by Dan Millman
“I’d like that,” I said.
“Begin with half an hour—you’ll hear a gong. After sitting, you can practice kinhin, walking meditation, until your legs feel limber and you’re ready to sit once again. Increase the time of each sitting practice through the night.” I have nowhere else to be here or now, I thought, grateful for the opportunity.
Before he left me, I asked, “Do you have any other words of advice about how I might meditate properly?”
“Just two things,” he answered. “You need good posture. And you need to die.” He turned and departed silently from the room, closing the panel behind him.
I’d like to say that my mind emptied of all thought, but his departing words had the opposite effect.
How do I die? I brooded. Is this what he means by good posture? Maybe he hasn’t left yet. . . . I shook off the impulse to open my eyes, to look up, to give up.
I imagined monks sitting somewhere not far away, in absolute stillness, with nothing above their shoulders but the sky, experiencing no-mind, or mushin, as Kanzaki Roshi had called it. Meanwhile, a veritable Disneyland operated inside my skull. I did my best not to move or fidget, even when my nose itched. Even when I had to sneeze. No! I thought. You must not sneeze! No sneeze, no sneeze, no sneeze, I repeated as the urge grew. I started to sweat with the effort of all these shoulds. Posture . . . die—what does it all mean anyway? I’m such a mess! If Socrates could see the state of my mind—why did he ever take me on as his student?
In-breath and out-breath, reception and release. Inspiration, inhaling spirit. Expiration, letting go. Again and again I turned my attention back to the breath, only the breath. . . .
In this manner I sat for longer periods; in needed interludes, I stood and performed a slow, conscious walking meditation, attending to the shift of weight as one foot after the other moved forward, filling and emptying, in the manner of t’ai chi. After completing a circuit of the room, with my eyes still half-lidded, I sat again.
Just after dawn, a gong sounded six times. I slowly lifted my half-closed eyes from the tatami mat. I can’t really explain what happened next, but when I opened my eyes fully, I blinked, then blinked again, unable to grasp the familiar form in front of me.
“Socrates?” I said.
He sat there grinning, just as he had grinned in the hotel room. He reached up, scratched his face, and slid open a panel, letting in the light.
THIRTY-FOUR
* * *
As I looked on, Socrates knelt in the Japanese style. Wearing the black hakama pants and white cotton uwagi jacket, he appeared older, venerable, ethereal. Yet his eyes still held their sparkle. The time we’d spent together came rushing back; the years since compressed into what seemed like no time at all.
“Hi, junior,” he said. “Late, as usual. Any stories you’d like to share?”
I didn’t need an invitation. I told him of my life since we were last together—about my failing marriage and how much I missed my daughter. About my time with Mama Chia in the rain forest, and how I’d found the samurai statue and his letter and, later, the journal. I described Ama and Papa Joe, who had helped him all those years ago, and the boy who became Joe Stalking Wolf, and my travels to Hong Kong and China, and about Hua Chi and Mei Bao and Master Ch’an and Chun Han and my students.
I began to tell him more about the journal that Nada—María—had committed to his care. As I moved to get it, he stilled me.
“No need. Please continue.”
So I described what had happened since my arrival in Japan, including my journey through the Aokigahara Jukai, which had led me to Kanzaki Roshi and to the present moment.
I asked for his guidance. “I can’t shake a feeling of unreality, Soc—as if I’m caught in a dream, looking over a precipice, haunted again by that dark specter of death.”
He said nothing in response, but continued to gaze at me. Until, finally, he said only this: “We may meet again, when you’re ready.”
“I get that a lot,” I said testily. “Ready for what?”
“For death. For life. For whatever may come.”
“We’re meeting right now, Soc. Isn’t now your favorite time?”
In the silence that followed, it felt as if we’d never parted, which was in some sense true. But he had changed somehow. Or maybe it was me.
When I looked up, Soc’s body suddenly began to shimmer and then changed into the hooded specter of death. In shock, I closed my eyes to shut out the vision. When I opened them again, it was Kanzaki Roshi who sat serenely in front of me, wearing the identical clothing that Socrates had worn. Stunned, I stammered, “How—how long have you been sitting there? Have we been speaking?”
“You spoke. I sat.”
“But he told me things—he was here. . . .”
The roshi rose to his feet. “Please, Dan-san, continue your practice.”
Clambering to my feet, I staggered down the hall to relieve myself. I found cold water in a pitcher just outside the room and drank, feeling even more rattled than I had the night before.
When I returned to zazen, I struggled to find a relaxed, upright posture, “neither leaning forward into the future nor backward into the past,” as Socrates had once told me. Socrates. I was so sure he’d been here, moments before. I wish I’d told him about the writing. Even if his appearance was some kind of illusion.
An illusion—like the self, like death, I thought—returning to what Kanzaki Roshi had said. Why must I die in order to meditate properly?
Out of the stillness, an answer appeared: While alive, I remain attached to the business of the world, engaged on a moving walkway of passing plans, questions, and thoughts. For the dead, no attachments remain. There’s nothing left to do, to accomplish, to grasp.
