{"id":27104,"date":"2020-04-10T14:37:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T21:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?p=27104"},"modified":"2020-04-10T14:37:24","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T21:37:24","slug":"every-day-is-good-friday-a-zen-meditation-on-a-christian-holy-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2020\/04\/every-day-is-good-friday-a-zen-meditation-on-a-christian-holy-day.html","title":{"rendered":"EVERY DAY IS GOOD FRIDAY A Zen Meditation on a Christian Holy Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I am a child of the West. I learned to read from an outsized King James Bible resting on my grandmother\u2019s lap. I am fond of saying how to this day Jesus and the Mary\u2019s all crowd up together in my dreams. It\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Unlike many of my friends I\u2019ve never been angry at the church, either the institutions or its messages. I simply found I could not believe the religion I was taught.<\/p>\n

Specifically, I could not believe in a god that was painfully, obviously a larger human stuck up into the skies. People would say look at the astonishing beauty of the world, and then ask how I could not see a designer? I certainly saw the astonishing beauty. And I also saw the numberless horrors. And facing into it all, both the good and the ill, I felt some power. Enormous, unspeakable power. But, to then suggest some bigger and better and even more mysterious human as that power, just seemed something extra.<\/p>\n

And I am ever wary of extras. Occam\u2019s famous razor is not always right. But generally, usually, the simpler explanation is going to be the likely one. And, I saw no explanation for the rising of the worlds that needed a human-like consciousness directing it.<\/p>\n

So, in my late adolescence I left the Christian churches.<\/p>\n

<\/iframe><\/p>\nAnd I began a journey, my journey. Along the way two things captured me and held my attention for the larger part of my life.<\/p>\nThe first was <a href='https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/buddhism' target='_blank'>Zen Buddhism<\/a>. Its profound teachings which are summarized in the Heart Sutra<\/em>, that \u201cform is emptiness and emptiness is form,\u201d became a pointer for me. Through a combination of a spiritual discipline rooted in silence and presence and the relentless pointers of Zen\u2019s koan tradition, anecdotes that invited my heart and my mind; I learned what those words \u201cform\u201d and \u201cemptiness\u201d meant in the sense of someone drinking water and knowing for themselves whether it was cool or warm.<\/p>\nToday I am a Zen priest and a teacher of the Zen way.<\/p>\nBut there has always been that other thing. After a few years in a Zen monastery, where I learned both the rudiments of the discipline, and the limitations of human beings whether they had insight or not, I began a second, broader quest.<\/p>\nI was working in a bookstore in San Diego when I stumbled across a Nineteenth century pamphlet titled \u201cOn Unitarian Christianity.\u201d It was by a New England divine, William Ellery Channing. And it opened doors for me. With a few false starts I ended up following what would be the primary course of my life. I worked as a Unitarian Universalist parish minister while for many years also continuing my Zen practice particularly focused on koan introspection guided by a lay Zen master.<\/p>\nI wrote a sort of memoir, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/wisdomexperience.org\/product\/if-youre-lucky-your-heart-will-break\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">If You\u2019re Lucky, Your Heart Will Break<\/a>,\u201d in which I recount that dual path, my personal way \u201cbetween.\u201d It\u2019s still in print, if you want to check it out. Essentially, I find that the deeper currents of the real can never be captured by any human enterprise. Not religion. Not science. But those things, and literature, and art, and psychology, all touch aspects of it. We are all of us like those blind men touching Buddha\u2019s famous elephant, stroking a flank, embracing the trunk, tugging on the tail. But, as Paul sings to us, it is \u201cthrough a glass darkly.\u201d The difference is that Paul thinks there is a later time when it will be clear.<\/p>\nThe reality is that it is always obscure. And astonish bright obscurity. Life changing. The truth is that our insights are almost always seen from the corner of the eye. As Emily Dickenson of blessed memory tells us<\/p>\nTell all the truth but tell it slant \u2014<\/em> \nSuccess in Circuit lies<\/em> \nToo bright for our infirm Delight<\/em> \nThe Truth\u2019s superb surprise<\/em> \nAs Lightning to the Children eased<\/em> \nWith explanation kind<\/em> \nThe Truth must dazzle gradually<\/em> \nOr every man be blind \u2014<\/em><\/p>\nIt\u2019s more like a dream. It is more like a cloud. What is lovely, I\u2019ve learned, is that this cloud of unknowing is okay. There is something wonderful in that not knowing. Not knowing completely. As Master Dizang sings into the great heart when he<\/p>\n\u201c\u2026asked the visiting <a href='https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/buddhism' target='_blank'>Buddhist<\/a> philosopher Fayan, \u201cWhere are you going now? \nFayan answered, \u201cI am resuming my pilgrimage. \nDizang asked, \u201cWhy do you go on pilgrimage?