Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Buddhist
The Flowing Bridge: Exploring a Zen koan and the Mysteries of Everyday Life

The Flowing Bridge: Exploring a Zen koan and the Mysteries of Everyday Life

Last updated on: May 1, 2021 at 12:30 pm by James Ford

The Flowing Bridge: Exploring a Zen koan and the Mysteries of Everyday Life 2021-05-01T12:30:12-07:00 James Ford

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

THE FLOWING BRIDGE

A dharma talk

James Ishmael Ford

Empty Moon Zen

May 1st, 2021

“As I cross the bridge, the bridge flows”

From the Miscellaneous koan collection of the Harada Yasutani Zen tradition

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a person of the intimate Way, a person of the Zen way here and now. There is a vermillion thread tying who we are here to spiritual ancestors in Japan. No doubt. The connection is profound and strong. That thread, I don’t think it actually can be torn. And, really, strands of that same thread from Korea, and Vietnam, weave together to become who we are. Perhaps making it all even stronger. And each of those threads trace back to China. Our mother for this way. But she has a mother, as well. The thread continues back to India and dream lands formed at foothills of the Himalayas.

This vermillion thread is precious. In its various wrinkles and twists it has opened ways of liberation, of freedom, of the wise heart. And I’m so grateful.

Originally, if you were serious about the matter, you would renounce family and the world and enter the Buddha’s order. If you wouldn’t or couldn’t, you supported those who did and hoped for a more propitious rebirth. In Japan in time the institutional holders of the way would have a serious monastic foundation, but would actually live for the most part as parish priests. Something similar would also emerge in Korea. For both those of the First Way and the Second, with some exceptions, from the beginning with exceptions, practice mostly belonged to the professionals.

But here in the West, well dragons and snakes live together. Practitioners of the way might be monastics, they could be priests, but mostly they, we are householders. The Third Way. As I said, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. And how it’s manifesting.

With that I was talking about a koan with a dear friend and student, Dana Lundquist. Due to past bad karma she finds herself married to a Zen priest. But she’s managed to avoid that particular entanglement for herself. For Dana the way is very much living into this Third Way, the householder way, fully and passionately.

Passionately. I think about that word. In his novel Creation, Gore Vidal explored the Axial Age, that period when most of the world’s major religions birthed. With just a little compression of time he was able to let his protagonist, the prophet Zoroaster’s grandson visit with all these founders. The only one Vidal really liked was Confucius. And even he had to suffer at Vidal’s pen, being given a horse-like face and chronic bad breath.

But it’s Vidal’s treatment of the Buddha I find I have trouble forgetting. For Vidal the Buddha’s gaze was always middle distance. He never looked anyone in the eye. It is easy to read much of the classic Buddhist literature and get the impression the way is about disengaging. Float above the matter. If you don’t care, you can’t be hurt.

I don’t think this is what the Buddha taught. And it is obvious that it isn’t the Zen way. But it is sort of a near enemy of the real way. A counterfeit of wisdom. And one that many who think they’re following the intimate way actually embrace.

We’re about something else. We’re about the power of passion. We’re about not turning away. But we are not simply about sinking into the floods of the world. Our way is something a bit different. And. This invites us to a koan, a presentation of the way, a story given to us as an invitation to take our part in the dance. (Dance. Another hint…)

In our inheritance following the koan reforms of the early twentieth century master Daiun Harada, we begin with a koan that is meant to open our hearts to the mystery of boundlessness. For most of us its going to be the Mu koan. Mu breaks our certainties about who we think we are. If we are lucky enough to have that taste then we enter the kindergarten of our way, a collection of brief koans, sometimes actually fragments from larger koans.

Mu, however, is never very far from these miscellaneous koans, as they’re called. But each of them add new wrinkles, invite us to new angles, teach us new steps in the dance.

The one that comes to my mind here is “As I cross the bridge, the bridge flows” The Zen master and Catholic nun Elaine McInnis wrote a small book about the miscellaneous koans. The title of her book was the Flowing Bridge. I’ve always loved that title. Sometimes I think of it as the dancing bridge.

Dana, my friend, she and her husband have invited a four-year old into their lives. If things go as they certainly hope they will, before long they will have a daughter. As a result of this when we were speaking, Dana yawned. She’s not getting quite as much sleep as she has been used to.

She wanted to talk about that flowing bridge. She understood its connection to Mu. Specifically, she asked, “What is Mu when your time is not your own?” She knew it was connected to that bridge and its flow, its dance. And it’s a variation of a question we constantly encounter. I would say especially for those following the Householder way of Zen.

