Zen Reflections

Z IS FOR ZAZEN

2012-01-16T08:06:00.001-08:00

When you get to the end of this talk you may be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Keep waiting.

There are writers and there are writers. Thomas Merton, Agatha Christie, Paul Theroux, Dogen, and a few others across history, are known as writing fools because they lived and breathed writing, and their output was prodigious.

I may or may not be a fool, but I like to think I’m a writer.

In the 1960s, I was approached by a pollster from California’s Stanford Research Institute. SRI is a nonprofit organization specializing in research and development.

I should mention this was in the old, pre-word processor days. Because I was a lousy typist I used a pencil and a legal-sized yellow pad to write. The words were transcribed by a typist, pencil-edited, retyped, re-edited, retyped, and so on until a reasonably clean copy was ready for mailing to a publisher.

Among the many questions the SRI interviewer asked me was this: “No matter how far-fetched it may seem, what sort of tool would you, as a writer, welcome?”

I answered that a really valuable device would be one that could read my thoughts, follow them in my brain, and with little delay print them on sheets of white paper.

The researcher didn’t smile or frown, but jotted on her yellow pad.

“And, what would you be willing to pay for such a tool?” she asked.

“Oh,” I said. “Probably a couple of hundred dollars.”

She gasped.

“Two hundred dollars? Do you realize what the cost would be to research such a project? To develop the device? To manufacture it? To market it? The profit margin? Do you grasp that, and more?”

She looked as if she suddenly realized she was talking to a fool. She hastily pushed her notepad and her pencil into her handbag and stood up.

“You asked me a question,” I said. “You asked me what I am willing to pay for such a tool. There were no conditions. It was a straight question. I gave a straight answer when I said two-hundred dollars. I didn’t consider anything other than your question and my budget.”

That was the end of the interview. As far as I know neither Stanford neither Research Institute nor anyone else has developed such a device at any cost, and I’m not holding my breath.

Today I’ve graduated from putting down thoughts with pencil and paper to tapping keys on a word processor that I paid more than two hundred dollars for. The process is faster, more accurate, and easier than even a typewriter, but it still can’t read my thoughts.

As I said, I’m not holding my breath.

Speaking of direct answers . . . .

One time I was given dokusan by Master Oda, and he asked for my response to a certain koan.

I started off, “I think . . . .

“Stop right there,” Oda said.

“Anyone who says ‘Well,’ is stalling for time to think up a clever answer.

He paused.

“And you say, ‘I think.’ I don’t care to hear what you think. I want to hear what you know. Right now.”

He rang his hand bell in dismission.

“Now go meditate without thinking,” Oda said.

Back to Zen.

Dogen was a writing fool and he put his words down on rice paper, using a soft brush dipped in black ink.

From an early age Dogen disagreed with the practices of the popular Tendai School. These formalities combined secret rituals, sutra study, chanting, the concept of the Buddha as a divine being, and meditation.

Instead, Dogen zeroed in on Zazen.

Zazen.

Silent meditation.

WH:AT IS A SUTRA?

2011-12-14T08:38:00.001-08:00

In most Zen talks, including mine, the word “sutra” is frequently tossed
around. So, what is a sutra, and why does the word pop up like walnuts in a slice of fruitcake?

A sutra is a text that’s traditionally regarded as a group of words that were said by the Buddha.

“Sutra” is Sanskrit for “thread. It’s a moral or inspirational saying, that, as I said, is attributable to the Buddha. Here’s an example:

In emptiness there is no form nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body mind.
All right, all right. That is an interesting mouthful because it’s only a small part of what is known as the Heart Sutra. Can you imagine the Buddha, who was known for his reserve and silence, saying Hey folks, listen to what I have to report: In emptiness . . . and so on.

And if you think that’s a lot of words, consider a couple of sutra
titles:

Big inhalation.

The Dharani Sutra on Longevity, The Extinction of Offences, And the
Protection of Young Children

The Sutra about The Parents’ Deep Kindness and the Difficulty
In Repaying It

Some Buddhists, many lay people, and even certain scholars, claim sutras are prayers.

Such people should know better.

Quoting the American Heritage Dictionary, a prayer is a petition to God, a god, or another object of worship.

That’s about as far as you can get from the concept of Buddhism, and twice as far as you can get from Zen.

Zen doesn’t appeal. Zen doesn’t have a God or gods. Zen doesn’t have objects of worship.

Therefore, in Zen or in Buddhism, sutras are not prayers.

Oh, sutras are not fiendish. Reading them or reciting them won’t corrupt one’s Zen practice. They are as nontoxic as prayers, and just as useful as prayers.

However, memorizing or reciting sutras should not be a substitute for good-old zazen.

Dogen had mixed feelings about sutras. He didn’t claim they were wrong, but he did say that individuals who have researched sutras and are accomplished in secular texts should study at a Zen monastery.

He even credited several of the renowned masters who were learned, but who practiced with even greater masters.

Huisi practiced with Bodhidharma; Xuanjue practiced with Dajian; and so on.

Dogen said people who memorize texts, or quote sayings and try to match such words with a teacher’s explanations, are unwise. Such individuals only want to have their own views affirmed.

It’s like someone coming to you to ask your advice about a political candidate. If you say something that agrees with what the person has already cemented in his mind, he considers you a genius. If your view differs from his, he decides you are a weirdo.

Unfortunately, some people consider their own views as sufficient. They dip into writings, memorize what they regard as key phrases, and imagine they comprehend Buddha-dharma.

No way. They are mislead, and are miles off the Buddha way.

The Buddha way is beyond thinking, analysis, and clever explanations.

When you practice with a teacher or a master, open your mind. Just listen and soak up the teaching without agreeing or disagreeing, without mixing in your own opinions and judgments.

As Dogen said, “Your body and mind will be one, a receptacle ready to be filled. Then you will receive the teaching.”

THE BUDDHIST PRECEPTS

2011-10-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

In past talks I have mentioned what are known as the Buddhist precepts. Tonight I would like to talk about them.

First, what is a precept?

Simply, it’s a type of behavior.

Second, what are Buddhist precepts?

Buddhist precepts are ethical guidelines related to a harmonious life.

Some Westerners compare Buddhist precepts to the ten commandments of Christianity. However, unlike the ten commandments, they are not mandates, or edicts, or rules. Furthermore, one does not have to be a Buddhist to realize the precepts are common sense notions of behavior.

Rather than an individual being finger-wagged and given a bunch of “do not do this,” one is encouraged to use one’s intelligence to apply the precepts in the best way possible in life.

There are anywhere from five Buddhist precepts to 227, depending on the source of information. One source says ten precepts are considered major, 48 minor. But that’s splitting hairs and making judgments. I don’t know anything about the other 169.

I will talk about only five precepts, since most of the others are specialized ones that are given to novices to prepare them for a monastic life.

In most cases, receiving the Buddhist precepts involves a full blown ceremony that includes bowing, chanting, and gonging. During the ritual a master reads each precept aloud and asks the individual receiver if he or she can keep each one. If all goes according to plan, each time the receiver answers “Yes, I can.”

The master acknowledges the positive responses, and with that the receiver is considered a Buddhist.

Presumably, then you entitled to reveal to the world that you are a Buddhist. It’s sort of like admitting publicly you’re gay. Not that anyone cares to know.

Here are the five basic precepts, plus a clarification of each. Of course there are countless exceptions for every one, and every one is open to questions of philosophy and morals. But as I present each precept, just receive it without agreeing or disagreeing.

Later we can discuss them.

PRECEPT 1: I WILL BE MINDFUL AND RESPECTFUL OF ALL LIFE.

One should not deprive any living creature of life. That means one should not stomp on creeping ants or worms or caterpillars. Do not shoot squirrels or deer or elephants. Do not shoot other humans. No matter how contemptible or weird a living form may be, every being has a right to life.

I know you will ask what about Hitler, or termites, but let’s save the questions until later.

To paraphrase Dr. Bodhippriya Subhadra Sinwardena, an Indian Buddhist: “Nobody has the right to destroy the life of another for any reason. But we know human beings kill others individually and collectively in the name of human rights, religion, peace, and population control.”

In the name of human rights, religion, peace, and population control, eh? In practical terms, especially in the Western World, these are assumed to be good purposes.

PRECEPT 2: I WILL RESPECT THE BELONGINGS OF OTHERS.

If something is not given, one may not take it by stealing, by force, or by fraud. To steal, or to possess anything that belongs to others, is to ignore the well being and the dignity of others as well as oneself. Such actions are based on excessive desire.

And what do desire and greed lead to?

In a word, attachment.

According to an old Buddhist writing, this precept applies not only to valuable items such as gold and silver, but even to things as small and inexpensive as needles.

To quote Korean Master Wu Bong, “This precept teaches one to accept oneself wholly. To make this total acceptance is to become complete, to attain the Buddha state.”

Dogen wrote that giving means non-greed. Non-greed means not to long for something.

PRECEPT 3: I WILL BE CONSCIOUS AND CONSIDERATE
IN MY RELATIONSHIPS.

This is often stated in an earthier way: “I will avoid sexual misconduct.”

Human moral standards vary in different countries and in different times. Who is to say one thing is perverted or nasty, and something else is okay? However, any behavior—sexual or other—that is injurious to others shows disrespect for individuals and is demeaning to all concerned.

As writer Winton Higgins suggests, sexuality is a very strong energy, the focus of many cravings and delusions. If we have the inclination to make fools of ourselves, to act stupidly and destructively, then we are likely to objectify it in our sex lives. But we also have the opposite propensity to act consciously and considerately.

PRECEPT 4: I WILL HONOR SINCERITY AND TRUTH.

To refrain from telling falsehoods—no matter if they are fibs or whoppers—is to show respect for the truth. When a Buddhist observes the fourth precept he avoids outright lying or even half-facts that exaggerate or understate.

Essentially this means that one will not spread gossip or rumor that is not known to be certain. Also implied is that one will not criticize, condemn, or pass judgment on things that can cause disharmony.

In the book The Pocket Zen Reader, John Clearly mentions that Master Ta-sui was asked, “What is the very first point.”

Ta-sui replied, “Don’t think falsely.”

PRECEPT 5: I WILL EXERCISE PROPER CARE OF
MY BODY AND MIND.

Actually, Precept 5 is usually worded as “I will not be a lush.” It says, “I will not take intoxicants.” I will quote the wording from one source.

“Taking intoxicants will lose the seed of wisdom. Liquor, drugs, smoking, and such, can be harmful to one’s mind and health. Under the successive influence of intoxicants one may lose self-control of body as well as mind. Further, the influence of overindulgence in such things may cause one to harm others.”

It’s a proven medical fact that intoxicants and drugs can be harmful to the human body and mind. As with anything else, use common sense. If you sense you are starting to mess up yourself or others, change your behavior.

I’ll wind this up with some words by Master Wu Bong: “The precepts are to help us cut off our attachments, and when that is done, then all precepts are kept naturally.”

QUESTIONS ON ZEN AND BUDDHISM

2011-10-04T08:56:00.000-07:00

Gudo Wafu Nishijima is the Zen master most notably associated with the four-volume English translation of Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo. In a sesshin Nishijima gave in Switzerland a few years ago, he courageously opened himself to a barrage of questions asked by an audience of Zen practitioners.

This talk is a review of some of the questions that were asked. Not all the answers are Nishijima’s.

Question: What is gained in Buddhism?
This is a reasonable query because human nature tends to think in terms of compensation. If I do this or that, what do I get in return?

However, to answer the question, Nishijima went into a convoluted description of the Japanese words JijuyoZanmai, and of the autonomic nervous system. His explanation was tortuous enough to make your head throb, so I won’t repeat it.

To keep things simple, which is what Zen is all about, the straightforward answer to what is gained in Buddhism is inward balance.

That word “balance” pops up again in this talk. See if you can catch it.

Question: What is the meaning of Dharma Transmission?
Dharma Transmission is the sharing of Buddhist truth and Buddhist wisdom. Traditionally this marked a formal ceremony in which a master physically handed over his robe and eating bowl to a disciple. It was an action that symbolized the disciple’s comprehension of the master’s teaching.

Some Buddhist groups today observe Dharma transmission by having the disciple acknowledge what are known as the Five Precepts. These are vows such as “I will be mindful of all life;” “I will respect the property of others,” and so on. In this formal approach, a certificate is sometimes awarded, and there is chanting and ritual.

My transmission was pretty basic. After I had studied for several years with Master Hiromu Oda, he said, “You have understood everything I have to say to you. Now go out and tell others.”

Which is what I try to do.

Question: What is a Zen master?
Nishijima replied that “Zen Master” may be the translation of the Japanese words “Zen Ji,” which means a teacher of zazen. And, as we know, zazen is no more than, or no less than, meditation.

I teach zazen. Does that qualify me to declare I’m a master? I prefer to use the term “teacher.”

Zazen can be taught, Nishijima said. But it is necessary for each person to practice zazen himself or herself.

Nishijima cautions that we should be careful with the word “Zen,” since to some misguided people the word has a mystical meaning.

Dogen raved against such terms as “Zen sect,” “Zen school,” and “Zen patriarch,” saying that they were all twigs and leaves rooted in a distorted view.

In other words, we shouldn’t get hung up on the term “Zen.” Or on the word “master,” either. A master is a person who has mastered himself or herself and lives in balance.

Question: What is our true original nature?
This is Nishijima’s answer: “Generally speaking, it is usually impossible for us to know our true original nature, because it is just a simple fact at the present moment, and so it is usually impossible for us to grasp it at the present moment.”

Question: What is life and Death?
Again, Nishijima’s answer is worth quoting: “When our heart has stopped and if it doesn’t move again, the state is called death, and when our heart is moving without stopping, that state is called life.”

Question: What is Buddha-nature?
The expression “Buddha-nature” turns up frequently in Buddhist writings. Like most terms, Buddha-nature has more than a few definitions, and boiling them down to a clear-cut explanation is nearly impossible. But most of them imply that Buddha-nature is an inherent potential for awakening, and it exists in every living being.

By inherent potential is meant that whether you know it or not, you have the capacity for awakening.

I’ll say it again another way. Buddha-nature is an inherent potential for reaching awakening. That potential exists in every living being, and you can either use it or lose it.

Master Dogen said Buddha-nature is not something of the past or of the future, but a state of body and mind at a precise moment.

If you want more details on Dogen’s thinking, read his talk titled Bussho, The Buddha-nature, in Shobogenzo Book 2.

Question: What are Heaven and Hell?
To quote Nishijima, “Heaven is a human supposition and Hell is also a human supposition.” End of quote.

Although ancient Buddhist writings mention heaven and hell, they are used as metaphors, as figures of speech.

The Western World says Heaven, often called Paradise, is up there, and that’s where you go after death if you’ve been good while you were alive. Hell, also called The Inferno, is down there, and that is where you go if you’ve been bad.

Master Oda said heaven and hell are not something humans experience after death because no one has died and lived to tell what being dead was like. Therefore, it is foolish to worry about heave, hell, or even death. Instead, Oda said, when we live fully in every moment, we create our own heaven or hell.

To quote myself, when we are awakened and fully aware, that is heaven; when we are out of balance, that is hell.

Fred Astaire said heaven was dancing cheek-to-cheek.
Mark Twain said, Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

Did anyone catch at least two mentions of the word “balance”?

BUDDHISM MYTHS—PART II

2011-08-31T07:57:00.001-07:00

This talk picks up more accounts of storybook happenings in the history of the Buddha. But first, a modern hot flash from the Internet. If you can’t put your faith in the Internet or in television news, what can you believe?

Jose Maldonado, a 22-year-old bricklayer in Guadalajara, found a live fairy.
“I was picking guavas and I saw a twinkling. I thought it was a firefly. I picked it up and felt that it was moving; when I looked at it I knew that it was a fairy godmother,” Maldonado said.
Sadly, it died, but he pickled it in formaldehyde and allows the curious to take a peek for a fee.

Now, back to the past.

According to folklore, after the Buddha’s awakening he continued to travel and speak of his experience. When he was age eighty his followers wondered if he would appoint an heir to carry on his teaching. The Buddha said he had never considered himself a counselor; therefore, there was no need for someone to step into his sandals.

“Instead of following someone like a pack of hungry dogs,” the Buddha said. “Think for yourselves. Do not blindly accept what you might hear. Weigh everything in your own mind. Be your own person, and concern yourselves with the well-being of all beings.”

And so, according to this story, Buddhism has no central source of authority.

Wait a minute, you say. What about the Dali Lama? Isn’t he the head of Buddhism?

No, the Dali Lama is the chief abbot and spiritual leader of the ritualistic Tibetan school known as the Gelugpa, or Yellow Hats.

That’s all. That’s more than enough.

Let’s stick with Zen, which urges meditation as the way to the realization of one’s true nature.

Getting back to mythology, the Buddha is alleged to have died lying on his right side. Today, many statues in Asia show him this way. True or false, what difference does it make? There is no record whether the Buddha was right-handed or left-handed.

His supposed last words were, “Decay is inherent in all things. Be sure to strive with clarity of mind for complete awakening.”

You may have heard of a pre-Buddhist legend called Radiance mythology. It’s a story that combines a sort of Biblical genesis account with the tale of Pandora’s Box. The Radiance version says the first thing to exist was white light and black light. Then the universe was filled with an enormous egg. From the egg, black light produced evils. However, white light, or Radiance produced happiness and prosperity.

Just trying to picture that boggles the imagination.

The scholar Joseph Campbell said myths are public dreams, and dreams are private myths. He also said that every religion is true when understood metaphorically. But if you interpret metaphors as facts, you run into snags.

One of Buddhism’s most stable legends concerns Bodhidharma, an Indian monk, who supposedly left his homeland to bring Buddhist teachings to China. Whether Bodhidharma actually existed is still a matter of conjecture.

In Bodhidharma’s time the Buddhism practiced in China was elaborate and fanciful, and it had countless gods and myths. There is a story that in the A.D. 600s a monk went to China to gather copies of official writings. The monkey god and the pig god joined him and helped him to fight various demons with a magic stick.

Can you picture that?

Other significant Buddhist deities of the time included the four kings of heaven, the four kings of hell, the kitchen god, and Mi-le, known in India as Maitreya. Mi-le is also known as the laughing god. Carved images of him are sold in Chinese schlock shops. He’s the little guy with the big belly and the jolly face.

Most Zen koans are stories of encounters between masters and monks. They are myths designed to bring about awakening, or to explain the meaning of existence by means of metaphor.

One master asked another master, “What does the golden fish that has passed through the net use for food?”

The other master answered, “When you come out of the net, I’ll tell you.”

A monk asked Master Yun Men, “What is talk that goes beyond buddhas and patriarchs?”

Does either of these koans open the meaning of life to you?

Myths can be entertaining as long as you realize they have about the same weight as fairy tales. Their purpose is to give humans something to believe in other than themselves.

I hesitate rattling anyone’s beliefs, but here are a few facts of life:

◊ George Washington did not have wooden teeth.
◊ Albert Einstein did not fail math in school.
◊ Searing meat does not seal in moisture.
◊ Swallowed watermelon seeds will not grow in your stomach.
◊ Sushi does not mean raw fish. Sushi refers to the vinegared rice used in it.

To wind this up, think for yourselves. Don’t blindly accept what you hear, or read, or are told. Evaluate everything in your own mind. Be your own person.

Dogen was not a myth. He was a real human being, He said:

To study the way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be awakened by all things.
To be awakened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others.

BUDDHISM MYTHS—PART I

2011-08-16T07:38:00.001-07:00

Many oddball claims have been laid on Buddhism by misguided individuals. To name a few: Buddhism is a religion; the Buddha was a saint, or even a magician; the Buddha is a pope-like head of a worldwide religion. And so on and so on. Most claims start from pure ignorance. Other claims pop up from notions that are based on myths and legends.

Myths are cozy little tales that may have a basis in fact. On the other hand, they may be far removed from reality. They are usually devised to simplify teachings for a particular, often unsophisticated, audience. Unfortunately, many people take myths as dogma.

Let’s see. There is Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth
Fairy . . . .

Oh, and did you know that angels play harps while they fly? That’s like texting while driving.

I don’t put much stock in fanciful legends. Instead, I prefer practical, living issues. Still, some of the Buddhist myths are worth mentioning because they are a historical part of the tradition. Also, a few people actually believe in them.

There is no existing biography that deals with the life of the Buddha. Such records were unknown some twenty-five hundred years ago. However, certain key episodes stand out.

When it comes to the Buddha’s birth the fanciful stories fly off the chart. His expectant mother dreamed that a baby elephant entered her side. Second-guessers of the time interpreted this to mean the child would become a great political leader or else grow up to be a great religious teacher. How those interpretations arose, I can’t imagine.

An elephant? Maybe back then India was heavily Republican.

Historically, the birth took place at Lumbini, a city that is honored as a holy site to this day. There were no elephants involved.

Another myth: At his birth the Buddha infant supposedly tottered a few steps and announced this was the last time he would be born. That was taken to mean he had experienced several Hindu-style reincarnations.

Flash forward.

Fact: At age sixteen Guatama Siddhartha married a woman named Yashodhara, and they had a son they named Rahula. Though Siddhartha valued family life, when he was twenty-nine he left home in an attempt to seek knowledge. After six years spent wandering and investigating various disciplines, at age thirty-five he attained what we refer to as “enlightenment.” He was then known as the Buddha, or the Awakened One.

Over the next forty-five years he wandered in northern India, teaching what he had realized in his awakening.

As we have heard many times over, when the Buddha went out from his royal home he witnessed four incidents. He encountered an aged person, an ailing person, a dead person, and a beggar. He was so struck by these indications of suffering that he left home to try to understand the nature of human existence.

According to some scholars, when the Buddha was out on the streets he was first taught a form of serene meditation. He thought this was well and good, but that there was more to understanding life than tuning out. Another teacher introduced him to a mystical state of consciousness, a sort of mental negation of existence.

“But, I don’t want to remove myself from humanity, the Buddha thought. I want to be an integral part of it in order to comprehend it.”

Then the Buddha practiced rigorous breath control, but that only gave him headaches. He practiced self-mortification by fasting to the point of emaciation. He went without sleep. He may even have stretched on a bed of nails or broken glass, or walked on hot coals, as do many pious Indian ascetics.

Although none of these activities helped the Buddha to understand life, he did come to see that such extremes were unproductive. As the writer Damien Keown said, “The most appropriate lifestyle, accordingly, would be one of moderation in which the appetites were neither denied nor indulged to excess.”

So the Buddha sat under the branches of a fig tree, and went back to straightforward meditation—what Dogen would later call shikantaza: Zazen in which the mind and body are totally involved in nothing but the sitting itself.

It was then the Buddha had his awakening, which often is called enlightenment.

1. He understood that life is dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction is common to all humans.
2. He saw that we, as humans, cause our own dissatisfaction.
3. He perceived that we can end dissatisfaction by avoiding what causes it: greed, craving, and discontent.
4. He decided that dissatisfaction can be overcome by following a certain pattern of behavior.

These realizations came to be referred to as The Four Noble Truths.

The Four Noble Truths may sound like a grocery list, but they form the basis for the tradition and practice of Buddhism.

Myths and fairy tales may make for entertaining reading, and may serve as adolescent guideposts. Just remember that Buddhism doesn’t deal in beliefs and rituals. Buddhism is about looking at our own lives and understanding ourselves.

NO BEGINNING, NO END

2011-08-09T13:56:00.001-07:00

By now I suppose most of you have at least a sketchy notion of the early journeys of Zen in Asia, and later in the Western world. Here is a very brief review of some of its travels.

-- The Indian teacher Bodhidharma brought Zen from India to China.

-- The Nichiren monks Dogen and Myozen traveled from Japan to China to study Ch’an.

-- Soyen Shaku, D.T. Suzuki, Thich Nhat Hahn, and other Asian teachers and academics moved from Japan to the United States and Europe.

To paraphrase the book The Roaring Stream, “[Historically] . . . so many Japanese monks had embarked for China that there was a stock phrase that said, ‘longing for the Dharma, entering the land of Sung.’

Interestingly, some of the Chinese masters were so awed with the numbers of Japanese seekers that came to their country that several of them went the other route to share the Dharma. They headed out of China and into Japan.

One notable Chinese master who went that route was named Lan-ch’i. Once he arrived in Japan he spent thirty-three years teaching Zen in that country, and he became so revered that he was given the posthumous title, Daikaku Zenji, Zen Master of Great Enlightenment.

I’d like to say a few words about Daikaku.

When Daikaku was a thirteen-year-old kid in China, he left home, determined to visit monasteries in the east of his country and to study under numerous Ch’an masters and teachers. Eventually, although he spoke only Chinese, he wangled his way into Japan, where he established himself in Kyoto.

Later he settled in Kamakura. It was there he met Hojo Tokiyori, a court official who was tired of the rules and regulations of Japanese Buddhist teachings and had a burning interest in the ways of Zen.

Tokiyori was drawn to supporting Daikaku, because he felt Zen added an air of cultural authority to the political scene.

Quoting from The Roaring Stream: “The leading position that Ch’an held in Sung China made Zen an attractive alternate to those Japanese institutions that had previously served as legitimators of power.”

In plain words that means if the great Chinese government was vitalized by the recognition of Zen, the practice might be good for Japanese politics.

Even though Daikaku was a popular teacher in Japan, there was a curious dilemma in his teachings, owing to the fact he spoke only Chinese.

Many of the Japanese students and monks understood written Chinese, which in most forms is similar to written Japanese, However, very few could comprehend spoken Chinese, and only a handful understood Daikaku’s idiomatic dialect.

So, how could he give an comprehendible Dharma talk?

This reminds me of a book I recently read about Britain’s King Richard (known as The Lionhearted) and his role in the Third Crusade to reclaim Palestine.

At one point Richard seemed to be winning a siege against the Muslim leader, Saladin, when the king became ill and lost his voice. Imagine the Monty Python sort of scene.

Richard shouts, “Mmmmwanov.”

“What did he say?” asks a general.

“I think he wants us to advance. Either that, or he said to fall back.”

“Mmmmwanov. Bracklesnog!”

“Ill be darned if I know what we’re supposed to do,” said another general. Let’s just pretend we didn’t hear him.”

Back to Japan.

After much trial and error, Daikaku adopted a three-stage teaching method.

His words were first written in Japanese phonetic characters. Next these symbols were turned over to another Szechwan monk who changed them into Chinese characters. These signs, in turn, were finally translated into spoken Japanese. It was a complicated process, but it eventually fell into place. A later Chinese master described the method as brush talk, and wrote:

“I express my mind using a brush instead of my tongue, and you seize my meaning hearing my words with your eyes.”

Usually the tactic succeeded, but there were many instances in which a student was completely baffled. History doesn’t mention them.

Another answer was to create koans as teaching tools.

Daikaku’s temple, Kencho-ji, became a desirable training center, and he was popular with the Japanese shogunate. However, he had his detractors.

Remember America’s hysterical Cold War hysterics in the 1950s?

HELP! THERE”S A RED UNDER EVERY BED!

Rumors circulated that Daikaku was a Chinese spy. He was exiled to a rural post, which would be like today sending him off to a hick church out in Arkansas’ Newton County.

Fortunately, after several years the accusers decided Daikaku was clean, and he was reinstated at Kencho-ji in Kamakura. He died there in 1279.

Daikaku may have instituted a bizarre teaching method, but he is honored as a respected Zen master as well as a skillful calligrapher and a sensitive poet.

A few sayings of Daikaku:

-- Zen practice is not clarifying abstract distinctions, but discarding one’s preconceived notions and views and discovering the self behind them.

-- The man resolute in the way must from the beginning never lose sight of it.

-- Understand that hearing a sound is to take it as sound; seeing a form, is to take it as form. Turn the hearing back until hearing comes to an end; purify awareness until awareness becomes empty. Then perception will become immediate.

-- Heaven and earth and I are of one root; the thousand things and I are one body.

-- Every day you should go into the calm quiet where you really belong.

Here’s a question from me. What does that last saying mean to you?

I’ll say it again.

Every day you should go into the calm quiet where you really belong.

To me, that says meditate.

TRAPS

2011-07-26T08:08:00.001-07:00

The dictionary defines the word “religion” as a belief in and reverence for a supernatural power regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

Most religions are thought up and controlled by humans, and most of them are based on some sort of payback. Do this and you’ll go to glory (what ever glory means). Don’t do that and you’ll be rewarded.

Humans are suckers for prizes.

Especially Westerners.

Zen is not a religion, and it doesn’t offer prizes.

So, is Zen the answer to life’s headaches?

No.

Zen doesn’t offer quick fixes to anything, much less to what Buddhism terms suffering.

Instead, Zen generates one outlandish brain-teaser after another to rattle your cage and encourage you to think for yourself.

But if you try to nail down answers to Zen questions you’ll become bogged because you’re thinking in terms of questions and answers, in terms of two different things.

In Western terms of if you do this, you’ll gain that.

This is what Zen calls dualistic thinking, and Zen avoids dualisms because they are dead ends.

What Zen does is enable you to see life’s twists and turns clearly, and realize that those twists and turns are inevitable. They aren’t really problems unless you allow them to be problems.

Back in the days when self-help paperbacks filled the shelves, I had what I thought was a whizbang idea for a book. It would be titled Traps.

Traps would talk about life’s snares such as bad jobs, poor relationships, gambling habits, and so on, and so on. Furthermore, it would offer practical ways to break free of such snags.

I sent off a detailed prospectus, and one publisher showed interest. Wow! I was on my way.

But the more I thought about the project, the less I liked the idea because the book might end up being touted as a fix-all manual. It was too fundamental, too much of a non-brainer. So I abandoned it.

If anyone wants to filch my brainchild, feel free. I won’t sue.

In other talks I’ve mentioned people who imagine every combination of circumstances as a personal rebuke. A divine slap on the hands.

But consider this: Problems don’t appear out of thin air. Problems aren’t like the Big Bang, an event that just happened.

Problems have a cause. Like religions, problems are created by people.

