Mise en page 1 - Watch Around

58TIMEPEOPLETIMThere’s no end of thingsthat come to an endPierre Maillard“When there is no end, everything finishes withoutbeing aware of its ending” according to one of themany Buddhist sayings, this one being from theTibetan Vajrasattva. And since there’s no end withouta beginning, here’s another: “The essence of astate of no birth is that everything is born, yet thatwhich is born knows no birth.”I am reminded of these sayings in a noisy pizzarestaurant, where a variety of fragrant pizza arecontinuously being born and rapidly being finished.Is all this an illusion – the dust of stars that werenever born and which will never come to an end?I’m reminded because seated opposite me isJérôme Ducor. We’re drinking Limoncello andsmoking cigarettes. “Descartes drew the line whenhe said ‘I think, therefore I am’,” he explains, leaningtowards me, “but Jacques May, my professor atLausanne University, put him right by saying: ‘Thisprovisional assembly of composite elements – the“I” – thinks. But what is this “I” that believes itthinks? That is where the illusion lies.’”Monkhood at 23. Jérôme Ducor is a Buddhist monk.He was ordained in 1977 when he was 23 at theHompa-Honganji, the high temple in Kyoto of themain branch of the Jôdo-Shinshû, or Pure Landschool, one of the 12 schools of Japanese Buddhism.But there are monks and monks in Buddhism. Themonks that wear the robe and shave their headsare not necessarily monastic. A monk does nothave to take monastic vows; he can marry andlead his own life, while being qualified to officiate inreligious ceremonies and teach. Jérôme Ducordivides his life between his function as a monkattached to the Buddhist temple in Geneva and hisjob as curator of the Asia department at Geneva’sethnography museum (Musée Ethnographique deGenève – MEG). “I’m very lucky to be able to practiceBuddhism both on a personal and on a professionallevel,” he remarks. He took over at the MEGfrom the late Jean Eracle, the renowned formercanon of Saint-Maurice who had also became aBuddhist monk, much to the detriment of theChurch at the time. Jérôme, in his youth, had methim. At the age of 14 or 15 he had become fascinatedwith Buddhism after watching a TV documentaryseries by Arnaud Desjardins, entitled Themessage of the Tibetans.He started reading everything he could lay hishands on about the subject and gradually, withoutany fuss or spiritual crisis, the young Protestantrealised that he had become a Buddhist.58| watch around no 005 summer 2008

EPEOPLETIMEPEOKarine BauzinThe Venerable Eracle then encouraged him to learnhow to read classical Tibetan so that he couldbecome familiar with the source texts. Academicallyit was heavy going, but he persisted. This was followedby studies in Lausanne under Jacques Mayof the four historical scripts of Buddhism – Pali,Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese. Then came adegree in religious studies and a PhD in Japanesestudies at the University of Geneva.There’s no such thing as original sin. Notwithstandinghis erudition, Jérôme Ducor, at the age of54, is a lively young man with a sense of fun who likesto enjoy the good things in life. But is this because ofhis gentle Buddhism or because of his own character?“Unlike Catholicism, which is a faith, Buddhismis a personal habit, a method,” he explains. “InBuddhism, the concept of original sin does not exist.There is no sense of guilt, rather a sense of responsibility.People have often dismissed the notion ofkarma, reducing it to a type of fatalism, saying ‘soand-sohas bad karma.’ But it’s simply the natural lawof cause and effect. What I am today is the result ofwhat I used to be. And my existence and actions willhave their effects on what follows. In other words, youonly have yourself to blame.”59watch around no 005 summer 2008 |

