The dreamer awakes: a Buddhist model of the human selfMany metaphors and images have been employed to clarify certain aspects of the
Buddhist No-self or formless self. For example, the metaphor of oceanwave is used
in the sutras. The self-as-wave is attached to the form of itself and thus endlessly rises
and falls, ignorant of its own nature, source, and end, never at rest until it realizes
itself as none other than the vast ocean. This metaphor was also a favorite of
Hisamatsu’s; he mentioned it at the end of his conversation with Jung. When Jung
passed away in 1961, Hisamatsu wrote the following (based on a translation by
Hisamatsu and Richard DeMartino in the FAS Society Journal, Summer 1992):
The All-Bearing Empty Sea
On May 15 [sic—the date was 16 May], 1958, I visited Professor C. G.Jung
at his home in Zurich, Switzerland, and talked with him about the ‘collective
unconscious’ and Zen’s ‘no-mind.’ Recently he passed away, leaving this koan
unsolved. My respect for him and regret for his untimely death being so deep,
I dedicate the following poem to his memory.Boundless in expanse
bottomless in depth
the vast ocean:
Waves without number
large and small
from the beginningless beginning
appearing only to disappear
disappearing only to appear
endlessly, ceaselessly
rising and falling.
But who is it who knows
that ever fulfilled and undisturbed
the ocean originally bears
not the slightest trace of a wave
That formless
it is present now—
where there obtains
neither past, present, nor future,
And is present here—
where there obtains
neither east nor west
neither above nor below?
Bearing all yet grasping noneJEFF SHORE 35