The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky: The Creator of El Topo

4. A Step in the Void

“This is a sacred place,” moaned the shepherd.

“So much the better. The silence will make the bullet even louder.”

SILVER KANE, ¡NO HABRÁ TIROS!

(THERE WILL BE NO GUNSHOTS!)

Ejo received me with a small bow. “Leonora has put you on the very top of the highest mast. What will you do to go farther?”

I was so angry that I could feel the blood rising to my face. I replied: “With lowered head, I will descend until I reach the ground.”

In Japanese style, he hesitated between approval and disapproval. “Your answer would be correct if you had the impression that your climb up the mast was an illusory quest. You would be thinking: ‘There is no beyond; all that is must be here.’ But what is the true nature of this here? Is not the world an illusion? On the other hand, at the extreme pinnacle of the mast, where the thinkable dissolves into the unthinkable, if you were afraid of the darkness of the soul and therefore came back down, then you deserve several blows from my stick.”

“Ejo, stop playing cat and mouse with me and tell me right now how your own teachers would reply!”

“They would say: ‘In order to advance, I take one more step, into the void.’ They dare to climb farther, they risk entering the unknown, where there is no measure or signpost, where the I is erased, where consciousness raises itself over the world without trying to change it in order to perceive that which is beyond words. There, you have no more definitions; you have nothing. You are only what you are without asking what you are, without comparing yourself to anything, without judging yourself, without any need for honor. Do you understand?”

Sarcastically, I answered, “Yes, I understand, Ejo! My true, eternal, infinite being knows everything! My numberless pockets are full. I need nothing!”

To calm me, the monk had me kneel and gave me three blows on each shoulder blade. Then, in a gesture of false modesty, I joined my hands and bowed. He groaned.

“Well, because that’s the way it is, resolve this koan: What will you do to extinguish a lamp that is six hundred miles away?”

After anxious concentration, this response came to me: “I will reach out with an arm that’s six hundred miles long!”

I could not tell whether it was with pity or with contempt that he looked at me. “You think you understand. You are clever, but you are blinded by ambition. With that response, you imply that your mind has no limits, that it can attain the infinite — but you do not see that you have put the lamp outside yourself. You think it, but you are not it!”

I now saw my error and was ashamed. “What does the book say?”

“‘Without a word, the disciple raised one hand, twirling his thumb and fingers to imitate a flame. Then he blew on it and put out the flame.’ There is no distance. The lamp is his thought. When he extinguishes it, he awakens.”

“There is still something I don’t understand: Why should I extinguish a lamp that for me is the symbol of knowledge and tradition?”

“Symbols have no fixed meaning; they change according to the level of consciousness of whoever contemplates them and the cultural context in which they appear. The lamp we are speaking of here is not carried by a Buddha. It is burning away in a faraway room where there is no one to put it out. It is a waste of fuel. The wisdom that you call ‘tradition’ is far from your essence. It shines without illuminating anything in you. If you are the fathomless night, you need no theories to illuminate you. These so-called teachings only corrupt your darkness. In your cultivation of erudition, you stretch your arm six hundred miles, which takes you farther away from your center. The intellect that burns with a useless flame and does not know how to extinguish itself is constructed of definitions born of the fear of the unthinkable. This is precisely what the following koan refers to: ‘A prostitute saved a spirit from the world of suffering by filling a vessel of water and then removing her necklaces and bracelets and plunging them in the water.’ And you — how would you save this spirit? Answer!”

“The answer seems obvious, Ejo. I would save it by removing my own ornaments: ambitious thoughts, vain emotions, useless luxuries, self-indulgent definitions, display of my medals and diplomas. .”

“Enough! Once again, you stir up the surface, thinking you are reaching the depths. Now listen to the traditional answer: The disciple took on the anguished expression of the spirit, and joining his hands, he begged: ‘Please save me!’ The spirit that the prostitute sees is her own. Because she is all decked out to conquer her clients, she rids herself of her jewelry and throws it into the water, which reflects her own face. In separating herself from her jewels in this way, she sees that they are like the reflection. She abandons her desires and sees the uselessness of seduction, and her illusory individuality disappears. .

