Announcing Living Vow Zen

I am happy to announce a new Zen collective called Living Vow Zen, a group of Zen practice groups (sanghas) with lineage roots in Japanese Soto, the Harada-Yasutani koan curriculum, and Korean Seon. 

We are comprised of three practice groups: Shining Window Sangha, Henry David Thoreau Sangha ("Hank"), and Morning Star Zen Sangha. Bob Waldinger and I are the founding teachers.

Why Living Vow Zen?

According to mythology, in a previous life, the one who would become Buddha reflected that, were he to practice diligently, he could free himself from Samsara in that very lifetime. But rather than practice for his liberation alone, he decided that it would be better to delay his liberation to train for many lifetimes so that he could guide others across the river of suffering to the farther shore.

In his final incarnation, Shakyamuni Buddha was born into nobility and great wealth, but he again renounced that place of comfort when he saw that others in the world were suffering. Once more he vowed to attain enlightenment so that he might conquer suffering not only for himself but for all beings.

Upon awakening, Buddha was true to his vow. He returned to his sangha that he might share with them his teachings. Because of his generosity, Buddha’s awakening reverberates to this day, and it is in the spirit of his living vow that we practice not only for our own awakening but to alleviate suffering in the world. Those of us in Living Vow Zen aim to embody the Mahayana Way by cultivating compassion and wisdom for the sake of all beings. 

All who come and practice even a few times with Morning Star, Shining Window, or Hank may consider themselves part of our sangha, and everyone's participation is valued and appreciated. Everyone is welcome in our inclusive Zen community. 

Compassion for Delusions

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of a talk I offered to Morning Star Zen Sangha on January 3, 2018.

In the last meditation period, I was reflecting a little bit on what I was going to talk about, and I thought I would call this talk, “compassion for delusions.” I love that beautiful poem called, “The Ship of Compassion,” by Miaoshi, from a book called Zen Women. She writes, “Words are inherently empty, and yet still I am fond of brush and ink. My mind like ashes after the fire, and yet still I am tied to the world.” There is a kind of samadhi, the cessation of dualistic notions, that we can practice, and yet still I am fond of brush and ink, fond of words and language and thoughts that come. Still I am tied to this world. Still I find myself caring about things. I'm not the stereotypical hermit Zen monk, but a priest who commits to the bodhisattva vow to help heal this suffering world. 

And really, these "two" orientations toward samadhi and saving all beings are not contradictory. For me this practice of sitting is really one of integration, so I have a story I want to read to you. I mentioned before that I was reading this book called Thousand Peaks about Koreans Zen which is one of the tributary streams of our of our Boundless Way Zen lineage. I received transmission from David Rynick who received transmission from George Bowman who received transmission from Seung Sahn. Seung Sahn generously shared his Korean tradition in the United States. So I found myself quite curious, since this is one of the streams of our lineage, to learn more about this Korean heritage, and one does find a slightly different emphasis, or I should say a little bit more of a willingness to acknowledge a samadhi practice that we don't talk too much about in Boundless Way Zen. 

Samadhi is a practice that we fall into. One might deeply unify with the sensation of the breath till even the breath falls away. One might open beyond all thought and unify with the vastness. But there are shadows to cultivating a samadhi practice. One of the shadows is that we can get very attached to ideas of samadhi, and our attachment makes us suffer. Any experience that is different from our idea of samadhi may feel unsatisfying, but life is always changing. We can become more concerned with our own mental state than with everyone's well-being. We become "state-chasers," consumed with desire for our next "fix." We may lose touch with compassion, and our practice can become selfish and cold. 

There’s a wonderful koan in which Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, cannot awaken a woman from a deep, deep samadhi. Buddha’s and bodhisattvas are called to help, and none of them can awaken her. They have to get the bodhisattva of delusive wisdom, who resides in a hell realm, to come snap her out of samadhi to engage her in life again. So we actually need our delusions, we need our thoughts, to exist and take action in this world. Otherwise, we would starve. And we would abandon those we love. 