The word “problem”—like the word “religion”—is an expression I wish would go away because it’s a pointless idiom. What most people think of as a problem is simply a situation that will fade once it is seen clearly for what it is.

Do you remember the core of the Buddha’s teachings, the four noble truths? They don’t deal with the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders. They deal with reality.

Few humans are continuously cheerful. Instead, most of us are often dissatisfied. We feel we are never getting enough. Not enough money, not enough happiness, not enough respect.

There was a song titled “I’ll Never Get Enough.” I don’t recall the lyrics, which is just as well.

Anyway, discontent leads to unhappiness.

As the comic Rodney Dangerfield said, “I don't get no respect from my doctor. I told him I wanted a vasectomy. He said, with a face like mine I don't need one.”

In Sanskrit, discontent is termed dukkha. In English dukkha is suffering. Which brings us back to the first of the four noble truths.

Human beings suffer. They are unhappy. They are dissatisfied.

The second noble truth states that suffering is the result of desire. In two words, we want. What’s ironic is that we usually want what we really don’t need.

The columnist Art Buchwald said, “The best things in life aren’t things.”

The third noble truth states we can do away with suffering.

Note the word we. We means you, it means me. Go-betweens aren’t required. No guru, no priest, no savior, no executive committees. You and only you can eliminate the worthless stuff you think life hands you but which you and only you create.

You’re the one in charge of your life. If you want your life to be filled with more than crap, don’t look to someone or something else. Look to yourself, and keep away from the desire for crappy stuff.

You don’t have to become a priest or a monk. All you need do is follow the Taoist/Buddhist way—the middle road—and recognize the traps you have set in that road.

The fourth noble truth says to follow the middle road’s eight guideposts.

We’ll discuss those guideposts another time, so come back for more.

Remember: Zazen encourages you to be, without demands, or rituals, or powers beyond your own.

Maybe I’ll write that book after all.

WHY IS ZEN?

2011-07-19T07:34:00.000-07:00

You are probably familiar with the term “Dualism.” It shows up often in Zen literature. Here’s how dualism is defined in a Western dictionary.

1. The idea that everything is explainable as two things. So, if everything is explainable as two things, how do you explain one dog?
2. The idea that mind and body function separately. So, if the body is lifeless, does the mind continue to exist?
3. The idea that the world is ruled by good and evil. So, if there is no good, is there also no evil?
4. The idea that humans have two basic natures, the physical and the spiritual. So, if a human is deceased, what happens to the otherworldly part?

Zen teaches you to avoid dualistic thinking, to steer clear of this-and-that outlooks that too often lead to judgments.

It’s human nature to simplify and at the same time to complicate. Humans like to explain things and they like to give things labels. I suppose such classifying enables people to find a place for themselves in the world.

When a person is asked who he or she is, the answer may be I’m a doctor, or a teacher, or a used-car salesman.

The individual might say: a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist.

The answer may be a name: “I’m Jane. I’m Joe.”

Such responses may seem satisfactory, but they beg the question because they are only names some one, at some time, has doled out. Names are labels, but they are not really you. To give a name to something is to have power over it.

What is a Joe?

People who practice Zen are often asked what is Zen.

A Zen master would probably regard the question as frivolous and ignore it. In early days a master might yell “KWATZ!” and pull your nose to wake you up.

“Zen” is a word, so what is Zen?

In simplest terms, Zen is a way of life.

Recently a friend and I got this far. He said okay, and then he asked if there were any guiding principles to Zen as a way of life.

Such as the Ten Commandments, he suggested.

I said the Ten Commandments were rules, and Zen doesn’t have rules.

I knew I was digging a hole that I couldn’t climb out of, but I mentioned the Eightfold Path. You know: Proper Understanding, Proper Intention, Speech, Behavior, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness, Meditation.

These aren’t rules. They are hints for living a full life.

Only eight pointers as a basis for a way of life. You’d think they would be easy to remember. But as long as I’ve been in this Zen life, I can never remember all eight. So I have to mumble a couple, or else find the list and read it off.

Zen people are often asked why is Zen.

That’s like being asked why is a bicycle.

Nevertheless, that why question is Zen-like because it’s short and to the point.

And the point isn’t clear.

A Zen individual might take the question not as a why or a what, but what he or she gets out of Zen.

What’s the payback? My friend asked.

I’ll talk about fringe benefits another time.

For most humans life is complicated.

People challenge one another. They squabble. They go to war. History repeats itself, but people never seem to learn from the past.

When I was ten years old or so I had a flash of insight. I told my parents that human beings were no damn good because of all the nastiness they caused.

My parents probably nodded and said, “Uh huh.”

I’d like to think that over the years I’ve become more tolerant. Maybe more tolerable.

Nevertheless, people can be kind, obliging, and unselfish. Sorry to say, these kinds of people are rare. They don’t make the news.

The Buddha said life is suffering. Suffering is the word most commonly used in Buddhism, but it doesn’t necessarily mean physical pain. Suffering refers to desires and wants that make us bite our nails.

Most Westerners think of Zen in terms of robes and shaved heads.

But Zen isn’t restricted to a monastery in Japan, or to a hermit’s cave in China. Zen doesn’t require renunciation of anything, or acceptance of anything.

Zen is for anyone, anywhere.

Zen steers clear of dualisms.

You don’t have to believe in any sort of deity, or any sort of savior, or any sort of intercessor.

That may be hard to understand in the West, but it’s spot-on.

Like I said, you don’t have to believe in any sort of deity, or any sort of savior, or any sort of intercessor.

Zen is you, right now.

That’s the what and the why of Zen.

A question: Do you think everything has two sides?

DOGEN’S GREAT REALIZATION

2011-06-28T07:34:00.001-07:00

In one of Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo talks he speaks at length about Daigo. This is not the name of a monk. It’s a Japanese word that translates roughly as “Great Realization.”

Now that’s a dicey term in English as well as in Japanese. Many Zen intellectuals, including the renowned D.T. Suzuki, interpret “Daigo” as denoting enlightenment.

However, in all of Dogen’s writings he downplays the shopworn notion that enlightenment is the goal of Zen. Dogen insists that zazen—that is, meditation—and enlightenment—that is, awakening—are the same.

This is a wonderful example of where one plus one equals . . . one.

Therefore, according to Dogen, Daigo, or Great Realization, is something else.

Let’s take a look at what Great Realization might be.

To paraphrase Dogen: “To carry into effect great realization is to arrive at the truth without realizing it and to let go and act.”

That seems clear and straightforward. I’ll say it again:

“To carry into effect great realization is to arrive at the truth without realizing it, and to let go and act.”

Of course, Dogen, being Dogen, can’t leave well enough alone. He goes on to say that, first, Buddhist masters experience being used by the twelve hours. That could be said the other way around. Masters use the twelve hours in that they are fully aware.

In American terms, they are up to scratch.

Next, masters take things up, and they throw things away. That is, they live each moment totally, but they don’t cling to anything.

Finally, Dogen says that masters play with mud-balls, and they play with the soul.

Mud balls?

I see bewilderment on your faces.

What he means is, they live with the mundane, such as rinsing sand out of spinach, but they continue to be alive each moment, no matter how ordinary those moments may seem to an observer.

As radio-impresario Garrison Kiellor might say, they have the get-up-and-go to do the things that need to be done.

Dogen lists several kinds of humans that identify with great realization. Not to worry if you don’t immediately grasp the significance of these categories. Just listen, and let the words sink in. Maybe they will make sense today. Maybe they will tomorrow.

Here are Dogen’s four kinds of humans:

1. The innately intelligent. These are individuals who by living become free of life. Let’s be careful here. I don’t say that humans become immortal, or that they live for a hundred years. They do have—somewhere during their lifetime—a realization of their physical being. It’s a point at which they realize, “Hey, I’m a man, or I’m a woman. I’m not sure which, but, sure as shootin’, I am me.”

2. The learned intelligent. These are individuals who master the state of themselves. That is, Dogen claims, they realize the skin, flesh, bones and marrow of themselves.

A slight detour: Remember the occasion when Bodhidharma gathered his disciples to test their awareness, and one of them said truth is beyond affirmation or negation, and Bodhidharma said, “You have my skin.” Another said that Buddha-land is seen once and forever, and Bodhidharma said “You have my flesh.” Another said that spirit is reality, and Bodhidharma said, “You have my bones.” The fourth disciple didn’t say anything. Bodhidharma said, “You have my marrow,”

3. There are the people of Buddha-intelligence. In short, they are individuals who are free from the restraints of goal-oriented intelligence.

4. There are people of the teacher-less intelligence. These are individuals who don’t rely on counselors, or on sutras. Furthermore, they are individuals who don’t run around trying to drag others into their way of thinking.

Each category seems like a pretty good road map to living, doesn’t it?

So, what is the point of all this heady stuff?

The point is that these categories of Dogen are not individual niches for fitting oneself into. They aren’t road maps. They aren’t like blood types or post office boxes. They are collective examples of what Dogen calls great realization, and together they help to define an ideal principle.

The point is this.

Great realization isn’t enlightenment, or awakening, or a blessed state in which an individual transcends desire and suffering.

Great realization is not related to the past and future because it is a momentary state.

Great realization is you, right here, you right now.

ALL ABOUT ZAZEN—PART II

2011-06-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

Here we are, back to “All about Zazen.”

In Part I we talked about the best time and place for meditation. Now, in Part II, we will start with posture and position.

First, some traditional issues of floor-sitting, and then some practical matters.

POSTURE AND POSITION

Traditionally, zazen is done sitting on the floor, facing the wall.

If you choose to be traditional, lay down a mat or a folded blanket, and on top of it put a cushion, a pad, or a dense pillow. Feathers or down-stuffed pads are like store-bought white bread in that they’re way too fluffy. Any sort of firm cushion or combination of cushions will do as long as your bottom can settle comfortably without sinking.

Some people favor a wooden sitting bench, while others prefer a chair. Use what feels best for you. Sit barefoot or else in stocking feet. Shoes are clunky for doing zazen and they insulate you from the floor or earth.

In the traditional full-lotus position your right foot is placed on your left thigh, and your left foot is placed on your right thigh. Both of your knees are close to the floor. If you can’t manage the full-lotus, try the half-lotus by placing your right foot on your left thigh and your left foot under your right thigh. Keep your knees down. In the Burmese style your legs are not crossed but folded flat in front of you. The Japanese position is a semi-kneeling posture in which both legs are doubled under your buttocks, straddling your cushion.

Along with these nit-picking instructions remember that what you do with your mind in zazen is more important than what you do with your feet or legs.

Make sure your body is comfortable.

What do you do with your hands? Place one of them palm up, in your lap. Position the other hand, palm up, on top. Position your hands just below your navel, pressing their back edges against your abdomen. In Japanese this site is called the tanden, and it is considered to be the body’s center of spiritual energy.

Once you’re in place, rock back and forth, then from side to side. Let your shoulders drop back naturally without forcing them, and imagine a string is attached to the top of your head, pulling you upward. A catch phrase for zazen sitting is “chin in, shoulders back.”

BREATH AND MIND

Breathe normally. Inhale and exhale regularly, neither overfilling your lungs nor forcing the air out.

If your mind refuses to calm down and wants to stew about something, or if it hops all over the place, breath-counting can often have a calming effect. You can count inhalations as “one” and exhalations as “two,” and so on up to ten. You can count inhalations only, or you can count exhalations only. Whatever method you choose, when you reach “ten,” start over with “one.” Usually after a few cycles of breath-counting your mind will have quieted down.

A monk once asked his master what one should think about while sitting, and the master answered, “One thinks of not-thinking.”

“How does one think of not-thinking?” the monk persisted.

The master replied, “Without thinking.”

When you finish a session of zazen get up gradually. Straighten your legs and wiggle your ankles. Your muscles have been in repose and they’ll appreciate being roused gently.

Zazen can be tiring for a novice, so beginners should sit for five to ten minutes during their first half-dozen sessions. As one’s comfort and assurance grow, sitting times can be increased by five minutes. The maximum time per session for most people is forty-five minutes. During sesshin—a Zen retreat—several such sittings a day are common.

Kinhin is walking meditation.

Keeping your body erect and your gaze directed downward at a forty-five degree angle, slide one foot forward in a half-step. Don’t take a large stride, and don’t lift your foot high. Inhale and exhale with each step. Keep your chin in and your shoulders back.

Doing zazen with others provides a sense of companionship, which can be a benefit to your practice. However, meditating alone is neither harder nor easier than meditating with others, and solitary sitting can help develop a feeling of self-confidence. When you do zazen alone try to sit in a place that’s free of household responsibilities such as children, overactive pets, and telephones.

Remember that zazen and awakening are the same. That means zazen should not be scheduled like a golf game. Zazen is awakening, and awakening is daily life to be lived.

To paraphrase Shunryu Suzuki: “When you are able to sit, the meaning of your everyday life will be completely different.

ALL ABOUT ZAZEN--PART I

2011-06-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

For want of a better title, I’m calling this talk “All About Zazen.” However, it covers a lot of ground, so I’m dividing it into Part I and Part II.

SOME CLASSICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Zazen began as a monastic form of training. Therefore it was secluded and contemplative, disciplined and austere. The earliest practitioners were monks, and they were either mountain hermits or they lived in out-of-the-way, sheltered communities.

Historically Zen followed the nonverbal custom of Taoism, since words tended to be changed from labels into notions. Both Zen and Taoism are concerned not with an abstract concept of a thing but with the thing itself.

Remember what Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching had to say about verbalization:

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao, The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”

Zen doesn’t renounce words altogether. If it did, you wouldn’t be listening to me drone on and on. In today’s world Zen needs to use words to instruct. Still, as D.T. Suzuki put it, verbalism can lead from one complication to another.

So, listen to what I say, but take everything with a pound of salt.

Think of Zen as a house. In order for a house to be livable it has to have a good foundation. The foundation of Zen is zazen. Meditation. We’ve talked about the fundamentals of zazen before, but they’re worth repeating from time to time.

Once a child is taught good manners, the words “Please” and “Thank you” come automatically, and they usually last a lifetime. However, over time even a person who is well grounded in zazen may become lazy about the practice. If that happens, the structure’s foundation may begin to sag.

Zazen shapes the heart of Zen. In fact, Zen Buddhists are generally known as “meditation Buddhists.” But zazen isn’t just sitting quietly. It’s the study of the self.

The study of the self.

As Master Dogen said, “To study the Buddha way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to be enlightened.”

As a welcome change from my blathering about obscure subjects I’d like to echo some practical words on zazen. A rehash of the basics won’t harm any of us, and it may even remind us of some fundamentals we’ve neglected.

Dogen was explicit about meditation when he said if one wishes to attain enlightenment one must practice zazen.

TIME AND PLACE

Many Zen masters and teachers claim there’s a best time and best place for zazen. Some suggest that the ideal time is at sunrise or sunset when the body cells change, and that the best location is a silent room that is neither hot nor cold.

Not everyone has the choice of such a site because many people live in military barracks, or communes, or apartments that are so small the mice have round shoulders. Furthermore, not everyone has a timetable that permits them to say “Good morning” or “Good evening” to the sun.

A quiet place for zazen is best, but if you’re really into your practice you’ll be able to meditate on a subway car that’s jammed with people.

As for the best time to do zazen, don’t be too fussy, because any part of the day or night is suitable. As you perfect your practice you’ll learn to not just do zazen but to live zazen.

That is, at any time you’ll be detached from your environment, but you’ll be aware of it.

“Direct experience will come when you are completely one with your activity, when you have no idea of self.” Words by Shunryu Suzuki.

EIGHT AWAKENINGS

2011-05-31T12:56:00.000-07:00

Zen is meditation.

Meditation is Zen.

In the context of Buddhism and, particularly in my talks on Zen, I try to sidestep the word “enlightenment.” It’s a word that has become so trendy—especially in the Western world—that most people believe enlightenment is the goal of meditation.

And that misses the whole point of living Zen.

Or of Zen living.

Instead of “enlightenment,” I prefer “awakening,” or even such terms as illumination, or edification, or insight, or awareness, or self-perception.

Those are concepts relevant to Zen.

I recently read a statement to the effect that Zen practice consists in gaining enlightenment. That’s a common thought among people who don’t know Zen, and on the surface it sounds pretty good because it contains that old buzz word, enlightenment.

But on second thought gaining enlightenment sounds too much like a logical, rational process. Remember, Zen balks at logic, and Zen certainly isn’t rational if rationality implies reasoning because Zen goes beyond reasoning. To separate Zen from awakening is to create a “this” versus “that” dualism.

I prefer to say Zen and enlightenment—or awakening—are one and the same.

In the year 1200 the so-called founder of Soto Zen, Master Dogen, spoke about what he termed the eight awakenings of great beings. These awakenings are not stages to pursue, and they aren’t yardsticks. They are a sort of cornerstone in the process of realizing awareness.

And they are interrelated.

What Dogen had to say 800 years ago to a group of Japanese monks is relevant today to everyone.

The first awakening is to have few desires.

Having few desires is the avoidance of craving for “stuff.” Stuff such as a commanding position among people, wads of money, more than one house, a red Ferrari.

Do Ferrari’s come in any color other than red?

I once knew a fellow who craved a Ferrari and was wealthy enough to buy one. Every day he’d open his garage and sit in the car’s driver seat. Just sit. He never rolled the car out of the garage because there were no highways where he could crank it up over a hundred miles an hour. Also, he was afraid of scratching the lovely red paint.

What he desired, he had, but it was of no real use to him.

People who have few desires are free from the never-satisfying hunt for importance, and riches, and stuff.

People who have few desires don’t feel the need to use others to acquire celebrity status or pile up more money.

People who have few desires are comfortable with what they have, and are not constantly agonizing about not having something else or gaining more of something.

The last time we met I mentioned that a visual symbol of Buddhism is a burning house. It is a good image, and most of you perceived that a burning house represents no possessions.

The second awakening is to know when enough is enough.

Even wealthy individuals often have a nagging feeling of being poor, and so they lust for more money or more power.

The Buddha said, “Monks, to be free from suffering, mull over knowing how much is enough. If you know how much is enough, you will be satisfied. If you don’t know, you will be discontented.”

This is called “knowing when enough is enough.”

The third awakening is to enjoy quietness.

This is the ability to be happy as your own person.

The Buddha said to his monks: “If you want to have the joy of calm nondoing, be away from crowds and be alone in a silent place.”

Now, this is a difficult undertaking in today’s world. Between noise-belching cars and motorcycles, and clattering television sets in almost every restaurant—and if a public place doesn’t have television it blares out irritating background noises, euphemistically called music. There are few public places that enjoy quiet.

Such torments are diminished by making one’s home in a quiet place. That’s why I used to live in the woods.

But if you do enjoy crowds, when you’re in them you may still feel hemmed in. As Dogen said, you’ll be like a tree that attracts hordes of birds and is eventually killed by the racket.

The fourth awakening is to give what Dogen called diligent effort.

Diligent effort. What is diligent effort?

According to Dogen, the Buddha said diligent effort is holding to natural efforts. It’s a sort of constant fine-tuning of your life. It’s a going forward without turning back.

If you make diligent effort, nothing is too difficult.

It’s like a trickle of water wearing through a large rock by constantly seeping.

The fifth awakening is to maintain mindfulness.

In the Buddhist Eightfold Path, mindfulness is also called right thought. But the term “right” may evoke the opposite term, “wrong,” which is a dualism. Let’s stick with one thing at a time, and never mind opposites.

To maintain mindfulness.

The Buddha said, “There is nothing like not neglecting mindfulness. Do not lose mindfulness. Mindfulness is like wearing armor when going into a battlefield.”

Now that is somewhat flowery because it’s couched in metaphor. The point is to be totally aware, whether you’re reading a book, or preparing a meal, or drinking a glass of water, or sitting in zazen.

Maintain mindfulness.

The sixth awakening is to practice meditation.

Practice meditation?

That’s another common term in Zen writings.

To practice something is to do it over and over again in order to gain skill at it. Like repeating a dance step, or rehearsing a golf swing.

Meditation isn’t a golf swing. Meditation is not repetition. Meditation is full-time being. Meditation is full-time awareness.

Dogen said meditation is awakening.

Meditation is remaining in dharma—that is, in Buddha knowledge—without flip-flopping from one approach to another.

Dogen said the Buddha said, “If you gather your mind it will abide in stability. Then you will understand the birth and the death of all things. When you have stability your mind will not be scattered.”

This is what’s called the sixth awakening.

To maintain meditation. To constantly be alive, and awake, and aware.

The seventh awaking is to cultivate wisdom.

That means to listen, to contemplate, to meditate, and to realize. It means not to be sidetracked by so-called shortcuts or flakey notions of quick solutions.

If you have wisdom you’re free from craving, from self-indulgence, from excess desire, from materialism.

No more thoughts of gaining “stuff.”

Doesn’t that sound good?

Finally, the eighth awakening is to steer clear of hollow discussions.

To steer clear of hollow discussions is to be free from prejudiced thinking, and from pointless cocktail-party babble.

Have you ever seen a desert dust devil? They are miniature tornadoes. They swirl across the landscape, picking up loose trash, carrying it for a while, and then scattering it all over the land. Hollow discussions are like dust devils. They cause the mind to collect pieces of dry weeds, and scraps of paper, and dead cigarette butts, and then broadcast them.

* * * * *

According to Dogen, by nurturing these eight awakenings, you can arrive at insight, and share your insight with all beings, just as Shakyamuni Buddha shared his awakening with anyone who was interested.

* * * * *

According to Dogen, the last words of the Buddha, before he died, were, “You should always endeavor wholeheartedly to search for the way of liberation. All things in the world are insecure and bound to decay.”

* * * * *
According to Suzuki Roshi: Wherever you are, awakening is there.

ESSENCE OF AWAKENING

2011-04-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

Awakening, or realization of one’s true nature, is basic to Zen. I would like to talk about a few concepts relevant to awakening that lurk in the heart of Zen.

Concept 1. The aim of Zen practice is awakening.

Note I did not say the goal of Zen.

"Goal" implies an end point, a final achievement. When someone accomplishes a goal, such as a Doctorate, they often pop a bottle of champagne or they throw a party. And then they relax and glorify themselves as having “made it,” or else they strive toward a higher goal.

Most mountain climbers struggle to reach the summit of a mountain. Many climbers speak of “conquering” a mountain. When they get to the top they can hardly wait to descend so they can climb another mountain and conquer it, as if it were an enemy.

I once had a friend who referred to ascending a mountain as “a summit assault.” He made the beauty of climbing sound like warfare.

On one of my climbing and hiking trips in New Mexico some of us got into an interesting discussion on being process-oriented or goal-oriented. Goal people are thought of as needing an objective. Process people are happy in the doing; getting there is the greatest part of their pleasure.

In California the Sierra Club has a chapter called The Peak Baggers Section. Its members strain themselves mightily to see who can feel glorified by climbing, the most mountain peaks in the shortest time.

The point, for those people, is to be able to say "I have bagged so many peaks in so many months. Therefore I am a superb climber. You have bagged fewer peaks. Therefore, I am better than you.”

In Zen one works toward awakening—that is, realization of self—calmly, patiently, and steadily. One does not think of an end point, a final achievement. One does not think of a reward or a celebration.

What kind of reward is there in realizing one’s true nature when that true nature is an essential part of one before birth?

Remember the koan that asks what your face was before you were born. One’s face before one was born was no different than it is right now, whatever age one may be. The point of Zen is recognizing that. And that is awakening.

Concept 2. When one is awakened, everyday experiences such as eating, drinking, and carrying on ordinary affairs take on special meaning.

On awakening, daily tasks and functions continue. One continues to teach school, or write a book, or run a business. However, awakening results in one seeing into and really feeling the meaning that lies in these ordinary functions.

One reads, one walks, one feels happy or sad. These incidents do not change, because they are part of life. However, with awakening these common occurrences are lived completely and fully.

As a Zen expression goes, one continues to chop wood and carry water. However, with awakening such acts take on a special meaning.

Chopping or splitting an especially tough chunk of firewood is no longer a chore. It becomes a total physical experience and—most important—a spiritual commitment that begins and ends at the very instant the ax or the splitting maul touches the timber.

One is altogether focused on what is happening right now. Nothing else matters. As in the actions of a samurai swordsman, there is not a moment of hesitation for thought or for decision making. There is only the instant.

So it is with walking or drinking a glass of water. The act is the same as it has always been, only with awakening the act has a special meaning. That special meaning has always existed, only now one is aware of it.

One is aware of everything.

Concept 3. The meaning is not something added.

I want to emphasize this point. The meaning is not something added. It is not an extra. It is not a reward.

The meaning in everyday acts is in being. It is in living completely and fully every second. This is sometimes referred to as “isness.”

Can there be meaning in isness?

D.T. Suzuki mentions that in the view of Zen, isness—or essence—is the meaning. When one sees into it, one sees as clearly as viewing one’s face in a mirror.

An eighth-century pupil of Zen named Ho Koji stated

“I chop wood, I carry water.
“How wondrous, how mysterious!”

Concept 4. As contradictory as it may seem, Zen does not deal in the abstract.

In what I have just said, Zen may seem appallingly conceptual and difficult to understand. This claim is often laid on Zen by those who are unable to free their minds, to let go of traditional thought processes and to open themselves fully.

Zen may seem theoretical, hypothetical, impractical, even impossible. But only to minds that are stiff and accustomed to orthodox thinking.

Zen makes no demands. It requires nothing other than an open mind that is ready for awakening to one’s true nature.

Suzuki Roshi said: “Real awakening is always with you, so there is no need for you to stick to it or even to think about it.”

WIDE WORLD

2011-03-23T08:25:00.001-07:00

Have any of you ever been in a pet store and seen a hamster globe?

It’s a clear plastic ball, about the size of a softball. Its two halves lock or open with a twist, and they have several air holes. You put a hamster or a mouse inside, lock the ball closed, put it on the floor, and watch the little critter inside roll it all over the room.

A cat will go crazy batting at the ball and trying to snag what’s inside.

But cats are smart. They quickly decide they can’t get to the hamster for a meal. But it’s all a game, and they have great fun playing with the ball.

Imagine for a minute you are enclosed in a transparent sphere. From inside your bubble you can observe everything. You are cozy because you are shielded from anything that does not agree with you. You are protected from disturbing noises, disagreeable odors, and difficult people. You are isolated from the world.

Everyone, from a monarch to a digger of ditches, has learned from childhood on to create and live in a closed shell.

Such a shell is built around a person’s “me,” a person’s “I.” It’s a protective defense.

Remember the old Star Trek series? Well, such a shell is like the force field around a Klingon battle cruiser. It’s designed to repel, or else filter, anything that is not in agreement with what it protects.

Shells enclose a very small world.

Too often one’s shell is so tight it becomes stifling, which leads to deceptive thinking. That is, if anything that manages to insinuate its way into that small world is not in agreement with the center—the “I” or “me”— the center suffers.

As long as one is bound by one’s small world, one behaves like a bird in a room that has no open windows or doors. A trapped bird flutters against walls, not sure of what it is doing but struggling to escape confinement. In its struggle it often injures itself.

Some humans allow themselves to be trapped birds. They ask “What am I?” Or, “Who am I?” Or, “Do I like this or that?” They struggle endlessly within their shell and harm themselves.

Paradoxically, their concept of “I” is what, in the first place, creates their small world and limits its boundaries. Ironically, this “I” is self-created. It is delusion.

In Zen there is no “I.”

Some religions teach that every human being is a worthless worm, born into sin and living in transgression unless he or she accepts certain manmade principles.

Making threats of recrimination, or dangling carrots of reprieve, is no way to treat the human spirit. Such practices harden people’s shells and strengthen their notion of “I.” People become fearful and guilt-ridden. That causes them to withdraw, to close in on themselves and shrink their world.

A life based on the “I” concept is abstraction, not existence.

Zen realizes existence directly.

Think about it: Zen realizes existence directly.

According to researchers, human consciousness develops largely in one’s teenage years. By consciousness I mean a sense of being-in-the-world. Consciousness is a background against which one’s existence is defined and measured. Consciousness means being coexistent with others.

However, the necessity of coexisting with others often encourages the development of the egocentric “I,” and one looks at all externals as so many tools, so much equipment. Friends and associates become equipment. Parents or children become equipment. Mates become equipment. They exist, in small world terms, only as things to validate the “me,” the “I.” Of course, this equipmentizing reaches in two directions. One’s items of equipment, in return, also treat everyone else as equipment.

Think about it.

With everyone thinking “I,” “me,” and “them,” is it any wonder there is so much alienation in the world? Political systems clash. Christians and non-Christians wrangle. Arabs and Jews disagree.

When one lives in a closed shell everything outside becomes equipment designed to serve the needs of the inner “me.” Everything is depersonalized.

As an example, consider this teacup I have in my hand. At face value this cup is an object for holding tea to quench my thirst. But no more than a tree is an object meant for lumber to build a shelter for me is this cup a mere thing designed for my need or my pleasure.

Perceive this cup. Discover it. Don’t judge it, thinking that you don’t care for its shape, or that its color is not agreeable to your personal taste. Take the time to experience this cup for the unique thing it is. It has shape. It has form. It has color. It has texture. It has an essence of its own.

Furthermore, this cup may seem identical to a matching cup that was made at the same time, but each of the two cups is its own self.

Do away with small worlds. Banish Klingon force fields.

That would make a dandy bumper sticker: BANISH KLINGON FORCE FIELDS.

Experience a tree. Experience this cup or that cup. These are not mere things. Each is significant. Each is as important as any one of us. These items are not pieces of equipment intended to fulfill our ego. Other human beings are not pieces of equipment designed to validate our self.

Everything is unique. Every thing is what it is. Every thing, and every one, is.

THREE ZENS

2011-03-15T09:17:00.001-07:00

In most of our meetings I have talked about Soto Zen, which is more or less the practice this group follows. I was trained in the Soto school, and its no-frills simplicity appeals to me. So I carry it on.

I occasionally talk about the Rinzai school of Zen. I have a limited degree of familiarity with it, having attended Rinzai groups in California, and in Arkansas with Keido Fukashima.

