Motivation to practice can be challenging. Often we come to practice in search of something, whether it’s relief from suffering or that ineffable something beyond the usual that we need to return to. We dive into that practice, motivated by the newness of it, the subtle—or not so subtle—ego trip of being a Zen person, perhaps the felt need to change our life.  But at a certain point we may well hit a wall; we may find that the “oomph” has gone out of our zazen, that we’re not so motivated to practice anymore. We’ve gone fairly far (though not anywhere near far enough), yet somehow regardless, the motivation to practice seems to have dried up or at least gone on vacation. That’s a challenging time—a very challenging time—and hopefully we won’t quit practicing because of it.  At a certain point in my own practice I suddenly realized (or so I thought) that I didn’t want to come to awakening—a real quandary since I was living and training full time at the Rochester Zen Center, going to many sesshin specifically for the purpose of coming to awakening.

Of course I wanted to talk to Kapleau-roshi about it, but he refused to see me—a very wise decision on his part. The next sesshin—to which I’d applied anyway because some part of me really did want to keep going—I was not on the accepted list. It was devastating, and made me realize that I actually did want to come to awakening. I’d put on the brakes because I was perhaps too close for comfort—it’s a common experience for serious Zen students. That event was almost four decades ago, and of course I continued to practice and still continue to practice—and cannot conceive of an end to practice.

In my earlier practice years it was quite difficult to do zazen, and in the beginning I was doing it essentially alone; where I was living at the time there were no Zen centers, no Zen groups, and only one other person who knew how to do zazen. After doing zazen that way for a year or so it became clear that I needed to go to a sesshin so I flew to the United States and did so—and it was extremely difficult. Yet oddly, the morning following the end of sesshin, to my amazement and without realizing it I sat for two hours without moving; time vanished.

Although I sat for those two hours, amazed afterwards to see how much time had elapsed, on returning home it was a full three weeks before I could bring myself to even cross the threshold into the room where my mat and cushion waited for me. A tremendous resistance had built up. For some time after that it was a real push me-pull you relationship with practice, which is why I decided I’d better go live in Rochester, hopefully at the Center where I’d be required to sit whether I wanted to or not. It certainly seemed as if I didn’t have the self-discipline to sit on my own with any degree of regularity. So it was that I moved back to the United States and to Rochester, knowing no one but the few people I’d met at the workshop I’d attended the previous year there, not knowing if I’d be able to support myself, not knowing if I’d be allowed to live and train at the Center. But it felt so completely right to do so.

And it still was not easy. For years I wanted to flee. On the day that sesshin would begin—it would always start on a Saturday evening at the RZC and the afternoon was often free for residents at the Center—most people would head over to the formal herb garden down the street for a bit of nature. But I was so afraid that if I went out the door I’d never come back that I stayed inside; I didn’t even go out into the Zen Center’s enclosed back yard garden. It was very painful:  Part of me wanted very much to practice because an earlier experience had given me a deep sense of what could come from practice—the freedom and the joy and the ease of living!  But some other part of me was absolutely terrified of what would happen if I let go enough to potentially come to awakening.  We can fear that all manner of things will happen if we pull out all the stops. How to deal with it? Taste that fear, get to know that anxiety! Feel intimately its qualities! It’s not the fear itself but what we assume it represents that is so terrifying. So dive into it! We don’t normally go into fear, we don’t normally really feel it, we don’t normally do anything but hold it at arms length and try to stamp it out like a wildfire. And yet, when we make friends with it by becoming intimately familiar with it, it loses its power.

So often when we are in an uncomfortable mind state it feels permanent. And yet even five minutes later we could be in a totally different mind state. Have faith that it will pass—things are always changing! The other side of that is that even the happy times will pass as well—and not to go chasing after them because that only brings on suffering, too. Be curious! What might unfold next? It could actually be quite interesting!  Enjoy what’s there in the moment, and as it passes, allow it to move away, to dissolve, to disappear—and be open to what comes next.  In a word, become one with each moment. If your position in life is dissolving, that can be especially painful—if we are attached to that status. But if we’re not attached to a particular role in life, then where is the problem?  Zen practice can bring reveal that ability to be profoundly ok no matter what is going on.

There is a koan: “Sixteen Bodhisattvas Enter the Bath.” As they enter the water, each one of them is enlightened. The sensation of touching that warm water was enough to trigger that experience because their minds were ripe. The same can happen with us: Flora Courtois, after an extended period of profound questioning, had only to glance at her little desk one afternoon, home on vacation from university, when “the whole world turned on its axis” and nothing was ever the same again. She found herself living easily and joyfully. Her life changed radically because of that—and yours can, too.

We get caught in things because we have assumptions about it all. So often we live like a stone skipping across the surface of the water, occasionally in contact with life but the rest of the time dreaming about it. And yet, to live Life fully is so rich and so fulfilling! In order to do that we have to let go of assumptions and truly Live in the moment, allowing ourselves to Taste it just as it is and not through this lens of preconceived ideas about it. Tune in: Washing your hands, how does it feel, the slippery soap on your fingers? The water, is it cool? Is it warm? Is it hot? What does it really feel like? And the towel: What’s the quality of the towel you’re drying your hands with? And your hands: Are they completely dry? Or are they still damp—all over or just between the fingers? And who is it that is feeling all this???!!! Ponder this again and again and again—don’t ask it in words! With your awareness seated in your hara—your abdomen just below your belly button, tune in wordlessly to the moment. “What am I hearing?” “Who is it that is hearing?” “What am I seeing?” “Who is it that is seeing?” No matter what you’re doing, question it! Be as totally present as you can with that moment! When you do this deeply enough, you will have your answer, and that answer will be liberating.

And of course, as you already know, that’s not the end. What is necessary then is work to integrate what you have realized so that your behavior manifests that realization, so that you don’t just keep indulging in habit patterns but your behavior becomes enlightened behavior, in line with what you’ve understood. Part of this also is to work for the benefit of all beings and to share that understanding and the way to reach it, so that everyone may ultimately become free. This is why we were born.

This is our great gift: to have come into contact with the Dharma, to have felt a resonance with it, to have found a teacher, to have found a sangha and a place of practice. It is a tremendous gift and will go a very long way in supporting us in our search for true freedom. But life is short. Already we have lost our Dharma brother Fugen—just short of his 50th birthday! If you really give yourself to this practice there may still be time. Hakuin talks about the man Heshiro, who in just three days of deep questioning, had an awakening! Torei Enji, at the age of twenty-nine, having practiced since he was a child, became the great Zen master Hakuin’s Dharma heir—and he never stopped training after that. Torei was intent on continuing his own deepening practice and was quite reluctant to take the position of teacher.

Practice is not easy. “Straightforward bravery!” was a frequent admonition by Hakuin. Practice also takes persistence—stubbornness, really! It takes faith that you can actually realize that true freedom, return to your true home, as the masters proclaim. It takes dogged questioning, engaging that sense that there’s something beyond our normal way of experiencing that is really important to return to—something you knew once but have since lost touch with—but you can return to if you just reach far enough. And you can! The masters of old have shown us the way. We have this beautiful zendo to practice in and the support of our Dharma brothers and sisters; our practice is upheld in so many ways! I hope and pray that each one of you will take this to heart and practice deeply and awaken to that incredible joy and freedom that flow within you!

The post Ongoing Motivation to Practice appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

It is a cold morning in late January. Since wood is the only source of heat I use at this time of year I need to grab my hat and coat and head out to the woodpile in order to warm my home. As I feel the cool air I pause momentarily, realizing my relationship to the cold, the warmth of the fire and the wood. It is a relationship as old as the first humans who gathered by a fire to keep safe and ward off the chill of the night. Now, as then, if I don’t go out and return with my sling of wood, it will be a long cold day. In this simple relationship, my actions have a direct and immediate consequence.

Yet this is a relationship that we in much of the Western world sought to eliminate in the last century, when we brought central heat into our homes. No effort need be expended. No pause to acknowledge of our relationship to the world. Just a spin of the thermostat and the inconvenience of experiencing cold is eliminated. No wonder we respond like petulant children when our link to the blandness of perpetual comfort, the global oil pipeline is threatened.

As we seal ourselves into our climate-controlled wombs and our air conditioned malls where Musak drowns out the life beat within us, we deaden our capacity to see, to really Be. Yet, we innately seek desperately to break through the numbness and feel. We take drugs, seek out vivid portrays of violence and horror, ravenously consume vast quantities of unsatisfying genetically engineered pseudo-foods, shop endlessly for the next thing, and the next; vainly hoping that we can break through and be reminded of what it is to be human again.

In our numbed-out state we remain oblivious to the plight of world outside of the bubble that we think is reality. As creatures that are removed from relationship with nature we think only of gratifying our own needs in the most expedient manner. Global climate change, the mass extinction of species, the pollution of our oceans, the poisoning of our soils; these are catastrophes that only flicker briefly in our consciousness. Even the annihilation of our fellow humans through war, famine, and disease barely warrants our attention as we channel-surf ourselves back into our somnambulant state. It really doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t come too close to home.

While this sounds like the description of lives in a dystopian futuristic society in a science fiction flick, it is a depiction of our lives. For our sake and the sake of the planet, we need to wake up. And, it is so simple… what we seek has always been right there. Nature has not abandoned us; we are the ones who have turned away from the relationship. There are very simple elements to this process of awakening again. We can learn and draw inspiration from three figures of the past whose lives and cultural contexts were different in almost every way, except for their deep connection to and affinity for the natural world.

The first of these persons is Henry David Thoreau. In this context, what was remarkable about Thoreau was his understanding that a truly human life was not lived in the pursuit of commerce and disingenuous social discourse, but in simplicity, a degree of solitude and with rapt attention to the nature that surrounds us. For Thoreau, a simple minimalist existence was his means of disengaging from the necessity of endlessly pursuing a living, in order to have the time to truly live.

Freed in this way, and endowed with the luxury of periods of time when he was undistracted by his fellow humans, Thoreau became a careful observer of the pond, the woods, the seasons, and the animals as these intertwined intimately with the gentle rhythm of his life. This act of careful observation alone can profoundly change the way we relate to the world.

The second of these inspiring characters is Calvin Rutstrum, a 20th century American who spent much of his life traveling in Canada’s remote wilderness. Rutstrum wrote of his journeys across that vast frozen expanse by dogsled; of the joys of simple elemental living in a wilderness cabin; and of his visits to the Cree and Eskimo. Like Thoreau, he found simple elemental living and deep solitude as the gateway to observation, delighting to each moment and each shifting nuance of snow, woods, ice and animal life.

As you can imagine, this life in the far north, traveling on foot or with dogs was extremely physically demanding. However, Rutstrum found this exhilarating. He felt remarkably alive in the cold and snow. In fact, he came to realize that his well-being depended on it. Returning to his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as he did after each journey north, Rutstrum resolved that he would get outside every day, regardless of the weather. A large and imposing man, he must have been quite a sight donning his mukluks and duffle parka with its wolf-fur ruff to walk about the streets of the city. Rutstrum saw that with the proper clothes, a human being had the means to adapt to the harshest physical circumstances and therein to find health, vigor and deep psychological well-being.

The third figure from whom we can draw deep insight about our relationship with nature is a 12th century Japanese monk, Myoe Shonin (Holy Man of Clear Wisdom). While it might seem strange, Myoe had very deep relationship with an island on which he had resided. For Myoe all distinctions had broken down. In this island, the inanimate, he saw the Buddha and all creation. There were no distinctions, no limits, no boundaries, all creation was deeply connected. He was so deeply moved by the island that he wrote it a letter and had a messenger deliver it.

Like Thoreau and Rutstrum, living alone on the island Myoe undoubtedly experienced silence and solitude. Myoe’s powers of observation were also probably deepened by long periods of meditation, repetition of mantras and the other spiritual practices of his Shingon Buddhist sect. When observing in this way, subject and object dissolve and all is revealed as One Body. Realizing this One Body is the fundamental experience of Buddhist realization or enlightenment.

Realizing the One Body, one also sees that the entire universe is intimately connected, with each element relying on every other. This is depicted in the image of the Diamond Net of Indra. At every point of connection in this net is a diamond. Each of these diamonds reflects every other diamond in the net. When we see in this way, it is clear that there is no thing that is unimportant. It is all precious, worthy of our respect and protection.

One of the most important moments in the history of Buddhism occurred when the first Dharma transmission, from Shakyamuni Buddha to Mahakashyapa took place. At that moment as hundreds of the Buddha’s followers gathered, the Buddha held up a single flower. Mahakashyapa alone smiled and the Dharma was passed on. How remarkable, a single flower and yet Mahakashyapa understood that flower was the whole universe.

Ecopsychology is a relatively new field of inquiry, which hypothesizes that we need to have a psychological relationship to the natural world if we are to truly value, protect and preserve it. It also supposes that this relationship is essential for our sense of psychological and emotional well-being.

As we look at the high incidence of depression, anxiety disorders and substance addiction in this disconnected society, this seems to make sense. The United States is about 6% of the world’s population and consumes 60% of its illicit drugs. Furthermore, since mind and body are inextricably connected, it is also reasonable to assume that our physical health would benefit as well from a deeper relationship with nature.

The methods of restoring and revitalizing this relationship are simple. The path has been shown to us by Thoreau, Rutstrum, Myoe and many others. We must get out into nature on a regular basis. Much of that time should be spent in silence and solitude, focusing on close observation. These are the beginnings of connection, of intimacy. Furthermore, meditative practice can deepen the way in which we are able to enter this experience. Ultimately, through a contemplative spiritual practice such as Zen, the firmament of our conceptually structured world of subject and object begins to soften as we open to a relationship that is truly profound.

A number of years ago, I read some of the literature on ecopsychology. At that time at least, there was a focus on trips into the wilderness as the means of reconnecting with nature. Wilderness trips undoubtedly provide many wonderful experiences, but they are only accessible to a few. However, even in the city, trees grow outside our windows. There are parks and paths and even silent spaces where nature can be directly encountered. COnnection with nature is accessible to all of us, no matter where we live. Like any relationship, though, this one requires time, energy and commitment. If we are willing to invest that, the rewards can be boundless.

The post Chopping Wood appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

I feel deep gratitude for having lived at the same time as some of the great and courageous men and women of history. One of these individuals was the Civil Rights and Anti-war activist and Nobel Laureate, Dr. Martin Luther King.

Dr. King was a guiding force in the lives of many young women and men in the 1960′s. His commitment to the civil rights of those who were denied them, the principles of non-violence even in the face of violence toward those who stood against violence, his work for the protection of human dignity of all, and his courage to speak truth to power, as Gandhi did, primed our actions and views and influenced many to join with each other in working toward a more sane, braver, wiser, and kinder world.

I believe it was he, more than any other person in my youth, who brought me to a sense of how important it was to live a principled life, and a life of committed engagement to social and spiritual transformation.

