..續本文上一頁e, the wicked deeds of the past are dissolved."
So, on the face of it this is a fairly simple karmic atonement kind of thing. If you”re being reviled, if you”re having a difficulty, it”s because you were a schmuck in a previous life in some way. You did something, you committed some sort of wrong against the universe and you”re just reaping the karma now. And normally because of your bad karma you would fall into evil ways, but because you suffer you do not fall into evil ways. The suffering somehow balances that out and atones for it.
In zen we regard this in a more immediate and less philosophical fashion. But I think there are two ways to hold this. In zen everything that appears we treat as Buddha nature. And it really doesn”t matter. Whatever appears has that shocking, profound light of the Buddha nature. So if somebody comes up and gives you a present, that is Buddha nature. The great Lin-chi (Jap. Rinzai) used to yell, "Kaatz!" all the time. Someone would come up and say something very wise to him and he”d go, "Kaatz!" and hit them. Or he”d say something stupid and he”d yell, "Kaatz!" and hit them. And that way he really encouraged people to go deeper and deeper. And the people that stayed around him did get wiser. So when somebody comes up and abuses you, it is Lin-chi saying, "Kaatz!" without an intention of harming you here. The universe is encouraging you, deepening you.
From a personal point of view, there is a way in which when we get immersed in darkness and life just overwhelms us and overtakes us, we either go under or we become wise. If you have a solid meditation practice, you will become wise and you can trust that. So you can trust yourself in the most extremely difficult situations. And I know zen students often choose to work in difficult kinds of work. And so again, I want to reiterate, you can trust the practice to hold you through the greatest difficulty, and it will.
The I Ching puts it in a more descriptive way. It says, essentially, the same thing. That what is happening to us in the darkness is that our character is transforming. We are building the great foundation which the joy can inhabit. And without that foundation there is nothing to hold the joy when it comes. And you must know this. Almost everybody who has come to zen has had some experiences of eternity being present. When you are a child, children have these experiences. And suddenly everything is alive and interconnected and you see the compassion in a leaf, in a hillside, in the ants crawling up the vine stem. And we lose it because there is nothing to hold it. When we go into the darkness, one thing that poison in our lives does for us is it makes our foundation so that the joy can be held.
The I Ching has a wonderful hexagram called jen (sp
) or obstruction which is No. 39. It says, as it often does, "perseverance brings good fortune." Well, there are some situations in which perseverance doesn”t, and you just need to stop everything. You broke your leg and walking on it really won”t help. You need to stop. So when we”re obstructed, when we”re in darkness and difficulty, perseverance does help. The image is, "Water on the mountain. The image of obstruction. Thus the superior person turns her attention to herself and molds her character." So that when you are blocked in the outer world, you need "an unswerving inner purpose to bring good fortune in the end," it says. "An obstruction that lasts for a time is useful for self-development. This is the value of adversity. Difficulties and obstructions throw a person back on herself. While inferior people seek to put the blame on others, bewailing their fate; the superior people seek the error within themselves and through this introspection the external obstacle becomes an occasion for i…
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