Huineng's Realization: Dust has No Place to Land

What follows is a teisho, a Zen dharma talk, offered by Melissa Blacker, Roshi and me, Michael Fieleke, Sensei, during 2019's Summer Sesshin at the Boundless Way Temple. It is followed by a dharma dialogue, which includes sangha members and Guiding Teachers Bob Waldinger, Sensei and David Rynick, Roshi. This is the first in a series of talks on the Gateless Gate's Case 23, "Think Neither Good Nor Evil," and on Huineng's Platform Sutra. This talk set the scene for the talks that followed and launched our sesshin.

Melissa Blacker, Roshi:  

This is the first of our series of dharma talks for this summer sesshin. The four teachers, David Roshi, Bob Sensei, Mike Sensei and I, will be sharing these talks each day. A different pair will present our understanding of the topic that we've chosen for the sesshin. And today Mike Sensei and I will be presenting our understanding of a koan that is a very fundamental story in our Zen tradition. It's found in at least three different places in Zen literature.

One is in our Gateless Gate koan collection where it's case number twenty-three. One is in a Japanese Rinzai collection called Entangling Vines where it's number two -- placed there I think because if its importance. And also, it appears in a text that is attributed to a 7^th century Chinese teacher named Huineng called The Platform Sutra. We're not sure that Huineng actually wrote this sutra. It may have been written by some of his disciples, maybe even many years after he lived. But it’s written in the first person as if it was in his voice. And his voice is an important voice in the teachings of Zen that we've inherited, especially from our Chinese ancestors. Huineng was the first Chinese Zen teacher or Chan teacher who was not an educated elite member of the upper classes. He was someone who struggled early on in his life just to survive. According to legend he never learned to read.

I'm going to read you the version of the story that's in the Entangling Vines collection. And probably over the week we will read the version that's case 23 in the Gateless Gate. And maybe we’ll read a little bit from The Platform Sutra. But in this version the koan goes like this:

“The senior monk Huiming pursued Huineng, the sixth ancestor, to Dayu peak. Huineng, seeing him come, put the robe and bowl on a rock and said, ‘this robe represents faith. How can it be taken by force? You may have it.’ Huiming tried to pick it up but like a mountain it couldn't be moved. Shaken and frightened Huiming said, ‘I came in search of the Dharma, not for the sake of the robe. Lay brother, please instruct me.’  Huineng said, ‘Think not of good, think not of evil. At this very moment what is your original face before your father and mother were born?’” [A very loud siren from an emergency vehicle passes by the Temple.] Maybe it's the sound of that siren. “ ‘At this very moment, what is your original face before your father and mother were born?’ At that moment Huiming was deeply enlightened and his entire body flowed with sweat. With tears in his eyes he bowed and asked, ‘Is there any meaning still more profound than the hidden meaning and words you have just imparted to me?’ ‘There's nothing hidden about what I've revealed,’ replied Huineng. ‘If you turn your own life inward and illuminate your original face, what is hidden is within yourself.’ Huiming said, ‘although I practiced with the assembly under Hongren I had yet to realize my original face. Now you have shown the way in. I'm like the one who has tasted water and knows for himself whether it's cold or warm. You, lay brother, are now my teacher.’ Huineng replied, ‘If that's how it is with you then you and I are equally the disciples of Hongren. Take good care of yourself.’”

So that's the koan that we'll be exploring over the week. And I wanted to talk first about Huineng himself, and Huiming too a little bit – the two characters that we encounter in this story. When we study koans it's very important to let ourselves sink into them as if they were happening to us right now in this present moment. Every piece of the encounter is relevant to our lives as not just Zen practitioners but as human beings on this planet, in this universe, that's full of suffering.  It's really important to know that these people, although they lived almost 2000 years ago are just like us in so many ways.   In fact, one of the main teachings of Huineng is that no matter what our circumstances, no matter how we identify ourselves, no matter what our background is or the story of our life we have more in common than we have in difference. I was particularly happy to see that in the chant we read earlier which is one of my favorites, “The Harmony of Relative and Absolute” by another one of our Chinese ancestors Shitou, speaks about this directly. He's actually quoting Huineng. He says “among human beings are wise ones and fools. But in the way there is no northern or southern ancestor.”

So it's true that we are all unique, and it's also true that in the Great Way we're all the same. Huineng's primary teaching throughout his life, and throughout his writing of the Platform Sutra and other records that were kept of him, was that there is no such thing as becoming a Buddha. We are already Buddhas. We are already awakened ones. He used a word in Chinese that's been translated in various ways but one way that I like is that there is the potential for awakening in every human being. We don't need to bother with ants and sticks and grizzly bears and dogs and flowers because they're already fully awakened and they don't need to practice the Great Way. But we human beings interfere with our own sense of who we are. We think that we are lacking.

And here's Huineng who was the son of a pretty highfalutin’ guy, someone who was part of the government in China. It's possible that his mother was actually not an ethnic Chinese but came from the south where there are many kinds of tribes. He's called the barbarian when he first meets his teacher and this is a reference not only to his lack of training but also perhaps his ethnicity. His father had been thrown out of the ruling class and his father and mother went to live in the south away from the northern capital.  They struggled, and his father died when Huineng was three years old. He and his mother, impoverished, lived in a city in the south of China where they sold firewood. These were Huineng's humble beginnings. As one commentator says, he knew what it was like to not have a life of privilege. He knew what it was like to be hungry, to be cold, to struggle in his life. And somehow or other he wasn't beaten down by this. So much so that one day when he was out in the town square selling firewood and a monk walked by chanting the Diamond Sutra he heard a line from this sutra that so deeply penetrated him that his heart awakened, and he made arrangements to take care of his elderly mother and decided he had to go north to find the Great Way, to find the source. After he talked to this monk, he grabbed him and pulled him aside. He said,  “what is that that you've been chanting?” The monk explained a little bit about Zen.

After this, Huineng went off to seek the teachings, and his first teacher was a woman, a nun who he studied with for a while. Then he studied Zen with a couple of other teachers. He studied for three years learning about meditation and zazen. And then he found his way north to Hongren's place. Hongren was a teacher in the lineage of Bodhidharma, the original Indian teacher who brought Zen from India to China. He had inherited the robe and bowl of Bodhidharma from his own teacher, and intended to pass these symbols of the teachings to his own Dharma heir. 

Hongren had an interview with Huineng where he said,  “who do you think you are, you barbarian from the south, coming to me to learn about Zen?” and when he heard this challenging question Huineng did not become defensive. He did not quote something from a sutra to show how smart he was. He said, “In the way there are no northerners or southerners.” And this really struck Hongren who decided that this kid had some merit. And he sent him off for nine months to thresh rice.

And there's a wonderful story which we'll probably tell more in more detail later in the week about how Hongren ended up recognizing Huineng as his dharma successor, his dharma heir. He gave him the robe and bowl but he knew that Huineng as a barbarian from the south, an illiterate rice thresher and wood cutter would not be respected by the other people in the monastery and so he sent him away. There's one lovely, probably apocryphal story which isn’t in the original sutra of Huineng that he himself, the old teacher, rowed Huineng across the river that separated the south of China from the north of China. And then he sent him on his way. Huineng apparently went on a pilgrimage for two months with the robe and the bowl.  Hongren had advised him to wait three years before he started teaching.  He suggested that Huineng hold off until the experience had of awakening had penetrated him so thoroughly that he could be an exemplar to others.

