The Ghost of Kudzu

Some time ago a friend of mine told me about an incident with her cat. Early in the morning the cat went nuts. It attacked her sister, and then jumped on her and bit her, making a puncture wound that required antibiotics.  The cat was so vicious that it needed to be locked in a room. My friend called the Vet.

There are only a few causes for such a sudden change in behavior, and none of them is good.  Since the cat was now ferociously wild, my friend asked the vet if she and her technician would come to the house, capture the cat, and see its condition for themselves. They came. The cat was euthanized.

My friend was grief-stricken. She felt the loss of her beloved companion. The ghost of her companion began to appear in memories and recollections. It hurt her to be reminded of what was no longer there.  She put away the cat dishes and the litter box.  She gave away the cans of cat food.  But there were no meows for breakfast, no tiny padding behind her, no warm small body curled up on a lap.  She compared television cats and neighborhood cats to her missing cat. When she approached her house she would automatically search the place in the window that it used to sit. Sometimes she thought she caught a glimpse of it.

The function of a ghost is to fill an empty space. Without attention, the absence of the missing "thing" becomes, itself, a living thing.  It takes root in the mind, grows, and flowers into grief. We feel sorrow and heartache when a beloved creature dies; but those feelings do not have to blossom into interminable woe and lamentation.

Grief builds a refuge for a ghost.  Protracted grief can create a fortress for it.  And all around the fortress, habits remembered and images revived create a garden which consolation and solace nourish.  We do not realize that the seeds of loss are an invasive species that we should not strive to cultivate.  At first we may find much to admire in the alien presence, and then we may grow to tolerate it.  But sooner or later, if not challenged, that presence will snuff out the life of other plants.

Emotions that cultivate distress are the Kudzu of the mind. Kudzu pronounced kood-zu is a large perennial vine that climbs and crawls up to 60 feet in a single growing season. It is a heavy rooted plant that looks quite harmless and is considered beautiful. If left unattended it soon smothers whatever is in its path.

What is in the mind that covers and clings to it, to our own detriment?  We are aware of the smothering distress and yet we do not oppose it.  Perhaps we find comfort in the way it conceals what is beneath it.  It appears beautiful and gives cascading feelings of growth and renewal, even as we know that these sights and feelings are the signs and symptoms of a pernicious existence.  Worse, we may even feel love for the substitute "thing" and take pride in our ability to cling to it. We may tell ourselves that by clinging to it we are demonstrating loyalty, dedication, and devotion.  We do not care to look beneath it.  We do not want to know what it was that we allowed to be smothered out of existence.

And so the false replaces the true and we become servants of the false.  Perhaps we may have learned a Buddhist principle that when taken out of context demands an action that is ill-suited to our Buddhist Way.  Perhaps we may have made a vow in our youth that is no longer fitting for our mature heart-mind to keep.  We learned to genuflect on our right knee and so, despite an injury to that knee, we refuse to change knees and make an awkward gesture of compliance.  We were told to do it and so we do it. These old ways become covered with the kudzu of clinging and are unavailable for inspection and reflection.  Despite how they dissipate our concentration and effort, we continue to give them our time and energy.  Our spiritual life exists on the surface which appears to be thriving and then, inevitably, we experience one of life's winters.  And in a single night's frost, we see how we have created a garden of weeds.

Three or four years ago I wrote to Ming Zhen Shakya after I read her article on “Abandon Ship.” I remember saying to myself “this woman knows something I do not know.” I didn’t contact her right away because I was rutted on another Path. But one frosty night I began to inspect that Path and it began to reveal its true self to me. I contacted Ming Zhen and we began a casual correspondence. Over time I began to see what my mind had been clinging to, and yet it was difficult to abandon it.  I was like my friend with the cat.  I could not give up what used to be and no longer was.  Each time I wrote to Ming Zhen she repeated the same thing to me, “Mind blanking leads to self-hypnosis.  It leads to control of what the Japanese call 'small mind.'  You want to transcend 'small mind' and enter the sacred space of 'Big Mind.' Do not do Mind-Blanking exercises."  Spring comes too soon to Kudzu.  It took me awhile to get under all that old growth.  I needed a machete.

The needed sharp blade came in a recording she sent to me.  Initially the recording sat on top of a pile of 'meditation aids’ I had accumulated.

As with the rest of the prescriptions I had received and initially felt I couldn’t do, I felt a kind of disloyalty even considering it.  I had put so many hours training in the rut I was in that I had cultivated that "point of no return" attitude towards my method.  I was determined to stay the course. I was ordained. I had taken vows and had shaved my head... surely that counted for something!  She had sent me the recording of a mantra.  It wasn't from 'my school of Zen.' I resisted even playing it.  But with the cold doing what it does to kudzu....  I finally said, 'All right. I'll listen.'  I listened and still wouldn't attempt it.

My partner with whom I share my life asked me why I resisted even the attempt to recite it. I answered, saying that I'd never be able to chant the mantra as it had been recorded."  Then she looked at me and said, simply, "Then chant it as you can chant it."

Some inspiration seeped in and I told myself. "All right, I can do that." I sat in my basement wrapped in blankets with my ear buds in and chanted with the chant as best I could.  I chanted and chanted and got better and better. I was swinging that machete.  The knife cut through the old growth. Little by little the old ways began to be cut back, clipped and torn out. Something changed, some breath of air, some light, some energy returned.  The sun shone on the earth.  That clinging to what was not really there was gone.

Training and learning are fine but when it becomes kudzu in the mind it kills everything in its path. Even conventional training about grief can be overgrown and cover everything.

Anytime we stop growing spiritually, or we content ourselves with looking no deeper than the surface, we are yielding to the kudzu.  If we think that the one way we were taught, or the first way we were taught, is the only right way, the one method that is superior to all other methods, we are fooling ourselves by surfaces.  What is growing?  Nothing but this one weed?  Is this what we intended our efforts to produce?  Is it a kind of "Fixed View Zen" that cannot withstand those bitter days that come to us all. Does it deliver us to a table that "runneth over" with peace, joy, truth and freedom?  Or does it look beautiful as it kills everything that should have been produced.

Nothing else can happen as long as the clinging remains. Cut it away. Ask for help. Don’t give up.

Chop. Begin and Continue. Chop.