“When the Buddha saw the present as the world of suffering in which the ego is trapped by its desires, he proclaimed its emptiness. Abhorring sickness, old age, and death, he decided to escape the wheel of reincarnations and never be born again. Yet might it not be that this illusion we call ‘ego’ is an element essential to perfect realization? Why not consider birth a celebration? Cannot life be happiness when we accept that this ephemeral existence is a degree in eternal existence? If the unthinkable God is in everything, then suffering is nothing more than a concept and consciousness is a treasure accorded us for all eternity. You cannot suffer the loss of something that is not yourself. You are what you are, forever. As bodies grow old, the spirit appears little by little. Time is our friend, for it brings us wisdom. Old age teaches us not to be attached to matter. The banks of a river do not try to keep the water from flowing. Why fear illnesses? They are our allies. Bodily ills reveal problems that we dare not face and heal the illnesses of the spirit. Why be afraid to lose our identity? The summation of all identities is our identity. Why be afraid of abandonment? When we are with ourselves, we always have company. And why be afraid of not being loved? Freedom is to love without asking to be loved in return. As for the fear of being trapped, where is the trap when the universe is our body? Fear of the other? The other is our mirror. Fear of losing a battle? To lose a battle is not to lose ourselves. Fear of humiliation? If we conquer our pride, no one can humiliate us. Fear of the night? Night is inseparable from day. Fear of being sterile? The soul is our supreme daughter.”

Ejo Takata now stopped and gave a loud laugh. Then he began to fan himself.

“I have fallen into the trap. I’ve been vomiting words. My tongue is soiled and your ears are as well. Come into the kitchen, I have a bottle of good sake. Let us drink and give ourselves over to the only valid response for all these questions: silence.”

Ceremoniously, we heated the alcoholic rice drink, and the more we drank, the denser our silence became. Ejo seemed more Japanese than ever to me. His slanted eyes regarded me with a reptilian intensity. I do not know whether it was real or the effect of the alcohol, but suddenly, I felt that his mind was a predatory animal trying to get inside my brain. I shook my head violently. “Stop reading my mind!” I cried.

Ejo leaned over on his back, lifted his legs in the air, and emitted a fart so stupendous that the paper walls shook.

Then he took the secret book and began reading: “A long time ago, the magus Daiji traveled from India to the capital of China. He claimed to have the rare power of reading minds. The emperor Daiso commanded his old teacher, Etchu, to test the monk’s claims. When Etchu stood before the foreigner, the latter bowed and took a step to the right. Etchu said to the magus, ‘If you have the power to read minds, tell me where I am now.’

“Daiji replied, ‘You, the master of a nation, how can you go to the Western River to watch a boat race?’ ‘Tell me where I am now,’ Etchu said a second time. ‘You, the master of a nation, how can you remain on the Tenshin bridge watching monkeys perform their antics?’ A third time Etchu said: ‘And now, tell me where I am.’ After a long pause, the magus was unable to respond.

“Etchu cried: ‘You poor fox, what has become of your ability to read minds?’ Daiji gave no answer. Then Etchu returned to the emperor: ‘Your Majesty, do not let yourself be fooled by foreigners.’”

Ejo closed the book. “Now you answer! Where was the master?”

The sake fumes dissipated quickly from my brain. I felt a wave of cold move through my body. Ejo had taken me by surprise. Myriad explanations swarmed in my mind. Deliberately exaggerating my drunkenness, I rambled haltingly, discovering what I thought as I heard my own words.

“I see a vast palace; fine silk clothes; servants; concubines; priests; lavish banquets; sublime musicians; fierce warriors; and the imposing figure of the emperor, a great statesman, the most powerful of men. Yet the great representative who is capable of making and unmaking the world is behaving as a child before his master. What can a sage teach a person who has everything? Perhaps he can teach him how to die. . From the west, the mysterious region where the sun goes down, a magus arrives, wearing the dress of a holy man. He is preceded by a reputation so great that he is received by the emperor. What does this man want? Clearly, he desires to impress the emperor with his gift for reading minds, thereby fascinating him and replacing the old counselor. Thanks to the shrewdness that has brought him so much power, the emperor sees through the bold plan of the magus. His ability to read minds says nothing about his moral qualities. So he decides to have Etchu, his spiritual teacher, test him. This is the first setback for the magus: to be deprived of direct contact with his intended prey, the emperor himself. Instead, he finds himself before the wisest mind in the country.