Both Rinzai and Soto emphasize awakening through meditation, zazen. They do differ in their practice. Rinzai, unlike Soto, uses koans, chants, and sutras. Furthermore, it believes in sudden, rather than gradual, awakening.

Please understand there is no better or best between the disciplines. What works for, or appeals to, one person may be a complete turn-off for another person.

I’m reminded of an old bluegrass song, recorded by the Stanley Brothers in the 1950’s. It was called “You Go to Your Church, I’ll Go to Mine.”

I understand anyone with a cell phone can download a ringtone of “You Go to Your Church, I’ll Go to Mine.”

But I’m drifting.

Soto and Rinzai are acknowledged to be the two main sects of Zen. However, in Japan there is a third school of Zen called Obaku-shu.

Compared to Soto and Rinzai, which date back to the 1200’s, Obaku is a relative youngster. But, having been established in Japan in 1661, by Chinese masters, it’s not some bubbly New Age craze.

Obaku’s main temple is located in Uri Japan, halfway between Kyoto and Nara.

Several of those Chinese monks who came to Japan were known not only for their wisdom in living in the Tao, but also for their calligraphy skills. In those days, and even now, writing in many parts of Asia was and is more than a way of recording information; it was and is considered an art form.

Three of the masters—Yinyuan Longqi, Mokuan Shoto, and Sokuhi Nyoitsu—were so skilled they became known as “The Three Brushes of Obaku.”

To quote the contemporary writer, Steven Heine: “. . . Obaku . . . left an imprint on Japanese Buddhism . . . and its impact . . . reached the fields of Japanese cultural techniques, such as printing and painting.”

Some of the old Obaku monks practiced what’s called spirit writing, also called automatic writing. It’s a procedure during which a person writes something in a free-wheeling manner, supposedly without knowing or realizing what they are writing. It’s a notion in spiritism that assumes the spirit of a dead person can dictate messages and even entire books to a living person.

As a curious and skeptical writer I’ve given automatic writing a try. It doesn’t work for me. All that come out is gibberish, much like speaking in tongues.

I have to use my own brain rather than that of Shakespeare or Bodhidharma.

Obaku is not as basic as Soto Zen. Rather, it has some tenuous links with Rinzai, such as sutra chanting, relative conservatism, and intellectualism.

As Heinrich Dumoulin, the widely publish author on Buddhism, wrote: “Insofar as the Obaku belonged to the Rinzai tradition, zazen and koan practice were made part of daily life, but ritual was also . . . of considerable importance.”

Another noted writer on Buddhist tradition and practice, Helen J. Baroni, mentioned that Obaku is more conservative and intellectually inclined than Soto.

Now the most welcome words to those who listen to those who talk: “In conclusion . . .”

In conclusion, the establishment of Soto Zen is attributed to the Japanese master, Dogen Kigen. For Zen itself we acknowledge the Indian monk Bodhidharma, who came from India to China to teach “. . . a special transmission outside of scripture which did not depend on words.”

Using more than a few words, Bodhidharma supposedly said the following:

Buddhas don't save buddhas. If you use your mind to look for a buddha, you won't see the Buddha. As long as you look for a buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the Buddha. Don't use a buddha to worship a buddha. And don't use the mind to invoke a buddha. Buddhas don't recite sutras. Buddhas don't keep precepts. And buddhas don't break precepts. Buddhas don't keep or break anything. Buddhas don't do good or evil. To find a buddha, you have to see your nature.

The question of the day: What’s the difference between Buddha (with a capital letter) and buddha (with a small letter)?

THIS AND THAT

2011-03-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

Inmo is an informal, spoken Chinese word that means “it,” or “that,” or “this.” These words are used to indicate something that does not need explaining, something whose comprehension is intuitive. In ancient China, Buddhist masters and scholars used the word inmo to refer to something that cannot be described.

Can you grasp that? Something is nothing. Nothing is something.

The word inmo is similar to the word Tao, the Way.

The Tao that can be described is not the Way.

One of the aims of Buddhism is the recognition of reality, but, as we know, reality is something beyond words. Because reality is as elusive a concept as truth, in earliest Buddhism reality or truth was thought of as inmo.

Now, your mind probably feels like a clump of string that has been arranged by a cat. So sit back and relax.

* * * * *

Zen Master Dogen Kigen was a rare bird for his time in that he opposed what he saw as the less intuitive and more institutional path Zen was following in Japan. Dogen did not picture himself as some sort of savior, but he believed he was passing along the teachings developed by the Buddha the way the Buddha intended them to be conveyed.

Dogen maintained that all beings are Buddha-nature, and that Buddha-nature and impermanence are one.

Because Dogen’s ideas have shaped the foundation of what is called Soto Zen, his personal concept of inmo is worth discussing. This talk is based on a discourse Dogen gave in the year 1242.

Remember that Dogen was known to hammer home a point by repetition, by saying something over and over, each time the same way or else a different way. Dogen also rambled.

So do I.

* * * * *

Dogen cited an earlier master, who had lived in the 900s, saying that if one wants to attain inmo—or “it”—one must be a person who is it. If one is it, they need not worry about attaining it.

That is a paradox, so don’t try to make sense of it. Or of “it.”

Just pay attention. Every thing will eventually come together.

If not today, another time.

* * * * *

Dogen was once asked if one attained inmo with the mind or with the body. That would be like asking Picasso if he painted with his brain or with his heart.

Dogen’s answer was that in Soto Zen, the way is attained with body and mind together. It—The Way—is achieved by letting go of the mind, and discarding views and interpretations.

Clarifying the mind, while hearing sounds and seeing sights, is attaining inmo with the body.

However, one should not be attached to the body. The body is a temporary thing. After one’s last breath, the body disappears, so why be attached to it?

To be aware is to be free from the idea of the self. This means not to be attached to the self because all too often the human self attaches to the past.

Jumping from Dogen’s time to contemporary time, the book The World is Flat, by Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman, asks whether one’s society has more dreams than memories, or more memories than dreams.

He defines dreams as the positive, life-affirming variety.

When people cling to how good they were in the past, they mislead themselves. That was then, and this is now.

To quote Friedman, “In societies that have more memories than dreams, too many people are spending too many days looking backward. They see . . . . self-worth not . . . . in the present but in an imagined past.

“. . . . such societies . . . . cling to [the imagined past] like a rosary or a strand of worry beads.”

In Asian Zen temples small bells are commonly hung outdoors along the eaves where they can be moved by the wind. One breezy day a Zen monk said to the master, “Listen, listen. Is this event the sound of the bells? Is this event the sound of the wind?”

The master answered, “It is beyond the ringing of the bells and beyond the ringing of the wind. It is the ringing of your mind.”

“Then what is the mind?” the monk asked.

“The reason it—inmo—is ringing is that all is still,” answered the master.

Think about that for a minute. “The reason it is ringing is that all is still.

The words, “ringing of the mind” means that in the listener—whether the master or the monk, or you—at just the instant of the present, there is mindfulness. This mindfulness is called “the mind.”

If this mindfulness didn’t exist, how could the sound of bells be recognized as an event?

True hearing, true seeing, true any-of-the-senses, is recognized through mindfulness. That’s what the master meant when he said it was the ringing of the mind. Here, “it” is inmo. Something that is real, but inexpressible.

The mind ringing is beyond the ringing of the wind, beyond the ringing of the bells. The mind ringing is beyond the ringing of the mind.

How can “it”—inmo—be related to anything?

“It” is The Way.

The Way is Zen.

To rephrase the Tao Te Ching:

“It” can’t be named. “It” can’t be described. The “it” that may be named is not the eternal name.

However, the nameless is the beginning of all existence.

Zazen is awakening. Awakening is zazen.

JUST SIT

2011-01-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

To do zazen you don’t have to park yourself on the floor facing a wall. Sitting, or standing, or walking, you can practice zazen.

Instead of socializing in your head, or running mental videos, or jabbering aimlessly:

Be silent.
Be content.
Be zazen.

And remember that enlightenment and zazen are one. So, don’t wait for enlightenment to wallop you alongside the head.

Some years ago . . . . Or maybe it was a few months ago. It’s hard to keep track of rapidly changing times. Anyway, some time ago a popular saying made the rounds. The words went something like: “Don‘t just stand there, do something.”

Those words became stale in a short while, but occasionally you still hear them. They have to do with self-help.

Or maybe they relate to business acumen.

Or they may be part of an old Bob Dylan song.

Don‘t just stand there, do something.

The phrase bring to mind something older than pop-culture, something that can be attributed to Zen Master Dogen. It has to do with relaxation and discipline.

Whoa! Wait up, you say. In Zen aren’t relaxation and discipline contradictory terms?

They may be. But isn’t Zen itself incongruous, ambiguous, and paradoxical?

Without getting sidetracked, let’s take a look at a couple of terms and see where it leads us.

Discipline and dedication.

Is there a difference between discipline and dedication? If there is, can they co-exist?

Discipline is often thought of as something rigorous, sometimes even painful. In past years disobedient school children were paddled on their rear ends, or else whacked on their hands, with a wooden ruler.

That was known as discipline.

Spare the rod, spoil the child.

By the way, that’s a Bible teaching: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” (Proverbs 13:24)

Oops, I’m getting sidetracked.

In a softer sense, discipline can be thought of as a form of self-control.

How about dedication?

Remember the old story of piano virtuoso Vladimar Horowitz, wha was strolling along New York’s Fifth Avenue when he was approached by another pedestrian.

“How can I get to Carnegie Hall?” the other fellow asked.

“Practice, practice, practice,” Horowitz answered.

That’s dedication.

Dedication can also be thought of as steadfastness, or commitment.

Discipline and dedication go together in many areas of Japanese culture.

Brush painting.
Carpentry.
Flower arranging.
Tea ceremony.
Taiko drumming.

These are not casual activities. They require control and commitment.

They are Zen pursuits.

Discipline and dedication.

Discipline to practice painting a bamboo leaf over and over again until you can paint a bamboo leaf the way it looks in a strong wind, or glistening with rain, or bent down with snow.

Dedication to stick with drumming no matter how sore your arms get, and no matter how painfully your ears throb.

Sitting in zazen also requires discipline and dedication.

I’ve been asked, “Where’s the fun in sitting cross-legged, staring at the wall, and not thinking?”

That’s a good question because zazen is not intended to be fun. It isn’t amusing or entertaining.

Zazen isn’t a getaway. It isn’t a reward.

Zazen is awakening. It’s a bringing to life.

Zazen may cause you to be a better person, but that’s not the point of zazen.

Can you do something that has no point, no reward?

When you sit, just sit.

Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Meditation is not an escape from life, but preparation for really being in life.”

REAL PRACTICE

2010-12-28T13:54:00.001-08:00

“Real practice has orientation or direction, but it has no purpose or gaining idea, so it can include everything that comes.” Shunryu Suzuki.

That is to say, if there is no intention or point, real practice can include everything that comes.

That is a fulfilling thought.

The other day I came across an interesting bit of non-news. It had nothing at all to do with such real news as body scans or political leaks.

Also, it had nothing to do with Zen.

It was about a British man who, at age 70, has logged 15 million travel miles and visited 138 countries.

That’s a lot of travel.

His name is Fred Finn, and most of his travels have been financed by corporations that have hired him as a license manufacturer, what ever a license manufacturer is.

Evidently it pays well.

I hope ol’ Fred enjoys his journeys as much as I do mine.

Most of you know I travel a lot.

In my rambles I tend to spend most of my time in places where there is nothing.

No, I’m not referring to some mystical state of mind. I mean earthly places where there are no condominiums, no fast-food joints, no gas stations, no motels, no traffic noise, no exhaust fumes.

In that nothing, there are trees, rivers, mountains, birds, clear air, and blue skies.

In that nothing there is everything.

And yes, there are such places in the world. You just have to have purpose in finding them.

Beaches in New Zealand. Mountain tops in Austria. Jungles in Ecuador.

Many people believe that Zen practice is doing zazen. That is, regularly sitting on the floor and not thinking for a designated period of time. And many people believe that will lead to awakening to one’s own true nature.

Oh, zazen is important for awakening. No question.

Zazen is one thing, awakening is another.

But as Dogen maintained, zazen is awakening.

This is a classical Zen example in which one and one don’t make two, but one and one make one.

Zazen is Zen practice, but real practice goes beyond meditation.

Real practice lies in living one’s Zen. Living it day by day, each instant of every day.

One book I recommend to everyone is The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zen Living, by McClain and Adamson. It’s a basic sort of book, easy to read and easy to understand. It is predicated on the notion that Zen isn’t just meditation.

Zen is everyday life.

Here are a few Zen stories from antiquity.

A master said, “There is Buddha for those who don’t know what he is. There is no Buddha for those who know what he is.”

During a conference of religions various representatives got up and said their religion was great. When the Zen spokesperson stood, he said: “Zen is Zen. There is nothing great in Zen.”

One day Chuang-tzu and a friend were walking alongside a stream.

Chuang-tzu said, “How delightfully the fishes are enjoying themselves.”

“You aren’t a fish,” his friend said. “How do you know the fishes are enjoying themselves?”

“You aren’t me,” Chuang-tzu said. “How do you know I don’t know the fishes are enjoying themselves?”

SHIBUI, SHIBUMI, AND WABI-SABI

2010-12-21T07:55:00.000-08:00

Knowledge is the understanding that is acquired through study or experience. Insight is the innate capacity to comprehend the inner nature of something. We gain understanding.

Buddha-nature is getting-to-know one’s own self.

We are born with insight. We are also born with Buddha-nature. We may not be aware of our Buddha-nature, but if we want to really perceive the whole of existence:

1. We have to avoid immediate judgments.
2. We have to steer clear of treating an object as a mere device.
3. We have to be willing to accept things as they are without letting our intellectual concepts to get in the way.

In Japanese, this non-conceptualization and non-interpretation is the Zen state of mushin, or no mind. It’s the capacity to discern the true nature of something directly, whether it’s a rock, a work of art, or another human being.

Most of the arts in historical China and Japan draw their aesthetic
values from Taoism and from Zen. “If you want to understand Zen,” D.T. Suzuki wrote, in his book Zen and Japanese Culture, “understand it right away without deliberation, without turning your head this way or that.”

So much for the wandering preamble to this talk, which has to do with the Japanese artistic concepts known as shibui, shibumi, wabi, and sabi.

SHIBUI
Does anyone like the taste of persimmons? Shibui has a literal translation that carries the indescribable puckering feeling you get when you bite into a green persimmon. It’s a meaning that suggests the idea of something not sweet in nature but almost harsh in its effect.

The artistic sense of shibui relates to the subtle shades of meaning that may be revealed in a work of art. Shibui relates to a sort of holding back in a painting or a sculpture.

Shibui relates also to a refined beauty that isn’t associated with popular fashions or current fads. It is a basic quality that’s unaffected by time or social changes.

Shibui is a word that’s often heard in Japan. But because the Japanese language is so rich in subtle nuances that arise from a Zen-like life style, it’s a difficult word to pin down in English.

“Austere,” “subdued,” “restrained” are terms that come nearest. Going back to persimmons, shibui means sharp and penetrating. But it also implies an insightful, calm feeling.

SHIBUMI
The word shibumi is as tricky to define as is the word Zen. In the novel, Shibumi, by Trevanian (Rodney Whitaker), a key character claims that shibumi is an indescribable quality, something beyond words. It is understanding rather than knowledge. It is powerful silence. It is simplicity. It is spiritual tranquility. It is being with no thought of becoming.

Shibumi, like Zen awakening, is not something to be sought after or achieved. It comes naturally, or it doesn’t come at all. It’s a matter of soaring through knowledge and touching down at simplicity.

Shibumi has to do with spontaneity. It implies creative restraint.

WABI-SABI
Originally, wabi meant living alone in nature, detached from society. Originally sabi mean scrawny or thin.

That describes a hermit, doesn’t it?

Wabi and sabi are different words, but their inferences are so entwined that over time they have become combined as wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi is a description as well as an aesthetic principle.

Wabi-sabi has its roots in Zen. The first Japanese individuals who coined the phrase were tea masters, poets, and painters who practiced Zen. Zen emphasizes direct, intuitive insight into truth. Wabi-sabi transcends—goes far beyond—looking at objects and beyond thinking about existence.

Wabi-sabi does have some physical characteristics. Wabi-sabi objects and actions are:

Unsymmetrical
Intimate
Suggestive of a natural process
Unpretentious
Simple
Modest
Earthy

From the standpoint of insight, wabi-sabi considers existence as:

Impermanent
Incomplete
Imperfect

Wabi-sabi refers to the beauty that is inherent in imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness.

According to Meng-hu, a modern day recluse, the original connotation of wabi is based on aloneness, or on the separation from society.

Leonard Koren, author of the book Wabi-sabi for artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, wrote: “The self-imposed isolation and voluntary poverty of the hermit and the ascetic came to be considered opportunities for spiritual richness. Indeed, wabi is literally poverty, but it came to refer not to the absence of material possessions but to the non-dependence upon material possessions.”

Koren goes on to say that wabi gets rid of the material that exceeds material wealth. Wabi is quietly content with plain things. Wabi is a way of life—even a spiritual path.

In Japan the life of a hermit is called wabizumai. It’s an existence of aloneness and minimalism. A hermit may not be able to tell you why he or she is a loner, but there are plenty of reasons why a person might want to remove himself from society. To name a few: recognizing duality as illusion, clinging to ego and to the material world as leading to suffering, and appreciating the uncertainty of life as a reason for living harmoniously with nature.

Hermits aren’t necessarily antisocial or rebellious. More often than not they are more deeply appreciative of life than, say, a business executive or a politician. Wabizumai—a hermit’s life—has a lot to be said for it.

Wabi-sabi is solitude, aloneness. Its essence is intrinsic in Zen gardens, in bonsai, in haiku, in calligraphy, in sumi-e (brush painting), even in archery and the martial arts.

W.Todd Dominey, a graphics designer, wrote: “The essence of Wabi-sabi is that true beauty, whether it comes from an object, architecture or visual art, doesn't reveal itself until the winds of time have had their say. A cracked pot, for example, has an essence that a perfectly round pot is lacking. Beauty is in the cracks, the worn spots, and the imperfect lines.”

Now I’ll list several characteristics of wabi-sabi objects, works, and activities. These characteristics apply to everything from Japanese brush painting, to Japanese tea ceremony, to the Japanese garden.

Materials of wabi-sabi creations are organic rather than synthetic. Plastic is false, and can’t take the place of wood, stone, or clay. In a Japanese garden you’ll see rocks and living plant materials, but no plastic flamingoes or painted elves.

The form or shape of an object—whether it’s a bowl or a small-space garden—is natural, and it expresses its own nature. Form is not forced or artificially contorted to make a point.

Once when I was backpacking with a couple of fellows in the Wind River Wilderness I picked up a dried, twisted piece of tree branch.

“Hey,” that looks like a snake,” one of my partners said.

The other fellow, who was a graphics designer said, “Don’t say that. It doesn’t look like anything other than what it is.”

Rough, coarse, irregular surfaces are preferable to smooth or slick textures. Surfaces should imply natural processes rather than exteriors devised by humans.

A hermit named Meng-hu said that the Western notion of beauty does not exist in wabi-sabi. Instead, “beauty” is a holistic concept that can’t be singled out or even described. Beauty is derived from the emotion conveyed, not from any particular detail of the work.

Another characteristic of wabi-sabi is the avoidance of garish colors. In China and even in Japan, many brush paintings are done in slick reds, greens, and yellows. Such paintings are unsettling to the eye and to the mind, compared with the simple black and white brushwork of sumi-e.

I remember the interior walls of California’s Los Altos zendo. They were painted a soft, flat beige. They weren’t distracting, but were visually and spiritually soothing.

Light—illumination—is another wabi-sabi chacteristic. Light reflected from a wabi-sabi object is diffused, it is soft, not glaring. If the light has a color, it’s a natural tone.

A 12th century poet wrote a verse on color, which I’ve abbreviated in haiku form:

To be by oneself—
An unnamable color
In the autumn dusk.

Wabi-sabi objects and actions are straightforward. Nothing is wasted on ornate embellishments—as in calligraphy—or excessive movements—as in the tea ceremony.

To wind down this talk, it’s interesting that wabi-sabi usually doesn’t have much to do with function. Some objects do have a practical purpose aside from their aesthetic significance. For example, a teapot, or a sake cup, is designed to hold liquids. But in the world of Zen, purpose is secondary to the sense of wabi-sabi.

I’m sure you have known people who will point to a piece of sculpture or a pottery object and ask, “But what’s it for?” Or else, “What does it do?”

“It”—whatever “it” is—doesn’t always have to be for anything and it doesn’t always have to do anything.

It is, and that’s enough.

If someone asks, “What is it for?” A good response would be, “What are you for?”

Now you know all there is to know about wabi-sabi. Keep in mind the three pointers to seeing and to Buddha-nature we started with.

1. No judging.
2. No thinking of an object as a mere “thing.”
3. No intellectualizing.

* * * * *

If you’re interested in reading what others have to say about wabi-sabi, I can recommend four books:

--Koren, Leonard, Wabi-sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets, and Philosophers, Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley, California.

-- Juniper, Andrew, Wabi-sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence, Tuttle, Boston, Massachusetts.

-- Soetsu Yanagi, The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty, Kodansha International, New York, New York.

-- Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea, Tuttle, Rutland, Vermont.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?

2010-12-09T12:56:00.000-08:00

I’m reluctant to give this talk because it deals with winning the Zen lottery. It has to do with the question: What’s in it for me?

Better to ask your self: What’s in me for it?

Newcomers inevitably want to know what all this Zen stuff is for. What’s the purpose? What can meditation do for them? What can they gain from sitting still and not thinking?

How about fringe benefits? What’s the payback?

Zen people generally avoid talking about fringe benefits because naming them makes them seem like rewards.

Zen doesn’t offer rewards.

Zen is about living fully, and living fully doesn’t promise door prizes.

An aside: Is anyone familiar with an early-1970 New Age therapy called “Primal Scream”?

It was a technique in which adult men and women rolled around on the floor and shrieked about the pain of childhood traumas that were supposedly inflicted on them by their birth and, later, by their parents. The therapy was claimed to cure participants of alcoholism, paranoia, depression, high blood pressure, cancer, sex difficulties, and other disorders.

Zen is not a form of physical or mental therapy. It won’t alleviate athlete’s foot, fallen arches, colitis, asthma, or arthritis.

However, against my better judgment, I will mention a few possible benefits of meditation.

Just remember, there are no guarantees.

1. Mental management. You learn to use your brain power effectively so your thoughts aren’t hopping around like kangaroos.
2. Stress reduction. By letting go of unruly thoughts, and by sitting still for regular periods, anxiety and worry diminish.
3. Exclusion of judgments. Preconceptions and misleading opinions go away. You perceive life as it really is.
4. Awareness. You live in the present, experiencing each moment for what it is.
5. Compassion. Compassion is a key word in Buddhism and in Zen. It means you understand and are empathetic toward all things, not just human beings.
6. Intuitive behavior. You act in response to whatever occurs, whether it’s a flat tire on your car or a tornado.
7. Recognition. You realize that all existence is interrelated.
8. Relaxation. By not clinging to things, you loosen up and lighten up, mentally as well as physically.
9. Appreciation. You comprehend seemingly insignificant things. A stone, a flower blossom, a human smile.
10. Self-reliance. You learn to trust yourself. Doubts about your capabilities go away.

Will self-realization make you a more prosperous individual? Will it make you a good student, or a first-rate spouse, or a better expert at what you are already good at?

Perhaps.

Maybe.

Possibly.

Again, there are no promises, no guarantees.

Nirvana opens the way. The rest is up to you.

Question: I don’t want this to sound like a testimonial meeting, but does anyone want to offer a confirmation, or a denial, of any meditation benefits?

THE STATE OF BEING

2010-12-01T07:52:00.000-08:00

I’ve said many times that awakening—also called enlightenment—is Zen. I’ve also said that awakening—also called satori—is not some sort of goal. Awakening is not an end product.

Zen doesn’t have goals. Sometimes when I say that, listener’s jaws drop. People are crestfallen. They wonder why they should become involved in something that doesn’t lead them to an objective.

If we direct our lives toward a goal we shift from living right now to living in the future. We spend a lot of time thinking about what might be—such as retirement, or graduation, or a long vacation lolling on a tropical beach.

That sort of thinking is human, and it’s natural. But to reach too far ahead into a nebulous future can lead to attachments, and attachments can diminish the present.

To make this sound like a syllogism:

Zen is the present.
Zen is meditation.
Meditation leads to awakening.
Awakening results in Nirvana.

Nirvana. That’s a word used occasionally in Zen Buddhism but rarely in Zen. Still, it’s a word worth looking at. And I’m not talking about the rock band.

Nirvana is a state in which there are no attachments, no cravings for things to be different from the way they are. It’s not death. It’s a total experience of life.

Nirvana is the state of one’s mind when that mind is liberated from conditionings, attachments, and ambitions.

You might ask if Nirvana and Buddhahood are the same, and the answer is “more or less.” The word Nirvana is often used in Buddhism, but it seldom appears in Zen because of its connection, in many people’s minds, with a better place and a better time.

It has a similar connotation as paradise, or Heaven, or the Garden of Eden.

That sort of thinking is way off base because Nirvana is now and it’s here, and things don’t get any better than this.

Nirvana is sometimes referred to as extinction, or a blotting out of the ego. The Belgian Zen scholar, Robert Linssen, refers to Nirvana (Living Zen, page 139) as that point where our mind is stripped of all its false accumulations.

The annihilation of a person doesn’t mean he or she is reduced to nothingness. It means the absolute realization of the life force that is around one and is part of one. There is no longer the observer and the observed. Both have become one.

Rather, all has become one.

A couple of dictionary definitions are worth repeating. In the literary sense, Nirvana is an ideal condition of rest, harmony, stability, or joy. In Hinduism it relates to freedom from ignorance and the wiping out of attachments. In Buddhism it is the ultimate in which one has attained disinterested wisdom and compassion.

As good as the concept seems Zen cautions against being attached to the notion of Nirvana. If individuals are fixed on Nirvana, they are tied to the notion.

To attain Nirvana is to go beyond awakening.

Attaining Nirvana isn’t an ending. It’s the beginning of a complete life in which you involve yourself completely. You are altogether perceptive and compassionate.

Nirvana has been called full consciousness without self-consciousness.

You probably won’t go around looking zonked out. But you will be different, and you will be aware.

THE DRAGON

2010-11-23T07:46:00.001-08:00

Presenting Zen to Westerners is not easy. Zen stories are often loaded with metaphor, allegory, figures of speech, and references to ancient Asian cultural traditions.

You might think such embellishments would appeal to Westerners, who feel at home with complexity and sophistication. However, a simple way of explaining Zen does not appeal to most Westerners. They look at simplicity with suspicion.

Perhaps if Zen teachers fogged up the basics, and made them convoluted, Westerners might take notice.

After all, Westerners are used to the elaborate ideas of the Judeo-Christian traditions.

Life—that is, living Zen—is simple and direct. But only if you let it be simple and direct.

Only if you flow with the stream instead of thrashing around, and kicking against the flow.

There, I’ve used a simile. Does it make the message more understandable?

Japanese Zen Master Gudo Nishijima stated that to study Buddhism is not so easy. Yes, even to an Asian it can seem contradictory, paradoxical, and incongruous.

Japanese Zen Master Dogen realized this early on.

As brilliant and discerning as Dogen was, he wrestled with a dilemma regarding Buddha-nature.

In plain language, Buddha-nature is existence. That is, Buddha-nature is life as it is.

That’s fairly straightforward.

Life as it is.

Dogen puzzled over this. If Buddha-nature is life as it is. Dogen wondered if Buddha-nature existed in beings from birth. If so, why was it necessary to seek it? Why do we need to work for enlightenment—awakening—if we are already awakened?

According to some records, Dogen went to Master Eisai at Kennin-ji in Kyoto, and asked the key question.

“Are all beings endowed with Buddha-nature from birth, or must it be sought?” Dogen inquired.

Eisai probably chuckled, and he said, “I don’t know anything about Buddhas of the past, present, or future. I do know that black cats and white oxen exist.”

In other words, don’t trouble your mind over nebulous stuff. Experience what is right now.

Consider the Christian notion of predestination. That’s the doctrine that a supernatural being has laid out a blueprint for all time and for all things. Existence is predetermined.

Earthquakes, wars, sunny days, human behavior, when one dies, how one dies, what happens then.

For humans, there’s no choice, no matter how good one lives their life, or how vicious a person they are.

It’s a sort of a spiritual DNA. You’ve long been chosen to either go to heaven or to hell when you die.

Wait a minute. Maybe God had a second thought. Maybe he thought, gee, that’s not really fair. Hey, I have a better idea. I’ll make predestination and free will co-exist, and let humans figure it out.

I’ll give them a choice.

But then maybe God thought, whoa, wait a minute, if I declare predestination, then that rules out free thought. So humans really have no option in the matter. The poor sods are all doomed from the start, so to hell with them.

And people think Zen is complicated.

According to Dhammapada, which is a supposed record of the supposed words of the Buddha: All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

Buddha-nature is existence. Buddha-nature is life as it is.

BUDDHA-NATURE

2010-11-16T12:14:00.001-08:00

In past meetings I have talked about Buddha-nature. Since the term appears often in the Buddhist vocabulary, I’d like to say more about it.

Don’t groan. It’s pretty basic, and it’s easy to understand.

Like most terms, Buddha-nature has several definitions. But most of them boil down to this: an inherent potential for reaching awakening that exists in every living being.

By inherent potential is meant that you have the capacity for enlightenment—that is, awakening—whether you know it or not.

I’ll say it again another way. Buddha-nature is an inherent potential for reaching awakening. That potential exists in every living being.

You can use it, or lose it.

Sutras are collections of the supposed talks and dialogues of Shakyamuni Buddha who lived some 2500 years ago. Most Buddhist schools have adopted certain sutras as their own authority, but Zen isn’t associated with any sutra.