When Dr. King said: “All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be,” we listened and felt the truth of his realization. We endeavored to act from this vision, share in it, and respond to it. We felt that Dr. King’s insight regarding interdependence was profoundly congruent with our lived experience, and as well with the tenets of the Buddhism many of us were drawn to at this time.

His words guided many of us, including me, into a life of service, social engagement, and contemplative practice. Our lives opened through the door of Dr. King’s vision and action. I believe that this is also true for many today. Dr. King had a dream. We are still endeavoring, day by day, to make it real, to bring it home.

Roshi Joan Halifax
Abbot, Upaya Zen Center
http://www.upaya.org/

The post Deep gratitude for Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

This is the third installment in the “Plum Blossom” series. Katagiri Roshi gave these talks twenty-five years ago and recently David Casucuberta transcribed them and I’ve them. Click here for the link for the second one,“Gassho Like Falling Snow,” and that will bring you to the first one too.

Take it away old Roshi:

The old plum tree is the boundless actualization of truth with no end and no beginning, the actualization of the whole universe – pine trees, bird, your hair, boots, nose, sun, moon, stars.

The “old” in old plum tree means “Buddha nature,” “your face before your parents birth,” “prior to the germination of thought.”

Rujing’s poem says, “It suddenly burst into bloom and bore fruit.”

Plum tree becomes exactly plum tree bringing forth winter and spring.

Now I’d like to explain the philosophical background to Dogen’s way of understanding.

When time becomes pure and consummated time, it doesn’t remain in its own form. Time passes to freedom and then becomes space.

For example, Katagiri is here. That means the consummation of a single being right now. At that time there is no comment on Katagiri – just Katagiri. This is the real state of everything which exists in this world – you, cushions, table, microphones. You can see with your naked eye. There is no comment, no criticism, no complaint, just completion.

For instance, when you do something completely with concentration, at that time you completely transform. You cannot see what you are doing. You become the consummation of you, then you don’t see yourself.

Through the naked eye, we can see that mountain is mountain. Mountains exist in time which has a momentum of energy. That is the existence of mountain. Dogen mentions in Sansuikyo (On the Spiritual Discourse of the Mountains and the Water), last paragraph,

The Old Buddha Ummon Bun’en once said, “Mountains are mountains; water is water.” What these words mean goes beyond saying that mountains are mountains: it is saying that mountains are mountains.

This makes the same point as Blue Cliff Record, Case 45. “A monk asked Zhaozhou, ‘The myriad things return to one. Where does the one return to?’

”Zhaozhou said, ‘When I was in Ch’ing Chou I made a cloth shirt. It weighed seven pounds.’”

Oneness and the phenomenal world live together harmoniously, peacefully, with no separation. Mountain’s life is interpenetrated with truth and the whole universe. It is the place in which the truth of the universe is actualized in motion.

That’s why mountain is not mountain. Mountain’s life is exactly water, exactly sky.

The broad phenomenal world is open to you, just like TV. Your head is like a TV set. If you push the button many beings come up but your head is still your head. One is one. Then immediately all things appear in on the screen. At that time the whole world becomes you.

So you are not you are you. Next moment you switch the channels and another world comes up. But the myriad things – trees, birds and sand, pebbles – every time when you switch channels each thing will appear occupying the whole world always returning to one.

In our zazen, if you sit down and become one, Katagiri becomes Katagari. At that time you never sit. In that moment myriad things arise because Katagiri is always connected with something. Katagari will never be one. But when you become one, you as you are, simultaneously your brain switches to many things. Then energy comes forward from past times and future lives and sky and many things you haven’t thought.

When you become one, exactly you become you, the consummation of you as you are.

That’s why, “‘Mountains are mountains; water is water.’ What these words mean goes beyond saying that mountains are mountains: it is saying that mountains are mountains.”

Dogen also says, “If you investigate the mountains, this is meditation on the mountains.” Perfect concentration. This is called “kufu” in Japanese, it is not exactly zazen but it is related to zazen.

“Ku” means “level”, as in the carpenter tool. So it means always to keep balance. And “fu” means “person”. So “kufu” means a stable person. A person that keeps balance perfectly.

You should study the “kufu” of mountains: how mountains exist. Mountains themselves always keep balance in their life. It is the completion of the mountain.

Therefore, you need to investigate mountains through your practice. If you thoroughly investigate mountains in your practice, this will be your effort in the mountains. In this way, the mountains and the water will naturally produce the wise as well as the saintly.

Mountains sometimes create sages, and actually sometimes they create craziness. Still, mountains are mountains, one is one.

Then next stage is mountains are not mountains. When the mountain becomes complete, it doesn’t stay as it is, it creates many worlds. When you are one exactly, you create many beings because you are sacred.

Walking itself, motion, energy. That’s Buddha’s world. It is not a concept. Buddha’s world is functioning and walking, momentum of energy. Within in that momentum of energy and motion, there are many beings. Tiny flowers blooming in the mountains.

By walking the mountain life it is supported and actualized. Plum tree is plum tree, but it is also a place in which the cosmos is actualized, constantly.

When you see anything, first you see it very narrowly. But you shouldn’t stay with it, you should open it. You should open it and then see the many things around. But don’t rush into trying to see many things too quickly. Take time. The seed of flowers, problems, plum trees. Constantly face it. Trees are trees. A problem is a problem. Receive and take care of it. But don’t rush.

Then many worlds can bloom in your life. Then after that, many beings can be accepted by you, peacefully, harmoniously, and you can learn a lot. This is Buddhas teaching.

The post The Old Plum Tree Bursts into Bloom appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

This article is written, first of all, to inform interested readers of the recent posting of Part III in a three-part series of articles on D.T. Suzuki’s relationship with Nazis, both personally in Japan and through his writings in Germany. Part III is entitled, “A Zen Nazi in Wartime Japan: Count Dürckheim and his Sources—D.T. Suzuki, Yasutani Haku’un and Eugen Herrigel.”

In addition, an earlier article on Suzuki’s wartime writings, entitled, “Zen as a Cult of Death in the Wartime Writings of D.T. Suzuki,” is available on the same website. The entire collection of articles is here.

Note that I am the author of Part I and Part III of this series while Prof. Karl Baier of the University of Vienna wrote Part II. Prof. Baier’s article is entitled, “The Formation and Principles of Count Dürckheim’s Nazi Worldview and his Interpretation of Japanese Spirit and Zen.” It is available here. An added feature of Part II is its introduction to Nazi “spirituality” together with the manner in which this spirituality manifested itself in the person of Count Karlfried Dürckheim.  Dürckheim was a major propagandist for the Nazis in wartime Japan as well as a Zen student of both D.T. Suzuki and Yasutani Haku’un.

As many readers of the Sweeping Zen website are aware, I have been severely criticized in the past for, among other things, claiming that D.T. Suzuki was a supporter of wartime Japanese aggression and colonialism. For an overview of these and other criticisms see here.

Although, as detailed in Part III of the series, Suzuki’s defenders continue to withhold relevant facts from the public record, readers of the entire series will nevertheless find sufficient factual information to demonstrate the depth of Suzuki’s ultranationalist roots, including his collaboration with the Nazis. Suzuki’s ultranationalist roots can, in fact, be traced back to his earliest writings. In particular, I draw readers’ attention to the following well-documented quotations (sources are included in the articles’ endnotes):

1. In his very first book, published in 1896 at the age of 26, i.e., Shin Shūkyō-ron (A Treatise on the New [Meaning of] Religion), Suzuki wrote:

At the time of the commencement of hostilities with a foreign country, then marines fight on the sea and soldiers fight in the fields, swords flashing and cannon-smoke belching, moving this way and that. In so doing, our soldiers regard their own lives as being as light as goose feathers while their devotion to duty is as heavy as Mt. Tai in China. Should they fall on the battlefield they have no regrets. This is what is called “religion in a national emergency.” (Emphasis mine)

2. At the time of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, Suzuki invoked the Buddha Dharma to exhort Japanese soldiers as follows: “Let us then shuffle off this mortal coil whenever it becomes necessary, and not raise a grunting voice against the fates. . . . Resting in this conviction, Buddhists carry the banner of Dharma over the dead and dying until they gain final victory.” (Emphasis mine)

3. Suzuki avidly supported Japan’s colonization of Korea as revealed by comments he made in 1912 about that “poor country,” i.e., Korea, as he traversed it on his way to Europe via the Trans-Siberian railroad:

They [Koreans] don’t know how fortunate they are to have been returned to the hands of the Japanese government. It’s all well and good to talk independence and the like, but it’s useless for them to call for independence when they lack the capability and vitality to stand on their own. Looked at from the point of view of someone like myself who is just passing through, I think Korea ought to count [consider] the day that it was annexed to Japan as the day of its revival. (Emphasis mine)

4. In the fall of 1936 Suzuki wrote a series of newspaper articles describing his European travels including an apology for the Nazis during his visit to Germany. In relating the Nazi’s oppression of the Jews, Suzuki wrote:

Changing the topic to Hitler’s expulsion of the Jews, it appears there are considerable grounds for this, too. While it is a very cruel policy, when looked at from the point of view of the current and future happiness of the entire German people, it may be that, for a time, some sort of extreme action is necessary in order to preserve the nation. From the point of view of the German people, the situation facing their country is that critical. (Emphasis mine)

Note in this connection that one of my chief critics, i.e., Satō Gemmyō Taira, went so far in his translation of this same series of articles as to actually fabricate a key section of his translation in order to help make it appear that Suzuki opposed the Nazis. For a more detailed explanation of how he did this see Part I of the series. Needless to say, fabricated translations have absolutely no place in academic writing.

That said, I would nevertheless like to express my appreciation to Satō for his criticisms of my initial depiction of Suzuki’s wartime record, for without his criticisms it is unlikely that I would have continued to research this question, most especially Suzuki’s connection to the Nazis. Therefore, the current series would not have been written. Additionally, Satō correctly pointed out that I made a minor error, though an error nonetheless, in attributing words that Suzuki first wrote for the enlarged 1959 edition of his Zen and Japanese Culture to the original 1938 edition of the same book, initially published in Japan as Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture.

In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have criticized my research based on solid evidence, for they have spurred me to look ever more carefully at the historical record. I have no other goal in my scholarship than pursuit of the truth wherever that may lead. At the same time, ad hominem attacks on scholars, either others or myself, are a denigration of the truth, and I can only express the hope that adherents of the Buddha Dharma are better than that. That said, evidence-based criticisms are always welcome.

5. Finally, in June 1941, i.e., six months before Pearl Harbor, Suzuki wrote an article that appeared in the premier Imperial Army Officers Journal, Kaikō-sha Kiji. In it Suzuki wrote:

The character of the Japanese people is to come straight to the point and pour their entire body and mind into the attack. This is the character of the Japanese people and, at the same time, the essence of Zen. . . . It isn’t easy to acquire the mental state in which one is prepared to die. I think the best shortcut to acquire this frame of mind is none other than Zen, for Zen is the fundamental ideal of religion. (Emphasis mine)

Criticism of my scholarship includes such things as fudging data, exaggerating or making up facts, cherry picking phrases taken so far out of context, mistranslating, etc. However, in actual fact much of my scholarship has involved reporting what Japanese scholars have written about Suzuki and other wartime Zen leaders. For example, Rinzai Zen scholar-priest Ichikawa Hakugen described Suzuki’s writing, starting as early as the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, as follows:

[Suzuki] considered the Sino-Japanese War to be religious practice designed to punish China in order to advance humanity. This is, at least in its format, the very same logic used to support the fifteen years of warfare devoted to “The Holy War for the Construction of a New Order in East Asia.” Suzuki didn’t stop to consider that the war to punish China had not started with an attack on Japanese soil, but, instead, took place on the continent of China. Suzuki was unable to see the war from the viewpoint of the Chinese people, whose lives and natural environment were being devastated. Lacking this reflection, he considered the war of aggression on the continent as religious practice, as justifiable in the name of religion. . . .

The logic that Suzuki used to support his “religious conduct” was that of “the sword that kills is identical with the sword that gives life” and “kill one in order that many may live.” It was the experience of “holy war” that spread this logic throughout all of Asia.

Further, Prof. Sueki Fumihiko, one of contemporary Japan’s most respected scholars of Japanese Buddhism, described Suzuki’s apology for the Nazis in a 2008 Japanese language article entitled, “Japanese Buddhism and War—principally D.T. Suzuki” (Nihon Bukkyō to Sensō — Suzuki Daisetsu o chūshin toshite): “While in Germany Suzuki expressed approval of the Nazis. As for the persecution of the Jews, [Suzuki wrote]: ‘It appears there are considerable grounds for this, too.’ ” (Emphasis mine)

It was Buddhist scholar Robert Sharf at the University of California-Berkeley who described Suzuki’s version of Zen as follows:

Suzuki would argue that Japanese “spirituality” is a more developed or refined form of a pan-Asian spiritual ethos, and while this ethos is linked with Buddhism, it was not until Chinese Ch’an [Zen] met the samurai culture of the Kamakura period that it would attain its consummate form in Japanese Zen. This theory allowed Suzuki to claim that only in Japan was Asian spirituality fully realized. (Emphasis mine)

Sharf also noted: “Western enthusiasts systematically failed to recognize the nationalist ideology underlying modern Japanese constructions of Zen.”

The recently completed three-part series will demonstrate just how accurate these and other scholars’ critiques were. That said, the importance of these articles lies far beyond the reputation of D. T. Suzuki (or my own). That is to say, as the Buddha Dharma embodied within the Zen school continues to take root in the US and other Western countries, the preeminent question is what the content of that teaching will be?

Will the Buddha Dharma, for example, include an America-centric version of Suzuki’s ultra-nationalism in which duty to the state is supreme while American soldiers are urged to consider their own lives “as light as goose feathers”? Will American Buddhist soldiers be admonished to “carry the banner of Dharma over the dead and dying until they gain final victory”?

Further, will American Zen teachers follow Suzuki’s lead in conflating Zen with the American character? That is to say, will they claim that the Zen-enhanced character of the American people (or at least their students) is, like their Japanese predecessors, to come straight to the point and pour their entire body and mind into the attack? Is this the essence of Zen?

And when their students prepare to fight on America’s next battlefield, will Zen teachers encourage them, saying: “It isn’t easy to acquire the mental state in which one is prepared to die. I think the best shortcut to acquire this frame of mind is none other than Zen, for Zen is the fundamental ideal of religion”?

The ultimate purpose of this series of articles on Suzuki, as well as my other writings, is to raise the question of the relationship of the Buddha Dharma to war and to nationalism. Will the war-related teachings of D.T. Suzuki, Yasutani Haku’un and the many other militarist Japanese Zen leaders be accepted as authentic expressions of the Buddha Dharma?