“When the magus faces Etchu, he bows to the teacher. The gesture might be sincere, but at the same time he steps to the right, thereby showing his hypocrisy by refusing to face him fully. Like every Zen master, Etchu has meditated for most of his life. He has reduced his needs to a minimum, calmed his passions, filled his heart with peace, ceased to identify himself with his thoughts. He knows that words are not what they designate; he is free of personal mind, for the universal spirit is manifest in him. Possessing nothing, he knows how to be truly responsible and therefore a true servant to the emperor and, through the emperor, to the nation and, through the nation, to all humanity. His mission will be fulfilled only when all living beings attain supreme consciousness. In order to unmask this wily monk who thinks he is wise but whose talent consists only of capturing illusory images by conferring certainty upon them, the sage creates the image of a river with himself watching monkeys. Their antics symbolize those of human beings: The ordinary man is a mere imitator. Like a predator, he seizes others’ ideas for himself constantly, without having really lived them. Thus the sage places a mirror before the magus, who expresses surprise that such an important person would amuse himself watching monkeys. In reality, however, it is Etchu who is observing the monkey-like nature of the supposedly omniscient mind of Daiji. The magus is unaware of this and feels certain he has already won with the second test. He thinks he has the old man’s number, and, in his vanity, he is already anticipating the prospect of replacing him and gaining power over the emperor. But then Etchu shifts into consciousness of the real. He empties his mind of all thoughts, images, words, feelings, desires, and needs. He does not go anywhere. He is everywhere and nowhere, all and nothing. The ego is gone, the mirror has vanished. Confounded, the magus can find no reflection to seize upon, and he flails and grasps in an empty space. He is unable to read an individual mind that does not exist. .”

Here I had to stop. “This is a trick, Ejo! In asking me where the master has gone, you underestimate me. We do not ‘go’ anywhere, we are not the self-image that we fabricate. There is no actor who moves with respect to a spectator. Unity excludes all duality, all change of place.”

Ejo slapped the palm of his hand with his fan. “Bravo! You remind me of a giant steamroller, demolishing the problem. But what do you say right now?” And suddenly he twisted my nose as he asked the last question. I cried out in pain and pushed him away, offended. He looked at me mockingly. “If there is no individual existence, who is it that just cried out and pushed me away?”

He must have known that I had not yet attained a level that would enable me to answer this question, for he did not wait for my reply.

“The first point is this: in your long explanation with all those details, you adopted a position of master yourself and spoke to me as to a student. There’s a good illustration of vanity! The second point is that you fell into the trap of idealizing the counselor. You described him as a perfect master who was able to nullify the magus’s powers. In our little book, when the disciple is asked where the master is, he exclaims: ‘What a pathetic incompetent!’ After this there follows a commentary that may well puzzle you: ‘When Etchu was twice discovered by Daiji, he was totally overcome by hatred.’ In your version, you made the mistake of supposing that the magus was able to read the thoughts that the counselor deliberately allowed him to read in order to expose him. Yet the commentary suggests that in the first two questions, Etchu was possessed by his role of mentor to the emperor. He was not truly himself and was instead identified by his official role of testing Daiji’s claims. The first reply came as a surprise and a blow to his pride. He was offended, which enabled Daiji to humiliate him a second time. Only with the third reply did he perceive his error. He then let go of his identification with his role and his desire to please the emperor, abandoning all his official self-importance to become simply Etchu again. This put him in a state of no mind. But this is not some sort of total disappearance. Instead, it is a detachment from past and future to enable him to be only in the mind of the present moment. . If it is warm, it is warm; if it is cold, it is cold. The mind does not create any problem beyond the here and now. It responds with absolute immediacy. This does not exclude any sensation of discomfort due to heat or cold, but the mind does not linger on such sensations any longer than the sensation lasts. Do you understand? Now — twist my nose!”

Awkwardly (his nose was rather small), I obliged him. He yelped with pain and jumped back. Then he grinned without the slightest reproach.

“When I feel pain, my mind knows pain. When the pain ends, there is no more pain in my mind. Etchu was insulted by the student because he insulted the magus. In calling him a ‘poor fox,’ he fell back into his official role, attempting to deny Daiji’s powers. Once more, he was overcome by hatred. What a pathetic incompetent! We should be grateful to those who put us in an embarrassing situation that exposes our weaknesses, for it offers us an opportunity to come closer to who we really are. Now tell me very quickly: What is the foremost weakness?”

Like all of Ejo’s sudden questions that come like a gunshot just at a time when my mind, absorbed by other thoughts, was not expecting it, this one disconcerted me. I had the sensation of falling from a dreamlike summit toward the hard ground of reality. Before me, I saw several levels of weaknesses: moral, physical, sexual, emotional — an avalanche of obstacles seemed to descend upon me, and I felt a weakness in my very essence. Who can claim to be strong when confronted with the inevitability of death? In a tiny voice, I answered: “My greatest weakness is being born.”

