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

honest, loving, witty, and good humored as dear Mom, during his uncritical wonder years,
had been.
Thirty-five years later, who would suspect that the frowsy old lady who turned his
Mother's Day card over to check its price before reading it, whose skin had the texture of an
iguana's, who smoked brown cigarettes and was addicted to Bingo, who gossiped incessantly
and divided all mankind into an array of despicable minorities, who never once voted for an
incumbent, who registered her lap dog, a vicious cur, as "Presheepoo of Tinkiville" and
suffered the drooling mutt to kiss her the way no human ever had, was this very same
adorable benefactress of his infancy? Who would even have remembered that her black dyed
hair had once been dyed bright red? Not Adam, certainly.
And in those intervening thirty-five years, though he had been intimate with many
women he had not been fully satisfied by one, for none even approximated the specifications
of his dream girl. Usually he blamed himself or his karma. But blame did not cure. His
relationships still tended to go sour.
Adam did not appreciate how very much circumstance and need contrive to mix the
ill-suited, to mate odd socks. He did not understand how random events throw us together,
how lust, greed, sloth, and a variety of unsavory motives drive us to make bitter choices, how
loneliness or the fear of being left behind by our advancing peer group compels us to adjust
our criteria, to make do, to adapt. (If we want to stay in the game, we cannot keep `passing.'
Sooner or later we have to play the hand we've been dealt.) In Adam's dream girl quest, there
had been a troublesome lack of candidates. He had come of age in a Texas border town in
which redheads did not comprise a notable percentage of available heads.
And then one day, lunching with a business associate, he chances to see, sitting
nearby, a wondrous creature, a young woman with fluffy red curls, sunny-sky blue eyes, and a
nose that wrinkles at its edges whenever she laughs. Adam Doe is fascinated - the first stage
of projection. Again and again he finds his gaze drawn to her. He searches her fingers. She
wears no wedding ring. She sees him stare and smiles slightly before she turns away. He is
intrigued. The hunter in his breast awakens. Later, quite spontaneously, he alters his
schedule for the following day: he will just happen to be in the vicinity of that restaurant at
lunch time.
Now, in hot-pursuit, the hunter takes command. Adam must discover her name and
address. He follows her into the parking lot and gets her license number. He trails her back
to her office. Later, he will cruise her neighborhood and arrange an accidental encounter.
"Haven't we met somewhere before?" He engages her in conversation and with a rush of
triumph no Caesar ever knew obtains her phone number. Palms sweating, he calls and offers
to take her to dinner. She accepts. He plans his campaign with meticulous care. Veni. Vidi.
Vici.
CHAPTER 8 BUDDHA NATURE AND ARCHETYPAL DYNAMICS
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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