The attrition rate of some professional schools — law schools or nursing, for example — is high. But not as high as the attrition rate in Zen training. Of course, the payoffs for those professional schools are tangible, bankable. There are no such promising returns on investment for the Zen student.
Still, it always surprises me how the flame of that initial curiosity is so easily quenched.
Perhaps you know the story about the boy who loved dragons. He was obsessed with dragons. He loved everything about dragons, their flame-throwing eyes, their forked tongues, their whipping tails and rampant claws. He drew the most dreadful dragons and made origami dragons with creases sharp as razors. He dressed up as a dragon and roared and stamped his feet as only a dragon can. They were frightful, these dragons of his, and fierce and breathed brimstone in his dreams. They slept under his bed and hovered on the ceiling.
One day, a real dragon overheard the boy’s invocations to dragonhood and saw his devotion to the dragon domain. So this dragon thought he might introduce himself to the boy who loved dragons. Nudging the window open with his snout, he stuck his head in and said, “Hell-o,” his golden tongue licking the air. And the boy ran screaming away into the house in search of his mother.
This is what often happens with those who are curious about Zen but have only met it through representations. The paper dragons we have played with have no real connection with the reality of Zen practice, which is both more interesting and more intimidating (but certainly less entertaining) than the representations we find in the media and in books.
Some people come to Zen, for example, looking for a safe haven, a sanctuary, for peace, serenity and security. But Zen is not a safe place. If you are stranded on a hundred-foot pole, Zen asks you to jump. If you are teetering on the edge of the abyss, Zen invites you to fall. If you speak, you get thirty blows. If you don’t speak, you get thirty blows. You won’t find validation from anyone in the dojo — except yourself.
Validation arises from within. Whether the master criticizes you or praises you, it is all the same, and neither praise nor criticism should penetrate your own understanding of your nature, which is not dependent upon any assessment, attack, punishment or reward. This is what is meant by Bodhidharma’s callous answer to the Emperor Wu’s inquiry about what merit he had attained by financing so many temples: “No merit. Nothing sacred. Vast emptiness.”
It’s fine to play with toy dragons, of course. And it’s fine to read about Zen. But if we are serious, we need to grow up and meet the real dragons, practice the real Zen.
Then, when the Zen dragon appears at the window and whispers with its hot breath — “No merit! Nothing sacred! Vast emptiness!” — we won’t need to run screaming away. Instead we will continue to sit in zazen enjoying the warm breeze that has entered one window and exited another.
— Richard Reishin Collins
9 October 2022