TIMEPEOPLETIMEcyclesof timeWhich leads us to the thorny question of cyclicaltime, the subject of our interview. I wanted to knowabout this idea of infinite phases of reincarnation thatseems so strange to the Western view of time as anarrow flying eternally through endless space andsustained by faith. His first answer is as curator of hismuseum’s Asia department. “The whole of Asia fromIndia to Borneo – and God knows how many differentpeoples and civilisations that includes – has anotion of cyclical time. That’s no doubt due to the vulnerabilityof their existence, the immemorial awarenessof natural disasters – floods, earthquakes, tidalwaves.” You grasp the idea of impermanence, thenthe monk speaks: “In Buddhism, this cyclical conceptapplies at every dimension: on a universal scalewhere everything is born, dies and is reborn; on ahuman scale or on a microscopic scale where everythingis similarly born, dies and is reborn ceaselessly.That could explain the frequently noted closenessbetween Buddhism and science. We’re not thesame, but we connect…”Buddhism and science. Einstein once remarkedthat if any religion could embrace the dictates ofmodern science, it would be Buddhism. ForBuddhists, there is no Creator, so the universecould not have been created. It can only be an infinitesequence of Big Bangs followed by BigCrunches without beginning or end in a comprehensivelycyclical universe with periods of billionsor millions of years, of decades or of millisecondsdepending on whether you’re referring to galaxies,mankind or sub-atomic particles. A far cry from thephilosophy of the dedicated Creationist.Similarly, Buddhism’s notion of impermanence concordswith the latest in scientific thinking. In cosmologyas in particle physics, everything is in a state offlux and if the stars can collapse into black holes, socan the fundamental building blocks of matter.Particles change their nature from photons to waves.“There is no single God, but a multitude of transitorydivinities; there is no single soul, but a multitude oftransitory souls; there is no single time, but a multitudeof transitory times,” recites Jérôme Ducor. “Fora Cartesian mind, the idea of reincarnation is nonsensical,because so long as you believe in a permanent“I” you will be unable to grasp the idea that it is just anongoing remix of impermanent elements.”Enlightenment and the Big Bang. So does thisnotion of cyclical time self-destruct when onereaches enlightenment, satori, illumination – call it60| watch around no 005 summer 2008

PEOPLETIMEPEOPwhat you will? When Buddha becomes Buddha,doesn’t time cease its cycles to become permanent?“When Buddha becomes Buddha…” repeatsJérôme Ducor teasingly. “First of all, there is noneed for him to become anything. And secondly it isnot for an unenlightened person to say anything onthis subject.” A physicist, unable to cross the thresholdof the Big Bang, would give the same answer.Beyond, laws as we know them no longer apply.This whimsical aspect of Buddhism, rare in religions,could be a sign of superior wisdom. Or takethe use of dark irony in the tantra translated by theJapanese writer, Yukio Mishima: “If you meet theBuddha, kill the Buddha! If you meet your ancestor,kill your ancestor! If you meet a disciple ofBuddha, kill the disciple of Buddha! If you meetyour mother and father, kill your mother and father!Only then will you find release. Only then will youelude the shackles of life, and you will be free…”Black humour? Rather the stroke of a Zen wandrevealing the impermanence of things in order toshatter our belief in permanence that sustains theillusion that time has no hold on us.And what hold does the endless river of time, withits calms and storms, have on a Buddhist? Shouldhe learn to swim? “The practice of Buddhism – andI remind you that Buddhism only has a meaning orreligious significance as practice or a path to follow– results in a sense of reality. The acceptance ofour existence, the resulting peace of mind, and oursense of being relative to all things are beneficialoutcomes. But to take things as they come, as timebrings them along, doesn’t imply any kind of resignationto one’s fate. The Buddhist is no bleatinglamb either. But he puts no obligations on anyone,is friendly and demonstrates an amazing ability toadapt. And besides, there’s never been such athing as a Buddhist crusade.The last customers have left. It’s getting late, timeresumes its cycle in the impermanence that surroundsus. It is time to take our leave of oneanother, but not without a thought of a small Zenkoan: “How long does it take to experience the joyof living for a moment of eternity? If you don’t livefor the moment, it will take an eternity.” •More about Buddhism on Jérôme Ducor’s site,www.pitaka.ch which has lots of links arrangedaccording to subject.61watch around no 005 summer 2008 |