unity (the white and black dots on the opposite-colored fields, and
　　　　  the fact that the black and white halves are contained within a
　　　　  single circle). Concepts which our western culture has taught as
　　　　  distinct, separate entities, even down to simple matters like Hot
　　　　  and Cold, are in reality both two and one: two in the sense that
　　　　  they are not, in our usual frame of reference, conceptualized as
　　　　  "the same," and from a causal framework, it is generally easier to
　　　　  think of them as separate or polar opposites, and one in the sense
　　　　  that it is only our mental activity -- our consciousness -- which
　　　　  separates them. As Kasulis puts it, the Zen master's teachings are
　　　　  usually aimed at making explicit "the relativity of all
　　　　  conceptualizations -- even those which constitute the doctrines of
　　　　  the Buddhist tradition itself" (Kasulis 13). Under this radical
　　　　  relativity, even Buddhism's own teachings ultimately must be
　　　　  secondary to immediate experience -- a point which we will find is
　　　　  also important to Ohio Impromptu.
　　　　  (23) Deshimaru, 4. See note 8.
　　　　  (24) Samuel Beckett, Rockaby, in The Collected Shorter Plays of
　　　　  Samuel Beckett (New York, 1984), 278.
　　　　  (25) A Westerner, D.E. Harding, who "found" Zen through an
　　　　  accidental encounter with the enlightened state, speaks in words
　　　　  which sound as if they could have come from the "worn volume" when
　　　　  he describes his experience: "What... happened was something
　　　　  absurdly simple... . For once, words really failed me. I forgot my
　　　　  name, my humanness, my thingness, all that could be called me or
　　　　  mine.... It was as if I had been born that instant, brand new,
　　　　  mindless, innocent of all memories" (D.E. Harding, On Having No
　　　　  Head: Zen and the Re-Discovery of the Obvious (Boston, 1986), 1-2.
　　　　  In other words, he found himself free from the mental grid within
　　　　  which we normally try to force the ever changing world, and became
　　　　  one with everything as his "I-ness" dropped away. As Harding puts
　　　　  it, he was still himself, but he was no longer himSelf. What seems a
　　　　  complex paradox to the logical, conscious mind, is, as Harding says,
　　　　  "absurdly simple" when the forebrain stops trying to figure it out.
　　　　  The listener and the reader are two and they are one; it is that
　　　　  complex -- and that simple.
　　　　  (26) Doll, 50. See note 14.
　　　　  (27) Houston Smith, Introduction to D.E. Harding, On Having No Head:
　　　　  Zen and the Re-Discovery of the Obvious (Boston, 1986), vii.