Meanwhile, back at the monastery the other monks found out about Hongren giving the robe and bowl, giving dharma transmission, to this barbarian.  All of the people who Hongren thought would be upset were upset. They all started chasing after him, crossing the river themselves. For two months they chased him and one by one they dropped away, as you can imagine, except for this one guy Huiming who had originally been in the army. He had been a general. And he thought he knew what he wanted. He wanted to get the robe and bowl back from the impostor. The story in the koan begins at the point where Huiming finally catches up with Huineng after two months of running after him, two months of chasing up and down mountains and hills and dales to find this impostor.

And Huineng just says,  “take the robe and bowl,” and that has a transformative effect on the former general Huiming. This story has so many aspects to it that we thought for 7 days we could probably get something out of it. But what I want to encourage you to do with the stories that you're hearing before I hand the talk over to Mike Sensei is to notice if there were any parts of the story that touched your heart the way Huineng's heart was touched by hearing the Diamond Sutra chanted in the square in his town where he was selling firewood. Because this is what's important. You don't have to memorize everything. You don't have to know everything. Someone said to me recently, a new sitter here at the temple, “I'm beginning to get the idea that this is not about accumulating knowledge. I'm beginning to get the idea that this is about dropping knowledge and not knowing.” This is somebody that's just been sitting for maybe a couple of weeks. Beginner's mind, right? I said,  “yeah, yeah, that's right.” I had a  little bit of trepidation saying this.  Maybe I was affirming him too early,  but he was on to something.

Huineng is the first truly Chinese teacher. He's the person who pulled it all together. And we can feel the echoes of his teaching in the present version of Zen we teach here at Boundless Way Temple. Everyone has the Buddha nature.

So now Mike Sensei is going to take over the talk, and say a few more words to illuminate this great story that has been handed down to us over the centuries.

Mike Fieleke, Sensei:

So it's quite a remarkable story. This uncultured, uneducated, very poor person enters the monastery. He’s challenged right at the start by Hongren but is able to respond with a kind of faith in something that transcended his personal circumstance. There is no northern or southern ancestor in The Way. There's just human beings. We are all worthy.

It's amazing what moved him to make his journey to the monastery in the first place. He was just a young boy struggling to survive, gathering wood, when he heard a line from the Diamond Sutra. The specific words he heard are not recorded in the Platform Sutra, but according to Encounter Dialogues of Dajian Huineng, he overheard the following variously translated phrase: “Give rise to the mind that abides nowhere.” Where is this mind that abides nowhere?

Huineng was so moved that he asked his mother if she would support his seeking the dharma, and off he went. He was quite young to be moved by such an esoteric commandment.

After Huineng had been practicing for merely eight months at Hongren’s monastary, the fifth ancestor Hongran was looking for a successor to whom he could transmit the robe and bowl, this authority to teach Zen. And so he asked his monks to write poems to express their insight. Huineng wasn't really aware that this competition was happening. He was too busy preparing rice in the kitchen and found out after the fact. Being so new and illiterate, he wasn't even invited to participate in the contest.

Two poems were ultimately written, and the first was by the senior monk, Shenxiu. His poem went like this: “The body is a Bodhi tree, / The mind a standing mirror. / Always try to keep it clean / Don't let it gather dust.” Shenxiu was an experienced practitioner who went on to become a teacher himself. His poem offers a teaching that has a certain kind of value to it. Wu-men urges students studying Chao-chao’s mu to “cut off the mind road” or we will become “ghosts clinging to bushes and grasses.” In Zen practice, we are not chasing after thoughts. We are here to wake up.

But there is something a little off in this teaching as well. While the practice of not indulging thoughts is important, it can become oppressive rather than liberating. And Huineng realized this, so when he heard this poem, he decided to ask a fellow monk to transcribe and post his response in secret. His response went like this: “Bodhi doesn't have any trees / This mirror doesn't have a stand / Our Buddha nature is forever pure / Where do you get this dust?”  Then he composed a second verse: “The mind is the Bodhi tree / The body is the mirror's stand / The mirror itself is so clean / Dust has no place to land.”

Huineng’s poems were recognized by the fifth ancestor as a superior expression of the dharma. And Hongran knew that they were composed by Huineng. This is what led to Hongran offering Huineng transmission, then shooing him away from the monastery. As Huineng fled, he was chased. And that's where our koan begins.

I think it would be useful to spend some time with Huineng’s poem as a pointer for us as we practice here together. We might have the idea that we come here to change ourselves, that we come here to remove something that we don't like about ourselves or maybe about our lives. We might imagine we can wipe away the dust of our lives and become a pure mirror. We think, “if I can just remove this afflictive emotion of sadness or anger or shame, or if I can perfectly still my mind, then I will be enlightened, and I will suffer no more.” But in my experience, to practice this way is often a spiritual bypass. It is actually painful. And it is not necessary.

What arises is what arises. We are not trying to avoid what is present but to see what is present, to bear compassionate witness to whatever arises, and to look into each phenomenon as a dharma gate that reveals our true nature. That true nature, as Huineng suggests, is no fixed nature at all. So there is nothing we need to change. There's nobody else that we need to be. Our true nature is already present manifesting perfectly. It is in our tear drops. It is in our anger. It is in the dust.

And so when the monk finally catches Huineng, at first he thinks, I want the robe. But when he realizes that Huineng is unattached to the robe and bowl, he realizes how free Huineng is. He realizes that it is not the robe and bowl he desires most of all but liberation, and so he bows and asks to be taught.

This for me is a touching moment in the case. Where that monk says, help me. And it's so interesting that Huineng doesn't respond by saying, oh well let me lay forth some dharma for you. He says, who are you? 

And so we begin sesshin with Huineng’s question. Who are you?

Thank you.

Dharma Dialogue

Mike

So if you'd like to make yourself comfortable now is an opportunity for us to have a dharma dialogue. A chance for you to come forth with whatever arose for you in this. Whether it's a question or an objection. Whatever is here for you. What touched you or didn't touch you.

Melissa

And just know that this talk is being recorded so if you don't want to be recorded when you offer your question, objection, insight also that's welcome, we will turn it off briefly and turn if back on after you speak.

Sangha member

Thank you both. That was really powerful. Seriously. I'm very moved. But could you both say something about enlightenment that even all these flaws and these emotions that keep arising how that also is enlightenment. Can you please reassure me that it is.

Melissa

It is. [laughter]

Mike

Next!! [laughter]

Melissa

It's hard to believe, right?

Sangha member

Yes, it is very hard to believe.

Melissa

Yeah, and this was the radical teaching of Chinese Zen that we inherited that was different from Indian Buddhism. Really really different. In Indian Buddhism you have to go through stages. Even modern teachers of original Buddhism talk about going through stages. Going through stages makes sense. And this is what Shinshu said, the head monk who was really respected in the monastery by everybody. His poem about the mirror, that makes sense. And Huineng's poem doesn't really make sense. What?? There's no mirror, they were all metaphors. But how could they...and he elucidates in his sutra, in his writings, he talks about it and then hundreds of years later Dogen talks about it. All the great Zen masters in the Tang dynasty and Song dynasty in China talked about it. It became part of the Great Vehicle teachings which were also inherited by the Tibetan Buddhists. Already accomplished. Actually the Tibetans had their own trajectory that was very similar and overlaps a lot. But this is just so unbelievable, Bill.

Sangha member

Yes

Mike

You know I'd like to add that you know we have to meet ourselves where we are. So if what's arising for me is that I don't believe it, that's the dharma presenting perfectly. I don't believe it. This is not enlightenment. I am not it. Right? Okay, so this is what we meet and we look.

Sangha member

So what's this whole thing about improvement? Do we try to improve our character or is that also part of it? To do it or not do it?

