As I approach the climax of a Poul Anderson novel, the text resists and delays my arrival at its conclusion by increasing the number of noteworthy features that it presents. Anyone reading Poul Anderson's first detective novel simultaneously with following this Poul Anderson Appreciation blog must immediately recognize that I focus neither on plot nor on action but on what others might regard as peripheral aspects. We will soon know how the narrative ends but, for me, not tonight. I want to finish this post, then watch some of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy.
Our alternating viewpoint characters have been Mike Stefanik and the private detective, Trygve Yamamura. Stefanik:
"...let content pervade each cell until he almost understood that ideal Trig Yamamura spoke of." (15, p. 145)
So what is this "ideal"?
Yamamura, sprawling with feet on desk after some fresh air and a few knee bends, reflects:
"Relax. Give the nervous system a rest, as well as the thews. Unstop the senses, let street clangor and smells and chill flow through, make yourself a part of existence. That was what Nirvana meant, not oblivion as much as oneness. The ideal of the Zen sect was to stop speculating about the other side of mortality and try to become integral here, now, with this world where all things were beautiful and holy.
"The phone rang." (16, p. 151)
Yamamura swears in Norwegian! (At least, it looks like swearing.)
True story: I read these passages this evening immediately after returning home from Lancaster Serene Reflection (Soto Zen) Meditation Group where we sat facing the wall, then heard a talk from a monk. So what would the monk have said about Anderson's text? Mainly, find some word other than "ideal." An ideal is neither a practice nor an awareness but an idea. Also: do not make yourself part of existence but sit with whatever comes up; do not try to become integral but let your essential integration show itself in its own time, at its own pace. Any particular meditation session might be full of mental turmoil but, if so, sit with that, let it go and maintain the practice for decades and life-times. (Philosophically, I do not accept rebirth but am quoting the tradition.)
My typing of the last unbracketed sentence of the preceding paragraph was interrupted by a Buddhist friend texting: "we are willing to be with whatever arises."
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The Christian belief, of course, is union with God, as much as that is possible for a creating being, while also always remaining HIMSELF, except glorified and transformed.
Sean
Sean,
Our sitting with whatever comes up includes accepting a deity if such discloses himself.
Paul.
Sean,
You refer to a belief. My practice is based only on experience and reflection which is why I remain skeptical of "rebirth." The Buddha inherited the idea of reincarnation and did not fully free his thinking from it. (IMO.) Others claim experience of it, of course.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
As you know, I don't think of Buddhism as a religion, despite knowing religious elements and accretions accumulated around it, esp. in Tibet. Rather, I think of it as a philosophy. And in all frankness I think Confucianism in China or Stoicism in the West (to name two other philosophies) MEANS more to me.
Sean
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