Zen's Bodhisattva Precepts

Many Soto Zen Buddhists take the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts, which are ethical vows we try to uphold. As formulated by Eihei Dogen, they include the 3 Refuges, the 3 Pure Precepts, and the Ten Grave Precepts.

Sometimes Zen practitioners praise enlightenment and imagine that the precepts are expendable guidelines for behavior that enlightened people do not need, but this is actually dangerous. The precepts are a powerful means for us all to practice awakening -- a practice that is never finished.

Ways to Approach the Precepts

As Robert Aitken discusses in his book The Mind of Clover: Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics, we can take three different approaches to practicing the precepts. We can take them literally as statements telling us what we should and should not do. We can also view them compassionately and recognize that we all make mistakes. And we can enact them nondualistically with “don’t know mind," an awareness that opens beyond all ideas, even of right and wrong. 

But here's the key: we actually need all three approaches, or we are likely to get lost. We need the literal view to offer us a sense of direction and wake us up when we are causing harm. But if we only take the precepts literally, we can get lost in fundamentalism and neglect important contextual information. The classic example of someone taking a moral precept too literally is the person who refuses to lie when the Nazis knock on the door looking for Jewish people, condemning those hidden inside to death. Clearly something has gone wrong in our literalism. Additionally, sometimes two precepts may be in conflict. We might indulge our anger and yell at our child for running into a busy street, but our deeper motive is to preserve their life. We can become overly judgmental of ourselves and others if we are too rigid with the precepts. 

Compassion inspires us to honor the precepts out of care for everyone's well-being. We love our neighbors as ourselves. In addition, compassion helps us forgive ourselves for breaking one precept to honor another. We can actually forgive ourselves for lying if it means saving human life. Additionally, we can be compassionate with others who break precepts for we have seen how often we break them ourselves. But if we are only compassionate in understanding why people break precepts, we lose all clarity on what is beneficial and what is harmful. We recall the literal guidelines to help us behave skillfully and reduce suffering, but we hold these guidelines compassionately.

Finally, we practice-realize the precepts nondualistically. Though words fail in expressing nonduality, still, Zen teachers offer pointers. Dogen writes, "To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly" (Genjo Koan). Expressing nonduality in an elegant way, Thich Nhat Hanh writes that "the self is made of nonself elements." We might describe the realization of nonduality as awakening to "thusness," the intimate presence of beings beyond conception. From this perspective, there are no separate beings, and there is not even right or wrong. There is only the no-thing-ness of everything.

Expressed differently, good and bad are merely two sides of one coin. They have no intrinsic essence of their own. Our relative truths are provisional designations that are dependent on changing causes and conditions. Ultimately, as Aitken says, "there is no absolute [truth], and that is the absolute" (Mind of Clover, 110). Everything is shapeshifting. There is nothing that we can hold onto. This lack of absolute truth continues endlessly. So rather than grasp our ideas about right and wrong, we hold our ideas more lightly. If we get lost in fixed conceptual maps, we miss ever-changing circumstances. We are the driver driving straight down a curving road. We must be awake to offer an appropriate, beneficial response. 

And, a person can get lost in "no knowing" too. A total lack of compass points can be dangerous. We need to know which side of the road to drive on, and we need some guardrails to prevent us from veering off course and causing harm. Even "don't know mind" is not the final word in Zen. As Shunryu Suzuki says, "not always so." As we read in the Prajna Paramita Sutra, realization is the absence of any fixation. Any place we get stuck becomes a problem for us. We should not even get stuck in "no knowing" or imagine that there is any fixed state to attain.

Sometimes enlightenment is described as "awakening to nonduality," "opening to oneness," or "realizing suchness," and the path to enlightenment is described as silencing our discriminating (thinking) minds. This basic samadhi practice ostensibly fulfills all the precepts. The argument goes that in a state of oneness, one does not break the precepts because one exists in harmony with all beings, moment after moment. While it is true that we may be able to entrust ourselves to "oneness" when we are doing kinhin, meditating in the zendo, or even instinctively reacting to stop a child from running into a busy street, it is magical thinking to believe that "oneness" upholds the precepts in all circumstances. During World War II, Japanese soldiers described themselves as "at one with killing," and Zen masters encouraged this view, describing meditation in battle as the "highest wisdom of enlightenment" that "preserved the precepts." Causes and conditions (like mob psychology) sometimes inspire harmful actions. We need the literal precepts to ring like bells and wake us up when we are individually or collectively lost. We may be “at one" with our circumstances and still cause grave harm.

Unfortunately, spiritual teachers sometimes imagine that nondual realization (which is little more than initiatory awareness) is the equivalent of enlightenment and automatically honors the precepts even as it transcends right and wrong. Some teachers who are "lost in oneness" neglect ethical guidelines and abuse students, telling them they too should let go of all notions of right and wrong and "be one" with them. They say this nonconceptual "intimacy" is enlightenment itself. One might say about those teachers, "they only behaved that way because they were not actually enlightened." But why do we believe this? Because we conceive that a precept was broken and someone was harmed. "Oneness" is not enough.

