Recently, a friend sent me a video of the new album of the rockstar Pink. It is called Trustfall. At one point, Pink says, “You’re […] scared and your whole body is shaking. Go in there and just […] do it! Just do it whatever it is and then boom, it’s gone. The fear is gone.”1 There are images of people who have taken the leap, falling in mid-air, together.
Step out, step off, step forward. Just do it. Our Zen practice trains us to be spontaneous, to be present, to take risks in this moment, to respond with skillfulness to just this.
At the same time, it is easy to fall into complacency, to get comfortable with routines, comfortable even with amazing insights, somehow lose the vitality, the spark.
In Case 46 of The Gateless Gate: “Another eminent master of old says, ‘Even though one who is sitting on the top of a hundred-foot pole has entered realization, it is not yet real. He must step forward from the top of the pole and manifest his whole body throughout the world in the ten directions.’”2
“How will you step forward from the top of a hundred-foot pole?”3
This koan also appears in The Book of Equanimity, Case 79, where the eminent master is identified as Master Chōsa. On this case, Gerry Shishin Wick comments:
No matter where we are in our Zen practice or our life we’re always standing on top of a hundred-foot pole. But we must not rest there.4
We have to enter those spaces that scare us, and we must do so over and over again. […] All kinds of discomforts come up during zazen and the rest of your life, but as long as you have the faith and determination you can encounter them with your eyes open. Just keep going forward step by step from the top of the hundred-foot pole.5
Life has a way of encouraging us to step forward, offering new opportunities again and again. We may be drifting. Then something shakes us up, awakens us in our formal sitting practice and in our everyday life, strips us of dualistic thinking: sacred/profane, calm/crazy, comfortable/risky, known/unknown. We face and accept this dharma gate: the dharma entrance gate in front of us right here, right now.
When I first started sitting zazen, I went every morning to Still Mind Zendo in lower Manhattan. I was super attached to that routine since I could feel the difference in my mind; it was much quieter during the day. Then suddenly, I broke my foot on a trip to Honduras and was unable to go to the zendo. Gone, the safe, peaceful, warm, familiar space of the sangha. Gone in a flash! Stripped of that spiritual pole which grounded me, gave me strength, aligned me. A new dharma entrance gate. I began to walk the streets of Manhattan; that became my practice: Slow walking on crutches in crowds. And suddenly, the whole city became my sangha, as I slowed down and opened radically to see and receive what was around me. Complete strangers would smile and offer a helping hand, every day.
One such day, down at Gramercy Square Park, the wind was blowing fiercely and the cold air was rushing through my open coat. An elderly, elegantly dressed gentleman stopped, offered to button the coat. A few minutes later, as I crutched up the long, wide, hard stone stairs of a church, a young delivery man, rushing on a strict time clock, stopped, stood at my side, and began to accompany me silently, step by step. He was an immigrant with another language and did not say a word, just slowly walked alongside me up the long staircase, until we arrived at the top, together. Then he hurried off to make his delivery.
No gap. Responding to just this, with wisdom and compassion. Stranger/sangha member. Spiritual practice/city life. Insight/everyday kindness. Saving all sentient beings/being saved.
Mercy Sister Janet Ruffing, spiritual director, now at Yale Divinity School, formerly taught a class on mysticism at Fordham University which I was fortunate to take. One day in class she told us a story. Two monks meditated their whole lives staring at a white wall. One transformed. The other did not. What made the difference?
What holds the key to our continued spiritual growth?
Grace, we could say. In the end, it is all gift.
To quote Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “What we are, what we have, even our salvation, all is gift, all is grace, not to be achieved but to be received, as a gift freely given.”6
It is a gift that comes with continued determination and willingness, willingness at least to receive, and to step out, to step forward.
“We must step forward into the unknown void in order to experience the boundless life.”7 Desmond Tutu is certainly an example of this.
To step forward, to step out, step off, to dare to cross bridges, to go to the places we most fear, to release into a freedom few people live.
As the Kichwa Andean poet, indigenous feminist and healer, Tsaywa Samay Cañamar says, “We are also spirit that mutates within air, fire, wind, water, mother earth. An infinite force that very few of us manage to experience fully.”8
In the Buddhist tradition, stories tell of a monk meditating for years in a cave. Someone comes by to test his understanding, often a woman (a nun, his patroness) who approaches him to see if he will respond with equanimity or react in a habitual manner. Some monks get triggered easily, yelling angrily. Others simply freeze and can’t respond at all.
