Friday Night Zen #10
Tonight is Rosh Hashanah. This week also marks the beginning of the celebration of Ramadan. These things I remained ignorant of until recently. Zen, of course, was unheard of. Having been a recipient of the typical white, Christian upbringing in the sixties and seventies, knowledge of other peoples and their cultures was ignored. I feel the loss.
There is much in life denied those who keep to their own set of ideals. Insular communities lose much in their solitude by not sharing in the joys of others, the wider expressions of humanity available through intimacy with other cultures. Sometimes, even individuals, focused on their aspirations or troubles miss the bounty of earthly life, as is depicted in this Zen parable:
A man walking across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger chasing him. coming to a cliff, he caught hold of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Terrified, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger had come, waiting to eat him. Two mice, one white and one black, began little by little to nibble away at the vine. The man was a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!
Zen reminds us of the necessity of tasting that strawberry in every moment, to savor life no matter what it brings. One way we can do this is to open our houses and our hearts to people of differing cultures, learning about differences and sharing similarities. As hatred and fear are bourn of ignorance, so love and acceptance are bourn of knowledge. Celebrate the holidays of others, maybe they’ll help you celebrate yours with you.