Zen is a special hand down outside of sutras. It doesn’t depend on words or letters.

In Zen, truth is grasped directly or else it isn’t grasped at all.

The Christian Bible, The Jewish Talmud, and the Muslim Koran are books that contain what are reputed to be the revelations of God as well as the actual words of prophets and religious individuals. These books are known as holy or sacred volumes that are associated with divine power. People venerate them and often make solemn declarations on them as confirmation of the honesty or truth of their declarations.

For example, in most courts of law a person lays a right hand on the Bible and swears to tell the truth, “. . . , the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me, God.”

Consider. For the Christian Bible alone there are dozens upon dozens of versions. There are the King James, the Berkely, the English Revised, the New American, the American Standard, the New Revised Standard, and many more.

Each version has been interpreted and edited at different times by diverse scholars and translators, which means each version differs in some way, large or small, from all the others. And that means anything original has been fiddled around with so many times it has lost any meaning of its original intent.

Take with a pound of salt words that have been interpreted time after time and recorded time after time by committee after committee, each member of which has his own selfish reason to make a mark in history. Any originality in the meaning of those words has long since been obscured in time, and in the tinkering the words have undergone.

Neither Buddhism nor Zen has a so-called holy book.

I do own a small volume I found in a nightstand of a hotel in Thailand. It’s somewhat similar to the Gideon Bible placed in most hotels in Christian countries, but it’s not called a bible. It’s titled simply The Teachings of Buddha.

It’s not considered scripture or holy writing. In Buddhist courts no one is required to swear on it to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me Shakyamuni.

The Teachings of Buddha presents writings on the insights of the Buddha, such as The Fourfold Noble Truths, The Middle Way, and Human Nature. It makes no promises. It offers no guarantees. It deals with common sense.

Here are three quotes from The Teaching of Buddha:

1. “Learn that everything is non-substantial and transitory.”
2. “Rely upon yourself: do not depend upon anyone else.”
3. “Be the master of your own mind.”

I’m not saying written words are bad. I’m saying don’t take sutras, or other collections, for a corpus of rules or principles.

With that rambling introduction in mind, let’s consider one of the most significant personalities in Zen, and some of the concepts from his most momentous piece of teaching. I’m referring to Hui-Neng, the Sixth Chinese Patriarch, and his Platform Sutra.

The word “platform” refers to the raised area where Hui-Neng sat when he delivered his talk to the people surrounding him.

To paraphrase Hui-Neng, if one realizes his or her original mind, one has awakened. Awakening is known as no-thought. What is no-thought? It means even though you are totally aware you are not fixed to anything.

This is being free and unattached.

According to Hui-Neng, once you awaken to the notion of no-thought you have reached the status of the Buddha.

Reaching the status of the Buddha doesn’t mean becoming the spitting image of Siddhartha. There are no cookie cutters in Buddhism.

The Platform Sutra often uses the word “nature.” This isn’t Mother Nature, with its trees and bees, but self-nature, original nature, Buddha-nature. Buddha-nature means that everyone—and I say every thing—has the potential, the intrinsic spark, to be awakened. Awakening means realizing one’s own true self.

Buddha-nature is mindfulness.

Zen deals with Buddha-nature.

SANDOKAI WRAP-UP

2010-11-10T07:22:00.001-08:00

My series of talks on Sandokai, the epic poem written by a seventeenth century Zen master on sudden versus gradual awakening, has rambled on long enough. So far I’ve covered 15 of the 21 stanzas. Here are the last six stanzas:

Each of the myriad things has its merit, expressed according to function and place.
Existing phenomenally like box and cover joining; according with principle like arrow points meeting.
Hearing the words, understand the meaning; don’t establish standards of your own.
Not understanding the Way before your eyes, how do you know the path you walk?
Walking forward is not a matter of far or near, but if you are confused, mountains and rivers block your way.
I respectfully urge you who study the mystery, don’t pass your days and nights in vain.

Think of a human being, a bird, a tree a flower, a stone. Think of them individually and collectively. All are related as part of existence. Yet, each is an individual thing, with its own exceptional worth.

You are you. I am I. This singing bowl is this singing bowl. Each is each, and at the same time all are all. All are linked.

Suzuki Roshi mentioned that humans, in their self-absorption, suppose the universe is only for humans. That’s why many people think in self-centered terms and don’t understand birds, trees, flowers, stones.

Buddhism, or Zen, doesn’t treat humans as special entities but only as things in relationship to other things.

Tennyson said: “I am a part of all I have met.”

Byron said: “I live not in myself, but I become portion of that around me.”

Humans can’t—or shouldn’t—try to live like birds, but humans shouldn’t belittle entities that are not human. We all exist together.

Stanza 18 of Sandokai starts by saying, “Hearing the words, understand the meaning; don’t establish standards of your own.”

“Hearing the words, understand the meaning” doesn’t refer to spoken language. It doesn’t mean only audible sounds. It refers to each and all of those “myriad things” we have talked about earlier. Birds, rocks, trees, mountains, rivers.

In other words, everything in existence.

What’s the meaning of a mountain? Must a big mountain, or even a little pebble, have a purpose?

We humans like to assign purpose, meaning, to everything. For many individuals, a mountain is a potential source of gold or some other so-called precious mineral. A desert is a place to rummage around for oil.

Human beings are self-absorbed. They believe nature should serve them instead of the other way around. Mark Twain said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.”

My old Climatology professor said, “The weather is going to do what it wants to do, not what we want it to do.”

One of the weirdest attitudes toward natural processes is exhibited by Stephen Unwin, a risk management consultant, who claims in his book, The Probability of God, that nature does evil things, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes.

Evil things? When the wind blows hard enough to topple trees, is that evil? Isn’t nature being natural?

Can’t a mountain be a mountain in its own right? A big hunk of earth with forests on its flanks, snow on its peak, clouds above it. Does it have to be for something? Does it have to be exploited for human consumption rather than exist for human appreciation?

A high mountain is a feeling.

Can’t things just be?

Can’t we humans be, fully and completely? Without laying our own beliefs and opinions and likes and dislikes on anyone or anything else?

Do we have to want to make changes and modifications on our surroundings and on other humans?

The answer, in a word, is no.

Here is the final stanza of Sandokai.

“Walking forward is not a matter of far or near, but if you are confused, mountains and rivers block your way.”

Suzuki Roshi interprets or translates “Walking forward” as “Practice,” meaning the practice of Zen. The living of Zen. Not simply sitting in shikantaza once a week or once a day, but the living out of one’s own Zen.

It means being Zen, with no desire for enlightenment, whether sudden or gradual.

As Dogen said, zazen is enlightenment. Suzuki Roshi said that practice and enlightenment have equal value.

I say enlightenment—rather, awakening—is living one’s daily life. Mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers. If you can’t go around them or go through them without changing them, then comprehend mountains and rivers for what they are and don’t mess with them.

Sandokai ends with the words “Don’t pass your days and nights in vain.”

That means persist in your practice. Live your practice. Be your practice.

In other words, don’t goof off.

WHAT IS SANDOKAI?

2010-10-06T08:51:00.001-07:00

You surely remember the first so-called patriarch of Zen Buddhism, Bodhidharma. He was the Indian master who introduced Zen into China.

And you surely remember the story of the sixth patriarch, Hui-neng. His record is a classic Zen story, and it’s worth repeating.

According to legend, Hui-neng was born in southern China. He was an uneducated youth when he heard someone reciting the Diamond Sutra, and he was so taken with the words that he joined the Yellow Plum Buddhist community.

As was the custom of the day, the master of Yellow Plum gave Hui-neng a rough time, to make sure the lad wasn’t some frivolous dabbler in religion.

“Southerners have no Buddha-nature,” the master said, matter of factly.

Hui-neng answered, “There may be southerners and there may be northerners, but Buddha-nature makes no distinction.”

I won’t repeat the entire story of how Hui-neng came to be Zen Buddhism’s sixth patriarch. I will remind you that after eight months as a monastery kitchen helper he displayed his wisdom by refuting a monk’s declaration that one’s body is like the Bodhi-tree, and one’s soul is like a bright mirror that should not be allowed to collect dust.

Hui-neng responded with his verse:

There is no Bodhi tree,
Nor is there a clear mirror.

From the beginning not one thing exists,
So where is a speck of dust to cling?

In other words, one should not become hung up on philosophical hair-splitting.

The master realized that Hui-neng had become conscious of his own Buddha-nature, so he passed on to him the robe that supposedly had been handed down from Bodhidharma.

This act validated Hui-neng as Zen’s sixth patriarch in China.

Moving right along, some time after that, the Yellow Plum Zen School divided into two factions over differences in whether the realization of one’s Buddha-nature was a gradual process or a sudden occurrence.

Talk about splitting hairs.

It was a disagreement that has been carried down to this day, and now, as then, it has little to do with anything except as a point of argument.
So don’t bother your mind over sudden versus gradual awakening.

When awakening comes, it comes.

That is important.

This brings us to Sandokai.

Sandokai is a verse that was written in the sixth century by a Chinese master named Shitou. The verse was intended to relieve the “gradual” versus “sudden” inconsistency. In addition, it clarified other opposites such as good and bad, light and dark.

As a consequence, Soto Zen tends to soft-pedal differences and overlook contradictions.

Although most Soto groups forego chanting, in almost all Soto temples around the world a version of Sandokai is verbalized daily. It is invariably recited at the memorial service of a deceased master.

We won’t be chanting or singing or praying, but in a forthcoming talk I’ll present some detailed thoughts on Sandokai.

One of Shitou’s Dharma heirs was Yakusan Igen. One day Shitou came upon Yakusan, who was deep in zazen.

“What are you doing?” Shitou asked.

Yakusan said, “I’m not doing anything.”

A good answer, eh?

Shitou said, “Well, then you are sitting idly.”

Yakusan answered, “If I were sitting idly, I would be doing something.”

A better answer, eh?

RITES AND RITUALS

2010-09-23T12:41:00.001-07:00

Many religious groups have developed rituals to such an extent the ceremonies come close to magical practices. By that I mean the rites are so elaborate, they are often understandable only to the high priests. For the average person, the meanings are lost. So the average person goes along with the hocus-pocus out of habit, rather than out of any sort of conviction as to its necessity.

I’m talking about a mixed bag of practices that includes kneeling, groveling, clapping, chanting, reciting, and so on and on.

The Roman Catholic priest Thomas Merton said that with all the bobbing up and down, the prancing and boogieing, the Catholic mass was like an elaborate ballet.

Human beings are . . . well, human beings are curious. They not only become caught up in formalized performances, but they attach themselves to objects and symbols. Things such as a cross, a star, a crescent, an effigy, or a venerated book.

These things in themselves are harmless. It’s when they become attachments, or else objects of worship, that a human’s true self becomes befuddled.

Zen doesn’t condemn rituals. Zen doesn’t judge anything. However, Zen does consider that most sacraments and liturgy can be hindrances to its purpose.

What is the purpose of Zen?

The purpose of Zen is self realization. It’s recognizing one’s true self. It’s recognizing the connection that exists among everything in the universe.

What is unfortunate about mystical practices is that they can set up sham values and bogus habits that distract from self realization.

Satori, or enlightenment, or awakening, may be instantaneous or it may be gradual. However, if one’s mind is involved in concentrating on physically fiddling around—with artificial rules—a tension is set up in the inner self. That tension hampers the spontaneity of the awakening experience.

Newcomers to Soto Zen are often baffled by its simplicity. I’ve been asked how one’s hands should be held during zazen. I say, “Hold them palm up just below the navel."

"But I’m used to resting them on my knees,” I’ve been told.

I have no argument with that because whether the hands are on the knees, or against the abdomen, or in the lap doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter if one meditates in the lotus position on the floor, or sitting in a chair, or hanging by one’s thumbs.

I teach mostly what I’ve been taught. My practices in Zen are neither better nor worse than anyone else’s practices. Allowing oneself to become caught up in the physical aspects of practice—or in bell ringing, or in chanting—can muddle the experience of enlightenment.

So don’t worry about our singing bowl. It merely provides a signal to do something, just like your alarm clock provides a signal to get you out of bed in the morning. Your clock, this singing bowl, and what ever position you prefer for meditating aren’t matters of great importance. What is important is you.

If you let your mind pester you with why we do walking meditation in a clockwise direction, you’re depriving your mind of doing what it’s capable of doing. What it’s capable of doing is hanging loose and letting happen what ever will happen.

Zen masters contend that enlightenment may be realized on any occasion. The sound of a broom handle knocking against a stone has triggered satori. So has a poke in the ribs by a master’s forefinger. Just remember that the broom or the stone or the finger—even the master—isn’t significant.

The result of the occasion is what’s vital.

Every insight is an occasion for satori.

I’ll say it again. Every insight is an occasion for satori.

But the occasion for one’s awakening can be numbed if one’s self is swaddled in ritual.
Many religions and organized systems teach that reality is outside of us in some physical object or in a practice, and that reality must be approached in a ceremonial manner.

Reality is in us.

Rather, we are reality.

Everything in existence is important, but nothing is sacred unless we make it that way.

SUMMING UP

2010-09-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months we have discussed some of the principles of Zen. A few more need to be addressed, and today I would like to talk about some other Zen values.

As ever, there will be duplications, even some contradictions in what I say. Life is full of inconsistencies and repetition. That’s the way of life, and that’s the way of Zen.

All things change.
Security is an invention of the human mind. Freedom from change does not exist in nature.

When I lived out in the country I spent many pleasant hours in the spring watching a pair of cardinals build a nest in a dogwood tree close to my house. The two birds carried twigs, bits of fuzz, and cedar shavings to make the nest a comfortable and cozy home. It was sited in a place that was safe from my cat and out of sight of crows and hawks. It seemed a perfect nest for raising a family.

The female laid a clutch of eggs while the male gathered food to bring home. Eventually the eggs hatched. Both parents took turns collecting bugs and worms to feed the babies, and they took turns keeping the chicks warm and protected.

The hatchlings sprouted feathers, and one day they were almost ready to take their first flight.

Then a fierce storm—one of our typical spring gales—tore the branch that held the nest off the dogwood. The nest was destroyed, and the infant birds were crushed.

A sad story? Yes.

Did the cardinal parents grieve? We don’t know.

We can be sure that the parents did not blame anyone or anything for what happened.

What happened was the way of nature, and the way of nature is change.

The cardinals didn’t build another nest that spring. It was too late in the season. But the next year the same cardinals put up another nest and started a family all over again.

We humans feel comfortable fastening ourselves to one thing or another. To another person, to a home, to a computer, to a truck. In Zen talk, this is called attachment.

One word does a fair job of describing Zen Buddhism. That word is non-attachment.

All of the Buddha’s teachings and all of the teachings of the Buddha’s followers can be summed up in the word non-attachment.

We have earlier mentioned the difference between detachment and attachment. To be detached is to get away from a problem, to escape from it. It means that one sees a potential problem and makes an effort to cut oneself off from it.

Life is like a flowing stream. However, instead of allowing life to flow, we too-often align ourselves with favorable conditions, or else we fight against unfavorable conditions.

Non-attachment is altogether different. Non-attachment means to neither fight against nor join with a problem but to recognize the problem and become one with it.

When humans experience a disaster they continue to torment themselves about it. Humans try to explain happenings—whether happy or unhappy—as the will of god, or as the fault of someone, or as the result of a vindictive Mother Nature.

We rant and rave that someone or something has it in for us. We think we’ve been made a scapegoat, so we try to find a reason.

Reason doesn’t exist in nature. Ornithologists claim that bird’s bones are hollow and lightweight in order to allow birds to fly. Nonsense. Birds fly. Period. Birds have hollow bones. Period. If birds had solid bones they would probably fly anyway. There is no reason, no purpose, at work.

In nature there is no such thing as rationalism—that is, reliance on reason as the best guide for belief and action. There is only empiricism—experience of the senses.

In life, things happen, and only human beings feel the need to assign a reason. When individuals assign a reason they feel better because that shifts responsibility away from them. Humans create the concepts of good and bad. If they can’t find an external reason for a “bad” happening, they are bothered. Of course, if they experience a “good” happening they take credit for it.

Thus they create, and revel in, a world of good and bad. To humans, life and its happening must be either one or the other.

However, what is, is. And change is foremost among what is. As much as humans like to believe they are immune from change, it just is not so.

You know the saying. Two things are certain in life: taxes and death. I’ll add a third certainty: change.

Change is a transformation or transition from one state, condition, or phase to another. Change is inevitable, unavoidable, and inescapable.

Get used to change. It is here to stay.

Change does not change.

Death is the end.
Life has a beginning and an end. The beginning is birth, the end is death.

Zen does not have a beginning or an end. Zen is a circle. There is no start, no finish to Zen. Like a flowing stream, Zen goes on and on.

We get one and only one shot at this life, and as far as we know there is no other, so we should make the very best of now.

In Zen there is no sorrow about death. No fear of death.

A Zen master was nearly a hundred years old and was dying. All of a sudden he sat up in his bed and started laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” The solemn mourners asked.

“Why are you not laughing?” The master answered.

When one is empty of the judgments and assumptions that have been acquired over the years, one comes close to original nature (sometimes called original face) and is capable of conceiving original ideas.

One Zen koan asks, “What was your face before you were born?” Like all koans this is perplexing, even inexplicable. How can one possibly have a face before being born?

Well, I’m going to cheat and partially interpret this koan. Face-before-being-born refers to one’s true nature before it has been altered by opinions, prejudices, judgments.

Zen is a way of life.
Zen is not something that is turned on and turned off, like a water faucet, on a certain day of the week or at a certain time of the day.

Zen deals with life by living it. Zen points to the essence of life we all live. Zen is understood through one’s experience. Zen is everyday life. To learn Zen is to learn oneself.

Finally, the last principle of Zen.
When we perceive the inconsistencies of life, all we can do is laugh.

SPOOKS AND SPECTERS

2010-08-11T07:32:00.000-07:00

If you come to a religion, or if you imbibe some kind of a mind-altering drug, you probably expect to get something in return. Maybe a vision, maybe a hallucination, maybe a revelation. And if you expect something, you will probably get something. That’s because you will have unconsciously or subconsciously manufactured it yourself, and are anticipating it.

The Roman Catholic Church is known for visions of the Virgin Mary, or of Jesus, or of some church-appointed saint.

One might ask why Catholics seem to have the edge on apparitions. Do we ever hear of modern day Lutheran visions? Or Methodist holy sightings?

Some years ago I spent a month in Ecuador with a small group of mountain climbers. We climbed five active volcanoes. The highest was Chimborazo at 21,000 feet.

The extreme altitudes and the accomplishments were heady. Even though none of us saw an abominable snowman, or a holy figure, we felt as high as a kite.

One night before climbing the peak called Tunguahura, we stayed at a hotel in the village of Baños. Over supper the host offered us a tea brewed from cocoa leaves, warning us the drink could be mildly hallucinogenic.

I sipped a cup of the brew, as did a woman from Philadelphia.

She got high, so she claimed. Maybe it was because she expected to get high.

I felt nothing. Maybe it was because at the time I was exuberant over the outdoors. I was in a primitive state, uninfluenced by civilization or artificiality.

It was a wonderful feeling.

And, as Sinatra sang, I did it my way.

Chinese Zen master Ma-tsu (707-783) said the Way is ordinary mind.

What is ordinary mind?

It’s a mind that sees no right, no wrong. It’s a mind that has no preconceived notions. No wants, no desires. No grasping, no rejecting. No beginning, no ending.

Mat-tsu said: Whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, you respond to situations and deal with people as they come. Everything is the Way.

But what is the Way? What else is it called?

To quote Lao-tsu, the Taoist compiler of Tao Te Ching, “The Tao that can be told is not the real Tao. The name that can be named is not the real name.”

Ch’an Master Wu-yeh went to see Ma-tsu, and said he did not understand the teaching that mind is Buddha.

Ma-tsu said, “The mind that does not understand is it.”

What else do you need to know?

If you want to know the Way, to know the Buddha, don’t push. Don’t force. Don’t strain.

Don’t have preconceived notions or expectations.

Let go. Be open. Be receptive. Relax mentally and physically.

If someone were to ask a true Zen master if he—the roshi—were enlightened, an old-school roshi would probably clobber the other person.

These days, whacking someone is out of style. A true master would probably ignore the question because there is no verbal reply possible.

Remember, the Tao that can be told is not the real Tao.

The name that can be named is not the real name.

Don’t look for spooks and specters when there are none.

Ordinary mind is the Way.

ZEB VIGNETTES--I

2010-08-03T08:26:00.000-07:00

Often I come across a Zen saying, or a Zen-related saying, that is worth noting down. Some are by renowned masters, such as Shunryu Suzuki. Some are by Asian poets, such as Basho. Some are anonymous. All are worth remembering, and even worthy of meditation. As my collection of these expressions grows, I will periodically post a new series.

A student went to see his meditation teacher, and said, “My situation is horrible! I feel distracted most of the time. My legs ache. I keep falling asleep. It’s terrible.”
The teacher said, “It will pass.”
Some time later the student went to his teacher, and said, “I feel wonderful! I think I’m enlightened!”
The teacher said, “It will pass.”

If you understand, things are just as they are.
If you do not understand, things are just as they are.

The Buddha may, or may not, have said:
“When seeing, just see;
“When hearing, just hear;
“When knowing, just know;
“When thinking, just think.”
I would add:
“When not thinking, just not think.”

“If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”
-- Dogen Zenji

“A flower falls, even though we love it, and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.”
-- Dogen Zenji

“I’d like to offer some concepts to help you, but in the Zen school we don’t have such a thing.”
-- Ikkyu

Q. How do you describe a schizophrenic Zen Buddhist?
A. A person who is at two with the universe.

Shunryu Suzuki was asked, “How much ‘ego’ does one need?”
Suzuki answered, “Just enough so you don’t step in front of a bus.”

After a session of zazen, one monk said to another monk, “Were you not thinking what I was not thinking?”

Even a good thing isn’t as good as nothing.

Bodhidharma is attributed with a few sayings:

As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you’ll never see that your own mind is the Buddha.

To find a Buddha, all you have to do is see your nature.

The essence of the Way is detachment.

It is not the sound of a stone hitting bamboo or the color of plum blossoms that makes people enlightened. It is their practice.

-- Shunryu Suzuki

FLAPPING MINDS

2010-07-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

A warning.

This talk starts nowhere, and goes nowhere.

Welcome to Zen.

In several of my travels, particularly in Asia, I’ve been asked why most Americans are dabblers. We are often perceived as a nation of faddists. We tend to pick up on short-term things that come and go. In many foreign eyes, Americans are thought of as liking to be thought of as cool, hip, mellow, groovy, awesome.

We latch on to spiritualism, to exotic forms of Yoga, to various types of meditation, to Sufi, to Wicca. All may be reasonable disciplines, at the time, but we seldom stick with any one before heading off to try another.

An example is electronic evangelism. You might be amazed at the numbers of people who subscribe to the claims of some radio and televangelist preachers.

Recently I saw a video of a television sermonizer who beseeched God to grow new legs on a dual-amputee. The preacher also asked God to let the same fellow see through his glass eyeball.

The preacher guffawed and giggled constantly at his on-stage doings, as if he were amused at the credulity of the live audience. However, the audience, to a T, appeared to swallow everything whole.

Honestly, I’m not poking fun at such people. I’m merely mentioning them as examples of the flip-flopping of so many Americans.

Getting back to Zen,

Zen first appeared in the United States in 1893, when Soyen Shaku introduced it at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. That’s a good while, so maybe Zen is here to stay.

In the 1940s and 1950s the output of such writers as Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Kenneth Rexroth helped to raise the awareness of Zen in America. It’s interesting that all of these fellows were Californians of the so-called Beat Generation. And to this day California is known for its spiritual and consciousness-raising movements, as well as its dabblers.

So, after more than a hundred years in America, is Zen a passing fancy or is it something that is stabilized? Who knows? Who can even make a wild guess? Maybe Zen in America is merely one hand clapping. Or the flapping of the mind, like a wind-blown banner.

Is anyone familiar with the name Tenzin Gyatso? I’m sure everyone is familiar with the person: the exiled political leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama. He is widely known not for working so-called miracles, or preaching salvation, but for his emphasis on compassion.

Compassion is awareness of the suffering of others. It is the hallmark of Buddhism, including Zen.

Life is suffering, whether it’s physical, emotional, or psychological.

Once we understand that, we can help others to understand.

This is compassion.

One interesting thing about Zen—I should say one of the many interesting things about Zen: You can put it into practice, no matter if you are a Christian, a Jew, or a Moslem. You don’t have to betray or change your fundamental beliefs.

Furthermore, you don’t have to profess or broadcast you are a Zen person.

Just live Zen. Be Zen.

In Zen you don’t pray. You don’t need someone or something to forgive you or grant you mercy . . . whatever that means. You don’t need anything more than yourself, and an open mind.

Zen is basically meditation and letting go. Flushing your mind and letting it open up.

Traditionally in Asia, Zen has been the calling of monks and nuns, who have dedicated themselves to a monastic life. In America Zen is for anyone who wants to clear his or her mind and seeing themselves for what they are.

Look at us, right here. We are a motley crew comprising artists, educators, scholars, students, musicians, and other fascinating types. We aren’t dues-paying members of any organization. We aren’t bound by vows to a religious life. We don’t live in a monastery. Some of us—or maybe none of us—attend a place of worship.

Most of us get together on a regular basis—Monday evenings—and we sit in silent meditation. No fanfare. No ceremony. No hallowed music. We just sit.

Now, to some people that would sound terribly dull. Most people might think that an hour or so of just sitting with no television to entertain us would be mind numbing.

Instead, it is mind opening. Refreshing.

To non-practioners, Zen may seem irrational. To them it may seem foolish and crazy. But craziness is one of the joys of Zen.

Life itself doesn’t make sense, because it doesn’t follow a rational path. Unforeseen things happen. There are tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. People become ill. They die at an early age. Humans may think they control their destinies, but shit happens.

Humans fight against fate because fate isn’t logical. It doesn’t always work to human advantage.

Zen confronts.

In the Japanese No play a Zen priest is asked about zazen. He answers (From A Commentary by Amakuki Sessan, on Hakuin’s Song of Meditation, in A first Zen Reader) as follows:

“Not to lament, . . . ;
“Not to choose whether the law be kept or broken;
“Not to fall into either being or not being—
“This is the sign by which all become Buddhas.”

A monk asked Master Baso, “What is Buddha?”
Baso answered, “This mind is Buddha.”
Some time later, another monk asked Baso, “What is Buddha?”
Baso answered, “This mind is not Buddha.”

I ask: Do you understand?

WHAT IS A FLOWER?

2010-07-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I gave a talk that was based on a paper presented by D.T. Suzuki in 1957. I contrasted Eastern ways of thinking with Western ways of thinking.

I’d like to continue on that theme of East and West, which really has to do with objectivity and subjectivity. In other words, observation that is based on impartial observation in contrast to that which is based on individual experience.

The Western method is to view something, say a flower or an earthworm, from the objective point of view—surveying its size, its color, its weight, its chemical analysis, and so on, comparing it with some chosen standard—and then pigeonholing that thing.

That is, shoehorning it into a pattern or a mold.

Traditionally, categorizing has been the Western approach to reality. This is bigger than that. That is more colorful than this. It’s a placing next to another to establish differences.

To paraphrase Suzuki: The Zen approach is to enter into the object—a flower—and see it from the inside.

To know a flower.

To know a flower is to be the flower.

When you learn to know a flower, a tree, a pebble, you come to know yourself.

You don’t need to exploit differences.

There is a shortcut here, but I’m not going to point to it. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with a short story by Carson McCullers titled “A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud.” In the story, a man declares that love should not begin with another human being, but with a tree, a rock, a cloud.

I say, awakening may begin with a flower.

To experience a flower, or a tree, or a rock, is to experience one’s self. Science attempts to find reality in analyzing and objectifying. Zen experiences reality in joining with an object by perceiving what an object truly is.

Never mind if it’s bigger, or brighter than something else.

In doing that, a Zen person realizes what he or she truly is.

Long ago a Zen abbot commissioned a painter to decorate the ceiling of his monastery with the image of a dragon. The artist said he would give it a try, even though he had never seen a dragon. Furthermore, he doubted that dragons really existed.

“Never mind that you’ve never seen a dragon,” the abbot said. “Don’t accept what anyone tells you about dragons, or what they look like, or what size they are. Meditate. Clear your mind. Sooner or later you’ll feel you must paint a dragon.”

After several months of meditation, the artist took his brushes and set to work painting a dragon.

A nice little story, yes?

Today that dragon can be seen on the ceiling of the Dharma hall at Myoshinji, Kyoto.

Here’s another legend.

A young Zen novice went to his master and said, “I have been with you for several years, but you have not given me any instructions. Why is that?”

The master smiled and said, “I have instructed you from day one.”

The student looked puzzled.

“When you see me in the morning, you greet me, and I greet you. What else is there?”

The student thought the reply was some sort of koan and tried to analyze it.

The master said, “If you start thinking about it, it is gone, and you’ll never get it. You have to see it instantly, with no reasoning or revaluing.”

That applies to a flower, and to one’s own self.

It’s the truth of Zen.

Again, to paraphrase Suzuki: The truth of Zen is what turns one’s everyday life into one of art and inner creativity.

MOUNTAINS AND STREAMS

2010-07-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

I’d like to attempt a simplified commentary on a complex subject. The subject is the talk by Master Dogen titled Keisei Sanshoku, or “The Contour of a Mountain, the Ripple of a Stream.”

Dogen’s talk focuses on the experiencing of one’s Buddha-nature. This experiencing—also known as kensho and satori—involves much preparation to bring one to a high spiritual level. To put that metaphorically, preparation that brings one to the brink of a precipitous cliff.

That word “spiritual,” and its root “spirit,” has nothing to do with any god, or the character of sacredness, or something beyond human comprehension, as is common in Western thought and religions. When a Zen person speaks of spirit it’s a reference to a non-tangible aspect of existence.

