*bows*
I saw this.. and am now wondering if Chris could program software to solve
koans? Like this age-regression software so we truly know what our face was
like before we were born... k
on the monkey’s face
a monkey face.
—Basho
Bruce Lambson
The haiku above was written by Basho and was sent to me to recently by a
friend, so I thought I would share my thoughts on it with you. This morning I
just laughed out loud about it while I was shaving and thinking about this
funny little haiku. Of course, I know I’m the monkey, I see that goofy face
everyday.
This poem points directly to the heart of Zen, to my own heart, my own self, my
own face. What a funny thing is my life. I don’t know how I got here, I don’t
know where I’m going after this, but while I’m here I’m a witness to the
spectacular display of life on earth. It’s all reflected in my monkey face,
this face that is constantly changing and yet still uniquely, perfectly mine.
Dogen Zenji said, “to study the Buddha Way is to study the self.” So, I study
the self, my self, my heart, my face.
I’m very attached to my face. But what am I really attached to? I can call it a
face but it’s much more than that. It’s skin, eyes, nose, mouth, etc. I use it
to communicate, to see, smell and taste the world. I twist it around in a
million expressions to try and manipulate the world around me. I couldn’t
survive very well without it. But no matter what I do with my face, I won’t
live forever, and I won’t always be happy while I’m alive. I don't always like
this face but it’s the only one I’ve got.
Or is it? In Zen we talk about our Original Face. There’s a Zen Koan that asks,
“Show me your Original Face before your parents were born.” How do I answer
this question? What is that face?
>From the Big Mind work developed by Genpo Roshi, we can look at this koan
>using the Apex triangle.
On the bottom left of the triangle, I see my regular physical face. This is the
one I was born with. It’s temporary, impermanent, ever changing. The other day
I saw a picture of my face when I was a baby and another when I was a teenager.
Now I’m 58 and it looks quite a bit different. I put my picture into a software
program that ages you and I’m telling you, you might not recognize me when I’m
88. This is the relative face.
On the right side of the triangle is my Original Face. This is my absolute
face, the one that has never changed and never will change. It is unborn and
undying and is the face I share with all sentient beings throughout space and
time. It’s the one that is reflected back to me in everything I see and
experience. It’s the face of oneness.
At the top of the triangle, the apex, is my True Face, the one which transcends
and includes both my temporary, physical, relative face and my Original,
Universal, Unborn Face. This really is my True Face, the face of my enlightened
self, manifested in the world and in this body.
When I deeply realize that my life is the combination of both faces, and that
my true face is both temporary and permanent, universal and unique, then my
monkey face laughs at my monkey face. And my monkey face cries for my monkey
face, and for all the monkey faces of the world, because I see we are all truly
one, both permanent and temporary, sharing our joys and sufferings as sentient
beings in the mysterious and ungraspable reality of our life.