In this connection it should be noted that the Japanese have a phrase that may apply to this situation, i.e., hanmen kyōshi or “a teacher by negative example.” While I welcome responses and rebuttals from those readers who disagree with me, I hope that for the sake of a meaningful discussion, my critics will first carefully read this three part series and then clarify their own reactions to Suzuki’s statements introduced above. Was Suzuki a teacher whose war-related teachings should be revered or, on the contrary, was he “a teacher by negative example,” at least in this regard? In other words, are his war-related statements an authentic expression of the Buddha Dharma or are they a betrayal?

In a book written with Thich Nhat Hanh, i.e., The Raft is Not the Shore, the Jesuit peace activist Daniel Berrigan noted what happens when religious adherents blindly adopt the teachings of their predecessors:

Everybody has always killed the bad guys. Nobody kills the good guys.  The [Roman Catholic] Church is tainted in this way as well. The Church plays the same cards; it likes the taste of imperial power too. This is the most profound kind of betrayal I can think of. Terrible! Jews and Christians and Buddhists and all kinds of people who come from a good place, who come from revolutionary beginnings and are descended from heroes and saints. This can all be lost, you know. We can give it all up.  And we do. Religion becomes another resource for the same old death-game. (p. 34)

Are American and Western Zen adherents willing to allow their faith to be yet “another resource for the same old death-game”?

And if Suzuki, or Yasutani’s et al., words don’t represent the Buddha Dharma then what is the Buddhist position(s) on war and nationalism?

Like standards of sexual conduct for Dharma teachers, these and related questions should have been debated long before now by Western Buddhists of every sect or school, but, with few exceptions, they have been ignored. Yet it is not too late, especially for adherents of the Zen school, inasmuch as these are questions where traditional, and bloodless, “Dharma combat” can be employed to good effect. Who is willing to step up to the plate?

With gasshō,

Brian Daizen Victoria

The post An Article Concerning “D. T. Suzuki and the Nazis” appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

—An improvisational riff on Brad Warner’s There Is No God and He Is Always with You: A Search for God in Odd Places (New World Library, 2013).

“Joshu’s Dog” is the most famous koan of all time. Everybody knows about the old Chinaman’s dog. There’s probably a yuppie restaurant in San Francisco or Santa Fe named “Joshu’s Dog.” But, no matter, like Mumon says, to realize Zen, we (Soto or Rinzai, no matter) still got to pass through this first barrier of the patriarchs—the dog snarling at us, the wiseacre monk with a big smile on his face, and Joshu sitting there stone-faced. Even right now, as I write this, Fred the handyman who is working for Lee and me, had to leave for a family emergency. He told me his ex-son-in-law, who vacated town, left his ex-wife saddled with two pit bulls. Last night one pit bull killed the other. It was an ugly, terrible, vicious mess. And the woman is scared to death, as well she should be. The victor is lying down satisfied and happy by the back steps, licking his huge chops, and her backyard is filled with blood and guts, the corpse of the dead dog, his limp tongue lolling out of the weird grinning face that pit bulls have.

So, does that killer pit bull have Buddha-Nature? What about the dead dog? Poor dead dog. Both good questions, and, if Mumon is right and you answer yes or no, then you lose your Buddha-nature.

Egad.

But Brad Warner would like to ask the same question differently. Is that killer dog God? What about the dead dog? Is he God too? And if you answer yes or no, will you turn away from God?

Brad¹ never mentions “Joshu’s Dog” in his new book There Is No God and He Is Always with You: A Search for God in Odd Places (New World Library, 2013). Ostensibly, his book is an analysis of our way of thinking in American Zen about our dharma practice and the language we use when we are talking about Zen. He’s suspicious of words like spirituality, transcendence, emptiness, Buddha-nature, mindfulness, and the biggie, Enlightenment, with a capital E. These words, he suggests, seem to have lost their mojo in American Zen and have become code words instead of language charged with meaning, fingers pointing to the moon. In doing so, Warner joins a long tradition of dharma practitioners who have struggled with the language of their practice. He wants to keep it fresh and new.

So he wants to throw the word “God” into the mix.

Brad, since his first several books and his Hardcore Zen blog, has been like L’Enfant terrible of Buddhist letters. No wonder. He’s at home with trashy lowbrow cultural razzmatazz. He’s a punk rock musician, a fan of monster movies and comic books, once a minor executive for the Japanese movie company that made Godzilla movies, and a columnist for the very sexy Suicide Girls website. The package seems to turn some people off, turn some people on (especially young people), and makes it easier for others simply to ignore him. He also (although nobody really mentions this) arrived on the scene from outside the mainstream of American Zen lineages of Suzuki, Maezumi, Uchiyama, Katagiri, and the other usual suspects.

His first teacher was Tim McCarthy. If you listen to Brad, Tim seems to be a happy but foul-mouthed trickster who was a student of Kobun Chino and is a professor at Kent State University. And then, in Japan when Brad was working for the film company, he practiced with Gudo Nijishima Roshi of the Soto lineage and received transmission from him before he returned to the United States. It was Nijishima Roshi, who with his student Chodo Cross, first translated Dogen’s entire Shobogenzo into English, no mean feat. Nishijima, again according to Brad, appears to care little for the rituals and other rigmarole of traditional Soto Zen. As far as I know, Nishijima and McCarthy were essentially unknown in the mainstream intellectual circles of American Zen until Brad began yarn-bombing their teachings in his books.

Like for his teacher Nishijima, Dogen is his touchstone. And although he tries to hide it, he is a Shobogenzo scholar. And, like Dogen and Nishijima, he is a fundamentalist about sitting back straight and cross-legged on a zafu and staring at a wall. If you’re not doing this, then you’re not doing dharma practice. In other words, the first step is to Sit Down and Shut Up!

As a young boy, Brad wanted to know about God and about the meaning of life and death. His mother was sick with Hodgkin’s disease. So for his mother and by extension his family death was not an abstraction, something to think about some other time. Her imminent death was a constant in their household. Especially for Brad and his sister because Hodgkin’s is an inherited disease. It was highly possible that one, if not both, were carrying the haywire gene. Brad knew at an early age that life and death are of supreme importance and he vowed, consciously or unconsciously, not to waste his life. So he went looking for God. He wanted some answers and he wanted them quick. He tried on a bunch of different versions of God, but nothing fit. Like for so many of us, commandments and dogma had no life for him. The emperor God wasn’t wearing any clothes. He was naked as a jaybird. I mean, how can there be a personal, just and loving God if your wonderful mother is suffering and dying from Hodgkin’s disease?

Good question. Zen practice, like Punk Music, is built on questions like this. Siddhartha had a question, Dogen had a question, Zen stories are filled with men and women asking questions, and we all have a question in one way or another. That’s why we come to dharma practice.

Brad’s rhetoric for telling his story and explaining his Zen is—let’s face it—very un-Zen. It’s exuberant, tongue-in-cheek, loud, witty, irreverent, and, sometimes, in your face. Besides, it can be very intelligent and wise. It’s almost like he believes too much is not quite enough. It’s a rhetoric more like (forgive me, I am a poet) the poetics of the New York School mixed with very loud Punk fatalism. Think the very gay Frank O’Hara and manly doped-up Ted Berrigan getting in a food fight with T.S. Elliot. Poor Thomas Stearns. He doesn’t want to play. That’s okay. Frank will still explain why he’s not a painter, and Ted will scream about his dead friends until we cry. And it is with rhetoric like this that Brad expresses his understanding of Buddhism.

In his introduction, Brad says that so much of the angst in contemporary society about religion is the friction created between materialism and spirituality. The dualism that we inherit in our Western thought. I agree. We see it every day in the stereotypes of our popular media— Science against Religion, scientists against preachers and priests, atheists against fundamentalists. Yet, once we turn the noise off (especially, if we begin to sit on a zafu and stare at the wall), we begin to experience things differently. Certainly, he says, we understand that science works. Evolution, the New Physics, and the new insights into our earth and into our very biology make gorgeous sense. They have brought to us a bounteous cornucopia of gifts but also terribly dangerous fruits.

But we continue to yearn for a deeper understanding, or spiritual truth. Indeed, we seem to intuit it’s there. ll of us, I believe, at one time or another, have had an experience where words, body and self fall away. We see a flower suddenly and truly, a baby giggles at us, or we feel an unexpected surge of compassion for an old person on the street. These happenstance experiences can be so sudden and ephemeral that we may not pay much attention to them afterward. Yet, these bits and pieces of experience are keyholes. The throbbing energy of the universe is a wondrous celebration, and when we can walk away from the baggage of our selves, we can experience our true nature as expressions of this celebration. Sometimes in bits and pieces, sometimes in big bangs, and, when it happens, something moves within us.

That’s the crux of Warner’s book—how do we experience reality, truth, God, or whatever you want to call it. With his teacher Nishijima, he insists that “Buddhism is realism.” And through these experiences of reality, we learn that duality is a mental construct. A necessary arrangement with the relative world. But the mental construct will not open the gate into the experience of our Buddha-Nature. Of the oneness of the Universe. Of God, if like Brad, you want to call “it”² that. “We ourselves are the means through which God experiences his creation, which is also himself.” For this we sit down on our cushions and stare at a wall.

So to talk about these big ideas, Brad talks about his life, his experiences with people and his travels to foreign lands. We meet Nishijima, Dogen and Tim McCarthy, and we travel to Jerusalem, Ireland, Poland, Finland, Mexico, and into the Sierra to visit with monks at Tassajara. Each place or person teaches him about another element of his practice—faith in the Eight Fold Noble Path, an argument against suicide from a Buddhist perspective, life and death, awakening to Buddha Nature and other items in the grocery list. Brad makes his excursions into places and ideas fun and easy to digest the first time through, but if you’re like me, the book will be a useful tool so you’ll dog ear and mark-up the book, coming back to this or that story to understand better your own ideas about Buddhism.

Like so many people my age, I have struggled with my growing up religion (mid-20 Century Episcopalian, southern fried Memphis-style) and I shy away from using the word “God.” There Is No God and He Is Always with You has helped me very much to make peace with bits and pieces of ritual and the Bible that have stuck with me all these years. I realized this one morning after our Sunday morning services staring at the wall with the sangha. It was a beautiful blue desert morning in September. I was talking with a friend, Rodrigo Ceballos, who had been raised a Catholic in a very Catholic community along the U.S./Mexico Border. He too had fled the religion of his upbringing, and like me, he had just finished the book. He told me how happy it made him. He said a favorite passage in Matthew had bubbled up in his heart after he read the book, the one where Jesus answers the Pharisee lawyer who wanted to know the great commandment in the law—

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Nice. That’s a vow we can all edit to our own ear and understanding and work into our morning practice.

So does a dog have Buddha-Nature?

Or ask the question this way: Is that dog sniffing at your pants leg an expression of God?

Best not to ask Joshu. He’s dead. Best to ask yourself. Sit in zazen and stare at a wall somewhere. It may take a while. This book might help. I highly recommend it. It’ll help you let go of some of those words in your head.

End Notes

¹  Let’s call Warner “Brad.” His rhetoric and persona seems to insist on familiarity. And, in the interests of full disclosure, he comes by El Paso from time to time to speak and sell books, so I know him.

²  Dogen has a word for “it”—“Inmo,” aka everything.

The post Why Did Joshu’s Dog Bite Brad Warner? appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

A version of this teisho was delivered on December 7, 2013

Kankan Kurt Spellmeyer
Cold Mountain Sangha
New Brunswick, New Jersey

Ummon’s ‘Particle After Particle’s Samadhi’

Today’s teisho will be on Case 50 in the Hekiganroku, the Pi –Yen Lu or Blue Rock Collection.  Case 50 is entitled, “Ummons ‘Particle After Particle’s Samadhi.”’

Engo’s Introduction

Transcending all ranks, rising above all expedients; spirit corresponding to spirit, words answering words—unless he has undergone the great emancipation and attained the great use of it, how could he rank with the Buddhas and be a faultless exponent of the teachings?  Now, tell me, who can be so direct and adaptable to all occasions, and have the free command of transcendent words?  See the following.

Main Subject

A monk asked Ummon, “What is particle after particle’s samadhi?”  Ummon said, “Rice in the bowl, water in the pail.”

Setcho’s Verse

Rice in the bowl, water in the pail!
Even the most talkative can add nothing.

The North and the South stars do not change places,
Heaven-touching waves arise on land.

If you doubt, if you hesitate,
Though you are heir to millions—trouserless!

Three Bells

Thank you so much for coming to sit on this Saturday in December.   Many of us have been sitting together for years.  In fact, some of us have been sitting together for more than a decade—almost two decades.  Other people are “newcomers” here: that is, practicing for less than ten years.   I imagine that most of you have a cushion at home, and that you use it all the time.  And maybe you come here fairly often as well.  We all sit so regularly, watching the breath, following mu, or working with our koans, that it’s easy to take what we’re doing completely for granted.  It’s easy to forget just how remarkable this activity called zazen really is.  A few years ago, I was asked to demonstrate Zen meditation for a group of elementary school children—third or fourth graders, I think.   I sat down on the ground in the Burmese posture and asked the children to sit in a circle around me.   I spoke to them about how meditation works, how to straighten the back, and how to breathe from the hara or dantien, the abdomen.  So far, so good.  They looked intrigued and were remarkably quiet and attentive.  Then I pulled my legs into full lotus and the kids just exploded with laughter, chattering and shrieking.   That was the end of the lesson.  If I had taken my head off and rolled it across the room, it couldn’t have seemed more astonishing to them, and they simply never regained their focus and composure.   In a certain way, however, they correctly understood how remarkable zazen is, whereas we often take it granted.   Actually, Zen is not less strange and wonderful than rolling your head across the room—in fact, much more so.   But our attitude about it can become quite blasé:  “Back to the cushion again. No surprises there.”   How does it happen that something which once seemed so strange and exciting can become a chore you do half-heartedly, like mowing the lawn or brushing your teeth?   “Particle after particle,” the koan says.   Every one exactly like the one before.

I recently read about a study of high-school students across the U.S.  Two out of three students told the scientists that they were bored in class every day.  Another survey found that 91 percent of young Americans reported feeling chronically bored.  This is supposed to be the age of information, when everything around us is highly stimulating and creativity has become ubiquitous.  The reality is far more complex.   The constant stimulation can become so repetitious that everything starts to seem trivial and uninteresting—everything from global warming to a war in Africa gets flattened out into a tweet.   Perhaps the more we try to stimulate ourselves with new information, the more we create an atmosphere of boredom and fatigue.  Maybe you’ve heard about the recent news that Facebook use causes depression.  Apparently heavy users often feel they are missing out on all the fun that other users post about.  You might have also seen the research showing that depressed people use the Internet in ways that makes their condition worse.  Constantly switching from email to blogs to chat rooms and games erodes concentration in ways that make it very hard to be present, and the lack of mental focus seems to cause depression or at least make it worse.  The more depressed you get, the more you try to find something new online that will make you feel better.  Which erodes your concentration, which makes you more depressed.   No wonder rates of depression keep going up—for people under 30, the figure is now almost 20 percent.

