Han Shan's Carousel
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[Last updated: 7 March 1993]
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"Han Shan's Carousel".
All copyrights to this document belong to John Tarrant, California Diamond Sangha, Santa Rosa, Cal., USA
Enquiries: The Editor, "Mind Moon Circle", Sydney Zen Centre, 251 Young St., Annandale, Sydney, NSW 2038, Australia. Tel: + 61 2 660 2993
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JOHN TARRANT ROSHI
(This is an introduction to any selection of the poems in "The Real Naturally Appears.")
Han Shan's Carousel
My daughter's first words were "Mummy," Daddy," and "Dojo." Over the past few years, Roberta and I have been travelling to sesshin with her. I didn't want to be the kind of teacher who goes off and leaves his family at home. So, through carting diapers to Perth and Sydney, and preparing talks while my hair is being pulled, it's come to me that the best way to convey the Dharma to my daughter is to immerse her in the attention that, through zazen, we've learned to give to breath, the rain, the garden, the person in front of us, the world. Being in retreat feeds this kind of attention but intrinsically it has nothing to do with retreat. Complete attention is itself a kind of love and is one of the true gifts that we can give to one another. In the Hua-yen vision of the universe each thing contains each other thing, its Buddha nature shining out of it. We are all held in the great matrix, parts of each other, and a family is a fragment of this net. One thing we've found is that having young children around seems to deepen the retreats. The children circle in their own bright dream while we, the meditators, circle in ours. Their ancient voices, the freshness of their view of things, and the splendid, primary colors of their toys -- the presence of the children is like a single hibiscus flower on the altar. Among the dark robes and black cushions it begins to sing, it recovers for us the pleasure of walking this arduous way of ours, and we know by experience how awareness honors the things of our lives, so they come forward to greet us and we are never lonely again. There was an old and great Chinese master named Han Shan who left the worldly world, went into his hermitage and shut the gate, never expecting to open it again. It occurred to me that having a child was like this gate closing so that something else could open, a kind of before and after division of my life. After Sarah things are more constricted, even sleep is not guaranteed; everything demands more attention and, like that little hut in the mountains, is more infinite. My monastery lies in daily things, persuading Sarah to get dressed, taking her to preschool on the way to work. And I began to know in the cells of my body that it is the commonplace life that, fully inhabited, contains eternity. What Han Shan is doing today is teaching his daughter letters on the keyboard. So I wrote some of my own Han Shan poems. Here are a few of them.
John Tarrant
Santa Rosa Winter 93
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