Perhaps practitioners imagine that if they allow any view to arise, they will get lost in conceptual maps, but in a mature, integrated practice, duality is no hindrance to nonduality. Even thoughts are "thus." While it is vital to recognize thoughts as merely thoughts if we hope to be free from the tyranny of absolutist thinking, we go too far when we deny the importance of careful thinking when it comes to honoring the precepts. Even Buddha initially rejected women from his sangha. He had to be convinced by Ananda's careful arguments to admit women. We hold all kinds of unconscious biases, and consciously considering the precepts while we interact in this world can help awaken us to these biases. 

The notion that we need to cease thinking to open to oneness, be enlightened, and embody the precepts is an immature view. While students do need to open beyond thinking as part of their development, there is no reason to be rid of thinking. Recognize thinking as thinking, and we are liberated from absolutist ideas. Thoughts are just thoughts, empty of any fixed essence, and utterly dependent on fleeting causes and conditions. Everything shines with Buddha's light, even our ideas. Thinking is just part of the landscape of life. And, thinking carefully is useful.

Another common refrain is that one of the attributes of "the enlightened person" is being satisfied, which means that one no longer breaks the precepts because all immoral actions are born of dissatisfaction. It is true that in pointing toward nondual realization (or the "absolute"), we say there is "no suffering;" suffering has no fixed, intrinsic essence. However, there is also no separate, fixed self. Describing "an enlightened person" runs the risk of projecting limited, fixed ideas about enlightenment into an idealized, separate self that does not actually exist. One consequence of this misunderstanding is that we might compare our experiences to this idolized, imaginary person. If we believe that "realizing oneness" and "being satisfied" define enlightenment, we might abuse ourselves for being upset when we feel wronged. This may be innocuous enough when we don't get the last cookie. But how about when a person is raped or someone they love is taken from them violently? Would we say that they should "be satisfied" or that they are not enlightened? At the very least, this judgmental idea makes people feel unnecessary guilt about their pain, heaping suffering on suffering.

A person who is awake still gets hungry. When we are hungry, we want food. This is an appropriate response. Case 14 in the Blue Cliff Record states: "A monk asked Yun Men, 'What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?' Yun Men said, 'An appropriate response,'" suggesting a more flexible way of thinking about practice-enlightenment. We can even awaken to dissatisfaction. Every phenomenon is a dharma gate, just as it is. The expression that there is "no suffering" is true but one-sided, and we do not comprehend "no suffering" by denying the relative truth of suffering. Indeed, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, without the dust of samsara, there can be no nirvana.

Look closely into whatever arises and see that form is exactly emptiness. Enlightenment is not an individual matter but pervades the entire cosmos, including our dissatisfaction, anger, and broken hearts. Enlightenment does not depend on the contents of our minds. Rather than slipping into denial or self-abuse, we can hold suffering compassionately, look deeply into it, and see that it has no fixed essence, which allows us to care for our pain compassionately as it unfolds. A healthy practice does not encourage spiritual bypass at any level. Please do not use the dharma to dismiss anyone's suffering, including your own. Instead, let each phenomenon be a dharma gate.

So we practice the precepts in three equally important ways, integrating our intellect, compassion, and nondualistic awareness. Like waves, water, and sunlight, these are not mutually exclusive modes of practice. While balancing these approaches to the precepts may sound complicated, essentially we practice the precepts with as much intelligence, compassion, and awareness as we can.

The Three Refuges

In our list of sixteen precepts, the Three Refuges are the first three: we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and sangha.

In a literal sense, we take refuge in the historical Buddha, in his story of enlightenment, which serves as inspiration to us in our practice. 

From the compassionate view, to take refuge in Buddha is to take refuge in ourselves as Buddha. This does not mean that we are separate, fixed identities but that we are each dependent arisings born out of infinite causes and conditions. Each of us is an expression of this buddhanature, though we must practice to realize this.

And nondualistically, we take refuge in realization. Ultimately, there is "no suffering, and no cause of suffering" (The Heart Sutra). We are already free and there is nothing to attain. This is the intimate realization of "things as it is" (to quote Shunryu Suzuki).

Second, we take refuge in the Dharma, or literally, the Buddhist teachings. We allow the teachings to guide our practice and cultivate insight so that we might alleviate suffering. Of course, part of the teachings is to question them and try them for ourselves. 

We can also translate Dharma as "phenomena," things exactly as they are. From the perspective of compassion, we take refuge in the intimate caw of a crow. We take refuge in our own broken hearts. We take refuge in laughing children and "ants and sticks and grizzly bears" ("Dedication," LiVZ liturgy). 

And nondualistically, we take refuge in the exact equality of emptiness and form -- in the way phenomena are boundless and boundlessness is nothing other than phenomena. All phenomena are dharma gates exactly as they are, exactly thus.

