Zen T'shuvah

Matthew 13:10-17

¹³ Here is why I speak to them in parables: they look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding. ¹⁴ That is, in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Yesha‘yahu (Isaiah) which says,

‘You will keep on hearing but never understand,
and keep on seeing but never perceive,
¹⁵ because the heart of this people has become dull —
with their ears they barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed,
so as not to see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their heart,
and do t’shuvah,
so that I could heal them.’

¹⁶ But you, how blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear! ¹⁷ Yes indeed! I tell you that many a prophet and many a tzaddik longed to see the things you are seeing but did not see them, and to hear the things you are hearing but did not hear them. (CJB)

It sort of makes sense why Jesus would say this about why he tells them stories. If he just said the plain fact; the simple truth; they’d miss it.

While reading this, I suddenly connected with a memory of something I’d written about autism:

(from My Autist Manifesto, published here - https://theaspergian.com/2019/06/24/my-autist-manifesto/)

On Hyper-awareness; or Super-consciousness:

On to the next little item. I have been forced to conclude that most people go through their lives wearing earplugs, pinhole goggles, and with their whole bodies wrapped up in bandages like a mummy.

How did it come to be a disadvantage, and even to be labeled a disability, for a person to see every detail of their surroundings; to hear the faintest of sounds with clarity; to smell the most delicate of scents; to feel the slightest touch on their skin?

Just try to imagine what it would be like for you if you lived in a world in which everyone else’s senses were deadened. What if everyone’s hearing was so dull that they turned up the volume on everything before they could hear it at all? What if their sense of touch was so weak that they couldn’t feel that the fabric of their clothing was as slimy as snot, or filled with sharp microscopic needles? What if their noses were so feeble that they couldn’t smell anything but the most toxic fumes, or the most cloying perfume? What if their eyesight was so poor that they couldn’t see anything but vague, blurry outlines of things?



But you, how blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear!

I have to confess (do t’shuvah) that when I originally wrote that, I went on to describe the personal misery that hypersensitivity causes. But now, I want to return to the idea of living in a world where people “keep on hearing but never understand, and keep on seeing but never perceive,  because the heart of this people has become dull — with their ears they barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, so as not to see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart”. I thought of the bodhisattva vow, in which I promised to save all beings, and I remembered the Zen t’shuvah “Return to One-ness" that I chanted when I took my vows:

“Releasing all harmful karma ever created by me since of old, On account of my beginning-less  greed, anger, and delusion, Born of my body, speech and thought, Now I return to One-ness.”

You see, I always forget that my eyes are blessed because they see, and my ears, because they hear. Not to mention my nose, because it smells, and my skin, because it has sensation.

If I see more, hear more, and sense more than other folks, then I have a choice of whether to experience it as a blessing or a curse. Maybe it’s both.

Maybe that’s why Jesus says elsewhere that the reason he speaks in parables is to make sure that folks don’t understand. Maybe that’s where the Zen comes in.

Maybe it isn’t necessary to understand. Maybe being half-deaf and half-blind is just the way it is. Maybe it isn’t even helpful to have the extra blessing of being able to see and hear and feel what other people miss. Maybe it’s just “born of my body, speech, and thought,” and all that’s necessary is to “return to One-ness.”

If the One-ness is God, and God is love, then whether I understand or not, I have it on the best authority that all any of us have to do is ‘love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’
That makes all the hearing and seeing and sensing just a bonus. It’s a bonus that can be delightful or distressing in equal measure, but whether it’s happy or harmful, it’s still a benefit.



Of course, that made me wonder what other sorts of blessings and benefits might express themselves in discomfort, distress, and disquiet.



It made me remember that the action is the same whether we are contented or discontented— do t’shuva and return to One-ness.







Old Man Zen says, “Yeah, but you’ll keep right on cutting the tags out of your clothes, won’tcha?”