{"id":3097,"date":"2021-01-05T16:12:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T16:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/?p=3097"},"modified":"2021-01-05T16:12:34","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T16:12:34","slug":"3097","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/?p=3097","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 class=\"entry_title\">Ming Zhen Shakya speaks on\u2026.Expectations &amp; Martin Buber<\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4176\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.asinglethread.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Em-with-wolf-painting.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-4176\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.asinglethread.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Em-with-wolf-painting-200x300.png?resize=201%2C302\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.asinglethread.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Em-with-wolf-painting.png?resize=200%2C300&amp;ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.asinglethread.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Em-with-wolf-painting.png?resize=768%2C1149&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.asinglethread.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Em-with-wolf-painting.png?resize=684%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 684w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.asinglethread.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Em-with-wolf-painting.png?resize=1024%2C1532&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.asinglethread.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Em-with-wolf-painting.png?w=1305&amp;ssl=1 1305w\" alt=\"\" width=\"201\" height=\"302\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4176\" data-attachment-id=\"4176\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.asinglethread.net\/ming-zhen-spiritual-life\/em-with-wolf-painting\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.asinglethread.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Em-with-wolf-painting.png?fit=1305%2C1953&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1305,1953\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Em with wolf painting\" data-image-description=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.asinglethread.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Em-with-wolf-painting.png?fit=200%2C300&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.asinglethread.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Em-with-wolf-painting.png?fit=684%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-4176\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ming Zhen Shakya speaks\u2026On Expectations<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"m_7050766580878157414gmail-idTransDiv\">\n<h4 id=\"m_7050766580878157414gmail-idHead\" class=\"m_7050766580878157414gmail-largeheader\">Expectations<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"m_7050766580878157414gmail-tiney\">by\u00a0Ming Zhen Shakya, OHY<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"m_7050766580878157414gmail-largecap\">W<\/span>hat backsliding is to religious conversion, recidivism is to penal rehabilitation. Both represent failure, and Zen priests who have a prison ministry can be losers on both counts.<\/p>\n<p>Often we are moved to tears when we give Precepts to a man who receives his certificate with such profound gratitude, with such pride that he has been accepted into Buddhist ranks, who vows with such sincerity to try with all his might to conform his conduct to the requirements of the Path, and who does not show up for another meeting. We never see him again. We might learn that he\u2019s espoused another faith, which, frankly, is better than hearing that in the exercise of Buddhist ethics as he understood them he got himself tossed into solitary confinement.<\/p>\n<p>The same inability to predict the future informs our cheery bon voyages when a prisoner is released. Good luck we say to him certain only that he\u2019s going to need it.<\/p>\n<p>And so we wonder if the man will stick with Zen or attach himself to another group, or if he will successfully re-enter civilian life or revert to the kind of behavior that got him incarcerated in the first place. We doubt that we have understood him at all \u2013 else we should not be so uncertain. We\u2019re supposed to be spiritual physicians who diagnose illness and recommend whatever nostrums are necessary to effect cure; but often we don\u2019t have a clue.<\/p>\n<p>Not only in prison ministries does this doubt occur. In our civilian sanghas we are frequently surprised by the unwonted actions of a member we thought we thoroughly understood. We miss seeing his face at a meeting and when we inquire about his health or his whereabouts we\u2019re told that he has joined another Buddhist group or even another religion \u2013 maybe even one of those that regard Buddhism as devil worship. Or else he sends his regrets that he cannot attend meetings on our scheduled evenings because he\u2019s taking a course in Continuing Education in order to satisfy a curiosity he has always had about Eighteenth Century French literature. What was going on in his mind when he bowed so reverently to Guan Yin and chanted so joyfully? Was there a tip-off that we missed? A signal that we failed to see?