by Erik Storlie
“Oh,” says Roshi, quite surprised. “So we can really make them ourselves? That would be wonderful.”
“Sure,” says Bob. “I’ve got some beautiful rosewood in the keys of a marimba I made as a kid in the fifth grade. It’s a wonderful hard wood.” He chuckles. “I never played it. It can reincarnate in setsu sticks. I’ll cut out the basic blocks. Then in a few days we can shape and sand several dozen. That will complete the sets.”
“Ah,” says Roshi. “That will be very nice. Thank you very much.”
“You’re very welcome,” says Bob. Then, with a twinkle in his eye, “But, you know, why stop there? Let’s make our own chopsticks too. Poplar trees are the perfect wood, and we’ve got lots of them in Minnesota. And lots of free zen labor. We’ll begin the Minnesota Zen Chopstick Company.”
“Excellent,” I say. “Why buy what we can make ourselves? We can recycle the leftover wood for toothpicks. What do you think, Roshi?”
Not quite sure whether his leg is being pulled, Roshi replies, “Oh, no, it’s not really necessary that we make our own chopsticks. I think to make the setsu sticks will be enough.”
“But Roshi,” I say, “Bob can really do it. You should see the machine shop in his basement. He finds the dharma in his machine tools.”
“Oh, yes,” says Roshi, laughing, “the dharma is everywhere. But still, I don’t think the zen center needs to be the factory for chopsticks. So please, don’t let us make any chopsticks. It is enough if Bob can make us just the setsu sticks.”
As the afternoon wanes, there’s a baseball game, a mix of children and adults. We laugh at Roshi running the bases in his sailor cap and shorts. Then it’s evening and everyone goes home. It’s early for a Saturday. But the tone of the group is set by morning zazens that begin at five every day except Sunday.
It’s lunchtime at one of the first sesshins held at the new zendo. We have our oryoki sets complete—each with utensils, including Bob Pirsig’s setsu sticks, and three nesting pottery bowls, wrapped in a white cloth. The noon meal is the big one. We’ll have spaghetti noodles for the large first bowl, salad for the second bowl, and some roasted nuts and raisins for the third small bowl. Eight of us sit cross-legged on the floor on our zafus. We form together a U shape around the room facing Roshi, who sits in front of an altar placed in the bay window of the little living room.
We anticipate the lunch prepared in the kitchen at the back of the apartment. We’re solemn, grateful to cease zazen, even though we remain on our zafus while we eat. Our napkins are spread carefully on our laps, our bowls and chopsticks and spoons and setsu sticks placed before us with neat precision.
The bathroom, unfortunately, adjoins the living room across a small hall. A young woman struggles to use the toilet quickly and quietly and get back to her seat before lunch. As we sit in stoic silence, sounds reverberate embarrassingly through the silent room. Finally, with downcast eyes, she leaves the bathroom and returns to her seat.
The cook stands ready at the back of the room amid various pots. At the end of the meal chant, Roshi bows to the cook. The cook bows and walks in slowly, majestically, with the pot held at eye level. He halts before Roshi, then bows again. Roshi bows again in return. The cook sinks to his knees and raises up a tongsfull of spaghetti. Roshi bends calmly forward to receive noodles in his laquered priest’s bowl. But the cook’s hand keeps rising—there’s no end to the noodles. Sticking together, the strands form a continuous rope.
The cook struggles for composure. I think, “My God, why didn’t the idiot cut them into shorter lengths?” Determined, the cook rises from kneeling up to one foot—but the noodles rise as well. Higher and higher go his hands, but longer and longer grows the cable of noodles. Now the cook’s arms are fully upraised and the noodles still descend into the pot. Paralyzed, none of us dares break protocol and run for a knife.
Then I hear muffled snorting. Across the room, Bob Pirsig’s head is down, his stooped shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs of laughter, which occasionally explode past a hand pinching his nose and pressing his lips. I scrunch my eyes shut and breath hard into my stomach to keep from cackling myself.
It’s the last day of the sesshin. Bob Pirsig and I are in the zendo drinking our coffee during the afternoon break that follows the work period. Most of the other students are in the kitchen. Two wait in line to get into the bathroom.
