Latest / Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks / Zazen Is Alive- Bansho, Zen Teacher

Transcript

Zazen Is Alive- Bansho, Zen Teacher · Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Good afternoon, everyone. Zazen is a practice of the body. It is not something you do with your mind. Where have we heard that before? We've been emphasizing it over and over again.
• 0:40
  Kise emphasized this yesterday as she pointed out how Dogen really emphasizes the body in his universal, instructions for Zazen, the Fukan Zazengi. He spends a lot of time talking about how to set up the body in meditation, how to align the body, where to put the hands, the feet, the legs, how to get up and down, how to adjust your posture. I have to say that I appreciate this text, the Fukanza Zengi, more and more the longer I have practiced. I would say it's taken me, actually, probably twenty years to really appreciate it. So, don't just don't give up.
• 1:45
  Some of these things just eventually make sense. You know, on a on one level, it makes total sense. It's just like, you know, a a a guide where to where to put your body, where to put your legs, where to put your how to align your how to align your shoulders. But it's I I didn't appreciate it, really didn't. There's so much in it, there's the body, there's Dogen's own spiritual question is is throughout.
• 2:34
  The way is originally perfect and all pervading, how could it be contingent on practice and realization? That was his question. If from the beginning we're awakened, as all these great teachers say, why do we have to practice? Why do we have to practice? This is one of the things about the Zen school.
• 2:58
  We honor the questions. The true vehicle is self sufficient. What need is there for special effort? Why do we have to do, why do we have to do this? And he says, and yet, the Buddha had to sit for six years.
• 3:14
  Spiritual genius, Bodhidharma for nine years. What is it? So he includes, so this this Fukan Zazengi has like this deep spiritual question in it. In the middle of a meditation manual. He says, he said, I like this towards the end, in our world and others, in both India and China, all equally hold the Buddha seal.
• 3:50
  While each lineage expresses its own style, they are all simply devoted to sitting, totally cast in resolute stability. Although there are 10,000 distinctions and a thousand variations, they just wholeheartedly engage the way in Zazen, in our world and others, each expresses its own style. So when I was in in Japan, at Toshoji Monastery, there were people from all over the world, and we got to hear a little bit how each expresses its own style. There was a German guy who was in the on the mat next to me, and he shared a story about going to a session in France. And he said, and we were talking about what it was, I was asking him what it was like, and he said, you know, the French really think of Oreoki as like, you kind of just You just kinda go through the motions.
• 4:56
  I was like, well, what do you mean? And he said, well, sit down for Oreoki and they give you just like a little tablespoon of porridge, and then like, and then a pickle, and you go through all the motions, and then you you eat it, you eat that little morsel, and then they fold up their wash their bowls, and they fold them up, and then they're done. And then, they go to breakfast, which is croissants and coffee, and cigarettes. So they think of it, he said, it's like mass, you know, you have this little represent it's just a representation. They don't actually feed themselves this way.
• 5:53
  One thing about the But there are some similarities. In Europe it seems that they do almost all the chanting is in is in Japanese. And, I asked about this, you know, why, you know, here in in The United States we we chant in English, a little bit in Japanese, but mostly in English, why do you why do you chant in that? And he says, well, in Europe you do a sashin, people come from all over. So it's, you know, doing it in Japanese is the common language.
• 6:24
  He said, and besides, you know, have you heard chanting in German before? It's not good. Sounds awful. Yeah. I think the only German chanting is like nineteen nineties industrial music I used to listen to.
• 6:46
  So maybe if it had like samples of clanging wrenches and stuff. So, they just wholeheartedly engage the way in Zazen. So how it appears is not so important, the surface is not so important, and all of these ardent people around the world practice with us, just like us. As we've emphasized at the beginning of the sashin, it is important to have an embodied practice. And, we're just emphasizing this is how the light gets carried forward.
