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Who is asking the question ? Excerpt from Chapter 3 of Ten Zen Questions |
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Who is asking the question? What does that mean? This makes no sense. Which question? This question of course. The who in the question. Help. Stop. I get the impression that if I could really hurl myself into this impossible question then …. then what? I don’t know. I’ll start again, calm down, and try an easier tack.
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Who is asking the question? I am. I am sitting here looking at the wet flagstones outside my hut. Let me investigate this instead. Who is looking at the stone? This is easier. I can see the stone over there, flat and grey with ups and downs and puddles where the rain collects, and wet leaves stuck here and there. Now who is seeing all this? There is no escaping the flagstone. There it is. And there is no escaping the fact that I am looking from over here. There is perspective: a viewpoint. Were I to look from somewhere else it would look different. Were someone else looking from over there they would see it in a different way. From here it looks like this. Right – so now I can draw a line between there and here. Over there is the flagstone. Over here is me. And who is this?
I look. I turn the looking inwards, from pointing out there at the stone to pointing in here at what is looking at the stone. What? I find nothing. I cannot grasp it. I know there must be something here. It is me, isn’t it? But it seems to elude me every way I look. I try again, going back to a calm mind with a steady gaze. I ask again. Who is looking? Again I find nothing. I get cross. Surely it must be possible to find out what is looking. I keep trying. The flagstone is there. The direction and perspective are there. Something must be at this end – looking. But still I cannot find it. And who is trying to find it? Is this seeker the same me as the one who is looking at the stone or … Something is wrong here. Try again. Settle down and watch. The world arises. Here it is. The distant traffic thrums on. The rain is dripping from the roof on to the stones with a steady patter. The plants are there, and their reflection shimmers in the scrap of puddle. There are all the threads that seem to have been going on. There they are; trolling along as ever. Let them be. There is a stillness at the centre of all this stuff. Eventually the question pops up again. Who is asking the question? I don’t know. I can’t tackle it. It is too
difficult. I feel stupid and blind.
I’ll try another tack. Here is all this world, all these threads, all this stuff. Who is watching them? This must be a sensible question, mustn’t it? After all, there are a lot of experiences right here and now, so there must be someone experiencing them, mustn’t there? That is how it seems. So all I have to do is to let the experiences be and then pop the question. Who is experiencing them? Perhaps this will be the same me as in the question “Who is asking the question?”. Then I’ll know. I look. Here is all this stuff. It seems to be out there somewhere, and I seem to be in here looking out at it all. Let’s forget the sounds and stick with vision for a moment; I’ll try to work with that. Here I am sitting in here and looking out at the garden with its plants and trees and the garage roof and the distant buildings. Now, if they are out there, and I am in here, then there must be a boundary, or edge, or divide, between them and me. If I could just look for the edge I might then be able to flip from looking from the inside out, to looking from the outside in. So where is this boundary between the world out there and me in here? I see a twist of hair, hanging between me and it. Is this the edge? Am I this side of the hair and the experiences the other? No. That’s silly. I must work harder and more carefully. Let’s start again at the flagstone. There it is. Now I want to work gradually inwards until I find the edge and then flip over from seeing the world out there to seeing the me in here. Right. Go. There’s the stone with its puddles and dirt and leaves and reflections. Here, a little nearer, is the step and the wooden floor of my hut. It merges into the rug at my feet and that merges, oddly enough, into my own legs. I know these legs belong to my body, but I’m still looking at them from over here. So they are still outside of the me who’s looking. Carry on, carefully now. Coming a little closer and now a little vaguer, I glimpse my folded hands and the rough muddle of a woolly jumper around my neck. Getting close. Is this all? A hint of see-through edge of nose and that twist of hair. This must be it. What comes next after the edge and that hair? Here we go … I have it! Here it is! Inwards from there is …… It’s the garden again. Damn. Here is the stone again, and the floor and the drips and the plants. I can go round and round, starting with the middle of the view out there, working in carefully towards myself in the centre, and there I find only the same old view, to start all over again. How did that happen? I was looking for the me that was looking and I found only the world. It’s a familiar enough trick, but easily forgotten. Look for the viewing self and find only the view. I am, it seems, the world I see.
I remember the first time this happened to me, many years ago, walking with a group of Buddhists in the Mendip hills near my home. A friend started talking about Douglas Harding’s book On Having No Head and, surprised to learn that I’d never even heard of it, introduced me to the idea. We were standing at the edge of a field, looking out across a wooded valley and over fields full of sheep to the hills beyond. “Point at that hill,” he said “and concentrate on what you can see there”. I pointed and concentrated. “Now come a little closer and point at your feet,” he said “and concentrate on what you see there”. I pointed and concentrated. “Point at your tummy,” he said “and concentrate on what you see there”. I pointed and concentrated. “Move up to your chest,” he said “and concentrate on what you see there”. I pointed and concentrated. “Now point straight between your eyes.” he said. I pointed and No. Scream. What? Eeeeeek. I found the finger pointing and ….. I had no head. There was my body all right, with its visible feet, legs, tummy, chest, and then what? Of course I know I have a head. I can touch it and see it in the mirror, but I’d never noticed that I can’t see it myself, directly; that all my life I’ve been walking around without a visible head. I laughed happily. On top of this headless body seemed to be the whole world of friends, and grass, and trees and hills. I’d lost my head and gained the world. I guess it’s always like that. How odd never to have noticed before.
But all that is long ago and I am evading the question again. Who is asking the question? This is still too difficult. It is one step to see that the perceiving self is none other than the perceived world, but it is much harder to stare straight into this impossible, self-referential, daft question: Who is asking the question? Asking. Asking? This is a kind of doing. Perhaps I can creep up on it through other kinds of action. After all, when I think about myself I think of myself as an actor; I am the one who acts; I am the one who decides to do things and then does them. When I am washing up then there is a me who is doing it. When I am working there is a me who is making the effort. Perhaps I can look into this me, and so find out who is asking the question. It happens today that I am polishing a set of brass bells, from a tiny, tinkling hand bell to a large fire engine’s bell. I like to break the long day of meditation with a session of work: something physical that stirs up the muscles and keeps me awake. I would do some weeding or digging, but today it’s been pouring with rain all day, so I set to work on the bells instead. I pull out a wad of Brasso from its familiar tin, with its characteristic smell and horrible rough feel on my hands. I rub the wet stuff on. I scrub the brass steadily, up and down, up and down, up and down, firmly clutching the wad of dirty fibres. I see the arms in front of me, coming out of nowhere. Who is polishing the bells? I think of Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, and his famous poem. It’s one of my favourite Zen stories. ...
My shiny brass bell is all new and bright now. Is this the mind? Polished and bright? Who is polishing? There are the arms all right. They move up and down, the brass appears and disappears. The threads of distant traffic go their way. The boiler hums in the background and the light is coming in through the window. I look upwards along the arms. I have this awful suspicion that I know what I will find. Indeed. The arms just fade out of sight at the top. There is nothing here. The arms are rubbing the brass and the arms come out of nothing at all. There is nowhere for the dust to alight. Who is polishing? Who is asking “Who is polishing?”? It’s too difficult. I don’t know. Well? “Who …. ?
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February
2009 |
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