\u201d \nFayan said, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d \nDizang said, \u201cNot knowing is most intimate.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThose words and that not knowing was Fayan\u2019s awakening.<\/p>\nAnd, here, today, we\u2019re in the middle of what the Christian churches call Holy Week. And specifically, we\u2019re at Good Friday. And, I find myself reflecting on what it can mean? And for me what can it mean to people of whatever faith, or none, what might we find? Within the spirit of a profound unknowing what might we all be pointed toward?<\/p>\nMy reclamation of the Christian part of my life, and a part, my life being some mysterious magpie\u2019s nest, was that religion of Jesus rather than the religion about him. I am a fan of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s New Testament, and his taking his scissors and removing anything repugnant to reason left him with a collection of sayings.<\/p>\nThere are reasons some people see a Zen master in Jesus. They find it as they focus on his words. If you take the canonical sayings, especially from the Synoptics, and, okay, maybe throw in the teachings from the Gospel of Thomas, there are many invitations. A good word, indeed.<\/p>\nBut, then, there\u2019s the mythic Jesus, that religion about him. Increasingly I am interested in that story. There are bits and pieces of history attached to it. But I find the importance of it elsewhere. The truth of this part of Jesus\u2019 story is revealed in the dream times. It is not unlike the story of Amida, Buddha of the Pure Lands. It tells of a time beyond joy, where suffering reigns, and liberation from our hurt is no longer possible through any effort we can accomplish.<\/p>\nBut, like with Amida, from deep within the dream worlds, a door opens for us. A door that does not require our efforts. In fact, in a time where any attempt on our own is likely useless, where everything is too corrupt, too contaminated, were all our efforts fail. Still. Mysteriously. From a place on the other side of a dream, beyond a rainbow, if you will. In that place. A door is thrown wide open. Mary Oliver sings of that graceful moment when we notice<\/p>\nYou do not have to be good.<\/em> \nYou do not have to walk on your knees<\/em> \nFor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.<\/em> \nYou only have to let the soft animal of your body<\/em> \nLove what it loves.<\/em><\/p>\nThat last part. Only be human. And let love win. All we need do is say yes.<\/p>\nBut this is a terrible thing as well as a good one. The sufferings of Amida are in the distant past. But there were many. The sufferings of Jesus are brought into the moment itself.<\/p>\nGood Friday is a pivot point in that Jesus of the dream worlds. Worlds that touch this one enough so we can smell the heat and taste the dust of Jerusalem. There was before this a triumphant entry into the city, although marked with hints of something more complex, less triumph, and more a venture into the valley of the shadow.<\/p>\nHe goes to the temple and drives out the money changers.<\/p>\nThen there\u2019s a meal. And foot washing. Somehow that last part becomes background in the telling and retelling.<\/p>\nAnd then, today. Good Friday. He has been taken captive, betrayed by one of his own. Actually, abandoned by all but some women. Another part overlooked in the telling and retelling. And, I believe, important to recapture. Whatever. He is given a quick trial by the Roman authorities who don\u2019t like messiness, especially in the provinces. And they don\u2019t like itinerate preachers who may or may not be calling for a revolution. And, with the full-on support of the religious authorities, he is tortured, made to drag a cross out of town, unceremoniously nailed to it, and hung up to die.<\/p>\nIn the Christian story, in the Christian calendar, that\u2019s this moment. Today. It will be followed by an emptiness, the despair of the worlds. And, that will be followed by some magic thing. Every element of every Spring story ever told.<\/p>\nBut today it is the cross.<\/p>\nWhat about this day?<\/p>\nOne of the greatest koans is that presented by the master Yunmen<\/p>\n\u201cI do not ask you about the fifteenth of month. Come. Tell me about after the fifteenth. He then gave his own response, \u201cEvery day is a good day.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em>The fifteenth is the full moon, the set-up is not a question about approaching awakening, liberation, saving. It\u2019s a question about the awakened heart. And. This story told in the midst of very, very hard times. And no one on the Zen way takes it as a nostrum.<\/p>\nThe Zen teacher Susan Murphy, in her wonderful book Upside Down Zen<\/em> writes of a friend who was dying of AIDS. He offered his comment on the koan<\/p>\n\u201c\u2019Every day is Good Friday.