I don’t think this boredom is natural or inevitable.  I think the problem is our way of life,  which values the future at the expense of the here-and-now.   If the future is what really matters, after all, then while we are here in the present, we’re just killing time until future arrives.  Since the “now”—no matter what it might be—can’t compete with whatever lies ahead, real spontaneity becomes impossible, and the faster we hurry toward the future, the more rapidly it recedes.  It’s like living your whole life in a waiting room.  What could be more depressing than that?

If we’re not very, very careful, we can get drawn into this mentality.  Here’s a simple  example.   Many of you know that I like to jog—I’ve been jogging since college, and I like to exercise because it reduces stress and makes me feel more alive.  My sister also knows I love running, and when we were making plans for my visit at Thanksgiving, she told me with delight that she had signed me up for one of her spinning class.   Laughing, my sister kept warning me that I was in for a challenge.    I don’t know if you’re familiar with spinning, but it involves special stationary bikes which are designed for rapid changes in the resistance exerted on the turning wheel.  Halfway through the spinning class I felt like bursting into tears.  The pace was simply brutal with no chance to rest.  Apparently, my sister’s spinning trainer Dana is something of a spinning guru, a spinning roshi.   She has a retinue of followers who will only train with Dana, and my sister is one of them.   Dana has amazing strength and stamina, and she expects you to keep up, or try to keep up.  You peddle very, very fast, and then you increase the resistance on the machine until it’s like running uphill at top speed.  When you are told to reduce some of the resistance, you have to go even faster, 140 rpms minimum.  Sometimes you stand up on the bike for an interval that Dana decides, and then she orders you to squat halfway down, and then almost completely down, just above the seat.   When it ended, I was so relived—like someone just learning to do zazen, waiting for bell to ring.

After the class was over and I went back with my sister to her house, she told me that in exercise circles and many fashion magazines, it’s considered bad to have a space between the tops of your thighs.  If the tops of your thighs touch, as mine do, that’s considered quite unattractive, at least in women, and one remedy is to do a great deal of spinning.  And indeed, when I thought back on the spinning class, it seemed very likely to me that Dana—a former body builder who retired from international competition after she gave birth to her twins– had a visible space between her thighs.  My sister is a nurse practitioner and her specialization is oncology.  I love my sister very much and she is a wonderful mother to her two sons and works very hard in her job.  I hope that she doesn’t worry too much about whether or not the tops of her thighs touch.  But she might.

Do you see how the problem of touching thighs changes our relation to exercise and even to ourselves?  Instead of using exercise as a way of being in the moment, we begin to treat it as a means to an end—and now the payoff  lies in the future.   After every workout, we can look in the mirror and say, “I’m not there yet.”  And even when we get there, with a space between our thighs. we will still find ourselves saying, “I could lose it all tomorrow.  I’ve got to maintain.”

For many years now, my wife has categorically refused to look at magazines like Cosmopolitan or Vanity Fair.  She actually gets angry when she thinks about these magazines.   “Why do you get so mad,” I once asked.   And she said, “Because my mother brought me up to try to imitate the models in these magazines.  I would spend all this time trying to look beautiful and I always felt that I wasn’t physically attractive.  No matter what I did, I would compare myself with these models in these magazines, and I would feel so unattractive.   I was too skinny, too tall.  My ears were too big, whatever.”  The message of the magazines is that your are never quite right, although it turns out that the models in the  photographs are often highly photoshopped to guarantee impossibly small waists and, of course, large spaces between the tops of their thighs.   Physical beauty is one of life’s many gifts, and most people who get regular exercise enjoy the process for its own sake.  But in a way, our bodies can be taken from us.   We are taught to think about our bodies as a project we have to work on, a problem we have to solve in the future.  Through magazines and other media, the culture is telling us how to view our bodies, and as a result, we experience our own bodies as though we were seeing them through someone else’s eyes.  If you are a woman, you can take your shirt off in the bathroom and compare yourself to the image on the cover of Cosmo.   Or, if you’re a man, and you don’t look like Brad Pitt, you can look at your flabby biceps and sigh.   “Not yet,” you think. “I’m not there yet.”

From Mahayana standpoint , the body is the door into enlightenment.  Everything we need in order to wake up is right here in this body.  As Hakuin says, “This very body is the body of the Buddha.”   And the secret to the body’s power is that it lives in the now—the present moment—one hundred percent.  The “now” is always the body’s time, and for that reason, it   has all of these amazing potentialities that our culture doesn’t train us to appreciate at all.  When we sit down on the cushion, we’re really grounding ourselves in the present, and the present connects us to reality.  The door of the body opens “in” and it opens “out.”

First, it opens “out” into the world.  When you straighten your spine and allow your breath to become natural, you begin to relate to the body in a very different way.   You’re present with your physical sensations—you become your sensations—instead of watching yourself from a distance and judging.   When you’re not adopting the viewpoint of an imaginary outside viewer, the body becomes a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to come into contact with the world.  Maybe this morning, as you were meditating here in this room, you became aware of the air blowing out of the vent overhead.   Feeling the cool air on your face, you might have wanted to push it away because it feels, perhaps, too cool for comfort.  Maybe you wish you had brought a blanket for your legs.  You’re trying to watch the breath but there’s that coolness, slightly uncomfortable–almost cold, and definitely annoying.   You go back to the breath to escape, but there’s that coldness again.  There’s a moment when you’re thinking, “This is really uncomfortable.  I really don’t like this.”  But eventually, if you keep returning to the breath, you can become one with this coolness.  You suddenly realize, “This is OK.  No problem.”  The judging mind stops and you’re just present.  You become the air; you become the coolness.

The breath also opens “in.”  Sometimes, on occasions like the one with the cool air, you unexpectedly drop down into deep samadhi—the deep state of concentration that arises when your sense of a separate self disappears.   Watching the breath will take you right there.  But you can fall into samadhi by listening to sound.  You could even enter into samadhi by focusing on your hands.  I think that it quite remarkable that attention to the breath, to hearing or to physical sensations—attention to the body—will take us deeply and quickly into samadhi.  Even the experience of pain will do this: in fact, the experience of moderate pain can push us very deeply into samadhi, as we know from sitting past our normal comfort level and having to struggle with tired legs or aching backs.  Last night, at the evening sit, somebody returned after a hiatus of about a month.  At the end of the evening I asked him, “How was your sit?”  And he said, “It was wonderful!  I came in and I sat down and I dropped right into samadhi.  I just settled right into it. I felt like I was floating above myself.”   When you’re in a deep samadhi state, you can experience your ordinary body sensations in a different way.  Parts of the body seem to disappear.   Perhaps you can feel your face or your hands, but other parts of your body are simply gone.  You might feel like you’re opening up or emptying out, or you might feel very rocklike and solid.  My first teacher Genki Roshi used to say that whenever he started sitting, he felt like a stick of incense burning down: he could feel himself disappear, beginning with the crown of his head.   As the flame moved down the incense stick, he kept disappearing until he felt completed weightless, emptied out.

This is a different way of relating to the body than we learn from Cosmopolitan or Vanity Fair, which are actually selling the future—not the real future but an imagined one.  The real future will not be like the images in those magazines.  The other day I was looking at a photograph of myself thirty years ago.  My hair, once black, is now grey and it’s falling out.  It’s getting thinner and thinner.  My body is getting older too.  The flesh around my neck is crinkled like a chicken’s neck, and my face is sagging more and more.   In the Cosmo future, you will be radiant and young for all time.  But on the other hand, you also know that because you have a body, you are going to get old, you are going to get sick, and you are going to die.  This is part of reason becoming one with the body can be quite difficult.  The physical dimension of meditation is hard because, of course, you have pain in your legs.  But it’s harder on another level because you have to accept processes that are in fact uncontrollable and that will lead to your dissolution.  Having a body makes you vulnerable, and embracing it means accepting your impermanence.   Some of you may know about Ray Kurzweil, a major figure in Artificial Intelligence who believes he’s going to download the contents of his brain into a computer.  He has actually declared “I will live forever.”  Many people have pointed out that this won’t work: you can’t download your awareness because intelligence itself comes from having a body—with five senses, a nervous system, and so on.   But you can see why he wants to do it, right?  He wants to get away from this body which is going to get sick and old and die.

One of the reasons that zazen—sitting—can seem so difficult to do is that it requires us, right from the start, to acknowledge that we are embodied beings who are going to disappear.   But if we experience the body from the inside out, so to speak, it becomes a door into the world that leads us to enlightenment.  And indeed, enlightenment is really only possible for creatures who have a body.   The Buddha says this to his bhikkhus in the Balapandita Sutta,

The Buddha:               Bhikkhus, [imagine] a man [who] would throw into the ocean a plough share with a single hole in it. Then with the eastern winds it would be carried west and with the western winds carried east. With the northern winds it would be carried south and with the southern winds carried north. Then there is a blind turtle in the depths of the ocean and it comes up to the surface after the lapse of a hundred years.  Bhikkhus, how long would it take this turtle . . . to put his neck in . . . the hole to see light?

Bhikkhus:                   Venerable sir, it would happen after the lapse of a very long time.

The Buddha:               Bhikkhus, it is more likely that the blind turtle would put his neck in the plough share.  .  . than for [us to] gain humanity.

The odds of being born as a human being are just as overwhelming, the Sutra says, as the chance that a blind turtle, swimming in the middle of the ocean, will happen to come up for air and put his head through a wooden yoke floating on the surface.  In traditional Buddhist thinking—but not Zen–animals are supposed to lack the ability to become awakened because they are caught, more or less, by their instinctive routines.  On the other hand, the gods in Tushita heaven are totally absorbed by pleasure-seeking and have no idea that their merit will run out and then they will descend into some lower form again.   Neither animals nor gods can wake up.

To be born at all is a lucky break.  To be born a human being—astonishing.  To experience awakening—inexpressibly precious.  But you can’t be human and immortal—that’s the Buddhist view.  Once we settle down into the here and now, we have to accept our own impermanence as embodied beings who are subject to birth, sickness, old age and death.  We might imagine that doing Zen will teach us how to transcend that predicament, but the opposite is actually the case.  Once, Shunryu Suzuki’s students asked him, “What is the essence of the Buddha’s teaching?”   Perhaps they thought he was going to say, “Bliss” or “Oneness” or “Liberation.”  Maybe they imagined he would say, “Eternal life.”  What he said is, “Everything changes.”  Our bodies—ourselves–arise and then they’re gone.  We’d rather exist eternally in some timeless realm, but when we become one with the body, a body sitting on the cushion, sweating on the cushion, working with our pain, something remarkable can happen:  the moment actually becomes timeless, for as long as it lasts.   I’m sure that you’ve had this experience.  Sitting in deep concentration you find the time sensation has disappeared.  A thirty minute meditation period can be over in a snap.  But don’t think of this as “transcendence.”  You aren’t transcending anything: you have to embrace “this” unconditionally.  You have to become one with the here-and-now in order to experience the timeless.

But I know that accepting the here-and-now can be quite difficult. Often the moment is exactly the place we don’t want to be.  When we feel trapped by the moment, the way we normally respond is to imagine a future time when we won’t be as unhappy.  And the Cosmo mentality only makes things worse.

This week at my office things were tense because two of my coworkers simply couldn’t get along.  One of these people came in to see me confidentially, to speak with me behind closed doors.  She said, “I hate to say this but D—– has been giving me a hard time.”  Then, a little later, D— also called me to say that the other person was completely at fault for all kinds of problems and confusion.  Worse yet, the two of them have managed to recruit other people in the office as their allies, so it’s a bit like World War II.  Both people tell their stories in convincing ways, and when I’m with each of them I feel that they are completely justified.  When I try to get to the truth on my own, the facts become more confusing than before.   It got so tense later in the week that I didn’t want to go to my office. By the end of the week I found myself thinking, “I can’t wait until this day is over.  I can’t wait I’m away at sesshin and I don’t have to deal with this.”

All of us have what might be called a travelling mentality.  We’re always thinking about moving on to some other place where things will be better.  And this is, especially in America, very much part of our culture.  When settlers first came to the United States from Europe, they had left their native lands behind and they came to places like New York City, which they often thought of as a temporary stop, since conditions in the City were only so-so.  Then they moved out to the Midwest, but maybe they didn’t like the Midwest any better, so they moved on to California.  We all live with this mentality, right?  Do you know this song from the Broadway show Annie:

The sun’ll come out tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun
Just thinkin’ about tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow till’ there’s none

When I’m stuck with a day that’s gray and lonely
I just stick up my chin and grin and say oh

The sun’ll come out tomorrow
So you got to hang on till’ tomorrow, come what may!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow
You’re always a day away.

This is a poignant expression of the travelling mindset: I’m going to focus my energies on tomorrow because today is just not working out for me.  Tomorrow is the only sure thing in a world of overwhelming instability.

Now, the truth is that the future exists:  living for the future is a valid part of life.  If you become unhappy about your state of health, you can buy a gym membership and work out every morning.  And if you work out with some regularity, you’ll get in better shape eventually.  That’s true.  That’s part of life.  But there’s another aspect of existence.  If traveling is one aspect of life, another aspect of life is dwelling: being here, being here.

One way to think about Zen is to say that it teaches us to how to dwell—how to be here fully.  Every morning at sesshin we take refuge with these words:

ATTA DIPA
VIHARATHA
ATTA SARANA
ANANNA SARANA
DHAMMA DIPA
DHAMMA SARANA
ANANNA SARANA

“Atta dipa/  Viharatha.”  In Pali, “Atta” means “you” or “yourself,” and “dipa” can mean “light.”

“Viharatha”  means “you dwell” or just the command, “Dwell!”  So we could translate the first two lines this way:

You yourself are the light.
So dwell just where you are.

In other words, when you are here fully, when you dwell here, you will know yourself as “dipa,” a lamp or a light.  Even as the light.  “Taking refuge” is one way to understand the word we recite, but they might also be understood to mean, “being refuge.”  The rest could be translated this way:

You yourself are the refuge.
There is no other refuge.
The dharma is the light.
The dhamma is the refuge.
There is no other refuge.

We want the future to be our refuge, but these lines suggest that our real refuge is being-here-now, one hundred percent.  When we are here unconditionally, we dwell in the light which is our True Nature.

Traveling and dwelling often seem like opposites, and in a certain sense they are, but the truth is more complicated.  Buddhist monks, after all, were originally anagarika—that is, people without a home.  Until the creation of formal monasteries, they lived like the Buddha himself as wandering mendicants, dependent on the dana provided by others.  There’s a Japanese monk named Junsei Terasawa who is trying to bring Buddhism back to Turkistan.  He says that Buddhism is an expression of the ancient spirituality of the nomadic steppes of Eurasia.   Buddhism later flourished along the Silk Road too, where it travelled freely.  Maybe Terasawa is right.  There’s a traveling aspect to meditation as well.  You sit down on the cushion.  You watch your breath and you hope something happens.  As you watch and wait, you begin to see that everything is travelling, with each moment swiftly followed by another one:

A monk asked Ummon, “What is particle after particle’s samadhi?”