• 7:29
  We're simply carrying forward this emphasis from the ancestors to have an embodied practice that is simple and steady. It can be body scan, breath, feeling the body breathing, body as a mountain, body as tree, sound. What we mean by this is that we feel the body, in the body, with the body. We experience the body, in the body, with the body. We experience the coolness of the in breath, the warmth of the out breath.
• 8:20
  You can do that right now. Experiencing the body moving as it's breathing. Experiencing sound as it's reverberating, simple, steady, embodied. So, of course, when we sit down, the mind comes up with lots of things. There's so much there's lots of content, things that you should be doing, memories.
• 9:02
  There's lots of life momentum. There's lots of life momentum. And like we can't just come to a skidding stop and have it just kind of drop like a cartoon. An analogy I really like is it's like a snow globe from the gas station that's been agitated. It's been shaking, shaking, shaking, and you put it down, the flakes just don't fall.
• 9:34
  Do people know what a snow globe is or is that just old? Okay. Am I just old? You know, there's gonna come a time when I'm just like, you're gonna start missing with analogies. You get too old.
• 9:48
  The snow continues to swirl. You put it, you agitate it, you put it down, it continues to swirl around, takes time. So next, so there's there's that part that we contend with, there's just momentum from of of our life. And so, that's gonna be there, just embrace that. That's just, hey, I live a full life with a lot going on.
• 10:17
  And it's just and here it is. So we keep but we keep going simple, steady, embodied. Then the mind gets tricky and wants to apply itself to its practice. Apply itself to the practice. It starts to like watch how we're doing, measure how we're doing.
• 10:43
  Maybe I should switch, maybe this is going well or not well. We're still in separation, we experience separation, which is what the mind does, the discriminating mind, the mind of this and that, which is useful in lots of ways. It gets applied to our meditation practice. So in this way we're still, as we're settling, we're still, we're outside of the breath, might be watching it and evaluating it, right, out here. It's the small self that's observing and judging the practice.
• 11:28
  This is not a problem, it's a habit. It's the mind's conditioning. So, we just keep going. Simple, steady, embodied. Simple, steady, and embodied.
• 11:50
  Dogenzenji says, once you have adjusted your posture, take a breath and exhale fully. Rock your body right and left and settle into steady immovable sitting. Now, the steady immovable sitting can be looked at quite physically in the body, but also that steady immovable sitting is our devotion to the practice. Whatever arises, we're steady and immovable, we won't be thrown off. So, see you mind with this idea that I should be, there's a better practice that I ought to be doing.
• 12:39
  No. We're steady and immovable. Settle into steady immovable sitting, think of not thinking. Think of not thinking, not thinking, what kind of thinking is that? Non thinking.
• 13:00
  Non thinking. This is the essential art of Zazen. What is this non non thinking? We illuminate, shine the light, take the backward step and shine the light on what is not thought. We're overly involved in our thinking, but there's so much in our experience that isn't thought.
• 13:43
  Sensations, feelings, so I mean just all the sensations in the hands, all the sensations in the breathing, feelings, positive, negative, neutral, and that's not a stuck thing, there's, that's in flow. The energetic body, the subtle energetic body, this body is energy. What else is not thought? Space. Space is not thought.
• 14:21
  Our experience of space is not thought. Impermanence, the experience of ever changing experiences is not thought. So, without thought, what is left? So, this non thinking is attending to what is not thought. Simple, steady, embodied.
• 14:53
  So why do this? Why? What's the point? Well, I don't This is why the question about our motivation can be is is touching in with that or at least bringing it up as a question is helpful. Because the more that we can be that that that part is living through our practice, the more energy, fire, steadiness, solidity is there.
• 15:35
  Take whichever of the four elements you like. So, but through steady, simple, steady embodied practice, we're able bit by bit to establish absorption. Absorption, Samadhi. Sometimes you hear the word concentration and that's not a bad word but it can have a connotation of effort, of strain. And especially for those of us who are strivers, it's not, it can knock us off, put us into making ourselves, our meditation into a project.
