• Allowing the Earth to support me

• My neck is free. My head is balanced easily on top of my spine. It is available to release away from my spine and to go forward and up

• My spine is lengthening from my tail bone to the crown of my head.

• My back is widening with each in-breath.

• I am not squeezing my hips. I allow them to release away from each other. I allow my knees to release away from my hips.

• I am doing less in my buttocks, less in my groin and pelvic floor, less in my thighs. My knees are releasing away from my hips.

• I am not squeezing my shoulders. They can release away from each other. My elbows release away from my shoulders, wrists away from elbows, fingers away from wrists.

• Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out (in, out).

• Breathing in, my breath goes deep. Breathing out, my breath goes slowly (deep, slow).

• Breathing in, I am aware of my whole body. Breathing out, I calm my body (aware of my body, calming my body).

• Breathing in, I know I am alive. Breathing out, I am happy to be alive (alive, happy).

• Shitou said, “The vast sky does not obstruct the flying white clouds."

• Dogen said, "Think of not-thinking. How do you think of not-thinking? Non-thinking."

• Sawaki Roshi said, "What’s zazen good for? Absolutely nothing! This 'good for nothing' has got to sink into your flesh and bones until you’re truly practicing what’s good for nothing. Until then, your zazen is really good for nothing."

• Uchiyama Roshi said, "Zazen means taking the correct posture and entrusting everything to it."

• Shohaku Roshi said, "There’s no target, no way we can judge whether we are doing good zazen, there is no way we can make sure if this practice is good for us or not. This is a basic contradiction in our zazen. We just sit in the midst of this contradiction. That is our practice. Although we aim, we can never perceive hitting the mark. We just sit in the midst of this contradiction that is absolutely ridiculous when we think about it with our small minds."

What’s zazen good for? Absolutely nothing! This “good for nothing” has got to sink into your flesh and bones until you’re truly practicing what’s good for nothing. Until then, your zazen is really good for nothing. — from To You by Sawaki Kodo Roshi

When my dogs are doing something I really don’t want them to do, my first priority is to remove them from the situation. For example, we go out on the front porch and they spot a neighborhood dog out for a walk. They start barking and their excitement level gets way over threshold. I don’t want them rehearsing that behavior (I got this phrase from Susan Garrett. I don’t know if she originated it).

I was thinking about rehearsing behaviors this morning in the context of Buddhist and Alexander Technique practices. Two things we’re doing in both cases:

1. not engaging in (inhibiting) behaviors that we view as negative in some way

2. practicing (rehearsing) behaviors we’d like to do more frequently

The Buddhist technical term for what I’m talking about is samskara. This is a really complicated term in Buddhism. One of the places it often comes up is as one of the five aggregates (form, sensations or feeling, perception or discrimination, conditioning factors (samskara), consciousness). The Buddha taught that we are nothing other than these five aggregates.

This means our habit patterns are one of only five things we’re made of. I want to pay close attention to them. I want to rehearse being a kind, satisfied, healthy, loving person. These basic practices (zazen, constructive rest) that I’m talking about give me the opportunity to grow in this way.

In the quote at the start of this article, Sawaki Kodo Roshi says that zazen practice is good for nothing. This is a contradiction that I’ve been negotiating with, wrestling, fighting, begging, ignoring and just about every other strategy I could come up with for about thirty years now.

One thing I’m almost sure of: none of us repeats any behavior that isn’t reinforced in some way. My dogs have become a clarifying lens for studying and understanding myself in this way. One complication in applying this thought to dog training is that sometimes the behavior itself is the reinforcement. This is why in the example I gave about them barking at a neighborhood dog, the first thing I want is to stop the actual activity. This behavior is self-reinforcing, they get something out of it inherently. The more they do it, the more they will do it.

No one, including Dogen Zenji and the Buddha and Sawaki Roshi, would keep practicing zazen if they weren’t getting reinforced for it somehow. So it actually is good for something. I’m not saying anything here that Sawaki Roshi didn’t know.

But if I practice zazen (or anything else) as the way I’m going to improve my life, I’m playing into the fundamental reason I feel dissatisfied to begin with. I’ve turned it into a tool that I can use to get something I want (maybe to be calmer and have more peace of mind). The unresolvable contradiction here is that the only way human beings will choose to do something like zazen is if they believe it might get them something they want, but if you do zazen to get what you want it fundamentally cannot get you that thing.

