|
Message |
| Posted By: |
UT |
| Date: |
22-Jul-2007-09:31:21 |
| Subject: |
Searching for the Bull |
I was away from Sauve yesterday, on a kind of mini-Road
Trip, and didn't get back home until late. I parked my car
down by the river and, hearing the unmistakable sounds of
Bad French Disco music booming from the Place Stivell,
decided not to take that stairway but to go the long way
around and back to my house. After a day hiking in the
Cevennes, searching for stillness and finding it, I just
wasn't up for loud music and partying.
This morning, waking up early and finding that I had run
out of coffee, I grabbed the book I've been reading, a
translation of Zen Master Kakuan's "Searching for the Ox"
series ( http://www.4peaks.com/ppox.htm ), and walked down
the Grand Rue towards Le Commerce, the only cafe open at
this hour. And to my surprise I found the Grand Rue (liter-
ally "Main Street," kind of a joke when you realize that
the two-way street is wide enough to allow two cars to pass
each other only in two or three places along its entire
length), and found it covered with bullshit.
Not metaphorical bullshit, real bullshit. "Aha," said I to
myself, realizing belatedly what all the festivities had
been about the night before, "It's that time of year again.
They had the running of the bulls yesterday, and I missed it."
I saw it last year, and it was a hoot. It's not nearly as
dangerous and challenging as its counterpart in Pamplona.
They fence off a closed course in the village and let loose
about half a dozen bulls, who proceed to run from one end of
the narrow street to the other, chased by young bucks full
of beer and machismo, anxious to prove their worth to the
young women watching from the sidelines. The young women,
playing their part in this testosterone drama, do their part
by acting impressed.
Most of the time the young bucks end up behind the bulls,
chasing animals that are considerably faster than they are,
and whose ability to run is not impaired by alcohol and
testosterone poisoning. If they're lucky, a few of the guys
get close enough to grab onto one of the bulls' tails, and
then get pulled along behind them, their machismo suddenly
transformed into a desperate attempt to not lose their foot-
ing and thus get dragged down the street through piles of
bullshit. But last year I managed to catch a wonderful moment,
one that makes me smile this morning as I walk along avoiding
the piles of bullshit myself, clutching a book that is more
than a little related to yesterday's ritual, and is related
in my all-too-associative mind to a great deal more.
Five of these young bucks managed to get ahold of one of the
bulls. One had hold of his tail, two others had one horn each,
and the other two had grabbed the hair on the bull's back.
For a few moments they were dragged along like this, the much
stronger bull barely noticing them. But then the bull stopped
dead in its tracks, and just stood there.
And the young bucks clinging to the bull shouted triumphantly,
and the young women who knew that they might actually get some
action later that night from these guys shouted encouragingly,
and the crowds clapped politely. The bull didn't shout; it just
stood there snorting and puffing, taking its time, waiting for
the reality of the situation to sink in to five guys holding
onto it and enjoying their fifteen seconds of fame.
Finally, it did. The young bucks' smiles started to fade, as
the same thought hit all of them at the same time: "Ok. Now
we have caught the bull. What now?"
I mean, they're standing there holding on to 1000 pounds of
muscle, sinew and horn, and their smiles of triumph are start-
ing to slide into frowns of consternation as all of them
ponder the same Zen koan, "Now that I've *caught* the bull,
how do I let go and get away without getting gored?"
The memory of that moment, and that look on all their faces,
made me laugh out loud at the time, and does again this
morning as I make my Way cautiously through the bullshit
minefield. In my all-too-associative mind, I relate the
memory to the quest for mystical experience itself, and
that makes me laugh even more.
I mean, think about it. Most spiritual seekers start out as
young bucks themselves, setting out on the path all full of
hope and dreams, their minds full of tales of power told by
seekers and finders from the past. They're hoping to grab a
little of this "mystical experience" stuff for themselves,
and thus share some of the glory that they project onto
those who had mystical experiences in the past and who
recorded them in their tales of power.
And, after years -- possibly decades -- of searching for
the bull, of questing for a genuine, Class A mystical
experience, they *have* one. And it's real, and it's Here
And Now, and it's really mindblowing, and for a moment all
the questing and all of the pursuit of the mystical is
worth it. And then the reality of the situation hits them.
What now?
They look around, and unlike the Grand Rue in Sauve, there
are no cheering crowds. There are no babes to be impressed
out of their panties by their achievement. There is no one
there but them, still holding onto to the memory of the
experience, but *just* like the young bucks in Sauve,
wondering what to *do* with it.
Should they tell someone about it? No one experienced it
but them. And, because the mystical experience was...uh...
mystical, and beyond the experience of most of the people
they *could* tell about it, would anyone they told *believe*
them if they did? The people they tell might even laugh at
them, and consider them delusional or liars.
So what's a mystic to do?
You've captured the bull. You've even tamed the bull and
ridden it. But unlike Zen Master Kakuan, you can't ride
the mystical bull back home and show it to your friends.
It's *your* bull, *your* experience, and you can never
prove to anyone else that such a thing as a bull even
*exists*, much less that you tracked one and caught one
and rode it. There's not even any bullshit on the streets
to prove that the bull ever existed.
So what do you *do* with the bull experience?
That's the quandary that every mystic in human history
has faced. Do I *talk* about this extraordinary experience
that has so changed my life, or do I keep it to myself?
*If* I talk about it, I risk ridicule and disbelief and
claims that I am deluded or a liar. Do I share this
experience with others, or do I go to my grave never
having told anyone else about the extraordinary thing
that has happened to me, and that thus could potentially
happen to them?
IMO, this is the question that determines whether the
seeker is really a mystic or merely a seeker of mystical
experience. The mere seeker probably wisely keeps his
mouth shut, and goes back to his day-to-day existence,
never mentioning the bull to his friends and co-workers.
The mystic talks about it. He tries to find some way to
convey something of the experience to others, in an
attempt to share some of its wonder with those he meets.
And he *is* laughed at. And he *is* called delusional.
And he *is* called a liar. And none of that matters,
because he once rode a bull, and those who are laughing
at him and calling him deluded and a liar have not. If
someday one of the people he talks to about the bull
finds his own bull, and rides it, the two of them can
talk about their respective experiences of bull riding
over a cup of coffee at the local cafe, and smile. The
other people at the cafe, overhearing two idiots talking
and smiling about experiences that all of them *know*
are impossible, can believe that the two are just idiots
talking bullshit. But the idiots themselves still smile,
because they know that if you wade your Way through enough
bullshit, there really is a bull at the end of the trail.
|
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