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<\/a>National Museum of Natural History, Object Number A381569<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Case<\/p>\n
this is the song of mehitabel<\/em> i have had my ups and downs<\/em> do you think that i would change<\/em> i know that i am bound<\/em> i once was an innocent kit<\/em> my youth i shall never forget<\/em> the things that i had not ought to<\/em> boss sometimes i think<\/em> My editor at Shambhala Matt Zepelin is slowly grinding through the great pile of words I presented to him, trying to discern the book he believes is buried in there somewhere.<\/p>\n He recently came to one part and he advised me it needed an illustration, perhaps something like something he heard second hand attributed to Shunryu Suzuki.<\/p>\n \u201cAn enlightened person who loves alcohol, when they pass the liquor store, their head will still turn.\u201d<\/p>\n I was much taken with it but was uncomfortable with the second hand nature of the citation. Also I had the impression Suzuki wasn\u2019t much of a drinker and thought it an unlikely image for him. And so I began a bit of a journey.<\/p>\n I asked friends on social media, whom among the crackers wise and people who respond to a different question than the one asked, there are an unusually high number of folk who know something about Zen and the Zen scene.<\/p>\n One such friend in the later category, Doug Bates, who is also prominent on the Pyrrhonist<\/a> scene, said he heard Daido Loori cite it as an observation from Daido\u2019s teacher, Taizan Maezumi. As Maezumi was both a deeply wise person of the way, and an alcoholic, whose alcoholism actually killed him, it added a particularly poignant edge to the quote.<\/p>\n As to the Suzuki provenance another friend said, why don\u2019t you ask David Chadwick. David is the author of the magisterial biography of Suzuki, Crooked Cucumber<\/em> as well as perhaps the most delightful of the Zen memoirs I\u2019ve ever read, Thank You, and Okay<\/em>. David also manages a gigantic archive of all things Shunryu Suzuki<\/a>. So, I did.<\/p>\n David, said the allusion is a commonplace in Chinese and Japanese Zen. Which, I want to assert, I know. At least in the sense of the deep teaching as presented as one of the important points in the famous Fox koan<\/a>. He also said he was sure that he heard Suzuki say that, although probably with the word sake instead of alcohol. He didn\u2019t have a direct citation in mind however.<\/p>\n So, I continued to dig a bit. And I found the transcript of a talk the roshi gave in 1971<\/a>. He described the abbot of Eiheiji, one of the two major training temples in Japanese Soto Zen, Kitano Zenji. Zenji is a title, an honorific somewhat higher than Roshi. Never used in this country.<\/p>\n It appears the old abbot was a very serious smoker. At some point he quit. But he always wanted a smoke. And it seems every once in a while he would smoke a cigarette. And then in the talk Suzuki Roshi comes to the point. \u201cBut even though he gave up smoking, he has desire as long as he is alive, you know. But he knows how to treat his desire, that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n This all led me to reflect a bit on the matter of awakening.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re not familiar with the Fox koan<\/a>, it\u2019s quite compelling. On the surface it seems to be a discussion of karma. Okay, it is. But it point out how we don\u2019t usually get what karma might actually mean.<\/p>\n The koan is framed as a ghost story. In the first part it turns on a conversation between the current master of a Zen monastery and the ghost of a former master who when asked many ages before whether someone who is awakened is bound by cause and effect, you know, karma? His answer was no. And it led to all those ages reincarnating as a fox spirit, a particularly unsavory version of ghost in that time and place. The current master \u201ccorrected\u201d the old master, saying something that actually seems a bit hard to translate, but is a bit different than a straightforward yes. More about not evading or being one with.<\/p>\n But the juicy part happens later in a second conversation when the new master tells the story to his community. One of his students asks, \u201cWell, master. What if the old master gave the right answer?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAn enlightened person who loves alcohol, when they pass the liquor store, their head will still turn.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of us want our Zen teachers to be perfect. Enlightenment means not being tangled, not doing the wrong thing. And then they meet real Zen teachers. It can be very disappointing. Even in Suzuki Roshi\u2019s smoking story, the renowned abbot, despite Suzuki\u2019s line \u201cHe knows how to treat his desire\u201d runs up against the fact the abbot continues to sneak a smoke. And, to make sure we don\u2019t miss the point, there\u2019s Maezumi\u2019s fatal addiction.<\/p>\n And. And this is so important. This does not mean they did not penetrate to the heart of the matter.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an old Zen line, even the Buddha is still training.<\/p>\n The classic formula for Zen as a living tradition has three aspects. One is the great achievement, that winning of the race, finding our true nature. It is summarized in the Zen way in the deep knowing that form is emptiness and emptiness is form<\/a>. Another are the constellation of practices<\/a>. And the other is the ethical container<\/a>.