In an undertone, Bob hisses, “Just look at it!”
“What?” I ask, looking up from my coffee.
“You know,” he says, “that thing.” He jabs his finger toward the mokyugyo that arrived just days before to the delight, it seems, of all the students but us. It sits next to the doan’s seat near the altar. The mokyugyo is a traditional percussion instrument made from wood. It is hollow and beaten with a small padded stick to establish a rhythm for the chants. Ours is the size and shape of a half-deflated soccer ball. A wide slit cut in one end allows the vibrations to come out. It sits, squat, on a little embroidered cushion.
Bob and I had objected to sending to Japan for it. Like me, he is afraid of making zen seem too strange and cultist in our native mid-west. Unlike those who have arrived from around the country, we have family, friends, and colleagues here who are intensely curious—and dubious—about this thing to which we’re so deeply committed. It’s hard enough to invite others to see us bowing and scraping and then on our haunches mouthing incomprehensible Sino-Japanese syllables. It is insult upon injury now to be seen following the beat of some strange, alien drum.
Taking a drink of coffee, I comment sourly, “Doesn’t really have much of a sound, either, after all this trouble and expense to get the damn thing. You’d think it was the holy grail. All it does is make a ‘thunk.’”
“I know,” Bob grumbles. “It’s a goddamned one-note marimba. When will they learn” He returns to his coffee. “At least I got them to stop making that swill they called ‘Tassajara coffee’—two thirds decaf and completely worthless.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, “for a long time I’d spend the first three days of a sesshin with a splitting headache. I thought it was just my bad karma.”
The bell rings to call us back to zazen. We stand slowly and stretch. Then Bob’s face breaks into a huge smile.
“You know,” he whispers, gesturing at the mokyugyo, which seems to grin back at us, “the damn thing looks just like a pufferfish. On Saturday, bring a tin of sardines. We’ll slip it a few.”
It’s later that summer. I arrive at the Katagiri apartment below the zendo an hour before he’s to give his Wednesday evening lecture. My job is to look over his translation of a text he’ll discuss tonight.
Roshi and I sit in the small living room on zafus placed on either side of the coffee table. The surface is littered with texts in Japanese and Chinese. At hand are Japanese-Chinese and Japanese-English dictionaries. Tomoe-san quietly brings us each a cup of green tea. Roshi bows to his cup before picking it up and sipping. I follow suit.
He’s presenting one by one the commentaries of Wanshi on various zen stories. His talk tonight is about Nansen and the cat. Our heads bowed over the table, I look at Roshi’s rough translation. After adopting various suggestions on wording and sentence structure, he has a version:
The monks of the east and west halls at Nansen’s monastery are arguing over a cat. Disgusted, Nansen calls them together. Holding the cat and a sword, he threatens to kill it if they can’t say something penetrating. Confused, the monks remain silent. Nansen slices the cat in two.
Later that evening, Nansen’s friend Joshu returns to the monastery and Nansen tells what happened. Without a word, Joshu places his sandals on his head and walks out. As he leaves, Nansen says, “If you had been there, the cat would be alive.”
This is exciting. I’ve read this story again and again for years. It’s always puzzled me. I ask, “But Roshi, why would there be such an argument between these two groups of monks? Were they arguing over who the cat belonged to? I don’t understand why it was so
important. Besides, I thought monasteries usually didn’t have pets anyway.”
“Oh, no,” he says, “it was not about who owned the cat. In ancient time in China, whenever monks met each other—and the laymen, too, if they were really serious about Buddhism—wherever they met, on the stairs, in the hallway, they didn’t just exchange greetings, saying, ‘Good morning,’ or ‘Good afternoon.’ They discussed some aspect of zen. They would discuss seriously with transparent sincerity. So I think this argument was about whether the cat had buddha nature. So, in these times, maybe you can understand how awful and how fierce this argument was.”
“Ah,” I say, “you know, it sounds like the arguments of the Christians. In Europe, century after century, they had many bloody wars.”
“Oooh,” says Roshi, his eyebrows upraised, “so you see how dangerous. Maybe you can see why Nansen cuts the cat.”
“Yeah,” I say, chuckling, “but some of your students are upset by the story. We’re supposed to be compassionate. And most of the Americans are vegetarians. What do you think about Nansen killing this innocent cat?”