This is the traveling aspect of reality.  You’re sitting on your cushion and you are watching your breath.  As you watch, the breath comes.  Then the breath goes.  And then the next breath comes,   and so on—travelling—because everything is constantly changing.  Three breaths ago you were a different person, and in three breaths you’ll be a different person again.  All true.  But when you’re with this breath, which is here only for an instant and then gone, what happens to you then?  That’s the dwelling aspect.  In the middle of all that change, there is something that is changeless.  What is it?  Ummon tells us directly, without any artifice or equivocation:

Rice in the bowl, water in the pail!

If you eat rice as often as I do, you know that putting it in the refrigerator completely dries it out.  The best way to store your cooked rice is to leave it in a covered bowl at room temperature.  Right now, in the winter, your rice will keep for two or even three days like that, but in the summer, mold quickly grows, starting from the bottom, which is dark and moist.   Like everything else in the universe, rice is only here for a little while before it breaks down into its composite parts, and even these parts will keep changing form.  And yet, when we look down at our bowls of rice on the third of fourth days of sesshin, the whole universe becomes just this rice. Then, looking through the eyes of deep samadhi, we find that every grain of rice is exactly where it should be:

Even the most talkative can add nothing.

The North and the South stars do not change places,
Heaven-touching waves arise on land.

But what would it mean to try to live our lives this way?  How do we live in a changing world in the spirit of really “dwelling”?

One important lesson of zazen is that when you’re in a difficult situation, instead of imagining a better future ahead, you should try to become one with what is happening now even if it seems unpleasant.  In the middle of a sitting period, when your legs are aching and your back is tired, the worst thing you can do is imagine a time when you will be able to uncross your legs and freely walk around—or better yet, the time when the sesshin will be done and you can finally go home.  That will only intensify your pain by adding emotional distress.  Instead, a much more effective strategy is to direct your attention to the breath, one breath at a time, until your concentration comes to a point focused on this very moment.  That’s a better strategy in the short term because your pain will diminish, and pain is your most immediate concern.  But the strategy makes long-term sense as well because getting up would solve nothing ultimately.  Even if you decided to uncross your legs, stand up and walk out of the zendo, and even if you jumped into your car and drove home at top speed, the problems that brought you to sesshin would still remain unresolved.   Once you’re back home with your legs stretched out, your muscles might no longer hurt but you will feel the same confusion and pain that started you on the journey that brought you to Zen.

But let’s say you decide not to get up off the cushion and leave the sesshin.  You decide to sit motionless in spite of the pain.  At some point the pain might go away, but the relief will  only be temporary.  True, sooner or later the bell will ring, and everyone will get up for kinhin, or you will walk to the dining hall to have a diverting meal.  But later, when you are back on the cushion, the pain will be there again, possibly as strong as ever.  If leaving sesshin is no solution, but you can’t solve the problem of the pain either, what are you supposed to do?  I would say that you have to recognize that there aren’t any good alternatives.  You’re stuck if go and stuck if you stay.  No matter where you go and what you do, you’ll be in here-and-now.  And the here-and-now, as the Buddha said, is always in some sense unsatisfactory.

Stuck, stuck, stuck.   We think that travelling will set us free, but no matter how far and fast you might go, every road will simply take you right back here.  Viharatha—be here now—because you actually have no choice.

When I come into my office and the people are fighting, I’ll find myself at times thinking something like, “I wish all of these people were gone and I had a better set of people to work with.”  Maybe you have friends who get on your nerves sometimes.  You might think, “I wish I had a better class of friends.”  But this is a destructive fantasy because these are the only friends you’ve managed to get, maybe not the only friends you’ll have in your life, but the only friends you could possibly have at the present time.  And the people I work with in my office are the only people I can be working with right now.  It’s possible to imagine a better world, but the world I’m actually in right now is the only world I could possibly be in.  We modern people tend to always think in terms of alternatives, options, choices.  But much of this thinking is pure fantasy.  Perhaps you feel stuck in your job and your torment yourself  with regrets for the road never taken.  “If only I had made a better decision,” you think.  “I would be in a much better job right now.”   But actually nothing in your life could have been different from the way it is.  Absolutely nothing can be different from what is actually the case, and that holds true for every moment in your past as well.  As you can understand in retrospect, every moment had to happen exactly as it did.

When you start to see things in this light, you realize that the way we often think about life—as a series of free choices made from among a rich array of options—never does justice to the reality.  Of course we might have gone to college in another state instead of staying at home, but the advantages of that choice couldn’t have been obvious at the time.  Of course you might have married someone who shared more of your interests, but at the time you couldn’t have understood why having common interests would matter later on.  All of our decisions at the time were the best ones we could make, and only retrospect can we say that they were “bad” or “good.”  So much is at stake, then, in Ummon’s “particle after particle.”

In a certain sense, we simply have no choice.  We are in this moment and it couldn’t be any different from the way it is.  And the same will hold true when the next moment comes, and the next one after that.  And at first, this might seem to lead to a depressing thought—that we really have no freedom at all to change the way we live.  But while it is true that we can’t change how things are in the present moment—whether we live in San Francisco or New York, whether we are young or old, gay or straight—we can decide how we are going to inhabit the “now,” how we will dwell in this moment.

It’s like being an actor in a play.  Someone else wrote the script but you can play the part skillfully, or not.    I don’t know if you read Hamlet in high school but there is a moment in the play when he finally overcomes all his vacillation and self-doubt and surrenders himself to the moment:

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay
Worse than [in chains] . . . .
. . . .  let us know
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well
When our deep plots do pall, and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

Like the actor playing Hamlet, we don’t get to decide how the play turns out, but we still have the power to experience the unfolding of our lives as an opportunity to wake up.   You can say, “I’m going to be present with my life.  I’m going to dwell in this here-and-not unreservedly.”  And when you do that, everything can be transformed.   Events really seem to unfold as though “a divinity” behind the scenes is directing everything on the stage–as though events are unfolding of their own volition, unfolding as they have to unfold.  And if we play our roles with energy, openness and a bright mind, this moment is a wonderful place to be—precisely because we don’t control it.  Who knows what the next moment is going to be?  Maybe someday you might win the Nobel Prize.  But once the ceremony in Stockholm is over, you get into a taxi and set off down the street where another driver hits and kills you.   Something like this happened just last week to the actor Paul Walker, who went for a casual ride with his friend and died in a terrible crash.  No one can tell what’s going to happen next.

I imagine that all of us have moments when we would prefer to be someone else, living some other person’s life.  But that’s a formula for unhappiness.  You didn’t choose to have size eleven feet.  You just do.  You didn’t choose to be born in a Cuban family or have brown hair. You can be miserable about all this, but things will be radically transformed if you say, “This is the part I have been assigned to play.  In this crazy tale, I am Hamlet, and I’m going to play the Hamlet part unreservedly.”  You know it’s all a play, and not really real.  You know that Hamlet is just a role, a fictional creation.  But you’re going to play the part with a good spirit, open to the undiscovered possibilities.

This might sounds like abstract philosophy but if you sit down on the cushion and become one with your breath, you begin to have a deep sense of exactly this openness.  Sometimes there’s an energy or joy that comes from embracing what is happening precisely because you have no control.   You’re sitting on the cushion in pain and you think, “I hate this.  I hate it.  I hate it.”  And then all of a sudden you just give up and you feel a sense of connectedness , as though you are part of a much grander drama whose conclusion none of us will live to see.  All those coworkers who drive you nuts, all those friends whose eccentricities you  find unbearable at times, can suddenly seem fascinating—still annoying, maybe, but precious; still  eccentric, but lovable in a very deep way.  And somehow, not knowing how the play will end doesn’t really matter.  We always think we want a happy ending, but it’s just possible that happiness comes from no longer caring how the play will turn out.   Perhaps it comes instead from being here –dwelling—in a wholehearted way.

Ummon said, “Rice in the bowl, water in the pail.”

Three Bells

The post Ummon’s ‘Particle After Particle’s Samadhi appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

I’ve just returned from leading sesshin at the Blue Mountain Zendo in Allentown, PA. This zendo closely  follows the form and ritual of Zen training I recall from doing thirty plus sesshins at Dai Bosatsu Zendo (DBZ) the monastery in the Catskills run by the Zen Studies Society (ZSS). The practice at Blue Mountain Zendo is strong, sincere and openhearted and attracts many Dharma “orphans” who once trained at DBZ.  At the conclusion of this sesshin there was a ceremony where I affirmed Joriki Baker, who started the group, as a full temple priest. During this and every sesshin that I lead I offer dokusan (one on one Dharma dialogue). In dokusan, I’m reminded of just how intimate and deep the relationship can be between so called student and teacher and what a severe betrayal of trust it would be to in anyway take advantage or manipulate a student for my own selfish purposes. I very well understand that if the manipulation included sexualizing the student in some way it would be a violation tantamount to incest.

Including Joriki and myself there are many other ordained and lay sangha members from around the nation who no longer feel comfortable training at DBZ. Of course it was principally Eido Shimano “Roshi,” who has multiple times been disgraced for preying sexually on female sangha members for decades and otherwise abusing his power and authority, who founded this organization. The latest wave of sangha members to leave came about when it was revealed in May 2010 that Shimano had been caught once again with his pants down.  I was on the ZSS board and head of the ZSS Ethics committee at that time, and immediately asked Eido Roshi to resign from the board while the most recent transgression was investigated.  Eventually, I was the last of five ZSS board members to leave the organization because of continued excuses, allowances and out right enabling provided to Shimano by the remaining ZSS board led by Shinge Roko Sherry Chayat. To be fair it seems much has been done to change the atmosphere of practice at ZSS for the better, there was one organized attempt made to listen to those harmed and disheartened, and Eido Shimano is no longer welcome to teach at the ZSS. Yet, in my mind, not nearly enough has been done to listen and respond to those harmed and alienated.  Furthermore, as late as August 2012, Eido Shimano, who Shinge privately calls a “manipulative sociopath,” was invited to DBZ as an honored guest to help lead the “Sanmon Gate Ceremony.”

Zenrin R. Lewis

It seems clear to me that ZSS by featuring an article by Zenrin and continuing to list his organization on their web site as a related Zen center is offering implicit approval of Zenrin and Eido Shimano’s continued teaching of students.  This boggles my mind to say the least.  It is offering this kind of support, indirect as it may be, that is a real slap in the face to those directly harmed by Eido Shimano.  Why does Shinge Chayat and the ZSS Board continue to enable a man who has little to no understanding of the harm done to American Zen?

With gassho,

~Genjo

The post Enabling by Genjo Marinello appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

The following article by Mushim Patricia Ikeda was published with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship in December, shortly after the death of Venerable Bhante Suhita Dharma. Mushim wanted to provide the following preface to the original article that was published to include information about his Zen training, as well:

Note to readers of Sweeping Zen: Ven. Bhante Suhita Dharma received Dharma transmission from his teacher, Zen Master Thích Thiên-Ân, who was the founder of the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles, California, and author of Zen Philosophy, Zen Practice (1975) and Buddhism and Zen in Vietnam (1975). Inspired by his teacher’s inclusive approach to Dharma in the United States, Bhante Suhita’s Zen was integrated into what he called the Triyana way of Buddhist understanding and practice.

We share the following tribute to expand and amplify the beautiful writings, already circulating the web (see Maia Duerr’s and Kimberly Alidio’s for a start), that honor the recent passing of Venerable Bhante Suhita Dharma, an inspiration and guide to many on the engaged dharma path. A former staff member at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Bhante was the Prison Program Coordinator and helped steer the Coming Home Project, dedicated to supporting people coming out of prison.

With sadness for losing Bhante in this lifetime, and gratitude for all he has done to turn the wheel of dharma, we give thanks to Mushim Patricia Ikeda for this vivid, illuminating, and personal account. May we all learn from his pathbreaking and humble life, and be blessed to feel the presence of his wisdom: perhaps “when we least expect it!”

—Katie Loncke
TWM Editor

December 28, 2013

Dear Dharma Friends,

It is with the utmost sadness that I wish to share with you that one of my oldest friends, the most Venerable Bhante Suhita Dharma, whose Vietnamese Dharma name was Hòa Thượng Thích Ân Đức, passed away around 5 am this morning in his room at Chùa Diệu Pháp Temple in San Gabriel, California, at the age of 72 (73 in the Asian way of counting years). I know that he approved of the photo I’ve attached, because he used it as his Facebook profile pic. His death was sudden and unexpected, and evidently without pain or struggle, possibly due to cardiac arrest.

Ven. Suhita Dharma was the first African American to be ordained as a Buddhist monk. He was my co-teacher for a number of years for the People of Color annual meditation retreat at Vallecitos Mountain Refuge outside of Taos, New Mexico. Born in Texas, he was a monk for 58 years of his life, entering the Trappist monastery when he was 14 and a half, and later becoming a fully ordained Buddhist monk. He never saw any contradiction between his Catholic family roots and his early life as Brother Anthony of the Trappists on one hand, and his life as a Buddhist monk, on the other hand, seeing all of monastic life as being essentially very similar. He often told me that he considered the Rule of St. Benedict to be the best and most comprehensive set of monastic rules. He also once said that when he was with the Trappists, who are a silent Order, that all of the brothers were joyful and that he “never once saw a long face among them.” He was among the last generation of so-called child monks in the Trappist Order, as they soon thereafter raised the minimum age for ordination. Before becoming a Trappist monk, Bhante Suhita had been a star altar boy in Texas, where his family lived for a number of years, and he always said that he was asked to be there if a visiting dignitary came, because even though he was so young, he had memorized all of the services and could do them perfectly. He said he loved high ritual, and was not pleased when the services in the Catholic Church switched from Latin to English.

As a Buddhist monk, he loved to travel, and he spent extensive periods of time in Sri Lanka, where he rose to the status of “Mahathera”; Thailand; Nepal; and I believe in Malaysia as well, plus some other countries. Some years ago, he was given the title “Hòa Thượng” in the Vietnamese Buddhist Church, which he told me was the equivalent of a bishop in the Catholic Church. His circle of connections within the monastic Buddhist world was huge, and included monks and nuns from every Buddhist country. Within the last several years, he divided his time between residing at Chùa Diệu Pháp temple in San Gabriel, California and his hermitage and Semillas de Compasión (Seeds of Compassion) Sangha in Juarez, Mexico. He told me several weeks ago that he hoped to do one last pilgrimage in Europe and to visit a number of monasteries and sacred sites there. He also told me that one of the few regrets he had about his life was that he had once had an opportunity to enter the Carthusian monastic order (the Order of Saint Bruno) and to live as a cloistered monk, in silence, but that he’d become very ill, had to go into hospital in England for an extended period of time, and after he recovered his life took him in a different direction.

