Wild Fox Zen
Yesterday the “Tricycle Daily Dharma” had a nice quote from Joko Beck, including this:
…It can seem as if the point of practice is to have breakthroughs. The usefulness of these openings exists only if they clarify life and our ability to live it and serve it.
I read this as I made the final preparations for the Introduction to the Wild Fox Online Community (click here for that). We’re about to enter into a 90-day practice period with a focus on living and serving, “open and compassionate living,” as Joko puts it. I imagine that many of the upcoming posts will swirl around that hitching post.
Zazen will still be an important focus, of course, as will breakthrough experiences because there is no authentic Zen without these.
However, I quibble with the venerable Joko suggesting that breakthrough experiences ought to be used in daily life. Using breakthroughs in daily life is a fork in the toilet.
In my view, the most important thing learned from zazen and breakthrough is the utter non-utility of it all. “Using” something for some gain, blinds us to the radiance of zazen, breakthrough, and hoar frost coating the trees.
How can hoar frost be put to use?
The same way the carrot and the onion can be put to use in the kitchen. Each thing is exactly each thing. The way of carrots and onions includes coming forth as soup.
Opening the heart to each thing as it is, including our pernicious and precious self clinging, is to drop means-ends dramas, shedding mask after mask.
After all, uselessness is very useful.
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