“Well, that is a big problem,” Roshi replies. “Wanshi calls Nansen ‘resourceful’ and says, ‘The resourceful man is beloved by everyone.’ I’m not so sure about that word in English. But what if Nansen did nothing but talk to the monks? It is true that the cat dies. That is not so good. That doesn’t show so much the buddha’s compassion. That is why Joshu goes with his sandals on his head.”
“That’s never really made sense to me, Roshi,” I say. “What’s the point of walking out with his sandals on his head? Is Joshu saying he wants to keep his feet and head connected—that he doesn’t want to end up like the cat, cut in two? Or is he simply showing that he’s free from normal behavior like wearing sandals on your feet? Maybe he’s saying that what Nansen did is okay, that they’re both zen masters and therefore free from following the precepts.”
“No, no, not free from precepts, not bound by precepts. But Nansen is the ‘resourceful’ man. He acts in the moment, here and now. Maybe right, maybe wrong. Maybe if you have a child, it does something very wrong. You give it big blows, even before you think. I don’t think you give big blows to your daughter, to your son, after thinking whether it is good or bad. Whatever you think, you already hit. Certain circumstances require some intimate, immediate response, regardless of whether you like or dislike. A resourceful man is like Nansen, who gives big blows suddenly to sons or daughters with Buddhist compassion in order to wake them.
“The more you love your children, the more you act strongly. There is no space to think of what to do or to think whether it is good or bad. Nansen’s behavior is really like this. Nansen gave big blows to his monks with his big hands, his big buddha hands. That way is really beyond criticism whether it is good or bad.”
Chuckling, Roshi smiles at me. “Maybe you heard, Erik, that one time in San Francisco my boy lit fires to the screens? The Japanese screens burn very easily. I couldn’t imagine such a little boy trying to do something wrong, making a big fire. Maybe the water in his well is one foot deep, but his waves are very big. Even first-grade children create their own troubles.”
“So, Roshi, did you hit him?”
He laughs. “No, I didn’t hit him. But I was very upset. Tomoe-san was very upset. So we were very strong in anger.”
“But Roshi, I’m still confused about Joshu putting his sandals on his head. It still seems to me like he approves of Nansen and he shows it by also doing something unconventional—like a hippie.”
“Oh, no, not like the hippies. The hippies in San Francisco did anything they want without thinking and said they were free. Then they come to the Zen Center and think they really know Buddhism. That is a big confusion.”
“So why do you think Joshu puts his sandals on his head?”
‘Oh, I think he puts the sandals on his head and says to Nansen, ‘Sandals are not something to put on your head. When you use the sandals as they are in the proper way, the sandals will be really alive in the proper way.’ That is Joshu’s sugggestion. So it also says, ‘Why don’t you think a little carefully how to use the cat’s life—life itself. When you use the cat’s life as it is, cat will really be alive.’ Then Nansen understands so well Joshu’s suggestion. That is why Nansen said, ‘If you had been here, the cat might actually have been saved.’”
“Ah,” I say, “that’s wonderful. I never could make sense out of those sandals. So Joshu lets Nansen know that what he did missed the full possibility of—what?—of shaking up the monks as well as respecting the cat—of affirming life itself in the cat as well as in the monks.”
“Yes, maybe so,” says Roshi. “But it’s still not a criticism of Nansen. Nansen acts. He just acts. He is the resourceful man. But maybe Nansen should think carefully a little more. Maybe he should think more carefully how to use the cat as it is. I think Dogen really knows this.”
“Oh,” I say, “what does Dogen say?”
“Dogen is very sharp. Nansen cuts the cat in two with one stroke of the sword. But Dogen says Nansen should cut the cat in one with one stroke of the sword.” Roshi brings his hand down swiftly in a short sword stroke, hissing between his teeth and tongue: “Ssshhhooo!”
“It means you should know what is the difference between the cat’s life, or Nansen’s life, or a monk’s life. They are different. They are all the same. Still, a certain situation requires an immediate response.”
“Cut the cat in one,” I say. What does that mean?”