Third, we take refuge in sangha, or literally, our Zen practice groups. And what a joy it is to come sit, walk, and bow together. Somehow, almost magically, when we practice with others, our awareness is magnified and our own meditation deepens. Like mirrors, we reflect and hold one another in our practices, and this is deeply nourishing. We can feel held in sangha. One sangha member described sitting together like floating in warm water, and we entrust the ice cubes of our suffering to this larger body, where they slowly melt away. 

Waking up is not easy. It is counter-cultural in a rather materialistic society. And life is sometimes hard. We all can use a little help. One definition of refuge is "assistance in distress." Taking refuge in sangha means giving ourselves a safe haven to be vulnerable rather than needing to protect and defend ourselves all the time and rather than habitually acting on or trying to escape our pain. That which we run from controls us. 

In sangha, we see that our pain can be held by something bigger. As Thich Nhat Hanh said, when we add a tablespoon of salt to a small glass of water, the whole glass tastes bad. When we add a tablespoon of salt to a river, the water still tastes pure. In joining a sangha, we are no longer alone. In our practice, we all support each other by showing up and holding one another in our hearts. 

From the broader compassionate view, our sangha also includes the entire world. Like Avolokiteshvara, we hear the cries of the world and respond with a thousand hands. The world is very much with us, and we are very much with the world. We might notice of the way the earth holds us when we sit and the way the air sustains us when we breathe. We might notice the way our life is sustained by all beings moment after moment, and thus, the world is our refuge.

And nondualistically, there is no separate world at all. There is no self, no other. What language can possibly describe the way all beings reside in our hearts just as we reside in the world?

The Three Pure Precepts and the Ten Grave Precepts

After we recite the Three Refuges, we recite the Three Pure Precepts. The first pure precept is, "I vow to cease from evil." 

For me, it is not helpful to think of evil as some metaphysical entity or devil, though such associations may arise. Rather, evil points to the many things human beings do that cause suffering in the world, and in that sense, evil does exist. 

The ten grave precepts which follow the three pure precepts offer more specific advice on what we should try to avoid in order to cease from evil: killing, stealing, misusing sex, lying, taking intoxicants, slander, praising oneself at others' expense, sparing the dharma assets, harboring ill will, and abusing the three treasures (Buddha, Dharma, and sangha).

Of course, we have to break precepts all the time, so we can't take them too rigidly. For example, the first grave precept states, "I vow to take up the way of not killing" ("Shorter Precepts Recitation," LiVZ Liturgy). But at a minimum, we kill plant life to eat. We must at least harvest grains, fruits and vegetables to live. So how do we practice with the precept of not killing when we must kill to survive? 

For me, first comes the practice of awareness. This is the nondualistic practice of simply being awake to what we are doing. We enter into the suchness of eating where there is no gap between the killer and the killed. Second comes the arising of the precept in my mind. With the awareness that I kill to eat comes the humbling realization that I cannot always uphold the precepts. I know that I have participated in killing, and I know what it tastes like. Unfortunately, I also live in a world where nations goes to war, and my tax dollars are used by my elected government to produce and sell weapons that are used to kill. With acknowledgments of my shared responsibility, remnants of spiritual superiority deflate. I see clearly that I am not above breaking precepts, and when I point my finger in accusation at others, three fingers point back at myself.

This deflation of superiority softens my heart. I see that I am complicit in causing suffering, and I feel compassion for the lives I take. I also feel compassion for all living beings who must kill to survive and for all the living beings who are killed. We are in this together.

This is how the precepts open our hearts to the entire universe that gives and takes life. Out of our practice of awareness of breaking precepts, compassion arises, inspiring us to try to find more skillful ways of behaving to help reduce suffering in the world. For example, I might reduce how much meat I eat or stop eating meat altogether, both of which which would reduce suffering among sentient beings (and help fight global warming).

While we literally try to minimize the killing of beings and the suffering it causes, we can also view these precepts figuratively. Do we subtly kill others' ideas and enthusiasm for life? Do we kill time when we could be appreciating our lives? In what other figurative ways might we interpret each of the precepts? This allows us to work with each of the precepts in all realms of our lives.

So we can hold the precepts not as rigid rules but as reminders to pay attention to our actions. We hold the precepts as literal and figurative compass points that help us wake up to what direction we are actually going. When we see the way we cause harm, this naturally gives rise to a compassionate response and sometimes a course correction. And, we have compassion for ourselves and for all beings in our failures, for we have been humbled. We all cause suffering sometimes. So we atone and start again, our vows renewed. "All evil karma ever created by me since of old, on account of my beginningless greed, anger, and ignorance born of my body, mouth, and thought, now I atone for it all" ("Gatha of Atonement," LiVZ Liturgy). 

While the first pure precept is cautionary regarding causing harm, the second pure precept encourages positive action. The second pure precept reads, "I vow to practice good." Once again we can be guided by the ten grave precepts, which, like the second pure precept, can be re-articulated as positive aspirations. I vow to: support life; be generous; engage in mutually respectful intimacy; tell the truth; nourish my mind and body; speak kindly; appreciate others; share the dharma; be compassionate; and support the three treasures.

