Swept Away

 

I've decided to do my lectio divina this year on the reading I’m doing with the Lindisfarne Community, instead of my usual Daily Office Readings.

Genesis 7-9; Matthew 3 (CJB)

I generally look for what I call an "emergent phrase" and the OT gave me this one this morning:  "the imaginings of a person’s heart are evil from his youth" (CJB) In my Zen study, something similar has risen to the top: the illusion/delusion of all our imaginings, and the stories we tell ourselves. (The OT passage also includes something that I've noticed before: the first bird that Noah released was a raven, who stubbornly flew around and around until the waters had dried up, but never came back to the ark. The dove found dry land, but returned to Noah anyway. I rather identify with the raven, you see.)

 

The NT gave me this phrase:  “You snakes! Who warned you to escape the coming punishment?"  I noted that even though John berated them, he did not refuse to baptize them. Perhaps that's a skill I need to refine in the coming year--- that of 'baptizing' my relationships with all those fearful hypocrites who are trying to escape their own imagined punishments, and who spread misery around them like an expanding stain that marks everything with grief and loss.

 

Zen and the “imaginings of a person’s heart”—

I was talking to a friend the other day about things that make us sad, and she described how a comment of mine about Constantine (the Roman emperor) having boiled his wife alive had made her sad and discouraged. I said, “Why? It’s not real!” and she looked puzzled. I pointed out that the whole thing that was making her sad was something that only existed in her imagination, and she seemed quite taken by my point that we really have no need to respond to injustices or wrongs or horrible events unless they are taking place in real time, before our eyes. If I see a grown man hit a toddler and knock them down before my very eyes (this actually happened to one of my karate students many years ago, while waiting at a bus stop) then I have an obligation to respond: to DO SOMETHING.

But, there is literally no point to wallowing in my own emotions over something that only exists as a thought in my mind. Even the most vivid imagination doesn’t qualify as a real-time event. Zen wouldn’t use the word ‘evil’ necessarily, but certainly does express deep suspicion of the usefulness of the imagination.

I found a quote from the Ratthapala Sutta that moved me deeply:

"'The world is swept away. It does not endure': This is the first Dhamma summary stated by the Blessed One who knows and sees, worthy and rightly self-awakened. Having known and seen and heard it, I went forth from the home life into homelessness.

"'The world is without shelter, without protector': This is the second Dhamma summary...

"'The world is without ownership. One has to pass on, leaving everything behind': This is the third Dhamma summary...

"'The world is insufficient, insatiable, a slave to craving': This is the fourth Dhamma summary...”

“The world is without ownership..” Isn’t that what we try to gain with our imaginations? We try to own the world. We believe that our imaginations somehow have an influence on reality.. that we can own or control the world through the manner in which we conceive of it. I see it all the time these days—people abusing their friends, and ostracizing those who make the best kind  of company: comfortable and full of good cheer— over nothing real, but only their own imaginations, and their fear. Blinded by fear, they are swept away along with the world, all the while clinging fiercely to the ghostly rags of ownership. We could perhaps ask ourselves the very same stringent question that John barked at the Pharisees:

“Who warned you to escape the coming punishment?”

And if we were to make the effort to use our imaginations rightly and skillfully, we might hear John say this:

“Don’t look at me! I’m baptizing you anyway, for all the good it will do. Let’s see if you will ever get enough guts to stop running away, and turn around to let the One Coming After baptize you with the Breath of God and Fire!”

 

And then there’s that old homeless raven,

flying over the endless drowning of the world—

Swept away by the wind of God;

wings tipping and turning over the insufficient world,

owning nothing—

Knowing there’s no shelter to return to,

no protection from the holy fire.