In South Korea, Buddhist monasteries dot the land along rivers up into the mountains.  The paths -- and now roads -- that lead to them are sometimes adorned the whole way with large, mossy boulders covered one right after the other in chiseled-out classical Chinese calligraphy dating back a thousand years.  To this day, Korean monks and nuns read scriptures in classical Chinese, usually as novices before maybe choosing to become Zen monks devoted to meditation, or else Vinaya monks specializing in the vast monastic code of conduct.                

At the time of the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama nearly 2, 600 years ago, the weather in what is now north India and Nepal dictated retreat seasons, like the annual "rains retreat" during the monsoon.  Following loosely from this, annual schedules for fully ordained Korean monastics feature summer and winter retreats, with spring and autumn as times to wander, maybe see family, and decide where to spend the next retreat.  Retreats end with the abbot and another senior monk or two ceremonially offering teachings to the assembled community.  For his talk during one such ceremony in the late nineteenth century, a well-known abbot echoed these words of the Buddha:

                        It is good to see the holy ones;

                        to live with them brings happiness.

                        Not spending time

                        with the unskillful

                        and unwise

                        also brings happiness.

                        Therefore, like the moon

                        following its ordained path,

                        let each one keep company

                        with people who are

                        wise, steadfast, loyal, and pure, [1]

so that, he concluded, "you will become great trees and containers of [wisdom]." [2]  Having just spent three months with (presumably) such people, and ready to venture now down through towns for awhile, the assembled were impressed with the abbot’s timely words.  Zen Master Kyong Ho was then asked to speak.  "All of you are monks," he began.

"Monks are free of petty personal attachments and live only to serve other people.  Wanting to become a great tree or a container of [wisdom] will prevent you from becoming a true teacher.

Great trees have great uses; small trees have small uses.  Good and bad can all be used in their own way.  None are to be discarded.  Keep both good and bad friends.  You mustn't reject anything... [3]"

If I’m a drug addict who wants to kick, it's probably a good idea to find friends who don't use.  If I'm a recovering alcoholic, bars probably aren't a good idea.  But if our purpose in this world is to make it somehow better than we found it, "to serve other people," we absolutely cannot continue to separate what's already whole into categories that simply make us a bit more falsely comfortable, however "holy" and good or "unskillful" and bad we'd like things to be.  And we all do it, this rejection of what we've convinced ourselves is other.  We reject the homeless woman who sleeps behind our apartment, or else the boss in his Mercedes and Rolex.  Pretty soon the plane is hijacked and Hummers are out spitting sand in search of "evildoers." 

Father Theophane, a Trappist monk, tells the story of a man who enters a monastery in search of "the big answer."  Deep in silent prayer, the man hears a voice: "What are you leaving out?"  He looks around but sees no one. 

"What are you leaving out?"  Again and again he hears it.  His imagination?  Is he going crazy?  Shaken, he goes to the monks' cells. 

"What am I leaving out?"       

"Me," said the first monk.

"Me," said the second. 

Cell after cell, the answer is the same.  "Me."

Disgusted and desperate, the man leaves the building.  The sun is just rising over the hill.  Although he'd never before addressed the sun, he asks it from the depths of his heart, "What am I leaving out?" 

"Me," came the sun’s reply.

Now completely demolished, he throws himself to the ground.

"Me too," said the earth.[4]

With over six billion mostly starving people in a world of rapidly dwindling resources, leaving anything out is no longer an option.  And we are always only of service in this world as it actually exists right here and now, in our lives as we live them together. 

Notes

1.  Geri Larkin, The Still Point Dhammapada (New York: Harper, 2003) 103-4.

2.  Mu Soeng, Thousand Peaks: Korean Zen – Tradition and Teachers (Cumberland, RI: Primary Point Press, 1991) 179-80.

3.  Ibid, 180.

4.  Father Theophane, Tales of a Magic Monastery, audio.  Also available as Theophane the Monk, Tales of a Magic Monastery (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1981).