I will never be able to describe the look Ejo gave me then. It lasted only a fraction of a second, but it reduced me to dust. The depth of my ignorance was revealed to me. Yet instead of acknowledging this revelation, as Etchu did, I immediately fell into anger. I felt like punching him right in his cobralike eyes.

Untroubled and speaking with great tenderness, as if to a child, he whispered: “What a pathetic incompetent!”

Suddenly, I felt I understood the koan. In my very bones I felt what Etchu had experienced. I subdued my anger, joined my palms, and bowed my head.

“Thank you, Sensei.”

“Don’t bow yet, we haven’t gone deeply enough! Here is a koan that is capable of throwing you into the real abyss. Listen: In a temple in Kyoto, why is there a cat in the painting depicting the Buddha’s entrance into nirvana?”

I answered with a long string of questions. “Is the cat in nirvana? Is the cat the Buddha’s companion? Does the cat come there alone and find the Buddha there? Perhaps the cat is an answer to Joshu’s koan: ‘Yes, the cat has Buddha nature’? Or is it a symbol? Felines see in the dark; they hunt at night. The Buddha saw in the dark night of the soul, saw through all the mysteries, but if he is depicted as entering nirvana, it means he is not there yet. Perhaps the cat symbolizes the Buddha’s animal nature, which is not yet overcome. When the cat disappears, the Buddha will dwell forever in the center of nirvana. Or perhaps the opposite is the answer: the true Buddha is the cat, the animal nature, and the Buddha is one of its dreams. Does that mean that there is no spiritual Buddha, that what really awakens is our body when we see that we are simply animals?”

Ejo gasped for air as if suffocating, fanning himself rapidly. “What a torrent of words — sake ravings! Close your mouth in silence and listen now to the good disciple’s answer to the master as recorded in our secret book: ‘Why is there no mouse here? And why do you not have a wife?’ This disciple does not fall into the trap of drowning himself in speculations, as you do. And why is there no mouse? Why not a monk with a crane’s head, a white horse being eaten by nuns, or a heart with four legs of fire, or a mountain of dung giving birth to butterflies? And why do you have no wife, no thousand-pound spider, no mother who flies against the wind? Simply: There is a cat in the painting because the painter painted a cat! How many cats, Buddhas, and nirvanas are churning in your mind?”

My mouth was dry. I felt I could never speak another word without disgust. I took a zafu (a black meditation cushion), went upstairs, and sat in the center of the terrace, legs crossed and palms open to the sky, waiting for the dawn to break. I wished for this clear light to cleanse my mind of everything that encumbered my memory. I had a vision of the illusory Tocopilla perched upon the rock, overcome by heat, parched with thirst, squeezed between the sea and the Chilean Cordillera, with its municipal library, about forty square yards of walls covered with bookshelves, the place where I had spent my childhood, friendless, lacking parental affection, reading anything and everything to fill my solitude — my first nirvana, which had pursued me all my life. I voyaged here and there — Santiago, Paris, Mexico City — always hauling boxes with tons of books, re-creating the nostalgic space of my childhood. And the interiors of empty theaters were another nirvana — vacant seats, empty stages, a small service lamp casting a dim light with a grave silence that could have been plundered from a temple, a total break from the miseries of the world. This was also a personal territory, a private palace, a nirvana that became filled with male and female cats when the play began. Capricious actresses, egomaniacal divas, jealous critics, thieving unions, corrupt officials: I had sought them out, seduced them, provoked them, brought them into my life because I wanted to become a famous artist — and then a seductive, revered sage. It was shadows pursuing shadows, the desire to attain the summits of renown so that they would look at me without frowning, so that they would give me prizes, so that the master would declare me a roshi, so that God himself would enter me through my navel and fertilize me, so that I would give birth someday to a perfect mind. . In sum, this was how I saw myself in my whole life up to this moment: a painter of Buddhas and cats entering perpetually into an inaccessible nirvana and never arriving at its center!

I tried to cry, then I tried to vomit. Impossible. My legs were tingling with loss of circulation; my eyes were burning, swollen with fatigue. I felt empty but not clean. In my life I had been actor and spectator, and both of them had been sick. The koan had come like a breath of wind, sweeping away the dark clouds that prevent the spectator from knowing the self as impersonal and unlimited. Yet the spectacle of my ignorance, vanity, and so many other miseries caused me great suffering. I felt an unbearable hollowness in my chest. I had never been able to love, because I did not know how to love myself.