“Ah,” says Roshi, looking at his watch. “We have only ten minutes before the lecture. Now, do you think when I translate Wanshi’s word as ‘resourceful,’ it is good? What do you feel by that word ‘resourceful’?”
“Oh,” I say, “it’s perfect for Nansen. It suggests energy, vigor, and being ready for anything that happens.”
“Yes, that is right,” says Roshi, finishing his tea.
He bows to me, I bow in return, and we rise to go into the zendo for lecture.
Aches in my knee and under my shoulder blade rise up into consciousness, bringing me back to the Crag. It’s afternoon, the sun falls more than halfway down the sky. I’ve known these pains—old, familiar friends—for thirty years. They alert me to bad posture and to tensions I carry. And they force me awake.
“Athletes are plagued with pain too,” I think. “They get injuries that dog them the rest of their lives. But that’s okay. People accept it. No one expects a champion football player to be pain free. He buys a restaurant and gets prescription dope.
“But how do you explain to people about the pain in zazen? They want meditation cheap—an overstuffed chair. They want Enlightenment Lite.
“Zazen calls the great bluff of the universe. Thoreau went to Walden to discover if existence is mean—or sublime. Zazen displays each moment freed from the clamor of human action. It’s a mind stone. A touchstone. I strike this stone and see how much base metal mixes with pure gold.
“I just sit still. I see what’s here. Without Dogen’s steady, immobile sitting, this is something that simply can’t happen. Just as without years of disciplined motion, a dancer can’t move beautifully.”
And now, indeed, sitting here on the crag. I see etched in consciousness, moment by moment, exactly those things that would move me off my seat. There’s sharp stinging in the scrape on the sole of my foot. My bladder has filled and feels dangerously taut. Stubbornly, I remember Suzuki and Katagiri’s words: “It’s good if you don’t move at all.”
I sit on for long minutes. The ache under my left shoulder blade is constant, the muscle beginning to knot. The pain in my knees, especially the left, is sharp, agonizing.
A voice whispers, “It’s okay to quit. What’s the big deal?”
But I think to myself, “No, I won’t move!”
Long minutes go by and suddenly it’s huge. My bladder seems bursting, the pain in my knees monstrous, and sturdy doubts now shoulder into my mind. “Look at you,” they say. �
��How weak you are! How endless your thoughts! How useless your pain! You’ll never come to the light.”
Fiercely, now, every muscle knotted, every fiber of my mind stretched to cracking, I think, “No, I will not move!” And I’m emptied of thought. There’s only pure, clarified struggle—a surging, relentless flood of mind energy fiercely demanding that I abandon my seat. With a supreme effort of will by which I repulse it, instant by instant, and sit on.
I sit. I sit. Then suddenly tension is gone and I’m light, airy. Every motion of my body and mind is clear, transparent, arising in vast stillness.
I’m a dancer, dancing in motionless motion.
Calm now, relaxed, I unwind my legs, stretch, sigh, and carefully stand up, feeling the dark pain under my shoulder blade and in my knees break and diminish. Attentive to my bladder, I take a dozen slow steps down off the Crag and let fly into a crevice between two black rocks. Then I swing my arms from side to side and finally do a series of standing stretches, bending my spine slowly, carefully, in each direction as far as it will go.
I look for the raven. Shaken by afternoon breezes that buffet the Crag, he clings, determined, to his branch. A gust yanks at my hat, which suddenly flies off my head and sails down fifty feet into the grass.
“Come back, come back,” I yell joyfully, then pick up small rocks and test my aim. Out of a dozen tries, only one gets near the mark. I fire again and this time dent the crown.
I step easily with bare feet down through my rocks to pick it up, then head down, absorbed in each step, make my barefooted way back up to my seat on the Crag.
11
Doubt
IT’S A SUNNY, SUBZERO LATE AFTERNOON IN December 1975. Roshi, Bob and Nancy Pirsig, and I are walking through an old Spanish colonial mansion on the east shore of Lake Calhoun. The house is a wreck, most recently used as a halfway house for addicts. The windows leak, the walls are peeling, the ceilings show irregular circles of water damage.
Bob Pirsig’s book has become a best-seller. He and Nancy have offered to donate twenty thousand dollars toward the purchase of a building. After endless discussions of options, the group is ready to make a decision.