TAKING YOUR HANDS OFF THE ELEPHANT

Dennis Travers

There is an old and well known parable about a group of blind men trying to describe an elephant. Each has his hands on a different part of the immense animal. The elephant is described variously as, “like a long hose”, “like a tree trunk”, “like a wall” depending on the particular spot on the elephant being touched. There is a lot of discussion about the true nature of the beast. Even if the men move around on the elephant forever they will never grasp the Whole because they are so limited in their perception. Their understanding of the Reality of the Elephant will grow but it will never be complete.

Even if the men gained their sight they could not see inside the elephant much less know its infinity. The same would apply if they were contemplating a grain of sand.

I have had my hands on the elephant most of my life, moving around it, talking about it with others, meditating on it. I have found no words, no concepts, no complicated dogma that provide more than another limited, discreet intellectual insight. Often this mental struggle to know the Whole Elephant can impede spiritual growth. Sometimes the words and conceptualizations get in the way. The realization came that exploring the elephant, relying on the limited power of the self, while it is interesting and fosters understanding, will go on for-ever.

I think Shinran found the same impasse. He is telling me to do, what is at once, the hardest and easiest thing- to take my hands off the elephant. To make that final, most difficult leap of faith- to Trust- that the Universe is friendly, that the inconceivable Other Power of Amida has flowed through me and around me forever, that I am, indeed, already free and already saved.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” - Marcel Proust -

In Gassho,

Dennis Travers