REGISTER

When the wooden man begins to sing,
the stone woman gets up to dance.

—Dongshan Liangjie’s Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi

What is dance if not the most fundamental celebration of life?

Traditionally, the stone woman represents the unborn—emptiness. She arises from the field of no-thing, bringing life into the world. The stone woman’s dance is the dance of life, the dance of the universe. She shows us how to dance.

橆

Translator and poet David Hinton believes Chinese ideograms paint a paleolithic, shamanistic, deep relationship of human beings to nature. Central to the Chinese understanding of the world is the Dao, or Way, which holds both Presence (form) and Absence (emptiness). Absence (wu, mu, no) is “undifferentiated generative source-tissue” with the ancient pictographic origins of “a woman dancing, her swirling movements enhanced by fox tails streaming out from her hands.”

Last holiday season I gifted my partner a package of dance lessons for the both of us. A couple months ago we went to a bar out near the coast to listen to a banging country and western band. Getting out on the dance floor, we were a touch rusty, but who cares if you’ve got plenty of ginger and spunk?

In our dance lessons, as soon as our teacher, a high school junior with a full set of braces, showed us how to get on up and do the Texas Two-Step. I could feel myself stiffen like the wooden man, self-consciously trying to get the steps just right and on time.

Starting with my left foot, the rhythm went “quick-quick-slow-slow.” I felt terrible my partner had not worn her steel-toed boots. Next came the “quick-quick-slow-tap-slow,” and “quick-quick-slow-tap-slow” foot moves good for any honky-tonk in the country, they say. Eventually I relaxed a bit. Our instructor was effusive in her praise of our rapid progress. In a couple weeks we return for a second lesson.

Dogen knew something of dancing. In his New Year’s Dharma Hall Discourse, he writes,

The sky is clear, and moisture covers the earth. It is said, Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges dance to exalted music, and throughout the entire world the blossoms on the branches facing south immediately open.

I like that. Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges dancing to honky tonk. Perhaps we are all working on our quick-quick-slow-slow step.

—Jon Joseph

COME JOIN US on Mondays for koan meditation, dharma talk and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome.

Jon Joseph Roshi, Director of San Mateo Zen Community