I recalled the yoga practice of shavasana, the corpse pose, to complete asana practice. It was meant to be more than a relaxation exercise. But what does it mean to let go of all that is life? What must I relinquish in order to die? Such questions had become seeds that, when planted deep within, began to grow and bear fruit. Soon I fell into a spontaneous meditation. Unlike the usual sitting practice, this was filled with revelation. It came in a flood that took form only when I later wrote it all down.
It begins by exhaling darkness and inhaling light, until my physical form fills with a sparkling blue-white light. . . .
Next comes a profound willingness to surrender, returning to what I was before I was conceived, to die while I live, to let go completely, to relinquish everything and enter the experience and process of dying, starting with . . .
No more time. Past and future vanish as I surrender all memory and imagination. Only the present remains.
No more objects. All possessions vanish: toys, tools, keepsakes, clothing. All I own, all I’ve earned, collected, or purchased. I will leave the world as I arrived. Naked.
No more relations. I bid farewell to every human and animal I know or have ever known: family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, childhood pets. . . . All those I love, and who love me, vanish. From this point I’m alone.
No more action. I release the ability to move, to speak, to do, to influence, to accomplish . . . no more duties or responsibilities . . . no task to complete or business to finish as my body turns as immobile as wood.
No more emotion. The colors of feeling fade into gray . . . no joy or sorrow, fear or courage, anger or serenity, passion, melancholy or elation, as the heart and whole body turn to stone.
Now the senses depart, one by one:
No more savoring. The power of taste vanishes . . . no more food, drink, or lover’s lips to stimulate tongue or palate with sweetness or spice.
No more smell. The end of all scents and fragrances . . . of food and flowers . . . gone are aromas of those I love, of home and hearth, of the natural world.
No more sight. Images lose focus, then there’s nothing more to focus upon . . . the beauty of nature’s landscapes, the colors of sunrise or sunset, the sensual shapes of th
e world, the colors and textures, the light and shadow—all fade into darkness.
No more sound. The capacity to hear music and voices, the songs of birds, a rustle of leaves or silk, wind chimes, laughter, and thunder, the sounds of city life—all slip into silence, even the thrum of my blood while it still flows in my veins.
No more sensation. The end of pain or pleasure, warmth or cold . . . never again feeling the skin-to-skin touch of a loved one as nerve endings grow numb.
Without time, objects, relations, actions, emotions, or the senses of taste, smell, sight, hearing, or touch, only darkness and silence remain.
No more self. No sense of being or having a body . . . the last remaining thread or experience of an inner self is cut. . . . Finding the center of the paradox, letting go of what never truly existed. Fading, growing transparent, weightless, vanishing. Only Consciousness remains. And the world goes on exactly as it was, without me.
THIRTY-FIVE
* * *
The sound of a gong brought me back to myself in a silent room. It took a few moments for me to realize where I was, who I was. Having relinquished all the experiences, relations, sensations, and memories that comprised my life, I might have expected a bittersweet sense of sorrow. Instead, I felt reborn. Because, when I opened my eyes, the gifts of life all came flooding back.
I had a past to remember and a future to imagine! I could enjoy objects and possessions without being as attached to them. I had loved ones, friends, colleagues, and innumerable acquaintances to enjoy. I could deeply feel emotions changing like the weather, like the seasons. I could savor the delights of food and drink, smell aromas, see a world of light and color, hear a symphony of sounds, and interact with people and the world around me through the gift of touch. This is what it means to be alive.
As I sat in the quiet room, I recalled a story Socrates had told me about a great turtle who swam through the depths of the seven seas, surfacing for a single breath only once every hundred years. “Imagine a wooden ring,” he said, “drifting on the surface of one of the vast oceans. What are the odds that this turtle would surface and just happen to stick his head up through the center of that wooden ring?”
“One in a trillion, I suppose—close to zero chance.”
“Consider how the odds of being born a human being on planet Earth are less than that.”
And what are the odds, I thought, that I’m here now, in a Zen temple in Kyoto, Japan, on planet Earth, playing the odd role of Dan Millman in a limited engagement?
That evening, Kanzaki Roshi and I shared a quiet meal before he took his leave, inviting me to spend one more evening in the temple of the three samurai.
Just before sleep that night, I packed Soc’s journal and my notebook back into my knapsack, folded my clothes for the journey home. And, thinking about my daughter, I carefully tucked in the kachina doll.
In the morning, after a light breakfast, I found a car waiting to take me back to Osaka and the airport.
As the jet passed through the evening sky, flashes of lightning lit the clouds below, and I floated once again between heaven and earth, on the way home.
EPILOGUE
* * *
Before I landed in Ohio and returned to my daughter, my classes, and the conventions of everyday life, I heard Soc’s voice as clearly as if he were sitting in the empty seat beside me. I could almost see him out of the corner of my eye and feel his hand on my shoulder as his voice rang out in my mind: “You expected to find a hidden school in the East, Dan, so that’s where I sent you. But now you understand that the hidden school appears in every forest, park, city, or town, whenever you look beyond the surface of things. You need only wake up and open your eyes.”