I think contradictions are good, or at least inevitable. The universe is not arranged to be neatly understood by humans. Zazen can be both a behavior I gain something from and good for nothing. It definitely is both of those things.

I want to improve, be happier, be kinder, be calmer, be more generous. I believe that my Buddhist practice and study, reinforced by my Alexander Technique and dog training practice and study (among other things) supports and nourishes my growth in those directions. At least for the moment I’m going to leave questions of what it’s all good for to the side and keep doing my best (with what I understand in the situations I’m in).

As we got out of the car I put them both on leashes. There was kind of a gauntlet situation happening. Not only was there someone coming out of the park gate with their dog, there was also someone else getting out of their car with a dog. My dogs were excited (agitated) about being at the park and I was feeling impatient.

I steered clear of the dog leaving the park but the other dog and owner were right behind us to enter. Nyx and Clio did their barking and lunging routine and the person with the other dog said something to me. I couldn’t hear it over the barking. “What?” He had to repeat it three increasingly loud times before I understood: “Are those dogs socialized?”

My hackles went right up. I was already anxious. I was stressed and self-conscious about how Nyx and Clio were behaving. I took this reasonable question as a criticism. I got angry and defensive and lashed out at the guy. We had a minor confrontation, then both went our separate ways into the park.

It took me just a couple minutes to understand what had happened. I felt embarrassed by my behavior, and frustrated about the opportunities I’d missed (I did get the chance to apologize to the guy, thankfully).

One of my central preoccupations is training myself to increase the odds of making choices guided by my vows. In this case, I didn’t notice that I made choices. Consider these two vows I (and pretty much all Buddhists) have taken:

• Embracing beneficial actions

• Not being angry

I struggle with what looks to me like a wide gap between my impression of these on reading them (they’re great, they point in the right direction, they’re pretty clear, etc.) and in action in my life (I don’t understand them, I can’t imagine how to live with them).

The crux is that those precepts are written in a way that is really abstracted from daily life. The words beneficial and angry are conceptual. They’re really big and too far away to work with (at least for me). My interaction with that guy at the dog park was zoomed in. It was super gritty. There were hormones and chemicals pumping, dogs baring their teeth and barking and straining at their leashes. Voices and heart rates were raised. How do I even get near beneficial actions or not being angry in the middle of that?

This is why I’m focusing on things like the collar grab game, and inhibiting habitual behaviors in environments without many stimuli. I want to improve my skills, to train my body and mind to recognize choices I’m making. I’m in training like Rocky running through the streets of Philadelphia and working the speed bag at the gym. Susan Garrett often says that our dogs are doing the best they can, with the education we’ve given them, in the environment we’ve put them in. I did the best I could with my education in that environment. An environment drenched in powerful stimuli like that is more than I can handle reliably, but it’s not hopeless. I’m in training.

In Genjokoan, Dogen Zenji wrote, “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.”

There are an infinity of approaches to studying the self. I suspect we’re always doing it in whatever way we’re ready for (doing the best we can with our training right where we are). This simple training I’m doing with myself and my dogs is definitely one. So is writing this stuff down to give my observations a temporary shape as I move around in time and space.

Anytime there’s a change to make (and there always is), the first step is inhibition. In the case of a habit like sitting with the pelvis rocked forward (true confession of a slow AT student), my instinct is to figure out how I’d rather my pelvis be and put it there. The philosophical stance underpinning inhibition is that you don’t need to do that. Or actually, you need to not do that. Actively putting my pelvis in a different posture through effort is inevitably going to lead to the same kind of tensions. Instead, inhibit the habit of rocking the pelvis forward. Sit down and choose not to do it. Then naturally the pelvis will be in a neutral position.

Maybe.

In order to really discuss this I guess I need to open another can of Alexander’s worms - habitual behaviors like that feel correct. I never noticed that I rocked my pelvis forward until it was pointed out. That allowed me to develop some awareness around it. At first, my pelvis in a neutral position felt like it was leaning back because of what Alexander called faulty sensory appreciation (I just learned that he also called it Debauched Kinaesthesia, which is a 1st class turn of phrase). Anyway, because of the habit of distorting my body in this way, it began to feel like the correct way to hold myself, and a more natural way of sitting felt distorted. Changing deeply ingrained habit (and karmic) patterns can be a long and challenging process.

I’m writing about inhibition because, contrary to my first instincts, inhibition is the key to freedom. Without inhibiting, we live entirely propelled by our accumulated karma.

