The Other Has Failed
Life seems to be a matter of conflicting ideas: good and bad, life and death, rich and poor, etc. And we seem to be ignorant of the fact that we are living a life of seamless conflict between each of these pairs. Suppose that you’re feeling high in a Friday night party, so high that you feel you could even fly. Then, the next morning you are completely hungover and suffer from headache. You start comparing your present situation of feeling unpleasant with yesterday’s party that was so good. Conflict! And suffering comes when you try to get rid of the unpleasantness and grasp the pleasantness of that party again. Like a hamster running on a wheel, it’s an endless cycle of pleasantness and the unavoidable unpleasantness. The structure of suffering is amazingly simple like this, so simple that it can even be explained with the example of a boozer …
In today’s Koan, two anonymous monks appear before Hogen, where Hogen orders that the monks open the blinds. As the monks go to the blinds and open it, Hogen tells that one (monk) did it well, and the other has failed. That’s the whole story. And the question is “Why has one failed and the other not?” Please note that the two monks did the work exactly the same way; it isn’t that one was very sloppy in opening the blind and the other wasn't .
This one is kind of tricky for those who see the world with the perspective of separation, dichotomy, and conflict. When we see a job done, we separate ourselves from the job themselves, that is, we see that we are here doing it and the job out there done by us. This is a fundamental separation we face: the separation between “me” and others. From that separation we further divide what matters to “me” into dichotomous parts, such as good and evil, success and failure. Then, these parts cause conflicts. We succeed in something, and behind that success always looms the dark anxiety of failure. Hello suffering, you’re here again.
When Hogen says “One done well, one has failed,” he isn’t seeing the monks in the above dichotomous mode. Nevertheless, he tests the monks to see if they have acquired the same understanding as his. The trick is this: when he says “done well,” he doesn’t see “failure,” as there is none of it when there's “done well.“ Remember the one-by-one principle that I often refer to, regarding the way we inquire into the sensations present in this moment? That’s the spirit.
To approach the fundamental kind of suffering, we always focus on the root of it. The root, as stated above, is the separation between “I” and everything else. And to see that the separation is a sheer illusion, we have to clearly see how it really is, now, here, nowhere else. So, ask “where is the dividing line between I and others?” And actually search for the line that divides and separates. Remember the “one by one” principle. It’s the same as when Hogen says “one succeeds, one fails.” Inquire into “succeed.” Look at the thoughts and sensations around the label succeed. Don’t care about “fail.” When inquiring into “fail,” never mind “succeed.” Then you’ll be able to give a satisfactory reply to Hogen’s judgment.