The second pure precept sharpens our awareness, deepens our reverence for all life, and encourages beneficial responses and harmony. This precept encourages us to be active rather than passive. We not only cease from causing harm but actively practice benefitting all beings.

This brings us to a deep, synthesizing vow, the third pure precept: I vow to save all beings. Of course upholding all of our vows is impossible. We cannot free or save all beings from suffering. But that is okay. As a high school teacher, I know I can't always engage every student, but I vow to try, and this probably makes me a slightly better teacher for my students. We just vow and do our best. 

So in the literal sense, we make the vow to save all beings. In the compassionate sense, we know we will fail, we forgive ourselves, and we keep trying because we feel for all beings who suffer. Why? Because we too have suffered. And in the nondualistic sense, there are no separate beings anywhere to save. Each of us is inseparable from the infinite universe and is already saved.

Given our flaws and pains, it can be hard to believe the teaching that we are "saved." But as we practice and keep turning toward whatever arises, this teaching penetrates us and we come to see that yes, even our flaws and pains are buddhanature -- perfectly manifesting suchness. We might call this practice-realization. Everything is exactly thus.

You may wonder why this nondualistic realization is important. In one sense, realization has no value outside itself. And, without it, we may find ourselves constantly overwhelmed by our striving and failing. We may burn out. We may find no possibility of salvation. It is salvific for us to feel deep in the marrow of our bones that while there is suffering in the world, there is also no suffering. When we look deeply into suffering, we find only non-suffering elements, just as when we look into the self, we find only non-self elements. We find the universe itself. So we say that samsara is exactly nirvana. Put differently, there is neither form nor emptiness, neither samsara nor nirvana. Just this.

And, though all beings are already saved and perfectly manifest universal enlightenment, still we should save all beings because we all suffer sometimes. Thus we make our bodhisattva vow and honor the precepts.

Opening Beyond Self-Concern

It is pretty easy to get preoccupied with taking care of what we think of as ourselves, and it is important to do so. But we are also one with all beings throughout space and time. Opening beyond self-concern, compassion inspires us to take action to reduce suffering and protect all life. This vow opens us beyond dualistic notions of self and other and includes even those whose actions we consider evil. With deepening compassion, we see that just like ourselves, all beings are manifestations of infinite causes and conditions. "There but for the grace of karma go I." Those who act in cruel ways are suffering from greed, anger, and ignorance and also deserve our compassion, even as we work to prevent them from causing further harm. All beings truly reside in our boundless hearts. The vow to save all beings is a manifestation of our inherent interconnectedness.

Being interdependent, we cannot live in a just society if we participate in unjust systems that result in massive inequities and deplete our environment for future generations. We save all beings by doing what we can to be of benefit. We won't all agree on what should be done, but that is okay. We discern as best we can, and do something. In joining with others with similar goals, we can make an even greater impact.

According to Robert Aitken, "When the members of the Zen Buddhist center act together as bodhisattvas, they generate great power for social change — this is the sangha as the Buddha intended it to be." This is one reason why Morning Star Zen Sangha includes bodhisattva practice. Acting in the context of sangha supports our commitment to saving all beings and heightens our impact.

Fundamentally, the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts help us avoid self-centered, harmful actions and encourage beneficial actions in the service of all beings. They are the ethical commitments that open us beyond self-interested goals and expand our motivation to practice. For example, we don't practice mindfulness only for our own stress reduction but to help us alleviate suffering for everyone in our lives. The precepts invite heightened awareness and offer us means to alleviate suffering, moment after moment.

Zazen and the Precepts

Our formal practice of sitting on the cushion and paying attention helps us wake up when we are tempted to cause harm due to greed, aversion, and ignorance -- our impulses to act in self-centered ways while neglecting to pay attention to how others may feel. Sitting still rather than taking action while possessed by any of these "three poisons" is like pressing a pause button, interrupting our habitual tendencies to cause harm when we are caught up in delusive certainty. As Dogen says, "When we sit zazen, what precept is not observed?" Instead, we simply bear witness to our greed, aversion, and ignorance. We learn to tolerate these uncomfortable feelings. We come to realize that we do not have to act on strong impulses and reactions. These painful feelings do not need to be "fixed" outwardly. We can just let them be, and they eventually pass. Then we can respond more calmly, taking a wider view of the situation than our initial reactions suggest. 

For me, this pause is the key to breaking the cycle of reactivity and harmful actions. This is why we call sitting "practice" and how we practice freedom. We find our freedom in our forms of sitting still, being quiet, and simply paying attention. These forms may feel at first like we are restricted in our behavior, but they are teaching us a deeper kind of freedom. We learn how to watch self-centered impulses without being their slaves. 

