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

This response baffled us all. The gringo looked at us with a disdainful air. “Your Japanese monk has just asked me to explain the difference between enlightenment and nonenlightenment. In my description of a walk that began in one place and returned to that same place, I was refuting the distinction between the sacred and the profane.” Grudgingly, we felt compelled to admire the cleverness of this response.

“Very good indeed!” Ejo said, beaming, with a smile that seemed full of admiration. “Now what is the origin of Mu?”

“There is neither sky nor earth nor mountains nor rivers nor trees nor plants nor apples nor pears! There is nothing, neither myself nor anyone else. Even these words are nothing. MU!”

This last Mu was so loud that some dogs in the neighborhood began barking. From this moment on, the pace of the dialogue began to accelerate.

“So — give me your Mu!”

“Take it!” Peter said, handing Takata a marijuana cigarette.

“How tall is your Mu?”

“I am five feet nine inches tall.”

“Tell me your Mu in way that is so simple that a baby could understand it and put it into practice.”

“Mmm, mmm, mmm. . ” Peter hummed, as if lulling an infant to sleep.

“What is the difference between Mu and all?”

“If you are all, I am Mu. If you are Mu, I am all.”

“Show me different Mus.”

“Intellectual, Learn to Die!”

“When I eat, when I drink, when I smoke, when I have sex, when I sleep, when I dance, when I’m cold, when I’m warm, when I shit, when a bird sings, when a dog barks, MU! MU! MU! MU! MU! MU!”

His shouts went on and on, becoming deafening. Now he had lost control and was really causing a scene! He seemed like a man possessed, as if he would go on with this mad yelling indefinitely.

With a single bound, Ejo leaped up, seized his flat Zen stick ( kyosaku ), and hurling an impressive cry of “Kwatzu!” he began to strike Peter. Outraged at this, Peter attacked Ejo. Resorting deftly to some judo technique (an attainment he had never mentioned to us), the master immediately caught Peter in a hold and flipped him expertly to the floor. When Peter was gasping on his back with his four limbs flailing in the air, Ejo Takata placed a foot on his neck, immobilizing him.

“Now let us see if your enlightenment is stronger than fire!”

Dragging the bewildered gringo outside forcefully, he snatched a kerosene lamp on the way. There were two of these lamps always handy, as well as a number of candles, because we often had electrical failures in that neighborhood.

Outside, before the eyes of the terrified visitor lying on the ground, Ejo emptied the lamp kerosene all over his motorcycle. Then he held up a lighter with the flame burning. The gringo cried out, “Oh no, no no!” But when he tried to get up, Ejo knocked him down with an expert kick to the chest, landing him on his back.

“Calm yourself! Here is a koan especially for you: ‘Enlightenment or motorcycle?’ If you reply ‘Enlightenment,’ I’ll set the motorcycle on fire. If you reply ‘motorcycle,’ I’ll allow you to leave on it — but before you do, you must give me that book, which I know you have memorized.”

Master Peter seemed but a crumpled heap now. He whined softly: “Motorcycle.” Then he arose slowly and opened the storage compartment at the back of his machine. He pulled out a book with a red cover and handed it over silently to the man who had reassumed his role as our true master.

Ejo read the title aloud: “The Sound of One Hand Clapping: 281 Koans and Their Solutions.” *6Then he sternly admonished the defeated one: “You trickster! Learn to be what you are!”

The visitor’s face was now the same color as the book and his leather clothes. He kneeled before the monk, prostrated himself with his hands outstretched upon the ground, and implored him humbly: “I beg you, Master. .”

With his flat stick, Master Ejo struck him three times on the left shoulder blade and three times on the right. The six slaps on the leather were as loud as gunshots. Then Ejo stretched out an open hand in a gesture.

The American stood up. He seemed to have learned an essential lesson. He sighed: “Thank you, Sensei.”

Then he cranked up his powerful motorcycle and rode away forever, the sound vanishing in the distance.

“If there are any tracks, I’ ll find them — even at the bottom of a well.”

SILVER KANE, EL GUARDAESPALDAS

(THE BODYGUARD)

When Ejo Takata first visited my house in order to choose the right space for his teaching, I showed him my large library proudly. I had been surrounded by books since childhood, and I loved them as much as I loved my cats. I had a sizeable collection of books on Zen — in English, Italian, French, and Spanish — but the monk glanced at them only briefly. Opening his fan, he moved it rapidly to cool himself. Then he left the room without a word. My face darkened with embarrassment. With this gesture, he was showing me that my erudition was nothing but a disguise for my lack of true knowledge. Words may show the way to truth, but they are not the truth. “When you’ve caught the fish, you don’t need the net anymore.”

In spite of this lesson, however, I could not resist sneaking out at nightfall to the garbage can where Ejo had consigned the mysterious book he had taken from the American. Digging among the trash there, I found it and pulled it out. I felt like a thief, but not like a traitor. Covering it in black paper, I placed it inconspicuously among the many volumes of my library without opening it.

Time passed. Thanks to the support of the Japanese embassy, Ejo was able to set up a small zendo in the university quarter of Mexico City. For five years, I arose each morning at six o’clock to drive for at least an hour through heavy traffic in order to arrive at the zendo for two meditation sessions of forty minutes each. Yet it became clear to me that my path in life was not that of a monk.

My ambitions were becoming centered on the theater. Nevertheless, Ejo Takata’s teachings — to be instead of to seem, to live simply, to practice the teaching instead of merely reciting it, and knowing that the words we use to describe the world are not the world — had profoundly changed my vision of what theater should be. In my upcoming production, a theatrical version of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, I had stripped the stage of its usual décor, including even curtains and ropes, and had the walls painted white. Defying censorship, the actors and actresses undressed completely on stage after reciting lines from the Gospel of Thomas: “The disciples asked him: ‘When will you be revealed, and when will we be able to see you?’ And Jesus said: ‘When you shed your clothing without shame, and when you take your jewels and cast them under your feet and trample them like little children, then will you be able to contemplate the Son of the Living One and have no more fear.’” *7

The production was a success, with full houses from Tuesday through Sunday. I then proposed to Ejo (without much hope) that he meditate before the public during the performance. To my astonishment, the master accepted. He arrived punctually, took his seat on the side of the stage, and meditated without moving for two hours. The contrast between the actors speaking their lines and the silent monk dressed in his ritual robes had a staggering effect. Zarathustra continued to run for a full year and a half. After the last performance, Ejo said to me: “By having me participate in your work, you have introduced many thousands of Mexicans to Zen meditation. How can I thank you?”