Melissa

You know I was just telling these guys a childhood friend of mine just gave me a packet of letters that I wrote when I was in my 20's, forty years ago. I finally got up the nerve to read them. They were letters I had written to her. I couldn't see much difference between the person who was writing those letters and the 65-year-old woman who just gave you this dharma talk. And yet, and yet, I'm not that person anymore. Something's changed. I couldn't have given a dharma talk when I was in my twenties. David Roshi often talks about growth and compassion and wisdom. You know, there definitely is this ripening. The seed of the flower doesn't stay a seed forever. It can't help, and this is what Huineng says, you can't help but realize your enlightenment. But I really want to underline what Mike Sensei said. Don't believe any of this. Stay with the disbelief. That's the source of your own awakening.

Sangha member

So, a moment that’s coming up for me in the koan right now is that moment when the military athletic monk who is sometimes called monk Myo…

Melissa

Myo is the Japanese version of the character that is pronounced as Ming in Chinese…

Sangha member

So Ming catches up after two months of running, you know, swimming across that river, running up and down mountains and not giving up. He puts his hands on the robe and it's like trying to move a mountain. So we can take that if we want as some miraculous happening.  Because this is Bodhidharma's robe after all.   I don't think we want to do that. So the other place I go is so something has already happened to Ming. He hasn't heard a word yet. He's just you know present...so the question that's coming up for me is: “is there something about just the sheer presence of this lay brother or is it something about those two months?

David

Or is he so tired that he has totally exhausted himself and he would lift it up if he could but he has given everything away and nothing's left. Right? Wonderful questions. So these questions come up and they're all alive and true and what is it? What's going on in that moment? And for me it's only when he utterly fails that there's some opening. Usually we want to have success. We want to improve. We want to get what we started. “I came to retreat and I have some goals I want to achieve here.” And I just love how wrong Ming was the whole time, chasing the wrong thing and in the end he can't even pick it up and in his utter failure there's some freedom.

Sangha member

I was thinking that same point when Alan said those things. I think of my personal experience when I'm so into trying to get something and then I finally get it and there's almost like this immediate bitter taste in my mouth. Almost like this disgust. And this contains a component of the koan but kind of this strange reality that I have when the thing I've been chasing for so long isn't fulfilling me and I finally get to it. And I wonder if you know what happens to me often is that I just swallow that and I just keep on. But I was wondering if in this story you have to clarify the great matter to see that fully and he continued to pursue that kind of grasping for this security.

Bob

I like that you have a visceral reaction. The bitter taste in you mouth, right? And he starts to sweat, right? There is something embodied about this. Wait, this isn't it. This realization is in the body as well as mind.

David

The Buddha called this kind of experience dukkha. There is this sense that we are lacking something and if I just get the next thing, the next electronic device or whatever, if I just have a really good experience, you know, if I get a little oneness -- that’s all I need. But the teaching is that since we aren't lacking to begin with anything we get doesn't make any difference.  There are those moments where we sort of get it. And I love what you're saying about the capacity to stay with the bitterness or the disillusionment. To stay long enough that we get melted or something happens to us that we can't contrive.

Melissa

I've got to say that I just love this guy Huiming or Ming or Myo,  whatever we want to call him. When I first heard this koan, the very first time I heard it from my first teacher in a dharma talk like this, I think at one of my very first sesshins, I just thought,  “oh man that's me.”   I'm constantly running after stuff and then find out, with that bitter taste, that's not what I wanted. And there's something about his spirit, running for two months. I hadn't really put it together until I did some research that it was two months! That moment of not being able to lift the robe is one of the turning points of this koan. We've got to feel that for ourselves. What would it be like, this moment when we think we've accomplished something. I caught him! I'm going to get the robe and bowl! And then everything just explodes --  it's wiped away. Everything is wiped away.

Bob

I want to just add one more thing, which you noticed, which is that a lot of times when this happens to you, you just kind of swallow it and you go on and you look for the next thing to grab onto. And so, how do we not ignore those moments? How do we not swallow them and just push on and do the same thing, try the same thing again and hope that this time it will satisfy us. Because that's such a familiar reaction to me.

Sangha member

I think a lot of what I wanted to say has been said but the piece about it with me, although I really admire Ming's tenacity, is that my sense is he's not in charge. We're not in charge of this whole awakening process. We can't say it's going to happen and it can happen to the monk who stayed behind and just sat in his room.   And so it's like we think it's got to be something spectacular that gets us through. And yet it's the very ordinariness of our lives that, at least for me, is what's most easily accessible. And even if I chase for something, and I do chase after things, it may happen and it may not. I don't have any control over the process. All I have, control over is my intention to live the precepts. I think that that's for me the first part of what the first monk said. The precepts, the practice, this is what I do. This is what we do here, and in my daily life, is live the precepts. And maybe that makes possible something to arise. And hopefully we'll be able to see it. That's the training, to see it, because it's right here.

Mike

Yeah, there is this effort, you know, living the precepts, showing up for sesshin, showing up to sit on time when the bell rings, not moving. There's actually a lot of effort in this effortless path involved in waking up. And there is a sense of surrender involved in it. And I think also seeing things that we may not want to see, that Chogyam Trungpa calls the path of disappointment. “I thought this was going to be a lot better than it is.” We spend a long time making friends with ourselves, making friends with that disappointment. And okay, so what's here? What's here now?

Melissa

And you know the irony of all this is that this is Huineng's dharma heir telling a story about their teacher or their teacher's teacher. And from what we can glean from history, the guy who wrote the first poem, Shinshu, was the founder of the northern school of Zen in China. He was a big deal and in the story too, whoever is telling the story, says that he doubted himself. He's actually got a little bit of the Huiming thing. He presented the poem to Hongren, the teacher. He said I think this might be off and don't give me transmission if you agree with me. Which is really great! I think this may be off. That's so cool. He was a cool character, really a great character. Sometimes he’s made out to be a fool but he wasn't. He was actually the instructor of the new monks in the monastery. And then monk Ming himself became a teacher. And again in the historical record it looks like Hongren, the fifth ancestor, had a lot of dharma heirs and Huiming was just one of them. But all those lines died out. Only Huineng's line carried forward into the centuries. It could be that every single person in that monastery woke up to their true nature and were a blessing to the world. I think we have to think maybe yeah. And I think you're pointing that out.

Mike

I'll say one more thing -- I also really like a theme that's coming up about the ordinariness. Where we encounter the possibility of awakening is in the ordinary life. You know, wash your bowl. And I think that this can lead to: “aw, there's no such thing as waking up.”  And I don't think that's true. I think we can wake up but it won't be what we expect it to be, ever.

Melissa

Right. That really comes back to Bill's question. How could it look like this?

Mike

Yeah, yeah.

David  And so on that note let's come back to our Zen posture.



*Special thanks to Joanne Hart who transcribed this talk. Mike Fieleke and Melissa Blacker also lightly edited it for clarity.

Love in a Time of Coronavirus

What follows is a dharma talk I offered to Morning Star Zen Sangha via Zoom on the evening of March 18, 2020. I explored Yunmen's "Medicine and Disease" from the Blue Cliff Record as COVID-19 spread around the world.

Yuanwu's Introduction:
For the clear-eyed person there are no holes to fall into.
Sometimes on the summit of a lonely peak the grass grows in profusion;
Sometimes in the middle of the bustling marketplace he is naked and exposed.
Suddenly the angry Nada reveals his three heads and six arms;
Suddenly Sun-face Buddha and Moon-face Buddha release their all-embracing merciful light.
The entire body is revealed in a speck of dust.
Becoming ordinary people, one blends with mud and mixes with water.
If one were suddenly to reveal the opening of the highest realization,
even the eye of a Buddha could not see it.
Even if a thousand sages were to appear, they would have to retreat three thousand miles.
Is there anyone who has attained and realized to this state?
To test, I cite this, look!