Stopping and inhibiting gives us the chance to make different decisions. Being able to make choices is actual freedom.

Inhibition is on super clear display when I’m working with my dogs. A first principle dog game that’s about inhibition (and choices) is ItsYerChoice, from Susan Garrett (of course). This game teaches a dog that by inhibiting and making a conscious choice they can get what they want. A simple version of the game goes like this: I hold some treats in my hand and put my open hand near my dog. If she moves to try to take them I close my hand. If she starts sniffing and licking and nosing at my hand that’s fine. That’s her choice. I leave my hand closed and the treats inaccessible. If she backs up from my hand, I open it again. Now she can decide if she wants to try to take them from me again - if she does, my hand closes and we repeat. If she waits patiently for a moment, I praise her and give her one of the treats. Repeat.

If you want, ponder how inhibiting your habitual reactions and giving yourself even a microsecond to make a choice might change how you do things. If you’re ready to see the matrix, choose to do it a few times today.

The central practice in the Zen tradition I come from is called zazen. I linked to a short video of my teacher talking about his understanding of it. The quickest summation I can give: sit still and comfortably upright, breathe naturally, allow thoughts to arise and disappear without engaging or holding on to them. There are many facets to this radically simple act, and many ways to understand it. It is an act of allowing yourself to become calm. No matter how agitated your body and mind are when you begin, the act of sitting still and choosing not to identify with your thinking naturally leads to some settling down (Often. Not always. If you don’t have this experience it’s not because you’re doing it wrong or because there is something wrong with you. Trust me, please. I’ll write about this at some length in the future).

The central practice of Alexander Technique doesn’t really have one name that everyone uses. I’m going to call it active rest for now. My simplest description: lie on the floor on your back with your head supported comfortably by a few paperback books, rest your hands on your abdomen and point your knees at the sky with your feet flat on the floor. Breathe naturally. Allow your body to release unnecessary tension. Accept (but don’t try for!)freedom in your neck, length in your spine, width in your back.

In the venn diagram of zazen and active rest there’s a pretty decent area of overlap. For what I’m trying to teach myself, they’re pretty good equivalents of the Collar Grab Game. As long as I do them, I can’t really fail at either one, I get a very nice reward, and they are about as fundamental as activity gets. Crucially, I’m still and distractions are minimized. This offers the opportunity to engage with choices we usually fly right past in our daily lives. For example:

• breathing

• thinking (it feels insane to simplify this to one item on a list but I’m going to for now)

• tension in the neck

• shortening or lengthening of my spine

• squeezing or widening of my back

Take a few minutes and try one or both of these practices. Don’t try to do them well or correctly. See if you can set aside any expectations you have about what they’ll be like. You’re just playing the Collar Grab Game with yourself. Sit or lie down quietly, you get a treat. The end.

It’s also the point of that aphorism about karma and vows. I’d like to be more like a bodhisattva, so I just need to do things that line up with my vows and not the normal human crap I do. The thing is, for me this is basically impossible without some serious examination of what that means and how to do it! Karma propels us through the world empowered by all the behaviors and choices we’ve rehearsed over and over. We blast right past the points where we could choose something different without even noticing them. How do we begin to notice the inflection points in our lives where we could make a decision based on vow rather than karma?

In addition to Buddhism, I’m going to write a lot about two other topics that I’ve spent time studying and practicing. These are the two most powerful lenses I know of for this examination: Alexander Technique and dog training.

The dog trainer I admire most and have spent the most time learning from is named Susan Garrett. Her training technique is based on a series of games that scaffold from very simple behaviors. The first game is called the Collar Grab Game. In it, you take your dog’s collar then give them a reinforcement (probably a food treat of some kind). The end. This is an incredibly simple game, and it has a lot of really important characteristics. One of them is this: the dog cannot fail at this game. All your dog needs to do to win is to be a dog.

I’m going to end today by posing a question I think about a lot. What is the equivalent of the Collar Grab Game in my life? In other words, what minute change(s) in behavior can I ask from myself that is so easy I absolutely can’t fail? These are the pieces that can form the foundation of a healthy and free life.

I stumbled on this gem as I scrolled though my notes on the fascicle of Shobogenzo I'm currently studying (Keisei Sanshoku). This is from my notes and not a direct quotation from SO (except the part in quotes at the end). It's entirely possible that I misunderstood him or made a mistake.

