The Fireplace Records, Chapter 32
Skeleton's Don't Stand Up
One September day, I was enjoying my morning walk in the Kith of my suburban neighborhood. It was late in the month, nearing Mabon, the Autumnal Equinox. I passed a home where Halloween decorations were set up attractively in the front yard. There were plastic skeletons, pumpkins, a scythe, ghouls, gravestones, and wee-folk statues, etc. Flimsy ghosts hung from ropes. I stopped and stared for awhile.
The skeleton was propped up so as to be standing with one arm upraised. I pondered this position. Real skeletons are always the final remains of lying down dead animals; they don't stand up and wave to us.
Are our Halloween characters and symbols a way of challenging death, spitting on our fears, laughing in the face of death, making fun of death; or, honoring the dying and dead?
We imagine and invent all kinds of scary monsters: ghosts, ghouls, demons, devils, Big Foots, UFO aliens, gremlins ... We pretend they exist, we search for them, we fear them. We also delight in being safely afraid as with horror films and with televised specials about vampires, the walking-dead, devils, and hundreds of X-Files searches. We fear death and destruction, and delight in inventions and fictions that represent that outcome. Real threats like cancer, heart disease, earthquakes, floods, landslides, famines, and wildfires seldom have a projected Face, and are not often personified nowadays. The ancient Pagans did have many gods and goddesses that personified nature's destructive forces. Some Christians nowadays often say that God caused a flood or disaster because American society tolerates homosexuals or atheists and, therefore, everyone deserves punishment.
There are not many Zen Koans dealing with scary supernatural beings. Just a few: a monk reincarnated as a fox (GB 2), a monstrous serpent in a cave (SAM 37, SAM 24), an evil underworld badger (SAM 47), a hearth spirit (OM 31), an turtle-nosed snake (ZE 34), a blood-sucking toad (SAM 34), a doppelganger nun (GB 35), demons (OM 3, OM 15). Sometimes, a Zen priest is called to exorcise the evil creature, but they don't seem willing to get involved.
The Zen Masters often play along with folk superstitious, like Father Don Manuel in Miguel de Unamuno's novella "Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr." The priest plays the role of a Catholic believer so as to reduce the suffering and provide some harmless contentment for his appreciative and adoring peasant parishioners. But Father Don Manuel does not really believe in an after-life, Catholic dogmas, or supernatural beings. Like the Buddha, reducing suffering is the primary goal of his actions in the world.
Comments, Sources, Observations
Our primitive fears of the darkness of the night often breeds imaginary creatures.
X-Files actors often find themselves with flashlights in the dark.
Fictions are often fun, but still fictions.
Some people believe that Harry Potter is a real person, existing.
Pretending is essential to Play.
Subject Index to 1,975 Zen Buddhist Koans Look under the subject headings of "supernatural beings," "demons," or "snakes."
Meetings with Master Chang San-Feng
One Old Taoist Druid's Journey Plenty of Animal Spirits and Wee-Folk Discussed.
Refer to my Cloud Hands Blog Posts on the topic of Koans/Stories.
Subject Index to 1,975 Zen Buddhist Koans
Zen Buddhist Koans: Indexes, Bibliography, Commentary, Information
The Daodejing by Laozi
Pulling Onions Over 1,043 One-line Sayings by Mike Garofalo
Chinese Chan Buddhist and Taoist Stories and Koans
The Fireplace Records By Michael P. Garofalo
More like a UFO Alien than a Skeleton
You get the idea: darkness, fear, evil
