WATER OF A SINGLE FLAVOR

Susan Ji-on Postal

In the section of the Lotus Sutra called Medicinal Herbs, it is said

What a powerful image is offered here - the Dharma as thirst-quenching rain. Looking deeply into this analogy, we can acknowledge our thirstiness and how our practice can be seen as learning to drink, or, even better, to soak up this life-giving moisture.

For all of us, our journey begins as we cry out in thirst. We all begin with a sense that something is missing and that something else is possible. Acknowledging, even honoring and making room for our yearning, our thirst, seems a vital first step into practice. This Sutra invites us to see the Dharma as life-giving rain, rain that not only is falling all the time, everywhere, but also in just the right amount for each one. Exactly what we need is here, right how, raining down on us. Nothing is missing. Nothing is lacking. We are totally drenched. Why all this suffering? Why all this thirstiness? Why all these dried out beings?

Speaking of myself, I have sometimes felt as though I have been wrapped, bodily wrapped, in Saran wrap and the rain is just running right off. I can see that it is raining, but I am behind this transparent film of plastic. A funny image perhaps, but I think it is a good one — that our problem is that the nourishment is running off and we’re not absorbing it. Can we see how we construct a kind of plastic raincoat, so to speak? We coat ourselves by our own constructed ideas about what is going on. This coating is self-made. It is a device that we initially feel we need to protect ourselves in some way. Perhaps we feel threatened, so we separate from the situation and we gather our strength, define ourselves, and then invest in and defend the picture we have constructed. The sharp clear noticing of zazen helps us see this process of "raincoat construction." It isn’t handed to us. We are not victims. We are the creators of our own barrier to absorbing what is all around us.

So how do we learn to drink? We have often talked about the two sides of our practice, the two wings, so to speak, which allow strong balanced flight: one being the noticing of how the conditioned self operates, the other being the tasting of the un-conditioned, non-conceptual, spacious essence of our being. For sure, we can begin to notice how we construct and defend our boundaries. That wedge of awareness begins to loosen the plastic coating. If we can really see how we do it, how we build up "me" and "mine", then things begin to shift. It seems that we need to not only see but also acknowledge how the small self works, then there can be a radical kind of turning. This is, perhaps, a kind of repentance. This is saying, "Yeah, I’ve created my life, I’ve caused suffering, I’ve created my own ‘raincoat’." This is not saying "I am bad." It is neutral noticing — no judgment. Isn’t this were we often trip ourselves up? I see what I habitually do and then the critic jumps in and I label myself as "bad" because I did it. It is not that any of us are "bad" for our self-constructing habits. We are human. And, you know, at these times our humanity shows. It is sort of like a slip that's showing. It's not so terrible if your slip is showing. It is a little funny and a little embarrassing, but it is not the end of the world. Oops! Similarly, we can acknowledge - "oh yeah, there I go again" -acknowledging with a kind of sharpness, quickness and completeness. This seems to let this "raincoat" melt, or at least have substantial holes poked through it.

And now the other side, entering the deep samadhi from which the Dharma rain can be directly experienced. Being willing to totally surrender to the moment, breath by breath, we can be completely open to what is. In this state there is no notion of "outside" or "inside". Being so open, not dealing or manipulating, we can be like a sponge that just absorbs the life-giving water. It permeates and penetrates, seeming to seep into our very bones. This wonderful rain is not something just out there but is at the same time right here in our very being. Can we be present right in the middle of this teeter-totter: not just outside, not just inside, but both at the same time? We can’t understand it. It is at a much deeper level than our "thinker," which always wants to bifurcate dualistically. This rain soaks in from all directions, sometimes in big gushes, sometimes in minute droplets. Sometimes we are thoroughly drenched and other times mist-moistened. Each person, in each situation, appropriately infused.

This water of a single flavor doesn’t know any "ism." It doesn’t distinguish customs, robes, or ceremonies. Most of you have heard the phrase "selling water by the river" as a description of spiritual paths. You know, the river of life is just there, always, but nobody is very interested in tasting it until someone has set up a lemonade stand and says, "come drink here, this is the best." This stand has lemonade and the next fellow has iced tea or fruit punch, all the refreshing drinks you can think of. Each a slightly different flavoring, but the essential ingredient is plain water. Some of you are still wrestling with the shapes of the booths and the color of the drink, and your loyalty to your childhood flavor. It is just water, but we have to handle it somehow. So each tradition has found ways to handle the water, to make it inviting and to pass it around to one another.

When I first encountered Tibetan Buddhism in 1969, and was invited to begin practice, I really resisted. Coming from years in the Gurdjieff Work, I didn’t want a religious path. The Tibetan Master asked me if I wanted realization. "Oh yes!" I eagerly replied. And then he offered the analogy of the egg. He explained, that what I wanted is the yolk of the egg. What I called religion is the shell. He further explained that he could not pass it on to me except in the way it was given to him by his teachers. Quite forcefully he stated that If he tries to give me the yolk alone, by breaking the shell, we’ll have egg on the floor and neither of us will have anything. One of those light-bulb moments — "Got it!" Egg on the floor. I could just see it, Splat!, messy and gooey. Shells are vital, but they are not the yolk. They are precious. They allow us to handle something slippery and delicate. The difficulty, of course, is that we human beings get so attached to shells. Pretty soon the shell is so damn thick that there is no room for yolk. We have seen this throughout history; people think the shell is the whole thing and make such efforts to protect this thick institutionalized thing instead of seeing religious traditions as delicate and fragile containers for the mysteries of the spiritual journey.

We are so habitually caught up and identified with the container, both personally and religiously. Perhaps as we begin to deeply drink from the water of a single flavor, we can begin to appreciate uniqueness and differences at all levels. Returning to this section of the Lotus Sutra, we hear:

Through our sitting practice we can dare to be naked enough — sans raincoat — to soak up the life giving rain. Perhaps deep acceptance of our own uniqueness, the shape of our own "shoot or plant", can begin to grow. If we are sufficiently infused, this radical acceptance may, in fact, spring forth in expressions of profound gratitude for the whole "forest".

*Hurvitz, Leon, trans. Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma,

Columbia University Press, NY 1976, pp.104-105

From a Dharma Talk at a Practice Across Traditions Retreat, August 1997