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

dice. Some of them even have impressive (but not Nevada registered) logos stamped upon
them. Such dice are shipped out of state to worldwide locations.
Trick or `crooked' dice come in four varieties: rockers, bevels, shapes, and loads.
As the name suggests, a rocker has one convex side, It is much easier to overturn a
rocking chair than it is to overturn a chair whose legs are flat against the floor. Let's say that,
depending upon degree of curvature, friction, and so on, it is five times easier to overturn a
curved object than it is to overturn a plane object. Consider a flat-surfaced cube (the die)
tumbling down the Crap table's green felt. If five units of force are required to overturn it on
its plane, straightedged surface, it will stop tumbling whenever it possesses less than those
five required units. But if one side of the die is curved so that only one unit of force will
suffice to overturn it, the die, just as it comes to the end of its tumble, will then continue, one
final unit's worth, to flip over and reveal the intended face.
Bevels, also as the name suggests, have one edge shaved to a forty- five degree angle
so that they will flip over with much less energy than is required to have them flip over a
ninety degree angle.
Shapes are not perfect squares. They are rectangular, i.e., longer in one dimension
than they are in the other two. If a perfect cube tumbles down the felt, one side is as likely to
come up as the other. But a rectangular shape will tumble over its long dimension, virtually
ignoring its short or square edges. If you tossed a man down a hill, he would not tumble head
and feet, head and feet, he would tumble belly and spine, belly and spine.
Loads are the most famous and common trick dice. Professional dice have their spots
shallowly drilled out; paint, of density equal to the plastic, is then inserted into the vacant
spaces. Loads are created when the spots of one face, usually the six, are filled with heavy,
lead-laced paint. The law of gravity prevails and just as a dropped piece of buttered toast
usually lands butter side down, the heavy six-side will come to rest against the felt. "Snake
eyes", a loser, is quite easy to throw with a pair of six-spot loads. Three, also a loser,
similarly can be obtained with a six and a five load.
Dice cups facilitate the introduction of trick dice into a game. The stickman merely
palms the trick die or dice and deftly makes the switch when, between plays, he retrieves the
dice and drops them into the cup. Dice cups are prohibited in Nevada and wherever else
gaming is responsibly controlled.
To understand what all this has to do with archetypal projection we must first ask,
Who purchases these trick dice? The sad answer is that they are purchased by people whom
we all `instinctively' trust. Remembering that the archetype of the Good Friend (the friendly
shadow) serves our requirement to trust - as in the buddy system - we can readily see that it is
precisely our inclination to trust certain people that creates the market. Individual chapters of
an enormous variety of men's organizations (both with and without animal names and
CHAPTER 10 FIRST ZEN PRACTICE: THE 1:4:2 HEALING BREATH
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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