The Case:
YUNMEN, disciple of Xuefeng, instructing the assembly, said, “Medicine and sickness heal each other. All the earth is medicine. What is your self?”

Xuedou's Verse:
The whole earth is medicine.
Formerly and nowadays, why do they err on this point?
One closes the door and does not make a cart;
If one opens the way, it is naturally vast and void.
Wrong, wrong!
Although the nostrils touch the sky, they can still be pierced.

Dharma Talk:

Good evening everyone. I am so glad we can sit together like this.

We are living in a time of upheaval. Some of us may not be too worried personally about coronavirus.  But others of us, being vulnerable, may be frightened and concerned for our own safety. We may also be worried about friends, relatives, or even entire populations like those suffering in Italy. Refugees in camps are terribly vulnerable. People all over the world are suffering. We are all in this together, and no border wall can protect us. That was always a fallacy.

Our lives have changed. Some of us are practicing physical distancing, and we may feel quite isolated. I am no longer able to teach at my high school as all my students have been sent home. Like many others, my son and daughter returned home from college. This is how my son will remember his freshman year. Many seniors who are about to graduate will do so without ceremony, without farewells. Millions of people across the US have lost or will lose their jobs. Epidemiologists tell us that over the weeks and months ahead, many people will become sick, some very sick, and some will die. These will be difficult times, and we don't know how long they will last.

If, like Avalokiteshvara, you are awake to the suffering of the world, your heart has no doubt been touched by this crisis. If you find yourself harboring strong feelings, there is good cause. You are not alone.

We are all doing our best to muddle through the challenges before us. Here we are meeting on the phone rather than in our normal sanctuary. I received an email from St. John’s today that our zendo will remain unavailable to us through at least April 6. It may be longer before we can practice in person together again. We don’t yet know, and living with uncertainty is a challenge for us human beings.

Still, though we are physically isolated from one another, we find ourselves connected again on the phone. What a little miracle these devises are. Of course, they can also be a problem, but I am grateful in this moment.

Perhaps sometimes we wish we were not so interconnected. The Washington Post reports that in its first wave, 40 percent of the people on the planet may be infected by the coronavirus, despite our efforts at washing hands and physically isolating. This virus shows how interconnected we really are.

Creating physical space between us now is important because it slows the transmission, preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed and giving researchers time to create a vaccine. Honoring this call to physically isolate is one way we can act on our vow to save all beings.

And so our zendo now is not in a building but stretches across many towns and through cell phone towers, satellites, and wifi connections. In fact, our zendo includes the whole universe. It always has.

And so we come to the central statement of this koan: Yunmen says, "The whole earth is medicine. What is your true self?"

This koan about medicine and disease is reminiscent of the Blue Cliff Record, Case 3. In this case, Great Master Ma was not well. The temple superintendent asked him, “Teacher, how has your venerable health been in recent days?” Master Ma said, “Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha.” Shortly thereafter, Master Ma died.

Sun-faced Buddha is said to live for 1,800 years, and Moon-faced Buddha lives for one day and one night. As he lay in his deathbed, Master Ma was a sun-faced Buddha and a moon-faced Buddha. He was healthy and sick. He was timeless, and just a brief existence.

We often think we are either sick or we are well. But actually we are always both. Even when we feel healthy, our bodies and communities are always fighting and spreading infections. And when we are unhealthy, there is a way that we are also well. We know that people live and die. And still, the Heart Sutra reminds us that there is also no birth and no death.

Shunryu Suzuki says, there are two “completely different viewpoints.” Sometimes we call these two perspectives absolute and relative truth. When we say everyone and everything has buddha-nature, or when we say there is no birth and no death, this is the absolute viewpoint. In Case 29 of Master Dogen's 300 Koans, one student asked as he stood over a coffin, "Alive or dead?" Daowu, his teacher, responded, “I won’t say.” From the perspective of the absolute, there is no knowing.

Everything is exactly thus. Just the sensation of your knees and the sound of my voice. Just a cough and a headache. Just this breath. “To lift up a speck of dust is to lift up the whole universe.” Practice is the way to have direct experience of this first principle, the absolute.

In one Buddhist Sutra, Manjushri said to Sudhana, “If there is something that is not medicine, bring it to me. I would like to see it.” Sudhana searched, but he couldn’t find anything that was not medicine, and so he told Manjushri, “There is nothing out there that is not medicine.” Manjushri said, “Bring me something that is medicine, then.” Sudhana reached down and picked up a blade of grass and handed it to Manjushri. Sudhana is demonstrating the absolute view. Everything is beyond good and bad, beyond the categories of the mind. Everything is medicine. Everything is thus.

But the story goes on. Manjushri held up the blade of grass, showed it to the assembly of monastics and said, “This medicine can kill people, and it can also bring them to life.” In commenting on this story, Daido Loori reminds us that "a vaccination is a small dose of 'sickness' that can prevent a full-blown illness. Oftentimes, poisons are used to heal, rather than kill. Digitalis is one." Chemotherapy is another. Medicine and sickness heal each other and disappear. Daido Loori goes on to say, from the absolute perspective, "sickness, in and of itself, is not a problem." Sickness and health are just two faces of Buddha. It’s our attachment to health that gives us pain. 

So we are instructed to practice nonattachment. But nonattachment is not indifference and distance, as some people imagine when they first hear the dharma. Nonattachment is letting go of how things were in order to be with things as they are. You need a notion of two separate things in order to feel attachment: the thing you’re attaching to, and the self who’s attached. In nonattachment, on the other hand, there’s the profound intimacy of nonduality. There is coughing and the heat of a fever. There is sadness and grief. There is compassionate awareness. But there is no separate self. There is no fixation on any particular state. Everything flows.

Though we speak of two truths, actually there is just one reality. The two truths merely point to this one reality. We don't need to think about it or understand anything. In our practice, we see that the relative truth is exactly the absolute, and the absolute is exactly the relative.

Sooner or later we realize that though our minds divide this from that, reality is not divided into categories. That is a function of the mind. Mud and water are not two. Neither are life and death. Shakespeare wrote, "The earth that's natures mother is her tomb." Is the earth a place of birth or of death? The earth is life-and-death. We are life-and-death. This moment is also life-and-death. Now is both coming into being and disappearing. It is not just one way or the other. The great matter of life-and-death manifests as this dharma call.

Sometimes in Zen we are encouraged to "die to ourselves." Zen is medicine that poisons us so that we can open beyond our egoistic selves and appreciate undivided reality.

As Yunmen says, "All the earth is medicine; what is your self?" To study Buddhism is to study the relative truth of the self. And as Dogen says, "To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all the myriad things." In other words, when we look for ourselves, we find that the self is not a separate thing but is made of non-self elements. In this moment, your awareness is my words, your body is rain and earth. There is no separate, fixed self anywhere. This may sound scary, but when we forget ourselves, there is no longer a hard line between you and all beings.

As we practice, we come to realize deep in our bones that though we exist as independent beings, there is also no gap between self and other, no gap between heaven and earth, no gap between medicine and sickness, and no gap between life-and-death.

Just this.

Still, beings suffer. We see this in the world and in ourselves. In closing the gap between self and other, we come to care about all beings as ourselves. From this integrated perspective, we are moved to save all beings, whom we love as one numberless family.

Where does this happen? Right here, right now, as we sit together in our infinite zendo.

No Knowing

In the first case of the Blue Cliff Record, Bodhidharma, who at least mythologically is credited with bringing Buddhism from India to China, was asked by the Emperor of China, "Who are you?" Bodhidharma responded, "I don't know."

