In response to a question about the before and after of today, Yun Men said "every day is a good day". This wonderful saying can give both hope and perspective, which we all need, but that is the tip of this ancient iceberg. Yun Men was espousing his understanding of time and space, the ontological twins of Zen and spiritual inquiry. What place do we inhabit? When do we live? Are we awake to it?
"Every day is a good day" gathers together all time and space into the present moment, into the luminosity of now. It gathers together all the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, ancestors, teachers, families, friends, beings, animals, rocks, tiles, and trees, and sets them on top of Mt. Sumuru, the sacred mountain. Where you stand and breathe right now is "It". There is no place apart from where you are now. Yun Men was asked a clever question to test his understanding of the here and now, and to expose how he included all life into his own sense of being. He revealed his understanding that there is nothing existent outside this moment nor separate from him, that we are all 'time-beings', to borrow from Dogen's understanding of Uji (His writing on time-being).
So, what do we do when we wake up grumpy and realize we are late getting to work? What do we do when we get behind? What do we do when our living becomes a 'to do' list? What do we do when 'there isn't enough time', when we feel crowded by others, when the clock is ticking out the seconds of mortality, when the race to get ahead has us galloping through the day?! Can we stop? Can we sit still? Can we return to this good day? Can we return to this wondrous moment of being? Can we find the still center out of which life arises? Can we bow to Yun Men and recollect ourselves so that our lives are centered in the present moment and place we find ourselves? Practice is making an effort to return to the peace of every day.
Lost in the woods
Take a breath
The jewel uncovers
Case 6: A Good Day
Case 5: Grain of Rice
Hsueh Feng said "Pick up the whole great earth in your fingers, and it's as big as a grain of rice". This reminds me of Bobby Darin singing "He's got the whole wide world in his hands". Zen teachers of old didn't mess around with explanations, they pointed straight at the Dharma Kaya, the light body of Buddha, and the path that Dogen lays before us of "dropping body and mind", or as the classic Zen saying goes, letting the bottom of the bucket fall out. In a grain of rice, the whole earth, in the earth, a grain of rice. Going further, toss them both out and what remains?
When you chant the four bodhisattva vows, you say "dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them". The koan about the grain of rice is suggesting that everything you see and hear and touch and taste and feel and know is a grain of rice, a dharma gate that invites you to throw the doors and windows of your house wide open, to let go of clinging to your sense of separates and to realize the whole world as your own body, to let your great heart enter the world. This is called illumination and function in Zen, awakening to the blessing, grace, and dynamic of form and emptiness.
Sadly, the above two paragraphs are still Zen gobbledygook. The fundamental practice of zazen is your best teacher, just sitting and being, listening and learning from your body and breath. In Rinzai Zen emphasis is placed on Koan practice and awakening. In Soto Zen and the tradition of Suzuki Roshi, we think of koans as a good thing to study, but we mostly emphasize the importance of daily pratice, of cultivating mindful living in every day life. When fruit ripens it drops to the earth, what's the use of trying to make it ripen! This is letting go, trusting your practice, teachers, sangha, and life. Cultivating an attitude of non attainment is the path of one grain of rice. Enjoy each breath as you keep you feet warm and head cool.
a grain of rice
or a flat tire
keep on truckin
Case 4: Bundle of Emptiness
Te Shan walked back and forth in the meditation hall and said "There's nothing, no one", and then he left. The story continues that he decided he was being coarse, so he came back in to honor the teacher, but when the teacher reached for his whisk, the symbol of his teaching and authority, Te Shan let out a big shout and left. This case is a lot of Zen monkey business, and reading it will make your head spin with archaic references and commentaries that have stories within stories. What's a Zen shout? What's the meaning of there is 'nothing, no one', and why is it a half truth? Before you close the book on Zen koans and toss it into the fire, take a breath and relax into just being yourself, for that's what this koan is about.
Suzuki Roshi said that when you are you, Zen is Zen. That's another way of saying there's nothing, no one, and then shouting. Dogen's way of saying it was that the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical. Zen teachers point toward the dynamic dance of the absolute and relative worlds, and they play with stories and sayings that remind us that you can't put Reality in a box. Te Shan's bundle carries the world of emptiness, and he was telling us that from the perspective of the absolute there is no person that exists separately from everything; he was enacting one of the marks of existence, that there is no Self. When he came back into the hall, he reminded us with his shout that he was a unique fellow, and that the world of form and color are also part of the deal, that we live on the earth and are of the earth. Somebody has to shop, cook, and clean.
