by JD of Two Knotty Boys ©2008
Two monks arrived at a torrential river. At the river’s edge stood a woman anxiously watching the water pass before her.
“I didn’t think the river would rise so fast,” the woman commented anxiously to the monks. “Now I have no way of getting across.”
Without hesitation one of the monks picked up the woman, slung her over a shoulder and walked her across the river, setting her down on the other side.
A look of shock flashed across the face of the other monk as he watched on from a distance. The helpful monk waved goodbye to the woman, crossed the river once again and returned to the other monk’s side. From there the two monks walked off together.
As the monks walked side-by-side the helpful monk whistled, while the others monk’s face grew red with increasing anger until he suddenly exclaimed, “You do realize by touching that woman you broke our monastic rules?”
“I do,” the helpful monk calmly replied. “But I set her down on the other side of the river and you’re still holding on to her.”
– – –
The parable of the two monks illustrates the fundamental difference between those who seek insight and mastery though rational creeds or revealed scriptures, and those who seek insight through direct experience and compassionate response. That is, there are those who hold tight to ritual and protocol and feel a sense of wrongness the more they or another diverge from a pre-described way; and there are those whose ways are more flexible, more attuned to the moment and the needs of the now. These latter people might be said to be more Zen. And, when these same people express their nature in the context of a sensual rope bondage exchange, it could further be said they exhibit the way of a Zen rope master.
If I were to present a suitable and accurate explanation of Zen I would gather all those who were interested into a classroom, stand quietly behind a podium for five minutes and then leave. Doing so would not, as it might first appear, be an effort to conceal or confuse the meaning of Zen. It would merely constitute a more direct exposition of what is meant by Zen, an example that would surpass a verbal treatise on the subject. Nevertheless, I’m unable to do such a thing and if I was, most would feel cheated by such an experience, so I present the following brief explanation of Zen as a means of achieving sensual dominance, mastery of rope and connection with others.
The word Zen is the Japanese way of pronouncing the Chinese word Chán, which in turn is the Chinese way of pronouncing the Sanskrit word dhyāna; and dhyāna, regretfully, is a very difficult word to translate into English. Despite this fact, scholars have attempted to understand dhyāna by referring to it as “mediation”. But in truth it is not simply mediation. Others have called it “contemplation”, a more accurate description than meditation; still contemplation does not fully encapsulate dhyāna’s meaning either. So it is that we do not have a clear English definition of dhyāna, Chán or Zen. Nevertheless, experience provides understanding of what these terms mean, or, more specifically, what Zen is.
For example, most of us have ridden a bike. We did so as children and many of us still do so as adults. When riding a bike you are doing something, actively engaging the pedals and the handlebars, steering and looking around. You don’t think about it, you simply do it without thought regarding. You loose yourself in the riding, your hands, feet, legs and arms working in concert to achieve a course or a destination, while your mind drifts off in thought. Essentially you become one with the bike. As the bike moves, you move. Is the cyclist riding the bike or is the bike riding the cyclist? This is Zen. The same thing can be said when you have an excellent dance partner. Who leads? Who follows? When seen from a distance, two people dancing can appear to move as one, elegantly gliding and spinning across the floor. This too is Zen.
The question then becomes, how do I achieve oneness, or “Zen”, with my partner in the context of a sensual rope bondage exchange? Or, put another way, how do I achieve a dominant presence that supersedes active contemplation of my actions, so that I might tie while remaining open and present to the person I am with?
The first step toward answering these questions is to realize that your experience of the world and your relationship with others (sensual or otherwise) directly correlates to your state of mind. In short, your mind and the sensual receptivity of your partner are interdependent. Consequently, if you possess a negative mind, a mind that sees the world as a myriad of disappointments and letdowns, you will experience negative partners who disappoint and let you down. If you consider your rope skills lacking or feel practice is futile on account you’re “just not good at tying rope,” your rope skill will be lacking and practice will be futile. This will be so because your mind is so powerful, it makes it so. On the other hand, if your live your life with a positive attitude, and you recognize that your skills are a process and not a static quality. If you embrace your mind’s power to manifest all that you experience, you will see positive results to your efforts and your sensual world will transform. So it is, as difficult as it may be to accept, there are no answers “out there”. There are no gurus who can give you what you need. All your answers, all the wisdom necessary to achieve a conscious, directed and skilled dominant disposition is within you. Once you know this—not “believe” this—but know this to the core of your bones, you will possess awareness unlike any other you have known before. Awareness, through which, you will cease to be estranged from the world. And your relationship with your partner will blossom. Together you and your partner will be able to play like the skillfully dancing couple—the movements of two seen as one. Still, as I just mentioned, knowing your mind is interdependent with the sensual receptivity of your partner is only the first step toward achieving the way. There are other steps that need to be taken as well.