In Case 20 from The Book of Equanimity, Dizang asked Fayan, “What do you think of wandering?” Fayan answered, “I don’t know.” Dizang said, “Not knowing is most intimate.”

Seung Sahn also used to encourage his students, "Only don't know!"

What is this "no knowing" that is so celebrated in Zen?

As an English, philosophy, and Zen teacher, I have a hearty appreciation of language, definitions, and concepts. Indeed, each is an important aspect of the Dharma, the Buddha's teachings.

But the Dharma really comes alive when we acknowledge the limits of our knowledge. As we read in one koan, "we can only know our consciousness till now." Our ideas about things are always retrospective. In this moment, there is something arising that we have never known. 

It is humbling and wonderful to acknowledge how limited our knowledge is even of ourselves. Though we may know the dictionary definition of "I", we, like Bodhidharma, may not fully comprehend what this little letter "I" refers to. The 10th most used word in the English language becomes a dharma gate inviting us to look more deeply.

Like Bodhidharma, we all know our names. But as Shakespeare wrote, "What's in a name?" My name is Michael. But who is Michael? What is in this name other than letters? What does it point to? I can go on listing attributes, but every attribute is a relationally designated and impermanent characteristic. For example, I am a teacher only because I have students. No students, no teacher. So being a teacher is not something that exists intrinsically in my essence. Identities are provisional, born out of changing relations. Is there something that is just "me"?

Though it may have seemed dismissive and strange, Bodhidharma responded to the Emperor from a deep place. What carries this body around? "No knowing." And Fayan answered Dizang from a deep place. Rather than add anything extra, he let wandering speak for itself.

In Zen, "no knowing" is not the non-existence of thoughts or of knowledge. I know my name and birthday. I also know what I think of wandering. (I often find it quite pleasurable, especially in the woods or in ancient cities, and sometimes in my refrigerator!) Both Bodhidharma and Fayan could have told entertaining stories in response to their questioners. That is what is customary, after all. If Bodhidharma were worried about what Emperor Wu thought of him, Bodhidharma might have shared a story. Even if we are not sure about something, we tend to cover up our confusion by filling the space with stories.

But Bodhidharma and Fayan chose not to. This is because they were answering questions on a different level from our ordinary way of interacting. Their not knowing was not some kind of blankness or confusion. It was not the inability to recall facts. Rather, it was an acknowledgment that our concepts are provisional. In no longer preferencing knowledge over this sensory-world, we open beyond our conceptual maps to immeasurable reality. And it's not that this is inherently better than our conceptual maps nor of a different nature, but there is liberation in no longer being held hostage by thoughts.

When we get tangled in conceptions, we become blind. If we think we already know who our partners are, we may take them for granted and pay less attention to the emerging, magical presences before us. If we think we already know the flavor of our tea, we may never taste it again. If we think we already know who we are, we may never awaken to our true nature (which is no nature at all). As Barry Magid writes, "We must center our practice not on coming up with new answers to our questions, but on bringing to light the old answers we carry around inside us and which form the hard shell of Self that stands between us and Life" (Ending the Pursuit of Happiness, 150). No knowing means opening up beyond our ideas to how things are in this very moment.

There is an ancient Chinese story that illustrates how thoughts are just thoughts. Once there were a farmer and son who had a stallion who helped the family plow the fields. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away? What terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. Who knows?” A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a wild mare back to the farm as well. The neighbors proclaimed, “Your horse has returned and brought another horse home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. Who knows?” Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break  the mare, and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. Who knows?” A few weeks later, war broke out and soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son who was still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. Who knows?”

Like Socrates, the mark of the father's wisdom is his willingness to acknowledge that there is a bigger picture that we humans cannot comprehend, and that everything changes. The neighbors jumped to conclusions that did not prove to be true. Still, you have to give them credit for not getting stuck on their previous notions. Imagine if the neighbors had felt certain that they were right and then defended their points of view. "Of course it is bad news that your son broke his leg! Have you no compassion or love? We should take your child from you!" When we stake out a position, even when evidence suggests that there is more to the story, we often blindly defend our previous claim. There is even a name for this: confirmation bias. We can go on endlessly marshaling facts to support our point of view, even though there may be other valid ways of interpreting the situation, and even as the situation changes. Wars are waged when both sides are certain they are right.

Of course, we are the neighbors in this story. We are the ones who jump to conclusions. When we pay attention to how the mind works, we eventually see that our thoughts are just thoughts, and they, like all of our perceptions, are incomplete and biased presentations of an incomprehensible mystery. There are actually no fixed, intrinsic essences anywhere that we can pin down.

This does not mean that we can't know things provisionally. It was fine for the neighbors to state their reactions. Not knowing does not mean we have to abandon knowing what a red light means while we are driving. We need to differentiate between vegetables and weeds. We should not give up our sense of what is beneficial and harmful, nor of what is right and wrong. Without words and letters, concepts and facts, we could not survive, never mind be of service.

But imagining that our conceptions capture fixed essences or that they are in some way absolutely true closes our heart-minds to infinite possibilities. Most painfully, when we get lost in our thinking, we obscure our innate intimacy with the world.

Knowing is like a wave on the surface of the ocean. These waves are the relative truths or conceptions that we use to navigate the world. We need them to survive and distinguish skillful from harmful actions. These waves are sometimes beautiful, like a poem, and sometimes terrible, like a desire for revenge. But waves are also empty of fixed essence and ever-shapeshifting. They exist provisionally. For us human beings, such relative truths are a consequence of having brains and are not a problem unless we get lost in them. Then they can blind us to the depths of existence and make us feel disconnected and empty. Unfortunately, this is what usually happens! 

It is helpful not to be too attached to particular wave formations. Let them come, and let them go. Whether it is some sexy sense of self or a hateful condemnation, just "open the hand of thought" (Uchiyama). In letting waves simply come and go, we find ourselves opening beyond the waves to immeasurable depths. These depths are not merely another idea but are boundless reality manifesting as our life -- an intimacy beyond all compare.

This is zazen.

Nourishing Bodhisattva Practice

what to do with your goat in a drowning world

hear the helicopters come over the roof
water's up to my attic windows
and I'm stuck here with my goat
I can see my neighbor in the hole on his roof
he's got two dachsies and a tomcat
just across the rushing river is his sister
she's cradling her baby and a rooster
circling helicopters circling helicopters
will take me but not my goat
will lift me up from muck and flood
but they won't take my neighbor's dogs or cat
or his sister's baby's rooster
helicopters overhead nation to the rescue
take the people damn their friends
I'm not going without my goat
he's not going without his pets
baby won't leave without her rooster
lord oh lord why don't we have an ark
that's the helicopters leaving
that's the nation to the rescue
leaving us here in the dark
             - Andrei Codrescu

Buddhists are called by compassion to alleviate suffering in the world. While there are innumerable forms this practice can take, two that I have explored are social justice and environmentalism. But anyone who has dared to turn toward these issues can easily feel overwhelmed, like the tide is literally and figuratively rising around them, and, as a way of feeling better, slip back into denial.

For me, these issues sometimes seem utterly overwhelming and intractable, especially in the face of a White House that is so regressive. Though I may put solar panels on my house, if the Trump administration simultaneously denies the reality of global warming, pulls out of international climate agreements, and boosts coal and oil production, I can feel defeated. And as a teacher, though I may help a Latin American or Black student advance into a higher level English class, if more aggressive border patrols separate migrant families from one another and children die in record numbers while in detention, I begin to feel hopeless.