Bhante Suhita Dharma and I have been the best of Dharma friends for around 28 years, since we first met at the International Buddhist Meditation Center (IBMC) in Los Angeles in 1985. He would say publicly that he had five spiritual friends, and that I was one of them. I never asked him who the other four were, since I always figured that if he’d wanted to tell me, he would have done so. In reality, he was a teacher and good spiritual friend to many, but held this role lightly and without attachment or possessiveness. I think it’s fair to say that he wanted people to be curious and free in their spiritual development, and to be street smart and self-reliant and to trust their own common sense (which he called “mother wit”), to stay grounded and real. As one of the most senior monks in North America, he was experienced in many different forms of meditation and spiritual practice, but always taught people to remain simple, sincere, and disciplined in spiritual life, and to keep the goal of helping others front and center at all times. He had little patience for laypeople who romanticize their idea of monastic life, or for anyone who, as one U.S. practitioner of color put it many years ago, is “hiding out in the emptiness zone.” He was an eminently practical person, a trained social worker, and had spent many years working with formerly incarcerated men, homeless persons, people with HIV-AIDS, as a prison chaplain, and as founder of the Metta Vihara hospice in Richmond, California.

Bhante Suhita had lived through Jim Crow, and he recalled that, as a little boy, he once went into a public restroom in Texas, where a white man told him to get out. He was with his grandmother, Big Mama, at the time and when he came out of the restroom and told her what had happened he said that she opened her purse and took out a switch blade and was going to storm into the men’s restroom, but evidently restrained herself from doing so, and the family put both her and her grandson on a train to San Francisco to stay with other family members for awhile.

Bhante Suhita Dharma’s view of life was global and inclusive. His Dharma was subtle, profoundly deep and broad, and fairly invisible. He never wanted to become known as a Buddhist teacher and liked to remain independent and unattached to form and image. As one person who tried to interview him for a Buddhist journal once said thoughtfully, “There isn’t a lot of self there.” He enjoyed ice cream, fried chicken, and old school horror movies. He greatly disliked tofu and personal drama. Wherever he lived he had a television that was always turned on to a news network, and if I wanted to find out more about any current event I would usually ask him for the scoop. He also loved books on Buddhism and Catholic monasticism and collected them avidly. He was very close to my son, who knew Bhante from the time he (my child) was born. They had a deep connection to one another through their similar approaches to off-the-radar everyday Buddhism in action and their penchant for mordant commentary and feisty conversational ripostes.

The brief bio, below, was written by Bhante himself for the faculty section of Vallecitos Mountain Ranch, some years ago. He chose the attached formal photo of himself in traditional saffron robes to accompany it. He liked being alone and always said he was a card-carrying hermit and member of the Raven’s Bread Hermit Ministries organization. Although he knew many people, as far as I could tell, he always preserved a deep inner silence and eremitical vocation. The etymology of the Japanese Zen term unsui works pretty well to describe Bhante Suhita’s spirit as I knew him over 28 years — according to Wikipedia, the term unsui, which literally translates as “cloud, water” comes from a Chinese poem which reads, “To drift like clouds and flow like water.” Helen J. Baroni writes, “The term can be applied more broadly for any practitioner of Zen, since followers of Zen attempt to move freely through life, without the constraints and limitations of attachment, like free-floating clouds or flowing water.”

Bhante Suhita Dharma was an adventurer, and now that he is flowing and floating onward, I know (or think I do!) that what he’d want from us would be for each of us, in our own way, to help others as much as we can, and to become the practitioner described in the Metta Sutta:

This is to be done by one skilled in aims
who wants to break through to the state of peace:
Be capable, upright, & straightforward,
easy to instruct, gentle, & not conceited,
content & easy to support,
with few duties, living lightly,
with peaceful faculties, masterful,
modest, & no greed for supporters.

Do not do the slightest thing
that the wise would later censure.

Think: Happy, at rest,
may all beings be happy at heart.
Whatever beings there may be,
weak or strong, without exception,
long, large,
middling, short,
subtle, blatant,
seen & unseen,
near & far,
born & seeking birth:
May all beings be happy at heart.

(trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

Bhante was always cheerfully getting ready to die, and when I taught with him, he would sometimes say to the practitioners in the meditation hall: “I will always be with you. And when you least expect it!”

With palms together, I bow to my Kalyanamitta (Great Spiritual Friend),
and to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha,*

Mushim

Oakland, California
December 28, 2013

* Bhante Suhita often ended his letters with the words, “Blessings of the Triple Gem.”

Venerable Suhita Dharma

Juarez, Mexico

Ven. Suhita Dharma, Mahathero (called “Bhante” by his students), is a well-known senior Buddhist bhikkhu ordained in the three Buddhist lineages: Mahayana, Theravada, and Varjayana. He is the first African American to be ordained a Buddhist monk; he was ordained by the late Ven. Thich Thien An, the first Vietnamese Buddhist master to come to Los Angeles. Bhante has been traveling to Mexico recently on a pilgrimage to pay respects to the ancient deities of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, praying to ask permission for the establishment of a Buddhist center in Mexico at the request of the Mayans, Yaquis, Tarahumaras, Pimas, and Aztecs and to meet with the chief shamans in those traditions. A longtime social justice activist and social worker, Bhante began working with Indo-Chinese refugees entering the U.S. in 1975 and has since worked with homeless persons, people with HIV-AIDS, and ex-offenders. Bhante teaches compassion meditation for everyday life and practice for those who are working with people in different communities, emphasizing a one-on-one approach as well as introducing students to the practice of the Kalyanamitta (spiritual friend) and helping those who are within the sea of samsaric suffering.

The post Floating Onward: Honoring Venerable Bhante Suhita Dharma appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

Cold as hell!

And just to be clear, for Buddhists using “cold” to describe “hell” is not a contradiction. We Buddhists, you see, have cold hells too. Lots of ‘em.

So we’ve got that going for us too.

As I was saying, though, now it’s -15 wind chill in White Bear, MN, and getting colder. -45 or so by morning so the schools will probably be closed.

It is so cold that if you walk into the wind for about 3 seconds, your eyebrows will hurt like hell. That’s how cold it is.

By the way, did you know that the buddhadharma has the mystical power to keep you warm in whatever conditions you might find yourself in?

Here’s how.

Well … first, some background. Thanks! to Vine student Tim for raising this issue.

In the Genjokoan course in the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training (click here for more – email me at vineofobstacleszen@gmail.com if you are interested in this training) we unpack this more fully but for now I’ll keep it short.

In Genjokoan, Dogen uses the word “koan” that is and was common in Zen. “Koan” normally means “public case.”  But Dogen uses a different character than is usually used for “an.”

Dogen’s “an” means  “keeping one’s lot.” As the second player in the compound “ko-an” it really brings the point home.

“Ko” (or public) is about equalizing inequality, emptying what was thought to be nonempty. That’s one foci.

By itself, equalizing inequality has a large woo-woo propensity and we might get a bad case of Zen sickness – using the practice to efface the myriad things, like our own greed, anger, and ignorance and the suffering of the world.

Without “an,” “ko” leads to a pernicious view of emptiness, repressing or belittling our direct experience.

“An” – keeping ones lot – dynamically balances the practice and points to just how close this is, like to this very person, this very thing.

And it isn’t one side and then the other, first equalizing and then keeping ones lot, first emptiness and then form.

“Koan” is total dynamic working.

“Koan” is actualizing life and death.

I remember the story about when Dongshan left Yunyan. “What can I tell people to describe you?” he asked.

Yunyan said, “Just this person.”

This phrase was used in Chinese courts when the defendant plead guilty. So the dialogue might be rendered,

“What’s your true (equalizing the unequal) likeness (keeping one’s lot)?”

“Guilty as charged.”

Because this life, this practice, this koan equalizes inequality, we keep our lot.

Just this person.

Guilty as charged.

How to keep warm on a cold night?

“It’s cold as hell!”

Or like a poet said,

Though I thought I had cast away the world
And was without self
Snowy days are all the colder. 
- from Yasutani’s Flowers Fall  pp 68, appropriately attributed to “Anonymous” (thanks! to Vine student Janet for pointing this out)

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It’s kind of weird that I should toss up such a long post on the subject of silence, but that’s how it is. I just haven’t wanted to say anything for awhile. That’s not true, I’ve wanted to say a lot, but I haven’t said what didn’t need to be said.

The world seems awfully noisy these days. When I manage to quiet the first impulse to talk back, I find that nothing needs to be said. There’s a thought: maybe nothing at all ever needs to be said! Should I ever confirm that for myself I won’t be talking about it, so I encourage you to investigate silence for yourself.

Everywhere there’s an argument, a cause, a rumble. An upset in the paper, a battle on Twitter, an outrage on Facebook, a side for, and another side in stark raving opposition. Perhaps this is what happens this time of year, in the fearsome dark and slogging cold (or alarming heat) of winter. We go stir-crazy. We pick fights, name names, make enemies, slam doors, close our ears and pound out open, clever, biting letters, as though our point of view is an urgent and necessary correction to the world’s spin.

Anytime I feel like my opinion is a matter of life and death I’m overlooking life and death.

Dogo and Zengen came to a house to express condolences. Zengen tapped on the coffin and said, “Is this life or death?” Dogo said, “I don’t say life, I don’t say death.” Zengen said, “Why don’t you?” Dogo said, “I won’t say, I won’t say.”

On the way back Zengen said, “Master, please say it to me right away. If you don’t, I shall hit you.” Dogo said, “If you want to hit me, you can hit me. But I will never say.” Thereupon Zengen hit him.

Some time later Dogo passed away. Zengen went to Sekiso and told him what had happened. Sekiso said, “I don’t say life, I don’t say death.” Zengen said, “Why don’t you?” Sekiso said, “I won’t say, I won’t say.” With these words, Zengen came suddenly to an insight.

This is a koan, a Zen teaching story from a long time ago. I encountered it myself a while back and now I’m realizing how deeply it impacted me.  I first came upon it around the time my mother was dying, and I thought at first that it might settle some of my distress surrounding death, and how to prepare, what I should know, how it would be, and if there was a Zen answer that I could enlighten her with. It does give the answer, completely, just not in words.

I once heard my teacher refer to this koan with delight in the student’s obvious desperation. Imagine being willing to hit the teacher for a definitive word — a this or a that — to settle the mind’s unrelenting torment.  A student like that is close to his or her own breakthrough, and the teacher teaches best with silence.

I won’t say, I won’t say.

When I met my literary agent Ted Weinstein for the first time, he was curious about the Zen student-teacher relationship. He asked me something like, “How are the insights conveyed — through the dialectic?”

He is a very smart, well-educated and well-read man. Perhaps he talks like this all the time, but I had no idea what that word “dialectic” even meant (it means discussion). Even so, I answered immediately and perhaps intuitively.

“Absolutely not. Nothing is conveyed that way.”

The motto for becoming genuine: nothing is gained by speaking. — Hongzhi

When I was nearing the end of the last manuscript—an end like all ends that never appears before its time—I read my way through Katagiri Roshi’s Returning to Silence. I’d had the book on my shelf for decades, another relic from a past life. I can’t recall if I’d ever read it completely. Either way, it had never spoken to me as clearly as this time. Just a few sentences every night and the day’s doubt would quiet and I could pass into rest. It was such a balm that I was reluctant to finish. I did finish, but I can return again, and not just to the words, but to the truth of the words, which require no argument from me.

“Buddhism is really hard, particularly Dogen’s teaching. He gives you a very hard practice: Keep your mouth shut and look directly at impermanence!” — Dainin Katagiri Roshi

The Returning to Silence Retreat at Grailville March 27-30 is open to full- and part-time registration.

The post no comment appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

For Americans interested in pursuing a Zen practice, finding the right balance between the demands of household, work and family; and the necessary intensity of zazen practice may seem to be the most pressing and stressing dilemma in actualizing a Zen life.

We imagine that in simpler times, people had more time to spare, and could devote a greater share of their time to meditation and study. With all the touted time-saving devices of technology, we still seem to have little or no time to ourselves. The current droll expression, the hurrier I go, the behinder I get captures this syndrome. An ancient version of the same idea, from the Chinese Zen poem Hsinshinming: Faith Mind says it a bit differently, specifically relevant to Zen practice:

To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult

But those with limited views are fearful and irresolute

The faster they hurry the slower they go

This is both a criticism of those who approach Zen practice with limited views as well as those who do not practice at all, and an admonition to practitioners to be fearless and resolute in pursuit of buddhadharma. This general mindset underlies Right Effort, and gives a clue to how we may achieve balance in our practice.

Usually when someone brings this issue up, it is an indication that they suspect that they are not practicing with sufficient intensity. They worry that it is not possible to find the time for zazen, both at home and away, without compromising obligations to family and career. For every project or task in which we invest the present moment, there are a dozen others that go wanting for our attention.

The source of this dilemma is the tendency of the discriminating mind to compartmentalize, dividing life into separate categories. The next step in the process is to set the various pieces in opposition to each other. Then we conceive of them as taking time to plan, engage, and complete. Thus we are forever caught in the bind of measured time, another compartmentalized conception. Taking this for reality, we see no way out.

Time and motion efficiency experts and life coaches apply various techniques to this problem, such as making it visible. One such approach recommends drawing up a pie chart, in which we give a portion of the whole to each of our regular activities, whether based on a 24-hour, weekly, monthly or annual cycle. Then we examine the activities to see if they are out of balance in some obvious way, looking to reduce one to make room for another, to arrive at a more desirable allocation of time to our goals and objectives. In other words, we use measurement of time to re-plan our measure of dedication to tasks.

If we closely examine this process, and pay attention to singular subject which appear in conlict, it becomes apparent that the boundaries are not so clear. What we sort into categories are aspects of life that are more related than opposed. This is not a simplistic assertion that all is one, just an admission of the not-two nature of life.

If, for example, we imagine that time spent in zazen is time neglecting our family, we might remember that when we do not sit in zazen for some period, our relationship to our family begins to deteriorate. We may secretly, subliminally even, resent the fact that we have to give up something for the sake of spouse, children or parents—or worst case, in-laws—with their lack of appreciation of that sacrifice salting the wound.

We cannot balance our relationships to others when they are built on such underlying self-centered impulses to begin with. Our complaint that we do not have time to do zazen is a symptom that we do not understand either time or zazen. When we do zazen, we are using our time to its utmost efficiency and efficacy. When we leave the cushion, this mindset goes with us. We find that we waste less time in futile pursuits, or in resentment and acrimony between ourselves and those making demands on our time.