The precepts inspire our sitting, which cultivates a deep realization of the emptiness of mental formations and of all phenomena. And so we can see why Hakuin wrote in his Song of Zazen that "Devotion, repentance, training, the many paramitas, all have their source in zazen." The Paramitas are the six perfections, and one of the paramitas can be translated as "morality." The practice of morality is cultivated on the cushion, then brought forth into our lives.

Consciously Practicing the Precepts

You can find two recitations of the sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts in LiVZ's Liturgy Book. You may find it helpful to practice with each of the precepts for a week (or more) each. This would be a 16-week process minimum if you hold one in your heart for a week at a time.

Here are 3 questions you might explore to deepen your practice with the precepts. If planning to work with each precept for a week, you could hold each question in your mind for 2 days. (Or you could double or triple the time -- up to you.) Let the question percolate like a koan as you live you life.

*1) First, how do you interpret the precept? 

Take some time brainstorming what each precept means to you literally and figuratively. For example, what does taking refuge mean to you? Who or what is this "Buddha" in whom you take refuge? What situations in your life are illuminated by the precept? It may be that every moment of our life can be illuminated by each precept.

2) In what ways do you honor and break the precept?

Just let the question arise like a koan as you live out your day. For example, do you take refuge in Buddha while chopping vegetables or while stuck in traffic? Or you might notice the way precepts related to right speech illuminate each word you type in your emails or each word you speak at the checkout counter. And what is it like when you fail to uphold a precept? Please remember, breaking precepts is inevitable. We can be gentle here and just notice without judging ourselves, or if judging does arise, just notice that too. Can you bring meditative awareness to the moment when you break a precept? How does it feel in your body? What is arising in your thoughts?

3) Finally, how does your awareness of breaking precepts affect you?

When practicing with nonjudgmental, open-ended questions, we may learn something that naturally leads us to honor the precepts. Pay close attention to what it feels like to overindulge alcohol, and we may find that the pleasant feelings pass pretty quickly, and the hangover hurts. Pay attention to what it feels like to spread gossip about someone, and we may find that our relationships feel shallow. If you observe that breaking the precept increases unpleasant feelings, what do you suppose drives you to continue to break the precept? Is there some underlying feeling you are hoping to avoid? What happens when you take no action at all or try behaving differently? How does it feel? Can upholding the precept also be a dharma gate for meditative practice?

Of course, some situations may be complicated. We will make mistakes or even be unable to discern in gray areas whether our actions were harmful, beneficial, or both. We may realize we broke one precept to honor another. The precepts are not intended to be hard and fast rules, but being mindful can help inform decisions that alleviate suffering for ourselves and others.

After six days of practicing with each precept, on the seventh day you might speak with a friend or dharma teacher about your experience and what you learned. Remember, the goal is not to come to a judgment about yourself but to describe your experience. 

Afterward, consider composing a sentence or two that you could write in response to the precept -- something that distills what the precept means to you, at least in that moment.

When you have finished practicing with all of the precepts in this way, you might try consolidating them into a guiding ethic and living with that pointer for a period of time. As mentioned above, for me, the precept to save all beings has a way of expressing them all. How about for you? Might you consolidate them in some way and try living according to that vow? This can be a deep process of integration of all of your effort thus far.

Formally Receiving the Precepts in a Jukai Ceremony

Jukai Ceremony, Living Vow Zen

In Living Vow Zen, we suggest sitting with one of our practice groups for a year, and then, if so inspired, students ask their teacher to formally receive the precepts. If approved, students join a precepts study group (some suggested readings are below), practice with the precepts (perhaps as above), and sew a rakusu. After about a year of study and practice, students confirm their intention and request permission from their teacher to join a Jukai ceremony.

Receiving the precepts in Jukai can be a transformative event. When I received the precepts, I cried without knowing why, as if the ceremony were operating on a level below my conscious mind and releasing and fulfilling all kinds of ancient karma. It is different for everyone, but receiving the precepts in a formal ceremony makes our personal vows public in a way that reverberates throughout space and time.

*For another look at practicing the precepts, check out this dharma talk that I offered on 2/8/23: "The Precepts: A Clear View of Muddy Water." 

**For further readings, in the following order, check out Diane Rizzetto's Waking Up to What You Do, Robert Aitken's Mind of Clover; Reb Anderson's Being Upright; and John Daido Loori's The Heart of Being.

Song of my Father

Watching you grow old and die

Was like watching myself vanish --
Your skin like paper,
Your lips thin and chapped,

Your breath a raspy ghost

Who’d lost his way

In a decimated garden.

Your breath used to soar in church choirs

Till your body was ravaged

And despair nearly flung you

Down concrete stairs.

A confused nurse

Who’d stumbled upon you

Asked why you stared

Down empty flights,

Omnipotent and terrified.

She saved your life that day

So that you could die a different death

With 3 sons at your side.

After a life of loneliness and regret,

Your last words 

"I love you"

Spoken so tenderly

Released everything.

Then, your head cranked back and

Your mouth gaping,

Death swept you out the black window.

I kissed your brittle bones.

