ZEN BUDDHISM CHAPTER in MYTHS TO LIVE BY
by Joseph Campbell

[Open quote.]
In India two amusing figures are used to characterize the two principal types of religious attitude. One is “the way of the kitten”; the other, “the way of the monkey.” When a kitten cries “Miaow,” its mother, coming, takes it by the scruff and carries it to safety; but as anyone who has ever traveled in India will have observed, when a band of monkeys come scampering down from a tree and across the road, the babies riding on their mothers’ backs are hanging on by themselves. Accordingly, with reference to the two attitudes: the first is that of the person who prays, “0 Lord, 0 Lord, come save me!” and the second of one who, without such prayers or cries, goes to work on himself. In Japan the same two are known as tanki, “outside strength,” or “power from without,” and jiriki, “own strength,” “effort or power from within.” And in the Buddhism of that country these radically contrasting approaches to the achievement of enlightenment are represented accordingly in two apparently contrary types of religious life and thought.

The first and more popular of these two is that of the Jodo and Shinshu sects, where a transcendental, completely mythical Buddha known in Sanskrit as Aniitabha, “Illimitable Radiance”—also, Amitayus, “Un-. ending Life”—and in Japanese as Amida, is called upon to bestow release from rebirth—as is Christ, in Christian worship, to bestow redemption. Jiriki, on the other hand, the way of self-help, own-doing, inner energy, which neither begs nor expects aid from any deity or Buddha, but works on its own to achieve what is to be achieved, is in Japan represented preeminently by Zen.

There is a fable told in India of the god Vishnu, supporter of the universe, who one day abruptly summoned Garuda, his air-vehicle, the golden-feathered sun-bird; and when his wife, the goddess Lakshmi, asked why, he replied that he had just noticed that one of his worshipers was in trouble. However, hardly had he soared away when he was back, descending from the vehicle; and when the goddess again asked why, he replied that he had found his devotee taking care of himself.

Now the way of jiriki, as represented in the Mahayana Buddhist sect known in Japan as Zen, is a form of religion (if one may call it such) with no dependence on God or on gods, no idea of an ultimate deity, and no need even for the Buddha—in fact, no supernatural references at all. It has been described as:

a special transmission outside the scriptures;
not dependent on words or letters;
a direct pointing to the heart of man;
seeing into one’s own nature; and
the attainment thereby of Buddhahood.
(Campbell, pp. 129-130)
[Close quote.]


Yesterday's post reflects my interest, I suppose, in the "way of the monkey" as described above, the way of self illumination, by the effort of self, clinging to the mother back of scrambling experience. Anything else is too foreign for my strictly American sensibility. Without malice, I must say, I don't understand how religion can be a part of a true American consciousness since most religions are not set up to be democracies. Most are paternal and structure themselves from a top down perspective. People don't vote on their dogma, unfortunately. It's their mental quirk to accept things without questioning them that makes religious people such dangers to a democratic consciousness.


OKAY! A POLITICAL THOUGHT, FIRST IN TWO DAYS

Was reading our excellent local weekly, The Inlander, and came across an article about the sex education classes which Washington is getting ready to teach in state schools. Of course the abstinence only people are out there already, muddying up the issue with lies and half-truths. Cara Gardner steps up and debunks a few of the Christian lies, but to Christians, lies are just tools they use to get themselves to believe in Jesus so they never run out of or get sick of lies. When your whole life is a fabric of lies, how can you discern the truth when you see it?

But it's not Cara's arguments that interest me in her column; I'm more interested in some facts about Texas. As you may know, the entire South is out of step with the world, backward and rooted in prejudices and untruths. The South has higher murder rates than enlightened Northern states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Michigan, for instance. Poor educational systems compound rampant ignorance and prejudices. Poverty results which, of course, complicates the process of getting good schools. In almost every measure, the South falls short so why do we elect guys like George Bush who exemplifies the South's failed philosophies of life? Well, there are a lot of Christians in America and they just can't tell the truth from a damned lie.

In Cara's article we can find that Bush's well-funded "abstinence only" programs while he was Texas governor put Texas dead first in the number of girls between 15 and 17 who got pregnant. And Texas was in 5th place overall in number of teens who got pregnant. So Bush's abstinence programs just got everybody happily pregnant. Wonderful! Now why would anyone follow George Bush's lead on teen pregnancy. His ideas were proved false in Texas, his home state. (INLANDER, February 16, 2005, p. 15)

Let's face it, the drive to procreate is one of the strongest drives in the human animal. It overrides reason and judgment almost every time, and those who don't give in to the imperious urge are often pretty miserable people unless they marry early. And, then, having been goaded into marriage by their sex hormones, many of those young spouse end up in miserable marriages later in life from which they flee in divorce and unfaithfulness.
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"Familiarity breeds attempt." —Goodman Ace