An Ocean of Yearning (Hennegen)

There was a period in my life where I was overcome by an insatiable yearning--a yearning I feared would bring me to my knees. A constant hunger I couldn't escape or abate or please. One without a clear object; a yearning for some yet-unknown-thing that I couldn't quite put my finger on but I'll know it when I see it, I thought. Because there must be an "it," must be an object of this desire. There must be some salve, some solution, some end to all this greedy wanting. Mostly, I felt empty. Incomprehensible. It induced a myopia in me. I thought I was seeking that which would alleviate, but the mess of my impressions and experiences, my limited "understanding" (of life, of purpose, of not believing in anything larger than or beyond myself that could help me escape myself) inhibited my ability to endeavor toward meaning. 

“The phrase does not satisfy hunger means this hunger, not the ordinary matter of the twelve hours, never encounters a painted rice cake. Even if you were to eat a painted rice cake, it would never put an end to this hunger. Rice cakes are not separate from hunger. Rice cakes are not separate from rice cakes. Thus, these activities and teachings cannot be given away. Hunger is a single staff maneuvered horizontally and vertically through a thousand changes and myriad forms.”

When Ch. 41 speaks of hunger, I do not limit my reading to simply physical hunger. I think of my yearning. Early in the chapter, various interpretations of the statement “A painting of a rice cake does not satisfy hunger” are considered and dismissed. He who infers “that studying the sutras and commentaries does not nourish true wisdom” makes "a great mistake," for he suffers myopia. He likens rice cakes to expedient teachings in much too tidy a manner. He misunderstands hunger.

Might hunger be a drive in us, perhaps even innate to us, as though to be human is to yearn? A "single staff," a single impulse that can manifest toward manifold ends? Which is to say, "maneuvered...through a thousand changes." We might adopt various objects of our desire, but the desire-drive is the steady thing.

“This is emancipation right here. As emancipation is not a matter of time, it is not concerned with a discussion of a certain moment or instant. Taking up this understanding, make earth, water, fire, and air your vital activity; make mind, consciousness, and wisdom your great death.”

Hunger's end--emancipation--is not a singular event. It is not a threshold we cross. Emancipation doesn't look like: I was hungry, and now I am sated. Rather, emancipation is continuous, a mode of living, a perpetual process--the "vital activity" of a lifetime. The reason the interpretation mentioned above is characterized as a mistake is because it takes emancipation to be a state achieved and then possessed. It treats emancipation as a linear process. It sets its aim as emancipation, then considers whether teachings will grant a direct path to that emancipation.

I spoke of my relationship with yearning in the past tense. Certainly, I remain chock-full of desire, but the texture of my desiring is utterly different today. I am no longer awash in what feels like overwhelming need that can never find fulfillment. My emancipation was not one achieved by means of buddhism, yet I can parallel the notion of "taking up" a newfound "understanding" as my "vital activity," through which I discovered greater depths, richer experience, and hope.

“Since this is so, there is no remedy for satisfying hunger other than a painted rice cake. Without painted hunger, you never become a true person. There is no understanding other than painted satisfaction. In fact, satisfying hunger, satisfying beyond hunger, not satisfying hunger, and not satisfying beyond hunger cannot be attained or spoken of without painted hunger. For now, study all of these as a painted rice cake. When you understand this teaching with your body and mind, you will thoroughly experience the ability to turn things and be turned by things. If this is not done, the power of the study of the way is not yet realized. To enact this ability is to actualize the painting of enlightenment."

Perhaps I was searching for the rice cake and now I have embraced the painted rice cake. I became a true person and I continually engage in a form of "understanding" that feels like clearer vision than before, though it is also a radically humble sort of understanding, for I also recognize just how little I know. What I do know is that my prior yearning was a broken form of seeking. I had abandoned hope, forgotten its taste, lost its energy. Now, my yearning is entirely informed by gratitude and hope. There's a line in Ecce Homo that encapsulates my entire perspective: How could I fail to be grateful to my entire life?

This post actually started as a mere comment on Mr. Allen's post, "Reification." I was struck by the line, "I have noticed that anything of wisdom has to depart, perhaps to make room for more wisdom. But more so, I think that I push out things I have already learned for another reason. If it sticks around, it stops being a lesson in the moment and reifies." It reminded me of a thought that haunted me for a long time about how anything will turn dangerous if you cling to it for too long. Seeking emancipation in any singular thing, no matter how "noble" or "good" or "worthy"... well, its potency pales. The novel becomes familiar. Every there becomes a here. When you cling too dearly to any earthly thing--perhaps even any ideal--it will, eventually, fail you. After some time, the thought found its way into a poem of mine. (I hope you'll excuse me, but I'm including the poem below.)

In the first stanza, I speak of my yearning. I call it my profundity problem, how I want everything to be filled with significance. I would feel my hunger and think it must be a hunger for something of substance--for every exchange, action, and decision to be meaningful. I want the world around me to be deliberate; I want people to be reflective and introspective. But of course this cannot be. We live in a world that demands of us innumerable mundanities. We speak to the grocery store check-out person about the weather. We take out the trash, fill our engines with gas, shower today only to shower tomorrow and again the next day. I wanted rice cakes in a painted world. The poem closes with resurgent affirmation that, to me, recalls the emancipation and vital energy quoted above. When we stop seeking the rice cake in the painted world, we can approach our strange, painted world anew. We discover vital activity and depth.

Nostalgia in February

Jackets zipped against wind, we stand
close, cupping hands to catch the light.
I get it. My profundity problem.
I want everything to mean. To have worth
and weight. But it doesn’t. My desire
verges on dire. I try to remember patience.
I usually forget. With extravagant flair,
Sam fans the match and declares
all bad poetry is sincere.

It’s nothing new, of course. It’s Eliot
or Wilde, maybe. The trouble is,
I’m too sentimental. I had my first cigarette
last week. Now my body goes buoyant
on just a few sips, doomed
and irreverent. A little romantic. I buy Sappho
in the original Greek even though it flummoxes me.
I wear my mother’s wedding ring to bed
so I can sleep.

Oh, but I want to be greedy with beauty.
Or— No. That’s not quite it.
I want the past.
A garden hose draped
over the gate, backyard showers
after sun-spoiled days. Bonfires,
a poorly pitched tent in Joshua Tree. Strange,
isn’t it? How anything will turn dangerous
if you cling to it long enough.

The last bellow of day drains. Scallop-edged
and purplish, the cottonwood leaves
fatigue. It was Hesiod who deified pain,
now our -algia is named for the spirits of grief.
And yet, Nostos means tribulations be damned,
the hero gets home. Sometimes I stumble
on a day so blue it blinds. I find
a June within and I am everything
righteous and thrashing and right.

8.7.3