What about when you’re fostering a four-year old? What about when you hold her and realize this is almost certainly a lifetime thing? What about the nightmares? What about the laughter? What does it mean to see beyond the separations, and yet find you can hold a child?

How does a bridge flow? Dana provided one of the answers, she said, “my daughter as priority is Mu.” Indeed, that bridge flows. Absolutely, that bridge dances.

After we finished our conversation, I realized how much my friend Chris Bell is in my mind. Chris is another person of the intimate way, a Zen practitioner, and a UU minister. He was also my intern many years ago, when I served in Newton, Massachusetts. The church he ended up serving, the UU congregation in Santa Rosa, California was actually the one from which I went to seminary, the church within which I formed my own vision of manifestation in this world.

As it happens in July he is retiring. I’ve been thinking about the day he was installed as their minister. I realize all of it is sort of a commentary on the koan about the flowing bridge, the koan about taking care of a four-year old is Mu.

He’d invited me to preach the service. And it was quite an affair. Among the dignitaries at the service was Santa Rosa’s mayor who expressed the city’s gratitude for the amazing commitment that the congregation had made by moving into the downtown, repurposing an old theater. Probably my favorite of the many things said, certainly the one whose words I most clearly recall, and directly connect to all this, was something Doug Kraft said. At the time he was minister in Sacramento. He was and is a Vipassana teacher. Another follower of the intimae way.

Doug gave the charge to the minister. He framed it all within a reflection from a twentieth century Hindu teacher, Nisargadatta Maharaj who said:

“Wisdom says I am nothing.
Love says I am everything.
Between the two, my life flows.”

Let me repeat: Wisdom says I am nothing. Love says I am everything. Between these two, my life flows.

I found those words taking my breath away. You want to unpack what it means to follow the Third Way of Zen? You want to understand Dana’s mommy Zen? You want to get the intimate way right down to the blood flowing through your body?

Let the bridge dance. Let it flow…

It’s so very important to cultivate wisdom, to see into the deepest aspects of who we are as we are, to minutely investigate everything, right to the end, to the no-thing, the nothingness of it all. Buddhist mindfulness practices like Vipassana and its cousin Zazen, Zen meditation with their meticulous investigations of the function of mind, reveals much.

But, as they say on latest night television: wait, there’s more! Right on that call to cultivate the mind is another assertion, the assertion of the heart: “Love says I am everything.” Here reality as love asserts itself. And, I think, it reveals the missing part that has led many who begin Buddhist practice who only attend to the functions of mind find we’re wandering down wrong paths. It’s not one. Of course, neither is it two. But, we find the one. We find the two. And we find the dance between. The flowingness of it all.

It shows us how to explain Mu to a baby. It shows us how the bridge flows.

Our way is all about the mind and it’s all about the heart. “Between the two, my life flows.”

Doug wrapped up his reflection. I felt really inspired. I could only stay a little while as I had to drive down the sixty miles to Oakland from which I would leave extremely early the next morning. I got lots of kisses and hugs on my way out.

Then the rubber hit the road.

Chris stayed at the reception for another hour or so. It had been a triumphant afternoon, the culmination of so many years of work. How could Chris feel anything but joy? Well, maybe a little exhaustion. And then when he got home, he had a message waiting for him. His father, who was at dinner in Ohio at about the same time as the installation service was going, had been stricken with a massive heart attack and died. Chris had to leave for Cleveland on the next available flight.

Dana’s Mu, Dana’s bridge is making a home for a child who desperately needs a home. Chris flying to Cleveland. You and me in this moment, together.

No doubt the way of the mind is important, critically so. But we also need the way of the heart. There is a moment to remember we are nothing, how our being, yours and mine, rises and falls in and as something so much vaster than we can ever imagine.

Awakening, as they say, is not what you think.

And.

First way. Second Way. Third Way? Are they the same or are they different?

As we cross the bridge, the bridge flows.

In that moment of need, when your father drops dead, when your four-year old has nightmares and calls to you, it turns out the truth revealed by mind clearly isn’t the last word. Not at that moment.

What is the last word at that moment is love, the movement of our hearts calling out to each other, our heartbeats finding a rhythm together. It’s the weaving of you and you and you and you and me and me and me and me into the tapestry that is the cosmos. It is the secret of the vermillion thread.

