BASHO'S FROG
by Sensei Robert Joshin Althouse (c) 2006

"Old pond,
frog jumps in –
splash."

Basho

We can be pretty certain, Basho wasn't expecting to hear the frog jump into the pond. It was as much a surprise for him as he was for the frog. In this surprise the whole universe awakens with delight and wonder.

People see me in daisan for many reasons. Students initially study the precepts, and with time, may also take up koan study. Sometimes people want to talk about the challenges and uncertainties of living a life. I rarely tell anyone what to do. What I find people need most is listening.

Years ago when doing hospice work in Hawaii, people knew I was a Zen Buddhist priest, so they always asked me what would happen to them after they died. I wanted to answer them honestly, and I couldn't say with any certainty what would happen to them after they died. I could talk to them about true nature being "unborn", and that seemed helpful. But it was so clear in this context, that I was not going to fix this situation. So in the end I surrendered to the blessing and mystery of death and learned to just show up and be present and listen. This seemed to be what people really wanted.

In the Genjokoan, Dogen Zenji says, "To carry the self forward and realize the ten thousand dharmas is delusion. That the ten thousand dharmas advance and realize the self is enlightenment." Everything is included here. But the self can get in the way of the self. The self can look for meaning where it isn't to be found. The self can reach for answers where only questions live. The self can look forward to certain outcomes that may or may not come to pass. But in the self's preoccupation with itself, the frog's "plop" is missed altogether. What a wonder and mystery life is!

On a homeless street retreat in Seattle, I once heard two men sitting on a park bench sharing stories. One was talking about having been in Mai Lai during the Vietnam war and now he was communicating with aliens from some distant planet. What amazed me about these two guys was that the other one was listening so enthusiastically with many words of encouragement. Coming from "not knowing" he was just there with this guy's fantastic story, rooting him on.

I have been teaching Inner Disarmament since shortly after 9/11. Much of this work involves empathic listening skills. Participants who think they know how to listen empathically are often surprised at how difficult it is to practice active listening. First, it requires a willingness to be present to the other person's experience in a way that is spacious. This deep listening seems to take forever, so we usually short-circuit the conversation by jumping in to search for solutions to "fix" the perceived problem.

Listening is like working on a koan. One works on a koan by letting the koan work on you. You learn to suspend your need to "know" and rest in the ambiguity and uncertainty of the moment. The answer resides in the question, and seeking the answer can take us further away from the issue at hand.

Listening, like Zen is relational in nature and is not really located by any reference point of "this" or "that". It is neither subjective nor objective. And like death and birth, listening is a mystery at the heart of our lives to be celebrated. Don't ask what it means. Don't try to understand it. Isn't this "plop" delightful?