So for me, practice is about integration. Here's a story that I think helps illustrate this this kind of practice where we can both cultivate some capacity with prajna, with the sword of wisdom that recognizes delusion as delusion, but also that does not abandon the heart of compassion, the heart of care. There's a story of a teacher in the Korean lineage named Won Hyo (from the book Dropping Ashes on the Buddha). One evening as Won Hyo was crossing the desert, he stopped at a small patch of green where there were few trees and some water and went to sleep. Toward midnight he awoke thirsty. It was pitch dark. He groped along on all fours searching for water. At last his hand touched a cup on the ground. He picked it up and drank. Ah, how delicious. Then he bowed deeply in gratitude to Buddha for the gift of water. The next morning when Won Hyo woke, he saw beside him what he had taken for a cup during the night. It was a shattered skull, blood-caked and with shreds of flesh still stuck to the cheekbones. Strange insects crawled or floated on the surface of the filthy rain water inside it. Won Hyo looked at the skull and felt a great wave of nausea. He opened his mouth. As soon as the vomit poured out, his mind opened and he understood. Last night, since he hadn't seen and hadn't thought, the water was delicious. This morning, seeing and thinking had made him vomit. Ah, he said to himself, thinking makes good and bad, life and death. Without thinking, there is no Universe, no Buddha, no dharma. All is one, and this one is empty. There was no need now to find a master. Wan Hyo already understood life and death. What more was there to learn. So he turned and started back across the desert to Korea." 

He was on his way to China to find a great teacher and instead he found a skull. And the skull taught him about thinking. So this is no small insight that Won Hyo had here. What follows it is a kind of arrogance, a sense of “now I've got it all figured out,” and he doesn't at all! But he has had a taste of awakening. He suddenly recognized thoughts as thoughts rather than seeing them as the nature of reality in and of itself. Life and death simply as ideas, good and bad, right and wrong, our most dearly held delusions, he saw them simply as thoughts. This was profoundly liberating. 

You have probably had this experience before. There is great power in seeing mind states as mind states, in seeing thoughts as thoughts. Sometimes just naming them is enough. It's a skillful means. 

The other day I was feeling ashamed about something that's happening in my family life related to my son, a parenting issue, and I felt like a horrible father. I got on my phone between classes and I texted a good friend and I said, "I am so ashamed right now." So powerful to simply name what has arisen as a mind state and recognize it as a mind state. There is a kind of liberation in that. 

It's hard to describe but when you’re sitting on the cushion and you can do nothing about it, sometimes when you recognize a mind-state as a mind-state, you realize that it's not reality. It's something that is arisen as a set of thoughts and feelings that have taken possession of the heart-mind, that have created a kind of small world for us. Sometimes naming that is enough. It just begins to evolve. Just noticing, just paying attention, everything goes its own way. Everything is intrinsically impermanent, empty, without fixed nature, and everything exists in the fabric of the whole universe. When we name these claustrophobic mind states, sometimes they just open up and we see, this is a mind-state. Sometimes they evaporate, like what happened here to our ancestor Won Hyo. The mind-state utterly evaporated. Great clarity! Suddenly, pure presence, the skull neither good or bad, just the sound of water. 

This is the liberating truth that he woke to in that moment, the falling away of mind and body, the falling away of differentiation, the falling away of good and bad. A kind of existence before thought. 

Now to get stuck to this mind state of "beyond good and bad" is just another mind state. It’s a hell-cave. Like for the woman stuck in samadhi, nothing can happen from this place. We are of no service to the world. It is of course quite compelling. There is a part of me that has the stereotypical mountain monk in him, the hermit, the one who wants to go find a cave in the mountains just like so many of these teachers, to go tuck myself away and practice in nature, no more worrying about the struggles of society. This is the recluse, the practice of the arhat, where practice is not concerned with saving all beings or with engaging in the world but simply concerned with one's own personal salvation.

