TORAH IS NOT MET WITH GENUINE spontaneous enthusiasm, but is venerated as an aged study entombed by an environment and with an attitude duly respectful of an ancient artifact. The Torah is interpreted, but it is not open to interpretation. It is analyzed, but only by the exclusionary light of its own Noachian code. In the eye of Zen, using a preconceived or old idea to meet an original moment is ludicrous. A koan, like the one below, is an original moment.

Upon meeting his master, a Zen adept tapped his staff on the ground and circled the master three times.

"Correct!" shouted the master.

The same Zen adept, later meeting a different master, tapped his staff on the ground and circled his new master three times.

"Wrong!" shouted the master.

"Why?" asked the adept.

The new master struck the adept in the face three times, and the adept was enlightened.

Some may think of Zen as nonaggressive, but on the contrary Zen demands to know "What now?" and the only answer is to summon all of one's forces and live. The above koan is understood in terms of an original action needed to partake in a genuine life. Three slaps in the face add the exclamation point to the question "What now!" That is only the understanding, not the answer. The answer is a change within the student who contemplates the koan. For this reason, a koan is not studied in the traditional sense of the word, but rather serves as a point of focus while one lives one's life. The student approaches the roshi with a perfect understanding of his koan. However, he's turned away as only half-baked because the roshi knows his student's change has not yet taken hold.

THE RABBI TEARS MY MOTHER'S SCARF and my uncle's lapel. Opening his small black book he reads: "The Lord is my shepherd . . . He restores my soul. . . ."

A group of men have rolled up their white sleeves, loosened their neckties, and perspire under their yarmulkes, shoveling dirt into the grave. It is not a dark event, but a highly energized tribal ritual under the new day's sun. The shoveling picks up speed. Dirt flies. Men cast off shovels to other men waiting in line, a line of energy sending Grandma on the next leg of a journey I know not where, though I'm culturally inundated with theories. Armani sport coats are tossed into the air, on the lawn, wherever--they don't matter. It is the kiss of death, the send-off, the journey to the Promised Land or the Pure Land. It is almost a congratulation.

Grandma experienced eighty-odd years of finite life before she earned her infinite reward. Life, when lived fully, exacts an extended, supreme effort. Life is damned important! I must hand it to Our People; we know how to live. Our living gives rise to a recognition of the spirit through the bioscape, our propensity to express our spirits via politics, art, religion, philosophy, healing, and justice.

Today, having gone to my grandmother's funeral, having touched base with my Jewish roots, it is a good day to pause momentarily, consider the Tao, and move along. The Tao gives rise to the spirit. Lao Tzu's little book, the Tao Te Ching, is not an end in itself, but it is a finger pointing. It's a fine place to begin.

The Tao is perfect yet indefinable.

Only the Tao is at the beginning and knows how to complete.

--Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, ch. 41

THE LAST SHOVEL RESTS. We walk in small groups down the hill to our waiting cars, talking small talk, ignoring our own pressing feelings of mortality.

A triangular relationship exists between the Tao, Zen koan, and everyday life. For as many years as we live, we build our castles, fill our moats, and train our guards. Only that point of view allowed past the guard enters our kingdom, and that point of view dictates everyday choices and patterns. Because of this defense, the ideas presented in Philosophical Taoism may not sound applicable to our own lives. However, through working koans we force a changing of the guard. Life will still be as it is, though we will view it differently.

Does this changing of the guard mean a Zen Jew can become a Buddhist? Ostensibly, yes! The Los Angeles Buddhist sangha where I go to practice swells with Jews who now refer to themselves as Buddhists. But as a Jew, I feel deeply, knowing what all Jews know: being Jewish is a history, a culture, an ethnicity more than a religion. Once a Jew, always a Jew. A Zen Jew will view life differently, though life will be what it is, and life is historical. The Zen canon says, break with the past, now is now. But it continues by tempering itself, saying Zen is a transmission beyond words, even its own words. The spirit of the matter for me, this feeling I have for Our People, is beyond words.

I was raised a Jew. And as my wife has mentioned, while nothing else in my life appears to reflect that upbringing, my writing often takes on a distinctly L. A. Jewish voice. It should. It is not my virtue to be a Zen Buddhist, but to be a Zen Jew. Buddha is not my god, though his words are eternally wise and have furthered my understanding of life and duhkha. Buddha never openly proclaimed the existence or non-existence of God. His concern was this life, here and now. Neither did Lao Tzu speak of God in the Tao Te Ching.

However, these men did speak of living a life engaged in accepting responsibility for our actions and helping others to rise above suffering-- two principles also heavily practiced in Judaism. I have experienced a changing of the guard, and for me no conflict exists between being an ethnic Jew and practicing Zen or Philosophical Taoism as an aid to spiritual sustenance. All life in the universe is born linked and nourished by Tao--the way and its virtue.

No Jew is allowed to mention God by his true name, such is God's omnipotent power. Lao Tzu says, "That which can be named is not the eternal Tao." Spiritually, the lines of exclusivity tend to dissipate; differences become cosmetic or approachs from different directions to the same end--to become wise in our suchness, to know our souls.

M.L. "MAX" ROTH is a free-lance writer and literary editor who has practiced Zen meditation for more than twenty-five years. He has received three awards from the National Writers Association for fiction, most recently for his novel manuscript "Promises from the Garden."

PREVIOUSLY:

GUESTCOLUMN, Winter/01: Tom Armstrong Ponders Whether a Robot Dog Has Buddha Nature.

GUESTCOLUMN, Fall/00: Jim Haught on the Philosphical Implications of Modern Physics -- Reality Isn't What You Think.

GUESTCOLUMN, March/00: Jean-Jacques D'Aoust on Religious Pluralism and Why Can't We All Just Get Along, Spirituality-wise?

GUESTCOLUMN, Fall/99: Tom Armstrong on An Enlightening Encounter With Someone Else's Ears

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