Koans don't get solved, they get lived. I think the notion of carrying a bundle is a wonderful metaphor for living. What's in our bundle, how do we carry it? Zazen teaches us to stay in the present, close to our breath, and keep our mind in our feet when we are walking. Just by sitting this the bundle has the moon and the earth in it. But if you open the bundle up, everything will disappear, you can't find anything at all. The daily effort we make to let go of our self centered views and behaviors is carrying a bundle of emptiness. The daily effort we make to stand solidly through the day is a big shout, Kwatz! in Japanese, maybe Yeehaaaaaaaa! in Cowboy Zen.
Watching clouds
Pouring tea
Yeehaa!
Case 3: Sun Face Moon Face
When Master Ma was asked about his health, he slayed the great dragon when he said "Sun Face Buddha, Moon Face Buddha". The phrase itself is quite beautiful and stands alone, but the underlying meanings are like a mountain crag with no foothold. His response has no logical connection to a question about his well being that day, which like most koans is a clue that prajna is at play, something pointing us beyond thinking, understanding, and rationalization.
The notion of a sun face and moon face Buddha can suggest two sides of our nature, the male-female principles, the dark-light,day-night,known-unknown, outer-inner, ordinary-sacred, and of course the relative and absolute worlds of Reality. As your Zen practice unfolds these worlds unveil themselves. As you study your own character, habits, and posture you begin to learn about many different aspects of yourself. You also learn that rejecting any of your parts results in a death of the whole. Wholeness depends upon honoring all of your parts.
The cliff that Master Ma constructs is the cliff of duality and attachment, of samsaric life through our clinging to separateness, permanence, and difficulty. How do we go beyond, and then beyond beyond, how to we climb the cliff of Reality and then live as if it was never there? Gate Gate Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhisvaha! May you realize Sun Face Buddha Moon Face Buddha, the yin-yang dynamic workings of the universe. Going to the other shore means going beyond the other shore, it means to keep on flowing with the changes of life without attachment while recognizing things just the way they are. When are you a sun face Buddha? When are you a moon face Buddha?
Last night it rained,
This morning a clear sky.
How the Great Dragon plays!
Case 2: Avoid Choosing
Zen teacher Chao Chu liked saying "Avoid picking and choosing", which was a modification of Seng-T'san's (3rd Zen patriarch) " The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences". Is this an invitation to be irresponsible, to not make choices, and to give up sound judgment? How do you not pick and choose and how do you learn about how you pick and choose? And what is the Way? This koan is Zen as dense as a bamboo grove hiding the moon. How can one not have a life of difficulty, especially when Suzuki Roshi says 'Welcome your problems?".
The way, or the Tao, is the path of harmony and accord with all things, which requests us to put aside our egoism and self centered nature. Zazen is sitting in accord with all things, so when we pay attention to our posture and breathing we are avoiding picking and choosing, we are just awake to things as they are, to experience without commentary or judgment, and in terms of this koan, without making distinctions between things such as inside/outside, past/present, me/you. Chao Chu invites us to our universal nature where all things are Mind.
Zen practice makes you aware of your choices and habits, and how they might keep you from noticing and flowing with the whole context of reality as you move through the day. As you study your own habitual choices, you begin to learn about the hold they have on you. As you let them go, which is a way of not picking and choosing, you may find yourself carried on the wave of the moment in harmony with the ocean of things. As you begin to see that much of your suffering is an outgrowth of conditioned decision making and choices, the way of the unfolding present moment, of dynamic and intuitive responsiveness, and of awakening living and intimacy becomes possible.
To be or not to be,
Choices wax and wane,
Just this flow, Awake!
Case 1: Nothing Holy
Two of the most famous and important sayings of Zen come from the first koan in the Mumonkan, the Gateless Gate collection of Zen dialogues that point to the wisdom of emptiness and the manifestation of compassion. The fact that it is the first case and also about Bodhidharma, the revered Zen ancestor who brought Zen to China from India and was also famous for years of sitting facing a wall, emphasizes its importance as well.