Awakening to the true nature of reality is a kind of liberation. When we taste it we feel that freedom. We may find ourselves feeling somewhat attached to it and abandon the search for a teacher, abandon care about the suffering in the world as we simply want to give it up. 

But our ancestral teacher goes on. After his return to Sila, Won Hyo’s activities became more and more unorthodox, and the following encounter happened. “There was a very famous monk in Sila, a little old man with a wisp of beard and skin like a crumpled paper bag. Barefoot and in tattered clothes, he walks through the town ringing his bell, calling ‘dae on, dae on, dae, on.’”  It means great peace and happens to be David Rynick’s given Buddhist name. “‘Dee on, don't think. Dea on, like this. Dae on, rest mind. Dae on, dae on,’ he called. Won Hyo heard of him and one day hiked to the mountain cave where the monk lived. From a distance he could hear the sound of extraordinary lovely chanting echoing through the valleys, but when he arrived at the cave he found the master sitting beside a dead fawn weeping. Won Hyo was dumbfounded. How could an enlightened being be either happy or sad since in the state of Nirvana there is nothing to be happy or sad about and no one to be happy or sad? He stood speechless for a while and then asked the master why he was weeping. The master explained, he had come upon the fawn after its mother had been killed by hunters. It was very hungry, so he had gone into town to beg for milk since he knew that no one would give milk for an animal. He said it was for his son. ‘A monk with a son? What a dirty old man,’ people thought, but someone gave him a little milk. He had continued this way for a month begging enough to keep the animal alive, then the scandal became too great and no one would help. He had been wandering for 3 days now in search of milk. At last he had found some, but when he returned to his cave the fawn was already dead. ‘You don't understand,’ said the master. ‘My mind and the fawn’s mind are the same. It was very hungry. I want milk. I want milk. Now it is dead. Its mind is my mind. That is why I am weeping. I want milk.’ Won Hyo began to understand how great a bodhisattva the master was. When all creatures were happy, he was happy. When all creatures were sad, he was sad. Wan Hyo said to him, ‘please teach me.'"

I find that to be a very moving story. Won Hyo was open enough to see this great compassionate, awakened heart, a manifestation of non-duality. He saw that love and care and the suffering that accompany them are manifestations of the Dharma, manifestations of non-duality, manifestations of emptiness. Even this mountain monk was filled with love and care. 

So actually, in my view, this represents an integration of samadhi with the heart of compassion. It is actually a ripening of samadhi, samadhi without bounds, samadhi without limits, not simply the samadhi of attachment to peacefulness, but the samadhi of oneness with all beings, the samadhi of interwovenness with this world! We are this world. And this is true whether we are thinking or not. So there is no need to get rid of thoughts. Just wake up! 

We do not exist separately. Our hearts and minds are literally made of this world. Sometimes “what is” manifests as peace: dae on. Sometimes “what is” manifests as great sorrow, as great care, as great delusion. Our practice is not to attain a particular state of mind and reside in it permanently. Our practice is to keep turning toward whatever is. 

When we have moments of great peace, we can appreciate and celebrate the vastness, the great emptiness of our being. Sometimes what appears to us is a starving fawn, great love, and great sadness, and in these moments, this too is the presence of emptiness, of non-duality, of awakening, of our interwoven nature, impermanent and yet manifesting. 

Our job is not to find any fixed mind-state but to continue turning toward whatever is with an open heart. In this way we will find ourselves sometimes called to a practice of silence and peace. Sometimes we need that peace. We need to find a places in our lives where we can recover our strength, be in touch with that part of ourselves that is just nurtured and fed by the simple presence of the sound of heat pulsing through a building, to just receive those moments when they come with great gratitude.

And sometimes the world needs us. It needs us to give back. Nurtured from our practice, called by the world, we get off the cushion and go begging, begging for milk. Whatever little thing we can do. 

Practicing Zen with Depression

All kinds of studies point to the health benefits of meditation, and as a Zen Buddhist priest, I am not surprised. I have long found meditation to be a healing salve. 