\u2019\u201d <\/em>That\u2019s it. From a dying man\u2019s mouth. Every day is Good Friday. Roshi Murphy tells us how \u201cThis is a powerful and illuminating turning phrase. The mystery and the passion of Good Friday \u2013 and the astonishing fact that such a day is called \u2018Good\u2019 \u2013 is enacted every day in every life upon the Earth, in some measure. This is where we live.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em>She reminds us, \u201cYunmen was offering no blandishments at all, but the hardest of all possible challenges.\u201d <\/em>Slyly she adds,We notice, with gratitude, that he didn\u2019t say \u2018Every day is a nice day.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nEvery day is a nice day is a lie. Every day is a good day is the truth. As is every day is Good Friday.<\/p>\nJesus\u2019s last words as he hung dying on that cross, 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 then \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<\/p>\nJohn, whose composition is 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 then \u201cI thirst,\u201d and finally \u201cIt is finished.\u201d<\/p>\nThe words I find most compelling, haunting, of them all is reported by both Matthew and Mark, generally believed to be the closest texts to the actual event, where Jesus says \u201cMy God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?\u201d<\/p>\nThe sermon-like last words, I take with a grain. Despair last words, those I get. When the great Zen master Yantou was old, his monastery was sacked by bandits. One of them stabbed him. It is said his dying scream could be heard ten miles away.<\/p>\nThat this renowned master could scream at his death so haunted a later young monk, Hakuin, that he would despair of even finding awakening, doubting that it could even be true.<\/p>\nHakuin would eventually see through to the heart of the matter. And it could be found in that scream. And, our own saving can be found in those last words, My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?\u201d<\/p>\nNow Christian thinkers have had a terrible time trying to put this story, all of it from the entry into Jerusalem to this horrific death, and then to a story of resurrection, into some clear explanation. In fact, there are to this day contending explanations, what they call \u201cdoctrines of atonement.\u201d Few of them square.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s because as powerful and important as reason and putting it all together is, I do love Occam and his terrible razor to this day, when we come to this story, in fact, to the whole of it, we are fully into the dream world of our human heart\u2019s longing. The heart\u2019s reasons are of a completely different physics.<\/p>\nHere we are invited into the Mandala of Holy Week, where the human journey is revealed.<\/p>\nAnd here\u2019s where it points.<\/p>\nIn the midst of our suffering we are liberated. All the parts of our lives are it. There is no moment to be despised.<\/p>\nThe entry into Jerusalem and those palm fronds. They are it. Turning over the tables of the money changers. That\u2019s it. Sitting together with his friends. That\u2019s it. He particularly points to that \u201cit\u201d of it, when he calls their attention to what the bread and the wine really are. Just bread. Just wine. And, him. Both. And. Later, the empty tomb. That\u2019s it. And, later the dream conversations. They are it, each of them.<\/p>\nAnd. And, right here, today, as the day turns to night, and thirst and blood and pain, and dying are the matter at hand.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s it.<\/p>\nEvery day is Good Friday.<\/p>\nFor those have ears to hear, this is good news.<\/p>\nEvery day is the good day.<\/p>\nThank you.<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/B0EN_Hmq534\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 \u00a0 EVERY DAY IS GOOD FRIDAY A Zen Meditation on a Christian Holy Day James Ishmael Ford I am a child of the West. I learned to read from an outsized King James Bible resting on my grandmother\u2019s lap. I am fond of saying how to this day Jesus and the Mary\u2019s all crowd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[42,3740,8],"class_list":["post-27104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity","tag-good-friday","tag-zen"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>EVERY DAY IS GOOD FRIDAY A Zen Meditation on a Christian Holy Day<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    EVERY DAY IS GOOD FRIDAY A Zen Meditation on a Christian Holy Day James Ishmael Ford I am a child of the West. 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He has been authorized as a teacher within two traditional Zen lineages. James has washed dishes, assisted a crab fisherman on the Florida keys, worked in bookstores up and down the California coast, and served as a Unitarian Universalist parish minister. He currently lives with his spouse Jan and her mother in Los Angeles. 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