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

Our young man will leave his personas on the doorstep when he enters his home. He
may even define his home as that one place in the world in which he needs no personas.
7. ANIMA/ANIMUS, THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT
To enter society is to enter a gene pool; and in such water our young man wants to be
a shark not a flounder. He sees who is at the top of the food chain: musicians, athletes,
warriors, priests, physicians, and those fellows whose job description is limited to - but not in
any disadvantageous way - simply being rich. It is these men who get the attention of nubile
females.
Our young man experiences the next phase of hero projection: the human hero. He
picks his exemplar and becomes an understudy or apprentice. Should he have chosen a
harpist to emulate, he will, at every unfortunate moment of the day or night, assiduously
practice his lyre scales and chords. His appreciative audience will consist of those family
members and neighbors who realize that he could just as easily have taken up the drums or
conch.
The more he perfects his art, skill, and persona, the more marriageable he is
considered. Soon he will attract the girl of his dreams and will project upon her that carrier
of his reproductive instinct, the Anima. (In females the instinct is called the Animus.)
When this instinct's hormones enter his bloodstream, he can barely control himself.
He plays like Orpheus gone mad, thinking of little else but the young woman upon whom he
has projected his dream-goddess Anima. He wants to possess her body and soul.
8. HUNTER, THE INSTINCT TO PURSUE THE PREY
There are times when knowing when to quit may have definite survival value; but in
most cases the one who prevails is the one who perseveres. This is particularly true of the
hunter.
If "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" as biologists are wont to say, then surely one of
the rungs in our evolutionary ladder is the rung of the predatory carnivore. Nature has
programmed us to pursue, to track, and to stalk. When this archetype is engaged, a special
emotion is felt, an emotion which is quite apart from any heroic pride or culinary satisfaction.
Whenever our Young Man hunted, he would be driven - not necessarily by hunger,
either his own or the hunger of those who depended on him, but by the thrill of the chase.
The evidence of this is that in the service of this thrill he may invest far more energy than the
captured prize could possibly return.
CHAPTER 7 A WORKING MODEL OF THE PSYCHE
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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