Ch. 1: A Parable About a Parable 2/2-2/8

Hannah

After looking in the book, I realized the author frames each chapter for collaboration within a group. He ends the chapter with questions to discuss and activities. I will include those here as optional prompts, feel free to use them, or feel free to share whatever you'd like!

Let every member of the group try to explain or interpret Kafka's parable and the Zen Master's response.
Observe whether a consensus emerges from this discussion or each person finds a personal and unique meaning.

Hannah

I am going to give my short interpretation of the parable that I am not sure has any credence... I didn't understand it while reading, but after listening to it, thought that perhaps the man was wasting his time looking outward for the Law. Perhaps the door was guarded as a test and he needed to only look inward?

I think this is described in the chapter as "...the human intellect in general, always feasting on shadows in the absence of real Final Answers."

zeph

Do what thou wilt shall be the door of the Law.

The door is a door to real life, to a world beyond raw matter, a world filled with certainty and passion and faith and wonder. Entrance through that door requires truth of self, an answer to the questions who am I? and why do I exist?

Standing around doing nothing will not grant access. Gathering up the things of the material world will not grant access. Only a true understanding of one’s place in the cosmos can allow one to go deeper into that cosmos, beyond the delusory existence of a standard physical incarnation. That truth of self is unique: there is only one of each of us, and so only one door that we may pass through.

Some answers to some of RAW’s questions:

The door existed only for that man, but he did not have the capacity to enter. We are not born full-fledged humans, we have to become one. The Door of the Law is for properly matured humans.

The builders posted a guard but left the door open because stock humans are so stupid they will let the appearance of a blockage act as an actual blockage.

The guard didn’t wait to close the door until the man was too old to attempt to rush past; it was already evident that the man wasn’t even going to try. He closed the door because the man was about to disincarnate, and for humans incarnation is a necessary aspect of service and manifestation. The disincarnate cannot enter.

I cannot interpret any Zen Master’s response without swinging a stick around, and I haven’t got a stick.

jjones

I don't know if I can add anything that hasn't already been said about the parable other than that I find the parable to be funny.

The most obvious meaning that one can derive is if you look for externalized authority, it will never come (like those who wait for the Second Coming). You'll be stuck outside the temple walls banging on the door to be let in from the conditions outside only to die alone.

The door in the story was made specifically for the individual concerned in the story, so that person must be entitled to use that door, right? If its purpose is such that this person is supposed to be the one to go through it, doesn't that mean that the door has not served its purpose until it has let this person in (not unlike Crowley's metaphor that a nail has not served its purpose until hammered into wood)? The person standing in front of the door who keeps asking the guard to let them in is told to wait and that maybe one day they'll be let in. But why would someone choose to waste their time waiting to see what's on the other side of this door, made specifically for them, even though the outcome might not even occur? What could be so great that one would throw one’s life away to wait for something that might not happen? Clearly, the individual has given a sense of Authority to the guard for the individual to let the guard determine whether the individual is able to use such a door. And for why has this individual given the guard Authority anyway. Because the guard’s armor is a powerful costume associated with “Authority” symbolism that the Nephesh finds fearsome on an animal level? What exactly is the guard even guarding? Does the guard even know what’s on the other side of the door or who the door was made for?

This individual in the parable also does not choose to investigate the door. The individual does not test if the door is unlocked, if the guard will prevent the individual from passing through on the individual’s own authority (“This door was made for ME!”),or find out if there are other means of getting to the other side of this wall (assuming that moving from one side of this wall to the other is in fact what this individual wants). Is the shape of that door not an invitation (in the same way that King Arthur pulls the Sword from the Stone)?

Furthermore, given that RAW was interested in Thelema, it is hard not to read the "door of the Law" as anything but the Law of the Aeon. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Is it not the Will of the individual to go through that door? Is it not the Will of that Door to allow only that Individual through? The individual wants admission to the door of the Law, but the individual is not "doing" the Law. Can the guard "make" the individual "do" the Law? Who is the guard to have the authority to determine that the individual is not allowed to "do" the Law given that the door that has been uniquely fitted to this individual and clearly won't serve its purpose until it has allowed this individual in and no one else? Can the guard even adequately perceive the door and the individual clearly enough to discover that they are in the same shape? Is this individual not righteous enough to say, "Success be thy proof!"?

I am reminded of how the ego likes to demand certainty before taking an action. The ego loves to search for confirmation that an individual is uniquely chosen to take this one risk that only this unique individual can responsibly handle or accurately perceive. Often, the ego finds that these types of conditions hardly ever exist. In fact, the individual in this story has more certainty than most human beings have about the thresholds they cross, because this individual might be able to perceive that they are the only one capable of crossing through that threshold indicated by the shape of the door.

We will never know what is on the other side of this door for this individual because they spend their whole life waiting to be let in. Clearly, they wanted it badly enough to wait. Whether the other side of the door was disappointing or awe inspiring, or even just plain neutral, this individual only seems increasingly foolish for sitting around and waiting for external confirmation and authority, rather than using resourcefulness to discover an analogous outcome (again, was this the only door into the Law? Maybe the individual could’ve fooled the guard by walking through the door with intention and purpose, seemingly as if they were meant to go through the door that was made for the individual?).

As far as the Zen student experiences a similar circumstance, did that student at least have the benefit of knowing what was on the other side of that door? The student knew that it was the meditation hall, had probably been to the hall numerous times, and only now were they locked out. Most people, when locked out of somewhere (even somewhere familiar), react with panic, fear, and the need to get inside. Did this student only fall deeper into fear of this "Dark Parable" once this happened even though they were perfectly aware of what's on the other side of that door? This student seems to have the benefit of having a theoretical knowledge and experience of the Law (hopefully even more so than the individual in the parable since the student studies Zen). Although we do not know how this student reacts to the door, one would hope that their Zen studies would’ve given the student enough of a map of experience so that the student can adequately navigate this situation (and discover the ideal course of action). If, instead, the student forgot all the training the student has been undergoing in their Zen education, then the student has clearly not internalized the Law enough to apply it.