Re: Salinger & Zen

Michael Sussman (qironzh@rocketmail.com)
Thu, 28 May 1998 13:50:11 -0700 (PDT) 

I'm interested in discussing it. But it might not be that fruitful. If
you do a "straight" read of SAI p. 208 which continues "I'm profoundly
attracted to classical Zen literature,...but my life itself couldn't
conceivably be less Zenful than it is, and what little I've been able
to apprehend...of the Zen experience has been a by-result of following
my own rather natural path of extreme Zenlessness." So any Zen
Buddhist attitude in Salinger is coincidental.

When _Nine Stories_ was reissued or perhaps when it was anthologized,
Salinger included the the famous koan comcerning the Zen master
Mokurai, known as "The Sound of One Hand." So Salinger must've thought
there was some connection between the stories and Zen Buddhism (or
else he's just playing games).

But what was known of Zen in the US in the '50s and '60s is basically
Suzuki's particular interpretation. I remember reading an episode in a
long biography of Allan Ginsberg that Kerouac was considered by his
fellow Beats to know the most about Zen on the basis that he'd read
Suzuki's _Introduction to Zen Buddhism_, so...

Another doubt about the posibility of discussion is that I don't know
if anyone who hasn't at least experienced kensho (i.e., preliminary
enlightenment) can discuss Zen at all. Personally, I haven't hit
kensho, though I know I've come close several times. Recently, I went
to Dharma lecture at the New York Zendo given by someone who'd been a
monk for 5 years. He talked about the fact that he'd been a monk for a
while and that he'd still not yet had kensho. And that he'd been
cleaning the top-most windows in the monastery all week, wondering at
the possibility that he'd fall off the ladder and it would happen. Of
course, my response is: if that's what you think it will take, why
don't you just jump. (But perhaps that's why it never happened to me
either.) 

I feel a bit bastard-like because it would seem that I'm trying to
stiffle a legitimate and possibly fruitful discussion, but I think
there are real doubts about the possibility of any good discussion of
the subject. In fact, my first two paragraphs are somewhat
contradictory, and that could be a starting point of sorts, if
anyone's interested. The stuff about haiku is in SAI and in Buddy's
letter to Zooey in Z. I used to think that what Salinger's been doing
all these years is writing Seymour's 180 double-haiku. Sorry for going
on so long.

-------Sussby

===
"Why on earth are you there
 When you're ev'rywhere"
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