Nangaku and Baso Have a Chat

[Guest guest]

We're not sure, but in either case

It was a sunny day.

 

This was long before

"A Whiter Shade of Pale"

even became a popular song!

 

And so it was,

His face at first just ghostly

Turned a whiter shade of pale.

 

Two humorous fellows

had an honest chat.

 

People still chat about

that chat!

 

Baso was a great big Chinese guy. They say

his tongue touched his nose when he talked.

It must have made for unusual conversations, but

today this one would be definitive.

 

He was also called the Horse-master, probably

for all the same reasons you would too,

had you known him.

 

You can't,

you know?

And you already do,

too!

 

I'm not here to explain.

I only write to praise.

 

His Master was Nangaku, whose

Master was Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch

of the Chan School, who loved a good joke

as much as the next fellow, apparently!

 

Perhaps they enjoyed the ocean sounds when

they made Love, but there's enough talk about

mountains, rivers, lakes, and streams

to conjure such images, yet no talk can

say anything about That in which

all images arise and dissolve.

 

Master and disciple make Love as

Love makes them,

Not-two,

just as we are now,

Not-two.

 

Not-two is not even one, in

a similar fashion

mind is not Buddha,

but that's another story!

 

We're chatting with Nanagaku and Baso, and

Baso's sitting in deep meditation.

 

He was trying to follow everybody's advice,

you know:

meditate as consciousness on consciousness, pay

attention to whatever comes to consciousness, but

in their own words, of course.

 

There's always lots of advice to go around.

 

He was eager for some transformation that would

change his state from bound to free, to answer some longing

even he himself did not understand.

He believed himself dark, in need of light.

Perhaps this sounds familiar?

 

Nangaku loved him deeply –

enough to interrupt the stream.

That's why he sat down

next to him and inquired:

 

"Yo, Baso –

what's happening?"

 

Baso replied:

"Meditation,

Man."

 

Nanagaku kindly asked:

"Why, Amigo?"

(But not in Spanish.)

 

Baso answered:

"Why? Well,

to become like Buddha,

you know –

Enlightened."

 

"Ah!"

Smiled Nangaku, who picked up a tile and

began to polish it as Baso continued on

trying to become a Buddha.

 

"Now what?"

Wondered Baso.

"What are you doing?"

 

"Check it out --"

said Nangaku,

"I'm polishing this tile into a jewel!"

 

"No way, Man!"

exclaimed Baso, with his tongue

flicking the end of his nose.

 

"Yeah, Man!"

Nangaku shot right back.

 

"How?"

asked Baso.

 

"The same way meditating will

make you a Buddha!

 

Yo, you want to be a Buddha?

There's no Buddha outside your own mind.

When the wagon won't move, are you going to

whip the cart, or the horse?"

 

This turned out to be a good question for Baso.

 

A few hundred years later they were still

talking about it, over in Japan, when

Dogen Zenji, founder of the Soto School,

offered this comment during a chat:

 

"When the Horse-master becomes

the Horse-master, Zen becomes Zen."

 

Now they all say things like that.

 

Last night we we're heading to the Marina

for a late evening stroll, but there was the sound

as the train rails came down just before the

entrance, and we watched a long train passing by

while Hazrat Ali sang one long syllable that

blended perfectly with the train whistle, and

later we watched a supertanker being escorted down

the Delta in the dark by two Christmas-lit tug boats,

blending perfectly in one long syllable.

 

That syllable is as much on the tip of your nose

as it is on Baso's, but don't get cross-eyed

trying to see it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LoveAlways,

 

b