• 16:25
  So in other word, if you are built that way, your mind is that way, Concentration can feel measured more or less. I am concentrating on x. There's a way of separation. So becoming absorbed, meditative absorption captures the sense of being with, being in the thrall, being one with, being in wonderment. So like a young child absorbed watching ants on the sidewalk, or making mud pies, or coloring.
• 17:18
  That just total absorption at ease. So, do you remember maybe something that you were would find yourself absorbed in as a child? It's like that. The Buddha remembered resting under a rose apple tree as a key that opened his meditation. So maybe there's a young you that already knows this.
• 17:59
  You might ask her what she thinks. So we illuminate, shine the light on what is not thought. Or we actually realize it's already illuminated, We're not doing any illuminating. Sensations, feelings, the energetic body, space, impermanence, without thought, what is left. We can experience thought as just another sensation, just flowing experience.
• 18:35
  And, that happens from a place of stability in body and it takes patience. This is why Sachin is days and days and days long. Why do we get up so early? Why do we go to bed so late? Why does it have to be day after?
• 18:58
  Because it takes time. Patience, patience, we have to be patience. I know it's hard. It just takes patience and persistence. So we give it the time because this is important and and there's no shortcuts.
• 19:25
  So one question that, a very important question is around the this question of effort. What kind of effort? What kind of effort do we apply? So, you know, if it's not pushing energy then it's like, well if don't push and then I relax, then I get sleepy. Right?
• 19:54
  Or I get disinterested. So, what kind of effort and there's not a sweet spot, it's dynamic. But I like this analogy that, the twentieth century Chan master Sheng Yan, a teacher from Taiwan, his analogy said that our effort is like catching a feather with a paper fan. It's like catching a feather with a paper fan, just enough to stay with the experience, but not so much effort that it's forced. So, you're catching a feather with a paper fan, just enough effort to stay with it, to catch it.
• 20:49
  Too much, and the feather goes flying away. Not enough, and it just falls to the floor. It's like catching a feather on a fan. And, I love this analogy because it captures that our practice is dynamic. It's flowing.
• 21:17
  There is not pin the tail on the donkey, like, oh, I have to find, I have to do it this right way. It's like responsive to what's happening. You know, the little breeze goes and the feather goes over here, so we respond. We have to make a big motion to catch up with it. If the feather's not moving, then just a little one is just enough.
• 21:46
  So, as as we're as we're engaged with our practice, there is a responsiveness. That's part of it too. So you may find that with, you know, just in the course of one period that there's different, the energy is different, the need to apply the method is different, etcetera. That's all meditation. So that's one aspect of effort, catching a feather on a paper fan.
• 22:29
  And the other one I want to emphasize is around welcome and kindness for our experience. Welcome and kindness for our experience. And I think the best for well, the practice instruction that I appreciate around welcome is in the poem, The Guest House by Rumi. This being human is a guest house. Each morning a new arrival, A joy, a depression, a meanness.
• 23:13
  Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all, Even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. They may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
• 23:56
  Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. So this is the stance, the attitude of welcome. It all gets to be here. It all belongs. Now that becomes, we can, that becomes more accessible as the more stability that we have with our, the more absorption we have, the more embodied we are, because we can experience the flow of all the guests that come through, The joy, the depression, the shame, the happiness.
• 24:56
  So in the attitude of a host for our experience, is a host is, a good host is curious about their guests. Right, a good host is curious, they're interested and also they move on. They don't talk to the meanness the whole party. They don't talk to the joy the whole party or depression the whole party. There's the get a good host is not clinging.
• 25:30
  Right? So they they move on to the next guest. So beautiful practice instructions here about the about how to practice in this way. Kise was talking yesterday about aliveness and it reminded me of a of a favorite dialogue that's kind of like a call to to Dogen. So a monk asked master Joshu, what is Zazen?
• 26:10
  Master Joshu said, Zazen is non Zazen. The monk asked, what is non Zazen? Joshu said, it's alive. It's alive. What is Zazen?