Once we taste the fruits of meditation, it can be tempting for spiritual seekers to imagine that it will save us from all forms of suffering, including sadness, anxiety, and mental illness. Using meditation to avoid pain is commonly referred to as "spiritual bypass." But we suffer more when meditation inevitably fails to relieve all pain because we feel like we must be doing it wrong. On top of feeling depressed, we end up feeling like failures in our spiritual traditions. 

But it is not a flaw of practice to feel pain. A few years after his enlightenment, Eihei Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen, may have suffered from "a depression that had been building up through... the dark times he was going through" (Zen Buddhism: A History, Japan, Heinrich Dumoulin, p.62). Hakuin's autobiographical accounts describe awakenings followed by intense periods of suffering, including feeling "abnormally weak and timid, shrinking and fear­ful in whatever I did. I felt totally drained, physically and mentally exhausted.... My eyes watered constantly" (Zen Sickness). Zen teacher Reigetsu Susan Moon has also written extensively about her struggles with depression. And like my mother before me, I’ve experienced dysthymia for stretches of my life. This darkness sometimes feels like a cave of grief. If you are a Zen practitioner who suffers, you are not alone.

I am a Soto Zen priest in Dogen's line, and the emphasized practice in our tradition is a meditation practice called shikantaza. In shikantaza, we sit still, stop talking, and pay attention to whatever arises. Shikantaza, or silent illumination, allows us to open our hearts to life just as it is and recognize our intimacy with all beings, including our pain. Rather than avoid, we turn toward whatever is arising and open our hearts to things as they are. Acceptance of our condition gives birth to compassion. This is no small thing. 

But a complete Zen practice also includes mindfully using skillful means to alleviate suffering in ourselves and in the world. The practices of opening our hearts to things as they are and taking action to improve things may seem contradictory, but they are actually complementary. Bearing witness and practicing skillful means are like the foot before and the foot behind in walking, and a complete Zen practice includes both.

Bearing witness

 

In Zen practice, the first step is to see what is present. From this perspective, whatever arises is a dharma gate. As James Ford writes, "We are completely subject to the vicissitudes of our lives. Zen is not an escape hatch from this. This is the field of enlightenment." Rumi writes, "Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor... invite them in."

Just acknowledging pain can be a relief. Giving ourselves and others permission to be exactly as we are in any given moment is the heart of compassion and opens the door for us to respond with loving kindness. It also invites more openness and curiosity about our experience. 

If depression is severe, it may be counter-productive to meditate. It may be necessary to seek medical attention and postpone practice until symptoms are reduced.* But in my experience, meditating has been beneficial. 

 

In meditation, without trying to control our experience, we compassionately attend whatever arises as a dharma gate, as an opportunity to comprehend the true nature of phenomena. In nondualistic compassion, beyond "is" and "is not," the emptiness of phenomena is revealed. 

As we pay attention, we first might notice our thoughts. For example, we might think that our situation is hopeless and that life is meaningless. Especially while depressed, our thoughts often become sticky as shameful senses of self arise. We may think, "I am a failure," identifying with our feelings. Meditation brings this subtle identification with feeling states into awareness. 

Curiosity helps release our identification with thoughts. We do not need to manipulate the content of our thoughts while meditating. In paying attention without investing in or pushing away anything, we see that even painful thoughts and senses of self come and go. We notice the space between thoughts and begin to recognize thoughts as thoughts rather than as the absolute truth, and this opens up some space between the brain and the skull. "Opening the hand of thought" allows new possibilities to arise. 

For example, we may diagnose ourselves as depressed, but what is depression? Thinking that we already know the answer can exacerbate our suffering. We may think of depression as a static "thing" or mental state that cannot shift or change, especially when we identify with it. One practice is to drop the hwadu, "what is this?" into our meditation and look beyond our thoughts into the sensations of our body for what is actually present. 