Dogen said that the Platform Sutra is not authentic based on the statements of Nanyo Echu (a disciple of Hui Neng, the sutra's author), and contemporary scholars agree. The earliest version and latest version of the sutra are very different - many things were added and changed. Dogen's criticism was about the frequency of the term 'kensho' in the text. In fact, the oldest version does contain this term but not very often. (There is a translation by of this early version by Red Pine)

Q: Should we read these texts? 

SO:  Jewels and stones are mixed, and it's very hard to tell the difference. Our life is limited. There are so many texts, and we need to choose what to study somehow. We should choose the texts that are helpful in our travels. Even to study Dogen we need to study so many Buddhist texts.  Maybe asking the question, "What is the meaning of my practice?" could be a guideline for what to read and study.

"Studying zen is too much work with too little fruit" - SO

Kosho Uchiyama Roshi was the teacher of my teacher, Shohaku Okumura. He wrote a book that has become pretty famous in American Zen circles called Opening the Hand of Thought. He actually wrote this book specifically for Western Zen practitioners. In the 1960s and 70s lots of Americans and Europeans came to practice with Uchiyama Roshi at Antaiji in Kyoto. Unfortunately Uchiyama Roshi didn’t speak any language other than Japanese so there was a barrier between him and these folks who came to practice with him. Real-time translation of this kind of thinking and expression is a pretty tough game, so he wrote this book to try to communicate to them what his teaching and practice of zazen mean.

Opening the Hand of Thought is Uchiyama Roshi’s expression for our zazen practice. One of my ways of studying for the last few months has been listening to my teacher Shohaku Okumura’s commentary on this book. This study has stirred a lot of thoughts about the way I practice. Okumura Roshi started doing his commentary during his Sunday morning talks more than 10 years ago. Now there are probably more than 300 hours of commentary on the book! In the introduction to Opening the Hand of Thought Okumura Roshi writes, “We try to keep the same upright, immovable posture no matter what condition we are in, and to trust that above the clouds of thoughts, Buddha’s wisdom and compassion are shining like the sun in a clear blue sky. This is what opening the hand of thought has come to mean in my life.” My jumping off point for this talk is my realization that the word ‘thought’ in this expression is a translation of the Japanese word so, or xiang in Chinese (想). So or 想 is the third of the five skandhas.

What are the Five Skandhas?

One of the unique teachings in Buddhism is sometimes called No Self. One thing this means is that no matter how closely we examine anything in the universe, including ourselves, we cannot find some essential entity that IS that thing. Instead, the Buddha teaches that we are made up of five skandhas – nothing more and nothing less.

Bhikku Bhodi, a contemporary Theravada monk and scholar, writes that the word khandha (the Pali version of the Sanskrit word skandha) means a heap or mass. Each skandha is a heading under which we find many different phenomena all of which share some trait that unites them. In other words, there are many variations and different manifestations of each kind of thing that all fall under each broad category these five skandhas.

Bhikku Bodhi also writes that “…Because the 5 aggregates that make up our ordinary experience are the objective domain of clinging (upadana) they are commonly called the five aggregates subject to clinging” (pancuppadanakhandha)

He explains that there are two basic ways that we cling to or identify with the five skandhas.

1.       Grasping them, taking possession of them, appropriating them

2.       Using them for the basis of our view of ourselves (in other words, comparing ourselves to others)

The classic formulation for how we do this is: “this is mine (appropriation), this I am (identification 1), this is my self (identification 2)”

The aforementioned skandhas are:

1.       Rupa  色(Ch. Se. Jap, shiki) - form

2.       Vedana 受(Ch. Shou, Jap. ju) – receive, accept, subjected to) sensations, feelings

3.       Samjna 想(Ch. Xiang, Jap. so) – to think, to believe, to suppose, idea) perception or discrimination

4.       Samskara 行(Ch. Xing, Jap. gyo) – behavior, conduct) conditioning factors

5.       Vijnana  識 (Ch. Shi, Jap. shiki) - consciousness

When I realized the word that is translated as thought in the expression opening the hand of thought refers specifically to the third of these five skandhas my understanding of this expression really broadened. I began to see it as an abbreviation. Opening the Hand of Thought, in its unconventional English, points at releasing our attachment to thought (which, in this case, is a category that includes our beliefs, suppositions, ideas, perceptions, discriminations among other things). It means also opening our hands in relationship to each of the other skandhas. This means, at the very least, being willing to allow the possibility that we cannot own, appropriate, control, or identify with any of the things on the following list. It means, as a start, being open to the prospect that nothing in the universe can be owned, appropriated, controlled, or identified with.

