The Path to becoming Human

“A duke’s son must know all about poisons,” she said, “…Here’s a new one for you: the gom jabbar. It kills only animals.”

Pride overcame Paul’s fear. “You dare suggest that a duke’s son is an animal?” he demanded.

“Let us say I suggest that you may be human,” she said.

–Frank Herbert’s Dune

As a follow-up to a recent post about the perfuming of the mind, and the importance of the precepts, I found this really great quote but a famous Japanese monk named Jiun (慈雲 1718-1804), who was part of a big revival movement in Shingon Vinaya sect.¹ The quotation came from a book on Hosso Buddhism I’ve been reading. When Jiun would administer the 10 precepts of Shingon Buddhism to disciples, he was quoted as saying that the precepts were “the way to become human being.”

As Rev. Kosho Uchiyama of the Zen sect said in Opening the Hand of Thought, there are plenty of people who are physically mature as adults, but have childish minds. These are ‘pseudo-adults’ as Uchiyama puts it. In the same way, Kukai of the Shingon sect taught that many live life like goats and sheep, craving only food, sleep and sex.

This is an important point to me because when I think about the biological aspect of a human, sometimes I feel that is enough, but these teachings are a reminder that being biologically human is not the same as being “human” in thought, word and deed. As Kukai states, if we only live for basic gratification, why should we be considered anything but another animal species? But we know that there is more to being human, and in order to live up to this ideal, we have to transcend the basic needs, petty instincts and whatever else is carried along by biological evolution. Thus, the Dune quotation above, which leads to an interesting dialogue, is so important.

Or, to quote from Roger Zelazny’s book Lord of Light:

Demon: “So why do you consider my presence a pollution, a disease? Is it because there is that within you which is like unto myself? …If so, I mock you in your weakness, Binder.”

Sam: “It is because I am a man who occasionally aspires to things beyond the belly and the phallus.”

I aspire to do the same, at least occasionally.

Namo Shakyamuni Buddha

¹ According to this book, the revival movement began under another monk named Shunshō Myōnin (1576 – 1610)