In this issue:
Imagine that we are on a cruise ship sailing along a rocky coast. We are enjoying the amenities it offers, like the endless buffet of rich food, the entertainments of theater, dance and song, the sports of shuffleboard and volleyball, the alcohol (and ice cream) bars…. Suddenly, the ship strikes a hidden rock and rapidly sinks, pitching the passengers into the turbulent water without life jackets.
Our instinctive urge will naturally be to save ourselves. If we are fortunate, we have been taught how to swim. Depending on how much we have practiced in safe waters, we might or might not be very good at swimming. But under these life-and-death circumstances we have enough experience, and desperate need, to thrash our way to shore.
Once on shore, what do we do? Do we wave goodbye to the drowning non-swimmers and head inland on our own? Some of us will. But the cries of those struggling in the water give rise to a compelling need to help in the hearts of others. We have choked on the same undrinkable seawater, fought to keep breathing the same life-giving air. Deep down, in a fundamental sense we know that they are us and we are them, and to abandon them would be to abandon a part of ourselves.
Because this is a perilous stretch of water, the coast guard has placed life ring stations at intervals along the coast. We seize them and hurl them into the water. Some of those floundering grab onto them and use the lifelines attached to them to pull their way to shore. Others are so crazed with panic that they do not realize that they are within reach. Some of us on shore are prompted to jump back in to save them, but the panic makes them strong and they grab on to the rescuers and take them down with them.
Of course, this scenario is a metaphor for training. We can be sailing along in the ship of our worldly life and, even if the ship lurches and sways at times, we are content and complacent. But at some time in life our ship, which seemed so safe and would sail forever, will hit a rock and we will be thrown into the cold waters of confusion and despair and risk drowning. Each of us has our own particular rock…a death, loss of a relationship, loss of a safe and seemingly secure job…. And it does not have to be traumatic, but simply a compelling sense that something important and vital is missing on the ship, despite its pleasing distractions and diversions.
What will rescue us in these times is learning how to spiritually swim. For us, as Zen trainees, this begins with zazen, pure meditation. We first learn not to fight the waves of thoughts and emotions that threaten to drown us, but to relax and float on their surface. Then, the waves diminish and we can see that there is a safe shore beyond the sinking ship and restless waves. We begin to make the effort to swim to it.
As we struggle along in training we discover that lifelines of compassion have been thrown to us by those who have made that shore. There is the lifeline of the Precepts, and of the Four Wisdoms of charity, tenderness, benevolence, and sympathy. All of the teachings that have been handed down to us by the Buddhas and Ancestors and by our teachers of the present day.
Continuing to pull on the lifelines of training that are anchored on that safe and quiet shore, we eventually crawl out of the maelstrom…only to discover that the shore is training and that we had been standing on it all along. We feel compassion for those still struggling in the waters and long to help. We might feel compelled to jump back in, but it will not help, because two drowning people cannot save each other. But we can hold out the lifelines that saved us by living the Precepts and manifesting the Four Wisdoms. And ultimately, the strongest lifeline that we can offer to ourselves and this suffering world is the person we become through training.