<\/p>\n<p>In his essay,\u00a0<i>What Is Man<\/i>, Martin Buber, that indispensable thinker, gives us some direction, a hint of where to look. If we read the work for its academic or literary value, we\u2019ll, of course, find it interesting; but without some specific \u2018cases\u2019 to which we can relate the information, we\u2019re not likely to find it useful. It is true that Buber mostly speaks of \u201cepochs\u201d of man, periods of complacent belief and periods of penetrating inquiry; but the old alchemical rule nevertheless applies: \u201cAs it is in the macrocosm so it is in the microcosm.\u201d The general, after all, sums particulars.<\/p>\n<p>It never hurts to see a problem from a different perspective.<\/p>\n<p>The conduct of two men associated with the prison sangha had puzzled me for a long time. It disturbed me that I couldn\u2019t even begin to predict how they\u2019d react to civilian life when they were released. They had left in their psychological wake a jumble of dots that I just couldn\u2019t connect. Then I happened to remember Buber\u2019s essay; and after re-reading it, the prisoners\u2019 dots lined up to station themselves into a recognizable pattern.<\/p>\n<p>Buber begins his discussion by reciting Immanuel Kant\u2019s four-question formula for the \u201cknowledge of the ultimate aims of human reason.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat can I know?\u201d the answer to which Kant intends metaphysics and not epistemology to supply.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat ought I to do?\u201d which ethics will answer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat may I hope?\u201d which religion presumes to solve.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat is man?\u201d The first three questions are essentially contained in this fourth.<\/p>\n<p>In order to answer these questions, a man has to ask them first. He has to wonder, says Buber, about \u201chis special place in the cosmos, his connection with destiny, his relation to the world of things, his understanding of his fellow men, his existence as a being that knows it must die, his attitude in all the ordinary and extraordinary encounters with which the mystery of his life is shot through.\u201d It is the man who feels himself alone who is most disposed to engage in such self-reflection. This is the man who does not inhabit, who, Buber notes, \u201clives in the world as in an open field and at times does not even have four pegs with which to set up a tent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As we read, we understand that the man who has the security of a protective \u201cphilosophical\u201d house appreciates its walls and roof and does not wish to blow them down with gusting questions. If he sees the horizon he is content to fantasize about what lies on the farther side of it. And if his fantasies begin to bore him and thus cease to satisfy, he may investigate that farther place to find new sources of comfortable illusion. He seeks only to gratify his ego\u2019s superficial needs as he stays within the safe boundaries of his religious expectations. If he sees the stars he may regard them as sources of entertainment or, perhaps, as serving of some utilitarian purpose. But he does not marvel as the Psalmist marvels, \u201c<i>Lord, when I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him?<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Buddhists we know that we must ask these questions and feel this overwhelming awe; for without having our lives \u201cshot through\u201d with these perforating inquiries, we inflate, our Buddhist ego-image swelling buoyantly into a complacent stratosphere. We become contented in our habituation, domesticated by the routines and appliances of religion \u2013 the wafting incense on our altars, the artful wall hangings and statues placed in the corners of our sanctuaries, the gestures, the vestments, the liturgy. We sit upon cushions in our meditation halls as if we are safely inside Plato\u2019s Cave watching flickering shadows on the walls. We do not allow ourselves to wonder what dramas are unfolding outside that comfortable theatre, what else we might hope for, what more we ought to do, what knowledge of self lies behind the silhouetted images we study.<\/p>\n<p>The man who does ponder the unknown declares his independence and in his own eccentric way becomes a free agent. He is not satisfied with firelight. He wants to see the Sun.<\/p>\n<p>The two prisoners whose temperament I could not gauge both attended meetings of our medium-security prison sangha, but only one had taken Buddhist Precepts.