In the early morning

I walked through golden mist

Hovering over a field of grass.

How was it fair or right

That the world was born again?

Halted by a memory

Fastened to nothingness,

I remembered you, my father,

Forty years before

Standing behind our home

Looking into a weeping willow

Listening to the liquid song

Of a mocking bird.

Nobody but the mocking bird

Can answer my questions now.

Why We Need the Precepts

In a book entitled Zen at War, and in an article entitled Zen Holy War (from which I draw in this essay), Brian Victoria and Josh Baran recount how military victories in Korea, Russia, and China inflated Japan’s national pride and how, during that era, many Zen leaders perverted the Dharma to support blind nationalism and war. Japan's military campaigns were catastrophic, including the massacre of Nanking where Japanese soldiers brutally raped, mutilated, tortured, and murdered "as many as 350,000 Chinese civilians" (Baran). 

Victoria and Baran share numerous accounts of Japanese Zen teachers encouraging Bushido, ostensibly a "Zen" approach to battle that was most famously exemplified by Samurai and Kamikaze pilots. Shaku Soen (1859-1919), who is still venerated in Japan as a great Zen Master, argued that since everything was emptiness, war and peace were identical. This “pernicious oneness” denies moral responsibility. Soen considered any opposition to war “a product of egotism” but was blind to the egotistical, nationalistic distinctions between "us" and "them" that he used to justify war. 

Unfortunately, Soen was not alone in his perversion of the Dharma for nationalistic purposes. Daiun Sogaku Harada (1870-1961), one of Living Vow Zen's ancestral teachers, equated meditation in battle with the "highest wisdom of enlightenment." Sawaki Kodo (1880-1965), another influential Soto Zen teacher, bragged about how he and his comrades had "gorged ourselves on killing people." Later, he wrote, “Whether one kills or does not kill, the precept forbidding killing is preserved.” When Colonel Aizawa Saburo was being tried for murdering another general in 1935, he borrowed Zen language and testified, “I was in an absolute sphere, so there was neither affirmation nor negation, neither good nor evil” (Baran).

How could Zen teachers who are bound by the precepts (ethical vows) espouse violence and the abdication of conscience? They may have feared to speak against war, but their vocal support suggests that they were actually swept up in a nationalistic wave. They thus shared distorted Dharma to deny the ethical concerns of war. They argued that “if killing is done without thinking and without discriminating right from wrong, in an empty state that they call no-mind or no-self, then the act is an expression of enlightenment” (Baran). These nihilistic descriptions of enlightenment may have served nationalistic purposes, but they completely missed the mark.

If we conceptualize enlightenment as the eradication of ethical thought or as a separate realm of absolute equality that erases distinctions, we get lost in a hell realm that we imagine is heaven. We can easily get lost in ideas, especially ideas about enlightenment, emptiness, and the absolute. For example, we might attach to the phrase “no thought” in the Heart Sutra and try to stop thinking. We might even come to interpret the Heart Sutra’s “no” to mean that nothing actually exists, and our actions are thus without consequences. Should we identify emptiness with such nihilistic views, killing would indeed become meaningless.

But emptiness is not nonexistence. The most important line in the Heart Sutra states that emptiness is exactly form. From the perspective of time, this means that everything is changing, not nonexistent. Forms are just empty of fixed, intrinsic essences.

When it comes to suffering, this is a relief. We need not project permanence into pain. Sometimes, healing just means loosening our subtle identification with suffering. We can notice the sense of self that arises with the thought, “I am suffering,” and we can “open the hand of thought.” Avoid projecting thinghood into pain, and see through the notion that an abiding self is solely responsible, and our burden is lightened.

Still, in noticing that suffering has no fixed essence, we do not mean that it does not exist. Sometimes our practice is to remove the causes of suffering, and we can only do this when we diagnose its causes. When Buddha stepped on a thorn, he cried out in pain. A compassionate response would be to remove the thorn and offer him sandals. 

Awakening also does not mean acting without thinking. Thinking allows us to distinguish war from peace so we can cultivate peace. We do, however, sometimes mistake our thoughts for reality and get lost in conceptions, cutting ourselves off from the vivid intimacy of life like a driver who looks only at a map and never sees the open road. But we don’t need to throw out the map. Our practice is not to repress thoughts but to recognize thinking as thinking. “On each flash of thought, a lotus flower blooms.”

Neither should we believe that emptiness means nonexistence. Emptiness points to the way that all forms are dependent arisings born out of changing causes and conditions. When we chant “no ear” in the Heart Sutra, it means there can be no hearing without the sound we hear, and those sounds are always changing.

Similarly, we say there is no self, but it would be clearer to say there is no separate, unchanging self. This is medicine to treat burdensome identifications with fleeting senses of self and to acknowledge that there are infinite causes and conditions that enable every aspect of life. The self is made of nonself elements and is not the first or only cause of anything. Even to take a single step requires the existence of the air we breathe and the entire earth beneath our feet. We must go beyond the teaching of no self to see that our lives are dependent arisings. We are the air we breathe. Poison the air and earth, and we poison ourselves. Harm anyone, and we harm ourselves. Care for all beings, and we care for ourselves. Therefore, do not kill. Appreciate this life before you as your own.

