Truth-and-Darkness                                                            Page 40

"Eli, Eli" may be seen as already showing the influence of Eastern philosophy

more fully embraced by Judith Wright in later life.⁴¹ The poem leaves the

reader in a position similar to that achieved by a Zen koan. There is no "logic"

in it and we arrive at nothing: "there was no river".  If the poem is read as an

extended koan it is not necessary to try to work out a meaning. The koan,

when lived with long enough, enters consciousness and alters perception:

...the heart of the koan is reached, its kernel is attained and tasted

when one breaks through into the heart of life itself as the ground of

ones own consciousness.... there is... a profound difference between

consciousness in the East and in the West, at least in the traditions of

East and West, The Western consciousness is object-oriented   The

Eastern consciousness does not shrink from the possibility of a pure

subjectivity that needs no object. ...Western man sees himself as a

subject with various possibilities of fulfilment: a package of desires for

things, or states, which can be "attained"... . This is an individual project

first of all. It is centred in ego-identity....the will arises out of the

individual centre and 'attains' its end, which is the consciousness of

individual achievement... But the basic tenet of Buddhism is that an

identity built on this kind of consciousness is false ... the koan   cannot

be treated as a problem having a solution (end to be attained) which can

be arrived at by setting certain causes in operation. If the Zen student is

pushed to the limit ... in his struggle with the logically meaningless

koan ... it is not in order that he may cause an effect, attain a limited

result but in order that he may learn to get along definitively without

any illusory need to attain anything or to rest in anything that accrues to

him from 'outside' in the guise of an object. (In this consciousness)

'no' rejoins 'yes', and all affirmations and negations are swallowed up

in the ineffable.⁴²

"Eli, Eli" does not say anything about what is unable to be spoken. It does not

offer essential truth to make people free. A Buddhist reading of the poem

would have it say that there need be no object. There is "no river" and if there

is no river there are no drowning people. The Christ-figure is not a "Master"

who exercises special power over people. His non-action poses the question

put to the teacher by the Zen disciple: "How can I ever get emancipated?", to

which the Teacher replies, "Who has ever put you in bondage?” ⁴³

⁴¹ In a letter to the writer, dated19.2.97, Judith Wright says, “These days I try be a good Buddhist - 

    ‘all is one and one is all’." See also Walker pi 95

⁴² Thomas Merton in Thomas Merton on Zen (London: Sheldon Press. 1976) pp 69-75

⁴³ D.T. Suzuki, Manual of Zen Buddhism (New York: Grove Press. 1960) p 106