Upside Down Zen<\/em><\/a> writes of a friend who was dying of AIDS. He offered his comment on the koan, \u201c\u2019Every day is Good Friday.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\nFrom a dying man\u2019s mouth. Every day is Good Friday. A pointer.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
She reminds us, \u201cYunmen was offering no blandishments at all, but the hardest of all possible challenges.\u201d Slyly she adds, \u201cWe notice, with gratitude, that he didn\u2019t say \u2018Every day is a nice day.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Every day is a nice day is a lie. Or, rather, it is so far short of the reality that it is not helpful. Every day is a good day is the truth. As is every day is Good Friday. They are not two things. Here that yes and no of whether all religions point to the same thing, well, those words burn away.<\/p>\n
Jesus\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\u00a0 The Zen teacher wasn\u2019t particularly impressed with \u201cwill be in paradise.\u201d But he felt \u201care with me in paradise\u201d a direct pointing.<\/p>\n
Here. Now. Yes and no collapse in the hurt of a man hanging on a cross, in the simple words of an old monk speaking to his suffering companions.<\/p>\n
There are other words tumbled up in the accounts of the event. John, 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>\n
The 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>\n
The 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 the bandits stabbed him. It is said his dying scream could be heard ten miles away.<\/p>\n
That 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. Hakuin 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>\n
Now 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>\n
Reason and putting the things of our lives all together, sorting and sifting, is powerful and important. I so love Occam and his terrible razor to this day. But. And. When we come to this story and that koan, we are fully into the dream world of our human heart\u2019s longing. And the heart\u2019s reasons are of a completely different physics.<\/p>\n
Here we find the razor cutting the divided world into one. Here we are invited into the Mandala of Holy Week, where the human journey is revealed.<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s where it points and the koan revealed.<\/p>\n
In the midst of our suffering we are liberated. All the parts of our lives are it. There is no moment to be despised.<\/p>\n
In the story recalled last Sunday, the entry into Jerusalem and those palm fronds. They are it. Turning over the tables of the money changers. That\u2019s it. Sitting together at a meal 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.<\/p>\n
Later, the empty tomb. That\u2019s it. And, later the dream conversations. They are it, each of them. And they are not separate. Not one exactly, but not two, either.<\/p>\n
And we can enter from any point of our lives. Although these hardest times, if we meet them full on, with all our heart and being, well, they may offer the clearest opening into the mystery.<\/p>\n
So. Right here, today, as the day turns to night, and thirst and blood and pain, and dying are the matter at hand. That\u2019s it. Every day is Good Friday. The meeting of earth and heaven.<\/p>\n
For those have ears to hear, this is good news.<\/p>\n
Every day is the good day.<\/p>\n
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