We'll likely notice a set of feelings that we associate with depression, but it is important to keep paying attention. For me, one sensation is something like a slowly shape-shifting, dark cloud in my brain. This thick fog pressures and heats my skull. There can also be a heaviness in my heart, hollowness in my gut, and pressure behind my eyes, like I might cry at any moment. But with close attention at the cellular level, I see that sensations keep changing moment after moment. The way I'd describe my experience one second is not exactly the same the next. In opening awareness and seeing that thoughts and even senses of self are ever-changing, we can viscerally experience that depression has no fixed essence. Everything changes. Depression is not a constant expression of some underlying, permanent self. When we are suffering, recognizing impermanence is a relief. 

While sitting upright in the midst of depression, we may also be relieved to see that the fog of melancholia is interpenetrated by the sensory world. Depression is not a solid barrier. It is murky but “translucent.” It is not a wall separating us from the world, but we only comprehend this by looking into that which we hate: the darkness. In actually looking, the landscape of life also emerges, like faint moonlight through clouds. It might be the sensation of the breath, a birdsong, the sound of rain, or a honking truck that opens our awareness. 

Sometimes we describe this openness as "creating a bigger container," but we do not actually create this container. It already exists. We just notice what is already present. Though our narratives tell us otherwise, our inner life is inseparable from the wider landscape of this sensory world. There is only an imaginary line between inside and outside, between self and other, and our intimacy with all beings is no small comfort. Even when we think we are alone, we are held by the boundless universe, and the universe resides in our hearts. 

 

As the koan says, "the clearly enlightened person falls into a well." Falling is an opportunity to awaken again. Everything is changing before our very eyes, there is nothing that we can possess forever, and falling releases us from our attachments, the very ones that have made us suffer again and again. While falling, we can open our eyes to the way things are in this very moment of descent and maybe even pluck a strawberry on the way down.

But there is also the deep, dark depth of a well. And though we may surrender, stay curious, and even appreciate the suchness of cold stone walls, sometimes depression feels relentless. The persistence of depression is not an indicator of a failed practice. While wide awake, we can be trapped in a well! In such circumstances, we may need to do more than meditate to take care of ourselves. When hungry, we eat. When tired, we sleep. When depressed, we employ skillful means to alleviate suffering. This too may be part of an awakened life.

 

Practicing skillful means

 

For me, when depression arises, it is helpful to bow, to accept the guest who is with me in the moment, and to offer a compassionate response. Though it may feel like my fault, I remind myself that nobody is at fault. There is no first cause. This is just how it is, the result of causes and conditions beyond counting. 

 

In these moments, faith sustains me -- faith that even depression is without fixed essence, faith that all things change, and faith in something bigger than my limited karmic self. We don't only save all beings but are saved by all beings. The universe is always holding us compassionately, and we are manifestations of its infinite presence. Like Buddha during the night before his enlightenment, we can touch the earth and feel it supporting us, moment after moment, even in our darkest hours. We can even cry out to this universe to save us, and in the moment of our cry, the universe responds, and the cry itself is the voice of Buddha. 

 

We should not pretend that meditating will cure medical illnesses. It would be absurd to tell someone suffering with diabetes or cancer that meditating would cure them. I would not even suggest that someone suffering from a dehydration headache should meditate to make it go away. The compassionate response is to offer a glass of water. To practice skillful means is to alleviate the causes and conditions that give rise to suffering. This means being aware of our symptoms in part through meditation and mindfully trying remedies to reduce our suffering. 

Depression may have multiple causes, one of which may be biological. In such circumstances, medication may be an important part of treatment. Other skillful means may include taking "opposite action" -- doing therapeutically advised activities even though we may not want to, such as exercising, seeing a therapist, joining sangha-mates to sit or drink tea, and asking for help when hurting. For me, a combination of meditation, exercise, sleep hygiene, counseling, and light-therapy offered some relief. Rather than view these activities as in opposition to some image of "pure" Zen practice, I consider them part of my practice. 