There is one such story from ninth century China about the monk Jinhua Juzhi. A nun named Shiji came to challenge him. “Give me one word,” she said, “and I’ll take off my hat.” Juzhi was speechless and could not respond. The nun walked out. Juzhi sighed and said, “Although I inhabit the body of a man, I lack a man’s spirit.” He resolved to leave his hermitage in search of understanding.9
Do we have understanding? What is it that holds us back from more complete understanding? What do we need to let go of?
How do we integrate our spiritual insights from zazen into our daily lives? What is the relationship between our practice on the cushion and our interactions with others?
I listened to a talk recently about spiritual and emotional maturity by a meditation teacher, Adyashanti, and an expert on trauma recovery, Gabor Mate. They both emphasized that spiritual and emotional maturity do not always move at the same rate; someone can have profound spiritual insight and yet lack emotional maturity, not be able to manifest the insight with compassion and wisdom in daily life. The true test of enlightenment, Adyashanti said, was how well we respond, not simply react, to triggers, or according to Mate, how well we have been able to heal internal wounds, to be humble, transparent, open in giving ourselves genuinely in service to others.10
Let’s circle back now to Koan 46 of the Gateless Gate, to the commentary of Yamada Roshi, which is very profound:
Figuratively, [the top of a hundred-foot pole] … is the stage of complete emptiness. […] That state is called the great death. It is a stage where there is no dualistic opposition ... such as subject and object, good and bad …11
Anyone who wants to attain the true Zen experience must pass through this stage once. If you remain there, however, you will be unable to attain true emancipation. ...12
“Take a step forward from this stage and you will be able to manifest your whole body throughout the world in ten directions. ...”13
The whole universe in the ten directions is the light of [your]self [!]14
Each one of us [must] see the light that illuminates the reality of all things. It’s like being in a dream from which we cannot awaken. To awaken, we need to have trust to let go.15
Allow me to close with a fragment of a poem by Adrienne Rich.
But there come times — perhaps this is one of them —
when we have to take ourselves more seriously or die;
when we have to pull back from the incantations,
rhythms we’ve moved to thoughtlessly,
and disenthrall ourselves, bestow
ourselves to silence, or a severer listening, cleansed
of oratory, formulas, choruses, laments, static
crowding the wires. We cut the wires,
find ourselves in free-fall, as if
our true home were the undimensional
solitudes, the rift
in the Great Nebula.16
Step out, step off, step forward. Together. Again and again. Trustfall.
1 Pink, Trustfall, music video. Access:
2 Yamada, K. (trans. and commentary) (2004). The Gateless Gate: The Classic Book of Zen Koans. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 216
3 Ibid. This question is asked in the koan by Master Sekisō.
4 Wick, G.S. (2005). The Book of Equanimity: Illuminating Classic Zen Koans. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 249
5 Ibid., 251
6 Quoted in “Word for the Day,” Grateful Living, February 9, 2023. Access: https://grateful.org/word-for-the-day/what-we-are-what-we-have-even-our-salvation-all-is-gift-all-is-grace-not-to-be-achieved-but-to-be-received-as-a-gift-freely-given/
7 Wick, The Book of Equanimity, 249
8 Tsaywa Samay Cañamar Maldonado, Shunku-yay / Mirarse en la eternidad del corazón, translation from Kichwa by Fredy A. Roncalla (Ecuador: Siwar Mayu, 2022). Access: http://siwarmayu.com/shunku-yay-looking-at-each-other-through-the-infinite-of-the-heart-tsaywa-samay-canamar-m/
9 Caplow, F. and Moon, S. eds. (2013). The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 280
10 Mate, G. and Adyashanti, “Emotional and Spiritual Maturity,” Science and Nonduality Conference, April 11, 2019. Access:
11 Yamada, The Gateless Gate, 217
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Wick, The Book of Equanimity, 251
15 Ibid., 249
17 Rich, A. (1978). “Transcendental Etude,” The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977. New York: W.W. Norton and Company
This talk appears in the upcoming book, Digging in the Earth to Find the Blue Sky: Interfaith Zen Practice in Pandemic and War.
Dr. Rev. Mónica A. Maher (Prajnatara) is a dharma heir of Roshi Kennedy based in Quito, Ecuador. She is senior minister of the United Church of Ecuador and founding director of the Ecuadorian Faith Network, former associate director of the Human Rights Studies Committee of Harvard University, Lentz Memorial Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, Rotary International Peace Fellow at Chulalongkorn University-Thailand, and Fulbright New Century Scholar-Honduras. Trained in the Alternatives to Violence Program, she has facilitated workshops on nonviolence and trauma healing across Latin America.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.