Socrates had sent me to find a hidden school somewhere so that I might discover it everywhere, and finally realize that the promise of eternal life awaits us all—not on the other side of death, but here and now, in the eternal present.
My report to the dean and grant committee was well received. In the months that followed, I shared a few insights from the journal with those friends and colleagues who were interested, keeping in mind the wisdom of the Indian sage Sai Baba of Shirdi, who once said, “I give people what they want so that eventually they may want what I want to give them.”
That December, at the end of the term, I withdrew from my faculty position. My wife and daughter and I moved back to Northern California. Once they were settled into their own place, I found a small apartment not far away and lived in solitude.
Months passed. Winter turned to spring. Then, one summer evening, I opened my wallet and drew out Soc’s business card. The faded words printed on the front—Paradox, Humor, Change—now held new meaning and depth. I turned the card over. To my surprise, I found four words written there, and a set of numbers. Mystified, I read: “Edison Lake, south side.” I’d once visited that area on a backpacking trip east of Merced in the Sierra National Forest.
Is it Soc’s handwriting or my own? I wondered. Could I have walked in my sleep, opened the wallet, and written those words? Was the message connected to my real or imagined meeting with Socrates during my final days in Japan?
I studied the numbers: 8–27–76. August twenty-seventh, four days from now. One way or the other, I sensed, it would be the end of a long journey. Or was it my flight to Samarra? Would the dark specter be waiting for me, or a vision of eternal life? I heard Soc’s voice ring out in my mind: “Consciousness is not in the body, Dan; the body is in Consciousness. And you are that Consciousness. . . . When you relax mindless into the body, you’re happy and content and free. . . . Immortality is already yours.”
That night, somewhere in the labyrinthine dream world, a gap opened in the lining of time and space. What emerged was a vision of my future, a bare possibility:
My body begins to tremble, and I fall backward through space. Thousands of feet above a patchwork of green and brown far below, my arms stretch out to the horizon. Held aloft by the wind. Once again I’m a point of awareness floating on a cushion of air between heaven and earth. A forest appears below, growing closer as distinct shapes come into focus—a barn and fields and a stream running past a white pavilion. I yearn to soar upward again, away from a world of gravity and mortality. But I fall from the sky, down toward a beach where white sand meets blue sea. As I spin downward, whirling now, the wind becomes a roar, then absolute silence, as I pass through the earth and soar upward again and into the night as shining orbs congeal into a tunnel of light. . . .
The light becomes a crackling campfire illuminating the face of my old mentor as he sits in a forest clearing. He’s been waiting for me all along. His eyes shine. Bright sparks float up into the night sky until the firelight turns to starlight.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
Love and gratitude to my late parents, Herman and Vivian Millman, who continue to inspire me with their example and memory.
Special thanks to my wife, Joy, who read multiple rough drafts and provided invaluable guidance as the manuscript took shape, and to our daughter, author Sierra Prasada, whose in-depth developmental guidance and line editing made possible a more coherent narrative. The love and support of my entire family, including China and Michael Hoffman and Holly and John Deme, our delightful grandchildren, and my sister Diane, lift my spirit and lend meaning to my writing endeavors.
Candid feedback from early readers Ned Leavitt, Alyssa Factor, David Cairns, Holly Deme, Peter Ingraham, Ed St. Martin, Dave Meredith, David Moyer, and Martin Adams contributed valuable perspectives. Then my longtime freelance editor, Nancy G. Carleton, provided a final polish as I prepared the work for submission.
My literary agent on this project, Stephen Hanselman, guided me to my devoted publisher Michele Martin, senior editor Diana Ventimiglia, and the entire team at Simon & Schuster’s North Star Way imprint. Through their publishing alchemy, they transformed my manuscript into that work of art—a completed, beautifully designed book.
Without al
l their varied support, this book would not exist in its present form.
The following individuals also provided information and insights: Reb Anderson Roshi, Linda Badge, Clark Bugbee, Mickey Chaplan, Annie Liou, Takashi Shima, and Harumi Yamanaka. Author and t’ai chi teacher Scott Meredith shared his expertise related to internal energy.
The following books served as background insight and inspiration: Knocking on Heaven’s Door by Katy Butler; How We Die by Sherwin Nuland, MD; The Final Crossing by Scott Eberle; Autumn Lightning by Dave Lowry; The Professor in the Cage and The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschal; Zen and Japanese Culture and Zen and the Samurai by D. T. Suzuki; From Here to Here by Gary Crowley; Free Will by Sam Harris; Being Mortal by Atul Gawande; Do No Harm by Henry Marsh; The Self Illusion by Bruce Hood; When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi; Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng; Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty; The Way of Zen by Alan Watts; How to Sit by Thich Nhat Hanh; On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross; and The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
DAN MILLMAN, former world champion gymnast, coach, martial arts teacher, and college professor, is the author of seventeen books published in twenty-nine languages and shared across generations to millions of readers. His international bestselling book Way of the Peaceful Warrior was adapted to film in 2006. Dan speaks worldwide to people from all walks of life.
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Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Dan-Millman
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