When Emporor Wu asked Bodhidharma about the highest of holy truths he said "Empty, without holiness". This is the foundation of prajna and buddha nature as well as the Zen emphasis on a level playing field in Reality where nothing is special. "When you meet the Buddha kill her" and the tossing of a Wooden Buddha into the fire are other enactments of Shunyata, the ground of being and nuomena. In the Suzuki Roshi lineage of Zen, we emphasize the Zen sitting posture itself is a manifestation of Buddha nature, the universal nature that runs through all things and out of which the world of form and color appear, the phenomena of existence. When everything is without holiness, everything is sacred. In meditation practice you learn to settle the mind and body as a means of cultivating alertness and presence, the soil of beginner's mind.
The other quintessential response of Bodhidhamra to the question 'who are you?' was 'I don't know'. This phrase and comprehension has resounded through Zen for millennium and is the root of the Bodhi tree. We spend our lives trying to define ourselves, to establish an identity based on certainty, conviction, and conditioning. Zen simply takes it all away and doesn't replace it. This is the humble ground of just being somebody, an ordinary person that lives and dies, like all things and with all things. Zen is a steep cliff because of necessity we keep falling off it without a parachute. Refining your life in Zen means continually returning to ground zero, a place of not knowing, the fertile ground of being awake.
Ask all you want,
It remains unknown.
Can you swallow the moon?
Koans
Chop wood, carry water. When you finish your rice, clean your bowl. Does a dog have Buddha nature? What is the sound of one hand clapping? These are just a few of the hundredes of koans that are unique to Zen Buddhism. A hoard of hippies were attracted to Zen in the 60's by Paul Rep's and Nyogen Senzaki's Zen Flesh Zen Bones edition of koans. It remains one of my favorite books. In some schools of Zen, students take koans as objects of meditation, while in other schools, they are studied as confirmation of experience or for gaining perspective on the matter of living and dying.
The koan collections in the Blue Cliff Record, Mumonkan, and other sources, use dialogue, poetry, story telling, and commentary to espouse Zen dialectics. They are intended to help students awaken to luminous wisdom and loving kindness, beginner's mind and warm heartedness, Buddha nature and love. Unfortunately, they are difficult to read, study, and understand in the usual sense of the word. Like the famous Zen saying, 'they are fingers pointing at the moon', and not the moon itself. They are the symbolic language of Zen, stories that attempt to teach going beyond oneself into oneness, or as Dogen says, dropping body and mind.
If you find yourself bored, flabbergasted, and repulsed by the tediousness of ancient Chinese and Japanese symbolic dialog and nonsensical questions and sometimes blatantly ludicrous responses or demonstrative whacking and thwacking and play acting, your have officially begun your studies. Zen koans were written by the initiated, by mature Zen teachers who had integrated non-dual wisdom, and had gone beyond attachment to any particular state of mind. As a famous koan would have it, 'Ordinary mind is Buddha'. Worst case, isn't it great to be confused, to attempt to study something that by its very nature throws you into 'don't know' mind? O.K., pass the cookies.
Questions and answers
all dried up.
Mud on my shoes.
Karma
When you do something there is an effect. There is no escaping the laws of cause and effect, even though Buddha goes beyond the laws of cause and effect. Karma is simply the results of your actions. The Buddhist wheel of life splits the circle of karma into two halves, one 'good' and the other 'bad'. I prefer to think of all karma as learning experiences, some are wholesome and some are unwholesome. Hopefully we learn from both.
The saying "What comes around goes around" nails karma on the head. Your present life is the sum total of all of your actions of body, speech and mind. It is also the sum total of all activity of the present universe....but that's not within your control, so when it comes to developing your character, Zen practice teaches how to be responsible for your actions and how they influence others. This is the path away from self centered behavior and toward all inclusive activity that respects the uniqueness, dignity, and views of others. Each of our actions is a ripple in the big pond. How we bring benefit to others through our actions is the Bodhisattva path.
When I look honestly at myself I am sometimes appalled at my self-centeredness, as well as at the thoughtless ways I interact with people sometimes. As I heard one well known Zen teacher say, her practice has progressed from 'me me me me me me me' to 'me me me me you me me'! Suzuki Roshi said that our usual way is to point a finger towards ourselves, but that Zen is pointing a finger away from ourselves. Something changes quite profoundly when we become concerned about others. Eventually, taking care of them is taking care of ourselves, for in the non-dual world of dharma there is only total subjectivity, each being is your own face. What would the world be like if we could each add a few more 'yous' to our 'me me me' mantra?!