• Our bodies
• Our sensations
• Our feelings
• Our thoughts
• Our beliefs
• Our suppositions
• Our ideas
• Our perceptions
• Our discriminations
• Our habits
• Our behavior
• Our conduct
• Our consciousness
• Our impulses
• Our predilections
• Our fabrications

One thing we commonly do that causes discomfort and/or is a result of discomfort is attempt to hold our corporeal bodies together while we sit. On some level I think there is a sense, and it can be a scary one, that we will literally come apart – physically, mentally, or emotionally – in this kind of practice. When we find we have wandered from the present and into fantasy or dreaming or sleeping or any of the other numberless ways we have of escaping where we are during our zazen practice, Uchiyama Roshi often suggests that we return to our posture. My understanding of this suggestion is that, first of all, we check to see if our body is still in order. Hips solidly on the cushion or chair? Spine rising effortlessly (ideally) with its natural curve intact toward the sky? Head balanced freely on top of that structure? I check to see where I am holding on unnecessarily. My shoulders? My hips? My face? Letting go of all this is an act of trust. Your body will balance itself and hold itself together with minimum effort or interference from your mind. This is returning to posture. Uchiyama Roshi wrote, “Doing correct zazen means taking the correct posture and entrusting everything to it.”

One unsurprising thing I have discovered is how protective I am of this body. I don’t want it to die. I don’t want it to be in danger. I don’t want it to be in pain. I very strongly identify it as mine (this is mine, this I am, this is myself) and in certain senses this is all true. For example, this body is not yours. It is the body I have to practice with and to live in this world. I have found that it does not always feel safe or comfortable to let go of this body in my sitting practice.

The term Mara is an important word in Buddhist teaching. It literally means “Maker of Death”. In the traditional Buddhist cosmology Mara is a powerful divinity devoted to preventing beings from achieving liberation from rebirth. The great teacher Nagarjuna, who was so important and influential he is sometimes called the second Buddha, said that there is only one Mara and that is our own five skandhas. The Buddha says almost the same thing in the Radhasamyutta, a sutta in the Samyutta Nikaya. In a conversation between Buddha and Radha the Buddha discusses the five skandhas. He says that we should see form as Mara. He says we should see it as a killer, and as the one who is killed. We should see it as a disease, as a tumor, as a dart, and as misery. He tells us that seeing it like this is seeing it rightly.

Radha: What is the purpose of seeing rightly?

Buddha: The purpose of seeing rightly is to develop a sense of revulsion.

Radha: What is the purpose of revulsion?

Buddha: Dispassion so that we have freedom from the greed of our 5 skandhas (upadana skandhas).

Radha: And what is the purpose of this dispassion?

Buddha: Liberation.

Radha: What is the purpose of liberation?

Buddha: The purpose is Nirvana.

Radha: And what is the purpose of Nirvana?

Buddha: This is beyond the range of questions!

Here is another short conversation between Radha and Buddha about the five skandhas (slightly edited for concision by me).

Satta Sutta: A Being

translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Savatthi at Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's monastery. Then Ven. Radha went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: "'A being,' lord. 'A being,' it's said. To what extent is one said to be 'a being'?"

"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for form, feeling, perception, fabrications, or consciousness [the five skandhas], Radha: when one is caught up there, tied up there, one is said to be 'a being.'

"Just as when boys or girls are playing with little sand castles: as long as they are not free from passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, & craving for those little sand castles, that's how long they have fun with those sand castles, enjoy them, treasure them, feel possessive of them. But when they become free from passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, & craving for those little sand castles, then they smash them, scatter them, demolish them with their hands or feet and make them unfit for play.

"In the same way, Radha, you too should smash, scatter, & demolish form, and make it unfit for play. Practice for the ending of craving for form.

"You should smash, scatter, & demolish feeling, and make it unfit for play. Practice for the ending of craving for feeling.

"You should smash, scatter, & demolish perception, and make it unfit for play. Practice for the ending of craving for perception.

"You should smash, scatter, & demolish fabrications, and make them unfit for play. Practice for the ending of craving for fabrications.

"You should smash, scatter, & demolish consciousness and make it unfit for play. Practice for the ending of craving for consciousness — for the ending of craving, Radha, is Unbinding."