Our interwovenness is the root of compassion. The Heart Sutra is recited by Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, who weeps for all beings who suffer in this world. True insight into emptiness deepens our compassion for all beings as we realize just how interwoven, vulnerable, and mutually responsible we are. Genuine insight into the emptiness of phenomena does not undermine the precepts but deepens our commitment to them. 

And, full disclosure: the teachings of dependent origination are essentially medicine to liberate us from the positivism and nihilism which feed harmful, dualistic thought formations. If we hold too tightly to the teachings of dependent origination, we can get lost in a finger pointing to the moon when the great matter is illumination. We are invited to open beyond all the teachings and enter into the living mystery. This does not mean discarding the precepts. We can let them also point the way to liberation from greed, anger, and ignorance but without attaching to them in a fundamentalist way. Practice includes and opens us beyond all ideas.

Most fundamentally, Buddhist practice is about alleviating suffering, and the precepts are guardrails to wake us when we contribute to suffering. The precepts give voice to our conscience. The precepts reconnect us with compassionate awareness. They may be the deepest expression of enlightened behavior.

For me, one of the key lessons from studying Zen teachers in this period in Japan’s history is that none of us are above making terrible mistakes, even those who have practiced deeply. We've seen American Zen teachers misuse sex and cause grave harm in their sanghas. Anyone can get swept up in desires and the currents of our times. Sometimes we need the precepts to help us swim upstream.

Zen: Actualizing the Noble Eightfold Path

The ancient Chinese Zen master Lin Chi once told a monk, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." Though easily misinterpreted, such startling statements are intended to wake us up. Still, as iconoclastic as many Zen teachers may appear, Zen practices actually have their roots in Buddha's original teachings.

Buddhism is comprised of many different lists — the two truths, the three refuges, the four noble truths, the five aggregates, the six paramitas, the seven factors of awakening, the noble eightfold path, and so on. It’s helpful to know that each teaching in Buddhism contains all the other teachings because ultimately, they all have their source in meditation, and they all point toward the salvific quality of reality, just as it is. 

Still, there are a few Buddhist teachings that are foundational. The four noble truths explain that life includes suffering, suffering has causes, suffering ends, and there is an eightfold path of practice to alleviate suffering. The noble eightfold path is the heart of Buddha’s teachings.

Today, I’d like to explore how the eightfold path is deeply woven into the Zen tradition, even if it is not always explicitly named. The key guidances of the eightfold path manifest in Living Vow Zen's sutras, vows, and practices. To practice Zen is to embody and actualize the noble eightfold path.

The elements of the eightfold path are: right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration, right thought, and right understanding (or insight). The eightfold path includes three aspects of Buddhist training: ethical conduct, meditation, and wisdom (Walpola Sri Rahula). These three aspects are interwoven: ethical conduct is inspired by the wisdom that we are deeply interconnected, which we clearly see for ourselves in meditation. 

Yet we can also explore each aspect of the eightfold path separately. There are 3 ethical commitments in the eightfold path: right speech, right action, and right livelihood. In the Zen tradition, we find our ethical guidelines most explicitly stated in our bodhisattva precepts, and four of our sixteen vows specifically address right speech because it is so important. In those four precepts, we state:

I vow to take up the Way of Not Speaking Falsely.

I vow to take up the Way of Not Finding Fault with Others.
I vow to take up the Way of Not Elevating Myself at the Expense of Others.
I vow to take up the Way of Not Defaming the Three Treasures.

Right action is another ethical commitment in the eightfold path that "aims to promote moral, honorable, and peaceful conduct, encouraging us to abstain from destroying life, from stealing, from dishonest dealings, from illegitimate sexual intercourse, and encouraging us to help others to lead ethical and peaceful lives" (Walpola Sri Rahula).  Though in Living Vow we avoid using the term "illegitimate" regarding sexual intercourse, Zen's bodhisattva precepts offer corresponding guidelines for ethical behavior:

I vow to take up the Way of Not killing.

I vow to take up the Way of Not Stealing.
I vow to take up the Way of Not Misusing Sex.
I vow to take up the Way of Not Intoxicating Mind and Body.
I vow to take up the Way of Not Sparing the Dharma Assets (meaning, in part, that we vow to be of benefit by sharing the dharma, as appropriate, with those who are suffering).

Right livelihood, the third ethical commitment of the eightfold path, means that "we should abstain from making our living through any profession that brings harm to others, such as trading in arms and lethal weapons, intoxicating drinks or poisons, killing animals, or cheating, and we should earn our living in a profession which is honorable, blameless, and innocent of harm to others" (Walpola Sri Rahula). In our Zen tradition, as mentioned above, we vow in our precepts to avoid killing and intoxicants, and a deep reading of these precepts suggests that we should do all we can to promote life and avoid any activity that leads to the taking of life, such as selling arms or intoxicants. In our precepts, we also vow to cease from evil and to practice good, including in our professions.