<\/p>\n And then what? If we speak and no matter the answer we get five hundred lives as a fox. We become a renowned Zen master and we sneak cigarettes. We found one of the most vibrant Zen lineages in the West and are killed by drink.<\/p>\n The light inside the dark. Which comes from an ancient Chinese poem the C\u0101nt\u00f3ngq\u00ec,\u00a0<\/span><\/i>more commonly known in English by its Japanese name Sandokai<\/em>. It also says there\u2019s dark inside the light. It can be hard to discern anyway to disentangle the parts.<\/span><\/p>\n In my old age I\u2019ve come, slowly, slowly, to appreciate the foibles and outright flaws of my character, the bad choices mix up with the good choices and the better aspects of who I am. They are not extricable one from the other. They can be minded, there are good anti smoking workshops, and I\u2019m a big fan of AA. Me, my abiding issues as they manifest these days lead me to be a paying member of weight watchers.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s no letting ourselves off the hook, or the several hooks. There are always consequences. And they\u2019re not ours alone. We\u2019re all in this mess together.<\/p>\n Oh yes, and there\u2019s that koan. Mehitabel\u2019s koan. Mehitabel\u2019s presentation and invitation.<\/p>\n After all that Zen stuff, after the great assertion, after throwing myself over and over again onto the pillow, after I bind myself to vows and fail and fail again, then what? What does it look like?<\/p>\n Archy had once been a free-verse poet. A consequence of this led him to reincarnate as a cockroach. Among his companions was Mehitabel. Mehitabel had once been Cleopatra, but was now an alley cat with a weakness for bad boys. Archy would communicate his adventures and those of his friends to a newspaperman named Don Marquis. He would do this by jumping from key to key on Marquis\u2019 old stand up manual typewriter. Because of this there were no punctuation marks, and of necessity the notes were brief.<\/p>\n I count Archy and Mehitabel among my friends.<\/p>\n As to Mehitabel. I suspect for her sins it was five hundred lives as a cat.<\/p>\n I originally identified with Archy, the wry observer of life. But I realize my soul was Mehitabel\u2019s. The grandeur of the awakened life is there, but often a dream of a past life. Today maybe its all more of a garbage scow and always mixed up with the come hither of that Maltese.<\/p>\n These are hard times. I suspect rather than riding a handcart on our way to perdition we\u2019re more likely all on that garbage scow on that journey down the sound. I can smell it. But broken and failed and a faint version of a better self, you know, I find how beautiful it can be, how good it can be. Even the garbage scow. (There\u2019s a koan pointer there, in case you didn\u2019t pick it up.)<\/p>\n And.<\/p>\n And, I return to the pillow. And I practice with friends and cherish companions. I lean up against old Shakyamuni and wink at his friend Jesus.<\/p>\n I find it hard to tell Archy and Mehitabel and Don apart, creator and created, the divine and the earth. And those five hundred lives as a cat.<\/p>\n And I find the way is feeling how the light and the dark weave together creating what we can be\u2026<\/p>\n Toujours gai<\/p>\n Friends.<\/p>\n toujours gai<\/em><\/p>\n
\nof mehitabel the alley cat<\/em>
\nas i wrote you before boss<\/em>
\nmehitabel is a believer<\/em>
\nin the pythagorean<\/em>
\ntheory of the transmigration<\/em>
\nof the soul and she claims<\/em>
\nthat formerly her spirit<\/em>
\nwas incarnated in the body<\/em>
\nof cleopatra<\/em>
\nthat was a long time ago<\/em>
\nand one must not be<\/em>
\nsurprised if mehitabel<\/em>
\nhas forgotten some of her<\/em>
\nmore regal manners<\/em><\/p>\n
\nbut wotthehell wotthehell<\/em>
\nyesterday sceptres and crowns<\/em>
\nfried oysters and velvet gowns<\/em>
\nand today i herd with bums<\/em>
\nbut wotthehell wotthehell<\/em>
\ni wake the world from sleep<\/em>
\nas i caper and sing and leap<\/em>
\nwhen i sing my wild free tune<\/em>
\nwotthehell wotthehell<\/em>
\nunder the blear eyed moon<\/em>
\ni am pelted with cast off shoon<\/em>
\nbut wotthehell wotthehell<\/em><\/p>\n
\nmy present freedom to range<\/em>
\nfor a castle or moated grange<\/em>
\nwotthehell wotthehell<\/em>
\ncage me and i d go frantic<\/em>
\nmy life is so romantic<\/em>
\ncapricious and corybantic<\/em>
\nand i m toujours gai toujours gai<\/em><\/p>\n
\nfor a journey down the sound<\/em>
\nin the midst of a refuse mound<\/em>
\nbut wotthehell wotthehell<\/em>
\noh i should worry and fret<\/em>
\ndeath and i will coquette<\/em>
\nthere s a dance in the old dame yet<\/em>
\ntoujours gai toujours gai<\/em><\/p>\n
\nwotthehell wotthehell<\/em>
\nwith a ribbon my neck to fit<\/em>
\nand bells tied onto it<\/em>
\no wotthehell wotthehell<\/em>
\nbut a maltese cat came by<\/em>
\nwith a come hither look in his eye<\/em>
\nand a song that soared to the sky<\/em>
\nand wotthehell wotthehell<\/em>
\nand i followed adown the street<\/em>
\nthe pad of his rhythmical feet<\/em>
\no permit me again to repeat<\/em>
\nwotthehell wotthehell<\/em><\/p>\n
\nbut there s nothing i really regret<\/em>
\nwotthehell wotthehell<\/em>
\nthere s a dance in the old dame yet<\/em>
\ntoujours gai toujours gai<\/em><\/p>\n
\ni do because i ve gotto<\/em>
\nwotthehell wotthehell<\/em>
\nand i end with my favorite motto<\/em>
\ntoujours gai toujours gai<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthat our friend mehitabel<\/em>
\nis a trifle too gay<\/em><\/p>\n