"In his fascinating book entitled "Hunger Mountain," Chinese language scholar David Hinton tells us that "[A]s far back as the eye can see, that pregnant emptiness at the heart of things has been a woman dancing, her swirling movements enhanced by foxtails [grasses] streaming out from her hands." Hinton then shows the early ideogram for "wu," which really does look like a woman dancing with grasses hanging from her hands. Amazingly, "Early on, this graph meant both 'dance' and 'Absence' (Nonbeing). As the language evolved, the graphs for the two words grew apart, though their pronunciation ("wu") remained the same." However, if we leave the two meanings together, we have something like "the originary dance of absence;" that is, the dance through which pregnant emptiness or spaciousness or vast awareness gives birth to the ten thousand things.
I find it amazing to realize that an open, relaxed and spacious mind is actually far from stagnant, for out of it arises an energy that gives birth to the multitude of creatures inhabiting this planet. Accordingly, the Taoist Chinese word "wu-wei" means "Absence acting," the process by which we let the ego fall away and discover that the vast openness of awareness is somehow able to perform our actions, like an echo manifesting itself with no original sound.
Moving on to examine a famous Ch'an Buddhist koan (a paradoxical phrase that is used as a tool for reaching enlightenment), Hinton then shows how "wu" has a third meaning besides both "absence" and "dance." That third meaning is "No!" Amazingly, however, the "No" contained in the word "wu" can also mean "yes"! just as emptiness is able to manifest itself in all of the forms of daily life. According to the koan, "A monk asked: 'A dog too is/has Buddha-nature,
no?" "No," Chao-chou replied. In Japanese, "wu" becomes "mu," the word we generally remember as the response to the monk's question. In any case, when the monk asks his question, and then says "no?" at the end, that idiom can just as well mean "yes." For it would be the very same thing to ask, "A dog too is/has Buddha-nature,
yes?" Here, "wu" is sometimes called a "no-gate gateway," meaning a negative answer that suddenly shapeshifts into "yes."
I am not a Zen Buddhist, and I have never done koan work, but I
can say this: to look at life challenges as an emptiness that inexplicably manifests itself as a dancing energy - or as a "no" that suddenly shapeshifts into a "yes" - is a truly amazing and encouraging insight. In meditation, we watch spellbound as the "no-thing" of open, spacious awareness suddenly manifests as millions of thoughts, all of which appear as a sort of "yes" dancing within the open space. Similarly, it is helpful to understand that the "no" with which life often seems to answer our desires can suddenly, inexplicably, dance its way into a "yes." Fortunate for us, this insight is actually encoded into the Chinese language in the form of a "wu" that spontaneously is able to transform emptiness into a dance which is somehow able then to produce the ten thousand things. How encouraging this is when times seem hard!
Photo: Sunset clouds dancing and reflecting in the ice of a pond; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; December 21, 2012
