Gone, Gone, Gone Beyond

Yesterday I finished the review of Isabel Stirling’s new biography Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki I promised to Buddhadharma. If they like it it should run in the next issue. The book is well researched, although unfortunately while a substantial bit of work, it also sometimes reads like it was written by a researcher. (Sadly, this is something I fear others will say about Zen Master Who? when it comes out in a month and a half). That said I think Zen Pioneer really is an important contribution to the history of Zen’s foundations in the West. I hope people read it.

It’s now a tad shy of six thirty in the morning and I’m trying to take care of those last minute (literally) things I’m now thinking of before I drive off for Chicago and the real beginning of my sabbatical. I’d considered three routes, one through Montreal & Toronto, another just through Toronto and the third sticking to route 90 all the way from Boston. My back is acting up (I have a triple diagnosis: an inclination to herniation, degenerative disk disease & if it weren’t for arthritis I would barely have a spine…) so alternative one is now official off the table. I’ll decide late this afternoon whether I’ll be driving through Toronto or not.

As to the title of this rumination. Gone, gone… is the usual translation of the mantra that ends Zen’s fave chant the Heart Sutra, Gate (pronounced got teh), gate, para gate. Parasam gate. Bodhi svaha: Gone, gone, gone beyond. Gone completely beyond. Hurray (or maybe that’s Amen)! My old teacher Jiyu Kennett was fond of saying the tense isn’t at all clear and it could just as easily be translated as going, going, always going on beyond. Going beyond. Hurray (or perhaps Amen)!

While the Boundless Way Zen groups use the more conventional translation of gone, I always remember that dynamic view.

Here we are on our way.

On our way.

Hurray!

Or, perhaps that’s Amen…