The second aspect of the eightfold path is meditation, in which three other guidances are offered: right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

Traditionally, right effort is “the energetic will to prevent evil and unwholesome states of mind from arising, and to get rid of such evil and unwholesome states that have already arisen, and also to produce, to cause to arise, good, and wholesome states of mind not yet arisen, and to develop and bring to perfection the good and wholesome states of mind already present” (Walpola Sri Rahula). In Living Vow Zen, we remind ourselves of this guidance during every sutra service when we recite our Gatha of Atonement, in which we state, “All evil karma ever created by me since of old, on account of my beginningless greed, anger, and ignorance born of my body, mouth, and thought, I vow to atone for it all.” This chant, followed by meditation in our services, helps to illuminate these painful states of mind — the "three poisons" of greed, anger, and ignorance. In my tradition, we do not try to prevent such states from ever arising. Such a practice can lack compassion, be repressive, and lead to spiritual bypasses of appropriate feelings. However, in meditation, we consciously decide not to fuel or act on these painful states when they arise. Instead, we sit still and bear witness to their arising and their dissolution, revealing that we need not be enslaved by such mind states. 

Additionally, in our bodhisattva precepts, we say, “I vow to take up the Way of Not Harboring Ill Will.” We notice ill will arise in us, then we let it go rather than investing in it. By no longer adding fuel to the flames of division and by allowing the three poisons to arise and dissolve rather than acting impulsively on them, we open beyond these painful states to our inherent interconnection with all beings, resulting in a deepening sense of compassion and care. Having paused to realign with our vows, we can often take more skillful and less harmful action to address injustices and alleviate suffering. Of course, being human, sometimes we make mistakes. One thousand mistakes, ten thousand mistakes. So we also practice atoning and renewing our vows. This is how we actualize our compassionate true nature.

Which leads us to the second guidance in meditation, right mindfulness, which is to be diligently aware of the body, sensations, feelings, the mind, and all things. In other words, we practice awareness of life, just as it is. In this practice, we see that all things come and go, even senses of self. Everything dissolves into what is. In the deepest sense, this and all of the practices of the 8-fold path reveal that there is no destination for practice other than where we are.

The third and last guidance of meditation within the eightfold path is right concentration. In Zen practice, to cultivate concentration, we begin with counting the breath. We may find that feelings and thoughts naturally settle during this practice, but we do not explicitly aim to silence our minds, for doing so is buying into yet another idea that simply leads us away from realizing the true nature of what is present. It can also foster a belief in a fixed self that needs to be eradicated when there is no fixed self to begin with. So we do not aim to be anything and instead notice the ever-changing constellation of processes that we used to identify as an unchanging self. As concentration naturally develops, we might open our awareness to noticing the sensations of the body, ideas that come and go, shapeshifting feelings, and the dance of life around us. We call this expansive practice “shikantaza,” where we simply notice whatever is present. This practice cultivates a profound equanimity that does not depend on the content of our hearts, minds, or experience. This is liberation in the deepest sense.

The remaining two guidances of the eightfold path, namely right thought and right understanding, constitute the aspect of wisdom. Right thought suggests thoughts of love and compassion, which extend to all beings. In the Zen tradition, we cultivate this sense of care in our bodhisattva precepts when we “vow to save all beings.” We remind ourselves of this vow every time we recite our four bodhisattva vows at the end of every service. We also dedicate our practice during sutra services to those who suffer. This is how we practice in the realm of relative truth.

Finally, right understanding, the last guidance of the eightfold path, is the profound realization of the exact equality of emptiness and form, ending all suffering and distress (Heart Sutra). This understanding is the highest wisdom which sees the ultimate reality. According to Buddhism there are two sorts of understanding. What we generally call understanding is knowledge, an accumulated memory, an intellectual grasping of a subject according to certain given data, or “knowing accordingly” (Walpola Sri Rahula). I refer to this as the “relative truth.” It is important but not profound, and when we attach to particular ideas and mind-states, we project selfhood into things and lose the deeper insight of emptiness. Deep understanding is opening beyond names and labels (without excluding them). It is intimacy with beings exactly as they are. In meditation practice, we learn to relate with all ideas and compass points as provisional (meaning, they too are empty of intrinsic essence), and we practice opening beyond ideas to realize whatever is in a more intimate way. Trungpa calls this intimacy “compassion-compassion." Beyond self and other, this inherent intimacy with all beings is the deep source of compassion for all beings, without exception.

As you can see, though we do not necessarily cite the eightfold path very often in Zen, it is deeply woven into our liturgy, vows, practices, and teachings. I’ve only scratched the surface of the many ways the eightfold path manifests in Living Vow Zen. To practice Zen is to walk Buddha's noble eightfold path, and to walk the eightfold path is to vigorously abide in the destination we seek right here, right now.

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.