When All Is Lost

About two weeks ago I had a nightmare. I'm not quite sure why, I think I had a cold at the time and wasn't sleeping well. In the nightmare I was being chased by a gang who were desperately trying to kill me. Right before I woke up I was surrounded by men holding knives and seemingly in the last few seconds of my life. It was terrifying.

Even though I was dreaming I was in a state of absolute panic and fear. It wasn't the kind of fear that would afford me the time to be mindful. It wasn't a matter of looking deeply into my fears, because I was overwhelmed by a primal need to protect my life, to fight for survival.

Suddenly all the sutras, all the books I've read, all concepts, dharma debates and practices all became meaningless. What I needed was to see my family one last time. My wife and adorable daughter. I needed a warm hand to pull me up and out of my terror. I had no energy to think, the fear was so overwhelming it paralyzed me.

Zen is quite a practical religion, and my practice would tell me to just act and not let the fear itself become an obstacle to a necessary action. There are many instances when that is very sound advice. Yet when death seems inevitable, that strategy hardly seems useful if even possible.

When Jesus was on the cross he exclaimed "My Father, Why have you forsaken me?". As our lives are being taken from us, our reaction is to feel alone, abandoned and helpless.

When all else is lost, where do you turn? It struck me at this point that perhaps Zen practice isn't enough. Maybe my practice isn't strong enough, or perhaps I am just honest to realize that I am not strong enough. No matter how able we are to tame our minds, sometimes in a state of desperation what you need the most is comfort. You need to regress to a child, and submit your worries to your mother's capable hands.

Pure Land Buddhists, and many other Buddhists also, chant the name of Amitabha Buddha when death is imminent. Supposedly to be reborn in the Pure Land, but I think there is more to it than that. It is not an egotistic practice, it is an act of devotion.

As a baby we are helpless, yet somehow more content than we are the rest of our lives. Our lives are entrusted to our mother, who feeds and nurtures us. This type of submission is the deepest form of devotion, the deepest faith we will ever experience. Yet when a baby is distressed she cries 'mama'. To say that this is purely a survival tactic is superficial, I think, because reaching out gives us hope, and where there is hope there can be peace.

For all the instruction we receive on following the eightfold path, we should never see it as a skill to attain. When fear is overwhelming you are in no state to look to practice a skill. If anything, Zen is about letting go of skills, letting go of notions. This is very important. There is an excellent book by Shunryu Suzuki called 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind' that emphasizes that very point.

Letting go is exactly what we do as a baby: we let go of our need to survive, we surrender it to our mother, and then we are as peaceful as a sleeping baby.

Many of the most devout Christians, Muslims, the most faithful of theistic religious followers, have learnt how to let go. They submit their worries, their fears, to God, to Jesus, to Mary, or to Allah. By letting go they are able to live in the present moment in peace. This isn't something to be dismissed, even if you have never followed a theistic religion.

As Zen practitioners we shouldn't deny our human state. We are loving creatures. We need companionship, not just books, empty words or ability to sit alone in meditation. In our deepest moment of need, we need someone to carry us away. We don't need practice, we need someone. This is why we have Amida Buddha, God, Jesus, Mary... that is why we need a personification, a person to submit our troubles to and to carry us away when we most need someone to be there for us. It is a most fundamental aspect of our humanity and should be embraced, not transcended. It should be transformed into love for a greater being, into energy that can lift you up into their arms.

Devotion itself can be Dharma. It was said in a Zen proverb that anything that is not of the self is Dharma. Submitting yourself to another is thus Dharma. Submitting your fears actually enables you to be mindful. It is a deep practice that should be embraced.

As Carl Jung pointed out, we should never deny our own roots. If we grew up in a Christian environment, then we should embrace the figure of Jesus or Mary. If we feel more comfortable embracing Buddha then we should embrace them. But we should always have someone that, in our weakest moment, we can submit our fears to. Perhaps you won't realize this until you are faced with overwhelming fear, but I can bet it will happen one day.

Zen tells us that words and concepts are not sufficient to allow us to experience reality. In our weakest state we realize just how true that is.

It took this nightmare for me to understand how important it is to not see Zen as something to be mastered or even attained. You're not studying for a degree in psychology. Just as how you arrived, on your deathbed you have nothing. As we are reading we should always pause to remind ourselves that there is nothing to learn there, but everything to let go.

But in a state of fear, even the thought of letting go is not enough. Letting go doesn't help you from feeling lonely.

Mindfulness is often described as the practice of observing our thoughts as if they were flowing down a river and we were sitting on the riverbed watching. And this works. Devotion doesn't change that. It just means that at the end of the river is God, or Buddha, or Mary, with a glowing, happy face and wide open arms. When you have no strength, they are your strength. We let go of our thoughts, but we know who will receive them. They will watch your thoughts flow down the river with you.

And when all is lost, in your final moments, you simply fall into that river, and flow into their arms.

Even in moments in daily life this can be useful, because the burden of looking deeply is shared - now you have someone watching your thoughts also, so you will want to only have pure thoughts, you will strive to become better.

Devotion can be a wonderful thing, and (contrary to some of my previous posts) I am beginning to think that having a person to look to, and to devote yourself to, can give you more strength to practice, not less, and someone to fall back onto when all else is lost.