -- laziness, stubbornness, crude ignorance.
So Miaozong’s “no” was twofold:
(1) No, you may not enter the womb of all Buddhas -- prajnaparamita -- until you’ve resolved the female/male polarity, and its root: the mistaken belief that who we (and the Buddhas) are, essentially, is a (conventionally-perceived) human body.
(2) And no, your relative-world behavior is not at all supportive of that endeavor: you’ve been an “ass” not only in your failure to abide in a nondual view, but also in a very mundane sense.
Continued On Page Three
In commenting on this zen parable, Zoketsu says:
“So what is nice to me about this story is that Miaozong takes all this on quite directly and dramatically and courageously. As someone who was soon to become a nun, she was probably not indulging herself in sexuality. But, she wasn't rejecting it either. She challenged the head monk's narrow lack of imagination. There are rules and limits. Sexual restraint is a necessity. [Imagine a world without sexual restraints. Pain and confusion would abound. People get hurt.] But restraint need not be rejection or demonizing. "All buddhas and bodhisattvas are born from this place." The womb. All life flows from it. “
He then offers another interpretation, by a woman student in Seattle:
“She said, “I thought it was so poignant when Wanan says ‘May I enter?'" On the surface it seems that he is coming on to Miaozong and that she is rebuffing him. But this woman in Seattle heard something completely different. She heard Wanan's awesome appreciation of Miaozong's presentation of femininity. She felt that Wanan was really sad. That as a man, he couldn't participate in the connection, that - this woman said - women feel. Women give birth and carry life in their own bodies. She thought it was sad and that he was asking for a way to understand this.”
I’m going to structure my own reading of Miaozong’s Dharma Interview around the homework questions that Zoketsu assigned to his community. He invited them to
“Explore the phrase, "May I enter?" What does it mean to you? May I enter what? Are you outside of anything that you want to enter?”
May I Enter?
So, first, how do I hear the phrase -- spoken by Wanan -- “May I enter?” What is he wishing to enter?
Though I can hardly imagine sexual innuendo not being woven into the question, as it was addressed to Miaozong, laying there in her fully-resplendent nakedness -- no doubt double, triple, quadruple entendres were proliferating wildly -- I’m going to give Wanan the benefit of the doubt, and assume that -- as a Senior Monk, who presumably had devoted his life to the practice of Dharma, that his aspiration and intentions as a spiritual practitioner were indeed authentic and deep (even though he still lacked the capacity to see nakedly).
Assuming this pure and authentic intention, his deepest wish could have been none other than to “enter” the womb of all Buddhas -- the tathagata-garbha -- the prajnaparamita: the perfection of wisdom that abides in nondual realization.
But entering and abiding in the womb of nondual wisdom includes seeing that who we truly are is not-male and not-female -- because who we truly are is not a body-as-object (with defining characteristics, e.g. male or female).
Entering the womb of nondual wisdom -- birthplace of all Buddhas -- requires the resolution of all dualistic fixation, including the male/female mental polarity -- along with (a la case 52 of the Blue Cliff Record) the stone-bridge/log-bridge and asses/horses polarities.
So: by displaying an attitude of discrimination against Miaozong, based solely upon her being a woman, Wanan has already placed himself clearly within the realm of dualistic, deluded (in a word: samsaric) thinking/perceiving -- where the seeming differences (those at the level of appearance) between men and women, stone bridges and log bridges, asses and horses -- are granted an authority, a “reality,” which is not in alignment with the deeper truth of the matter.
Miaozong’s reply -- “Horses may cross, asses not” -- plays off of Zhaozhou’s response in case 52 of the Blue cliff Record, pointing, first and foremost, to Wanan’s dualistic and hence deluded stance -- to the fact that he has made exactly the same mistake as did the monk in case 52: the mistake of perceiving dualistically and then rendering a judgment based solely upon the most superficial of criteria, namely, the appearance of a physical body. And then, within the realm of duality, Wanan didn’t even have the good taste to choose the high road (the beauty and elegance of a horse) but instead was displaying the most untoward (relative) attributes of an ass -- laziness, stubbornness, crude ignorance.
So Miaozong’s “no” was twofold:
(1) No, you may not enter the womb of all Buddhas -- prajnaparamita -- until you’ve resolved the female/male polarity, and its root: the mistaken belief that who we (and the Buddhas) are, essentially, is a (conventionally-perceived) human body.
(2) And no, your relative-world behavior is not at all supportive of that endeavor: you’ve been an “ass” not only in your failure to abide in a nondual view, but also in a very mundane sense.
Continued On Page Three
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