{"id":21012,"date":"2018-09-03T08:49:58","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T15:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?p=21012"},"modified":"2018-09-03T11:45:30","modified_gmt":"2018-09-03T18:45:30","slug":"the-last-word-a-zen-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2018\/09\/the-last-word-a-zen-meditation.html","title":{"rendered":"The Last Word: A Zen Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

One day Deshan came into the hall carrying his bowls. Xuefeng stopped him, saying \u201cWhy are you carrying your bowls, venerable? The bell hasn\u2019t sounded, the drum hasn\u2019t been struck. Saying nothing, the old teacher, returned to his room.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Later Xuefeng mentioned this to Yantou. Yantou responded, \u201cAs great as he is, the old master does not yet know the last word.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Hearing of this Deshan sent for Yantou and asked, \u201cDo you not approve of my teaching?\u201d Yantou put his lips to the master\u2019s ear and whispered his meaning. Deshan had nothing more to say.<\/em><\/p>\n

The next day, however, at his formal talk Deshan was especially eloquent, pointing toward the fundamental matter of life and death. Laughing, Yanto stepped forward, rubbed his hands together, and declared, \u201cFrom now on, no one under the heavens can outdo our teacher.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Gateless Gate<\/a>, Case 13 (my paraphrase)<\/p>\n

People have a thing for the last word. It\u2019s a rare person who is content to say her piece and settle into silence. Social media is littered with assertions of one sort or another followed by comment piled on top of another comment as two or sometimes more vie with the other for that last word.<\/p>\n

Me, I suspect several things coalesce into this phenomena. Legitimately we are the wordy animal. Language is our medium, something we need for survival, and also something we have come to delight in. We live and breath and take our being within language. But, no doubt mixed up in the specific of that last word too often it is the individual ego on ugly display. Language, great as it is, is not, if you will, the last word.<\/p>\n

Now, there are other aspects to that last word. One is the coda to a life. We put a lot on the last words that someone utters, whether justly or not. Certainly such words can carry a lot of meaning. I think of Steve Jobs, whose last words appear to have been, \u201cOh wow, oh wow.\u201d Others seem banal or not precisely on point. So, sometimes it feels an invitation to some hidden meaning, like Carl Jung\u2019s \u201cLet\u2019s have a really good red wine tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others, like William James like to offer advice, \u201cThese then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.\u201d Probably that\u2019s a first rate example of why I\u2019m especially fond of Karl Marx\u2019s last words, \u201cGo on get out. Last words are for fools who have not said enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

I understand that Gandhi prayed that God\u2019s name would be his last word. I think about that one a lot.<\/p>\n

Of course, some, possibly all spiritual traditions collect the last words of their saints and sages.<\/p>\n

With our heroes there\u2019s also some picking and choosing along with a little editing here and there.<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019s last words as captured by the gospel writers are each a bit different. Luke says he said \u201cFather, forgive them, for they know not what they do,\u201d \u201cTruly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise\u201d (said to a thief, and for which there\u2019s a lovely midrash where a Japanese Zen priest was told by an Orthodox Christian priest that this line should read \u201cToday you are with me in paradise,\u201d and probably finally, \u201cFather, into your hands I commend my spirit.\u201d John, whose composition at least three generations after the events and so the farthest out of any of the canonical gospels has Jesus say \u201cWoman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother,\u201d \u201cI thirst,\u201d and \u201cIt is finished.\u201d The words I find most compelling, haunting, of them all is reported by both Matthew and Mark, generally believed to be the closest of the texts to the actual event, where Jesus says \u201cMy God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?\u201d<\/p>\n

For some like Guatama Siddhartha, who lived far enough ago that his admirers have had a lot of opportunities to work them over, his last words are in fact whole sermons. Actually there are two different versions of those last sermons. The people who follow the path of the elders<\/a> had one, while the people of the great way<\/a> had their own.<\/p>\n

Among my favorite last words would probably be Zen master Linji looking at his successor and muttering \u201cWho knew that my dharma<\/a> would be destroyed by this blind donkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zen. Returning to that koan related at the beginning between Deshan, Xuefeng, and Yantou. It takes place early in the ninth century. The abbot Deshan is probably in his eighties. He is famous as someone who was not trapped by words, often preferring a direct encounter, on occasion using a stick to prod his students to the depths. Xuefeng is probably forty and the monastery\u2019s head cook. Yantou was Xuefeng\u2019s close friend, maybe even his brother. And while younger in the flesh, Yantou was considerably more mature on the way.<\/p>\n

Perhaps a reminder is in order. Despite what one might read on the interwebs, despite what the self-anointed like to say, a koan is not a non sequitur designed to rattle someone into some transrational state. A koan is a direct pointing to an aspect of the real together with an invitation to stand in that place. It is a last word of an entirely different sort.<\/p>\n

Where are we when we let go of gain and loss, and simply surrender into the moment? What is the whisper? Why the eloquence? What about the silences as well as the words? And that laughing and chortling.<\/p>\n

And. What about our dying? Many years later Yantou\u2019s monastery was invaded by bandits. One of them stabbed him, and Yantou\u2019s dying scream was said to be heard ten miles away.<\/p>\n