The World of Spiritual Parables Has Its Share of Pretentiously Silly Ones — Here, Comparing Two Such with a Genuinely Meaningful One — and a Comment about the Mistake of Taking Nonsense More Seriously than It Deserves

15 November 2013

This is not about rejecting one religion in favor of another

It is about rejecting pretentiously dumb spiritual or religious nonsense, wherever you find it, for teachings or parables that are not. The difference between the two is often immediately obvious, if we apply even weakly awakening minds.

I use three examples. One Sufi and two Zen. Two of these, as initially formulated, are crap. One is not.

Why these two religions?

Sufism (an essentially mystical subset of Islam) and Zen Buddhism both contain philosophical elements that are compatible across the world’s five major religions. Core Buddhism, especially, explicates a psychology of cognitive outlook that anyone can use.

The lesson we will reach

A parable or koan that is not tightly and realistically drawn enough to narrow our focus, fails. If the teaching does not give us a solid enough step to leap from, we tumble.

By this, I do not mean to imply that the ultimate test is the parable’s ability to appeal to everyone. Obviously, spiritual teachings are effective with different people and at different stages (if we dare use that concept) in what some call awakening.

I do mean to say that some teachings are so dumb that whatever message someone draws from them incorporates outside biases and unnecessary implications that cannot possibly have been inferred from the parable itself. And that means the teaching story in question is intellectually and spiritually illegitimate — for all people, at all stages, and all times.

Ultimately, this essay is about improving our ability to detect foolishness that has been camouflaged as elevated meaning.

Happenstance led to this essay

In search of its wiser brother, I happened across an ineffective Sufi teaching story I had first read and dismissed years ago.

I say “ineffective” because its author intentionally cheated readers with a setting that defies drawing legitimate conclusions about much of anything.

The mystery-inducing aspect of the tale is genius. But its spiritual teaching effort is so frankly asinine that it cries out for rejection, even though I have been unable to find even one thoughtful online analysis of its many failures. Not surprisingly, none of the online accounts regarding this story even bothers to try to interpret its message.

The parable is, therefore, a good example of the appealing pretentiousness, masquerading as something more admirable.

The phenomenon of meretricious parable-making abounds across all the world’s religions. It reflects what happens, when we seek to elevate our spiritual authority by creating purportedly jaw-dropping pseudo-mystery in place of actually heightened understanding.

The motive is obvious. If we don’t understand — or we do and can’t communicate it coherently — we’ll pretend that we do and can. This explains the Eastern Hemisphere’s occasional warning that we should run from anyone, who proclaims himself or herself a guru.

Here is the Sufi story that I am criticizing for its sloppy limits — with no disrespect intended to its author or to the admirable tradition that spawned it

The parable, if we can call it that, came from highly respected modern Sufi writer, Idries Shah (1924-1996).

It is called “The Ancient Coffer of Nuri Bey” and was (I think) published in his book, Tales of the Dervishes (1967) — which is still available in a Compass reprint.

Here it is, in its entirety, with appreciation to Spiritual-Short-Stories.com for having posted it:

Ancient Coffer of Nuri Bey by Idries Shah

Nuri Bey was a reflective and respected Albanian, who had married a wife much younger than himself. One evening when he had returned home earlier than usual, a faithful servant came to him and said:

"Your wife, our mistress, is acting suspiciously. She is in her apartment with a huge chest, large enough to hold a man, which belonged to your grandmother. It should contain only a few ancient embroideries. I believe that there may now be much more in it. She will not allow me, your oldest retainer, to look inside."

Nuri went to his wife's room, and found her sitting disconsolately beside the massive wooden box. "Will you show me what is in the chest?" he asked.

"Because of the suspicion of a servant, or because you do not trust me?"

"Would it not be easier to just open it, without thinking about the undertones?" asked Nuri.

"I do not think it is possible."

"Is it locked?"

"Yes."

"Where is the key?"

She held it up, "Dismiss the servant and I will give it to you."

The servant was dismissed. The woman handed over the key and herself withdrew, obviously troubled in mind.

Nuri Bey thought for a long time. Then he called four gardeners from his estate. Together they carried the chest by night unopened to a distant part of the grounds and buried it.

The matter was never referred to again.

“Cool story, Pete — what’s wrong with using it for teaching purposes?”

It lacks the factual detail necessary to constitute soundly implied spiritual direction.