Flowing and dancing. So terrible, so joyful. From one pole to the other and then back again.

Wisdom says I am nothing.
Love says I am everything.
Between the two, my life flows.

As you cross the bridge, the bridge flows.

Thank you.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

April 30, 2021

Creating Community: Are you aging? Are you a Buddhist or a Unitarian Universalist? An old lefty? Maybe this is for you.

Next Post

May 3, 2021 Pilgrimages: A Mind Bubble on Spiritual Journeys

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Christmas Carol Abolitionist African-American Ahmadiyya Alan Watts Aldous Huxley Allen Ginsberg Amedkar Jayanti American politics American Zen Anaheim Zen Sangha Anglican Annie Besant April Fool Armageddon Art and Religion artificial intellegence Atheist Awakening B R Ambedkar Barlaam & Josaphat Beatnik Between Bhagavad Gita Bible biography birthday bodhisattva Bodhisattva Precepts Book burning Book of Common Prayer Book of Mormon Brahmo Samaj Buddha Buddhism Buddhist Buddhist Lord's Prayer Butterflies Calendars cartoons cat ChatGPT Chicken Tortilla Soup choices Christian atheism Christian mysticism Christian origins Christian Science Christian Zen Christianity Christianity and Buddhism christmas Christmas Truce Christopher Isherwood Church of Later Day Saints Cinco de Mayo circus covenant critical thinking culture D. T. Suzuki Dalit Buddhism Daniel Defoe Desert Fathers and Mothers dharma talk Dogen Donald Trump Dongshan's Five Ranks Dorothy Day dream Duty Easter ecology Edwin Arnold emptiness Empty Moon Zen Network Episcopal Church Eternal Now Ethics evolution existentialism Faith fantasy Fathers Day film film review fire Five Ranks Folk music food Form and emptiness Four Seals Francis of Assisi Francis Xavier Free thinker friendship George MacDonald Gerald Heard Glenn Taylor Webb God Good Friday Gospel of Gospel of Mark Gospel of Thomas grace Graduate Theological Unioin Graduate Theological Union Guanyin H R Blyth Hakuin Ekaku Hanamatsuri Hanukkah Harada Yasutani Zen Heart Sutra Henry David Thoreau Hermann Hesse Hinduism History and Religion history of religion Holy Spirit home Hospitality Icon Ides of March Isaac Newton Islam Islamic mysticism Jack Kerouac James Luther Adams Jiddu Krishnamurti Joan of Arc Johannes Gutenberg John Donne joke Judaism justice karma kensho King James Bible koan Koun Yamada Kyoto School Lewis Carrol Liberal Christianity Liberal Religion Life Plan Community Liminal literature Literature and Religion Liturgy Lord's Prayer Love Mahatma Gandhi Mahayana Martin Luther King Jr Mary Baker Eddy Mary Magdelene Mary Oliver Mayflower Compact Meditation memories memory metaphor money money and religioin Mormons Mother's Day movie review mysticism mythic Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church New Thought Nichiren Buddhism Nonduality not knowing Omar Khayyam Pacific School of Religion pagan Palm Sunday Passover peace Pentecost perennialism Phantastes Philip Kapleau philosophy Pilgrimage poetry Poetry and Religion politics Prayer Precepts Printing Press prophecy prophetic spirituality psychology Pure Land Queer religion queering religion Quietism Ram Mohan Roy rebirth recipe Relationships and religion religion religion and history Religious syncretism Resistance Retirement Retreat review Rissho Kosei Kai Ritual Robert Aitken Roshi Robert Ingersoll Rohatsu Romani religion Rosie the Riveter saints samadhi SanboZen Sangha Satyagraha science science and reigion science and religion science fiction seminary sermon Sesshin Sex and Religion Shinran Sikh Sikh tradition silence Social Justice Socially Engaged Buddhism Society and religion Soto Zen soul spiritual community spiritual practice Spirituality Sufism Suicide superstition Taoism Television Teresa of Avila Thanksgiving theological schools Theosophy Thomas Merton Time Transcendentalism Transcendentalist Trinitarian Trinity Uncategorized unitarian Unitarian Christianity Unitarian Universalist Universalism Vajrayana Vedanta Walking war Willa Cather William Ellery Channing wisdom women and religion women in religion World Teacher Writing zazen Zen Zen Center Zen inspired retriement zen meditation Zen Precepts Zen women

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was stoned to death for preaching about Jesus?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Peter Paul James Stephen