If you can’t describe, weigh, measure, or slice something, that something is spirit.

Maybe.

“Maybe,” because as I just said, spirit can’t be adequately described in universal terms that everyone can understand or even agree on.

To keep things uncomplicated think of spirit as non-material. Think of it as the essential nature or essence of a human, or a bird, or a stone.

To speak figuratively, all humans are born with a spark for experiencing enlightenment, but society hammers that spark mercilessly. In many people the spark is beaten down so severely it’s almost extinguished. Zen is the path to fanning the spark until it bursts into a flame.

The flame is kensho. Enlightenment.

When a person is spiritually ready for kensho to occur, it is often activated by an outside happening. It may be a word spoken by a master or a teacher. It may be the sound of a rippling stream. It may be the shape of a mountain.

The title I’ve given this talk is “Mountains and Streams,” and those words bring back an unrelated memory. When I was in the Navy’s Special Training School, each morning every sailor on the base had to assemble on the parade ground while the orders of the day, as well as a checklist of Navy regulations, were read over a public address system.

The reader was a Chief Petty Officer, named Berman. He was semi-literate. The poor guy tripped over almost any word that had more than one syllable. His greatest obstacle was the word “contributions,” as in, “You can have Cancer Society contributions deducted from your paycheck.” He would fumble with the word, then blurt it out as “contribulations.” Everyone tried not to laugh but never succeeded.

What does that have to do with Zen? Probably nothing, unless you want to read some hidden meaning into the story. What triggered the memory was that the daily announcements were referred to as Rocks and Shoals, things that were to be looked out for.

Getting back to Dogen, he was known for his use of figures of speech. In his day (around 1250) metaphors and similes were common tools of Zen masters and teachers, and were understandable to most people because they dealt with concepts of those times. However, when they’re read today they can be puzzling. They can also be misleading if you try to fit them to a culture and time different from those in which they were spoken.

For example, Dogen wrote of a Chinese Zen man named Shisen who was a “veritable dragon in the sea of letters…trained under dragon elephants in the sea of Buddhism.”

If you spend a lot of time trying to interpret all the allusions you’ll lose yourself needlessly in details. If you grasp the point of “dragons” and “elephants in the sea,” that’s fine. If you don’t grab it clearly, don’t worry. Let the words roll off your back, and go on with your Zen practice. It’s essential.

One day Shisen was making his way through a forested mountainside, and he heard the rippling sound made by a rushing stream. That sound caused him to awake spiritually. He was enlightened. He was awakened. He had kensho. He saw his face before he was born.

To mark the event Shisen composed a poem. In it he wrote that the stream’s rippling is the eloquent tongue of the Buddha, and the mountain’s contour is the body of the Buddha.

Shisen’s awakening was brought about by his heightened awareness, which was brought about his long sessions of meditation. His mind was emptied of all judgements, all opinions, all limitations. He was free and open. His spirituality was ready, and his hearing the sound of the stream was like being whacked alongside the head with a two by four.

Dogen asks, what do you hear when you listen to the ripple of a stream. Do you hear half a phrase, or do you hear a single phrase?

Or do you hear every atom of your body and of the entire universe?

Some followers of Zen might think a mountain is a symbol of stability, and a stream represents unsteadiness. They applaud themselves and think they’ve got it.

So Dogen rattles their cage by adding, “That which flows is the mountain; that which does not flow is the stream.”

When Zen master Kyogen was in training he studied hard, and he read the sutras, diligently. One day his master, named Daii, asked him to explain the words, “before father and mother were born.”

Kyogen tried several times, fumbling with words the way Navy Chief Berman did, but Kyogen couldn’t explain. He searched through all of his books and commentaries for help, but was unable to come up with an answer. Finally he burned his entire collection of writings and gave up trying to gain enlightenment. Instead he became a food server in the monastery.

I doubt whether Chief Berman resigned himself to dishing up mashed potatoes in the mess hall.

After several frustrating years Kyogen went back to Daii and asked for help in understanding “before father and mother were born.”

The master refused to elaborate, saying that if he did Kyogen would later resent him.

Kyogen was disappointed, and went away to become a hermit.

Some years later Kyogen was vigorously sweeping the path to his hut, and his broom sent a stone flying. The stone hit a bamboo, making a clunk sound.

That was Kyogen’s ripple of a stream, his contour of a mountain. It was the external happening that triggered his awakening.

He bowed in the direction of his Daii’s monastery and said, “Master, all those years ago if you had said something to me in explanation I would not had this experience. I would have thought I knew the answer.”

Like Shisen, who wrote the verse about the stream’s ripple and the mountain’s contour, Kyogen composed a poem to commemorate his enlightenment.

“At one blow, all I had learned with my head is forgotten.
“Truly, I myself am no longer the one in control.
“Breaking out in a smile, I make my way along the old path,
“Neither looking down in moments of despair
“Nor leaving behind, here and there, traces of where I have been.
“Only a dignified manner remains, which lies beyond anything heard or seen.
“Those everywhere who have realized the Way,
“All in one, say it is the moment supreme.”

D.T. Suzuki mentions (in Sengai, the Zen of Ink and Water) there are three forms of knowledge. They are illusory knowledge, relative knowledge, and absolute knowledge.

Illusory knowledge refers to what you think you know. For an example, teenagers think they know more than their parents.

Relative knowledge is what you pick up from studying, from reading, and from teachers.

Absolute knowledge comes only when you put to rest the other two. Oh, they aren’t worthless. Illusory knowledge and relative knowledge are like paths to the transcendental wisdom that can’t be gained from a teacher.

Absolute knowledge comes from the sound of a stream, the shape of a mountain.

ZEN AND NATURE

2010-06-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

Most writers scribble notes, where ever they may be at any given time, notes that may come in handy at a later date. They fill notebooks with jottings—colors, smells, sounds, quirky happenings. Notes are a rough guide to a writer’s observations and his identification with an emotion.

However, more often than not, a note that may have seemed a brilliant commentary when it was jotted down becomes totally baffling when read later. Here’ is an example from my own note pad, written hastily a couple of years ago:

“Felk the sorkins.”

Felk the sorkins? What does that mean? What is a sorkin? How do you felk one? Why?

Here’s another of my notes:

“Nature is natural; Religions are not.”

Now that seems rather sensible. It’s something I can wrap my mind around.

With that drawn-out preamble, I’d like to talk about nature and Zen.

When I say “Nature,” I mean the world of things not formed by human beings.

Flowers, trees, birds, stones, clouds.

Nature with a capital “N.”

Mother Nature.

An aside. The American Heritage Dictionary gives a curious definition for nature: “Humankind’s natural state as distinguished from the state of grace.”

There is a song titled State of Grace. There is also a TV series by that name, as well as a punk rock band.

What the state of grace is, I have no idea. It makes as much sense as Felk the sorkins.

Getting back to Nature, humans want to conquer Nature, to bend Nature. Humans bulldoze primeval forests to make way for factories. They wipe out animal habitats in order to feel safe. They level mountains so they don’t have to drive around them. Humans pollute rivers, lakes, the atmosphere, and outer space.

You get the idea.

Yeah, yeah, we know all this. What does it have to do with Zen?

D.T. Suzuki (Zen Buddhism) suggested that Western people sometimes treat Nature as something “there” into which Man comes.

Sumie—black ink brush painting—is a favorite art form in Japan is. A Sumi picture seldom includes skyscrapers or trains or Hummers. Instead, most images are of the natural world. Birds, flowers, waterfalls, misty mountains. If any humans are painted, they are small, and subservient to Nature. In a sumi painting a human is not presented as master of all, but as a related part of the whole.

Poetry. One of the principles of classical haiku is that it be based on nature and include a hint of the season of the year.

Western haiku are far removed from Eastern haiku, but we won’t go into that.

Here’s a haiku by Buson:

That snail—
One long horn,
What’s on his mind?

The poet Basho said one should learn about pines from the pine, and about bamboo from the bamboo.

Granted that the ancient Japanese poets and painters lived in a more Natural world without cars or even central heating, they appreciated nature for what it was.

Nancy Wilson Ross, author of The World of Zen, wrote that brush painting focused on the Tao, the Way, the Order of Nature. To quote her:

“To the Westerner in search of the reintegration of man and nature there is an appeal far beyond the merely sentimental in the naturalism of Zen.”

An aside: One ancient teacher said Zen was like a mountain veiled in mist, and once the mist is penetrated, Zen is all solid rock.

The Christian Bible presents some gloomy words regarding Nature. Genesis 1: 28 says the following words were given to Adam and Eve:
“Fill the earth and subdue it; bear rule over the fishes of the sea; over the birds of the air and over every living, moving creature on earth.”

The Bible notwithstanding, mankind does not have to be in opposition to Nature.

D.T. Suzuki asks if this is the right way of thinking, this idea of domination. He says it’s a Western idea to treat nature as something unreasonable.

And Suzuki goes on to say that when man is in agreement with Nature, Nature will help man to understand himself.

As I hinted earlier, mountains are a recurring natural theme in Zen painting and in poetry. One ancient master said:

When I began to study Zen, mountains were mountains. When I thought I understood Zen, mountains were not mountains. When I really comprehended Zen, mountains were again mountains.

What does that mean?

It means when mountains, and Nature, are integrated into my being, and I am immersed in them, they are what they are and I am what I am.

I am a part of all that I have met.

THE NATURE OF ZEN

2010-05-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

Much of this talk was inspired by the writings of Wong Kiew Kit, a Chinese martial arts master and author of The Complete Book of Zen. He suggests that most earnest beginners in Zen have at least three questions regarding their progress.

1. They want to know what to look for, to make sure their practice is correct.
2. They want to know how to tell if they have attained awakening.
3. They want to know if there is anything beyond awakening.

Let’s talk about correct practice by backing into it. If Zen is being practiced incorrectly, there will be several obvious signs:

One indicator is physical pain during meditation. I’m not referring to your leg going to sleep, or your lower back aching. Usually these annoyances can be taken care of by correcting your posture or by using a different cushion. Agonizing, persistent pain while doing zazen is different. It’s an indication that something is being done improperly. Zazen is not an exercise in mind over matter. If you really hurt, you really hurt, and you shouldn’t try to tough it out or be a martyr. Do something about the situation, such as discussing it with a master or a teacher.

Another sign of improper practice is consistent drowsiness during meditation. If you tend to nod off while doing zazen, the simplest answer may be to get more sleep. On the other hand, you may be forcing your meditation, which will tire your mind instead of relaxing it. Instead of trying to concentrate on some thing, let your mind drop. Let it hang loose. Let it unbend. As long as you aren’t physically or mentally fatigued, your zazen shouldn’t be bothered by drowsiness.

Another clue to inappropriate practice is apprehension during meditation. Some people experience actual fear or dread when they do zazen. This is most likely caused by a person having doubts or second thoughts about their practice. Some individuals who come to Zen from an organized religion may be nagged by feelings of guilt when they participate in a non-religious activity. Such people might do well to learn more about Zen and Buddhism by reading some of the better writers: Nancy Wilson Ross, Trevor Leggett, D.T. Suzuki, Suzuki Roshi, Robert Aitken, Christmas Humphries, or Thomas Cleary. They might also talk with a master or a teacher.

There’s another possible reason for mental discomfort. This may sound flaky, but certain locations are not suited for meditation. I don’t mean to be mystical about this, but it’s a fact that some physical places do have what might be termed bad vibrations. I once was photographing Cedarville, a tiny town in Northern California. It was an attractive, clean place, and the local people were pleasant. But all the time I was there I felt apprehensive. I couldn’t understand what was going on until later when I was told that many years earlier a band of Modoc Indian men, women, and children had been massacred on the site. I don’t know about lingering spirits. I do know my feelings that something was not quite right were very real. That place would probably not have been a good place for zazen.

How about positive indications you are making progress in your Zen practice?

1. You feel fresh and relaxed after sitting zazen.
2. You experience a lasting sense of inner calm.
3. You are able to focus on something—anything—for longer periods of time.
4. You think much more clearly.
5. You make a decision without analyzing the pros and cons of the matter.
6. You feel free of attachments.
7. You experience a great harmony with all existence.

Now let’s look at the second beginner’s question of how one knows if they have attained awakening. Are there any clues to that?

Breaking through dualistic thinking is essential. So once you feel free of concepts of good or bad, right or wrong, this way or that way, you are either there or getting close.

Awakening, or satori, or kensho, involves a change of viewpoint to an intuitive, non-intellectual kind of understanding. Be alert to such a change. It may not come about in a flash, like a bolt of lightning, but when it does come—or as it comes—you’ll know. This change represents the opening of a brand new world, a world that isn’t disclosed to a mind that thinks in this-or-that terms.

How can you be sure if or when you’ve attained awakening? The question is really immaterial because when it happens, you know it. You don’t talk about it or brag about it. It’s something that you perceive inside yourself, and which others can tell from the outside.

When a person is happy they may not be able to describe the sensation, but they intuitively know. And others know, as well. Oh, the concept of awakening may be talked about, like I’m talking about it right now, but narrations are only words and can’t adequately transmit the experience. Furthermore, whatever a person says to another person about awakening will probably be incomprehensible unless that other person has had the experience. It’s like trying to describe a sunset to a blind person.

Remember: It takes a Buddha to recognize a Buddha.

Let’s wind this up by looking at the beginner’s question of what may or may not lie beyond awakening.

In Buddhism beyond-awakening is referred to as nirvana. It’s a state of supreme happiness. Nirvana is liberation from what the Buddha referred to as suffering resulting from desire, which causes attachment to life and death.

Some people think of nirvana as they might think of the Christian Heaven, as a cushy physical place where everyone hangs out and is having a terrific time. One big, ongoing party with the host supplying all the drinks. Other people think of nirvana as total annihilation, like the snuffing out of a candle flame.

The Buddha said nirvana is extinction. However, he was referring not to a total end but to the extinction of attachments and desire, and the resulting pain and suffering. What comes after awakening is release from all that, which is total freedom.

DEWDROPS

2010-04-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

Of all the distinguished Zen masters, perhaps the best known is Eihei Dogen, who was born in A.D. 1200, in Kyoto Japan. Dogen is identified as the founder of Soto Zen, a practice that strips away all ritual and metaphysics of Zen as a religion or a philosophy, and considers it as an enduring way of life.

Dogen once put forth the image of the moon in a dewdrop to demonstrate one’s awakening. I have titled this talk simply “Dewdrops,” in the hope that it might lead to an awakening for anyone who hears it or reads it. I’ll say more about that later.

Dogen was a remarkable fellow. He is best known for his no-nonsense emphasis on shikantaza, or pure meditation, and for the collection of his teachings and lectures known as Shobogenzo. Shobogenzo is a Japanese term that’s translated as Treasury of the True Dharma Eye.

Gudo Nishijima, co-translator of the four-volume, l994, version of Shobogenzo, wrote that “. . . reading Shobogenzo is the best way to come to an exact understanding of Buddhist theory, because Master Dogen was outstanding in his ability to comprehend and explain Buddhism rationally.”

Nishijima mentioned that Dogen understood that things we tend to separate in our minds are one reality. Dogen also understood that time is not yesterday or tomorrow, but the present moment.

Extensive as are the writings of Shobogenzo, that collection is but a small part of Dogen’s output. There is also Eihei Koroku, known in English as Dogen’s Extensive Record. It’s a compilation of his later teachings, short dialogues, and longer talks.

Dogen was a prolific writer, and an inexhaustible teacher. I’m sure many more of Dogen’s writings lie around in the original Japanese, dust-covered, and waiting to be translated and put into print.

As a skillful writer, Dogen often broke thorny concepts into easy-to-understand-lists, or sequences. His notion was that any part of a sequence is comprehensible and worthy as a guide. Together the parts are totally graspable. For example, in Shobogenzo Dogen wrote:

“To study the Way is to study the self.
“To study the self is to forget the self.
“To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
“To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others.”

Another sort of inventory from Shobogenzo gives eight important features, or characteristics, of awakening. Dogen lists them as follows:

1. Freedom from greed. That means the cessation of desire.
2. Satisfaction. That means to be contented with what one has.
3. Quiet. That means to be separated from worldly disturbances.
4. Diligence. That means to be persistent in one’s practice.
5. Correct remembrance. That means to bear in mind what a master or a teacher says.
6. The practice of samadhi. That means clearing the mind thorough meditation.
7. The practice of wisdom. Wisdom results from awakening, and when one practices wisdom he is free from attachments.
8. Avoiding discriminatory thinking. That means realizing the true nature of things.

As I said earlier, Dogen likened awakening to the reflection of the moon in a drop of water. To quote Dogen translator Kazuaki Tanahashi (Moon in a Dewdrop), “He [Dogen] suggests that just as the entire moon is reflected in a dewdrop, a complete awakening of truth can by experienced by the individual human being.”

The main concepts of Dogen's Zen—therefore, of Soto Zen—form another list:

1. Recognition of zazen (zazen is not a way to awakening but is awakening itself).
2. Constant practice of zazen (zazen is not a once-in-awhile observance but a way of life).
3. All beings are Buddha-nature (Buddha-nature is not something to be awakened but an actuality).
4. Buddha-nature is impermanent (all things change, and nothing lasts forever, so live in the moment).
5. “Uji” (beings and time are inseparable).

On the note that all things are Buddha-nature, I’ll close this talk not
with one more list, but with the record of a short conversation between an ancient Chinese Zen master and an analytical official.

The official said, “An earthworm is cut. It becomes two. Both parts
move. In which part does the Buddha-nature exist?”

The master said, “Hold no illusions.”

Think about it.

MUTUAL INTERRELATIONS

2010-03-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

I want to start out with a quotation from the book The Tao of Physics, by Fritjof Capra.

“The most important characteristic of the Eastern world view—one could almost say the essence of it—is the awareness of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things and events, the experience of all phenomena in the world as manifestations of a basic oneness.”

I’d like to carry out a little exercise related to form and nothingness. It’s an exercise aimed at expanding our awareness of the interrelationship of all existence.

We learn early, as children, to speak of “this” and of “that,” as if “this” and “that” were unconnected entities. And we learn early on to discriminate between “this” and “that.”

Certainly a tree is its own distinct self. A stone is its own distinct self. Each tree has its individual tree-ness, which is like no other tree’s tree-ness, and the same goes for a stone. A tree is a tree, a stone is a stone, and a human being is a human being.

Zen recognizes the unique quality of each thing, whether the thing is a tree, a stone, a woman, or a man. At the same time Zen does not limit or restrict. Zen doesn’t set one thing against another.

Zen doesn’t judge.

Zen doesn’t say, “This is a good tree, that’s a bad tree.”

Consider this ringing bowl. It was produced in a factory, probably in Japan, along with thousands of other bowls. All of the bowls from that particular run have the same shape, the same size, the same color.

And probably all of those bowl-brothers would produce the same sound when struck.

If we were in a store contemplating a collection of ten, or a hundred, such bowl-brothers—as I was when I bought this one—they would all seem the same. They would appear to be pretty much indistinguishable. If we were considering buying one bowl from the many, how would we go about it?

A Zen person would first use most of his or her senses. She or he would look, touch, and listen. Maybe even smell and taste until one bowl stood out as the one.

If there was a bystander, the Zen person would certainly be labeled as being eccentric. A weirdo. Possibly deranged and potentially dangerous.

But the bystander would be making a judgment. We know that, of course, all Zen people are perfectly normal.

Let’s consider this bowl.

First, look at it.

Notice its shape.

The shape is more or less semi-spherical. Demonstrative geometry would describe its bulk as V = (r3/3)/2 minus the amount of liquid or sand it might hold, but we don’t need to know that much about it.

Regard the space the bowl encloses.

Sense the relationship between that inner space and the bowl itself.

Note the space outside the bowl. How far does it reach?

Well, if we can take the word of cosmologists, space is boundless, infinite. Being infinite it has no form.

Now consider this. Could the bowl exist without these inner and outer spaces?

That is to say, could the bowl exist without form and without no-form?

Don’t form and emptiness define each other?

And finally, when you get right down to it, isn't emptiness and isn't form impermanent?

The point of all this is to get you to become conscious of form and no-form. Can you see that the bowl and the emptiness in and around it are vital to the bowl’s nature? Its bowl-ness is not its form only, but also its no-form.

To paraphrase psychologist David Fontana, author of the book Discover Zen, apparent opposites are simply aspects of whatever thing we are considering, whether the thing is a bowl, a stone, or a human being. Without opposites a thing couldn’t exist.

As I said earlier, humans are conditioned early on to think in terms of this or that. But Zen understands that things can be both this and that.

What we call light is electromagnetic radiation, which consists of waves of energy. However, light also involves collisions of particles with electrons. So which is light? Is it waves or is it particles?

Paradoxically, it is both.

As Fontana says, categorizing things can lead to conflict, to agreement or disagreement.

“If you agree [with me],” he said, “you are on my side: if you disagree, you are not.”

And he concluded that this is not the way of Zen.

Consider a wave out in the middle of the ocean. Is a wave separate from the sea? Is a human separate from all living things, such as cats, trees, and earthworms? Are living things separate from non-living things, such as stones? Isn’t everything is made up of atoms?

What is real?

Before and after this moment nothing was real, and nothing will be real. The past doesn’t exist except in memory. The future is merely conjecture.

Only this moment is real. All else is what Zen calls appearances. All things—birds, trees, bugs, humans, and grains of sand—have one thing in common.

It is their Buddha-nature.

Buddha-nature is now, and it is real.

Dogen said all things are Buddha-nature.

Note the word “are.”

That means that all things do not have Buddha-nature but all things are Buddha-nature.

I could sit here and, like a holiness preacher, lay a guilt trip on you by bellowing at you to awaken to your Buddha-nature.

But exhorting isn’t Zen.

What I can do is point to the form of that thing up in the sky we call the moon, and to the non-form of infinite space surrounding it, and egg you on to awaken to your Buddha-nature.

And never mind the pointing finger.

SENSIBLE BUDDHISM

2010-03-02T08:34:00.000-08:00

I wonder if any of you have ever heard an old song titled “Life Gets Tedious,

Don’t It?” It has several verses, but I’ll mention only one.

Grief and misery, pains and woes,
Debts n’ taxes, n’ so it goes;
And I think I’m gettin’ a cold in the nose.
Life gets tedious, don’t it?

According to the Buddhist Four Noble Truths, life is suffering. One modern writer put it another way, stating that life is difficult. Yet, another writer noted that life is loaded with one damn dilemma after another.

Is that a negative outlook? Is negativism what Buddhism is all about?

No, that’s what life is all about.

Buddhism is about dealing with suffering.

Buddhism is about living life.

However, because the word suffering is so common in Buddhism, many Westerners make a giant leap and conclude that Buddhism is based on a negative outlook. That it is pessimistic.

Buddhism is definitely not pessimistic.

On the other hand, Buddhism is not optimistic, as are most Western religions.

Buddhism is realistic.

Buddhism is sensible.

In his book Buddhism, Damien Keown writes, “The Truth of
Suffering . . . presents the facts of life in an objective way.”

Keown goes on to say the Buddha realized that the notion of suffering was like admitting you have a serious disease, but you won’t admit it, and until you do own up to it there’s no hope for a cure.

So, what causes suffering?

In a word: dissatisfaction.

In another word: craving.

In several more words: hankering in an abnormal way for something you think you need but really don’t need.

A jazzy car, a classy house, more money, a year’s supply of whisky, a face lift.

To acquire such stuff human beings literally pawn their lives. They figuratively hock their souls.

That concept of selling one’s soul has spawned many folk tales. Such fantastical stories may have their origin in a 1500s German fortune teller and magician named Faust. He was a real person, who was reputed to have supernatural powers that were given to him by Satan in exchange for his soul.

The story was the source of the opera “Faust,” by Verde, the short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” by Stephen Vincent Benet, and many other spin-offs related to the selling of one’s soul.

I’ve drifted.

According to one source, soul is a non-real element that, together with the real body, comprises a human being.

Only human beings? What about cats, or dogs, or pet hamsters?

Let’s stick with humans.

Another source says soul is the principle of life.

Most known cultures believe in a principle they call soul, an ethereal “thing” that can exist separately from the body. Sometimes, it is believed this insubstantial thing makes itself known in another life form. Sometimes a human, sometimes a different sort of animal.

Encarta Encyclopedia notes that in many societies humans are said to have as many as eleven souls.

Can you imagine that?

What does Buddhism, or Zen, say about reincarnation, you ask?

I was taught by Master Hiromu Oda, and Master Kobun Chino. Oda had little to say about reincarnation; that is, being reborn in another form.

He once told me “Reincarnation is a cozy notion for individuals who are unable to conceive of death as an absolute end. It pretty much goes back to the Indian notion of atman, a personal soul that lives on.”

What does live on is what Oda referred to as the essence of a person. The memory of an individual’s physical appearance. The memory of their smile, their frown. The sound of their voice. The way they did this or that.

According to Keown, the Buddha said he could find no evidence for a human soul. However, the Buddha mentioned that a person’s moral identity lives on after death.

The individual is physically gone, but memories of him or her endure.

The Buddha was not a theologian but a down-to-earth realist. He believed that each person has a moral individuality—a sort of persona—that should be cultivated during life.

That moral individuality is what survives death.

FIVE MINUTES

2010-02-24T06:46:00.000-08:00

For my most recent Zen meeting
I talked about "A Five Minute
Introduction." It's a BuddhaNet
basic Buddhism Guide, and a very
good guide at that.

I won't duplicate it on this blog,
for copyright reasons, but I will
mention a few of the questions it
addresses.

-- What is Buddhism?
-- Do Buddhists Worship Idols?
-- What did the Buddha Teach?

For the full text, check out
BuddhaNet.

UJI TIME

2010-02-20T08:52:00.000-08:00

More than once I have talked about Zen Master Dogen’s concept of time. It’s an important issue, so let’s have another look at it.

Normally we think of time as an experience of duration. A period of an event or action. The interlude between a starting and a stopping. A “during which.”

Scientists can describe minutes and seconds, and days and years, and they have ways of measuring time. They also designate different forms of time that are pretty impressive.

But scientists are unable to actually describe, or to agree, what time is.

Solar time is measured by the rotation of Earth on its axis, and the Sun’s apparent motion across the sky.

Sidereal time uses the apparent motion of so-called fixed stars.

Note science’s hedge terms of “apparent” and “so-called.” They mean that we think we know, but we aren’t sure.

Most people use standard time, which is based on the division of planet Earth into zones. The Earth has twenty-four time zones.

Then there is atomic time, which is based on the frequency of atomic or molecular electromagnetic waves.

Probably the notion of time as something measurable developed in prehistory from the human observance of the breathing space between dusk and dawn, or of the phases of the moon, or of seasonal changes.

If you want to overwork your brain, think “what if.” That is, what if there was no notion of time? What would existence be like?

Zen monks aim to separate themselves physically and mentally from the everyday world, and its pressures of time, in order to focus on their training. However, they can’t escape time altogether. In a monastery, drums and bells sound off to mark the beginning and ending of meditation sessions, and to signal work periods and meals.

About the only individuals who manage to get away from time completely are hermits who live a solitary life in a forest or on a mountain. Their lives are regulated by the natural rhythms of sunrise and sunset, and by their bodily needs. There is a Zen koan that I can’t remember entirely that says drink when you’re thirsty and eat when you’re hungry.
Hermits don’t look at their Rolex to see if it’s six o’ clock and time to sit down to potatoes and rice.

Excluding recluses, most of us live a life that’s controlled by an allegiance to time. We cause ourselves to wake up at a certain hour so we can be at work, or at school, or at breakfast. As much as we might like to forget the constraints of minutes, and hours, and days, time is important to living our lives.

According to Einstein, or Woody Allen: Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.

Zen doesn’t deny time any more than it ignores the laws and rules of society. But Zen sees time uniquely. Zen sees time as right now. Neither the past nor the future exists. Only now is actual, and now doesn’t last long.

Dogen wrote at some length on the concept of time in a Dharma presentation called Uji. Uji is a Japanese word that has been translated as “Being and Time, or “Just for the Time Being.”

Dogen said, in essence, that the whole of time is the whole of existence.

I’ll repeat that. The whole of time is the whole of existence.

“Uji” is a common expression in Japanese, equivalent to several common wordings that are used in the west: “For the time being,” “Now and again,” “At a time when.” According to Hubert Nearman, a translator of Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Dogen based his Uji talk on his experience of becoming unattached to a self that exists independent of time and independent of worldly things.

This is the point of Zen, the dropping off of body and mind.

Time is not a thing. But by devising hours, and months, and years, and keeping track of such intervals, humans have made time something out of nothing. They have made time something to be reckoned with.

To get back to uji, time and being are two aspects of the enactment of seconds, minutes, hours, and the absence of a permanent self in the passage of time. Let me say that again. Time and being are two aspects of the enactment of seconds, minutes, hours, and the absence of a permanent self in the passage of time.

Don’t ask me to explain that. Either you get it or you don’t get it.

Putting this in Zen terms, there is no permanent self. There is uji, the time when some form of being persists.

To quote Dogen, “The phrase ‘is for the time being’ implies that time in its totality is what existence is, and existence in all its occurrences is what time is.”

Dogen’s words are not only about uji—the time when some form of being persists—they come from an individual who lived uji. Nothing is definite, nothing is certain. Every thought that comes up is just for the time being.

Again I quote Dogen:

“Mountains are of time: oceans are of time. If there was no time, neither mountains nor oceans could be. Do not think that time does not exist for the mountains and oceans of the present moment. Were time to cease to exist, would mountains and oceans cease to exist?”

And a final word from Dogen, “When one looks up and unbolts the barrier gate, ‘arriving’ refers to the time when body and mind are dropped off, and ‘having not arrived’ refers to the time when this ‘dropping off’ is left behind.”

What does this mean?

It means one should always go onward, becoming Buddha. Whatever arises one should constantly apply oneself without thinking of arriving or not yet arriving.

Time is right now. Not yesterday or tomorrow.

