Jizo Bodhisattva by Jan Chozen Bays

Author:Jan Chozen Bays [Bays, Jan Chozen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781462918058
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Fellow Pilgrims

My companions

Trekking

The six realms—

I recognize my father!

There is my mother!

Dōgen Zenji

After being born into separateness, at some point we realize this isn’t all. Something’s missing. The grown-ups don’t have it all figured out. They’re fooling themselves into thinking they’re happy, and now they’re trying to fool me. At that point we actively step out on the pilgrimage road. It’s up to us to start out alone. Then help begins to flow toward us, including the necessary guides and supplies for the journey.

If our parents are spiritual seekers, they may assist us. One of the clearest childhood memories is calling down the stairs after I had gone to bed, asking my mother, who had gone down to the living room after tucking me in, questions about the nature of God. Was God a man or a woman? How old? Present always or not? The questions were asked in a casual afterthought way, but I remember holding my breath until I heard by the directness and care and weight of her response that these were very important questions to her too.

The answers didn’t matter so much; I don’t even remember if she gave me any answers. Knowing my mother, probably not. What mattered was the understanding that flowed between us, up and down those dark stairs, that this was the most important thing. Here is where two human beings could truly meet, in that great questioning. A pilgrim recognizes a pilgrim.

Pilgrims are found everywhere. Among Jews, Christians, Hindus, agnostics, Muslims; among the poor, the homeless, the dying, the white or blue collar, children or the elderly—it does not matter. A pilgrim recognizes a pilgrim.

On a recent plane trip I was seated next to an older man who had a warm feeling to him. He wore clean Western clothes and a cowboy hat, but he looked like these were his real clothes, not ordered from the Coldwater Canyon catalog. We talked about a house he was building, which led to a church he had built in Latin America, which led to my favorite topic, spiritual life. It was an easy, gentle ramble through spiritual experiences and findings. We agreed that the spiritual search is the underpinning of all other activity, and that spiritual truth is revealed to us to the degree we are willing to use it in our life for others. Only as we finished the conversation and turned to our books did we clarify our traditions. He was Mormon and I was a Zen Buddhist. At that point it made not a ripple of difference. A pilgrim recognizes a pilgrim.

This is always true, once we have been seized by the great question and set out on the quest. Our antennae are up. We recognize someone who also knows they have been seized by the scruff of the neck. There is a look, a humor, a determination. They have been pierced through by the sharp pointed staff of that great question, and being pierced, no way to pull it out.

We can

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