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

Not only may his truant tendencies be countered by the Savior's good example but he
may even be tempted to emulate the Hero who sacrificed so much for the good of his people.
The humble Savior also teaches that greatness can be achieved without wealth or power.
Other hero figures had inspired him to individual excellence, but the Savior, through
the cohesive medium of organized religion, unites him with his countrymen, adding the force
of his arms and his righteousness to theirs. He understands that it is under the Savior's aegis
that all are born into the community and that it is under this same aegis that all are as well
buried in the community's hallowed ground. The Savior promotes harmony and unity and
makes the many, one.
But this is simply the function of religion at its base level. He may feel the need for
more. He may be discontented with his entire life, with its superficiality, with its skewed
values, with the evaporative pleasures of material acquisitions, with the transience of all
existence. Is this all there is, he wonders. He may want to know the meaning of life, the face
of god behind the veil of Maya. He may feel purposeless and incomplete.
9. TRANSFORMATION, THE INSTINCT FOR SPIRITUAL CHANGE
Our model man has now arrived at the place where spiritual life begins, the place
where the raw is cut and cooked, where the ore is smelted and the metal shaped. He must
now experience the fire of transformation - the hearth and the cauldron, the forge and the
crucible. He must now place himself into the hands of the "keepers of the flame", the cook
and the smith, mankind's original priests.
No longer may he identify himself as someone's son, brother, friend, student, lover, or
father. Before he can discover his true nature, he must become the anonymous mendicant
whose wealth consists in the realization that he chops wood and carries water.
Zen training is precisely this: Spiritual transformation achieved through sacrificial
fires of ego-immolation, through disciplines anciently formulated in terms of earth, water,
fire, air, and space. In the place of transformation, everything is consigned to the flames:
fame, family, lovers, wealth and beauty.
This, then, is our model. Man, separated from his divine nature by the force of
instinct, subjected to fragmenting ordeal in his middle years, and made whole as a nirvanic
conclusion to the years of samsaric travail.
Of course, our model was an exemplary creature living in an exemplary world. He,
unlike many of us, had a best friend, had heroes, had a loving wife and family. All of his
instinctive drives found suitable goal-line recipients. None was buried alive in his psyche
and he was able to mature with few complications.
CHAPTER 7 A WORKING MODEL OF THE PSYCHE
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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