In the face of such overwhelming odds, it is tempting to turn away from these issues to avoid feeling so disheartened. We may thus swing like pendulums from feeling motivated and taking actions to feeling overwhelmed and disengaging. In moments of overwhelm, we may tell ourselves, "it's all just too much. There's actually nothing we can do to prevent institutional racism and the destruction of our planet. It's inevitable." We may even pretend that our "Buddha-nature" liberates us from caring. But this is a misunderstanding of our Buddha-nature.

As I have described, if our insight into emptiness is genuine, our compassion naturally increases. We are all interwoven. We are all part of the same systems. We breathe the same air. In awakening to the inherent interconnectedness and beauty of the world, we can't help but be moved when we see what we love being harmed. Though sometimes it offers temporary relief from this world on fire, escapism is ultimately no refuge from what actually is. If our practice is authentic, withdrawal will, in time, give way to a more honest sense of co-responsibility every time we hear about the disproportionate imprisonment and poverty you of people of color, about historic storms flooding our cities, or about the eventual potential destruction of civilization due to global warming. This sense of co-responsibility is not a flaw in practice. It is our compassion urging us to save all beings.

But how can Buddhists stay engaged with social and environmental causes in a sustainable and effective way given how intractable the issues appear? I decided to write this post for myself as encouragement in the face of tough odds. I hope that some of my advice to myself will be of some use to you.

First, for me, Facebook is not nearly enough to nourish or carry out activism. Social media stirs us into a frenzy with its extreme headlines, but the most common outcome is that I react to a few posts, maybe write one myself, and then slip back into feeling overwhelmed.

In terms of inspiring effective and persistent activism, we might begin by spending more time appreciating what we actually love. We are, for example, more inspired to protect nature when we remind ourselves of how much we cherish being in it. I'm lucky. My father took me on a tour of many of our nation's parks when I was young and brought us mountain climbing every year. I vividly recall him standing on top of mountains looking over valleys of fall foliage with tears in his eyes. My love of nature was implanted early. But in our high-tech, busy society, it is easy to lose touch with nature and our love of its beauty. We need to nourish this love. Take walks in a park among the trees. Sit on a bench and listen to the birds sing and the wind in the leaves. Watch chipmunks scurry through the ivy and chirp at one another. Listen to children play in a green field. Remember that this is their world too. By being attentive in a meditative way in the real world, by "practicing" being awake to what surrounds us, we find our inspiration to save all beings. And we can cultivate this appreciative attention on the cushion practicing zazen. There’s nothing that sustains me more than this.

Another way to nourish ourselves is to join with others doing the same work. In a culture where things may be going in a direction with which we do not agree, we can feel like whatever we do is, as one friend put it, "a squirt gun in an inferno." And we can feel quite alone, without a clue what to do. But when we join with others, we get ideas and energy from one another. Each of us can carry part of the load. This gives us hope. Thousands of buckets of water just might make a difference.

Morning Star Zen Sangha, my practice group, is initiating "Bodhisattva Practice Group” to choose a few local actions to do together. It is easier to live according to our vow to save all beings when we are supported by others with similar values. There are so many organizations and people doing excellent work. We can carry out local projects with them like challenging school boards to address the achievement gap, picking up trash off the beach, or gathering signatures for more renewable energy. Perhaps most inspiringly, when we join with others, our efforts add up. Many drops become a wave.

If our sanghas align in practice but less in activism, joining other organizations can help. Groups that advocate politically offers us a personal hope that we can sway public policies in an altruistic direction. Eli Broad offers democratic engagement as the most effective and empowering means of joining with others to transform a society. He writes in the New York Times, "When a society helps people through its shared democratic institutions, it does so on behalf of all, and in a context of equality.  Those institutions, representing those free and equal citizens, are making a collective choice of whom to help and how.  Those who receive help are not only objects of the transaction, but also subjects of it -- citizens with agency.  When help is moved into the private sphere, no matter how efficient we are told it is, the context of the helping is a relationship of inequality:  the giver and the taker, the helper and the helped, the donor and the recipient." While democratic institutions may not always deliver on our hopes, actively participating on the local, state, and national level offers the real opportunity for our society to live up to our ideals. And when we do so with coalitions, our voices multiply and reverberate.

Another thing I have been reflecting on is how our mindfulness can help us attend to issues one moment at a time. For example, we might notice the way we casually buy, use, and "recycle" plastic. But most plastic that we drop in the recycle bin is not actually recycled, and huge amounts of it end up in the oceans, dissolving and entering our food chain. (Turns out things actually are interconnected!) When we see how much we waste and the harm it causes, we can attentively curb our waste. These commitments, when shared among friends, begin to feel meaningful, like maybe we can turn the tide.

Finally, I need to remind myself to notice successes, not just failures. Even though there are many people who may buy styrofoam cups, if I don't buy one, there is one less cup for a whale to swallow. As a child, my daughter used to take the rings that held six-packs of cans together and cut them so they would not strangle sea turtles and birds. We can all become children again, taking great care of what we naturally love and feeling good about the small things we are doing. After all, each being we save is a universe unto itself!

So spend time appreciating what you love, join with others to take action, and celebrate the successes along the way. Most fundamentally, we need each other if we hope to save all beings. If we are left alone on the roof of a house and the flood waters rise, we will not be able to save ourselves, never mind those we love. But if we can build bridges to one another, we can save all beings, one being at a time.

Buddha's "Freed from Pleasure and Pain"

In the Bahiya Sutta, a wise yet humble devotee named Bahiya loses his confidence in his practice and seeks the Buddha. When he finds him, he asks three times, "Teach me." Buddha's response helps Bihaya realize and transcend the relative and absolute truths.

Buddha says, "Herein, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: 'In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.' In this way you should train yourself, Bahiya. When, Bahiya, for you in the seen is merely what is seen... in the cognized is merely what is cognized, then, Bahiya, you will not be 'with that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'with that,' then, Bahiya, you will not be 'in that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'in that,' then, Bahiya, you will be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two. Just this is the end of suffering.... freed from form and formlessness. Freed from pleasure and pain."

What does it mean to be "freed from form and formlessness"?

It is important to realize the context of the Buddha's teachings. Like many people of our time, in ancient India people believed in a self with an intrinsic essence. It is true that each of us has a different story that we might say makes us who we are, and we must honor one another's stories. They deepen our compassion for ourselves and one another, even inspiring us to alleviate suffering in the world. Also, without our "relative thinking" in which we differentiate one self (or object) from another, we could not distinguish poisonous weeds from food. We would not know what to eat when we were hungry. Relative truths help us distinguish me from you and this from that. We need our relative truths, our conceptions of reality, to survive.

And, though these relative truths are helpful and necessary, they are only relative truths that are impermanent and relationally defined. Each "self" is constantly in flux and therefore has no unchanging essence. Each entity is also a dependent arising, existing in dependence on other factors, and therefore without any intrinsic essence. This lack of an unchanging, intrinsic essence Buddha called "anatman," or "no self." It is this perspective that we refer to as the absolute truth in Mahayana Buddhism.

The absolute truth is offered as medicine for people who suffer as they defend their egos, their senses of self, from inevitable change and decay. We all grow old, sick, and die. We often speak of the absolute by saying, "no." As the Heart Sutra states, from the absolute perspective there are no forms, and there is no suffering.

Both the relative and absolute expressions are true. Most western philosophers would say this is not possible. There cannot both be form and no form. After all, the rule of non-contradiction says that since these statements countermand one another, these statements cannot both be true. Hamlet's response is best: "There are far more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

When we get a glimmer of both sides of the coin, the mind tends to flip-flop between yes and no, between either this or that, between form and emptiness. We can easily get caught in either the relative side or the absolute side of the dharma, then deny the other side of the coin. Or we can get caught in seeing both sides of the coin. And this is where Buddha met Bahiya. Ever the skillful teacher at meeting students where they are, Buddha's counsel points beyond the paradox.

