Mister Timeless Blyth, page 17
If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
We sat in our little basement room.
If you want to see things just as they are, then you yourself must practice just as you are.
Breathe in. This moment. Breathe out.
But Bob was also drawn to Rinzai Zen, the Zen of Hakuin, with its study of koan, those maddeningly unanswerable questions, existential riddles that had to be answered with the whole being.
What is the sound of one hand?
Does a dog have the Buddha nature?
Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?
Bob, engagingly, described them as the folk tales of Zen, and while I would not have described them in that way, the idea was a good one, made a certain kind of sense (or non-sense!) Each koan had a narrative to it, a surprise ending (a punchline!)
I thought of those old Korean tales with which I had tortured Annie (felt a pang at that).
All living beings come from water, as you well know….
But no, the koan were not stories in that sense, not parables but problems to be solved. And reading the ‘answers’ given by the great masters and handed down from generation to generation was no help at all.
What is the sound of one hand?
Hear the soundless sound, the sound-beyond-all sound.
Does a dog have the Buddha nature? (The answer is not Yes and it is not No).
Mu. Nothing. No-thing.
Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?
The old oak tree in the yard.
I told Bob about another response, given by the monk Hsiang-lin. A student asked him, Why did Bodhidharma come from the West? He answered, My old legs are stiff from sitting so long.
Bob laughed out loud at that. He said his own spindly shanks were one long ache when he sat in meditation, an ache that drove out all thought.
Which may be the pointless point, I said.
But Hsiang-lin’s answer seemed to open a little door for Bob, let in a chink of light.
It’s the humanity of it, he said, the grouchy grumbling physicality. We sit. We ache. We sit some more. It’s about keeping our butts on that cushion….
That folded-up blanket….
We keep sitting. We persist.
He began writing little verses, based on Chinese gatha, to keep him focussed.
I sit in the meditation room,
And vow with all sentient beings
To acknowledge that this is the sacred,
This breath, this body, this bottom.
That one made me laugh.
Straight from the heart, I said.
Sometimes in the canteen, after eating our rice and vegetables (and trying to think of it as monks’ rations) we batted our koans back and forth, made up our own answers. One day we continued it out in the yard, walking round and round.
What is the sound of one hand?
What’s that? Speak up. I can’t hear
Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?
Why did you?
Spin around till you’re dizzy. Where is East? Where is West?
Does a dog have the Buddha nature?
Do you? Do I?
Seriously, does a dog have the Buddha nature?
Hear him bark!
Does he? Yes or no?
Woof!
I said I was afraid a certain lack of profundity might have entered into the proceedings.
We need a real master to set us straight.
A real master might cuff us about the ear.
Knock us into the middle of next week!
Now that would be something!
Transcending time and space.
The middle of next week!
Thwack!
Kwatz!
After that we returned to the work, interrogating silence.
Time continued to pass, now quickly, now slowly, but it passed. The seasons turned, months became years. Basho wrote that the days and months were travellers on eternity’s road, and travellers too were the passing years, they hurried past like windblown clouds.
The actual passage of time was marked for me, made vividly clear, by Tomiko’s visits and the changes in little Harumi. Unable to see her day by day, and sometimes not even week by week, I would be astonished at what would appear to be a sudden transformation. It was like a speeded-up film, watching her grow and become.
Now she’s swaddled in a blanket, wee face puckered. Now she’s teething, biting on a rubber ring and anything else she can grab, wailing at the injustice of it all. Now her baby hair has gone and she’s once again a miniature baldpate Bodhisattva, a budding Kannon, Kwan-yin.
Now the hair has grown in again, thick and dark. Now the sounds she gurgles have evolved into one clear word, delighting Tomiko. Mama, says the baby, a universal utterance. Mama. Weeks pass and eventually she says Papa, and I’m idiotically happy.
One day I brought the little Daruma doll, set it on the table.
Remember this?
I tipped it over and let it rock back up. Harumi did the same, laughed and clapped her hands.
I chanted. Nana korobi ya oki…
Seven times down, eight times up.
She knocked it over again, again.
I chanted. She laughed.
Nana korabi…
Life could be as good, as simple as this.
The number of my haiku translations had grown and would now make a substantial collection. I saw that this would indeed be my next great work (listen to me – my Great Work!) There would be four volumes, arranged by season and embellished (or diminished) by my commentary and exegesis and general meandering. I knew there was a danger, of over-elaborating, of mistaking the explanation for the poetry, the pointing finger for the moon. The aim of the explanation, the pointing finger, is to make itself unnecessary. Get rid of the extraneous so the truth can be seen.
But I felt the same excitement I’d felt when embarking on my Zen in English Literature, and once again there was the same commitment to the work itself, for its own sake, irrespective of what would become of it.
