"The Little Zen Companion"

The Little Zen Companion is a 1994 anthology compiled by David Schiller containing over 300 quotations. In the Introduction, Schiller explains, "This book doesn't presume to define Zen, but instead to offer a taste of Zen's way of looking at the world: where the best moment is now, where things are what they seem to be, where we see with the refreshing directness of a child and not through eyes grown stale from routine." The quotations are not all by Zen masters and many do not even explicitly pertain to Zen, but they all provoke thought about what it means to be human, and how to strive toward living in the now as opposed to dwelling on what was or what might never be.

Here are a few quotations that resonated deeply with me; in some instances, I have added my own brief comments (in italics, after the pertinent quotation):

• "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few." Shunryu Suzuki. Studies have shown that the best chess players look at fewer moves than weaker players, but the best players look at those moves more deeply and more accurately. The expert chess player understands that there are only a few optimal ways--and, sometimes, only one optimal way--to play a given position. 
• "Before a person studies Zen, mountains are mountains, and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are not waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters." Zen saying.
• "Ring the bells that can still ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." Leonard Cohen.
• "The raindrops patter on the basho leaf, but these are not tears of grief; this is only the anguish of him who is listening to them." Zen saying.
• "If you seek, how is that different from pursuing sound and form? If you don't seek, how are you different from earth, wood, or stone? You must seek without seeking." Wu-men.
• "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" Gauguin, inscription on one of his paintings. This quotation reminds me of Prince's song "The Ladder," which has the following lyrics: 
  "Everybody's looking for the answers
  How the story started and how it will end
  What's the use in half a story, half a dream
  You have to climb all of the steps in between (yeah, we ride)
  Everybody's looking for the ladder
  Everybody wants salvation of the soul
  The steps you take are no easy road
  But the reward is great
  For those who want to go (I do)" 
  
• "In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble. " Yun-men.
• "If you wish to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water." Bulgarian saying. After breaking Joe Theismann's leg during a tackle on Monday Night Football, Lawrence Taylor visited Theismann in the hospital. "Did you know you broke my leg in two places?" Theismann asked. "I never do anything halfway," Taylor replied. For better or worse, halfway is nowhere; commit 100% to an action, or don't take action at all. This also brings to mind Sheriff Buck's conversation on "American Gothic" with the bungling criminal he dismissed as "Half-Ted"; Buck declared that if "Half-Ted" were a real criminal he would have killed all witnesses and escaped and if he were not a criminal at all then he would have never ended up in that particular predicament, so he was not really Ted but just "Half-Ted."
• "One cannot step twice into the same river." Herakleitos.
• "To set up what you like against what you dislike--this is the disease of the mind." Seng-T'San.
• "How shall I grasp it? Do not grasp it. That which remains when there is no more grasping is the Self." Panchadasi.
• "In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present." Tao Te Ching.
• "When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean." Lin-Chi.
• "Sit, rest, work. Alone with yourself, never weary. On the edge of the forest, live joyfully, without desire." The Buddha.
• "This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God..." Walt Whitman.
• "Barn's burnt down--now I can see the Moon." Masahide. The ability to see hope in crisis and the faith/optimism to look to the future with confidence represent a very rare and special form of grace.
• "We walk, and our religion is shown (even to the dullest and most insensitive person) in how we walk. Or to put it more accurately, living in this world means choosing, choosing to walk, and the way we choose to walk is infallibly and perfectly expressed in the walk itself. Nothing can disguise it. The walk of an ordinary man and of an enlightened man are as different as that of a snake and a giraffe." R. H. Blyth.
• "Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves." Nagarjuna, second century Buddhist philosopher.
• "An elementary particle is not an independently existing, unanalyzable entity. It is, in essence, a set of relationships that reach outward to other things." H.P. Stapp, twentieth century physicist. 
• "The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely." Carl Jung.
• "If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Nietzsche.
• "He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened." Tao Te Ching.
• "1. Out of clutter, find simplicity. 2. From discord, find harmony. 3. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." Albert Einstein, three rules of work. 
• "If you study Japanese art, you see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic, and intelligent, who spends his time how? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying the policy of Bismarck? No. He studies a single blade of grass. But this blade of grass leads him to draw every plant and then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure. So he passes his life, and life is too short to do the whole." Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh is speaking the truth that an artist's greatness is not only in his hands but also in his eyes, and his mind's eye--in his ability to truly see, and to intensely focus with a calm gaze.