In actuality, "relative and absolute are altogether blended" (Robert Aitken, The Mind of Clover). Put differently, though the relative and absolute truths are both true, they are also just constructs pointing beyond themselves to the great reality, and in that sense, neither is true. Zen itself is a human creation to help reveal our true nature, which is no nature at all. Things neither exist nor don't exist. There is no suffering, no cause of suffering, nor is there not suffering, nor no cause of suffering.

When we are freed from all dualities, life whispers in the trees, dances like statues of stone. There are no essences to be found anywhere, and still, there is this "dream," like shapeshifting clouds in the sky, like rainbows, like bubbles in a stream.

All we must do is receive things exactly thus, receive what is sensed without adding anything extra, think our thoughts without adding belief or disbelief, open our heart-minds without investing any fixed identity anywhere. Here self and other are the same, and both fall completely away.

Everything is exactly as it is. Emptiness is exactly form, form exactly emptiness. Practice just this, Bahiya. Just this. Free from form and formlessness, free from pleasure and pain.

Mono No Aware, Compassion for Life's Poignancy

My son is graduating from high school. He is my second and last child. My daughter graduated a few years ago and is in college. Soon, my wife Sandra and I will be empty-nesters. 

As part of a graduation present, I digitized a collection of videos from when my kids were young. Last night I watched those videos for the first time. 

Every parent thinks this, but in my case, it is true: my children were the cutest, most adorable creatures to ever walk the face of the earth.

Now, they are both quite mature adults, and they are headed into this world to make their mark. I am in awe of them both. I won't go on bragging about them. Not particularly seemly. But I am very proud. 

And I am also sad. 

A poignant nostalgia swept over me watching those videos as I transferred them to USB's to share with them. How I longed to kiss their rounded cheeks once again. The videos were filled with laughter and adventures -- trick or treating tigers and princesses, Godzilla destroying cities made of blocks, dances in puddles in summer rain, first bike rides and roller skates. Exhausting as those years may have been, I was fueled by love to engage with these two sparkling singing dancing laughing children. We played hide n' seek in the graveyard. We did treasure hunts and built ships of driftwood by the ocean. And somehow, without consciously thinking it, I felt that this family constellation would last forever. 

But now my son is off to drive across the country alone. He'll camp and hike in national parks across America. It's quiet here at home. And I am so deeply aware of how things change, of how everything is impermanent. 

My students at school also graduate and move on. I have been teaching for about 24 years. That's 24 classes of graduating seniors whom I have cared for who resettled across the world. And every year at the end of the year, I feel that goodbye.

Closer to home, both of my parents have died. I sometimes visit their graves. I can no longer ask them what I was like as a boy or where we first went biking together. I have only my own memories to remind me. And I feel memories of them slipping away. Of the many years we spent together, my mind only contains fragmented images, a few archetypal stories. These people I loved are gone. 

I am reminded of Dogen offering incense after his mother died, watching the smoke rise and ashes fall. We are touched by impermanence every moment of every day. So many moments coming and going, and we can't hold on to any of them. The present keeps slipping away. 

Sometimes it feels like the whole world is slipping away. As Buddha said, "All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature of change; there is no way to escape being separated from them"  (Upajjhatthana Sutta).

I suspect that at some point in life, all of us deeply realize that we are always saying goodbye, always parting with people, pets, places, and moments we love. 

The Japanese have a term that resonates with me. It is "mono no aware" (物の哀れ), an awareness and deep feeling of the impermanence of things that contributes to a poignancy and wistfulness at their passing, as well as a more lasting, deeper sadness about the transience of life itself. This awareness is revered as a form of deep appreciation. 

I think Americans are a bit ashamed of sadness when it comes. Kids, especially boys, are often bullied when they cry. All of us share our happy pictures on Facebook. "Look how happy I am!" I think maybe we identify happiness with success. So it has been a process for me to learn to appreciate sadness too. I think we in the US can learn from "mono no aware." It is so honest. Life is beautiful, and we lose everything we love. Cut off sadness and we cut off appreciation itself.

Even sadness is a dharma gate. When it arises, if we deny its presence, we cut ourselves in two. When we accept this touching emotion in ourselves, we open through it to the world as it is, present in these dewdrops of tears. We can be whole. 

And when we accept sadness in ourselves, we are more likely to accept sadness in others, making us more compassionate as well. After all, everyone is always losing people, things, and moments they love. We have this in common.

New moments are arising, and in these new moments we find the seeds of the past blossoming. In a very real way, nothing is ever lost. The past, present and future all exist here in the present. And still, everything is changing. The specific things that brought us joy disappear, and we feel their loss. So the joy we felt in the past becomes sadness now. And the joy we feel now is part of the sadness to come. Past, present and future are intertwined in the human heart. If we can open ourselves, we find all beings residing there. 

My son is beginning to pack his bags for his trip. I wish him great joy and adventure, not to mention a safe trip (I am a father after all). And as he drives away, there will be tears of love on my cheeks. 

First Steps on the Path of Liberation for All

Racism in America is one of our nation's collective traumas. 

Racism is a particularly potent form of intersectional oppression that results in disproportionate levels of poverty, incarceration, and suffering for people of color.

We feel the trauma of racism in many different ways depending in part on how we identify. The feelings that arise are dependent on our circumstances, but we all suffer.

Sometimes white people have the courage to turn toward the trauma of race in America. It is common in these moments to feel overwhelmed by the scope and history of the problem and by the intensity of feelings involved. Therefore, even well-meaning white people sometimes neglect the simmering pain caused by racism in America and deny our own complicity. But we pay prices for this, including disconnectedness from the lived experiences of people of color and disconnectedness from our own hearts. 

People of color do not have the same freedom to take breaks from consciousness of racism. Systemic racial oppression affects their daily lives. It is a form of "white privilege" to be able to turn away, though this privilege is also a cause of blindness and isolation.

As Zen practitioners, we are willing to experience great turmoil while seeking liberation for ourselves. In the Gateless Gate, Mumon comments that while working with mu, "If you really want to pass this barrier, you should feel like drinking a hot iron ball that you can neither swallow nor spit out." Many Zen practitioners are ready to endure the fiery intensity of being thrown in the furnace again and again for their own liberation. Should we not also be willing to drink a hot iron ball that we can neither swallow nor spit out for the sake of collective liberation?

We are deeply interwoven. As such, we actually cannot only heal ourselves. We are made of one another as much as we are made of the air we breathe. Our practice must include all beings. 

I like to think that many Zen practitioners aspire to save all beings, but many of us just don't know where to begin when it comes to addressing racism in America. How do we transform our vow into practice? We may need some kind of inroad to engage. 

Fortunately, there are teachers like Rev. angel Kyodo williams pointing the way. I recently read her inspiring and challenging piece, Your Liberation is on the Line. Then I read it again. And again. 

Based on an essay by angel Kyodo williams, here I offer an entry point for white people to practice actively anti-racist meditation. I adapted a few passages from her piece that I found particularly clear, inspiring, and challenging, and I offer a few thoughts on how we might work with them on the cushion and in the world.

I selected a few brief passages that inspire and challenge me as a white person, so I don't claim these are universal instructions for practice. But I hope these pointers offer at least a possible first step for some Zen practitioners to engage in this work of healing ourselves and our wounded society. 

We can think of these selected passages as flashlights illuminating aspects of reality that we must learn to see and address if we hope to attain liberation together. 

