tion and doubt,” Vincent van Gogh wrote of the creative
process, “the hand may not tremble, nor may the eye wander,
but must remain fixed on what is before one.” Yet, no matter
how subjective or personal this creative discipline may be, it
frequently is described almost paradoxically as a participation
in an impersonal event that transcends the idiosyncracies of
the artist. “Everything vanishes around me,” Paul Klee once
noted to himself, “and works are born out of the void....
My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote
will.” The artist cultivates a vision and undertakes a disci-
pline in which the objective and subjective worlds converge
and yet remain distinct.
Interactive discipline thus involves a kind of “attentive
selflessness.” Or perhaps it would be better to say that it cen-
ters on an “attentive wholeness”—for one who perfects this
type of discipline is said to experience himself or herself as
a creative and vital participant in the larger scope of life itself.
Techniques of interactive discipline are different from those
of heteronomous and autonomous discipline in that the for-
mer do not revolve around conceptual knowledge. The mas-
ter is both external and internal, and neither external nor in-
ternal, to the disciple.
Interactive experience, like the artistic experience, cen-
ters on what the Japanese call myo ̄, the wondrous mystery
and rhythmic flow of life. One who disciplines himself or
herself toward this experience seeks to know eternal truths
within the mysteries of the constantly changing world. Such
discipline is exemplified, to choose one of any number of
possibilities, in the Japanese haiku tradition, in which poets
compose short verses in moments of sublime understanding
of the world. These poems reveal the unmediated nature of
the world as it exists objectively but also the fond and atten-
tive regard the poet holds for that world. Basho ̄ (1643–1694)
is said to have set the haiku tradition with this verse, translat-
ed by D. T. Suzuki:
Furu ike ya! The old pond, ah!
Kawazu tobikomu, A frog jumps in:
Mizu no oto. The water’s sound!Quite typically, the images presented in haiku come from the
ordinary world, but the terseness with which they are de-
scribed comes from the poet’s discerning vision of that world
as an entirely remarkable place. The poet Buson (1716–
1783) once exclaimed:
Tsuri-gane ni On the temple bell
Tomarite nemuru Perching, sleeps
Kocho kana. The butterfly, oh!If perfected, such interactive awareness of the world is said
to lead to satori (enlightenment), which finds its meaning in
one’s everyday activities such as eating, sleeping, and moving
one’s body. The meaning that satori illumines in these activi-
ties does not come from outside; it is in the event itself. It
is beingness, or life itself. Better still, it is the “is-as-it-isness”
of something, the quality that in Japanese is known as kono-
mama or sono-mama. It is this discipline of “seeing the isness”
of the world that led the haiku poet Jo ̄so ̄ (1661–1704) to
find transformative appreciation in the following image:
Mizu soko no Under the water,
Iwa ni ochitsuku On the rock resting,
Kono ha kana. The fallen leaves.
Or Basho ̄, in a moment’s notice of
Nomi shirami, Fleas, lice,
Uma no nyo suru The horse pissing
Makuramoto. Near my pillow.
The freedom to experience the world as it arises from such
cognitive or perceptual discipline occurs only when the
poet’s mind is in perfect harmony with the rhythms of life
itself. “Wonder of wonders!” Ho ̄ Koji exclaimed in an
eighth-century verse, “I carry firewood, I draw water!”
There are no heteronomous or autonomous authorities
in this type of discipline, for to distinguish between object
and subject is to bifurcate the essential unity of being. Inter-
actional discipline takes a person beyond all dualities, includ-
ing the duality of “self” and “other” or “disciple” and “mas-
ter.” Interactive discipline in the haiku tradition eventually
frees the disciple from the need for a teacher. Such discipline
recognizes that the guide, the way, and the wayfarer are one.
MODES OF SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE. The three types of spiri-
tual discipline just outlined should not be understood as mu-
tually exclusive. Despite the autonomous ideals reflected in
his early discourses, for example, even Gautama’s followers
directed their lives according to the instructions given them
by their master and subsequently codified in the Vinaya
Pitaka, a canonical collection of community rules and regula-
tions established by the Buddha and his immediate followers.
Conversely, even the S:u ̄f ̄ı mystic who advances through the
stages of the path under the heteronomous guidance of a
shaykh finally experiences fana ̄D, the annihilation of ego-
consciousness that brings knowledge of the unity of reality
in a state similar to that called jamE, “unification.” The Mus-
lim, in fact, learns from the QurDa ̄n itself that God is “closer
to man than is man’s jugular vein” (50:16) and that God has
placed within each person an “inner torch” (taqwa ̄), which,
if allowed to burn brightly, guides that person toward fulfill-
ment. And the Japanese notion of immediacy of myo ̄ is said
to be taught at first by a master, who teaches the student ei-
ther through example or through specific instructions how
to see and to experience sublime beauty himself.
In all three types of discipline, therefore, the seeker and
the path on which that seeker travels are inextricably linked.
Within the general parameters of these three types of spiritu-
al discipline, one may recognize a number of ways in which
the disciple actually practices the regimens deemed necessary
for movement along the path. For simplicity’s sake, these
modes of activity can be classified in the following categories:
ecstatic discipline, constructive discipline, discipline of the
body, discipline of the mind, discipline of the heart, and dis-
cipline of enduring personal relationships.
It should be stated, once again, that these categories
serve typological purposes only; they are not rigid classifica-8702 SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE