The Wisdom of Jokes

by Alejandro Jodorowsky

Haikus

Mono izawu

Kyaku to teishu to

Shiragiku to

 

They are without words,

The host, the guest

And the white chrysanthemum

Those who seek the truth follow no path. The fact is that all paths lead to the truth but we want “to have access,” we want “to have things,” when the truth is here. To seek the truth is nothing more than a call to live.

            That’s why we seek our realization by way of masters, of people we admire, who give us love. There are many paths to “obtain” the truth, but the poem says: “The truth is here. There’s only truth in you. Based on this truth, you’re you and you’re also the other.”

            Why doesn’t the other appear in my life? Why don’t I appear in my own life? If I don’t appear in my own life, how can the other appear? If I’m an empty shell, how can I find the other? Two empty shells meet and tell each other: “Love me, please! Love me!” Who’s going to be able to love the other, if both are completely empty?

            Legend has it that millions of little Buddhas met at the summit of a mountain. There they found the Great Buddha, who was supposed to give a teaching. All the monks perked up their ears to hear, but Buddha said nothing. He did nothing more than raise a flower. Only one of the disciples smiled and it was he who elaborated the so-called “sermon of the flower.”

            All Zen is based on the fact that people understand when they’re shown a flower.

They are without words,

The host, the guest

And the white chrysanthemum

Isn’t this beautiful? You come to see me because I’m the host and you’re the guest. I’ve prepared a place precisely for our meeting so it can occur without worries, without emotional tribulations, without painful pasts, without our names, without our successes, without our desires for power, without our bodily anguishes. All that is the tea ceremony.

            You bow before a small door before entering while simultaneously exiting the dated vision you have of yourself. You find yourself in my presence. What do we have to say to each other? The only thing we can say (and we don’t need to say it) is: “We’re face to face, you and I, with the immense pleasure of meeting in a universe free of tension, in peace, with your beauty and mine. We’ve left our prejudices behind; we’ve stopped not believing in ourselves. We’re in perfect beauty. Not in seductive beauty in order to get something, rather in the beauty of being alive, because we’re alive.”

            We’re together, you and I, and what have I done? I’ve pulled out a decoration, a companion, the white chrysanthemum that I myself cut in the garden.

            If I don’t cut you, I suffer. If I cut you, I suffer. Oh, chrysanthemum!

            There’s a story about a general who loved white chrysanthemums and a master who had an enormous garden of them. The great general said to himself: “I’m going to visit the gardener to see his white chrysanthemums.” He left the battlefield and, before all of his soldiers, went to see the master to admire his garden. When he arrived, however, there wasn’t a single white chrysanthemum. They had all been cut! Furious, the general didn’t even want to bow before crossing the threshold. And what did he hear upon entering? “I’ve kept,” said the master, “the most beautiful one in a vase for you.” The general understood the incredible poetic work. The master had sacrificed his entire garden to present but one white chrysanthemum, the most beautiful.

            I’ve sacrificed all the thoughts in my head for one word that’s called a mantra. Of all my parasitic thoughts, there’s only one left. I’ve sacrificed all the others, with the goal of leaving nothing but my love for you, my acceptance of you.

            So the white chrysanthemum is silent. It inspires silence. It’s white, pure, unique, it is what it is. As for me, am I who I am? And you, are you who you are? At this moment, guided by the white chrysanthemum, we begin to abandon the destructive programming that’s been bestowed upon us, all the criticism of ourselves, all the false hopes, all the neurotic searches destined to answer the eternal question: “Who are we?”

            We’re here. We feel ourselves alive in tranquility, relaxed, we enter into our silence, which isn’t silence. It’s life itself that’s here. It’s one consciousness in front of another consciousness. We’ve understood the lesson of the white chrysanthemum and we form a wonderful atmosphere where silence reigns, where the ego doesn’t dissolve, rather little by little it makes itself transparent. You and I are transparent, calm. We give ourselves a break from all our misfortunes, all our disputes. Here we are, calm.

            We accept ourselves. Our body lives its life. Time lives its rhythm. We enter into an incredible peace: the moment of drinking a cup of tea. The tea is unimportant in and of itself; what’s important is being able to arrive at this state.

            The above means you are the white chrysanthemum. Your body, your being is completely pure; it is what it is. We’re not accustomed to living in a pure body.

            Who has defeated bitterness, anguish, and doubt? Where’s the white chrysanthemum? When we’re full of guilt, it’s very difficult to understand the silence of the white chrysanthemum. And suddenly:

Mono izawu

Kyaku to teishu to

Shiragiku to

 

They are without words,

The host, the guest

And the white chrysanthemum

What does this mean?

They are without words: Mono izawu.

The host: Kyaku; the guest: Teishu; the white chrysanthemum: Shiragiku. But silence is there: Kyaku to! Teishu to! Shiragiku to! Ku to!

So then, if I’m the white chrysanthemum, my body is in a state of to, of silence. I’m the guest; the ego and my ego say to. I’m the essential being, the host. The ego and the essential being say to. The essential being looks for us. It doesn’t leave us alone. There’s a haiku that says: “The cloud allows the monk to take a break from looking at the moon.” Leave me alone, leave me alone, enough! I’m fed up. You’re everywhere. At least leave me a little corner. But no! Before I was born, you were already here. After I’m dead, you’ll still be here. You’re with me all the time! I can’t even insert a little distance. The wonder continues! This activity never ceases. So then, stop searching for yourself!  You’re no longer afraid of your intensity, of your eternity, of your infinity. You throw the father that tortured you overboard; the mother that didn’t take care of you overboard; the society that squashed you overboard; all the people that took advantage of you overboard; the woman that cheated on you overboard; the men who abandoned you with a baby in your arms overboard. You leave all that behind. You enter into your wonder. You stop believing you’re a void bent on destruction.

 

The long night

The sound of water

Says what I think

And that’s it. When the poet says “the long night,” we need to understand that he’s in the midst of full pleasure, he’s alive, he’s enjoying the adventure of a night in vigil. He finds himself completely alone with the night.

            From the moment the sun begins to disappear, I begin to perceive the arrival of night and the changes that occur inside me.

            Later, I begin to follow the night and live it. What does the night speak of? Of complete absence of light. I’m not talking about the appearance of the moon, rather about the night and, in part, I am the night. There’s a mysterious darkness inside me that I have lived from the moment I was born. From that moment on, there has existed this dark part within me that has always frightened me, but has always been there.

            When you have lived your night once and for all, you have no more nightmares because nothing stops you in inside yourself any longer.

            I begin to enter into the night and the river flows; it flows and flows. It never stops. It advances. It continues. The sound of water!

Nagaki yoya

Omou koto iu

Miso no oto

 

The long night

The sound of water

Says what I think

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? In the original version, five syllables are repeated three times: ta ta ta ta ta, ta ta ta ta ta, ta ta ta ta ta. Proposition: ta ta ta ta ta. Development: ta ta ta ta ta. Resolution, similar to the proposition: ta ta ta ta ta. The answer is contained in the proposition. There’s nothing to look for, nothing! I live: ta ta ta ta ta. I die: ta ta ta ta ta. That’s it! It’s all quite simple, quite similar: birth, continuous river, long night that never ends… Nothing ever ends… beauty!

            Ah, my love, my soul! Come inside my long night… the sound of water will tell you what I think. You are the sound of water!

 

It’s the spring wind

Say the master and the servant

Let’s walk together

When the wind blows or when the divine Spirit blows, your ego and your essential being are one and the same. The kimonos of both master and servant begin to fly in the same way. In the face of the divine wind, what’s the difference between my master and me? None! We’re equal.

 

To cut it, a shame!

To leave it be, a shame!

Ah! This violet!

I need to abandon the desire to preserve my life and I also need to abandon the idea not to preserve it. I simply need to live it. What’s important is the violet, not my desire to use it. We need to live in the world without the desire to use it, to be joyful with ourselves like the violet, the humble violet.

 

I went in furious

Offended

The willow in the garden

What can the plant do with respect to my emotional catastrophe? It’s there. I’m the fool because I let myself get carried away by these minimal worries, these little neuroses, these moments of anger. If, however, I take a step back to get some perspective and I see my anger and my sadness coming like beautiful plants, at that moment I can live them in a different way by realizing their feelings are beautiful, that they’re there to beautify my life and not make it ugly. Then I see my jealousy crisis by itself and say nothing.

 

The kitten

That we weighed on the balance

Kept right on playing

The kitten continues being himself, independent of our weighing him. He’s not at all worried about being good or bad, fat or thin. He keeps on playing! How can it affect me if people laugh at me, if I’m fine, doing my thing? I’ve got a ridiculous overcoat, but it keeps me warm, so I don’t care what people say about me. Nevertheless, we adopt a guilt complex. We want to be accepted by others. We live for them in a perpetual changing of ourselves. If we feel good, however, who cares about what everyone else thinks?

           

The broom

Put away

Someplace else

After living with me for several years, my wife goes out one day: encounter, direct hormonal contact, telephone call: “I’ve found the man of my life. I’m leaving with him. I can’t stand you any longer!” I change the program… she will no longer cook for me, iron my shirts, she won’t take care of me any more while I’m in the midst of my own dreams… it’s over.

            This change of companions occurs: someone else arrives. This one does exactly the same as the woman that left. I’m content. She irons my shirts, sweeps and cleans, but she doesn’t put the broom in the same place. She looks for someplace else to put it…

            Every being is different. Nobody puts the broom away in the same spot. Nothing repeats itself. Nothing will ever be quite the same as it was; but we adapt to the new and it produces a great upwelling of emotion in us. What joy it is to adapt!

            If life changes, we don’t need to collapse as a result. Everything that happens to us is for our own good. If a void appears in our lives, maybe we believe we’ll never fill it, and that’s true to a certain degree. We’ll never fill it the same way it used to be, but many other beautiful things will happen to us, as long as we adapt.

 

 

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Last updated: August 15, 2002. Copyright ©2002 by Claymont Publishing Company.