Don’t worry about whether the temple will burn down next week…
Just the work.
Bob was almost as excited as I was, eager to have more books to inspire him.
What you’re doing is important, he said.
Perhaps, I said. Perhaps not.
Not all of the American internees appreciated me or my work. Some of them regarded me as a collaborator, a turncoat, a traitor. I heard one muttered suggestion that I face a firing squad after the war.
They think you’ve gone native, said Bob.
In my old tweed suit?
They see you doing zazen, he said.
In my old tweed suit!
They hear you speaking Japanese to the guards.
It’s useful.
They think you’re some kind of apologist.
For the culture, I said. Not for this travesty of a philosophy, this wilful misinterpretation, this warmongering and brutality. If the Japanese had not abandoned their true heritage, if they spent more time composing haiku and senryu, this stupid war would never have happened.
That simple? said Bob, and even he, I could see, was taken aback by what he saw as my naiveté.
That simple, I said.
With Bob I often found myself making pronouncements, speaking in aphorisms.
The way to stop war is to show how ridiculous it is.
Yes… he said, and I saw him scribble my words down in a little notebook.
War is caused by a deficiency of food or its unequal distribution, or differences of religion, of world view – the idea of what makes life worth living at all.
Yes…
These causes are not so different, not entirely separate. Equality of distribution is itself a religious idea. Peace demands that all shall have work and all shall eat.
You’re sounding like a communist!
Inasmuch as ye do this to the least of these my brethren, ye do it unto me. Zen tells us I am you and you are I. So when your stomach is empty, mine is empty too. We have to know this in the gut and not in the head. Then all our troubles – social and political, national and international, are at an end, for my troubles are yours, and yours are mine.
We realise our essential oneness, said Bob.
Exactly so. But then again, the troubles do not end there. This oneness has to extend to all sentient beings.
So, we have our work cut out!
Every time Bob came to sit with me, he would have another comment about my Zen in English Literature, another query, something else to discuss. His own copy of the book was falling apart
How is it possible, he said, that this could be published? A book written in wartime, by an enemy national, in the enemy’s language, a language which is prohibited in Japan.
The contract was made before the war, I said. And the publisher simply kept his promise.
And thank God for that.
I am rather proud of the book, I said. All that’s wrong with it is that it’s too good, too rich, like a Christmas pudding or a trifle.
A very English description, he said.
There are no easy or flat bits, I said. It’s all purple patches!
He fell silent for a moment, then said, I don’t think I shall ever tire of reading it.
In spite of myself I was moved, and for once I had no words.
More than once Bob Aitken came to my defence if discussions grew too heated. Most of the American internees regarded me with a kind of bemused tolerance. They took to calling me Mr. B, which I thought combined formality with a kind of gruff respect that was not unfriendly. But tensions persisted. Those who saw me as a traitor would occasionally spit venom at me. One man in particular, a trader by the name of Olsen, from Pittsburgh, was particularly hostile. One evening he just came up to me in the canteen and confronted me directly, asked how I could possibly defend the Japanese.
What I defend, I said, is the real unmilitary power of Japan, the poetical power and glory. Amen.
That made him even angrier. Now you’re blaspheming, he said. Taking the Lord’s Prayer in vain!
I have great respect for the Lord’s Prayer, I said. I regard it as one of the greatest mantras ever written. I folded my hands and raised my eyes.
Thy Will be done…
He thought I was mocking him, threatened to knock my goddam Limey teeth down my goddam Limey throat.
Who’s blaspheming now? I said, and he stood and moved towards me, fists clenched. He came so close I could smell the stink of his sweat, the rankness of his breath. I braced myself, but Aitken and one of the other Americans intervened, led the man away.
Bob asked me later how far I would have taken my nonviolent response if the man had actually tried to hit me.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, I said.
But if it did?
There’s a story, I said…
There always is!
This one concerns a snake who terrorises the small village where he lives. The villagers live in fear of being bitten. The one day a master passes through the village and gives a talk. The snake listens and is deeply moved. He resolves to mend his ways and asks the master how he should live his life.
A talking snake? said Bob. So this is a fable?
Perhaps a parable.
In any case, the master can speak fluent snake.
Clearly. And he tells the snake he really must stop biting people.
A good beginning.
The master goes on his way, but he l passes through the village again some time later. The first thing he does is look for the snake, to see if he has made any progress. He searches everywhere, and eventually he finds the snake lying by the roadside, very much the worse for wear, badly battered and beaten.
The Master asks him, What happened?
It’s your fault, says the snake. Once the villagers realised I wasn’t going to bite them, they set about me with sticks and left me here for dead.
