Buddhist mythology/Skill in Means holds that after death you are brought before the Great Round Mirror that shows you all of your karma, and you choose your next life in any of the six worlds. If you are attached to that karma, that can even be the useless Heaven of Desire, which is not a reward for a good life, but for one of insatiable greed and self-absorption. Better alternatives are the human world, where we can learn about reality, or appearing in various worlds as a Buddha, illustrated above, or Bodhisattva.
It is one of the greatest arts of a Zen master to mirror the student effectively, to make attachment clear and allow it to be discarded. We are taught that whatever the trainee says, we must look at
- Question asked
- Question thought of
- The real question
and then help the trainee see what is really going on.
Thereby hangs a tale.
4th. March.
I went out and, knowing that he [Koho Zenji] loves goldfish, bought the largest and most beautiful fan-tailed fish I could see.
“I have brought you the most perfect fish I could find for your pond,” I said.
He flashed me a lovely smile. “But a perfect fish cannot live in a pond with other fish. So I will keep this one in a bowl in my room until it becomes less perfect.” So saying, he took the bag and disappeared back into his room again.
I’m not sure how long I stood in the garden staring at the closed window but it must have been for some time for I came to myself again to hear the chief assistant asking me just how long I intended to stay there. It was as though my mind had been turned inside out. Here was I, trying to be absolutely perfect according to the Precepts, terribly earnest, sincere almost to the point of morbidity in some ways, trying to explain how to live completely and utterly by the Precepts and completely and utterly by one’s own heart, sitting in the Meditation Hall every morning, even getting there before anyone else did, with the attitude of mind, “Beat me, I need it, I’ve been so bad in the past,” and wondering why everyone avoided my company. A thought flashed through my head, “But it doesn’t really matter what they think. What matters is that I am as perfect as I can be.”
What Zenji Sama said had definitely shaken something loose inside me though. I bowed to the assistant and left the garden.
5th. March.
I didn’t go to the Meditation Hall this morning; I stayed in bed.
Just before breakfast I got a telephone call from the irate senior assistant in Zenji Sama’s house. After scolding me soundly for not being at meditation he informed me that Zenji Sama had accorded me the unprecedented honour of wishing to drink tea with me. Since I had not been to the Meditation Hall he, the assistant, could not possibly understand why.
On reaching the house I was not at all surprised to find Zenji Sama standing by his goldfish pond holding the fish I had brought him in a bowl.
“Let’s put this fish into the pond before we drink our tea,” he suggested and together we emptied the contents of the bowl into the pond and watched the fish scuttle away. We went indoors to have tea and cakes and, when we had finished, he said, “I expect you in the Meditation Hall in the morning.”
“I shall be there, Zenji Sama,” I replied. “Afterwards, may I help dig up the weeds in your garden?”
“With pleasure. I will come and help you myself,” he said.
I bowed and left him.
The Wild White Goose, by Rev. Abbess Jiyu Kennett
Then there is
The Most Excellent Mirror-Samadhi (recording at Shasta Abbey)
The Most Excellent Mirror-Samadhi (PDF)
which we will delve into further on other occasions.
Although not I made by artifice, : This Truth can find expression in the words of I those who teach true Zen. ll It is as if one looks into a l jewelled minor : Seeing both shad I ow and substance. ll You I are not him; : He is I ail of you. ll