<\/p>\n<p>The one who officially became a Buddhist was intelligent, well groomed, polite, and faithful in attendance. His conduct in and out of chapel was uniformly good and owing to this exemplary behavior he had been granted parole and would be released as soon as a place opened for him at a halfway house. He very much wanted to join a Buddhist sangha when he was released and, because he had much affection for Vietnamese culture and was somewhat familiar with the language, I suggested that he join a Mahayana Vietnamese temple that had recently opened in our town. This news seemed heaven sent to him, and he asked me to inquire whether they would be averse to having an ex-con in their group. I didn\u2019t see why they would be, but I visited them anyway and asked. They did not object and in fact, since they spoke very little English they looked forward to having a bilingual American there in their increasingly American congregation. They gave me a few brochures, a little Vietnamese dictionary, and their meditation schedule \u2013 they were open to the public three nights a week. He received this information with great joy. Future possibilities were becoming realities. He was particularly excited to learn that the temple \u201chaven\u201d was located just a few blocks away from a restaurant in which he had been promised a job.<\/p>\n<p>Then, several weeks later, before a meeting someone told me a rumor that he planned to go to Buenos Aires as soon as his probation period was completed. After the meeting I asked him if he did, indeed, plan such a journey. \u201cYes,\u201d he said, \u201cas soon as my parole\u2019s up, I\u2019m going to Argentina.\u201d I raised my eyebrows. \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know some people who live there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRelatives?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, just some people I met once in Dallas. They send me a Christmas card every year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I was speechless. Finally I asked, \u201cHow are you planning to get there? You\u2019ll need a passport and visas\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2013I can get a passport after I complete parole.\u201d He said this as if it were going to be a perfectly simple thing to do. Why would the State Department prevent him from leaving the U.S. and why would another country refuse to put out the welcome mat for a penniless American ex-convict.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat about money? And how do you plan to get there?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy sister has a camper parked in her driveway. It won\u2019t fit in the garage. She said it needed a little work, but if I fix it up I\u2019m sure she\u2019ll let me borrow it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>Drive<\/i>? This was bizarre. \u201cDo you know where Argentina is?\u201d The question was rhetorical. I was referring to the immense distance, one quarter of the earth\u2019s surface east and one half of the earth\u2019s surface south from where we were.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s in South America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of countries between here and Argentina and every one will require a visa and a hefty fee to bring in a recreational vehicle, not to mention insurance. If you have an accident they won\u2019t just let you leave, trusting you\u2019ll come back for adjudication. They\u2019ll want to see evidence of your ability to pay any debts you incur. You\u2019ll also need money for gas and oil and food and car repairs and bridge tolls and ferry boats and all the rest.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll have money from my job\u00a0<i>delivering<\/i>\u00a0pizzas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Delivering pizzas? This was not quite the same as working in a restaurant. \u201cDo you have a car?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, my sister has a new Escort I\u2019ll use. As soon as I finish at the half-way house, I\u2019m moving in with her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIsn\u2019t your sister married\u2026 with kids?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. I\u2019ll bunk in the camper until I can afford my own place. I\u2019ll be working six nights a week, maybe seven. It shouldn\u2019t take me long.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Vietnamese meditation schedule suddenly became meaningless. To me, his entire life-plan became meaningless.<\/p>\n<p>We walked out of the chapel and I recall standing in the sunlight squinting, stunned. I didn\u2019t know what to make of his previously stated intentions and this new fantastic scheme.<\/p>\n<p>In civilian sanghas we sometimes find the same aborted volition, the instantaneous switch from one goal to another. A plan, enthusiastically conceived, dies of neglect, a pitiable orphan. Projects designed to raise money \u2013 publishing a newsletter, selling homemade religious articles, construction of accommodations for guest members \u2013 are suddenly abandoned. Those who fathered the plan deny paternity and leave the residual responsibilities to others. Their generative abilities are needed elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>The other man who puzzled me only occasionally sat with our group. He was an American Indian of the Sioux Nation who had been in prison for more than half his life. Sentenced, at eighteen, to twenty years, he was now thirty-eight. He had applied repeatedly for parole but had always been denied \u2013 for while he was manageable enough not to warrant being sent to a maximum security prison, he was still considered sufficiently incorrigible to warrant early release into the civilian population.