Almost insensibly, perhaps because of the fatigue of insomnia, my body arose and went back downstairs into the zendo. Suddenly, I found myself standing before Ejo, sitting in meditation on his platform. I ventured to interrupt him:

“Ejo, I am leaving for good. I am filth. I do not deserve your friendship.”

As if feeling my sadness in his own heart, he placed his palms together at his chest and offered me a new koan. “When Master Kyo-o abandoned his mountain monastery, he was given fire as a parting gift. How was he able to carry it?”

Without answering, I walked out of the small meditation room, sat down on the doorstep, and put on my shoes. What good would it do to answer? Whatever my words, the master would make fun of them. If the only true response to a koan is something beyond words manifesting an attitude of living fully in the present, why strive to resolve absurd questions with words? Yet I felt frustrated. I could not help thinking that the fire that Kyo-o was given was spiritual awakening, which he carried by realizing it. He did not leave the monastery in a spirit of rejection; quite the contrary. He left it as a butterfly leaves its caterpillar chrysalis, for his metamorphosis is accomplished. Kyo-o left as a victor, but I was leaving as a loser. What is enlightenment? The truth was, I still imagined it as a marvelous object of attainment, a gift, a fire that would fill my mind, consuming everything — my concepts, my self-image, the mirages that I called reality. . but Ejo Takata had given me nothing save blows and mockery. At that moment, I thought, “I am nothing, I know nothing, I can do nothing,” and I began to weep convulsively.

The next thing I knew, Ejo was beside me, caressing my head.

“Do you know what Kyo-o did when they offered him the fire? He opened the large sleeve of his kimono, and said ‘Please put it here.’ Sometimes, giving is knowing how to receive. Sometimes, offering is not giving. Who can give you what you already have? Is awakening a sort of currency that passes from hand to hand? How can fire be offered apart from the wood in which it burns? Life is the oil that saturates the torch, and the torch is you. It is you who burn. When you consume yourself and there is no more wood or flame, you return to ashes, scattered by the wind. And your ashes are like mine, like those of Kyo-o or the Buddha. You have put all your energy into trying to possess something. Have you ever once surrendered?”

“Ejo, the truth is that my head is full and my heart is empty. I have lost the capacity to receive without barriers. I have deprived myself of the fire that this word enlightenment has perverted. I want to change, but I do not ask myself why I want to change or what I want to become. I try to eliminate the symptoms rather than the cause of my suffering. Among the gamut of pains, I have chosen the least. I cannot imagine feeling good; I aspire to feel only not too bad. . But where is the joy of life in all this? How can each new day become a day of celebration? Will I ever resolve the primary koan of accepting to die? Will I ever be able to say, as the old beggar says: ‘I am even greater than God, because I am nothing’? Sincerely, I don’t believe so.”

Sadly, I murmured, “Arigato (thank you),” and I left the zendo, deciding then never to return.

As I went back to my home along the endless Insurgentes Avenue, a dark-skinned, effeminate boy, fifteen years old at most, approached me with an uncertain smile. He wore tight pants and a sleeveless shirt.

“Give me twenty dollars, and I am yours,” he said.

The frustration that had accumulated in me because of my failure in Zen washed over me like a raging sea, and I punched the poor boy in the chest. He fell down, sitting. When he got up, I ran after him for almost a block, kicking at his behind. Then, continuing on my way, I began to speak to myself aloud: “I, too, deserve to be kicked in the ass! I’m a spiritual whore, inviting the Buddha to possess me and offer me enlightenment as payment. I’ve had enough! Meditating, immobile as a statue, serves no purpose! I must be honest with myself. I must confess what it is I am really looking for.”

That same day, the Gurza brothers contacted me, surrounded by their usual aura of marijuana smoke. They owned many animals, which they rented to the film studios at Churubusco. “The Tigress saw your photo in a magazine. She said you please her, and she wants to meet you.” I was terrified. They were referring to Irma Serrano, a famous Mexican pop singer. A millionaire whose strange beauty was due to extensive cosmetic surgery, she was rumored to be the mistress of the president of Mexico. It was also said that he had lost an eye when she broke a chair over his head in a fit of jealousy. Yet in spite of my fear, I decided to visit her that very evening at her theater. Perhaps this Tigress was what I was looking for: a ferocious female who could help me to take root in this land of Mexico, which so fascinated me.