• 26:30
  Zazen is non Zazen. What is non Zazen? It's alive. Zazen is moment by moment experiencing. Not even of the present moment, it's only partial to say that we are experiencing the present moment because that too is separation.
• 26:54
  We are in, of, by the present moment. So, I'd like to share a little bit about this ancestor, Zhou Shu, known as Jiao Zhou, Kongden in Chinese. Because he's kind of a he's a fun ancestor. He was born in July, just kind of place him. So, about five hundred years before Dogen came to China.
• 27:25
  And he was interested in Buddhist teachings at a young age and entered a monastery as a teenager. You know, when you're in a country with a bunch of monasteries you can do that. I was interested in Buddhism as a teenager, but there weren't Chinese Zen monasteries in St. Louis. But he was able to access it, so he went to monastery as a teenager, but he felt it wasn't for him and so he looked for other teachers.
• 27:55
  He left the monastery as a teen and wandered around, eventually came upon a hermit teacher named Nansen. And they probably practiced together with a few other people, but it was far from the bustling temples of the cities. Later on, Zhou Shu would be a teacher that people ask questions and there are many many dialogues with him. But, one of the early dialogues is with him and his teacher. And it's koan 19 of the Mumang Khan, the collection one of the collections of koans of Chinese of stories, of dialogues between practitioners.
• 28:52
  So this is between Zhou Shu who's a young student, beginner, relative beginner and his teacher Nansen. What is the way? Capital w way. What is the way? What is the Buddha way?
• 29:08
  You could say, what is Zen? Or what is this? What is the way? Joshu earnestly asked Nansen. Nansen answered, the ordinary mind is the way.
• 29:19
  Joshu asked, should I direct myself toward it or not? Nansen said, If you try to turn toward it, you go against it. Joshu asked, If I do not try to turn toward it, how can I know that it is the way? Nansen answered, the way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion.
• 29:46
  Not knowing is a blank consciousness. When you've really reached the true way beyond all doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as the great empty firmament outer space. How can it be talked about on the level of being the right or wrong way? And at this, Joshu had a great insight. So here is Joshu, an earnest student who wants to figure it out.
• 30:22
  What kind of effort? How do I practice? Do I try really hard and push? What is this way? The Buddha way not other than this life that we live right here and now.
• 30:47
  The awakened way is found no other place in time because there is no other place in time. Dogen says, Why wander the dusty roads of other lands? Nonsense says, its ordinary mind is the way. The ordinary mind is the way. It's not a special state.
• 31:14
  But it's not the ordinary mind of rumination. That's not what he means. It's not about special states or achievement. This is why Dogan then later says, five hundred years later, the Zaza and I speak of is not meditation practice, but the Dharma Gate of Joyful Ease. It's not thinking the right thought.
• 31:37
  It's not figuring it out. Or knowing in the sense that I understand what it means. It's a mind that is vast and boundless. How do we see this ordinary mind that is vast and boundless? We start with the body absorbed in experiencing, lived.
• 32:09
  It's non zazen, it's alive. Later on, Joshi would be asked the same question. What is the way? So, a monk in all earnestness comes to Joshu and says, what is the way? And he says, well, it's just outside the fence there, pointing to the road.
• 32:45
  But I'm asking about the great way. Oh, the great way? Well, that's different. The great way leads to the capital. He Dzhoshu demonstrates the lightheartedness that we find in some of the ancestors And that the Tibetans say is one of the qualities of Bodhisattva, is lightheartedness.
• 33:13
  Adjoshu is also pointing out to nothing special. It's not special. And he emphasizes this over and over again, it's so ordinary. Once he was asked, Joshu was asked by a monk, what is the spiritual? And Joshu said, a puddle of piss in the pure land.
• 33:42
  What is the spiritual? Pointing to continuing is not special. Not special. Two arrivals come to the front door, at the monastery. And he asks one, Have you been here before?
• 34:15
  And the guest says, no, I haven't. And Joshu says, go have some tea. Then second arrival comes and he says, have you been here before? Oh yes, yes I have. Go have some tea.