<\/p>\n<p>To call his appearance \u201csloppy\u201d would be to \u2018condemn it with faint praise,\u2019 to borrow Shakespeare\u2019s line. He was a mess. His coarse long hair pushed the \u2018unacceptably unkempt\u2019 envelope that the prison staff itched to open. Several of his front teeth had been knocked out in one or more of his frequent fights; and although the prison dentistry service had given him a partial plate, he preferred not to wear it and risk its destruction. He kept it in a treasure box in his cell. Once, however, he did wear it to show me, and I could see that wild handsomeness that I think Emily Bronte imagined when she created Heathcliff \u2013 not as Olivier played him \u2013 a passive, effete and pensive gentleman who happened to find himself in unfashionable garments \u2013 but a kinetic, electric, brooding man whose thoughts, behind those darting eyes, no outsider could ever apprehend.<\/p>\n<p>At one meeting he gave me an Indian Prisoner\u2019s Rights manifesto he had drafted and asked if I would edit it; but it required no correction that I could see. He had acquired an education in prison; and he used it to lobby for official recognition of Native American religious forms of worship. His ceaseless agitations had paid off and down at the end of the prison yard, near one of the watchtowers, was a little sweat lodge he and other Indian men had finally been permitted to build. I was told that he functioned as a kind of shaman in the sweat rituals and that he \u201ccould really zone out\u201d during the proceedings. He kept track of the sky and knew when Venus was the Morning Star and when the Evening. Information like this was the criterion by which he gauged all other data. Compared to this, of what significance could he possibly assign the news that half the buttons on his shirt were missing?<\/p>\n<p>I remember asking the warden as he boarded the exit bus, \u201cHow do you think he\u2019ll do on the outside?\u201d And the warden answered, shaking his head, \u201cHe\u2019ll get in a fight before he gets off that bus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We hope for the best about people who are practically strangers to us. It is the nature of our service. In most Zen congregations there is little social interaction between pastor and congregants. We have few bake sales, hymn-sings, pujas, boy scout troops, or other community activities; and Darshan (dokusan) is limited to a few minutes of discussion about meditation practices. Rarely does a teacher encounter students in those social occasions that reveal most about their personalities. Usually, then, we are left to gauge intelligence by the quality of questions asked in forums; to gauge fidelity by attendance; generosity by contributions to the collection box; cleanliness by the appearance of robes; and so on. In short, in the span of two hours per week, we are required to form opinions about a person\u2019s character \u2013 perhaps even to write letters of recommendation \u2013 based upon such brief, structured encounters and flimsy evidence. In a prison setting, it is even more difficult to determine character. There are few after-service chats and, aside from snail-mail, no communication between meetings.<\/p>\n<p>As I re-read Buber and thought about that strange jaunt to Argentina, I saw that what I was missing was that a man who is secure doesn\u2019t have to wonder about his place in the universe. He has no anxiety. He is a believer, a creature of habit, a regulated dreamer, an accidental guest \u2013 a person who is sanguine about the future that, owing to the largesse of others, always seems rosy. He\u00a0<i>trusts<\/i>\u00a0that everything is going to work out so why worry?<\/p>\n<p>But why is he so secure, so enthusiastic or so casual about unlikely schemes that he presents as realistic goals \u2013 schemes which might at first seem reasonable but will later evidence a grandiose or unacceptably presumptuous nature?<\/p>\n<p>How does a man experience the Real? Buber says simply that man has a threefold living relation. \u201cFirst, his relation to the world and to things; second his relation to men \u2013 both to individuals and to the many; and third, his relation to the mystery of being \u2013 which is dimly apparent through all this but infinitely transcends it\u2026 The Absolute or God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The person who is afflicted with worldly fantasy is mired in the first \u2018living relation.\u2019 No matter how his behavior seems to conform to society\u2019s standards, he sees the material world through acquisitive eyes.