Helen DeWitt's Scathing Critique of the Publishing Business

In the preface to Dan Visel's interview with Helen DeWitt, DeWitt offers a raw and heartfelt lamentation about the cruel, inefficient structure of the book publishing business:

"So we really have no chance of being contemporaries of our own contemporaries, even if we want to--if we stick with the conventional publishing model. Books I wrote or started last year, five years ago, 10 years ago, might get into the public domain in 2012, 2022, or never. The determining factor is not the quality of the books; it's the extent to which Helen DeWitt can marshal the social skills, the obstinacy, the willingness to suspend writing indefinitely to wheel and deal, to get the f------ into print."

I've only had one brief foray in the book publishing business so far--I wrote a chapter for the anthology Basketball in America and then had to fight tooth and nail for years so that I and the other chapter contributors could receive the (small) royalties that the book's editor had promised to share with us; the issue was not the money (regardless of whether it had been a small amount or a small fortune) but the principle: not everyone can be smart or talented but everyone has the ability to be loyal and to keep one's word--and there is nothing worse than a betrayer, someone whose deeds do not match his words or who is, as I like to put it, with you win or tie. The anthology editor promised that the other contributors would receive an equal share of the royalties and I would have pursued him to the ends of the Earth (and the end of time) whether the amount in question was two cents or $2 million.

Though DeWitt has had much more interaction with book publishers than I have, her frustrating experiences with editors--and with the general nonsense pervading the writing business--mirror many of the experiences I have had with magazine editors and website editors. One of my ideas was stolen without attribution or compensation, I have had a strange, nonsensical and offensive title attached to one of my articles, I have had a strong lead sentence butchered beyond recognition for no conceivable reason and I have submitted accurate copy only to have inaccurate information included in the text (I have also been berated, in vulgar and threatening tones, for simply telling the truth about such matters--not that empty words from cowards could for one second stop me from telling the truth).

Like DeWitt, I have had editors enthusiastically praise my work and make promises of future assignments only to inexplicably fail to follow through on those commitments. Those situations are even more baffling when one considers the commercial success enjoyed by people who simply do not possess the most basic writing skills and people whose work is the very definition of "hack job." This is not a new problem--more than 150 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe declared, "The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery--in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks."--but it is frustrating as both a writer and a reader to have one's senses assaulted by garbage and to know that a lot of people are being well compensated to produce that garbage.

In the Visel interview, DeWitt explains why the current publishing model makes it difficult for quality writers to be fairly compensated for their work:

"A painter is not expected to hand in a painting and then set aside a year or so to a) changing it in light of comments from the gallerist and b) waiting for the gallerist's staff to touch it up before deciding whether all the alterations can be allowed to stand. (The painting is not thought deficient in value if untouched-up by the gallerist, the receptionist, the gallerist's girlfriend.) A painter can paint. Do we think that any painter, regardless of ability, is automatically superior to any writer? I don't think so, but we have a system of production that presupposes that position, and the result is one with crippling financial consequences for writers."

Painters and other visual artists often face daunting obstacles, too; as I noted nearly two years ago, pottery maker extraordinaire George Ohr had boundless confidence--he declared "When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come."--but when he died he was considered an eccentric and his contributions to the art world were not recognized for quite some time. The 37 year old Vincent Van Gogh sold just one canvas prior to committing suicide. Suicidal thoughts are a frequent companion for writers and artists during their lonely journeys through this deeply flawed world (at the height of her despair, DeWitt sent an email dispassionately describing how her body should be disposed of after her suicide but her Jerzy Kosinski-style attempt to end her life with a sedative-aided asphyxiation failed).

What does all of this mean? An old episode of the "Simpsons" springs to mind: I don't remember the dialogue verbatim but, after a typical half hour of mayhem, Homer Simpson tried in vain to articulate some explanation or meaning for what had just happened but his precocious daughter Lisa mused that perhaps everything just happened randomly with no underlying cause and no deeper meaning. Lisa's answer seems to describe not just the bizarre business model of the publishing world but also the bizarre and tragic state of the world in general, a place where one billion people are starving at the same time that a small group of people enjoy unimaginable material wealth.

A Heartbreaking Quote From a Staggering Genius

I have never read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; the title seems very pretentious, though perhaps the author was being intentionally ironic (or perhaps the publisher chose the title for him). However, I recently read a Vincent van Gogh quote that is best described as a heartbreaking quote from a staggering genius:

"I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture."

Explorations readers may recall that George Ohr expressed similar sentiments about his work. A genius knows full well that he is a genius, even if it takes the rest of the world a few decades to figure it out.

