Alice and Zen Buddhism
Excerpted, with permission, from To Catch a Bandersnatch, by Mark Burstein, vice president of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America.

PARADOX
One day Subhuti, in a mood of sublime emptiness, was sitting under a tree. Flowers began to fall about him. "We are praising you for your discourse on emptiness," the gods whispered to him. "But I have not spoken of emptiness," said Subhuti. "You have not spoken of emptiness, we have not heard emptiness," responded the gods."This is true emptiness." And blossoms showered upon Subhuti as rain.
AFFIRMATION
A monk asked Joshu, "When the body crumbles all to pieces and returns to the dust, there eternally abides one thing. Of this I have been told, but where does this one thing abide?"
The master replied, "It is windy again this morning."


Alice went timidly at the door, and knocked.
"There"s no sort of use in knocking," said the Footman, "and that for two reasons. First, because I'm on the same side of the door as you are: secondly, because they are making such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear you."


The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his remark, with variations. "I shall sit here," he said, "on and off, for days and days."
But what am I to do?" said Alice.
"Anything you like," said the Footman, and began whistling.

GOING BEYOND THE OPPOSITES
One day four traveling monks appeared at the temple of Hogen and began to build a fire. While they were building the fire, they began arguing about subjectivity and objectivity.
Hogen asked: "There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?"
A monk answered:"From the Buddhist viewpoint everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that the stone is inside my mind."
"Your head must be very heavy " observed Hogen, "if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind."
CONTRADICTION
A monk asked the sixth patriarch of Zen, "Who has attained to the secrets of Wobai?", Wobai being the mountain where the fifth patriarch resided.
The patriarch replied, "One who understands Buddhism has attained to the secrets of Wobai."
Have you attained them?'
"No I have not"
"How is it," asked the monk, " that you have not?"
"I do not understand Buddhism."
"There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?" And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, "Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?" and sometimes "Do bats eat cats?" for, you see, as she couldn't answer either question, it didn't much matter which way she put it.


"That's just what I complain of! You should have meant! What do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning-and a child's more important than a joke, I hope. You couldn't deny that, even if you tried with both hands."
"I don't deny things with my hands," Alice objected.
"Nobody said you did," said the Red Queen. "I said you couldn't if you tried."

All the art work in this page is the intellectual property of Charles Stierlen


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