Walking gently
Each step touches
The whole earth
Fearlessness
Fearlessness is knowing when you are afraid. It isn't the absence of fear, but the inclusion of it and the minimization of reflexive and adrenalized behavior. It also means knowing how to dig inside for the courage to act independent of circumstances, self protection, self image, or the pressure to conform. It means knowing the truth of your inner experience and like Jiminey Cricket says, "let your truth be your guide".
Fear is a natural response to threat and horror, and we live in an age of profound global threats to humanity and the environment. The daily news recounts the horrors of war and local brutalities. Although some measure of fearlessness is cultivated in Zen practice, perhaps the openness of a Beginner's Mind quite naturally lends itself to experiencing the Great Fear of Extinction at the personal and global levels. Perhaps this is heretical, but without some deeply embedded alignment and identification with all life and the shocking fear of real threats to existence, the human race will continue to act with stupidities of greed, hate, and selfish interests.
Paul Tillich wrote that it takes courage to exist. Each breath is a moment of dependence on the whole universe, on the extraordinary and simple fact of not being in control of life. Nature is us, we are nature. Life flows in us, through us, around us...and our efforts at control, domination, and protection render us both helpless individually and collectively, and result in living desperately. This epoch could see the decline of civilization, if we dare call it that. Zen begs us to find our fears and realize how they influence us. This is the ongoing work of living that may result in some measure of peaceful living.
Looking in the mirror
Eyes wide with fright
Who is it?!
Discipline
Discipline means returning with devotion. It is continual practice. Discipline doesn't mean beating yourself with a hair whip, or hard core spiritual push ups, or tightening up on yourself so much that there isn't room to breathe. In fact, discipline means breathing and flowing with your life without being distracted. Discipline is the effort we make to stay in the middle of the road.
If you pay close attention to your life, you will know when you are out of balance and whether you need to pull on the reins or ride with the wind. As your commitment to Zen practice grows, your difficulties with discipline will arise and perhaps become clear. How often do you meditate? How do you train your mind to settle? How do you contribute to the sangha? How do you rein in your impulses? How do you balance feelings? How do you work with passion? How do you allow yourself to be lively and vital? How do you study? How do you work with your life and find accord with all things? These are the questions of discipline, and how you wrestle with and resolve these questions will be how your spiritual life manifests.
Some people are good at discipline in a same time same place kind of way. I'm not, so I work with this, showing up on a regular basis to activities. Other people are good at just sticking with practice in a more willy-nilly fashion, and over the years they keep coming back. Some prefer practicing alone, some in groups. I think if there is a measure of discipline it is simply the sincere longings of your heart to cultivate clarity about your Buddha nature, to bring loving kindness into the world, to heal the fractures within yourself as you move towards wholeness, and to walk with great sensitivity through this brief life.
When scattered, I sit.
When dour, I laugh.
Yin and Yang, balance is the way.
The Miracle
For some years as a young child I anxiously contemplated the fact of my own consciousness; how could there be a me that could be aware and alive? Perhaps these were the earliest seeds of my spiritual journey, certainly the questions point at the nature of existing and being, at the phenomenological roots of reality. I thought it astounding that I was here. I used to play the ancestor game, counting back generations until I realized it was futile and infinite. Then I would take it in the macro direction, out to the stars, and travel into the infinite and endless beyond.
This morning while stroking my youngest son's hair and inwardly delighting in his existence, I became aware again of this earliest of questions, for I was appreciating with great gratitude the miracle of his life, and in this moment, perhaps the young child within myself realized that there is no explanation, answer, or solution to the question of existing. Of course there is some deep realization or awakening to the Reality of existence, but even in enlightenment there is no explanation. Indeed it is a miracle, which is the essence of spirituality. You and I and all our animal, rock, and tree friends are simply miracles to be wondered about and appreciated, accepted and loved.
Zen practice is an invitation to dwell within the miracle, to settle into the here and now of being, to open our eyes to wonder, to let our hearts overflow with the joy of aliveness, knowing all the while that it will all pass. Learning to settle means stopping the noise of mind and emotion, the inner pressures to perform, create, and fix, the societal conditioning to digitize and compartmentalize and quantify. It means returning to the simplicity of now, the unadorned and always available moment of peace and gratitude. We are here all together. It is enough.
The grass is green
The ocean blue
Om Svaha!