The Danish author, Isak Dinesen wrote, “You can’t change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future.”

BUDDHISM MYTHS--PART II

2010-01-22T08:06:00.000-08:00

This talk resumes with more mythical accounts of happenings in the history of the Buddha.

According to folklore, at age eighty years the Buddha continued to travel on foot and speak of his awakening experience. Realizing that he was in poor health, his followers wondered if he would appoint an heir to carry on his teaching. The Buddha said he had never considered himself a leader; therefore, there was no need for a successor.

“Instead of following someone like a pack of hungry dogs,” the Buddha said. “Think for yourselves. Do not blindly accept what you might hear, weigh everything in your own mind. Be your own person, and concern yourselves with the well-being of all beings.”

In the words of Professor Damien Keown, “In keeping with the Buddha’s advice, there never arose a central source of authority in Buddhism on matters of doctrine.”

Wait a minute, you say. What about the Dali Lama? Isn’t he the big cheese of Buddhism?

No, the Dali Lama is not the head of Buddhism per se. He is the chief abbot and spiritual leader of the Tibetan school known as the Gelugpa, or Yellow Hats.

I won’t go into the fascinating world of Tibetan Buddhism, also known as Lamaism. Basically, it is a hierarchical school, with many levels of priesthood. Lamaism is rich in ceremony and mysticism. Its leadership is occupied by the Dalai Lama, and the Panchen Lama.

Let’s stick with Zen, which shies clear of ritual, and urges meditation as the way to an intuitive realization of one’s true, inner nature.

Getting back to mythology, the Buddha is alleged to have died lying on his right side, from food poisoning. Today, many statues in Asia show him this way. True or false, what difference does it make? There is no record whether the Buddha was right-handed or left-handed. What difference does it make?

His supposed last words were, “Decay is inherent in all things. Be sure to strive with clarity of mind for complete awakening.”

You may have heard of a pre-Buddhist legend called Radiance mythology. It’s an origin story that parallels and combines a sort of Biblical genesis account with the fanciful tale of Pandora’s Box. The Radiance account says the first thing to exist was white light and black light. Then an enormous extraterrestrial egg appeared that filled the universe. From the egg, black light produced evils. However, white light, or Radiance, offset this by producing happiness and prosperity.

Joseph Campbell wrote several books on comparative mythology and comparative religions. He once said myths are public dreams, and dreams are private myths. He also said that every religion is true when understood metaphorically. But if you interpret metaphors as facts, you are in trouble.

One of Buddhism’s most stable legends concerns Bodhidharma, an Indian monk, who supposedly left his homeland to bring Buddhist teachings to China. In metaphorical terms, Bodhidharma planted the Indian seed of enlightenment in Chinese soil.

The Buddhism practiced in China in Bodhidharma’s time was elaborate and fanciful, and it had countless gods and myths. There is a story that in the A.D. 600s a monk went to China to gather copies of official writings. The monkey god and the pig god joined him and helped him to fight various demons with a magic stick.

Can you picture that?
Other significant Buddhist deities of the time included the four kings of heaven, the four kings of hell, the kitchen god, and Mi-le, known in India as Maitreya. Mi-le is also known as the laughing god. Carved images of him are sold in Chinese schlock shops. He’s the little guy with the big belly and the jolly face.

Wandering back to Zen, most koans are stories of mythical encounters between masters and monks. They were told as parables designed to bring about awakening, or to explain the meaning of existence by means of metaphor.
One master asked another master, “What does the golden fish that has passed through the net use for food?”
The other master answered, “When you come out of the net, I’ll tell you.”
A monk asked Master Yun Men, “What is talk that goes beyond buddhas and patriarchs?”
“Cake,” Yun Men answered.
Does either of these koans open the meaning of life to you?
Joseph Campbell wrote that he didn’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.
Think for yourselves. Do not blindly accept what you might hear. Weigh everything in your own mind. Be your own person, and concern yourselves with the well-being of all beings.

In the words of Dogen:
To study the way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others.

BUDDHISM MYTHS--PART I

2010-01-13T08:51:00.000-08:00

Many oddball claims have been laid to Buddhism by misinformed or misguided individuals. To name a few such delusions, Buddhism is a religion; the Buddha was a saint, or a magician; the Buddha was, or is, a pope-like head of an international conspiracy—I mean organization; and so on and so on. Such claims arise from notions that are based on myths and legends.

Myths are cozy little stories that may have a basis in fact, or they may be far removed from reality. They are usually devised to simplify teachings for a particular, often unsophisticated, audience. Unfortunately, many people take myths and other far-fetched stories as gospel.

I personally don’t put much store in myths. Instead, I prefer talking about practical, living matters. Still, some of the Buddhist myths are worth mentioning because they are a historical part of the tradition.

There is no existing biography that deals with the life of the Buddha. Such literary records were unknown some twenty-five hundred years ago. However, certain key episodes stand out.

When it comes to the birth of the Buddha, the stories fly wildly off the chart. His expectant mother dreamed that a baby elephant entered her side. Sages and second-guessers interpreted this to mean that the child would be come a great political leader or else a great religious teacher. How that interpretation arose, I can’t imagine.

An elephant? Maybe back then India was heavily Republican.

Historically, the birth took place at Lumbini, a city that is honored as a holy site to this day. At his birth, the child supposedly took a few steps and announced this was the last time he would be born. That meant he had experienced several reincarnations.

Flash forward.

At age sixteen Guatama Siddhartha was married to Yashodhara, and they had a son they named Rahula. Though Siddhartha venerated family life, when he was twenty-nine, he left his home in an attempt to seek knowledge. After six years spent wandering and investigating various disciplines, at age thirty-five he attained what we refer to as “enlightenment,” and he became known as the Buddha, or the Awakened One. Over the next forty-five years he wandered in northern India, teaching what he had realized in his awakening.

You have probably read about the supernatural being, Mara, who tried to distract the Buddha from meditation. It’s a story paralleled in Christianity by that of Satan tempting Christ when he was praying.

In the excellent book, Buddhism, by Damien Keown, a British professor of Buddhist Ethics, the author mentions that references to the royal status of the Buddha’s family are most likely an exaggeration. Still, stories of the Buddha’s aristocratic background probably helped open a door to India’s stratified castes.

There is no bona fide record of the date the Buddha was born, but there are lots of good guesses. In the Western—Gregorian—calendar, the dates range from May 8 to May 25, depending on the current year. For the year 2010, the day commemorated is May 21.

So, if anyone wants to celebrate a BBD—a Buddha Born Day—let’s have a cake with lot of candles.

As we have heard many times over, when the Buddha went out from his placid home, he experienced what are referred to as the four signs. He encountered an aged person, an ailing person, a dead person, and a beggar. He was so struck by these tokens of suffering that he left the palace walls to try to understand the nature of human life.

Remember that Buddhism doesn’t have anything to do with the acceptance of strange beliefs and rituals. Buddhism is about looking at our own lives, and realizing how to understand ourselves and understand all forms of life.

According to some scholars, when the Buddha was out on the streets he was first taught a form of serene and blissful meditation. He thought this was well and good, but that there was more to understanding life than tuning out. Another teacher introduced him to a mystical state of consciousness, a sort of mental negation of existence.

“But, I don’t want to remove myself from humanity, the Buddha thought. I want to be an integral part of it in order to comprehend it.”

Then the Buddha practiced rigorous breath control, but that only gave him headaches. He practiced self-mortification by fasting to the point of emaciation. He went without sleep. He may even have lain on a bed of nails or broken glass, or walked on hot coals, as many religious Indian ascetics are likely to do.

Although none of these severe activities helped the Buddha to understand life, he did come to see that extremes were unproductive. As the writer Damien Keown said, “The most appropriate lifestyle, accordingly, would be one of moderation in which the appetites were neither denied nor indulged to excess.”

So the Buddha seated himself under the branches of a fig tree, and went back to straightforward meditation—what Dogen would much later call shikantaza: Zazen in which the mind and body are totally involved in nothing but the sitting itself.

It was then the Buddha had his awakening.

1. He understood that life is dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction is common to all humans.

2. He saw that we, as humans, cause our own dissatisfaction.

3. He perceived that we can end dissatisfaction by stopping what causes it: greed, acquisitiveness, craving, discontent.

4. He decided that dissatisfaction can be overcome by following a certain pattern of behavior.

These realizations came to be referred to as The Four Noble Truths.

The Four Noble Truths may sound like a handy construct, but they form the basis for the tradition and practice of Buddhism.

That’s enough for this talk. We’ll pick up again next time.

FLAPPING MINDS

2009-12-18T09:05:00.000-08:00

NOTHINGNESS

2009-12-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

A koan: When you can do nothing, what can you do?
I’d like all of you to cup your hands in front of you. Now tell me what you have in your hands. What color is it? How heavy is it? What does it sound like?
Nothing is hard to describe, isn’t it?
Talking about nothingness isn’t easy either. In fact, it’s downright difficult. For a parallel, take jazz. Someone once asked Louis Armstrong what jazz was. Louis answered, “Man, if I have to tell you, you’ll never know.”
This is a Zen group, and I am speaking in Zen terms, not philosophical terms. Such academics as Parmeides, Heidegger, and Sartre all wrote about nothingness.
To them, the question was why is there something rather than nothing?
If you say “there is nothing,” then you have to acknowledge an observer. And if there is an observer, there is something
I can’t tell you what nothingness is. No one can. I can scatter words around, but words fall short. In fact, when it comes to nothingness, words are meaningless. We can talk about something, but not about nothing. Nothingness isn’t shaped like a gourd or a bicycle. It doesn’t taste like chicken. It isn’t green. Nothingness is what’s left when everything is taken away.
You’ve been warned.
“The time has come,” the walrus said, “to speak of many things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings.” In this talk I’ll be speaking of many things that are a lot less tangible than shoes and cabbages. Some may not seem to hang together, but don’t worry about that. If you grasp them intuitively, that’s great. Otherwise, let the words and the notions sink into your consciousness.
Remember the mirror-wiping episode of Hui-neng and Shen-hsiu? Can anyone recall Hui-neng’s verse, or at least the gist of it?
There is no Bodhi-tree,
Neither is there a shining mirror.
Since there is nothing at all,
Where can dust collect?
Meditate on that. If you care to, take it as a koan. But don’t pick it apart for hidden meanings. Don’t analyze the words. Don’t even visualize mirrors and dust.
There is no Bodhi-tree,
Neither is there a shining mirror.
Since there is nothing at all,
Where can dust collect?
Think about it when you’re driving your car, when you’re painting a wall or baking a potato, before you go to sleep, when you wake up. Meditate on it.
See it. Grasp it. Sense it inside yourself. When you do that you’ll be on the way to understanding nothingness.
Remember, from the first not a thing is.
Who can describe what, in Zen, is called original mind? I’ll wait for an answer.
Original mind is one’s mind before it becomes cluttered with notions, ideas, rules, and regulations that are a part of living a normal life. Original mind is simple and pure. By pure I don’t mean virginal. I mean squeaky-clean.
Are you with me so far?
Okay. If original mind is pure, why is it necessary to wipe dust off? If original mind is pure, then dust-wiping, or rinsing with hot water, or scrubbing with a Brillo pad has no meaning.
When you think of original mind, or your face before you were born, you perhaps imagine original mind as something you can visualize or describe. Are you still with me?
Okay. If original mind is something, like a book is something, then you can stand back, figuratively speaking, and look at it. Observe it. You are here, and a book, or original mind, is there. Right?
Not right. Original mind doesn’t have shape or form. It’s not separate from you in place or in time. There’s no observer and observed. There’s no distinction or separation.
You are original mind, original mind is you.
Don’t mistake original mind, pure mind, true self—whatever you choose to call it—as something separate from you. If you expect to see an image of your pure, true self, you’ll be disappointed. Hui-neng rejected the notion of a clean mirror by declaring there is no mirror, no dust. Now make a big leap.
This is nothingness.
Nothingness is the doing away with all objectified qualities. By that I mean doing away with “I am this, that is that.” Nothingness a state of no-ness in which observer and observed are indistinguishable.
From the first, not a thing is. When you understand this…. No, when you are altogether aware of the notion of “From the first not a thing is,” all logic and reason are wiped out. What’s left?
Nothing is left. This is nothingness.
I’m almost finished, and I’ll wind this up with a dialogue between Shen-hui (Sayings of Shen-hui), one of Hui-neng’s followers, and a man named Chan-yen King. Their conversation went something like this:
Chan-yen King asked, “When the mirror has nothing to illuminate, the illumination itself loses its meaning, doesn’t it?”
Shen-hui said, “When I talk about . . . illumination, this illumination . . . is eternal … and has no reference to the presence or absence of objects.”
“Why then do you talk of illumination?”
“I talk of illumination . . . because the mind has in it wisdom, which illuminates the entire world-system.”
“That being so, when is it attained?”
“Just see into nothingness.”
“Even if it is nothingness, it is seeing something.
“Though it is seeing, it is not to be called something.”
If it is not to be called something, how can there be the seeing?”
“Seeing into nothingness. This is true seeing and eternal seeing.”
There is no Bodhi-tree,
Neither is there a shining mirror.
Since there is nothing at all,
Where can dust collect?
I hope I’ve offered you some illumination about nothingness.

THE WAY

2009-11-17T09:20:00.001-08:00

Taoism, Buddhism, and Zen are interrelated. I’d like to talk about their common denominator, the Way.

The Way is a guide to harmonious living. Basically, it means accepting the present moment without wanting it to be anything more or anything less.

The Way is perhaps better known in its Chinese translation, which is the Tao. The printed Chinese character for this word originally meant a path to reach some place, but the character also suggested walking, and one’s face.

In other words, to walk to some locale you need to face in that direction and you need to take a path that leads there.

Common sense, yes?

However, humans are obsessed with saving time and effort, and they usually try to take the quickest route to get somewhere. Instead of appreciating their route, they look for shortcuts to make the going even easier.

On the way of the Way, there are no shortcuts.

The Chinese philosopher, Lao-tzu, said the Way is experienced through two modes:

1, Self-knowledge, and

2. The acceptance of nothingness.

According to Lao-tzu, the greatest action one can achieve is living according to the total flow of life.

Being in harmony with the Tao, that is, with the Way, means doing nothing artificial or unnatural, but instead following one’s own true nature, and living fully with whatever is dealt.

That does not mean one has to be a weak jellyfish. It means one should roll with the punches, bend like the bamboo.

The Way can’t be named or defined, and it can’t be false or synthetic,

Unfortunately, most people think of the Way, and of Zen practice itself, as achieving something. They think sitting in silent meditation and clearing the mind is foolish unless there is an objective in sight, a purpose.

This is known as awakening greed. Westerners are obsessed with awakening because to them it represents a return for the effort they have spent in sitting.

Most religions have a purpose, and that purpose is the saving of one’s soul. That term of saving one’s soul is an interesting one. First, what is meant by “saving”?

Saving for what? Saving from what?

It’s interesting that only humans have to have a purpose. An aim. A goal.

In this part of the country, there are many oak trees. Does an oak tree have a purpose? An oak tree is simply an oak, and it is an oak superbly and wonderfully. Most oaks, if left alone, will live much longer than any human will.

I could say that an oak tree follows the Way

The Way does not have a purpose. It does not have an end for which to strive.

The Way isn’t a progression from here to there.

Instead, the Way is a circle that has no beginning and no ending. We are born, we live, we die. This is the life of a Buddha.

According to Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, who wrote an excellent commentary on Dogen’s Bendowa (in the book The Wholehearted Way), the only basis of any possible system of values must be the fact that we are living right now, right here.

The means to attaining the Way is zazen. Zazen leads to awareness, and awareness leads to awakening. Awakening is self-discovery, self-realization.

Self-realization is the Way.

Self-realization is the Way. That’s like Dogen’s saying that Zazen is awakening.

And here we are back in that circle of no beginning, no ending.

Not everyone can understand this, and many people don’t want to understand. That’s unfortunate, but that’s how it is. We can’t go out on the street and collar people to try to convince them of the value of the Way. Zen isn’t a tradition of proselytizing, of converting people to a dogma. Zen doesn’t attempt to persuade people they are better off in Zen.

And Zen doesn’t depend on blind faith. It isn’t stone-acceptance of what a master or a teacher says.

Some people love to argue doctrine. They ask question after question not in order to find out more about something but because they want to validate their own convictions.

Does following the Way make one a better citizen? A better parent? A better anything? Maybe yes, maybe no. That’s not what matters.

Following the Way makes one a better one, and that’s what matters.

KI-HIN AND SAMADHI

2009-11-12T08:50:00.000-08:00

For this talk I’m going to enlarge, and combine, a couple of previous talks because they closely relate to one other. Well, that’s a redundancy, because everything in Zen relates to everything else. Anyway, the subjects are Walking Meditation, and Absorption.

WALKING MEDITATION
Essentially, walking meditation, ki-hin in Japanese, is a physical break from zazen, sitting meditation. It’s also a check on your concentration.
Can your mind remain quiet when you go from sitting to standing to walking? Can you continue meditating without feeling self-conscious about moving around? Can you walk and meditate without worrying about whether you’re doing everything right?
Remember, in Zen there is no right or wrong.
Ki-hin is a step along the way of being able to fully engage in meditation while sitting, or standing, or walking, or carrying on your daily activities.
Ki-hin is zazen in motion.
It is a link between sitting meditation and maintaining constant, clear awareness in everyday life.
Walking meditation is not a challenging procedure. Fold your hands on your solar plexus. Stand straight, and look down and forward at about a forty-five degree angle. Place one foot ahead of the other by about half a length. Transfer your weight to the forward foot. Move the rear foot forward and transfer your weight.
Oh, yes, and keep your eyes open so you don’t collide with someone, or else with a wall. I’ve seen it happen.
Breathe easily, regularly, and in time to your steps. Continue to meditate. Be in physical and mental balance all the time. Be aware, without thinking about being aware.
Move like flowing water.

SAMADHI
Samadhi is a Sanskrit term that means total absorption. It is used in Hinduism and in Yoga, under slightly different connotations. We won’t go into them because that might confuse the issue.
Just now, the issue is Zen.
Samadhi is a concept often encountered in Zen, but not always in other forms of Buddhism. In Zen it refers to clearing the mind of all thoughts during meditation.
There is a story of a surgeon performing a delicate procedure in Japan. A severe earthquake rocks the operating theater, but the lights remain on. Nurses and attendants are terrified and run out of the operating room, but the surgeon continues with his work.
Later, when the surgeon was told of the earthquake, it was the first he knew of it.
He had been so engrossed in what he was doing, he was oblivious of everything going on around him. He was in a state of samadhi.
When we are in this state we are forgetful of ourselves. Nothing in the world around us affects us.
Still, even though we are unflappable and totally dedicated to what we are doing, we are not shut down. Our mental switch is not in the “off” position. Our intellectual lights are not out. We are occupied completely, yet we are altogether aware of everything. Sounds, lights, temperatures. We are aware of all that but not affected by it.
Samadhi is essential to Zen meditation, yet I hesitate even mentioning it because someone might interpret it as something to strive for. And when we strive too much to gain something—as I have mentioned in other talks—we tend to get in our own way and hinder ourselves.
I mention samadhi only because the word pops up in Zen writings.
Now that I have mentioned it, forget it.
If you are doing meditation well, you will be totally absorbed without realizing it, and without trying. The knack is to be aware of your absorption without thinking about it or making an issue of it.

mind or gray matter

2009-11-02T08:49:00.000-08:00

The Buddha said, “Do not dwell in the past or dream of the future, but concentrate your mind on the present moment.”
The word “mind” is a dodgy term for philosophers, for psychologists, and for physiologists. I owe most of the thoughts in tonight’s talk to James Austin, neurologist, and author of the book, Zen and the Brain.
Austin wrote that “mind” is a slippery word that creates more problems than do many other words, because it has been used to mean many different things.
The brain is a thing. It has color, it has weight, it occupies space. Is mind part of the brain, or is mind an entity of its own produced by the brain?
What is mind? It’s not an object you can lay your hands on. So is it a notion, a concept, an idea? Does mind exist by itself?
It’s like trying to comprehend what, in quantum theory, is called the Standard Model of light. Before Einstein, light was thought to be both particles and waves. The Standard Model clarified this theory because it includes fermions and bosons. There are four bosons, which include mesons, which include quarks and anti-quarks.
And some people think Zen is baffling.

Woody Allen said man consists of two parts, the mind and the body, only the body has more fun.
As Zen practitioners, when we do zazen we may first be aware of our breathing. Then, as James Austin says, stimulus and response patterns drop out by themselves, which means we stop being attentive to inhalations and exhalations. We enter what is known as mushin, or no mind. However, the Japanese term, mushin, means without mind and without heart.
Nevertheless, we do not become heartless or unconscious.
Instead, in mushin the brain has shucked off judgments, and worries and thoughts. It has not stopped thinking, nor has it gone into hibernation. It has become highly receptive, sharply aware.
When you sit in zazen you may hear a fire truck’s siren, but you don’t wonder where the blaze is. You may feel the room’s automatic heating or cooling kick on, but you do not wriggle in pleasure or annoyance.
You let what is, be what it is.
Zen’s no-mind suggests a mental attitude in which you are extremely attentive to the input of your senses, but you are not attached to them. That is, no-mind is different from non-thinking.
If the Zen term no-mind implies non-attachment, does the Zen term mindfulness imply a mind full of thoughts? The two terms may sound opposed, but they point toward similar modes of meditation practice.
Zazen is attention in which the brain is empty of all associations.
To quote a brilliant phrase of Austin’s, “Then, the process which began on the cushion during zazen continues afterward as an ongoing mode of uncluttered living.”
That is to say, meditation is awakening (some call it enlightenment). Off the cushion, awakening is genuine living. It is freedom from mental disorder, and the opening of a mindful state of awareness.
Remember the story of the monks arguing whether the wind caused the temple banner to flap, or if the banner caused the wind to flap.
The Zen master cut short the discussion by saying, “Neither. It is your mind that is flapping.”

THE MEASURE OF HUMANKIND

2009-10-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

I would like to begin this talk with a few words about Sprong.
Does anyone know what Sprong is? Does anyone fully comprehend Sprong? Does the idea of Sprong feel comfortable? Well, even though I made up the word I don’t understand Sprong. To me Sprong is vague, murky, indistinct.
Sprong is something other than any of us.
“What is he talking about,” you are thinking.
Bear with me.
There are people who need an other in order to know themselves. To know themselves, some people go to a priest or a minister, others to a psychiatrist, others to a god. Some people feel more complete, more fulfilled to have an other.
Then there are people who are complete in themselves. They don’t judge those who look to an other, they simply don’t understand a need for an other.
Here’s a question: In most of the Western world, what is the purpose of life? I’ll wait for answers.

Isn’t the purpose of life in the Western world to acknowledge an other? To praise and to pay homage to something other than one’s self? There is nothing wrong in this. What some people feel strongly about is important to them, and ridiculing the values of others is improper and unbecoming.
Here’s another question: What is the purpose of life in most of Asia? Again, I’ll wait for answers.

In most of Asia the purpose of life is to realize the unlimited potential of one’s self and to work toward bringing out the very best of one’s self.
Here is one more question: With whom or what are we humans more familiar? Ourselves? Or Sprong? I won’t wait for an answer. You may think you don’t know yourself and would really like to know more, but who is better qualified to help you achieve that realization?
Confucius said, “The measure of man is man.”
In Buddhism, or in Zen Buddhism, the Buddha is not an intermediary. Self-knowledge doesn’t come from outside. It doesn’t come from a Sprong. Self-knowledge comes from self within. If there is no self within to start with, all the rites and rituals in the world will be as helpful as a pair of square wheels on a bicycle.
Self is concealed in the personality of an individual until that individual wakes up and realizes his or her true nature. This awakening is what Zen is about, and it is unique to Zen. It’s what makes Zen distinctly different from all other beliefs, even from Buddhism and from Zen Buddhism. Zen insight reveals the oneness of the individual and all of being, and it hinges on nothing other than one’s self.
Saying what Zen is not is easy. Zen isn’t a relationship shared by the self and a Sprong. Zen is the fully realized self.
A Zen novice asked the master, “What is Zen?”
The master answered, “It is this.”
So, what is “this”? This is what is right here, right now. It’s a glass of water, or a bare foot on the floor, or a breath of fresh air. It’s not something or someone else that is somewhere else. Straining to find “this” is like hunting for the eyeglasses that are perched on your nose.
Because most people take their role in society seriously, either they don’t realize who they really are or else they forget who they really are. By direct pointing, Zen helps people realize what Zen refers to as “suchness” or “isness.” That is what they really are.
Legend has it that when the Buddha became enlightened someone asked him if he was a god.
The Buddha said, “No.”
“Are you a saint?”
“No.”
“Well, then, what are you?”
The Buddha answered, “I’m awake.”
He didn’t mean he wasn’t sleeping. He meant he was conscious of himself and of everything around him.
He recognized his own original nature.
Original nature is not attachment to the universe nor is it separation from the universe. It is harmony with the universe.
A Zen text states: “Do not seek for the truth, only stop having an opinion.” As far as we know, there’s no such thing as a unicorn, and, so far, there’s no such thing as truth. So searching for either is a waste of time and effort.
Forget truth. Disregard unicorns. Don’t worry about Sprong. To really see, look within your self.

RULES AND REGULATIONS

2009-09-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

Have you ever stroked a cat in the wrong direction, that is, from its tail to its head? Such strokes mess up a cat’s fur. They may even cause a crackle of static electricity. Cats hate reverse strokes. At best, or at worst, they ruffle a cat’s feelings.
I’m not a cat, so I don’t get many strokes, physically or emotionally. Also, I don’t ruffle easily.
One thing that does bother me is having Zen, or Zen Buddhism, referred to as a religion. As I say time and time again, Zen, or Zen Buddhism, is not a religion.
Zen is often referred to as a tradition, the passing down of a culture through lifetimes. To put it another way, a tradition is a way of thought or behavior that is carried on from generation to generation.
A tradition. Something done because others have done the same thing.
But, as free-thinking human beings, must we do something the same way our predecessors did it? Must we be bound by tradition, or can we practice the Zen tradition in a way that suits our varying culture, and our changing minds and bodies?
Some elements of tradition may have matter-of-fact value in Zen practice. Others may have been established on whim, and don’t need to be adhered to dutifully. Let’s take a look at a few of these formalities, while keeping in mind that Zen has no rules or regulations.

ZEN POSTURE
Most people have a mental image of Zen practitioners sitting cross-legged, with the right ankle tucked into the left groin, the left ankle tucked into the right groin. This is known as the full-lotus position, in Japanese, “kekka fuza.” In theory, it provides the most stable bodily attitude because . . . . Well, I honestly don’t remember the theory of physical stability. But no matter. Full-lotus is traditional, so most people doing zazen try to sit full-lotus. And most people suffer.
The Japanese Zen scholar Katsuki Sekida cautions (Zen Training, Methods and Philosophy) that kekka fuza is a tough position for most people to maintain, especially when they start their practice. I say it’s a difficult position for almost anyone who is not slim, supple, or over the age of thirty or so, unless they started kekka fuza as a youth.
But not to worry. If you can’t maintain full-lotus, or even half-lotus, you won’t be drummed out of the Zen community. If sitting kekka fuza causes you pain, or cramps, or charley horse, don’t torture yourself. Zazen is not an exercise in masochism.
As an alternative, fold your legs under your buttocks and sit on your heels. If this stresses your knees, straddle your cushion and let it take most of your weight off your legs.
It’s perfectly all right to do Zazen while sitting on a bench or on a chair. Just don’t slump or lean sideways. Keep your back straight, as if a tight string were attached to the top of your head.

WALL FACING
The alleged founder of Zen in China—Bodhidharma—supposedly meditated while facing a wall. Whether that wall was a physical barrier or a metaphor for the obstacle of Bodhidharma’s mind is not recorded, but wall facing during meditation has come down as a Zen tradition.
So, at least in the Soto sect, zazen is done facing a wall.
I suppose if it was recorded that Bodhidharma scratched his behind every quarter hour while meditating, we might, to this day, be scratching our behinds every fifteen minutes of zazen.
Nevertheless, there is some benefit in wall facing. If we were to face the center, or one end, of the room, we would be likely to look at how others were meditating.
We’d allow ourselves to be distracted watching if others were sitting still or fidgeting, alert or dozing off.
I’ve probably told the story of the two Americans who were doing zazen in a Rinzai temple. Shortly after the session began, the Zen master scribbled a note on a piece of paper and passed it to one of the guests.
After the sitting, the other American grabbed his friend, saying, “What did the master say? Did he disclose a special revelation?”
The friend opened the note. It said, “Stop looking around.”

BARE FEET
Why do Zen practitioners go shoeless when they sit? Is this another primeval tradition? Probably not.
First, sitting—especially on the floor—is more comfortable if you aren’t wearing shoes.
Second, it’s a mark of respect during zazen not to wear shoes, or not to chew gum, or not to send text messages on your cell phone.
Master Keido Fukashima insisted not only on no-shoes in the meditation room, but on no-socks as well. If the floor was bare tile, your feet felt like ice, but you got used to it.
I prefer keeping my socks on, not so much for warmth, but to avoid acquiring a case of athlete’s foot.
In most Asian countries, totally uncovered feet are a must in a monastery or a temple. After a month of barefoot exploring Buddhist sites in Japan, Burma, and Thailand, my feet looked like ground beef and they itched like crazy.
There have been, and are, superior Zen masters and not-so-good Zen masters. Most likely, the better masters—such as Bodhidharma, Dogen, and Suzuki—seldom laid down rules and regulations other than those relating to the proper care of their temple.
In our times, are we duty bound to imitate the old masters, or should we honor what they stood for and they taught?
As Zen practitioners we aren’t looking for what someone else was, or is. The point of Zen is realizing who we are.
As part of a sangha, we should be aware and respectful. Of others, and of ourselves.