Selection 1: "Obscuring the path of liberation for us all, simply put, is race." 

A few thoughts on how we might work with sentences like this in our practice. For me, it is helpful to meditate with short, clear pointers. So we could rearrange the above sentence into the statement, "Race obscures the path of liberation for us all." Then we can sit in shikantaza, in "no knowing" and with curiosity, and drop this statement into our open mind, reflect on its meaning, and see what arises. 

First, there will be an interpretive quality. In what way might race obscure the path of liberation for us all? We might think of the history of our nation, including slavery, segregation, and discrimination. We might think of contemporary racial disparities such as the educational achievement gap (which Kendi appropriately renames the "opportunity gap"), or the school to prison pipeline. Perhaps we hear about how a predominantly white community objected to an oil pipeline running adjacent to their water source, so the Federal government ran it adjacent to a nearby Native American community's water source, against their wishes. 

Or maybe we hear a personal story from an Asian American student about how someone yelled from a passing car, "Go back to China!" Now that student is scared to walk outside. Perhaps we see a video of another Black person brutally murdered by the police, or watch 13th, the documentary about disproportionate incarceration rates of Black people. With a little attention and research, it becomes clear that race obscures the path of liberation for people of color. 

Soon, we might notice feelings arise. Maybe we see our own shyness (or over-enthusiasm, or fear, or whatever arises) when around people of different races. Maybe we feel righteous anger or a deep sense of guilt about our nation's systemic oppression of people of color. Or maybe what arises is dismissiveness, deadness, or defensiveness, such as, "this isn't my fault!" or, "yes, that's an issue, but there's nothing I can do." There is even a term coined by Robin Di'Angelo for the reactivity that often arises, inhibiting white people's freedom to engage: "white fragility." I might call it "self-centering," a kind of reactivity that makes listening difficult. Even centralizing white fragility can become a distraction from seeing what is beyond white narratives. Perhaps we are beginning to notice some of the ways our own liberation as white people is also on the line. 

Zen practice is staying present with whatever arises. So whatever comes, our job is to bear witness, then drop the sentence again into our practice: "Race obscures the path of liberation for us all." And don't turn away. 

What we are doing is allowing reactions to arise and dissipate, just like in any meditative practice. Most essentially, we are practicing staying with the issue. We are developing our endurance in staying with a potentially triggering subject so that we can remain present with it in the world. We are allowing our hearts to break open. 

As we leave the cushion and enter the busy world, we can continue to recall the sentence, "race obscures the path of liberation for us all," whenever we can. Then we awaken to what is present in the world. 

Moment after moment, just by raising the statement with awareness, we begin open beyond our own denial, blindness, fixed ideas, theories, and reactivity into what is actually happening. We see that our initial ideas were just the tip of the iceberg. We begin to awaken to what is present, moment after moment. Back and forth, from stillness on the cushion to the activity of daily life, this practice develops. We might hold just this single statement for a month or more. We can allow it to illuminate aspects of reality and our hearts that we had not been willing or able to see before. 

Selection 2: "You cannot possibly understand the nature of your mind without understanding the nature of the collective mind. And in this country, the nature of the collective mind is oppression. It is white supremacy. It is patriarchy. That is what we were born into. We’ve internalized the idea that we should be divided, that we should be separated, that we are different, that we are better, that someone’s less than, that I am less than. We were partitioned, separated from one another and from our birthright. This disease keeps us from fully knowing each other, from seeing each other."

For me, the heart of this passage is the tragic notion that "we've internalized the idea that we should be separated." This statement is a call to be aware of the working of our own heart-minds. 

While meditating, we can reflect on the notion that "we believe we should be separated," and see what arises. In what ways might it be true? Perhaps what will arise first is defensiveness. "I have friends who are not my race." Or "I don't actually believe we should be separated. This is just the society we inherited." Another common defensive reaction among white people is to think, “actually I think we are all the same. I am not racist, and that is all that matters.” But this color-blindness dismisses the systemic racism that segregates us. Just notice all the forms of dismissiveness and denial that may arise. 

Or maybe what comes first is grief over the way we are so often separated by race, the way we are so often cut off from one another in our communities. Or perhaps we feel ashamed as we notice the previously unconscious stereotypes that we project onto people of different races to justify our segregation. 

Whatever arises is where we begin. As Rev. angel Kyodo williams writes, "If you are caught up, fixated on being a victim, or on the idea that you should just be guilt-ridden and there’s nothing you could possibly do to redeem yourself, wherever you are caught up, wherever you are stuck, wherever you are bound—this is not cause for concern. This is not cause for you to give up. This is exactly where your path begins." We just allow ourselves to see our own minds. We bring awareness to these patterns in our minds. 

What happens if we bring this practice phrase into our lives in the world? Can we begin to see the ways that we act on our belief we should be separated? Can we begin to witness our own blindnesses, the ways we may turn away from people because we think they are different from us, the ways we withdraw, the ways we judge, and the ways we segregate? Can we let ourselves feel the wound of this separation? Can we begin to see the ways that we have divided ourselves from ourselves, and the ways we are complicit in this division? 

Selection 3: "Every single one of us must be, by way of our commitment to liberation, committed to being the cure."

Here we find our great Zen vow to save all beings. And here we find our bodhisattva vow to take personal responsibility for improving the way things are. 

Again, while sitting, we can abbreviate this phrase and raise it in our minds. "Be the cure." Then watch what arises in response to this call to action. 

Perhaps we first feel overwhelmed. "How can I possibly cure racism in the world?" Or we might feel inspired. "Yes, I must deal with this problem to help us all heal, including myself." Maybe we even start making plans. 

Allow the phrase to drop into practice again. 

Then bring this practice phrase off the cushion into our lives. As we hear reports of another Black man murdered by the police, raise the phrase, "Be the cure." As we read about for-profit prisons that incarcerate Black people at a much higher rate than white people, reflect, "Be the cure." As we recognize inequitable outcomes for Black and Latin American people in the environment, education, housing, lending, income, and healthcare, "Be the cure." As shyness, over-enthusiasm, or fear affect our behavior with a person of a different race, think, "Be the cure." 

So what does “be the cure” mean? We each have to research and look with our own open eyes for what opportunities exist in our lives. I think the key here is that addressing racism involves both the “internal” work of facing the racist ideas in ourselves and the “external” work of changing policies that lead to inequitable outcomes for people of color. 

We can’t fix everything at once, but we can do what we can, one moment at a time. Without knowing the outcome, we simply take the next step, whether it is studying systemic racism, calling a representative, making a donation, joining a protest, voting, or reaching out when we otherwise might turn away. 

Without knowing in advance exactly what we will do or how things will turn out, we can be awake to injustice and commit to being the cure, one moment at a time. 

In this together

Rev. angel Kyodo williams writes, "It comes down to this: if you don’t get on your path, I don’t get to finish mine. It’s an inside-out job—we need both paths. We need self and we desperately need other." I want to heed this call. 

Meditating with these excerpts is just one possible way to begin the work of seeing and addressing injustice. If you are inspired and challenged by these passages, I invite you to practice with them both on the cushion and in the world. 

There are many other ways to begin or deepen the practice of awakening to and dismantling oppressive systems, such as joining actively anti-racist movements. I'd also suggest checking out a number of other books, including So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, Awakening Together by Larry Yang, and Radical Dharma by angel Kyodo williams, Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah. You might find more inspiring passages with which to practice.

Sometimes people imagine that Zen is about personally feeling better, and while that sometimes happens, Zen practice is really about liberating all beings. Where we witness oppression, our vows call on us to open our bodhisattva hearts and alleviate suffering. This is the heart of Zen.