seventh world of chan buddhism - Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

("Son, we're with you every step of the way back") will likely harden into a steel breastplate
should Sonny stumble or go into reverse ("Your Mother and I don't care what you stick in
your nose just so you don't do it in or near the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.") Social
workers will persist in their efforts after all others have ceased to acknowledge the fallen
man's existence. No matter how terrible a client's life upon the Wheel has been, a zealous
case worker will try to haul him back for more. Some people who return to Samsara may
achieve a measure of reintegration. Some will stay cured for longer than two weeks. But
many, deciding that Samsaric cures are worse than Swamp diseases, will re-enter the Swamp
once again. Off the wagon. Off the deep end. Back and forth. Lost and `rescued' until their
ruination is complete. (3). A man may turn neither to the Mountain nor to the Wheel. Blind
and deaf to anything but his own interior battles, he may perish in the waters, at once the
slayer and the slain.
Uchiyama Roshi of Japan's Antaiji Temple likes to describe this self-destruction as a
situation which starts with the man drinking the saki, then after awhile becomes the saki
drinking the saki, and finally ends with the saki drinking the man. And so it is with a variety
of drugs, legal and illegal, which start by promising to liberate a man from his troubles and
end by worsening his troubles and killing him in the process.
It is sad to note that those who express an interest in finding sanctuary in religion
never receive encouragement from the folks up on the Wheel. No one in Samsara ever
advises an ego-wounded man to seek religious treatment for his injuries.
The world of the ego simply does not recognize a separate and distinct world of the
spirit. In terms of spiritual geography, the Mountain of Nirvana cannot even be seen from the
Wheel of Samsara. People on the Wheel do not know that to get to Nirvana it is absolutely
necessary to negotiate the Swamp. (There is no other way.) They believe to a certainty that
Nirvana is simply a refined state or higher altitude of Samsara. They acknowledge the
existence of spiritual people but they suppose that spirituality is merely a condition of an
altered ego, an ego which, perhaps, has purged itself of all outward signs of sin and, as a
reward, has been glorified and elevated. They cannot conceive of losing their ego, a loss,
they think, equal to losing their mind or at least their humanity. To them, egoless creatures
are creatures without identities: vegetables, amoebas, and lunatics - groups in which nobody
willingly includes himself.
Further, even if they were to concede that disillusionment and alienation are religious
problems, they would misunderstand the terms of the solution. Egos, by nature, strive to
dominate other egos, a control which invariably extends to fiscal interests. People in
Samsara instinctively fear that religion may liberate a person from his assets as it liberates
him from his pain. Jesus might have advised those who wished to become his disciples first
to give their money to the poor, but no person in Christendom ever advises a relative to be so
wantonly generous. Not even friends or social workers countenance such heresy. Many will
suggest to a wounded man that he talk to his priest or spend a little time in church; but, since
novices frequently transfer their property to the religious orders they enter, they will not
CHAPTER 6 THE GAP BETWEEN THE SIX WORLDS AND THE SEVENTH
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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