While the story is both attention-grabbing and thought-inducing — in the way that a good Zen koan is — its substance points in morally indefensible directions, depending upon what we are compelled to infer into its factual setup.

Unlike a competent koan, which forces your conceptual mind to drop completely, this parable encourages the conceptual mind to invent “stuff” to bring into the story, so as to have it make any guiding sense at all.

“The Ancient Coffer of Nuri Bey” is an unanswerable “who done what” — instead of a signpost pointing toward something the student is forced to contemplate, on the fullness of its own terms.

My criticism detailed — from one of many possible perspectives

The most obvious level of the parable addresses marital relationships.

It says something about the status of Islam’s sexes, which, from American eyes, does not favor women. Apparently, a husband can do whatever he wants with his wife’s inherited belongings and her privacy.

Because I consider how a society treats women and children to be one the foremost indicators of a civilization’s spiritual development, I cannot say that “Coffer” contributes anything spiritually worthwhile to modernity — even in its purportedly temperate (for Islam) approach to dealing with the wife’s suspected, but unproven, infidelity.

If we are moral relativists, I suppose the intra-cultural temperateness of the story might fly, spiritually. But I’m not, and it doesn’t.

A more glaring weakness lies in the fact that we have to infer what is inside the chest, in order to extract a meaningful moral lesson at any level

That is parable-creation problem that I am most concerned with. You don’t want your readers having too much room to maneuver in, thereby allowing them to go off in moral directions that you would prefer they not.

In “Coffer”, we have four exceedingly obvious basic choices. The chest might contain:

(a) the wife’s forbidden lover

(b) something that indicates ties to a forbidden thing

(d) nothing at all — meaning that the exercise is the way that the wife tests her husband’s trust

Notice that author Idries Shah nowhere mentions how heavy the chest is, despite the fact that the men picked it up. Empty bulk alone could account for needing five people to carry it to the garden.

The moral of “Coffer” is probably that an honorable husband will not pry into his wife’s privacy, but he will prevent her from dishonoring him and herself by removing her from further temptation, somewhat like one might a child.

The modern day spiritual problem with this parable lies in the fact that the husband’s behavior may have killed someone, depending on what facts we infer at their absence’s invitation. So, we have to presume that it is okay to kill a cheating wife’s lover in Islam.

We don’t have choice in this regard, even if Idries Shah didn’t mean that, because the servant has indicated that the chest is large enough to contain a man. Because the story ends without resolution, there is no penalty, or implied retribution, for murder.

Alternatively, the husband may “only” have deprived his wife of meaningful treasures that had nothing to do with dishonor — unless one makes the morally absurd jump into thinking that a wife cannot have any material privacies, as against her husband, without dishonoring him or herself.

From a Western perspective, any ethical or spiritual meaning that we attribute to this Sufi story is misogynistic.

The tale’s teaching about the wisdom of leaving wife’s “privacy-in-the-abstract” alone, in that Nuri Bey did not satisfy his curiosity by opening the chest, is so affected by the brutality of his solution, that the parable takes on anti-humanitarian carnage that the Old Testament offensively subscribes to.

Keep in mind that Shah probably wrote this parable in the 1960s.

Compare a similarly inefficient Zen koan — one hand clapping

I add the following, probably mistranslated, Zen nonsense to demonstrate that I am not picking on Islam:

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Superficially, we might go, “Ooooh, deep.”

But actually, this particular formulation of the famous koan is a stupid one, when evaluated in light of what koans are intended to do.

Koans’ mission is superbly described by the Encyclopedia Britannica:

koan, Japanese Kōan,

in Zen Buddhism of Japan, a succinct paradoxical statement or question used as a meditation discipline for novices, particularly in the Rinzai sect.

The effort to “solve” a koan is intended to exhaust the analytic intellect and the egoistic will, readying the mind to entertain an appropriate response on the intuitive level.

Each such exercise constitutes both a communication of some aspect of Zen experience and a test of the novice’s competence.

My objection to above “one hand clapping” phrasing is that the posed question does have a rational answer for most of the people likely to try to solve it:

In the days before sound amplification, the literal answer was “none,” at least for those without unusually acute hearing.

Today, it would become a description of whatever one heard, with whatever technological device one applied to the investigation.

The problem is that the koan, as it is worded here, does not encourage the materialists among us to go beyond the limitations of our analytical minds. The teaching fails in its mission.