The master shakes his head and sighs. I told you not to bite, he says. I didn’t tell you not to hiss.
Bob laughed. It’s a good story. So you’ll hiss at Mr Olsen if he tries to hit you.
Let’s say I’ll try to dissuade him.
And if that doesn’t work, what then? Turn the other cheek?
The problem with that, I said, is that it would do him no favours. It would simply lead him deeper into ignorance.
It’s a koan, said Bob.
Perhaps.
So what would you do?
I have no idea. But I wouldn’t rule out a straight left to the jaw.
You’re priceless! said Bob.
Mister Priceless Blyth.
Always a story.
I remembered Annie saying that to me, when our marriage was falling apart. There’s always a story. She’d spat it out like an accusation.
There was another one I told Bob, one I might have tried on our friend from Pittsburgh.
It concerns the monk Gasan, I said.
He listened, attentive.
A group of soldiers from the Japanese army were on the march, preparing for battle. Some of the officers commandeered Gasan’s temple and set up their headquarters. Gasan said they were welcome and instructed the cook to make them the same simple food as he made for the monks, and to dish out the same meagre rations. The commanding officer was outraged at this lack of deference.
Have you no respect? he asked. Who do you think we are? We are soldiers sacrificing out lives for our country.
Gasan replied, Have you no respect? Who do you think we are? We are soldiers of humanity, fighting to save all sentient beings.
Bob laughed. I don’t think our bull-headed friend would have been too impressed!
I can see him so clearly, Bob Aitken, earnest, sitting at my feet, or at least on the floor at the end of my palette, plying me with questions, eager to learn.
He went home after the war but continued his intense study of Zen. He went the whole hog, was ordained as a Zen priest, relocated from California to Hawaii, became Aitken Roshi. Great Dragon of the Clear Pool.
Bob.
Bob told me once that he was deeply touched by something in Zen in English Literature which was almost unspoken, a little aside. It was just this, that in the closing lines of my preface, I thanked my typist, Mrs. Saeko Kobayashi of Tokyo. (I recall the acknowledgement – I pointed out that she displayed more Zen in her typing of the manuscript than I did in the writing of it!) Just below that, I ended with the simple words, Kanazawa, May 1941. This was what Bob found so evocative and affected him so deeply.
It’s a stark, matter-of-fact statement, he said, that the book was written in exile, in a place and time that could not have been less conducive to the work, at a time when Japan itself has turned its back on the precepts of Zen. Nor would the intended readership, in Britain and America, be particularly receptive.
In spite of the commendation on the book jacket, I said.
The author shows a penetrating insight and a keen judgement in the treatment of his subject…
You couldn’t have put it better yourself! he said.
Indeed. (Of course I had, in fact, written it myself).
What was that senryu, he asked, about the Buddha blowing his own trumpet?
So I’m in good company, I said.
But seriously, said Bob. I’m just grateful you stuck to your task in a world tearing itself apart. You kept the faith.
Yes.
7
DESTROYER OF WORLDS
Bob and I were out in the yard with a few other detainees. The guards had gone inside, left us unsupervised to take exercise. Suddenly Bob stopped, looked up and waved. There was a house next door, on the other side of the high wall, and there at the upstairs window were two young boys, looking out. I waved too and the boys, tentatively at first, then more vigorously, waved back.
The next day at the same time, we were once more walking round the yard. I glanced up at the window again and was surprised to see a flurry of movement above the wall. Two little dark heads seemed to bob up then disappear. Then one figure clambered up, followed by the other, and they straddled the wall, looking down at us. It was the two boys we’d seen at the window, and to my surprise they were not Japanese, their hair dark but curly, their eyes round. They were European, perhaps Jewish, something in them that reminded me, with a little pang, of Annie.
Bob called out, affable. Hi guys!
The boys were obviously brothers, maybe 12 and 10 years old. The older one responded, said Hi!
How’d you get up there? said Bob. The wall’s high.
There’s a shed on the other side, said the boy. We climbed up.
That’s great, said Bob. But be careful.
Sure, said the boy. Right.
I’m Bob, this is Reg.
Alex, said the boy.
George, said his brother.
Great, said Bob. Where you from?
Here, said Alex. Born in Kobe.
How come? I mean, you don’t look Japanese.
And you speak English, I said. And your names…
Dad’s from Russia. Mom’s from Lithuania.
Wow! said Bob. That’s amazing.
Both the boys looked pleased, momentarily basking in the glow of being special.
You American? said Alex.
I am, said Bob. He’s British.
Why are you locked up?
Because I’m American and he’s British! Wrong place, wrong time.
Or maybe right place, wrong time, I added. We’re designated enemy aliens.
The younger boy, George, looked very serious. He asked, Are the Japs going to kill you?
