Day and Night

Song of the Day: Castles Made Of Sand - Jimi Hendrix

Quote of the Day: "Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." --Jimi Hendrix

Thought of the Day: I have been really enjoying reading more of Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, and Bach book. I am now approaching half way through. Now am continuing to learn a little more about Zen through the book. Was struck by this neat concept presented in the book: that an ultra-concise summary of "enlightenment" would be . . . transcending dualism. The world is made up of night/day, happy/sad, self/non-self, life/death . . . or is it? I love how in the M.C. Escher woodcut shown above Escher blurs the distinction between duality. To mentally accept this painting one has to abandon the idea that it is night OR day. It is both. Similarly perhaps there is good and bad contained in all things, and in fact even "all things" are just one.

One of the really weird concepts to get around in studying Zen is that it's not meant to be studied. To commit the Zen concepts to words is challenging the duality. It's really interesting that perhaps one of the reasons Zen didn't become a powerful movement like Christianity is that its "preachers" actually resisted putting words about Zen on paper to spread to others. One Zen student once asked, if Zen eschews intellectualizing it, then how am I to study and learn it? The student was given the response that any path towards understanding Zen is equal. If the student wished to use intellectual study as his path towards Zen, then part of the process of reaching enlightenment would be to fall away from this chosen path. Quite a concept.

One of the modalities used in "teaching" zen and helping students reach enlightenment is the koan, which are stories like the one I presented in my last post. These stories do not have self-evident "morals" at the end but rather bring the audience to a state at which they can appreciate reality from a new perspective, perhaps by abandoning previously held views. I have always been struck by the lyrics of Castles Made of Sand by Jimi Hendrix, shown below. Was he a modern-day Zen practicer? These lyrics feel to me like a koan.

Down the street you can hear her scream you're a disgrace
As she slams the door in his drunken face
And now he stands outside
And all the neighbors start to gossip and drool
He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
And his tears fall and burn the garden green

And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually

A little indian brave who before he was ten,
Played wargames in the woods with his indian friends
And he built up a dream that when he grew up
He would be a fearless warrior indian chief
Many moons past and more the dream grew strong until
Tomorrow he would sing his first war song and fight his first battle
But something went wrong, surprise attack killed him in his sleep that night

And so castles made of sand melts into the sea, eventually

There was a young girl, whos heart was a frown
cause she was crippled for life,
And she couldn't speak a sound
And she wished and prayed she could stop living,
So she decided to die
She drew her wheelchair to the edge of the shore
And to her legs she smiled you won't hurt me no more
But then a sight she'd never seen made her jump and say
Look a golden winged ship is passing my way

And it really didn't have to stop, it just kept on going...

And so castles made of sand slips into the sea, eventually