Critical Review of "The Red Thread Zen" by Susan Murphy Roshi

The red thread Zen written by Susan Murphy Roshi talks about body, sexuality, passion, care, torn, dark, Mortal, laughter, hands and eyes, the teisho of the actual body. According to Amazon.com.au. The red (or ‘vermilion’) thread originally connoted the color of the silk undergarments courtesans were obliged to wear. Most spiritual traditions do their best to distance themselves as thoroughly as possible from such direct and intimate contact with the fact of impassioned human bodily being, the female body that gives birth from body to body covered in blood. But the red thread can never be cut. The topic I have selected is Chapter four: on “Passion”.

In the first three paragraph I will summarize and present the main ideas from this section. In the fourth and fifth paragraph I will write my evaluation and response on some of the points. Dongshan was a devoted man to the gods and temple. One day he got angry when one of his monks was scattering some leftover grains for being wasteful. If his anger did not rise in his human nature ,the earth spirit would not have appeared to pay him homage. A point of the needle was enough to prick his anger. Therefore Anger is one complexity of strong emotions which occupies our energy. It slowly harms the soul, brutalize others, kill or alienate one from others. The description of anger namely cold anger, hot anger, bottled anger, passive aggression are the human traits which we see in our day to day life. The human can display passion in dharma gates as compared to animals who cannot display passion. We can identify, consider, resist, or indulge them, avoid or form a more self aware relationship in the society.

The red thread Koan exposes the deep entanglement of human frailty with emptiness. Even the most enlightened minds are not detached from the vermillion thread of human. Dogen identified four simple virtues of a bodhisattva namele giving, Using loving words, completely forgetting the self, living by helping others, but the grandmother who practiced these four virtues burnt down the hermitage because she could not find the signs in the monk betraying the four virtues by her anger. The brains of dinosaurs were far distance from their vastly long tails where its central nervous system urge might take too long for the creature to respond and protect itself in time from anger.

The idea of passion in Dharma gate was accepting suffering and reality such as extremes of shame, pain, anger or grief. Ram Das suggests, that the moment we close our heart to anything in the universe, then we are at the mercy of our self. The anger hammered by another person can be managed by sorting out “ me” from “ you”. The mystery of hazy moon in human being are inner emotions of feelings and poisonous thought and act, every mood known as “ personality.” The human failings, fallings, collapse and limitedness are still attached to red thread. Sometimes we tend to do terrible things to ourselves in the name of purity by exporting hurtful act to others creating discomfort, disgust or impurity.

In meditation, sweeping the empty mind or heart of everything is impossible because it fills with each thing away as wave after wave the moon appears. Sometimes the unearthly human dream of perfecting itself are of great dangers where millions have died at the hands of perfection plan of others or perfect lifestyle of someone else. Love itself is the “difficult emotions “fused with hatred, envy, deep self doubt and even terror greater than death. Longing can be a difficult emotion fused with loss or rejection. Every one of the difficult emotions that we face can get settled or restored equally between no self, no thing , everything present in heightened form which is tossed to us by “ the passions.” The section on “ Passion” of red thread zone was relevant as per my understanding and language was clear and explicit while reading. The subheadings were logically organized with examples of citations and Koans for interpretation were given. As Dr Susan mentioned that Dongshan, a devoted man to god was picked by anger when he saw one of his monks scattering grains. Moreover feeling angry is a universal human phenomenon and it is as basic as feeling hungry, lonely, loving or tired. That a newborn baby cries, scrams and gets red with rage may suggest that the capacity to feel angry and respond to angry feelings is in man from birth. “When people get angry, the results are almost always negative even frightful.” (Adeniran, 1)

People demonstrate different types of anger. To supplement the different traits of human anger mentioned are people becoming serious and does not respond or act cold, some exploding like pressure cooker is hot anger, some people keep all the grudge and hatred bottled in their mind as bottled anger which can destroy our relationship with people and family members.So it came to my understanding that Dongshan an enlightened one was also attached to red thread of the earthly affairs. The Koan “ Dongshan’s heat and cold,” when it is hot, kill yourself with heat, when it is cold kill yourself with cold,” The authors ‘’ kill yourself “is as per my understanding was overcoming the uneasy feeling by embracing the difficult situation. The reaction of a dinosaur lashing out its tail in anger was a magnificent example for human beings because of its distance between brain and its tail .This teaches us that we must not react and explode like a bomb but analyze, see the consequences and remain subtle so the troubles will go away saving us and people around us. I agree with Dr Susan when the human dream of perfecting itself poses great dangers to millions of lives. For example wars in some countries like Iraq, Syria over politics and religions killed millions of innocent people in their country and some seek to take refuge in western countries. This ideology on” no self, no thing” is a fantastic example and theme to educate people to practice meditation and devotion to God and chantings. Therefore I would recommend this book “Red Thread Zen to enlighten our mind and mindfulness and provide peace and harmony in our working place and family.

In conclusion Dongshan’s anger displaying human characteristics was a reminder to us that we are entangled in red thread. Dogen four simple virtues of a bodhisattva namely giving. Using loving words. completely forgetting the self . living by helping others are applicable to all human beings. The overall strengths of this section of book was enriching with examples, citations to make the readers clear what was presented and what learning we are going to inherit from this article.