This is especially true at work. A majority of people report that they are happy with their work, those who have work in this time of economic contraction in the labor sector. Whether this happiness is genuine—or feigning of contentment in fear of losing a job, or confronting genuine underlying unhappiness—is anyone’s guess. It was probably not included in the questionnaire. But most of our discomfort at work is from relationships.

Compensation in terms of salary and benefits is always related to at least one other person, usually the identified “boss” or management in general, especially where unions are involved. It is difficult to apply the principles of compassionate engagement when the deck is stacked against us, with the other person holding all the trump cards. Often, we have no idea what they themselves make for being our boss, but they know everything— more than we would like—about us.

Our subordinates present another set of interpersonal issues, where we are on the hot seat in terms of supervising their performance and dealing with personalities that can be difficult. We are uncomfortably aware of the interconnectedness of our role in the enterprise with those in close proximity. We also have to be mindful of the viewpoint of others in the chain of command, to whom our boss reports. And over time, these roles and relationships are as impermanent as any other elements in the Buddhist universe. As the old adage has it, be nice to the people you meet on the way up the ladder; they are the same people you will meet on the way down.

Then there are client and supplier relationships outside the company; or students in the classroom; patients at the hospital. Patterns of relationships repeat, though the nature of the product or service varies. Sometimes disputes come out of left field, and we are blindsided with a conflict that begins to take up all of our time, including agonizing over it after work. At the end of the day—so ubiquitous a phrase that it is distasteful to repeat it—we begin to see home as a refuge from work. In some cases, work becomes a refuge from home. And the annual vacation becomes a refuge from both. Thus the annual calendar is sucked into the relentless maw of time consumption.

What if this is all just fantasy, simply the workings of our imagination? The monkey mind is endlessly capable of playing such games. What about a real vacation, a time-out from this merry-go-round?

Zazen has been referred to as a mini-vacation, a brief respite from the rat race. One of the great secrets of Zen is it really takes no time at all. In fact, Zen holds that we do not live in real time unless we enter into it through zazen.

When we think of the entire scope of a project, such as writing the great American novel, we shrink back in intimidation. The mountain seems insurmountable. But the mountain is climbed one step at a time, though we might prefer a helicopter. If we see a mountain as a series of molehills, it is not so daunting. The only question is, Which molehill is in front of us at the moment?

If we think about all the other things that we do in a day that take a half-hour or so, are there none that we could easily forego, for the sake of sitting for a half-hour? If not, how about fifteen minutes? Ten? Five? As Matsuoka-roshi would often say, Sit five minutes: five-minute Buddha? Sit half-an-hour, Buddha for 30! But wouldn’t you rather be Buddha all day?

By this he did not mean sit zazen all day. The effects of zazen are both immediate and cumulative. They go with us, off the cushion. Our resistance to zazen is the molehill become mountain. I once worked with a Canadian company named DYLEX. It is an acronym, meaning Damn your lousy excuses! This is a compassionate message for us.

The post Right Balance appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

Each day during morning service at our Sōtō Zen Buddhist temple, we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha by chanting the Three Refuge Verse. When taking refuge in Buddha, we say:

I take refuge in Buddha.
May all beings
embody the great way,
resolving to awaken.

The key phrase here is, “embody the great way.” What does it mean?

One of my teachers, Ikko Narasaki (late abbot of Zuioji Monastery in Japan), said that “the world of practice is to embody – take in deep with the body – what is written in the scriptures. Another way of putting it is that through practice, we manifest, or realize (make real), the Buddha Way. Since this is done through the body, we vow to “embody the way” when we take refuge in buddha; we vow to become buddha through what we do moment by moment in our lives.

To understand this deeply, we must understand the relationship between mind and body. The traditional Western view is that mind and body are different. Mind is brain function and body is muscles, bone, fluids, and skin. Mind is in the head; body is everywhere else. But Buddha’s teaching is that body and mind are not two, not separate. Mind does not exist in one particular spot in the body, and physical form does not exist apart from mind. The two are inextricably linked.

This is why posture is so important during zazen (sitting meditation). For mind to be calm, body must be calm, because they cannot be separated. They interpenetrate and affect one another. When we sit, therefore, it’s important to sit upright and still. If body is not upright and still, mind cannot be. To stabilize mind, stabilize body. To cultivate a soft and flexible mind, which is our aim in Zen practice, we cultivate a soft and flexible body, but not too soft and flexible, because a slumping, slouching body not only mirrors but also fosters a sloppy, lax mind. Then, concentration and awareness are not possible. It is important when sitting, therefore, to cultivate the middle way between rigidity and laxness.

Another way of looking at it is that what we think manifests as what we do, and what we do shapes mental activity. So, what we do and think is what we are. If we want to realize buddha in our daily lives, we do what buddhas do and thereby realize our inherent buddha-nature through our activity. An old Zen saying puts it this way: “Five minutes of sitting is five minutes of buddha.”

In Sōtō Zen Buddhism, “practice” is not limited to zazen. Precise physical forms (ritual and liturgy) are manifested in all formal activities, and every action during these activities is, or should be, executed according to these forms. If we practice the proper form, we gradually begin to adopt the proper condition of mind. The forms, then, shape our whole being.

When I was learning how to lead service at Tassajara monastery, my instructor told me that the proper way to approach the altar was with the chin tucked in slightly. “Otherwise,” he said, “it’s too arrogant.” A light went on for me when he said this. Arrogance is a state of mind. Because body and mind are not two, arrogance manifests in posture. I remembered that a couple of years earlier, in Minneapolis, my master, Dainin Katagiri, would tell us not to sit with our arms crossed in front of our chests during his lectures because it was too arrogant. If we want to be less arrogant, we can accomplish this through the body.

Another example of this process is bowing practice, which we do a lot in Sōtō Zen. The instruction is: don’t think about bowing; just bow. Lowering the body and touching the head to the ground in and of itself cultivates humility and egolessness, which are mental states. It doesn’t matter what we think about it; all that matters is that we do it.

In some forms of Buddhism, teachers will assign special practices to students whom they feel need to work on specific aspects of the teaching. I’ve heard that in some Korean Buddhist monasteries, for example, masters are well-versed in meditation, chanting, esoteric ritual, and body practices — such as bowing. I once met a Korean woman who had spent time in these monasteries. She said that upon entry, students would be interviewed and assigned areas of practice that suited their needs. She usually was assigned a lot of bowing. She added, “That was probably because I was a college student. Students and professors usually got assigned to bowing.” I had to laugh at that because I was a college professor once! Teachers at that monastery probably thought, “Oh, another college professor who needs to get out of the head and cultivate humility; send him (or her) to bowing.”

We usually don’t split people up in this way in our monasteries and centers, but we do have a variety of practices, including zazen, chanting, ceremonies, work, cooking, and art. In all of them, the way is embodied through the practice of specific forms that have been handed down through the centuries.

In Sōtō Zen practice places, meals are highly ritualized forms of practice. During the most formal meals, we use a set of three bowls, called oryoki in Japanese. Setting out the bowls, serving and receiving food, eating, cleaning the bowls, and re-wrapping them for use at the next meal are highly prescribed, elaborate procedures. We bow to our bowls before opening the cloth wrapping that holds them together when not in use. We bow to the servers who bring us food, and they bow to us in return. We are careful to take only as much food as we can eat, so there is absolutely no waste. We handle our bowls quietly and eat in silence. Food is treated with respect. We use a special utensil so that we can remove and eat every speck of food from our bowls. We wash the bowls carefully and drink most of the water brought for this purpose. We give the rest to offer to various beings in the garden, so every bit of it is used. At various times, we chant sutras written specifically for use during meals. One of them is:

Innumerable labors have brought us this food.
We should know how it comes to us.
Receiving this offering, we should consider
Whether our virtue and practice deserve it.
Desiring the natural condition of mind,
To be free from clinging,
We must be free from greed.
To support our life we take this food.
To attain the Buddha Way we take this food.
This food is for the Three Treasures;
For our teachers, family, and all people,
And for all beings in the six worlds.
Thus we eat this food with everyone.
We eat to end all evil
To practice good
To save all Beings
And to embody the Buddha Way.

When eating, we embody the Buddha Way by showing respect and reverence for the food and for those who have prepared and served it.

Proper forms, or modes of behavior, can be practiced not only during formal activities in a practice place but also during informal activities both in and out of the practice place. When I eat in a restaurant, I try to follow some of our eating practices. I treat the waiters and waitresses politely, with respect, and try to be friendly. I put my hands together, bow, and recite a short sutra before I eat. If I’m with others, I carry on conversations before the food is brought and after we’re finished eating. I try to not talk so much when actually eating, so I can devote full attention and respect to the food and the effort made in preparing it. If I can’t eat it all, I bring it home in a container, so nothing gets wasted.

During an informal meal one day at Zuioji, a guest lay person and the monk guiding him through our activities sat across from me. The lay person sat with his head drooping down. I’d observed him earlier in the day and had sensed that he was having problems. He seemed very withdrawn and showed little confidence in himself. During the meal, the monk sitting next to him would reach over, put his hand under the man’s chin, and gently lift his head until it was upright. This occurred quite times during the meal, and I was very moved by it. The monk was helping the man sit upright, like a buddha, by not letting his head droop. He was working on the man’s low self-worth through the body.

Here at Heartland Temple in Omaha, we follow many of the practice forms I learned when I trained in monasteries in California and Japan. We sit up straight not only when sitting but also when chanting sutras during service and eating formal meals during retreats. I also try to sit up straight when working at the computer and when studying. We stand straight when doing walking meditation. Posture not only has an effect on who you are but also is an expression of what you are. When Katagiri-roshi visited us at the monastery in Japan, one of the monks there said to me that “He teaches with his straight back.” I was reminded of these words by the great Christian monk, St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”

When we greet each other at the temple, we put our hands together and bow, not only as a welcoming gesture but also as a means to express our respect for one another as fellow human beings and fellow practitioners of the way. We bow not only to our friends but also to people we’ve been quarreling with. We bow to everyone we meet. Long-term practitioners bow to newcomers and newcomers bow to long-term practitioners. Student bows to student, teacher bows to teacher, student bows to teacher, and teacher bows to student – all bowing to each other in recognition that we are all buddha. We bow to the main altar to show our respect and gratitude to Shakyamuni Buddha, the person who began this practice by which we free ourselves from suffering, and to the buddha within, the awakened person in all of us whom we wish to bring forth in all our everyday activities. We bow to Avalokiteshvara, the personification of compassion and to Manjushri, the personification of wisdom, to express our reverence for these two human qualities and our vow to cultivate them in ourselves.

When people take off their shoes before they enter our temple, they put them side by side and either place them in the shoe rack or on the floor – neatly, not haphazardly, with respect. When we take off our coats, we hang them in the closet near the front door. We don’t throw them over the arm of the couch or let them drop on the floor. When practicing at Zuioji, I once found myself rushing into the bath, trying to get in before the others so I could take a bath and get back to my room to finish a translation I’d been working on. I tore off my clothes, stuffed them haphazardly into one of the cubicles in the changing room, hurriedly made three bows to the bath altar, and was the first one into the bath room. I was stretched out in the water when I heard the Ino (practice leader) growling in the changing room. Then, I heard the growl turn into, “Nonin, come out here!” I sheepishly walked out to a lecture on why it was improper for a Buddhist monk to be treating his clothes like I had. I apologized, folded my clothes, and placed them neatly in the cubicle before returning to the bath.

Monasteries, temples, and practice centers are artificial environments set up for training. When we visit or live in them, we are training ourselves to live the Buddha Way by embodying it through the forms we practice. When we leave the training place, we aspire to live the Buddha Way throughout our daily lives.

Earlier, I quoted Narasaki-roshi, who said that, “The world of practice is to embody — take in deep with the body — what is written in the scriptures.” He goes on to say, “We must practice and train ourselves to the very limit of our capacity. Then, as in hitting a ball, we must meet on each occasion whatever ball we encounter.”

“Each occasion” is every moment of our life and “whatever ball” is each situation we encounter. In every moment, we must embody the Buddha Way in whatever we do.

The post Embodying the Way appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

As in the previous article, I end with the heartfelt plea that those of us who have been blessed with the good fortune to encounter the Zen school use the precious opportunity we have on these webpages to discuss and debate the truly critical questions raised by my research. That is to say, in the event we decide the Zen school must not become yet “another resource for the same old death-game,” i.e., that we will not allow Zen to be united with real swords (or weapons of any kind), then what is the Buddhist position(s) on war and nationalism?

I look forward to a fruitful and rewarding discussion of these issues. I trust this time we will be able to focus on the truly important questions.

Further Reading

• An Article Concerning “D. T. Suzuki and the Nazis” by Brian Daizan Victoria (Sweeping Zen)
• “Zen At War” AUTHOR BRIAN VICTORIA’S WAR ON ZEN by Jundo Cohen (Sweeping Zen)
• D.T. Suzuki and the Question of War by Satō Gemmyō (or, Kemmyō) Taira (The Zen Site)
• Brian Victoria and the Question of Scholarship by Satō Gemmyō (or, Kemmyō) Taira (The Zen Site)
• Brian Victoria’s collection of articles at The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (Japan Focus)

The post D.T. Suzuki and the (Dis) Unity of Zen and the Sword appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

Yes, like dog Bodhi in the photo, we’re getting ready to move and lay some fresh tracks. You see, we’ll be burying the wild fox in a cave out back and moving – or in wild fox language, transmogrifying – in the summer of 2014.

So this winter-spring, we’re in transition, giving the precepts to some Wild Fox Zen students and denkai (the first step in transmission) to another.

How is this possible?

My youngest child will be graduating from high school and going off to college, so I’ll be retiring from the schools after being in-and-out of education, serving the “throw away children” (poor kids from rough neighborhoods with various issues and looking at a flat opportunity trajectory) for almost 35 years. I might have more to say about all that as time goes on. Mostly I’ve held my tongue so as not to ruffle feathers in my work world.

Well, for one thing, that 85 families control more wealth than 3.5 billion people (for real) has costs – like the homeless 6-year-old I know who has sickle cell anemia, but can’t sleep in his homeless shelter for fear that he or his family will be mugged, so can’t get the rest he needs to deal with the illness, and can’t get the protein and medicine he needs – well, it’s just wrong.

I don’t think I’ve been much help, and yet my life has been transformed by my work with these youngsters and the education teams I’ve had the great good fortune to work with. Good people.

And, although it’s been a rewarding experience, it really is time to move on. For the rest of my days, I want to focus on offering Zen training to both householders and homeleavers (or sōryo (僧侶).

Nothing wrong with this White Bear, MN, Wild Fox Zen life either, of course, just seems like we’ve lived it and are now ready and eager for another adventure. Thus, we have the wonderful opportunity to start a new life in Portland, Maine (that’s the original Portland, btw).

