The Hero with a Thousand Faces

And so it may be said that the modern therapeutic goal of the cure back to life is attained through the ancient religious discipline, after all; only the circle traveled by the Bodhisattva is a large one; and the departure from the world is regarded not as a fault, but as the first step into that noble path at the remotest turn of which illumination is to be won concerning the deep emptiness of the universal round. Such an ideal is well known, also, to Hinduism: the one freed in life (jīvan mukta), desireless, compassionate, and wise, “with the heart concentrated by yoga, viewing all things with equal regard, beholds himself in all beings and all beings in himself. In whatever way he leads his life, that one lives in God.”^[128]

Figure 35. Bodhidharma (paint on silk, Japan, sixteenth century a.d.)

The story is told of a Confucian scholar who besought the twenty-eighth Buddhist patriarch, Bodhidharma, “to pacify his soul.” Bodhidharma retorted, “Produce it and I will pacify it.” The Confucian replied, “That is my trouble, I cannot find it.” Bodhidharma said, “Your wish is granted.” The Confucian understood and departed in peace.^[129]

Those who know, not only that the Everlasting lives in them but that what they, and all things, really are is the Everlasting, dwell in the groves of the wish-fulfilling trees, drink the brew of immortality, and listen everywhere to the unheard music of eternal concord. These are the immortals. The Taoist landscape paintings of China and Japan depict supremely the heavenliness of this terrestrial state. The four benevolent animals, the phoenix, the unicorn, the tortoise, and the dragon, dwell amongst the willow gardens, the bamboos, and the plums, and amid the mists of sacred mountains, close to the honored spheres. Sages, with craggy bodies but spirits eternally young, meditate among these peaks, or ride curious, symbolic animals across immortal tides, or converse delightfully over teacups to the flute of Lan Ts’ai-ho.

The mistress of the earthly paradise of the Chinese immortals is the fairy goddess Hsi Wang Mu, “The Golden Mother of the Tortoise.” She dwells in a palace on the K’un-lun Mountain, which is surrounded by fragrant flowers, battlements of jewels and a garden wall of gold.* She is formed of the pure quintessence of the western air. Her quests at her periodical “Feast of the Peaches” (celebrated when the peaches ripen, once in every six thousand years) are served by the Golden Mother’s gracious daughters, in bowers and pavilions by the Lake of Gems. Waters play there from a remarkable fountain. Phoenix marrow, dragon liver, and other meats are tasted; the ­peaches and the wine bestow immortality. Music from invisible instruments is heard, songs that are not from mortal lips; and the dances of the visible damsels are the manifestations of the joy of eternity in time.^[130]

Figure 36. Tea Ceremony: Abode of Vacancy (photograph by Joseph Campbell, Japan, a.d. 1958)

The tea ceremonies of Japan are conceived in the spirit of the Taoist earthly paradise. The tearoom, called “the abode of fancy,” is an ephemeral structure built to enclose a moment of poetic intuition. Called too “the abode of vacancy,” it is devoid of ornamentation. Temporarily it contains a single picture or flower-arrangement. The teahouse is called “the abode of the unsymmetrical”: the unsymmetrical suggests movement; the purposely unfinished leaves a vacuum into which the imagination of the beholder can pour.

The guest approaches by the garden path, and must stoop through the low entrance. He makes obeisance to the picture or flower-arrangement, to the singing kettle, and takes his place on the floor. The simplest object, framed by the controlled simplicity of the teahouse, stands out in mysterious beauty, its silence holding the secret of temporal existence. Each guest is permitted to complete the experience in relation to himself. The members of the company thus contemplate the universe in miniature, and become aware of their hidden fellowship with the immortals.