However, a reformulated “one hand clapping” koan — works

Encyclopedia Britannica properly communicates the “one hand clapping” koan in a way that communicates exactly what its masters intended it to do:

When both hands are clapped a sound is produced; listen to the sound of one hand clapping.

This reformulated version has the student trying to hear — “listen” to — a sound that is not there. The student’s attention has been successfully redirected to the context in which the action takes place.

This works because of the changed language:

“What is the sound” is a generic question that invites a materialistic answer via scientific investigation.

“Listen to the sound” intuitively invites us to recognize that the teacher is trying to focus our attention on something that he or she already knows is not there.

Why does this subtle diversion of focus work?

Because you can listen for something that is not there.

Listening becomes both action and investigation. In contrast to describing an essentially inactive “what” — we are instead trying to listen. Which is exactly the absorbing process the teacher intended us to focus on.

With this reworded koan, our conceptual analytical intelligence is diverted away from our reflexive and conceptually remembered sound of two hands clapping — to the “action in stillness” phenomenon that is Zen’s primary focus.

The Britannica’s reformulated version works. And it has no conceptually encapsulated answer. Mission accomplished.

A Buddhist parable that communicates a teaching, without being reformulated

The following example underscores my objections to the Idries Khan’s marital story. Spiritual parables only work, when the manner of telling either:

(a) confines recipients’ options, regarding how to properly interpret them

(b) focuses us on a process that itself may open us up to truth.

The following is an example of a parable that does both of these.

It is a rendition of a traditional Buddhist (or Taoist) teaching — my appreciation to RainbowBody.com for posting it online in close to its most accepted form:

The Farmer's Son: Fortune or Misfortune?

One day in late summer, an old farmer was working in his field with his old sick horse. The farmer felt compassion for the horse and desired to lift its burden. So he left his horse loose to go the mountains and live out the rest of its life.

Soon after, neighbors from the nearby village visited, offering their condolences and said, "What a shame. Now your only horse is gone. How unfortunate you are! You must be very sad. How will you live, work the land, and prosper?"

The farmer replied: "Who knows? We shall see.”

Two days later the old horse came back now rejuvenated after meandering in the mountainsides while eating the wild grasses. He came back with twelve new younger and healthy horses which followed the old horse into the corral.

Word got out in the village of the old farmer's good fortune and it wasn't long before people stopped by to congratulate the farmer on his good luck. "How fortunate you are!" they exclaimed. You must be very happy!"

Again, the farmer softly said, "Who knows? We shall see."

At daybreak on the next morning, the farmer's only son set off to attempt to train the new wild horses, but the farmer's son was thrown to the ground and broke his leg. One by one villagers arrived during the day to bemoan the farmer's latest misfortune. "Oh, what a tragedy! Your son won't be able to help you farm with a broken leg. You'll have to do all the work yourself, How will you survive? You must be very sad," they said.

Calmly going about his usual business the farmer answered, "Who knows? We shall see."

Several days later a war broke out. The Emperor's men arrived in the village demanding that young men come with them to be conscripted into the Emperor's army. As it happened the farmer's son was deemed unfit because of his broken leg. "What very good fortune you have!!" the villagers exclaimed as their own young sons were marched away. "You must be very happy."

"Who knows? We shall see!" replied the old farmer as he headed off to work his field alone.

As time went on the broken leg healed but the son was left with a slight limp. Again the neighbors came to pay their condolences. "Oh what bad luck. Too bad for you!”

But the old farmer simply replied; "Who knows? We shall see."

As it turned out the other young village boys had died in the war and the old farmer and his son were the only able bodied men capable of working the village lands. The old farmer became wealthy and was very generous to the villagers. They said: "Oh how fortunate we are, you must be very happy."

To which the old farmer replied, "Who knows? We shall see!"

There is only one way to interpret this parable — “Who knows, we shall see.”

Ordinary human experience confirms the farmer’s perspective. The parable’s experiential accuracy points to the quintessentially Buddhist (especially Zen) perspective that our judgments on good and bad are misguided.

At a deeper level, the story implies that joy and pain are essentially the same thing. Or, for more concrete minds, that joy and pain alternate on an inescapable continuum that denies our attachments to one over the other.

At its deepest level, which virtually everyone misses, the parable points to the silence — usually called emptiness by Buddhists — that Life’s play is acted both within and from.

