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

Adam has been hooked. He is in love. Experiencing a level of excitation never
known before, he takes her to dinner. Now, assuming that the woman does not behave too
atrociously, he is confirmed in his idolatry. Addicted. In bondage. No drug can get him so
high as he is on Reds. He passes the second phase of projection, one-pointed focus, and
enters the third: blindness. He does not - indeed, he cannot - see her as she really is. He sees
only the image which he has projected upon her.
For, in addition to granting the three visual qualities (hair, eyes, nose), he generously
accepts without evidence that she has fulfilled the remaining specifications of his `dream-girl'
construct; and he cannot even consider that such largesse may not be condign. Let his friend
say to him, "Chaste? That redheaded bimbo we saw in the restaurant? Hah! She's slept with
every cop on the force, including the women." Adam will respond with flaming eyes,
clenched teeth and fist, and inform his former friend of the penalties of blasphemy. Let a
friend say to him, "Honest? I happen to know she's done time for shoplifting!" and there will
be much for that ex-friend to regret. And if, when confronted by her rap sheet, she snivels
that the arresting officer and district attorney threatened to charge her with espionage if she
didn't plead-down to theft, he'll believe her. Not until the awful day of reckoning arrives in
the form of overdrawn bank accounts and credit cards maxed-out with purchases that
included men's items he never received, is the veil torn from his eyes sufficiently for him to
see that she is not the woman he believed her to be. And he will regard this as her fault!
How he curses her as he itemizes her deceits! Well... we know that she never professed to
be honest, loyal, generous, kind, loving, dependable and so on. We know that he merely
credited her with those qualities. All she had was curly red hair, sunny-sky blue eyes and a
cute nose that wrinkled at its edges when she laughed.
Had he been lucky, his materialized dream girl might have actually possessed fifteen
or twenty of his requisite qualifications. She might indeed have turned out to be honest and
loyal, etc. He'd have made adjustments for the few qualities she lacked. "My wife? Great in
bed but no appreciation whatsoever of Samuel Beckett." It would have worked.
There is an old, ironic story in Islam about a handsome, rich sheik who never married.
"Ah," said an old friend, "you were always such a great lover of women! Why did you never
wed?" "Because," answered the sheik, "I was always waiting for the perfect woman." "Ah,
and you never found her!" "Oh, yes, I did." "Then why didn't you ask her to marry you?" "I
did. But she turned me down because she was waiting for the perfect man."
And so this is what God intends. We should be hooked by the presence of only a few
features and should merely imagine that all the others exist as well... and then take our
chances that each of us will possess enough of the required characteristics to keep the other
happy. If we all waited until we found mates who were as perfect for us as we were for them,
the human race wouldn't have made it to the starting line.
We find a friend and believe that he will make our interests his interests. We trust
him with our loved ones, our reputations, our finances, perhaps even our lives. The pain we
CHAPTER 8 BUDDHA NATURE AND ARCHETYPAL DYNAMICS
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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