This is pretty harsh talk, and although I think the meaning of it is the same as Dogen’s, or Uchiyama Roshi’s, or Okumura Roshi’s teachings about how we should practice with our five skandhas, the feeling of it is different. This reflects a general change in the means of expression I’ve noticed in Buddhism between the early teachings and the Mahayana (although there are plenty of Mahayana teachers who use very strong language to get their points across). I want to emphasize that although the style of expression changes, and is in fact unique from teacher to teacher, the central message does not change: Clinging to the five skandhas is the central cause of suffering. There can also be transformation in the way we relate to our own five skandhas over the course of our practice lives. Sometimes we may view our bodies as obstacles, things we would like to smash, scatter, and demolish. But before we get too attached to that plan, it may be helpful to remember that this body and mind are the only ones we have to practice with! I want to follow this thread. Is smashing, scattering, and demolishing the way to go?

We think about things using words, which means defining what things are. This is our way of sorting things. Simply by saying what something is, we've already made a definition and separated it from other things. In Buddhist terms this is called nama rupa (nama = to be named [Ch. ming], rupa = form). The name we give something demonstrates our relationship with, and our thinking and desire concerning that thing.

This branch of Buddhism, Soto Zen Buddhism which came to North America from Japan in the 20th century, was founded by Eihei Dogen Zenji. Dogen Zenji was born in 1200 CE. I don’t have time to say anything about him, except that he was almost indescribably brilliant and influential. One of his most important writings is called Genjokoan. The first sentence of Genjokoan reads: “When all dharmas [things] are the Buddha Dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, life and death, buddhas and living beings.” When all dharmas [things] are the Buddha Dharma describes a condition where this process of separation leading to clinging and suffering has not happened. I imagine something primordial – things simply exist as they are, like the condition in the garden of Eden before the fall. No sense of self-consciousness, no sense of existence or non-existence. Things have not taken on the weight of being objects of our thinking and evaluation. They are the five skandhas without attachment. They are not in a state of clinging. They are the Buddha Dharma.

The Heart Sutra is the most commonly read and chanted piece of literature in the Zen world. It is chanted every day in every Zen temple, monastery and practice center throughout the world. Despite that, it is really not easy to understand. The first sentence reads: “Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when deeply practicing prajna paramita, clearly saw that all five aggregates [skandhas] are empty and thus relieved all suffering.” As there cannot be an Avalokiteshvara separate from the five skandhas, this means the emptiness of the five skandhas is seen by the five skandhas themselves. To see that there are only the five skandhas without attachment to themselves is what it means to relieve all suffering. In other words, the five skandhas see that they themselves are empty, that there is nothing to be attached to, and this itself relieves suffering.

When we talk about clinging to the five skandhas, we are talking about nothing other than the five skandhas clinging to the five skandhas themselves. As we are exactly the five skandhas we suffer because of this attachment. There is no separate thing that suffers. The five skandhas themselves are suffering because of their attachment to themselves. 

The opening sentences of Dogen’s Makahannya Haramitsu, one of his earliest writings and in many ways a commentary on the Heart Sutra, read, “The time of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva practicing profound prajna paramita is the whole body clearly seeing the emptiness of all five aggregates.  The five aggregates are forms, sensations, perceptions, predilections, and consciousness; this is the five-fold prajna. Clear seeing is itself prajna.” The Sanskrit word prajna is most commonly translated as wisdom. It refers to a kind of wisdom that reflects a true and clear understanding of reality. Dogen tells us that our five skandhas (which Nagarjuna told us are devoted to preventing us from achieving liberation) are the five-fold prajna. Our bodies and minds are true and clear expression of reality itself.

But what does it mean for our bodies and minds to be like this when they feel so ordinary, so often out of control or unsatisfactory, at the very least so unenlightened? Does being a true, clear expression of the reality of the universe have something to do with what we do with our bodies and minds? Can we accomplish or earn this? According to my teacher, Shohaku Okumura, Dogen's style is to not stop thinking until we reach the limit of thinking. At that point we have no choice but to become free from our thinking. We have reached the limit and experienced for ourselves that thinking is not reality itself. When we think thoroughly enough, we see that we cannot reach reality itself through thinking. We experience that our personal view is not reality itself. Using our five skandhas in this way is to “see” reality beyond our thinking. In Opening the Hand of Thought Uchiyama Roshi wrote, “Self does not exist because I think about it or because I don’t think about it. Either way, this self, universal and personal, is my life. Zazen practice is a way of truly putting this reality of life into practice”.