• 34:30
  And then Joshu's head monk comes in and says, Why did you tell each of them to do the same thing? You know, they are different. They should be treated differently. And Yoshi yells, head monk. Yes?
• 34:48
  Go have some tea. So for this for the awakening story of Joshu, where he was, told that ordinary mind is the way, and had this great opening in the comment on that koan by a later teacher, Mumon says, It would take Joshu another thirty years to truly understand. So, this may refer to the time he spent with his teacher Nansen. He stayed with Nansen until his teacher's death, just supporting him, and then set out on a pilgrimage. He was 60 years old.
• 35:39
  So at 60 he sets out on a pilgrimage and just wanders. And I, to this it reminds me of those who set out on a new phase in their practice, or a new phase in their life. And, Joe Shu is really embodying embodying this. He totally could have, at this point, just been the next abbot of Nonsense Monastery, or got at a big appointment. He was a pretty renowned person, but he wandered.
• 36:27
  And, this was not an easy time. Kisei mentioned about how the ancestors have experienced very very difficult times. And, at this time when he was wandering was during the great anti Buddhist persecution, which was a three year a new emperor came to power and wanted to oppress Buddhism and and support Confucianism and Taoism, and promote Taoism. So, they seized temples, returned monks to lay life. At this point, let's see, they destroyed 4,600 monasteries and 40,000 Buddhist shrines, severely crippling Buddhism's influence in China according to Wikipedia.
• 37:29
  260,000 monks and nuns were forced to return to lay life, and the result of this is that then the Vajrayana expression in Chinese Buddhism was completely wiped out. So that's the the esoteric practice that we see in Tibet. That existed in China and it was completely wiped out. It's only similar expression is Shingon Buddhism in Japan. So it was absolutely devastating, and this was the time that Zhou Shu was wandering, maybe it's a good time to walk around in the countryside.
• 38:10
  And that ended up actually ending up being a boon to Zen, because Zen was more in the countryside in China, and the the big temples in the cities were the ones that were destroyed. After ten years of wandering, Zhou Shu settled and began to teach. He was 70 years old when he started to teach. 70. So, about teaching, once he was asked by, a government official, Will the master, speaking to Joshu, Will the master go into hell or not?
• 38:53
  Joshu said, I entered hell long ago. The official said, Why do you enter hell? Joshu said, if I don't enter hell, who will teach you? So we can look at this a couple different ways. One is, you know, obviously, know, hell is a place that people are punished for their misdeeds.
• 39:26
  Right? That's the sort of like mythical aspect. But there's also the hell of anger, of trauma. The state of mind of being in hell. So in this way, Joshu's talking about great equality and compassion.
• 40:09
  Joshu astoundingly lived to a 120 years old. A 120 years old. That's what all the sources say. Let's just say he lived a really long time. And, they had the dates of his birth and death.
• 40:30
  So, he taught for a long time. So, Joshu, over and over again, emphasizes non separation, that is the, you know, I'm gonna be in hell with you. How else would I teach you? Non separation between the ordinary and the extraordinary, go drink tea, and the mind, the ordinary mind being vast space. It is the wall over and over again, this non separation is what is ordinary mind.
• 41:07
  That's the ordinary mind. That is natural mind. It's the walls that we build up in our mind, which is the strange thing. It's the suffering mind that is going against what is ordinary mind, natural mind. It is just sitting in this way that we experience whatever comes towards us with this resolute stability that Dogen talks about.
• 41:33
  They all sit with resolute stability. Welcome. So, Dogen says that if we practice in this way, natural mind, ordinary mind, embodied, steady, welcoming, whatever comes towards us, continue to live in such a way and you will be such a person. And then the treasure store opens all by itself and you may enjoy it freely. May it be so for all of us.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Zen Community of Oregon podcast, and thank you for your practice. New episodes air every week. Please consider making a donation at zendust.org. Your support supports us.