It’s coming up to the birth and death dates of my ‘root guru.’ I mean, he’d be amused at the idea of being someone’s root guru, but there’s no doubt that Douglas Harding was the one who introduced me to the reality of the vast space of Buddha-Mind. There ought to be some way to say how important such a person is to one’s life.

Anyhow, Douglas was born 12 February 1909 and died 11 January 2007. Innumerable people throughout the world are in his debt. This and the coming posts are revisions of an essay published decades ago, called No-Head Zen. I dedicate what goodness there may be in this, to his memory.

∞

“A man of old tells us that Yojnadatta thought he had lost his head and went looking for it, but once he had put a stop to his seeking mind, he found he was perfectly all right.” – Tang Dynasty Ch’an Master Lin Chi

Case: Sword in hand, the Emperor of the Tan Kingdom interrogates the twenty-fourth Ancestral Teacher: “Are you clear about the emptiness of the five skandhas (aggregates) ?”
“Yes,” replies the teacher.
“Have you crossed over birth and death?”
“Yes,” he replies.
“Can you give me your head?”
“This body does not belong to me, how much less my head?”
The Emperor beheads him. White milk gushes from the severed head. The Emperor’s arm falls.
– 13th Century Vietnamese Zen master, Tran Thai Tong.

In 1979 I was in England to attend a week’s talks by Krishnamurti, at Brockwood; so, I made sure that after the talks I would have time to contact Douglas Harding, the author of On Having No Head. Four years before, his book had irrevocably changed my life. Suddenly, while reading it, I could no longer find my familiar knowing-self, the self of body and mind. ‘I’ wasn’t to be found, anywhere.

It wasn’t all joy, though: ‘Who the hell am I?’, I asked, with more cogency than ever. Leaving a river in Australia, I went looking for water in England – accompanied by an enduring experience of a Source-who-sees-but-can’t-be-seen.

After leaving Brockwood, I enquired at the Buddhist Society of London, and there I found a man who obliged me with Douglas’ home phone number (he lives north of London, in Suffolk). The gentleman gave it to me with a superior smirk and the comment that, ‘You know, of course, that he’s a bit eccentric. It’s not true Zen, this On Having No Head stuff!’ He chuckled over a few more discouraging words, designed to give me a clear message that Douglas wasn’t to be taken seriously by true Buddhists.

I thanked him, and off I went. I made contact with Douglas and stayed with him overnight at his home in Nacton, doing some of his simple and powerful ‘experiments,’ looking directly into ‘This’ – looking into who we truly are. The next day I went walking in the peaceful Suffolk countryside, marvelling at the luminous shining world, and then went back to London, soon to go home to Australia – a blinking dhamma-eye half open, maybe, but at least turned in the right direction.

Many years later, Douglas came to Australia and I went to his Sydney workshop. Before I went, I mentioned the workshop to a long-time Zen student and his reaction was the same as the man at the London Buddhist Society – that is, condescension. It was, to him – all an amusing irrelevancy – and “not real Zen.”

So, what is Douglas’ approach to the Great Matter? Douglas Harding’s ‘Zen’ may not be orthodox, but it is consistent with the essential teachings of the Ch’an masters. Mind you, mere traditional consistency was not the point of Douglas’ sharing of his discovery, nor his sharing in the particular way that he did – via his ‘experiments.’

He generously shared his understanding of the essential matter of who we really are for no other reason than: He couldn’t have not shared it. He lived out of that presence which is the ground of all sentience. And, that ground couldn’t have him do it any other way than his own way. Douglas Harding was authenticity plus.

I would like to explore what his ‘Seeing’ practice does, and examine the consistency of Douglas’ written communication with the teachings of ‘Zen’ Buddhist teachers, and the Ch’an Masters. Douglas wrote several very practical books, after On Having No Head; but here I’ll quote that small, early work. In it, he says:

The best day of my life – my rebirthday, so to speak – was when I found that I have no head. This is not a literary gambit, a witticism designed to arouse interest at any cost. I mean it in all seriousness: I have no head.

∞

Continued tomorrow…