 

Though means vary, depression is treatable. Each of us is different, but through our ongoing attention, we learn which remedies work best. Caring for depression is a compassionate practice that cultivates insight, patience, responsiveness, and loving kindness. As we continue to practice meditation and skillful means, we find that our sense of interconnectedness and compassion naturally extend to all beings with whom we intimately share this life. Caring for depression is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a powerful way to manifest our bodhisattva vow to save all beings. 

 

*Please note that clinical depression is a medical condition. This article is not intended to provide or replace treatment for those who may suffer from clinical depression or other forms of mental illness. If you are in need of help, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to access free, 24/7 confidential service for people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress, or those around them. The Lifeline provides support, information, and local resources. You can also text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 for free 24/7 support with a trained crisis counselor right away. 

Freedom

Diamond shards tap the glass,

and wind whistles through cracks

in the window panes.

I resentfully pull on my boots

to shovel snow.

I call my 9 year old son,

"want to help me?"

"No thanks," he says,

wandering to his room 

to draw a treehouse

build an electric circuit

read Captain Underpants.

I wish I were so free.

But as I zip my puff daddy coat,

my father with his crooked back

steps forth from the darkened room where he sat,

looks into my eyes 

for the first time this visit and says,

"Son, I wish I could join you,"

then turns back into the dark.

I open the door and step into the night.

The snow slants across the streetlights 

and stings my cheeks.

Lightning flashes in the sky,

and thunder rumbles through the darkness.

I carve paths in the snow,

reveling in how

white clouds of powder fly

like angels.

Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution

When we align with our Buddha-nature, we can appreciate our life, just as it is. Our Buddha-nature, or true nature, is amazing beyond description. The word “Buddha-nature” is a pointer to the nondual realization that we are not separate from the universe.

When we lose touch with our Buddha-nature, we are driven by craving in ways that cause ourselves and others endless suffering. To realize our true nature is one way to weaken a cycle of consumerism and exploitation that causes terrible harm and that will otherwise likely be our demise.

There's a difference between needing to have our basic needs met, which our society can and should do for all, and craving -- which is driven by a persistent sense of inadequacy and longing. I just finished reading David Loy's Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis. He reminds us that a cause of this persistent craving is our underlying awareness that we are ever-changing, mortal beings. We long for stability and security, and what we find is impermanence. 

Change and loss is to be expected, but we are surprised every time we face a problem and imagine that we should be able to attain a kind of homeostasis that includes no problems or losses. We fix our leaky roof and think, finally, the house is all set, and the next month, a pipe bursts. We want to feel healthy, but suddenly we get sick. We want our family and friends to be permanent fixtures in our lives, but then we get in an argument, or even more painfully, a loved one dies. Life is actually "problem" after "problem" and loss after loss. The end of our problems is death, which sometimes feels like the biggest problem of all.

One way we deal with this instability is that we try to turn our sense of self into an impenetrable fortress that will not have to suffer change. We may hope to attain some kind of greatness that will define us forever, like the nearly-immortal Achilles in the Iliad. As a young man, I threw myself into training in rowing. Along the way my teams won multiple national and international championships. Interestingly, even at the time, these victories felt hollow because some part of me knew that I am not those victories. I momentarily felt like a winner, but then I lost a race and felt like a loser. 

What I actually loved was the rowing itself, but I never expected it to be a permanent state. Winner, loser... these are senses of self that arise and disappear, just like each moment in our lives. There is no permanent self to be attained, only one sense of self after another, ever evolving based on causes and conditions. Deep down we know this, yet we keep competing with one another for the ultimate victory, chasing after shadows. 

This vacillating sense of self-satisfaction and dissatisfaction leads us to try to create a permanent sense of satisfaction in other ways. One of the most damaging is our desire to accrue wealth. We imagine that if we can stockpile enough resources, we can purchase the fairy tale ending, "they lived happily ever after." For this "American dream," we commit grave harms. Human beings have enslaved one another, displaced indigenous peoples, colonized nations, and stolen and pillaged land for its "resources." We exploit one another and the earth to attain our personal goals. 