At this depth, the teaching intuitively creeps into non-dualism (or non-duality), sometimes called or attributed to Advaita Vedanta, a category of Hindu philosophy.

Pertinent caveat

Most Western writings on non-duality are gibberish, simply because it is impossible to operate at this level of Eastern Hemisphere understanding by using concepts any kind.

Awakening itself is the teaching.

With its hidden, yet obvious depths, “Farmer’s Son” is an exceptionally able parable.

A comment regarding spiritual foolishness

Life is mysterious. Even to those of us who see it predominantly in scientific ways.

Because I have clay feet in both the rational and spiritual camps, I relate to the struggles people have communicating their understanding regarding what’s true. On the other hand, I get impatient with alleged insights that ignore weighty contrary evidence and substitute unreasoning faith as a reason to “believe.”

Let’s apply these biases to Idries Shah’s “Coffer” parable.

The parable’s misogynist slant is unmistakable — even in the complete absence of any evidence that men should have the right to enslave or constrain women. On rational grounds, misogyny is indefensible.

In fact, I would go so far as to indicate that the weight of evidence these days tends to demonstrate that women are superior to men. One could make an arguable case that they should constrain men’s propensity for causing trouble all over the planet.

Second, as I’ve said, there is no spiritual merit in leaving readers completely confused as to what the parable’s message actually was.

Tossing mystery onto Mystery advances nothing. Failing to narrow our attention into vaguely bounded “avenues of seeking” might make sense, provided that the parable’s details lead to intellectually defensible spiritual conclusions. None of the “Coffer” story’s do.

Last, Indries Shah might have defended his tale by saying that he just wanted people to think about a hypothetical regarding marriage and privacy. So, he came up with an implied tale of murder and female subjugation to illustrate some hidden point that he was reluctant to define, in a way that a normal person might see it.

Here, given the world’s inclination toward voluminous suffering, I hardly see any merit in “hypotheticalizing” more of the same, without accompanying glimpses of the route in which we should, more favorably, proceed.

That’s why I think the “Coffer” story is foolishness.

Despite this obvious negative attribute, I was unable to find a single online reference to the “Ancient Coffer of Nuri Bey” that plumbs its ridiculousness according to Western standards.

And I did not find any thoughtful Islamic ones, either. Which may only indicate that our Americanized Internet doesn’t pay much attention to Islamic philosophy.

Could the “Coffer” story be reworded into a more spiritually competent parable?

Absolutely. Try my version:

The Doorway Not Entered

Fred came home one afternoon. His wife, Gertrude May, had not yet come home from work. The door to her study was open.

Fred noticed that there was long, large and decoratively painted box on the floor of Gertrude’s den. He recalled that he had once seen it, just after they were married. At the time, she had rebuffed his request to look inside.

“It was my grandmother’s. It’s private,” was all she had said.

After that, the crate, or whatever it was, had disappeared from view. Fred assumed that Gertrude-May’s son, Andrew, from her prior marriage, had helped her move it.

Fred lingered, now, at the den’s door — tempted to see for himself what was inside the decorated box. His wife was a woman of many silences and leaps of intellect that sometimes he could not follow. Fred’s friends sometimes teased him that he was not in her class, and only God knew what she was doing behind his back. “Her history, you know,” they said.

After a seemingly long time, surrounded by the house’s stillness, Fred pulled the door shut, never having entered the room.

He never told Gertrude May that he had seen the box again.

They stayed married, apparently content, until he died twenty years later.

At the funeral, one of Fred’s friends told Gertrude-May, “He loved you with all his heart, you know.”

And Gertrude-May said back, “I know.” There were tears in her eyes.

Worded this way, the parable implies only one spiritual conclusion — Love grants the Other the room and privacy to be.

The moral? — Fools and spiritual understanding are soon parted, and . . .

One can recognize a decent parable by the direction it points us. We need not abandon rational mind or mundane personal experience.

Our lives measure parables’ worth. Immediately and always.

This is why competent Sufi and Buddhist tales are so emotionally powerful. They cross religions to connect us with ourselves and whatever power or Deity we bloom toward.

PeteFree.com

The World of Spiritual Parables Has Its Share of Pretentiously Silly Ones — Here, Comparing Two Such with a Genuinely Meaningful One — and a Comment about the Mistake of Taking Nonsense More Seriously than It Deserves