Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, died 40 years ago yesterday -- December 4, 1971. At my Zen center the teachers read bits of Suzuki Roshi's talks.
One of these bits was the story of the real dragon, which was taken from a Chinese folk tale. If you're a Zen student you've probably heard it, but here it is for everyone else --
There was a man named Yeh Kung-tzu (or, in Japan, Seiko) who was passionate about dragons. He read books about dragons; he talked about dragons; he painted pictures of dragons. He filled his house with dragon figurines.
One day a dragon heard about Yeh Kung-tzu and thought, how lovely that this man appreciates us. It would surely make him very happy to have a visit from a real dragon.
So the kindly dragon flew to Yeh Kung-tzu's house and went inside, to find the man asleep. Then he woke up, saw the dragon -- and screamed. He was so terrified he could barely move, but then he grabbed a sword. Before he could strike, the dragon flew away.
This story can be interpreted many ways, but it struck me yesterday that it's not a bad metaphor for a lot of us in the West who develop an enthusiasm for Buddhism. We read lots of books and fill our houses with Buddha figures. But we may hold back from committing to a practice tradition or a teacher and feel no need to take the refuges.
And I'm saying "we" here because I've been in that same place myself.
One of my other favorite metaphors is that we all live in a box, and the walls of the box are made up of who we think we are and what we think life is supposed to be. We like to decorate the box with Buddha figures or anything else that seems to make us a little happier.
But the Buddha taught that the way to liberation is realizing the box is an illusion. If we're just using dharma as a kind of decoration, we're like Yeh Kung-tzu, who loved his dragon figurines but was terrified of the real thing.
Suzuki Roshi's point seems to have been that people who have been practicing for awhile sometimes get into a rut and are just going through the motions, or we practice without right intention and right view. This is like filling our houses with dragon figurines while shutting out the real dragon. "That is why we have to start our practice over and over," he said.