Within the United States today, those who are poor (often people of color) continue to suffer environmental injustices as they are forced to live in toxic environments, such as near coal plants that provide energy that is largely consumed by the privileged. This inequity is unfair, and it is incumbent upon those of us with privilege to rectify it. 

But the human appetite for consumption appears insatiable. Every two years, human beings chop down enough trees to cover all of Spain, and an area totaling 22.5 million football fields is desertified every year due to unsustainable, but changeable, agricultural practices. We are connected by an umbilical cord to Mother Earth who sustains our lives, and if we destroy her, we destroy ourselves.

The scientific consensus is that we are reaching critical tipping points in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The arctic permafrost is beginning to melt, releasing methane into the atmosphere, which traps more heat and causes even greater temperature increases than CO2. If this happens on a grand scale (which is likely to happen within the next hundred years if we don't change course), the average global temperature could rise 6 degrees Celsius in as short a period as 15 years. The result would be devastating, including mass desertification, plagues, biodiversity collapse, and the end of human civilization. It could mean the end of all life on this little blue planet. We truly are in this together.

Unfortunately, we seem to be too driven by our craving for permanent states of satisfaction to pause long enough to really take in what we are doing to our planet and to one another. We keep feeding the hungry beast of consumerism in hopes of overcoming our "problems."

But the real problem is the hope to escape our problems through consumption. No matter how much wealth we accrue, this deep sense of inadequacy persists because all of us will still get sick, grow old, die, and lose everyone we love. So we spin the wheel of suffering faster and faster, trying to get ahead. We are actually just digging our own graves, and in the meantime, we forget to appreciate our lives. 

Insanity is sometimes defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Might it be time for us to try something different? 

What we need if we hope to survive as a species is nothing less than a spiritual revolution. We have this remarkable human capacity to recognize the inherent beauty of our lives, instability and all. In Buddhism, we call this inherent beauty our Buddha-nature. 

Ultimately, our Buddha-nature is nothing other than ourselves as we are in this very moment -- the very thing we so often think is inadequate. For me, it is the sensation of my legs resting on the cushion, laptop perched on my lap, breath entering and exiting my lungs, crickets singing in the trees, and cars whooshing along the street. But it is not the concept of these things as separate beings. It is the actual presence of all of these "activities" that make up "my" boundless nature. 

Really this boundlessness is not mine. Buddha-nature belongs to the universe, and we are ephemeral manifestations. 

Our Buddha-nature also includes our "problems," such as a broken heart when someone we love dies. If, rather than trying to avoid such sorrow, I hold it compassionately, like an ocean holding a wave, grief simply arises and falls, revealing its own beauty. 

It turns out there was nothing to fear. "Impermanence" is just this ever-evolving moment. There is something reliable after all. 

Our boundless Buddha-nature is nothing other than things as they are, moment after moment, and when we turn toward this, appreciation and gratitude arise as we feel the intimacy of all beings residing in our hearts. 

We can realize our Buddha-nature by meditating. This realization is transformative. We find in this realization that we are not actually separate from the world. Like grief, separate senses of self may arise like waves in the ocean, but we are also the entire ocean. We are made of the earth and sky, and we will return to them when we die. During our lives, the earth lives in our bodies, the sky in our lungs. We are deeply interwoven with all of creation. In this realization, we find the very joy, connectedness, love, and gratitude we previously sought through egoistic and materialistic pursuits. 

There is nothing we need to do to attain our Buddha-nature. It is already manifesting. But we may need to practice meditation with a group and teacher to realize it. Our true nature reveals itself to us when we are quiet, sit still, and pay attention. Bit by bit, we learn to appreciate this in activity as well. Then we no longer crave to possess more and more of the world; it offers itself to us each and every moment.

As we realize just how intimately interconnected we are with all beings, here we find the love that inspires us to care for all of creation. The air in the sky inhabits my lungs. May it be pure! The rain falling from the sky fills my glass. May it be clean! And I am part of this world, always contributing to its evolution. May I be of benefit! In this way, realization of our Buddha-nature inspires us to care for all beings.

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.