It is a terrible indictment of our world that van Gogh died in poverty after scarcely selling a canvas but now other people--people who have but a fraction of the talent he possessed--make fortunes buying and selling the works he suffered so greatly to create. Art historian Ingo Walther says of Van Gogh, "He sought consolation in his art from the world and life which he loved, but whose love was not returned. He suffered in this world and was destroyed by it. With his art he created his own new world, which was full of color and movement and contained everything he knew about existence." Camille Pissarro, van Gogh's contemporary (and fellow genius), declared about van Gogh, "This man will either go insane or leave us all far behind." Van Gogh ultimately fulfilled both aspects of Pissarro's prediction: he produced more than 2000 works of art in a little over a decade (plus hundreds of letters that detailed the workings of a brilliant but quite troubled mind) before killing himself at the age of 37. Van Gogh's brother Theo said that Vincent's last words were, "The sadness will last forever."

George Ohr: "The Mad Potter of Biloxi"

"Mozart died a pauper/Heine lived in dread/Foster died in Bellevue/Homer begged for bread/Genius pays off handsomely--/After you are dead"--Yip Harburg

"When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come."--George Ohr

Imagine being the very best at what you do, an innovative trendsetter with boundless energy and creativity. That may sound wonderful but often the Faustian "bargain" that comes with such a tremendous gift is that the rest of the world does not recognize your greatness until long after you have died--Vincent Van Gogh sold just one canvas before he killed himself at the age of 37, yet more than a century after his death one biographer rightly declared that Van Gogh "produced an incredible number of masterpieces that will continue 'living' for the rest of human history."

You have most likely never heard of George Ohr. When he died of throat cancer at the age of 60 in 1918 he was considered--by the few people who even knew who he was--to be a flamboyant eccentric. More than 7000 pieces of pottery that Ohr lovingly created languished in crates stored in the garage of an auto repair shop run by his sons in his native Biloxi, Mississippi. If not for a chance encounter between a New Jersey antiques dealer named James Carpenter and Ohr's son Ojo it is likely that the world would never have known about Ohr's distinctive works.

Although Ohr was mocked during his lifetime and had trouble selling his pottery even to his few admirers, Ohr had boundless confidence. When he set up his wares, Ohr proudly posted a sign that read, "'Greatest' art potter on Earth. 'You' prove it contrary." In a 1901 interview, Ohr acknowledged his lack of commercial success by lamenting "I have a notion...that I am a mistake" but his prescient prediction from that same interview indicates that he knew that the "mistake" was really the lack of insight shown by his contemporaries: "When I am gone, my work will be praised, honored, and cherished. It will come." In his shop, Ohr hung a hand-lettered sign with the Latin phrase Magnus opus, nulli secundus/optimus cognito, ergo sum! (A masterpiece, second to none/The best, therefore, I am!).

How thin is the line between being a genius who is celebrated during his lifetime and a genius who is not recognized as such until long after his death? Consider that Albert Einstein--whose name has become synonymous with the word genius--worked six days a week for seven years as a patent clerk because he could not obtain a full time academic position. During his spare time, Einstein wrote five papers that completely revolutionized the way that we perceive the universe--and yet even after the "annus mirabilis" (miracle year) of 1905 in which Einstein composed and published those papers it took until 1908 before Einstein became a full professor. Wouldn't you love to eavesdrop on some of those job interviews? "We're sorry, Herr Einstein, but you just are not quite qualified to teach at our institution." What must Einstein have thought after being rejected numerous times by people who had just a fraction of his intelligence? A quote from a letter that Einstein wrote during this frustrating period provides a glimpse of how he perceived the academics who refused to hire him: "From now on I’ll no longer turn to such people, and will instead attack them mercilessly in the journals, as they deserve. No wonder little by little one becomes a misanthrope."

Although Einstein had to suffer slings and arrows from many fools, he eventually achieved the fame and respect that he deserved, which provided him what he most wanted--the opportunity to work on his theories in solitude, undisturbed by the rest of the world. The huge advantage that Einstein enjoyed over Van Gogh and Ohr is that it became possible to experimentally verify some of the fantastic theoretical predictions that Einstein made in his 1905 papers; when Arthur Eddington's 1919 eclipse observations confirmed Einstein's assertion that gravity bends light Einstein instantly became a figure of worldwide renown not only in the scientific community but among the general public. Sadly, such instant verification of genius does not exist in the literary or artistic fields.