The account of Bodhidharma’s meeting with Emperor Wu, the first case in The Blue Cliff Record, is one of those koans to which I return again and again. For me, this koan is particularly inexhaustible because it is really itself a collection of koans. I have returned repeatedly to the moment in which Wu asks, “Who are you?” and Bodhidharma replies, “Don’t know.” I am drawn to the paradox of names and writing about this for a few years. I imagine a book which at the moment I’m calling, What’s in a Name? wondering if it will ever be finished.
Today I am drawn to an earlier moment in the koan: The emperor points to the monks and the monasteries which he supports and the stupas which he’s built. “How much merit have I earned?” he asks proudly. Bodhidharma, with his famous economy of words, replies, “No merit.”
No merit. It was an idea to which I was introduced when I arrived at ZCNY, where our chanting always included a dedication of the merits of our practice to our ancestors and teachers and to all who suffer. I liked the selflessness of giving away the merit. I loved the metaphor with which Bernie explained the practice. We can’t hold onto our merit, can’t accumulate merit. It won’t keep. It will rot. Merit has a very short shelf life.
The problem was that I didn’t really grok “merit.” I loved the idea of giving it up, perhaps because I was giving away nothing. This koan moment takes me much deeper when I say “credit” instead of “merit.” I appreciate the hunger for credit. I’ve had the experience of letting go of credit, the wonder of it, and I have still the experience of grasping for credit.
We built a network of charter schools on Staten Island which brought to the societal table students who were among the most rejected, students living with mental illnesses, labelled and shoved into the shadows. Most of our students were living as well with the stigmata of race and poverty. Almost from the moment that we began this work the help and support which we needed began to arrive, often from the most unexpected places. It was clear to me then that the charter school project was aligned with the Universe in a way that some of our other ideas hadn’t been. I thought we’d had some wonderful ideas for projects, for instance for a hospice for people living with mental illnesses who were dying of cancer and other diseases. The hospice idea went nowhere.
It still wasn’t easy – it took us three years to get our first charter; our first two applications were rejected – but the support from the Universe kept growing. When we needed something, inevitably someone came forward with the desired help. It was a privilege for me to find myself playing a central role in this effort. I’d opted for early retirement from my civil service in order to find out where this Peacemaker path would take me. And it was an amazing journey.
When we received our first charter and the following September opened our first school, so many people were coming up to me, congratulating me, “You must be very proud of what you’ve accomplished.” I would try to explain that I hadn’t really done it; I’d had the privilege of channeling the energy of the Universe. I was speaking from the heart. I was channeling my inner Bodhidharma, “No merit.”
People looked at me like I was crazy, like I was some sort of new age weirdo. I learned to smile and say, “Thank you.” But I knew, I really knew that I hadn’t done it. And that was a wonderful feeling.
We opened three more schools. By the time I retired a second time, we were serving 1500 students. Students who would otherwise have dropped out were graduating from high school and going onto college. I’m still running into parents here on Staten Island who recognize me, who introduce themselves and tell me how their kids are doing, who’s in law school, who’s in medical school, who’s working for the fire department. “Thank you,” they say, and I thank them for the opportunity they gave me. I thank them for their appreciation. I tell everyone that it was a team effort.
I got a little piece of this from Bear Bryant, the Alabama football coach. His place in my iconography is assured by having coached Joe Namath in college. Broadway Joe and the Jets brought the first Superbowl to New York. I know where I was, the room I was in, the people I was watching that game with on a sunny Queens afternoon. Bryant’s advice on leadership sounds to me a bit like a spin on Bodhidharma: "If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it." No merit. No credit.
Does all this mean that I don’t crave credit, that there isn’t inside me a voice that’s just as needy greedy as ever? There’s an academic service online which emails me every time my work is cited in a scholarly journal. Do you think I don’t get a kick out of it when an article I wrote in the 80’s is cited in a current publication? I love it. I can’t believe it. Did someone actually read something that I wrote almost 40 years ago?
Do you think this is silly? Listen to this. I get up in the morning and come downstairs to put up the coffee and there’s a bunch of dishes in the sink. I do the dishes. When Dee comes down, what do you think I do? I ask her, “Did you notice that I did the dishes?” Who am I? Do you think I’m channeling my inner Bodhidharma? I don’t think so. It sounds to me like my inner Wu.
I love this koan. I don’t think I’ll ever be done with it.
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