SOSHIN McMURCHY
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”
People ask me what this means. Is Buddhism actually violent?
Buddhists make vows of nonviolence and harmonious living, so I’m thinking this is not an incitement to violence, but rather a teaching technique to shock students into awareness.
Zen koans are a public record of the best practices of Zen teachers over the centuries. This short koan is rich with cultural allusions. It has to be unpacked to be understood.
Even if I could, I’m not about to explain this koan. I’m not a teacher. Each person committed to koan practice with a teacher, must enter into the investigation of these koans by letting go of habits of thought, and going on an inner journey of investigation with energy and curiosity.
Investigating what? Investigating reality, and how the mind works.
As someone at the beginning of her practice life, I start to see how my mind works. I begin to notice when my mind shies away from something, and I turn toward it to see what’s there.
I previously thought I was fairly honest with myself, but recently I’ve come to see areas of my life that I have been unaware of. A new and gentle voice questions my actions.
Here’s an example. I listened to the news that the government will spend $40 million to convince us that oil and natural gas sales are good for the economy. I feel my mind shy away from one possible result — the end of life as we know it due to global warming.
If I really look at this I will have to act, even though I think it’s too late.
I can feel a wall of thoughts protecting me from having to act — I’m already doing enough … it isn’t worth it … it’s too late … you are only one small person … perhaps it isn’t true. How could it be true? If it were, people would rise up.
I keep coming back to this and start to notice all the fear I have around change. If I really believed that global warming will be the end of more and more species including humanity, surely I would have to make great sacrifices? Surely I would have to do something entirely different with my life?
I feel the fear of having to step up to the plate and be more accountable, more responsible, beginning to burn in my gut.
I remember the catchphrase “feel the fear and do it anyway.”
Then I remember, I’m too small to make a difference, and immediately the fear dissolves. I’ve found a way out — I can’t be expected to make a difference for I am too powerless. I’m flooded with relief.
But being encased in a cocoon, feeling only the pleasant emotions, is not how I want to live my life. So I turn again toward the fear. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Feel the fear and do it anyway, like a mantra, is now synched to the beat of my heart.
I own the fear as my mantra, as my guide. I know that if I sit with it and don’t turn away from it, my heart will find perhaps, not resolution, but the next step, and the next, along a razor’s edge. I don’t know what this will look like, but I do know that I will create some way of living in this world — awake, aware and connected.
I’m filled with gratitude for this outlandish practice that continues to surprise and inspire, and allows me to escape from illusion and truly live.
Soshin McMurchy is a novice priest with the Victoria Zen Centre, zenwest.ca, and serves as the Buddhist chaplain with the University of Victoria Multifaith Services.
