Two Zen masters, friends for many
years, visited one another in the monastery garden. They strolled together among the stones,
ponds, and trees. They sat together in
silence for several hours with no need for words. Suddenly, one Zen master broke the conversation
of silence as he began to chuckle softly.
He pointed towards the blossoming form before them and remarked with
simple insight to his friend: “They call that a tree”.
I heard this story a long time
ago, but I can’t recall the source. It
stuck with me.
And something also stuck with me
that I heard at a dharma discussion I participate in at a Zen Center: “There is a difference between the map and
the terrain.” This was given in response
to a question regarding how much “truth” or “authority” to we (as Zen students)
should ascribe to Zen writings, commentaries, and koans. In Zen training, what is more important is
our direct experience, not how well we can intellectualize the scriptures.
I assert that the same is true of
Christianity and our practice as followers of Christ. Scripture is one thing, experience is
another. The bible is a map, not the
terrain itself. It is important not to
confuse the two. It is equally important
not to elevate the scripture above the level of that to which the scripture
describes or points. Our Christian
injunction is to follow; to love and to serve; to walk the spiritual path, not
to get lost in over intellectualizing the details of the map. This is the teaching implicit in the parable
of the “Good Samaritan.”
So I sometimes share with people
that there is just as much to learn from a flower, a beetle, a blade of grass,
or a tree as there is from any religious scripture. (This, after all, is how the tradition of
Ch’an or Zen Buddhism came to be!). The
trick is to practice our spirituality in such a way that we are open and
receptive to what a tree has to tell us.
This is what I learned from an Oak
tree once…
Most people are afraid of
change. Some people seem to be afraid of
diversity and think of seemingly perpetual differentiation as a worrisome or
problematic trend. And most people seem
to be oblivious or resistant to the real and natural processes of life and
death…they are afraid of impermanence.
Part of what makes an oak tree an
oak tree is the magnificence of its beautifully fractillated, ever-branching
complexity. Germinating from a single
acorn, this tree spends decades growing and branching into its unique
form. This form is determined by both
genetics as well as by external events such as weather, disease, animals, and
other natural and un-natural events. But
throughout this growth process, the oak tree naturally continues to branch in
every available direction, each branch sprouting and budding left, right, up and
down, in an almost endless process of bifurcation. New acorns are produced and given to the
earth, each containing its own explosive potential to become a fully grown oak
tree. The mature oak tree provides shade
and habitat for other life forms. It
gives of itself, never questioning its truth, but always demonstrating its
abundance and inherent oak-tree-ness.
And it never tries to be anything other than a fully bifurcated, magnificent
oak tree, leaves of each branch lovingly supporting the life of the whole.
At the end of its life, the oak tree, like all living things, succumbs
to the natural events of death and decay and surrenders its form to the earth
from which it came.
What worries me is the way persons
who are unable to hear or perceive what an oak tree has to say or who have failed
to integrated these lessons, seem to insist on a world-view in which diversity
is resisted, inclusivity is spurned, the reality of life and death is
denied. As if somehow they hold the
secret “truth” that diversity, inclusivity, and impermanence are "wrong"; that what is best for the oak tree is to become a comparatively monolithic,
eternally static cactus….without too much diversity, without deciduous change; for the oak tree to revert to a "simpler" form that is eternal and unmoving, upright and unbending.
I believe the religious term for this is “fundamentalism”.
Diversity is natural and good. An oak tree by it's very nature is diverse. It is impossible for an oak tree to be fundamentalist.
Cacti have spines…I’d much rather hug an oak tree.
Cacti have spines…I’d much rather hug an oak tree.
fr. Scott+
