Inspirations and Sources

"The book is the Supreme Doctrine by Hubert Benoit...it's the best explanation for the human problem that I've ever found... a French psychiatrist who was in a severe accident that left him almost completely helpless for years..." Nothing Special Living Zen   --by C. Joko Beck

While we all from time to time have inspirations, mysterious invitations to new possibilities and ways of seeing or doing, not often do we consider the source of inspiration. The ancients attributed them to the muses, the gods and goddesses about in their midst. Modern rational man looks elsewhere, or nowhere at all. In the creative mind, there may be many attributes or, surprisingly none well defined, just the result itself.
 For some like Charlotte Joko Beck, she writes in her book, Nothing Special, Living Zen, that "I studied it at one time for 10 or 15 years. I have a copy that looks like its been in the washing machine." The book she writes of is authored by French psychiatrist, Hubert Benoit, titled La Doctrine Supreme, first published in France in 1951; later published in England in 1955; the one which is quoted here was copyrighted in England in 1998.

Dr. Benoit was severely injured in an accident that left him paralyzed and immobile. He had a great mind and a great deal of time on his hands in the aftermath of his accident. In his immobilized condition, he set out in deep thought.
The results of his pensees, or thoughts were the genesis of that book, titled in English  The Supreme Doctrine. He had a good knowledge of spiritual matters which deepened with his enforced confinement. Benoit was quite knowledgeable about the works of Zen master Suzuki, especially the book, The Doctrine of No Mind. Paying heed, especially to the thoughts of Suzuki, Benoit reminds the reader that like Suzuki, No Mind is an anti-intellectual mind, a mind that "detests every kind of intellectuality, wrote Suzuki.'

And continues Suzuki,"there is nothing complicated that man needs to do; it is enough that he see directly into his own  nature." Thus Benoit starts by saying, "Man has always reflected upon his condition, has thought that he is not as he would like to be... after having demonstrated what does not go right in the case of the natural man, and why that does not necessarily go right, come to the question: How are we to remedy this state of affairs?"
Benoit remarks that the remedies most often proposed fail to address the root cause, the germ that inspires or fails to do so; perchance  misery is often inspired because of unending want for something.
 Yoga, he writes, "is often prescribed, as if the perfection of the body would cure the root ill of the human condition."

"All that," Benoit concludes in his opening chapter, "is just animal-training and leads to one kind of servitude or another... it is perfectly analogous to the story,  Achilles and the Hare." Yet the penetrating manner of Zen cuts through illusion; it does not pause to consider peculiarities. "It knows that nothing is wrong with us, and that we suffer because we do not understand that everything works perfectly."
And so this volume by Benoit which has inspired many begins. But do not be perturbed that good and great minds have read Benoit's words before you; so many have, and many puzzle over them. You will too, and perhaps they will inspire you.

The Teacher

"Perfectionists are never satisfied with who they are, or others but are always reaching for a goal, and never enjoying the imperfect moment they're in." --Thomas Moore

Moore writes in his book, The Soul's Religion, that one of the goals of the 'educated' is to become perfected, more complete, more whole in themselves. He writes that we must not forget for all the importance of spirit, that bodies are needed; spirits inhabit bodies and an everyday life is lived from them, but what will we, the spirit-body learn, and how will we learn so as to realize the "perfected self"?
In the everyday, complex world of science and technology, the role of pain, of trial and ordeal are seen as experiences to be eliminated, controlled, suppressed; yet Moore argues that these experiences, these moments are vital to a human education. It is experience, simple experience, finally and not intellectual achievement that will bring around a perfected soul, the one which is completed, whole and peaceful.

Zen master, Suzuki in quoting another, Dogen, goes on to say "you will be even the teacher of Shakyamuni Buddha." As bodies are souls whole and complete, we learn in the Dharmakaya, as Suzuki also repeats, 'when you realize Buddha nature, you are the teacher.'
So then the best teacher is the one who does not teach, yet who leads, guides, experiences the lessons of his students, and his students experience the lessons of the teacher. In this way teaching is profound with benefit. It is a far and away from the experience, in which some have believed, that the teacher is the expert who pours knowledge into otherwise empty heads.

Thus as Thomas Moore notes from his own life experience, imperfection is a good and valued part of education, for both the student and the teacher. In the best moments of teaching, an alchemy, or a deep moment of newness of creation, a mystery transpires between two or more persons engaged in this process of experience and perfection. "When a teacher evokes the deep process of imparting and learning subtle aspects of life's mysteries, then teaching goes on." And like any creative activity, teaching "happens best when a muse is present, initiating something far deeper" in the exchange.