FROM DOGEN'S RECORD OF THINGS HEARD

2009-09-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

These days everyone talks about, reads about, and practically drips about Zen. There are books and magazines and newspaper articles devoted to Zen. There are advertisements with phony Zen themes. There are Zen takeoffs on travel destinations, on diets, even on dog foods.
Is Zen really some sort of a New-Age fad that detonated over the horizon in the eighties?
Incidentally the dictionary definition of New-Age mentions (I take a deep breath) a complex of spiritual and consciousness-raising movements covering a range of themes from a belief in spiritualism and reincarnation to advocacy of holistic approaches to health and ecology.
Is this Zen?
In a word: NO.
Zen has been around a while. It isn’t new.
According to indistinct records, Zen probably had its start in China in the sixth century when the Indian Buddhist monk Bodhidharma touched down in a Cantonese monastery. There, he taught silent meditation, and his practice became known as Ch’an Buddhism.
Back then the world had no airplanes or trains. There was no Internet. And because China was physically, linguistically, and philosophically a long Way from Japan, Ch’an took some five hundred years to reach Japan.
Ch’an’s introduction to Japan, where it became known as Zen, is attributable to several teachers. But the Japanese master who opened the first continuing monastery, and is best known for his outstanding contributions to Zen literature, is Dogen Kigen.
Early on, Dogen wrote a meditation manual that presented straightforward zazen instructions. He followed this with another piece in question-and-answer format. Best known today was his manual titled The Record of Things Heard, a collection informal talks on various Zen subjects. In these and all of his writings, Dogen emphasized one’s dedication to realizing the Way.
Dogen said no matter what one’s intelligence or education, zazen was the universal practice. He claimed that everything other than zazen was a digression from true Zen.
Dogen was not dead-set against koans, which were all the rage in most Ch’an and Zen schools of his time. He did say that koans could be an obstacle to Zen practice and awakening. Rather, he focused on shikantaza.
Literally, in Japanese shikan means “only”; ta means “hit”; za means “sit”.
So, shikantaza is absolute meditation without an object or an aim in mind.
No koans, no chants, no rituals.
Pure meditation.
The true study of the Way doesn’t depend on book learning, or on brainpower, or on intelligence. The true study of the Way relies on perseverance in the practice of zazen.
No more, no less.
To quote Dogen: “In the first place, there must be a keen and sincere desire to seek the Way. . . . . Anything sought for with . . . intensity will surely be gained. . . . Those who have this drive . . . even if they are
stupid . . . will without fail gain enlightenment.”
In other words, you have to stick with it.
Then Dogen said that to awaken such a mind one has to be aware of the impermanence of the world. Impermanence is not some arcane conjecture or theory; impermanence is a reality, a fact, a truth.
We humans may try to get around death with religious routines, but nothing lasts forever. Not trees, not birds, not humans, not even the mountains or the rivers or the oceans. We come we go.
Every year you read about the death of someone who has lived to be a hundred-and-some years old. The longest-lived human, to date, is Jeanne Calment, a French woman who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years. The other day I read about the death of the oldest living dog in the world. It was a dachshund, named Chanel. It was 27 in human years, 147 in dog years.
My point is that nothing lasts forever.
Dogen’s third point in the study of the Way is really first, in order of importance.
It is zazen.
Dogen was asked by a follower named Ejo that when zazen and the reading of texts are practiced together, we maybe understand one point in a thousand. But in zazen alone, there isn’t even this much. So why so much emphasis to zazen?
Dogen answered that koans and readings may lead to a slight comprehension, but they can—if one becomes attached to them—actually get in the way of the Way.
The value is not in words or mental games, but in zazen.
To summarize Dogen, in the study of the Way you have to shed attachments. If you follow a good teacher and practice together with the others, and shuck off all notions of how important self is, you will be a person of the Way.
The Buddha way is never-ending. If you become awakened, keep right on practicing zazen.
A final word: Don’t become a smart-ass about enlightenment.
Especially yours.

COMPASSION

2009-08-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

Compassion is a word that’s often encountered in Buddhism. In a few words, compassion is concern for other beings.
It doesn’t matter if other beings are humans, or birds, or cats, or reptiles. Compassion is not assignable. It’s all-inclusive.
Like Zen is Zen, compassion is compassion.
Guatama Buddha described compassion as that which makes one’s heart move at the pain of others.
The Buddha was asked by one of his followers if compassion was a part of their practice.
“No,” the Buddha answered. “The cultivation of compassion is all of our practice.”
Advance warning: I’m going to do considerable wandering this evening. I may even sound like I’m moralizing or sermonizing, which I’m not.
I may raise a lot of questions and offer not many answers, but that will be good. The answers are up to you.
Each of you, ask yourself, what do you do really well? What do you feel comfortable with in yourself? Happy with? Easy with? Fulfilled by?
It might be a skill such as speed-skating, or a talent such as painting. It could be cooking, or philosophizing, or speaking in public.
What do you have an aptitude for?
Don’t worry. I won’t ask you to speak out.
Just think of one or two things you are good at.
All right. Whatever you choose about yourself aren’t holy gifts bestowed on you by a kindly master of the universe.
They aren’t divine favors.
They are accomplishments you have involved yourself with over time, and in which you have trained yourself, because they felt right and good for you.
They are you.
Think about this. When you perform your “things,” you are practicing your way. Each person has his or her own way, his or her own realization of self. One person’s way is no better, no worse, than any other person’s way.
I won’t mention the talents of terrorists or corrupt politicians.
Now brace yourself because I’m going to veer off in another direction.
As you know, when I teach Zen I usually lecture a blend of Zen and Zen Buddhism.
I do this for a couple of reasons.
If I were to teach Zen I wouldn’t be sitting here talking in circles. I can’t say for sure what I might be doing, but it would probably be something much more spontaneous.
As an example, QUATZ!
That might be easier on me or more natural for me. But it could be difficult for you.
Remember that Zen is a name for the ultimate basis of all thought and being, for something that is independent of, and unrelated to, anything else. Because Zen is beyond the grasp of the relative mind, it can’t be simply defined or easily explained.
As I said earlier, Zen is Zen. It has to be experienced.
So in my teaching it’s helpful for all concerned to combine Zen with Zen Buddhism, and make occasional reference to Zen Buddhism, which is more traditional.
In Zen Buddhism you may come across the word Tathagata in reference to the Buddha. Thathagata sounds like something gee-whiz holy or sacred. However, it means one who has come and gone this way.
Isn’t that an interesting scrap of trivia?
Never mind what the point of that is. Just remember that if space really is curved, as some cosmologists claim, all these seemingly irrelevant asides will eventually bounce back, combine, and make fabulous sense.
Now, back to the start of this talk: the subject of compassion.
Compassion has to do with understanding or perceiving the feelings of others. Of course, it’s impossible for one person to understand totally how another person feels. But one can have a sympathetic insight into the feelings of others.
That’s what compassion is about.
I have three good friends who are suffering from life-threatening situations. I can’t possibly feel what they feel, physically or emotionally. But I can be aware of their misfortune, and I can be sensitive to it even though I can’t do much about it.
That’s compassion.
In Buddhism a bodhisattva is a person who is not seeking enlightenment for only himself. A bodhisattva wants to help all other beings realize their Buddha-nature. A bodhisattva is dedicated to compassion, to the effort of relieving the suffering of all beings.
Isn’t someone who is wholly devoted to something attached to that devotion?
And if a person is obsessed with the idea of compassion, won’t that person want to be good to someone who might not want or need such help? If an individual who is happy living frugally and close to nature is presented with a bundle of money, that person’s happy life is likely to be destroyed.
The point here is, you should watch where your compassion might lead you.
Another aside. When you read or hear that a bodhisattva is dedicated to saving all forms of life, that word “saving” shouldn’t be taken in the so-called religious sense. In the Christian sense, when a person is saved it means he or she comes to believe the man Jesus Christ is the son of God and, traditionally in most churches, when one is saved they are spared an endless vacation in Hell.
In Christianity, the savior of humankind is Jesus.
The Buddha is not a savior of anything. In Buddhism, “saving” refers to personal enlightenment. So if, in Buddhism, you hear of saving all living beings, it means helping them to gain awakening, helping them to achieve self-realization.
That’s compassion.
If we think of compassion as a human act of kindness, this isn’t compassion but self-serving. It is self-praise in a conscious effort to do good. There’s nothing bad about wanting to do good. But when we can practice compassion intuitively—when we can live compassion—then we are sharing our enlightenment with all forms of life.
The British Buddhist scholar Christmas Humphries mentions, in A Western Approach to Zen, one student’s view of compassion:
“The deepening understanding of the oneness of life produces an equally growing compassion for all forms of life. Then the stone is my brother . . . . But I must have experienced it myself.”
When Philip Kapleau (author of The Three Pillars of Zen was asked where compassion fitted into Zen, he answered, “Where doesn’t it fit into Zen? Then he added that compassion, like love, isn’t something one talks about.
He told a story about an ancient Chinese governor who spent several days with a Zen master. When the official was ready to return to the capital the master asked, “How will you supervise the people?”
The governor answered, “With compassion and wisdom.”
“Then,” the master answered, “every last one of them will be the worse off.”
According to Kapleau, a truly benevolent person doesn’t trumpet his or her benevolence. Such a quality should be so deeply engrained as to be second nature. It is a manifestation of one’s true self.
One’s true self is not second nature.
True self is first nature.

KITCHEN ZEN

2009-08-05T14:45:00.001-07:00

I like to read the signboards outside churches. You know, the ones that list the hours for services, show the minister’s name, and present a clever message. The messages are intended to be inspirational, but some of them can be puzzling, even to a church-going individual.
To a non-churchy person such statements can be absolutely baffling, or else very funny.
For a local example: “Passport to Heaven. Apply within.”
I often wonder if each church minister thinks up these little nuggets of wisdom, or if there is the equivalent of what, in the music world, is called a “fake” book. A fake book is a collection of songs that anyone can use.
What these ecclesiastical memos say, or don’t say, and how they say, or don’t say, it reveals a lot about organized religions. For example, not long ago I read in front of church the following:
“Give your life to God. He can do more with it than you can.”
At first you might think, hey, that’s clever. God is all-everything, and so . . . .
Then you realize what’s really being expressed.
I’ll repeat the message: “Give your life to God. He can do more with it than you can.”
That is to say, don’t even imagine you can be responsible for yourself. Instead, look to something other than you, and depend on that other thing. Then whatever you do isn’t really your doing.
Then there’s the message, “Give your heart to Jesus, your brain to science.”
Zen is about you. It isn’t about reaching out for someone or something else but about looking inward to realize who you are. Once you really see yourself, there are no promises that you’ll be cured of alcoholism or facial warts. What is important is that you—not some other—will be administering to you.
To quote or misquote someone or another, “I am the most important [insert your own name] I know.”
Is that self-centered? Is that egocentric?
I don’t think so. What it means is taking your own self as the starting point. It means acknowledging the importance of your being to yourself, and keeping your being in your own hands.
Today I’d like to talk about what I call Kitchen Zen.
This talk was inspired by Dogen’s lecture, “Instructions to the Zen Cook.”
Kitchen Zen.
It’s a catchy phrase, isn’t it? I’d like to think I made up the term, but probably someone else coined it centuries ago.
Dogen Japanese Zen master Dogen Kigen lived from 1200 to 1253. At age twelve he began a dedicated life at Senkobo, a Tendai Buddhist monastery. At that time in Japan, many serious scholars were dissatisfied with the teachings of popular Buddhist schools because most of them read so-called sacred scriptures and practiced mysterious rituals.
Back then, Zen wasn’t widely known in Japan, so the real thinkers who wanted to dig deeply into Zen traveled to its birthplace.
China.
In 1223 Dogen and a friend sailed from Japan and docked in central China. Their landing might have been Tsingtao or Shanghai.
For one reason or another Dogen was detained in port aboard the ship. One day an elderly Chinese man came aboard to buy supplies for his monastery. He was not only a monk, but the head cook at Mount A-yu-wang Monastery. He and Dogen hit it off from the start, and the two of them enjoyed many hours conversing and sharing intellectual matters. When Dogen asked the fellow to stay longer, the cook thanked him and said he had to return to his kitchen.
Dogen asked what was so important about that kind of work, and the monk explained kitchen labor was his form of Zen practice.
“But at your age why do you slave away in a hot kitchen instead of devoting yourself to meditation?” Dogen asked.
The cook laughed and said, “My friend from a foreign land, you may be a Buddhist, but you don’t know what Zen practice is.”
Several months later, when Dogen was studying in a Chinese monastery on Mount T’ien-t’ung, the old man showed up again, and the two of them resumed their discussions, Dogen asked the meaning of “practice.” The cook-monk answered, “Words and scriptures are one, two, three, four, five. Practice means nothing in the world is hidden.”
Dogen took this to signify that words and so-called holy writings were a dime a dozen, whereas Zen practice is enlightenment. In Dogen’s later writing titled The Lesson from the Monk-Cook he indicated how he had been emotionally stirred by the cook’s Zen.
This “man of the Tao,” as Dogen referred to the cook, had shown Dogen that work which flows out of awakening is actually Zen practice. Any activity—whether it’s teaching a room-full of noisy kids, or cooking a pot of rice, or building a house, or planting a garden, or maintaining a data-base, or carrying out the trash—can be Zen practice.
Any activity can be Zen practice.
To quote Heinrich Dumoulin, author of Zen Buddhism: a History, Japan, “The cook embodied the living tradition of Chinese Zen from the time of the fourth and fifth patriarchs . . . which taught that Zen is practiced not only by sitting cross-legged in meditation . . . but just as much in daily service to the community.”
That is what I call Kitchen Zen.

2009-08-05T14:42:00.001-07:00

TEN THOUSAND THINGS
I’d like to talk about ten thousand things. Not ten thousand dollars, nor ten thousand books, which would take up more time than any of us could bear.
“Things” is a purposely fuzzy word. A “thing” could be an object, a happening, even a nonentity. There is a song titled “The Things We Did Last Summer,” whose words were vague, but suggestive.
In some of the older readings in Buddhism you might come across the expression “ten thousand things.” In Buddhism ten thousand isn’t some magic number. It too is vague. It could just as well be “a billion things.”
Ten thousand refers to the uncountable numbers of forms in which life force, or Buddha-nature, exists.
The phrase came into use probably in the time of the Taoist, Lao-tzu. Of course, ten thousand, or any other large number used in this context is a metaphor to achieve an effect beyond the range of ordinary language.
That is to say, Buddha-nature is everywhere.

The basis of the expression lies in the Zen notion of “not one, not two.” In order for there to be one of anything there must be an observer. Therefore, the observer plus the observed makes two. Two implies a relationship, and that makes three.
And so on, and so on.
Ten thousand things.
Lau-tzu’s Tao-te Ching, which dates from about the 3rd century BCE, mentions that the Tao brings about one. One brings about two. Two brings about three. Three brings about all things. The ancient Chinese referred to all things—which are limitless—as ten thousand things.
A couple of other Buddhist, or Zen, expressions can be equally baffling. I’m referring to the terms “suchness” and “isness.” These words can cause a hardnosed person to throw his hands up and say, “What the hell is isness? Is isness the opposite of isn’tness?”
To put it as simply as I can, isness or suchness is another way to refer to one’s true nature.
Buddha-nature.
A paradox. If each of us—animal, vegetable, or mineral—has universal Buddha-nature, how is each of us an individual entity? To put it another way, if everything is Buddha-mind, isn’t everything the same?
The Japanese poet Ikkyu wrote about this puzzler when he mentioned that if there is no mind beyond this mind (speaking of Buddha-nature), then there isn’t any difference between Ikkyu and other people.
I’m not sure what that means. I think it has something to do with those enigmatic words from the Diamond Sutra: “There are no things or people, yet there are.”
Obviously everything is not the same. You aren’t a tree. You aren’t a grain of sand. Some of our linguistic metaphors would be puzzling to a being not familiar with humanity. What would a Martian think if it were in the early stages of learning English and someone said “That woman is a shrinking violet”?
In California calling oneself something other than one’s given name is common. I’ve known a Trout (who was male), a Willow (a female), and even a Squashblossom (whose gender was vague).
Aside from sometimes sounding a bit weird, there’s nothing of itself wrong, or bad, or terrible about taking on a colorful name. Remember the childhood chant, “Sticks and stones my break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Everyone is free to call themselves whatever they wish. I was given the name John, but I prefer to call myself Jack because it seems more informal.
I applied for my first passport in my fully saturated name of John Philip McDowell. When it expired, after four years, and I applied for a new passport, I applied as Jack McDowell. That threw the passport office into a tizzy. I was told I could change either the first name or the middle name, but not both at the same time. So I became Jack Philip until that passport expired. Then I renewed, dropping the Philip to be just plain Jack.
I guess I’m a living example of not two, not one.
The point of all this is that if a person feels the need for a special name or title, it may indicate that person is not selfless. He or she may have a self-image that is getting in the way of true nature.
Christmas Humphries mentioned (A Western Approach to Zen) that as long as ego fights with ego, there is no vision of the self which is beyond, above and yet within both.
When ego-self lets go is when Buddha-nature takes hold.
Buddha-nature is universal. It’s all-embracing. At the same time, Buddha-nature is distinctively individual.
In the Buddhist sense, feeding the ego leads to suffering because the ego has a huge appetite. The more you give it, the more it demands. You give it a hundred dollars, it wants five hundred dollars. You give it an old but operational Volkswagen, it wants the latest model Jaguar.
And so on to ten thousand things.
I realize I’m mumbling in the dark talking about such stuff to this group. I’d guess we are all fairly comfortable and content with what we have and what we do. If one of us wasn’t, he or she would do something about it.
And that says something about each of us. That says we each may perceive our Buddha-nature and that of all other things, whether they number ten thousand or more.
But that knowledge should not go to our heads.

MINDFUL AWARENESS

2009-07-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

In Asia, one of the most important of the Buddha's legendary discourses is called Foundation of Mindfulness. It has to do with awareness, and therefore with understanding.

Understanding of self, and of all existence.

Foundation of Mindfulness begins:

"There is this way that leads to the discernment of beings, to the overcoming of sorrow and distress, to the disappearance of pain and sadness, to the gaining of the proper path, to the realization of Nirvana. This way is based on the four foundations of mindfulness."

The four foundations the Buddha referred to are areas of life that, jointly, make up one's total experience. They are:

1. Body

2. Feelings

3. Mind

4. Objects of mind

In his time the Buddha visited many teachers, but he followed no one master. There was no single person to guide him, to challenge him, or to inspire him.

As an aside, these days individuals travel halfway around the world looking for a spiritual leader, a counselor who will tell them what to do.

The Buddha's self realization—which we refer to as enlightenment—came about as a result of his own, solitary effort.

He thought for himself.

Think for yourself.

The Buddha advised individuals who sought awakening to follow four think-for-yourself actions:

1. Go alone to a quiet place,

2. Sit still,

3. Breathe regularly,

4. Pay attention to breath.

He referred to this simple course as mindful breathing.

It depends on you, and you alone.

Action number four is “Pay attention to breath.” Be mindful of it.

Here is how mindful breathing works.

If you inhale a long breath, be aware that you are inhaling a long breath. If you exhale a long breath, be aware that you are exhaling a long breath.

If you want to count breaths, go ahead and count them. But do not attempt to control your breathing in any way. Be aware of the “now” of the experience. Do not interfere—mentally or physically—with the "now" of the experience. A long breath is a long breath; a short breath is a short breath. No more, no less.

This sounds straightforward, doesn't it?

However.

There is always a however.

I once studied Japanese brush painting under sumi-e master, Takahiko Mikami. Occasionally, after examining one of my efforts, sensei Mikami would say, "Jack, you are a genius. However, . . . ."

There is always a however.

No matter how straightforward mindful breathing seems, your mind usually refuses to lie still. Instead, it starts playing games.

No matter how earnest you are, in being aware of your breath and only your breath, your mind begins to cavort. You think about buying a quart of milk, or filling your car's gas tank, or going to the library or to the coffee house. You lose your focus.

You lose your mind.

Damn, you think. And your mind goes flying off in various directions.

Speaking of directions, everyone knows the four compass directions of north, south, east, and west. But in the old days of sailing a new crewman had to learn the thirty-two points of the compass card.

I won’t rattle off these thirty-two directions, even if I could remember them, but they start with North and proceed clockwise: North, North by East, North-Northeast, Northeast by North, and so on around the compass.

I digress.

When you think too much, as I said, your mind goes flying off in all directions.

You realize what's happening, and you probably make an effort to control such interrupting thoughts. But that effort makes your mind jump to something else. And off it goes, seemingly out of control.

The first step in practicing mindful awareness is self-acceptance. That is, you realize what's happening, but instead of trying to tame your wandering mind, you mentally shrug and say to yourself, "So what."

The Buddha spoke of his teaching as "going against the stream." Mindful awareness makes us realize how much we swirl around in the stream of past-conditioning and habit.

I like to think of self-acceptance, and therefore mindful awareness, in terms of an image I learned from my Zen painting master.

"Bend like the bamboo."

In other words, don't try to oppose the stream. Don't struggle against human nature.

When meditating, be aware of yourself, including your thoughts and your breath. Let them be what they are.

Training yourself to focus single-mindedly on your breath enables your mind to become more still. This may not take place immediately, but it will happen.

One more “however.” Such quietness is not an end itself. It’s a state from which to observe what is taking place within. It leads to understanding that a restless mind is the result of conditioning and habit.

The Buddhist scholar and writer Stephen Batchelor said in his book, The Awakening of the West, "Such meditative understanding is experiential rather than intellectual, therapeutic rather than dogmatic, liberating rather than merely convincing."

Batchelor went on to say that the aim of mindful awareness is the understanding that frees one from delusion and craving.

A good writer on mindfulness is John Kabat-Zinn, author of the book, Wherever You go, there You Are.

UJI TIME

2009-06-09T07:53:00.000-07:00

I have talked about Zen Master Dogen’s concept of time before. It’s a mystifying but fascinating view that bears looking into again.

Probably the notion of time as a measurable concept developed in prehistory from the human observance of dawn and dusk, or of the phases of the moon, or of seasonal changes.

There seems to be no hard evidence that living things other than humans actually quantify time and keep close track of it. Of course, a squirrel stores acorns when it senses winter is approaching. Some furry creatures shed their natural coat with the seasons, or they undergo a color change. But do rabbits and bears and earthworms have a sense of the passage of time? Do they have an awareness of past and future? Or are humans the only beings that consciously demarcate intervals and durations of experience, think about the past, and worry about the future?

If you want to overwork your brain, think “what if.” That is, what if there was no notion of time? What would existence be like?

Zen monks aim to separate themselves physically and mentally from the everyday world, and its pressures of time, in order to focus on their training. However, they can’t escape time altogether. In a monastery, drums and bells sound off to mark the beginning and ending of meditation sessions, to signal work periods and mealtimes.

About the only individuals who manage to get away from time completely are hermits who live a solitary life in a forest or on a mountain. Their lives are regulated by the natural rhythms of sunrise and sunset and by their bodily needs. That is, they eat when they’re hungry and they drink when they’re thirsty.

They don’t look at their Timex to see if it’s six o’ clock and time to sit down to potatoes and rice.

Excluding recluses, most of us live a life that’s controlled by an allegiance to time. We cause ourselves to wake up at a certain hour so we can be at work, or at school, or at a meeting. As much as we might like to forget the constraints of minutes, and hours, and days, time is important to living our lives.

We can moan and groan about time, but we can’t reject it.

One value of the concept of time is that it gives us something to talk about. Time is as much a topic of conversation as is the weather. Remember Charles Dudley Warner’s declaration that everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. The same can be said for time.

Zen doesn’t deny time any more than it ignores the laws and rules of society. But Zen sees time uniquely. Zen sees time as right now. Neither the past nor the future exists. Only now is actual, and now doesn’t last long.

Dogen wrote at some length on the concept of time in a Dharma presentation called Uji. Uji is a Japanese word that has been translated as “Being and Time, or “Just for the Time Being.”

Dogen said, in essence, that the whole of time is the whole of existence.

“Uji” is a common expression in Japanese, equivalent to several common wordings that are used in the west: “For the time being,” “Now and again,” “At a time when.” According to Hubert Nearman, a translator of Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Dogen based his Uji talk on his experience of becoming unattached to a self that exists independent of time and independent of worldly things. This is the point of Zen, the dropping off of body and mind.

Time is not a thing. But by devising hours, and months, and years, and keeping track of such intervals, humans have made time something out of nothing. They have made time something to be reckoned with.

To get back to uji, time and being are two aspects of the enactment of seconds, minutes, hours, and the absence of a permanent self in the passage of time. Let me say that again. Time and being are two aspects of the enactment of seconds, minutes, hours, and the absence of a permanent self in the passage of time.

Don’t ask me to explain that. Either you get it or you don’t get it.

Putting this in Zen terms, there is no permanent self. I say again: There is no permanent self. There is uji, the time when some form of being persists.

To quote Dogen, “The phrase ‘is for the time being’ implies that time in its totality is what existence is, and existence in all its occurrences is what time is.”

Dogen’s words are not only about uji—the time when some form of being persists—they come from an individual who lived uji. Nothing is definite, nothing is certain. Every thought that comes up is just for the time being.

Again I quote Dogen:

“Mountains are of time: oceans are of time. If there was no time, neither mountains nor oceans could be. Do not think that time does not exist for the mountains and oceans of the present moment. Were time to cease to exist, so would mountains and oceans cease to exist?”

And a final word from Dogen, “When one looks up and unbolts the barrier gate, ‘arriving’ refers to the time when body and mind are dropped off, and ‘having not arrived’ refers to the time when this ‘dropping off’ is left behind.”

What does this mean?

It means one should always go onward, becoming Buddha. Whatever arises one should constantly apply oneself without thinking of arriving or not yet arriving.

NIRVANA II

2009-06-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

A recent talk was about nirvana. Now I’m going to flog a dead horse and say some more about the subject.

Just for the fun of it, I looked up nirvana in the American Heritage Dictionary. There, the word is related to Buddhism, and is defined as the ineffable ultimate in which one has attained disinterested wisdom and compassion. Some synonyms are bliss, cloud nine, utopia, dreamland.

Nirvana is a Sanskrit word that is sometimes printed as nibbana. It is supposedly the goal of Buddhist life.

But this implies a contradiction.

Buddhism, and in particular, Zen, does not have a goal. Rather than striving to attain an objective, Zen is being.

For another definition, nirvana is a mental, physical, and spiritual state that lies beyond the normal range of perception. That sounds pretty spooky to most Westerners. As I said earlier, the word is Sanskrit, and it literally means “to blow out,” as to blow out a candle flame.

This is where Western thinking goes awry. To blow out a candle flame is to extinguish it. To extinguish is to make an end to life, to expire, even to go to the so-called abode of righteous souls after death: Heaven with a capital “H.”

But nirvana is not Heaven. Nirvana is not a place but a state.

A principle of Buddhism says that all life is suffering. Suffering involves the flames of hatred, craving, greed, and ignorance. Only in nirvana are these flames snuffed out.

Within Western scholarship, debates go on over whether nirvana involves total annihilation or eternal bliss. Trying to settle this is like trying to resolve that medieval conundrum that occupied church authorities for centuries as to how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Who cares?

What does it matter?

Nirvana is indescribable and can be known only directly. It is not an external goal but one’s innermost nature.

But isn’t that the same as enlightenment? Awakening?

To answer myself, yes.

I dislike introducing another Sanskrit word, but it’s a word that often pops up in conjunction with nirvana, so it should be mentioned. The word is samsara. In simplest terms it means the course of life, involving birth, suffering, death, and, in Hinduism, rebirth.

In Buddhist terms, when one overcomes samsara, nirvana is achieved.

What is important is not to become attached to either samsara or nirvana because neither is a big deal. Nirvana is ultimate reality, but neither it nor samsara is a person, place, or thing. Becoming all wrapped up in the inevitable ups and downs of life is as undesirable as becoming attached to the ending of those ups and downs.

Remember the Beatle’s song “Let It Be.” Whatever it is, let it be.

Masao Abe, professor of Buddhism and Japanese Philosophy, said (Zen and Comparative Studies) “Nirvana is the real source of prajna (wisdom) because it is entirely free from the discriminating mind and thus is able to see everything in its uniqueness and distinctiveness without any sense of attachment."

Because nirvana is ultimate reality, attaining nirvana means gaining liberation from all duality.

Remember the Zen expression, “If you see the Buddha, kill him.” This means not getting stuck in nirvana or in anything else that has the stink of religion.

When Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma “What is the ultimate principle of holy truth, Bodhidharma answered, “Emptiness, no holiness.”

Supposedly the Buddha was once asked about one’s existence after death. Because this was a highly abstract, theoretical question the Buddha didn’t bother to answer. Answers to such questions are of no value to awakening. Besides, words can’t make satisfactory statements about what lies beyond life, if anything lies beyond life.

Some scholars claim that enlightenment and nirvana are the same. Other scholars say they are different. Still others say nirvana and enlightenment are both the same and different, which is one of those fascinating Zen paradoxes that can keep you awake all night if you put your mind to it.

As Gary McClain and Eve Adamson say in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zen Living, “Wanting nirvana means you don’t have it, can’t have it. Having it means it doesn’t even occur to you to want it.”

When you are awakened, there’s no such thing as being enlightened.

For a lame analogy, let’s liken enlightenment, or nirvana, to a thing, say, a fresh peach. You get a glimpse of a peach, you think about the peach, you imagine how tasty the peach might be. You imagine the texture, the juiciness, and the flavor.

You eat the peach, and it is delicious.

Then the peach is gone. There’s no such thing any more than the peach. It has become a part of you, but you aren’t aware of that.

When you are awakened, there’s no such thing as being awakened.

Again quoting McClain and Adamson (The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zen Living), “Nirvana isn’t the end. It begins a gradual evolution of awakening throughout your life . . . .”

Remember the story and pictures of the classical Zen lesson of “The Ten Bulls,” also called “The Oxherding Pictures”? The final picture of the series is called “Entering the Marketplace,” and it denotes not removal from the world but being an integral part of it.