\u00a0<i>He objectifies even himself as a created image<\/i>, which he assumes that other people will also accept as substantive and genuine. He identifies with desirable objects; and he objectifies even people who become to him mere ways and means, tools to fulfill his needs and desires. We may see him in a prison or in a commercial workplace. He may go to church or to the Zen center every week. He may sit in meditation or bow his head in prayer, but what is he thinking? It is things \u2013 his garments, the incense, his breakfast, the weather.. and how these things affect him, or how he can alter or use these things to his advantage. We find his likeness in all forms of literature. He\u2019s Williams\u2019\u00a0<i>Blanche DuBois<\/i>\u00a0who affects gentility while plying the skin trade, depending upon \u201cthe kindness of strangers\u201d and, ultimately, the coerced hospitality of her sister. The only constant is the need to cling to the self-image of superior bearing. Perhaps he starts out innocently like Thurber\u2019s\u00a0<i>Walter Mitty\u00a0<\/i>who seems outwardly to be quite happy performing such ordinary tasks as driving his wife to the beauty parlor; but what is he thinking? Only his body is behind the wheel of his sedan. The rest of him is at the controls of a dive bomber that is now engaged in desperate combat in the skies over Europe. He\u2019s not a dutiful husband sitting in a hotel lobby waiting for his wife to be beautified, he\u2019s a famous brain surgeon performing an operation that his colleagues lack the skill and courage even to attempt. Thurber let his short story end in one of these imaginative adventures; but if he had written another chapter to the story, Mitty might easily have sought the rewards of fantasy heroism in the real-life adorations of a co-worker or a lunchroom waitress. His wife and children \u2013 if he had any \u2013 would become strangers, creatures from that \u201cother\u201d world, the one that could not satisfy his fancy.<\/p>\n<p>It is such self-absorption that evicts from consideration those who fulfill laborious obligation in order to give residence to vagrant dreams.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, in a curious way, these fantasies often have a real-world, practical function. They provide leverage and set the stage for contrived conflicts that provide excuse for change. If we look hard enough we can find method in the schemes. Consider the possible manipulations in the proposed trip to Buenos Aires. The ex-prisoner would move in with his sister and it would take about 2.5 hours for her husband to express an intense desire to get him off the property. But there is a problem. No one wants to be known as the kind of person who would turn a brother out, especially one who is \u201ctrying to get his life together.\u201d Prodigal Sons and Lost Sheep and Good Samaritans will be marched onto the front lawn like so many pink flamingos or plaster gnomes. Biblical precedents will picket the house. It will be the sister who must deal with categorical imperatives.<\/p>\n<p>The request had been merely for the brother temporarily to occupy the camper- a request that seemed too simple to deny. But he will come into the house to eat; to shower, shave and use the toilet, to watch television, to talk on the phone; to do his laundry, and if it is too hot or too cold, he will come in to sleep on the couch. What will it cost her and her husband to eliminate this expensive invader of their privacy while retaining their reputations as decent people? He says he wants to take the camper on a long trip. Well, that will get rid of him. But wait! Their names are on the title \u2013 which means they\u2019re responsible as owners of the vehicle. What if he doesn\u2019t keep up the insurance? He wants to buy the vehicle from them and to pay it off in monthly payments. He offers to commit himself legally to pay; and with a great flourish will sign a promissory note which, as the saying goes, will be like a verbal contract \u2013 not worth the paper it\u2019s written on.<\/p>\n<p>But will he pay? It is no more likely that he will honor his debt than it is likely that anyone will ever examine the appropriateness of his need or his proposition. He wanted his sister\u2019s camper and he found a way to get it. He invoked familial sentiment when he made the request; and that sense of security, of entitlement that is\u00a0<i>inherent<\/i>\u00a0in the request will obviate any sense of responsibility to pay. This is not mere cynicism. This is precisely the course that is followed by a person whose living relation is confined to things.<\/p>\n<p>He is unable to empathize \u2013 to consider the negative effect his presence or his debt will have upon his sister \u2013 for that would be the second stage of \u201cthe threefold living relation.\u201d Society will aid him in his self-absorbed goals. Always, the one who is asked to give is reminded more forcefully of the \u201cduty\u201d to be charitable than the one who desires to receive is ever reminded of the obligation to be self-supportive or to lessen his requirements.