Eat or Be Eaten: A Dharma-Talk of sorts… (Recovery)
anthologie once asked me what was up with the cannibalism thing, anyway, and I suppose she can’t be the only one who’s wondered. Consider this an attempt at a short essay on the subject.
The Oldest Worship
Once upon a time (when we all lived in The Forest, and no one lived anywhere else), the Powers walked with people, and even as people. This was before we all got much too smart for our own good, and learned so much that we forgot what we knew. The Powers could even be enticed, under certain circumstances and at certain times, to become particular people.
And then we ate ‘em.
We are what we eat, and what we eat is us. If we eat Power, we become Power. But the Power also becomes us, and, thus, is never fully in our control. Once upon a time (when we all lived in The Forest, and no one lived anywhere else), the great cats ate men, and the men grew inside them.much too smart for that now, for better or for worse. Consider John Barleycorn: life for life, the life of a man becomes the life of the field, and each reflects the other. Consider the Eucharist, the Body and the Blood: life for life, the life of a god becomes the life of men, and each, again, reflects the other.
In theory, anyway.
Better Living Through Self-Destruction
The Tibetan rite of chöd (gÇod or “cutting”) is also interesting in this connection. The initiate goes to a graveyard with his skull-drum, his phurba, and his thigh-bone trumpet and invokes the Powers, dark and bright, thereby and invites them to take whatever there is of him. He sends his mind-essence away, into the sky, and comes back down as a dakini with a big honkin’ knife and splits his remains from stem to stern, five different ways. His skin is hung up to dry, his skull is made into a cup filled with his brains, nerves, sinews and marrow—which transmute into healing amrita and are offered back to the Powers and to all beings: the White Offering.
He offers his blood, flesh, organs and bones to any who hunger: the Red Offering.
His skin is cut into pieces and becomes gold, jewels, silks, Ferraris, DVDs and front-row seats for Tori Amos, too, I suppose, whatever, offered to any who desire: the Manifold Offering.
And he’s all gone. What’s left?
(The dakini—which ain’t “you”—in case you were stumped, but that’s a different story…)
Cannibalizing the Cannibals
Everything that we are comes from someplace (or somebody) else. This is true even of most of our thoughts. And without all that we take, all that we are given, we could not survive, we could not even exist in the first place.
In the same way, we constantly give away what we are and become other things, whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not. Just for starts, we are an all-you-can-eat open-24-hours-a-day buffet for parasites, bugs and bacteria, and they\’ll get us in the end, and after the end. Everything eats food, everything is food. You can try to choose not to be the food of something (or someone) in particular, but something (or someone) is going to eat you in time. It’s inescapable.
But turnabout is always fair play.
Ask yourself, regularly, “What’s eating you?” And watch your diet.
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