In Portland, ME, we’ll be starting a Zen training center, “Great Tides Zen: Wholehearted Training, Engaged Living.” The “Great Tides” part of the name comes from the great ocean tides of Maine, of course, and also my dharma grandfather, Hayashi Roshi, whose dharma name (Kaigai Daicho) means, “Beyond the Ocean, Great Tides.”

“Wholehearted Training” suggests our focus – zazen and study. The plan is to offer morning and evening zazen of the shikantaza and/or koan varieties, 50 sesshin days a year, dharma study, especially of Dogen’s works, but also the essential sutras for Zen training. We’ll integrate the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support of Zen Training into the mix, because we’re seeing very positive and powerful results from this online work, from students who do both online and in-person training.

“Engaged Living” suggests the “so what?” bullshit test. If your practice isn’t making a difference, so what? Life in the swirl of the world is the buddha field for actualizing this incredible dharma. For this, we’ll take a Constructive Living approach: 1) knowing one’s purpose, 2) accepting one’s feelings (and all of reality), and 3) doing what you need to do in your life.

We hope to lease a big old house with a room for the zendo of about 400 sq. ft. – big enough to hold a sustainable group but not too big – a few rooms for residents and sesshin housing, plus living space for us.

If you live in or near Portland, ME, and know of such a place, or if you’d like to receive updates in the future, please shoot me an email at greattideszen@gmail.com.

If you live near Portland, ME, we welcome you to join the group that’s just forming to make Great Tides Zen an edgy, lively, and fun place to realize and live out this great dream. And if you don’t live near Portland, ME, but want to be a part of this community, the Vine of Obstacles is available to you.

The post Great Tides Zen: Coming to Portland, ME, Summer 2014 appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

I recently returned home from our Sunday zazenkai here in Umeå in the north of Sweden. Everything is white outside my window and snowflakes keep falling from the sky — unimaginable numbers of them, somehow falling one at a time. These last few days they all have seemed to fall a little bit slower than usual.

Do you remember when you made calligraphies for me in your apartment, when you had retired in Takashimadaira? This Sunday afternoon, we put one of your framed works on a shelf next to our lines of zabutons, like we always do at our zazenkai. We had not been there without you.

Now my wife is watching TV upstairs and our four-year old son is sleeping in his room. Our son was born just after I lost contact with you due to your illness. Ever since, I have wondered how you are doing. Now I know that you have died.

I am looking around in our living room, where I am writing these words. I doubt there would have been a zafu next to our son’s Lego box if I had not met you that chilly day in your Tokyo office, almost exactly thirteen years ago. There would have been different books on the bookshelf, a different story. I do not know who I would have been.

Right now, it is not so much the things you said, but more of the way you were that comes to my mind. How you walked to the Motoyawata train station. How you entered the zendo in the morning. How you gave and how you cared. You were human, just like all the rest of us but with extraordinary roots in the practice of zazen, and with a generosity that extended even to a young Christian theology student thirteen years ago.

In the Dojo in Ichikawa, we used to call you “Sensei.” I notice that I am writing “Roshi” now. All these Japanese words that I frankly know very little about but, because of you, they have become close to me. I also learned the English word “ineffable” from you. A heart beating almost a century, and you never seemed to lose touch with the falling snow.

Thank you, Nishijima Roshi.

Thank you.

The post Dear Gudo Nishijima Roshi appeared first on Sweeping Zen.

I stumbled on a Zen story a little while back that’s been tugging at me. I’m sure I’ve read it before but somehow it didn’t bite the first few dozen times through.

Then Steve Heine pointed to it in Like Cats and Dogs: Contesting the Mu Koan in Zen Buddhism (review by yours truly here) and it sunk it’s teeth into my behind.

One place the story shows up in classical literature is in the Blue Cliff commentary on Case 96, “Zhaozhou’s Three Turning Words” in the section for “A gold Buddha does not pass through a furnace.” And there’s occasional reference to “Zihu’s dog” in the comments to various koans.

It goes like this:

“Zihu set up a sign on his outside gate; on the sign were words saying,

‘Zihu has a dog: above, he takes people’s heads; in the middle, he takes people’s loins; below, he takes people’s legs. If you stop to talk to him, you’ll lose your body and life.’

“Whenever Zihu saw a newcomer, he would immediately shout and say, ‘Watch out for the dog!’

As soon as the monk turned his head, Zihu would immediately return to the abbot’s room.”

Those of you who’ve been at our Transforming Through Play Temple, know that the blog dog Bodhi is such a dog. We keep him locked up when we have company so he doesn’t take people’s heads, loins, or legs! So I can relate to this dog and this Zen teacher.

There’s not only a lot of dogs, cats, foxes, and oxen in these old Zen stories but a lot of dismemberment (or threat thereof) too, pointing to our divided lives in the midst of wholeness. Like Uncle John’s Band sings, “I live in a silver mine but I call it beggar’s tomb.”

Still, I smile every time I think of wily Zihu calling “Dog!” and ditching the practitioner who looks off. And I tense with the practitioner who does the normal self-protective thing and winds up like the guy on the deserted island – a person alone in the universe.

Now Zihu was a dharma brother of Zhaozhou – that old guy who also had a dog who either had or didn’t have buddha nature. They seem to share a family style of putting dogs front and center.

The koan for which the above story is context asks, “Why could Zihu’s dog not bite Zhaozhou?”

If you know the meaning of “a gold Buddha does not pass through a furnace” in the activity of a fully engaged life, you’ll also know “Why could Zihu’s dog not bite Zhaozhou?”

Might seem rather strange and obscure at first so it is necessary to enter to body of the koan to taste this one. There’s something very important here for our path of practicing enlightenment, but if you stop to talk about it, you’ll lose your body and life.

Oh, hey, watch out for the dog!

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This is what there is:
Waking in the dark and cold. No more sleep.
This is what there is:
Rain on the roof. Newspaper soaked and muddy.
His mouth trembles as he thinks of children suffering.
Spring flowers: crocus, hyacinth–suddenly blooming.

This is all there is:
Sitting down again and again, in the dark, in the cold,
In the sun, in the rain—this is all there is.
Hair turning silver, teachers dying, lovers leaving, old friends returning.
Grown children calling to say, “I love you.”

This is what we have:
Cold ocean breeze, salt in the air.
A mother cries out, calling her son a fool.
This is what we have:
A friend eating soup across the table.
A struggle to praise this mutilated world.
A wish for transcendent meaning. A desire to change our lives.
And this desire—is what we have too:
A wish for the heart to heal, the mind to relax—

This, too, is our life.

It can’t be right, can it?
But, this is all there is:
Unopened mail, unfinished lives.
Grief, pain, unexpected joy.
Green tea. Shivering. Fog rising from the land.
Wishing to be elsewhere.
The moon at the window.

This is all there is: birth, death and everything that lies between.
Nothing special. Everything special. Nothing other than just . . . what . . . it is.
This is all there is.

This is what we have: life, as it is.
Roses, rhododendrons.
Learning to love these ordinary lives.
Shoes. We have shoes.

This is what we have. This is what there is. This is it. This is it.

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Some people find Buddhaghosa’s reference to previous lives a bit odd, even unnerving. But the concept of past lives is not just fanciful, and it is much more than a metaphor. We don’t need to go back over years and into previous existences to do this. Just looking carefully at each day brings up all kinds of past karma and previous lives, because the past is, indeed, held in the present.

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Joshu asked Nansen, “What is the Way?”

“Ordinary mind is the Way,” Nansen replied.

“Shall I try to seek after it?” Joshu asked.

“If you try for it, you will become separated from it,” responded Nansen.

How can I know the Way unless I try for it?” persisted Joshu.

Nansen said, “The Way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not knowing is confusion. When you have really reached the true Way beyond doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can it be talked about on the level of right and wrong?”

With those words, Joshu came to a sudden realization.

I want to begin by introducing you to a gentleman whose writings I recently came across, S. Brian Willson. Brian was a young Air Force lieutenant in Vietnam, assigned to provide airbase security. He was a strong proponent of our strategies in the war, including calls for massive bombing and nuclear defoliation. For some reason, Brian was asked to go out to assess the extent of damage to a village that had been bombed with napalm, although that wasn’t part of his security job. He arrived shortly after the bombing had occurred. There in the smoldering ruins, lay the charred bodies of the villagers. Many were women and children, and while most were already dead, the cries of those writhing blackened husks who were still alive pierced the air.

At that moment, something extraordinary happened. Brian broke down and his life was changed forever. Now, that may not sound extraordinary. You may reason that any human being would have done so under those circumstances. However, Brian was not any human being. To start with, he was a soldier, an officer, a patriot, and a proponent of the war. He was not supposed to feel for the lives of these “gooks,” who were not just the enemy, but a subhuman race who deserved to die for opposing the “might and right” of the United States. Furthermore, Brian had embraced the American dream and the American ethos. He was a young man on his way up, coming from the lower middle class and aspiring to rise in society. Fighting in a war and killing to protect our way of life has long been considered a part of that process of gaining stature in our society.

The South Vietnamese officer who was accompanying Brian was completely baffled by his retching and tearful reaction. What was there in this scene to cause that? Just some dead villagers, nothing more. Brian, too, should have reacted with impassivity. It was how he was conditioned and trained to react, not just by his military training, but by the conditioning that our nation’s sense of manifest destiny and its inherent racism subtly imposes on us all. What happened in that moment to undo all of the years of preparation for his role in that war? Brian should have numbed out. He should have repressed the reality, but instead he saw clearly, perceiving with what I believe was the “ordinary mind” that Nansen spoke of!

You see, ordinary mind is nothing special, and yet it is extraordinary. It is seeing what is right before our eyes with clarity. We see what is there, no more, no less. The blinders of our conditioning, our desires, our attachments, our beliefs, our self-centeredness, our self-righteousness, have all been lifted. We awake from the numbness of the trance state which we normally exist in. There is nothing, no veil or barrier, to protect us from the onrushing force of this very reality. And even more importantly, nothing to separate us from anything. In the moment of perceiving with ordinary mind, those burned bodies are not other, not apart from me, they are me – my body lying completely disfigured in the mud of that village.

I have never been in a war, but I think I can understand the process of numbing out from the time in my life when I was a farmer and a hunter. In order to kill a beautiful animal, whether it is a young calf that is going to the slaughterhouse to become veal, or a magnificent buck that we have in our rifle sights, we must diffuse the grim reality of the moment. We cannot see that being as it really is, as a vital part of the world, as part of us. We must create separation, we must objectify it in order to drag it into the truck, or to squeeze the trigger.

Brian Willson went on to be a peace activist after he returned from Vietnam. He later lost his legs when he was run over by a train carrying arms to the Contras, which he was trying to block. But neither that tragedy nor the decades that have passed since Vietnam have dimmed his vision. As I read his writing, it seems that he still sees with the clarity of ordinary mind. Today, he sees the endless violence that our culture and economy, driven by the greed of vast multinational corporations, is spreading across the globe. That greed manifests itself in many forms. It manifests as we engage in conflict after conflict around the world. It manifests in our consumerism, our ever expanding consumption of vast mountains of goods that serve little or no actual purpose outside of feeding our media-fueled addiction.

Living in this culture, we are all hungry ghosts who are endlessly driven by our desire for more and more things, endlessly trying to satisfy a hunger that cannot be satisfied. Tragically, it manifests in our willingness to sacrifice species diversity and even the very survival of our planet, just as long as as the endless buffet laid out for us at our local shopping mall isn’t interrupted. We continue to exhaust our planet’s resources, its forests, its waters, and its soils, oblivious to the fact that our children and grandchildren will inherit a bankrupt world, if they inherit any world at all.

Ah, but you say to yourself, we aren’t the people who need to hear this message. After all, we’re Buddhists. We sit on cushions. We discuss precepts. We are conscious about our food. We are not the problem. We are nice, kind, gentle people. That may be so, but is there another reality, the reality that our Buddhism can function as yet another veil, another rose-colored lens that obscures the truth.

If we truly allow ourselves to open to the realities of global corporate greed, of war after war fought to protect our economy, of the destruction of our planet, and perhaps of all life in this world, we are faced with a truth that is almost impossible to bear. We find ourselves seized by despair and hopelessness. What can I do? The problems are so great, and there are no clear solutions. Overwhelmed, we retreat from the stark clarity of ordinary mind to the safety and comfort of Buddhist mind. In Buddhist mind, we can just focus on our practice. We can sit contentedly on our cushions and shake our heads at the thoughtless, careless lives of our fellow Americans, secretly smug in the knowledge that we are not like them. We are awake. We are spiritual.

What is Brian S. Willson doing today? In his seventies, he is riding around the northwest on a hand cycle. More importantly, he is living in the perpetual discomfort of ordinary mind. Ordinary mind isn’t a state of spiritual bliss. It is a state of intimate connection, of living deeply in the reality of this moment. Today, Brian is speaking the truth he sees, as well as writing about it. He is working actively to reduce his negative impact on the world, he is growing his food and working to leave the grid completely. He is trying actively, every day, to avoid participating in the orgy of consumption.

If we want to manifest the Dharma, if we want to live as Nansen and Joshu did, if we want to be really awake and experience the vast boundless space of ordinary mind, then we must follow Joshu’s teaching in another koan, we must avoid “picking and choosing”. We must be open to reality, no matter how uncomfortable that makes us, and we must not allow the despair that inevitably arises to overwhelm us. We must act. Every day, we are walking among the charred bodies of the dying. There is no place for philosophizing, for rationalizing, for catastrophizing, for blocking or numbing out, for forgetting. We cannot look the other way. We must act. We must apply bandages and ointments. We must cradle the dying in our arms, give them a sip of water, and offer them solace.

That is how we must act, that is how we must deal with the diseases of the human spirit that our culture is spreading across the globe. We must act decisively and without hesitation. That is the way of the Bodhisattva. If you have come to Zen for peace, to escape the troubles of the world, to bask in self-righteousness, to be a Buddhist, then you have come to the wrong place. If, on the other hand, you want to roll up your sleeves and walk out into the muddy village, ready to do whatever you can, then you are in the right place.

Zen is action, action that arises from being fully awake and fully engaged. Ours is a Mahayana practice, a practice that must engage with the suffering of all beings. I think that zazen does change the world, but one of the primary ways it does so is by changing us, by helping us to wake up and take action. When we awaken from our dream and begin to see reality as it truly is in the light of day, we can act.

How you should act, how much you need to do is for you to answer. Let me propose a simple test. Close your eyes and imagine you are speaking with your relatives in a future generation, the generation that is here when life on earth is no longer viable. There in front of you is your grandchild or great grandchild, your grandniece or grandnephew. They look at you as their emaciated, dehydrated bodies gasp for air and ask, what did you do? What did you do in 2014, when we still had polar bears and glaciers, when you could walk outside and breathe the air without a respirator, when the trees hadn’t died from the drought, and when you could drink water freely, right out of the tap? What did you do to prevent the catastrophe? How will you answer? Will you be able to look them in the eye and say that you did enough?

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