Letting go of your attachment to perfection is step two, and if taken, it is this step that will mark the most notable shift in your disposition. To clarify the significance of this step, imagine a rigger who arrives at a play party with his partner in hand. He is anxious to tie and show all that he has been practicing, and his partner is excited to be tied and to experience his skill. The rigger finds a station at which he can tie, a St. Andrew’s cross, and begins to work. Before long his partner is bound to the cross, but the Karada he recently learned and tied across his partner’s torso isn’t looking like the one he’d studied. It looks crooked to him and so he unties it and has a second go at it. His second attempt turns into a third and he starts to become noticeably agitated. “Why can’t I get my Karada to look like the instructor’s looked?” he grumbles under his breath as he undoes his tie and has a fourth go at it. Meanwhile his partner is growing bored and feeling ignored, and so speaks out, “It doesn’t matter. Look at me, let’s just play.” But the rigger keeps tying, unable to stop his struggle for perfection, unable to redefine his efforts as practice and, in turn, unable to connect with his partner. He is fixated on perfection and for his fixation he is distant and his partner is growing increasingly more distant from him.
The story of the obsessed rigger illustrates how perfection can become a source of suffering. To desire the achievement of an idealized tie is not to recognize the fact that so long as there is not a safety issue associated with it, all ties are ideal—even the messy ones. Letting go to a tie looking or feeling a certain way allows a rigger to experience more of their partner, more of the person they came to connect with, and potentially love. The abandonment of perfection might at first glance seem like a recipe for poor skills, for a person who will never learn or never reach an admired level of skill. The opposite is true, but such knowledge can only be realized if you take the second step…and let go of perfection.
The third step toward achieving the way is a counterpoint to letting go of your attachment to perfection. It is recognizing and refraining from habitual behaviors that sabotage your efforts or contradict your better judgment. Just like you learned as a child, to be good at something, whether it’s baseball, cooking or tying rope, you need to practice that “something” often. In the same way we become extremely good at behaviors that sabotage our lives and contradict our better judgment by repeating or practicing them often.
It’s really quite simple. The more often you repeat a behavior the better you get at that behavior. Thus it follows, the more you project negativity, frustration, loss of patience or anger, the better you will be at doing so. Because of how much you’ve practiced behaviors such as these, it takes a long time to subdue their influence on your life. Still, by remaining conscious to the triggers and the moments when you start to feel these habitual behaviors rise in your mind, you can breathe through their pull. A pull that, more often that not, leads to making matters worse, rather than better.
The fourth and final step in the process to achieving the way is compassion. Compassion, I know, may seem antithetical to a sensually dominant disposition. Still it is compassion, above and beyond all other qualities, that will solidify your link with your partner. Through compassion you will become a safe container for your partner to open up within. A place where your partner is comfortable under what, for most, might be disagreeable circumstances. Bound and immobilized, your partner must know he or she is with someone who can be trusted, someone who will stop play or untie a piece at the first sign of bad pain or when a call to end a scene occurs, someone who will stand as a watchman over their sensual process, someone who cares.
If only these four steps were easy. Truthfully, they can be. However, we resist taking them for fear of leaving the fold, for fear of embracing a perspective that is different from most. Moreover, we resist taking these steps because of our attachment to the “way things are”, the way we’ve become accustomed to reacting and behaving. There’s comfort in familiarly, even if that familiarity doesn’t serve our interests.
Still, there exists a possibility for a new way of being, a more masterful way of expressing your dominance and experiencing your rope bondage exchanges. A way through which, your sensual engagements will become understood and agreeable. Your desires will turn to choices, and you’ll be received as a safe container for others to let go completely within.
As you follow this way, others will receive your awareness as dominance, the ease with which you express your skills as mastery and the connection you experience with your partner as control. But you’ll know better, you’ll know the truth. You’ll know the way of a Zen rope master.