<\/p>\n<p>In the world of things we find strange participation mystiques, the imbuing of an object with animate qualities with which the person then identifies and associates. Not only does the person believe that the quality of a thing magically adheres to the possessor who becomes unique or important in direct proportion to his evaluation of that symbol or object, but he must also advertise his identified allegiance to that magical element. Especially in prison we find men who have used their own flesh to commemorate an identity with and commitment to such other-worldly power: They are \u201cillustrated men,\u201d tattooed not with the usual salute to Mother, service motto, girl, flag or rose; but with serpents that entwine entire limbs; lightning bolts that discharge from an earlobe and strike the chest; birds of prey that seize a nipple in their talons; blood dripping daggers and swords; and, most incomprehensively, a variety of chains and barbed wires that encircle arms and necks. Allegiance to people can alter. Today\u2019s benefactor is too often tomorrow\u2019s adversary; but the eagle is an emblem of power that will never weaken. The blitzkrieg is forever.<\/p>\n<p>To dismiss this as jailhouse machismo is to overlook those symbols of identity \u2013 the designer labels, the expensive cars, the \u201cconspicuous consumption and honorific waste\u2019 which characterize leisure class possessions. To whatever extent an owner invests these showy objects with his own identity, he, too, is an illustrated man.<\/p>\n<p>It is not the goal of penal authorities to manufacture saints in prison. They do strive, however, to deliver men and women to the second stage of living relation: to establish a relationship to the world of men. This requires empathy \u2013 an ability to understand and accept The Golden Rule, an ability to put oneself in the shoes of another and feel his joy or sorrow, his comfort or pain, and then to act so as to alleviate his sorrow or to appreciate his joy. Empathy allows a man to see the world through the eyes of other men not merely to see his own reflection in their eyes.<\/p>\n<p>We do find in prisons those who keep The Golden Rule \u2013 who treat others as they would have others treat them. Men do strive to better themselves, to become aware of what they do not know \u2013 and need to know \u2013 and to educate themselves accordingly, to form friendships that are not predicated upon survival but upon common interests, to find, as Buber said, their \u201cspecial place in the cosmos\u201d and \u201cconnection with destiny.\u201d We even find men who attain the third category of \u201cliving relation,\u201d who transcend the first two stages and establish \u201ca relation to the mystery of being, to the Absolute or God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Sioux Indian did not get into any fights on the bus. He went home to the northern plains to live. After he was out a month he called me to say that he was doing fine. Yeah\u2026 yeah\u2026 he had met a nice gal and was getting set to move into her trailer. He also got a job delivering building supplies and was saving up to put a down payment on a used pickup truck. But what was really important \u2013 what he was calling to tell me \u2013 was that he had gone to Wisconsin to see Miracle, the white buffalo heifer. He had actually seen her with his own eyes. Did I know that she was not an albino, an anomaly or some freakish creature \u2013 but was a testament to God\u2019s inexplicable power to affect change, cleansing change, black to white change \u2013 a merciful and beautiful purity! \u2013 like the white lotus flower rising out of the muck!?<\/p>\n<p>I said I knew and understood.<\/p>\n<p>A few months later I heard from him for the second and last time. We talked a little about spiritual matters and I could still hear the wonder in his voice. \u201cYou\u2019re doing well,\u201d I said, \u201cI can tell.\u201d Then he casually stated every enlightened man\u2019s credo. \u201cI\u2019m a king. I\u2019ve got a good woman, a clean house, a steady job\u201d and then, as a concession to the exigencies of commerce, a little pride of ownership crept into his voice and he added, \u201cand a pickup truck that only needs paint.\u201d\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"CToWUd\" src=\"https:\/\/ci4.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/_Lc3AEKEeb878n1f4dcObtQoEjEBYLP6KD7bIwTz4XqX3fJNBMM3ew9eC0txG4tUeFv_9hhuY6UNOOGVNe-SD51lTGjLn6dqrV5caGJRj0s=s0-d-e1-ft#http:\/\/zbohy.zatma.org\/common\/images\/green-bird-bullet.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"30\" height=\"21\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ming Zhen Shakya speaks on\u2026.Expectations &amp; Martin Buber &nbsp; Ming Zhen Shakya speaks\u2026On Expectations Expectations by\u00a0Ming Zhen Shakya, OHY What backsliding is to religious conversion, recidivism is to penal rehabilitation. Both represent failure, and Zen priests who have a prison ministry can be losers on both counts. Often we are moved to tears when we&hellip;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays-by-ming-zhen-shakya"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/shd6fo-3097","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3098,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions\/3098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}