With awakening, or nirvana, you are more you than you were before. You have seen your face before you were born. You have become self-realization.

You are in the world but no longer of the world.

A FISH TALE

2009-05-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

The other day I went into a supermarket and, after some deliberation, I picked out a film-wrapped fillet of fresh salmon. It was a hearty chunk of fish, and it would make a fine meal. When I took my selection to the cash register the checkout person—a pleasant-faced young woman—inspected it solemnly.

“What is it?” she asked.

What is it? I wondered if she was presenting a koan, but I responded graciously. “It’s a fish,” I said. “A salmon fish.”

“But where are its eyes?” she wanted to know.

Her direct question threw me off. “I mean it’s a salmon fish steak.”

She looked puzzled.

“You’ve never tasted salmon?” I asked, wondering if she had recently wandered out of the Ozarks hills after having been weaned on chitlins and redeye gravy. I leaned over the counter to see if she was wearing shoes.

“Salmon is delicious,” I said. “It’s a salt water fish.”

She looked at me intently. “Are you a sailor?” she asked.

Another straightforward question.

Fish … water … sailor. I presumed she was making some sort of association. Or maybe she was posing a spiritual problem. Perhaps she was demonstrating truth directly, without recourse to logic or reason. I reflected on her words.

“Not just now,” I said. “But I have been.”

Fish in hand, she gazed at me and I readied myself to launch into a collection of salty yarns from my days before the mast.

“Well, you look like one,” she said. I assumed she meant sailor, not fish.

As Pogo Possum used to say, reason reeled. I was wearing black shorts and a green T-shirt. I wondered what sort of seafaring books she’d been reading.

The nymph and I stood there for a long moment, both of us calmly regarding the salmon. After a while she rang up my purchase, slipped it into a plastic bag, and handed it to me.

“Well, have a nice day sailing,” she said.

I thanked her.

“And enjoy your whatever,” she added.

Rationalism had fled. “Plum tree in the garden,” I answered.

Intellect and logic had been blown out of the water. Was I having a spasm of awakening? I remembered a story.

Once a fish asked another fish, “I’ve always heard of ocean, but what is ocean?”

The other fish answered, “You are surrounded by ocean. You move, live, and have your being in ocean. Ocean is all around you. Ocean is within you.”

The first fish looked confused, so the other fish went on.

“You are ocean.”

“Huh?” the first fish said.

“You originated in ocean, and you will end in ocean. You and ocean are one.”

Now the first fish was really bewildered.

“You’ve given me no answer at all,” it said. “I’ll have to go somewhere else for an answer.”

The other fish said, “The only real answer is the one you find in yourself.”

I carried my fish to the car and sat there for a few minutes, trying to find a real answer in myself. All I came up with was another question.

Why, I wondered, do I attract such weird moments?

After a while the world settled into place, so I headed for home.

That night I broiled the whatever with dill butter and served it with a baked potato and a side of corn pudding.

The meal was delicious, and I became one with it.

NIRVANA I

2009-05-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

Every being has life force. Life force is an indescribable something that makes a being what it is, identifies its individuality, and relates it to all other beings. Some people call life force “spirit.” Some call it “soul.” Some call it “essence.”

Unfortunately, the term “soul” is often limited to humans. But why should humans be considered more significant than a sparrow, or a stalk of bamboo, or a grain of sand? Why should a human be hyped over a mouse?

A being is defined as the state or quality of having existence.

Every entity—whether it thinks, or breathes, or eats, or simply is—has a life force. That life force is that thing’s being. Consider this: If what we call a pebble did not have some special, unique being, would that pebble cease to exist?

Life forces are countless, just as the creatures that supposedly tramped onto Noah’s ark two by two were numberless. The life forces are also distinct. Each has its own basic nature. Still, each basic nature combines with every other basic nature to form a whole.

You are singularly you, and this surf-washed stone with two holes in it is uniquely itself. Still, both of you are one because you and it are part of that unifying, universal life force.

Buddhists, Taoists, Jains, and some others respect individual life forces because each is meaningful in its own right, while being a part of the whole. To injure a being—whether it’s a human or an earthworm—is to do harm to that being. But, worse yet, it does harm to the whole.

That’s why some people don’t swat flies. They believe that not just one being, but all beings, will be harmed.

When I traveled in Nepal, there were few roads in the country. People got to where they wanted to go by walking on age-old footpaths. Twenty-five years ago a couple of roads were being built, but they weren’t being pushed through the mountains with bulldozers. Instead, the passage had to be cut with humans swinging picks. Then the road-bed had to be overlain with rocks. Not rocks, like you see in television commercials, with sport utility vehicles bouncing merrily over them. Big rocks that were uncovered in the digging—and there were plenty of those—had to be converted into little rocks.

With no gutsy power machines available, how do you suppose those big rocks were turned into little rocks?

By hand power.

Hundreds of people sat on the ground hour after hour, day after day, and swung hammers to fracture big rocks into little rocks that were then spread out to form a road-bed.

The work was fascinating to observe. More interesting were clusters of Buddhists who would spread but not split because they believed breaking a rock destroyed the rock’s natural wholeness. These same Buddhists might eat a roasted chicken, but they would not slaughter the chicken. Someone else—a non-Buddhist—had to do the butchering because of the Buddhists’ belief in not altering a life force.

The person who lives intuitively perceives this life force, or spirit, or essence, as the one principle that is independent of everything external. By that I mean it's beyond what we think of as the natural processes such as the motion of the planets. It’s beyond human actions. It is life.

In Hinduism this essence is called That. Taoists call it the Tao. Japanese call it kokoro. Buddhists call it Buddha-mind.

Christians call this essence God and give it human attributes such as goodness and mercy. They personify it, and speak of its divinity, its sacred mystery.

But consider this. If essence is restricted to humans, that means humans are not only separated but elevated to a higher level than all other life. If that were so, this pebble would no longer be my brother.

The essence, the life force, is in us and of us.

When I say “us” I’m not speaking of we humans, because we humans aren’t anything special in the scheme of things. By “us” or “we” I mean flowers, and stones, and trees, and raindrops, and bugs.

Life is existence, and it exists in one form or another at every instant.

Forms may change, but their essence doesn’t change. If I were to crush this pebble to dust and scatter the dust on the wind, I might change the physical structure of the pebble and redistribute it, but I wouldn’t destroy the essence of the pebble, I wouldn’t end its spirit.

That essence, or spirit, lives on, never passing away. When we are dead and gone—ashes to ashes and dust to dust; if the blowflies don’t get you, the maggots must—something of each of us continues on. It’s not soul in the popular sense, as something that goes to a place in the sky, What continues and what never ends is the essence of a person, or the spirit of a cat, or the life force of a pebble.

Finally we come to Nirvana, and by “finally” I’m not referring to ultimately in life but at last in this talk. There’s a mistaken notion among non-Buddhists and non-Zen people that Nirvana is the same as Paradise or Heaven.

Not so.

Nirvana isn’t a district one lifts off to after death. Nirvana has nothing to do with death. It has everything to do with life. It’s a state of being that one achieves during life. It’s the point in life at which one has gained wisdom and compassion, but is not hung up on wisdom and compassion.

Nirvana is the state of one’s mind when that mind is rid of conditioning, attachments, and ambitions. You might ask if Nirvana and Buddhahood are the same, and the answer is “more or less.”

The word Nirvana is often used in Buddhism, but it seldom appears in Zen because of its connection, in many people’s minds, with a better place and a better time. That sort of thinking is way off base. Nirvana is here and now, and things don’t get any better than this.

Nirvana is often referred to as extinction, or a blotting out of the ego. The Belgian Zen scholar, Robert Linssen, refers to Nirvana (Living Zen, page 139) as that point where our mind is stripped of all its false accumulations. When this occurs, Linssen says, our mind is changed into pure intelligence.

The annihilation of a person doesn’t mean one is wiped out or reduced to nothingness. It means absolute realization of the life force that is around one and is part of one. There is no longer the observer and the observed. Both have become one.

Rather, I should say all has become one.

Buddhism cautions against being attached to the idea of Nirvana. If people are fixed on Nirvana, they are attached to something. Remember, to see one’s own true face there must be no attachments to anything.

To attain Nirvana is to go beyond enlightenment.

SOME WORDS OF DOGEN

2009-04-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

One of Master Dogen’s students mentioned that it took a long time for him—the student—to grasp the essence of the Way. The student wasn’t complaining, but he was concerned about his slowness.

“I’ve been practicing zazen for years,” he said. “But I feel I’m getting nowhere. I’ve learned not to depend on logic, and not on book learning, but I’ve become discourage, and I don’t know what to do.”

Does this sound familiar?

Dogen answered that neither great intelligence nor reasoning were necessary. Neither should one depend on intellectual brilliance or quick-wittedness.

Brainpower has nothing to do with the matter. Don’t discount a person who is slow, or, most important, someone who thinks he is snail-like.

“However, “ Dogen continued, and I quote, “You should not be like a totally witless person. The true study of the way should be easy. It should be effortless.

“At the same time you should know that even among the many thousands of students in China those who genuinely attain the Way and are awakened are in the minority.”

End quote.

That does not mean the odds are against you. You shouldn’t be discouraged, because the majorities that fall by the wayside and drop out are mere dilettantes. They are in Zen in a make-believe way. They are not sincere. They are not serious about their practice.

Without passing judgment, I suppose I could say there are those individuals who have the utmost purpose and there are those who don’t. Those who have the paramount aspiration and work at it accordingly will attain the way.

Those who are merely fiddling around for one personal reason or another won’t. It’s as simple as that.

Paraphrasing Dogen, bear in mind that how much you study and how fast you progress are secondary matters. What is primary is the seeking mind.

Dogen gave a homey example. He said that those who intend to rob a bank, or to defeat a powerful enemy, or to score with a person of the opposite gender will follow their intention and keep it in mind whether they are standing, walking, sitting, or lying down.

They may not be successful in their infamy, or their mayhem, or their romantic pursuit, but they have given it their all and will go a long way toward making it happen.

In practical terms, you have to stick with your Zen practice.

Now I’m not giving any life advice here. What I am saying, to paraphrase Dogen, is if you sincerely aspire for the Way, as you practice Zazen, then, you can shoot a bird however high in the sky of catch a fish however deep in the water.

You must have a determined mind. And when you have a determined mind . . . . Note: I said when, not if.

When you have a determined mind you will, according to Dogen, invariably be awakened.

It doesn’t matter if you are quick or slow, smart or dull, well-educated or unlearned.

The Chinese Zen master Hui-neng was considered to be illiterate, yet around the year 700 he set the tone of Zen for all time by composing these words:

There is no Bodhi tree,

Nor is there a clear mirror.

From the beginning not one thing exists,

So where is a speck of dust to cling?

Think of the Zen truth that everything is impermanent. That is, nothing lasts forever.

Again to paraphrase Dogen, impermanence is the truth that is right in front of you. . . . . the impermanence of life is in your eyes and ears. . . . You should realize the fact that attachment in worldly affairs is your enemy, and to do so is the way to a fuller life.

We should realize that there is only right now, only this moment. We should concentrate on practicing the Way.

To speak of or think about the slowness or the speed of learning is foolishness.

TO STUDY THE WAY

2009-04-22T13:20:00.000-07:00

To study the Way is to study the self.

To study the self is to forget the self.

To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others.

Zen Master Dogen wrote those words. If you understand them comprehensively and wholly there is little else that needs to be added to them. They are simple and profound.

So I could quit babbling right now, but I won’t. You may remember the account of Bodhidharma responding to statements of his disciples by saying, “You have my skin; you have my flesh; you have my bones; you have my marrow.”

In a few words I would like to add some flesh to Dogen’s bones, in the hope it might help you to realize your own marrow.

Let’s resurrect that time-worn phrase “enlightenment,” which I prefer to call awakening, or awareness, or self-realization. The synonyms enlightenment, or awakening, or awareness, or self-realization all refer to one’s state of mind before it was conditioned by society. To have spiritual insight. To understand things as they are rather than to want them to be how we would like them to be.

Interestingly, a couple of antonyms of any of these words are perplexed, or bewildered.

That is to say, most individuals go through life inwardly confused and unable to make sense of a world that is basically senseless. That’s what is meant by the first of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths that states all life is suffering.

“Suffering” meaning essentially screwed up.

In any sort of writing or verbal communication, lists can be a useful tool in breaking down a large subject and treating it in small bits. Buddhism is known for its lists. There are the four truths, the eightfold path, the four elements, the ten oxherding pictures.

In one of his talks Dogen mentioned eight characteristics of Zen awakening that, according to tradition, were formulated by the Buddha. These eight characteristics are:

1. Unselfishness.

2. Satisfaction.

3. Quiet.

4. Conscientiousness.

5. Remembrance.

6. Meditation.

7. Wisdom.

8. Avoidance of hearsay.

This talk touches briefly on each of these eight qualities of Zen awakening.

Dogen lists unselfishness as freedom from greed. A person who isn’t greedy doesn’t strive to be wealthy. A person who isn’t greedy doesn’t cater to others to gain their approval or patronage, nor does that person give in to self-centered urges and whims.

The second characteristic—satisfaction—means to be content with what one has. The Buddha reportedly said that a satisfied person is happy, even though he has to sleep on the ground. On the other hand, an unsatisfied person may live in a multi-million dollar house, with servants running all over the place, and be discontented.

The moral is, the more a person possesses, the more a person desires.

The third quality of Zen awakening is quiet.

Dogen says quiet means leading a solitary life. But that does not necessarily mean to lead a solitary life, to become a hermit and withdraw from society. Quiet implies being untouched by worldly conflict and turmoil. That, in turn, does not mean shutting one’s eyes to the common inhumanities of humans. It doesn’t mean steeling oneself to cruel and barbarous actions.

There’s a fine line between being so furious over human indignities that you suffer mental paralysis, and being compassionate enough to do something about the situation.

In Dogen’s talk on quiet as one of the aspects of enlightenment he uses a metaphor to the effect that an old elephant is unable to free himself once he is stuck in the mud. That’s a good image, but for the life of me I don’t grasp how it pertains to being quiet.

The fourth aspect of awakening is conscientiousness, or diligence. That means to stick with your practice. Don’t dip in to it and dip out of it.

Dogen’s metaphor here is easier to understand. He said one should be like running water because no matter how little the action is, it will eventually wear away a rock.

The fifth aspect is termed remembrance.

Remembrance.

To be honest, no matter how many times I read Dogen’s take on this aspect, I cannot get a handle on it. I’ll read his words. If they are clear to you, let me know. I quote (from the book Zen Master Dogen, An Introduction with Selected Writings):

“Monks! If you wish to find a true master who can give you good advice, you should preserve correct remembrance, for those who do so remain free from various delusions.”

Does any one have any clues to offer? Any hints? Hunches?

If not, we’ll proceed to the sixth aspect, meditation.

Number six. Meditation.

Now we are on solid ground.

Meditation implies an undisturbed mind, and an undisturbed mind not only leads to awareness, it is awareness. Don’t leave yet. There is more to be said about meditation.

But first let’s hit number seven: wisdom.

In short, wisdom allows us to make proper choices. It enables us to appreciate all of life. It is the result of awakening, which is the result of meditation, which leads to number eight, hearsay.

That’s not heresy, but hearsay.

In legal terms, hearsay is evidenced based on the reports of others rather than the personal knowledge of a witness and therefore not admissible as testimony.

The nature of wisdom is the power to see the truth, and this is enabled through meditation.

Meditation.

We are back where we started. All this time we have been on an

enso. A closed circle. No beginning, no end.

Existence is a sort of enso. But, you say we beings start at birth, don’t we? And we end at death, don’t we?

But do we begin at birth?

Do we end at death?

At birth—and even before birth—we are a product of the form and the essence (the spirit, if you prefer) of our parents, and of their parents, and so on and so on. And at our death doesn‘t our essence, our spirit, a part of our being, pass along to someone or something else that has grown with us?

A human, a tree, a flower?

I’m not talking about reincarnation here. That is a subject for another talk.

Shortly before the Buddha died he told his followers that all things are subject to destruction and decay, so they should seek earnestly for the Way.

He said, “Stop talking for a while for time is slipping away.”

So I will stop talking for a while.

Just remember:

To study the Way is to study the self.

To study the self is to forget the self.

To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others.

BEYOND INTELLECT

2009-04-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

Intellect is the ability to learn and reason. It is the capacity for knowledge and understanding. We don’t know much about the intellect of creatures other than human beings, but we do know human intellect is not boundless. It can go only so far in its reasoning ability.

If the intellect had no limits, the politicians of the world probably would have worked out their differences long ago, and we would not be frequently teetering on the edge of war.

There is something beyond intellect that is not dependent on learning and reason. This was late to be realized in the Western world, though it has been known in the East for some 2500 years. This something is Buddha-nature.

Now, I am not blowing smoke. I am not claiming Buddhism is a panacea that can end all wars and cure all ills. Buddhism is not magic.

If every human realized his or her own Buddha-nature, would all of humanity become peace mongers? Would everyone love everyone else? Would there be an end to antipathy? Probably not. The only things we can count on are our fingers.

An important characteristic of existence, and of the entire universe, is randomness. Unpredictability. Chaos.

Think of it.

Some learned minds claim existence is an ordered universe. But the order is what those same learned minds have allocated to the universe. If some new, chaotic phenomenon shows up, it is given a name, which makes it no longer out of order. And humans are once again comfortable.

As good as modern technology is in predicting natural events, it is a long way from being flawless. Science can say smugly that some time in the next fifty years a major earthquake will hit California. This is a great prediction, isn’t it? No one can give the precise time or date or place. That is because nature—and by “nature” I mean everything, including humans—is not ordered but acts by chance.

We humans like to believe we are routine in our habits. We get out of bed in the morning at a certain time and go to bed at a certain time. We enjoy reading certain kinds of books. We follow a certain eating pattern. We meditate in a certain place at a certain time. Such established patterns feel comfortable to us.

However, such patterns can lead to apathy and indifference. They can, without our realizing it, stifle intuition.

In the corporate world, management periodically shuffles the location of employees’ work places. Desks are rearranged, office spaces are reorganized. This is not done to provide employees with better lighting or cleaner air. It is done to keep people from feathering cozy nests and settling into them too deeply. Cozy nests can lead to complacency.

When people become too self-contented they become anesthetized. They lose their inherent ability to live intuitively and instinctively. They obscure their Buddha-nature.

Beyond all description, beyond all thought, beyond intellect, there is knowing. Knowing is awareness. Awareness is instinctive because we are born with this faculty. Awareness is Buddha-nature.

Contrary to all that is natural, everything has Buddha-nature but life forces humans to subdue it. To realize our Buddha-nature we have to get around everything we have learned intellectually that tends to hold down our inborn Buddha-nature.

Think of that.

It’s crazy that we first use our intellect to learn to live, and then we have to unlearn intellectual matters in order to really live.

We have to go beyond intellect. We have to realize our Buddha-nature.

BEING HERE

2009-02-25T07:35:00.000-08:00

Do you remember the movie, “Being There”?

It’s about a gardener, named Chance, who is totally illiterate. He can’t read, he can’t write, he can’t even discuss anything unless it relates to horticulture.

He likes to watch television.

Chance is so basic that everyone takes him to be very wise. When he pronounces something such as, “If the roots are cut back in the fall, the flowers will bloom in the spring,” everyone interprets his words as profound metaphors. Chance is thought of as being so astute he is considered as a nominee for president of the United States.

I try not to speak in metaphors. In Zen it’s difficult enough to be understood using simple language. So this evening, instead of talking about being there, I want to discuss being here.

In Zen, being here concerns mindfulness, and mindfulness is the essence of Zen.

In Buddhist literature there is a text known as the Satipatthana, or, to give its full name, The Greater Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness. This text is claimed to be the record of an original talk the Buddha gave, but more likely it’s something that was cobbled together by scholars long after his death.

Here’s an abbreviated version of the Satipatthana.

There is one way to the purification of beings, for overcoming sorrow and distress, for banishing pain and sadness, for gaining the right path, for realizing Nirvana. That way is the four foundations of mindfulness.

1. Contemplating body as body.

2. Contemplating feelings as feelings.

3. Contemplating mind as mind.

4. Contemplating mind-objects as mind-objects.

How does a monk abide contemplating the body as body, feelings as feelings, mind as mind, mind-objects as mind-objects? He sits down, keeps his body erect, and establishes mindfulness before him.

According to legend, the Buddha said that whoever practiced these foundations for seven years would gain freedom. Then he said that anyone who practiced them for seven months would be free. Then he said that anyone who practiced them for seven days would be free.

The last part of the Satipatthana says that to realize mindfulness, one establishes mindfulness. Isn’t that like describing a cloud as a cloud? Isn’t it like answering a question with the same question?

Perhaps. But remember, once you know what the question is, you’ll know what the answer means.

When you truly observe your body you are conscious of breathing in and breathing out. You know you are sitting, or you are standing, or you are walking. You know you are eating or you are drinking. You are aware of your body, but that awareness doesn’t cause you to direct your body’s actions.

Someone once said of a Zen master, “He walks as if he weren’t walking.”

When you contemplate feelings as feelings, you are conscious of being happy, or sad, or upset, or detached. If you feel uncomfortable because you hit your finger with a hammer, you are aware of the pain. But you don’t let the pain take over your life.

You see pain for what it is.

There are feelings that may be of you, but they are not you.

When you contemplate mind as mind you’re aware of what your mind is doing. It can be doing something or nothing. If you are thinking, you don’t dwell on whether you like or don’t like those thoughts. If you think about thinking, or about non-thinking, instead of simply being aware of either, you will create thoughts that get in the way of awareness.

If I tell you to not think of a green elephant, you will inevitably think of a green elephant.

The trick is to neither think nor not think.

I could tell you to think about that, but I won’t.

As for being aware of mind-objects as mind-objects, this has to do with not separating what Krishnamurti refers to as the observer and the observed.

When you make a snap judgment about something or someone, you invent a mind-object. That is, you establish a preconceived preference. For example, you unconsciously say to yourself, “That woman’s red dress is hideous,” or “I like that guy’s shoes.”

There is you, and there is the “thing,” the mind-object. They become separate entities. After a time there is you, plus a huge collection of your likes and dislikes.

Think of it. Your prejudices are not you, they are mind-objects.

Unfortunately, you can’t cleanse yourself of likes and dislikes. They reach way back into your culture, your inherited characteristics, your life training. What you can do is become aware of mind-objects and see them for what they really are.

To wind this up, let’s go back to the four foundations of mindfulness,

1. Contemplating body as body.

2. Contemplating feelings as feelings.

3. Contemplating mind as mind.

4. Contemplating mind-objects as mind-objects.

This business of contemplating—that is, being completely aware and mindful—does not occur only when you meditate. Direct seeing goes on continuously in your everyday life.

That is being here.

ZEN TEACHER, ZEN MASTER. ZEN MONK

2009-02-19T10:45:00.000-08:00

Long ago when a Zen master and a novice monk had a conversation, the monk stood with body erect, eyes to the front, hands folded on his chest.

A monk asked master Joshu, “What is the origin of the ten thousand dharmas?”

Joshu answered, “Ridgepole, rafters, joists, pillars.”

“I don’t understand,” the monk said.

Joshu said, “You don’t understand standing at attention with folded hands either.”

So what’s the difference between a Zen novice and a Zen master? And what’s the difference between a Zen master and a Zen teacher?

In a nutshell, a novice is seeking awakening, whether that novice is a he or a she, a monk or a nun. A master is acknowledged as an awakened being, and he or she challenges novices to discontinue their analytical thinking and find their own way to awakening.

A master challenges; a monk learns; a teacher teaches.

Traditionally only a master can name a teacher. However, in many Western countries there are many so-called masters, and there are teachers who have received no authority to teach Zen Buddhism.

Western countries like shortcuts.

I have been called a master, but I consider myself a roshi, a teacher. After training under Master Hiromu Oda for several years, “Hi” Oda said simply that there was nothing further he could tell me, and that I should go out and teach others.

I was not given inka. That is, the traditional robe and bowl I were not handed down. I was not sworn to any of the precepts, nor was I formally ordained. There was no official hocus-pocus or ritual.

The lineage of Dharma transmission isn’t personally essential to me, so I discuss it only in historical terms.

“Go out and teach Zen,” Oda said.

So that’s what I try to do.

Teach Zen.

In teaching, I have been asked directly if I am enlightened. That’s a question that cannot, may not, or will not be answered. That’s like being asked in modern terms if I’m cool. If I say “No,” then I’m assumed to be not cool. If I say “Yes,” then I’m really not cool.”

So if I’m asked if I’m enlightened, I might answer, “Oak tree in the field.”

Incidentally, in a formal ordination ceremony, masters-to-be pledge to a series of moral convictions whose number vary from five to ten, according to the sect. The most common precepts include:

1. To abstain from taking life.

2. To abstain from taking what is not given.

3. To abstain from sexual misconduct.

4. To abstain from false speech.

5. To abstain from drinks and drugs that cause rash behavior.

All good stuff, but is the recitation of these precepts essential?

That depends on the individual.

The Czech writer Franz Kafka said the right thing when he wrote:

You need not do anything.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
You need not even listen, just wait.
You need not even wait,
just learn to be quiet, still and solitary.
And the world will freely offer itself to you unmasked.

In Japanese, a Zen master is called roshi, and a teacher is called sensei.

I referred to “Hi” as Oda roshi. I referred to my brush painting instructor as Mikami sensei.

You can call me Jack.

A monk asked Master Joshu, “What is Buddha?”

Joshu said, “Aren’t you Buddha?”

A monk asked, “What is my teacher?’

The master said, “Clouds rising out of the mountains, streams entering the valley.”

“I didn’t ask about them,” said the monk.

The master said, “They are your teacher, but you don’t recognize them.”

TREES

2009-02-10T09:09:00.000-08:00

In the koan collection Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate), Case 37 is titled Oak Tree in the Garden. It goes like this.

A monk asked Zen Master Joshu, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming to China?”

Joshu answered, “The oak tree in the garden.”

Oak-tree-in-the-garden reminds me a little of a British movie that came out several years ago. It was called Blowup, and it was about a photographer who takes pictures in a park, then realizes he has filmed a murder. Later his film disappears, as well as his prints. Other strange happenings make him wonder if what he saw really occurred. At the end of the movie the fellow joins a mime troupe in an imaginary ball game that questions reality.

Most people don’t “get it.” But the story is eminently clear.

This is a magnificent koan because it makes perfect sense. I know, I know, for most people it makes no sense whatsoever. For most people it’s cryptic, obscure, and enigmatic.

Depending on the translator of the Chinese or the Japanese text, Joshu’s tree is sometimes an oak, sometimes a cypress, sometimes a peach. It’s in the garden, or it’s in the courtyard, or it’s in the field.

The words of what and where are not important. Many people take the language literally, and they think there is something symbolic about oak or cypress, or garden or field.

The words themselves don’t matter.

Oak tree in the garden.

Who was Bodhidharma?

He was an Indian Buddhist who presumably introduced Zen to China in A.D. 520. D.T. Suzuki states that Bodhidharma was the forefather of Zen because Zen’s history began with Bodhidharma coming from India to China.

Bodhidharma was a monk who became unhappy with the way Buddhism had developed in India. He felt it had strayed far from the simple pronouncements of the Buddha and was slipping back into pantheism. So one day he set off for China.

Bodhidharma wasn’t interested in joining any of the several schools of Buddhism that flourished in China at that time. Instead, he hoped to find, or teach, the fundamentals of Buddhism that had been established long before.

He believed in the direct method of Zen, which involved seeing undeviatingly into enlightenment and not pussyfooting around with the levels of edification and the rituals that were then popular.

The Buddha had broken from the complex practices of Hinduism. His idea was based on what became known as the Four Noble Truths.

Remember those?

1. Human existence involves suffering and dissatisfaction.

2. Suffering and dissatisfaction are the human condition because humans are possessive, greedy, and self-centered.

3. Possessiveness, greed, and egotism can be understood and overcome.

4. The overcoming is brought about by following a pattern of behavior that will create a change in viewpoint.

So, what was, and is, the point of Buddhism?

The point of Buddhism is seeing into one’s true nature.

Getting back to Bodhidharma’s motives, we can only speculate but there’s a good chance that the message of seeing into one’s true nature comprised a major part of his undertaking.

I guess we could call Bodhidharma a missionary. He wasn’t what is commonly thought of as a religious proselytizer who was out to convert others to his way of thinking, but he certainly was a person with a dedicated undertaking.

Robert Aitken, in his interpretation of Case 37, notes that Bodhidharma’s message must be differentiated from his essence of mind, and this is where things fall into place.

When the Chinese master Lin-chi was asked about Bodhidharma’s meaning he stated that if Bodhidharma had had any meaning he could not have saved himself.

What is often presented as Case 37 is usually an abbreviated version of the koan. In its full form, after Joshu said, “The oak tree in the garden,” the monk responded by saying, “Please don’t teach me with reference to outside things.”

Joshu responded, “I don’t teach you with reference to outside things.”

“So, tell me then,” the monk said. “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West?”

Joshu answered, “The oak tree in the garden.”

The monk must have felt like gnawing a slab of oak wood. He must have felt there was nowhere to turn, nothing to hold onto.

A later Japanese master, named Kanzan, who founded the temple called Myoshinji, added a thoughtful statement to Case 37 when he said, “The koan of the oak tree has the function of a bandit. It steals everything from you.”

So, when there is nothing left, what remains?

Joshu suggests that it is only where there is void that everything is now.

To say again, it is only where there is void that everything is now.

Radical Zen, The sayings of Joshu is a book that, unfortunately, is out of print. It imagines a further conversation in which the monk asks Joshu if the oak tree has Buddha nature.

Joshu answers, “Yes, it has.”

The monk asks, “When does the oak tree attain Buddhahood?”

Joshu says, “Wait until the great universe collapses.”

The monk persists, “When does the universe collapse?”

Joshu says, “When the oak tree attains Buddhahood.”

Do you get it?