In his commentary on Dogen’s Keisei Sanshoku (Sounds of Valley Streams and Colors of Mountains) Okumura Roshi said, "Our zazen practice is not a training to make our five skandhas have the capability to teach. We just sit. We gain nothing. Of course, we lose nothing - we just sit. So this has nothing to do with whether we can be a teacher or not, whether we can be a master or not. In this practice we just become ourselves. That's all. That's why Sawaki Roshi said our zazen practice is good for nothing.”

This is my current understanding about the meaning of zazen practice as taught by Dogen and my teacher. Opening the Hand of Thought means “all dharmas [things] are the Buddha Dharma”, everything is simply itself, the five aggregates exist are already freed from attachment to themselves. This ‘five aggregates’ or skandhas means you. You, as the five skandhas, exist freely. This is true all the time. Our practice of zazen is our body and mind manifesting this. Our practice of zazen is what it means to see reality beyond our thinking. It is not that you will clarify this through something you see with your eyes, or even necessarily with your mind’s eye. I don’t think it means that you will become a different or better or enlightened person. I don’t know anything about what those things mean. Opening the Hand of Thought means to bloom as the exact instance of the exact kind of being you are in the universe right now, with all your energy and without any comparisons. To quote Uchiyama Roshi one last time for today, “…the violet blooms as a violet, and the rose expresses its life as a rose. The flowers blooming in the field do not feel with pride that they should win first prize in a beauty contest; they do not feel that they are in competition with other flowers. The violet does not develop an inferiority complex, thinking, ‘The roses are big and beautiful but a little violet like me is useless.’ It doesn’t say with impatience, ‘I’ve got to become more efficient.’ It simply manifests its own life force with all its might.”

I end here by encouraging you to read the short introduction to the book by Desert Notes Barry Lopez (actually, read the whole thing. It is short and incredibly beautiful). It is a book that had an enormous impact on me when I was young. I recently rediscovered it and find that he expresses things I have no words for.

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]]>Opening the SelfDoan RoesslerTue, 19 Sep 2017 20:23:12 +0000http://www.doanroessler.com/blog/2017/9/19/a-fairy-tale57decf1303596e8da90e3e5b:57ded5cd6a49637fdbff36ea:59c17ad60abd04d0de8e8155

There was a boy born to the duke and duchess near the capitol of the kingdom. The duchess had for many years been under the influence of an evil spirit, and so was very fearful about and cruel to her new baby. She warned him, from the time he was born, “You must not show yourself.”  The duke was a foolish and weak man, and was sure his powerful wife must be right so often repeated her warning to the child: “You must not show yourself.”

As the boy grew a dog came to live with him. The boy and the dog loved each other the way only a boy and a dog can. They were always together and understood each other without a word. Often the boy repeated the warning from the duchess to his dog, “I must not show myself.”  The dog, of course, didn’t understand human language, but he saw and understood the boy as well as he knew himself. So, when the boy said to him, “I must not show myself” the dog understood that the boy wanted love. Without understanding the words, he simply looked the boy in the eyes and repeated, “Must not.” The meaning, as far as the dog knew, was “I see you and I love you.” But the boy couldn’t understand.

One day the boy met a wise man. The wise man said to him, “I am traveling to a valley in the South. You can come with me.” The boy agreed to go. “I must warn you though – there is no language in this valley. Once we enter we cannot speak until we leave again.”  The boy followed the man to the valley.

There, without words, the boy experienced something magnificent. He saw the stars and realized that they were him. He heard the birds and realized that they were him. He smelled food cooking and realized that it was him. Everything showed itself to him, and he could not distinguish himself from anything. He could neither show nor hide himself. He was free and happy and went for long silent walks with the dog and sat silently in the grass with the dog and had nothing to show to or hide from anyone.

After some time the wise man came to the boy and gestured that it was time to leave. So the boy followed him out of the valley and back to the duchy they had come from. Once they arrived back home the boy learned that the duke and duchess had died. The boy looked at the dog and said, “I must not show myself.” “Must not,” said the dog. On hearing those words repeated back to him the boy felt a deep sorrow and longed to return to the valley in the South.  Since the duchess had died, the evil spirit which had influenced her now focused its energy on the boy. Every time the boy tried to find his way back to the valley, his way was blocked. First by a dense forest, then by an impassable swamp. Once he was misled to a different valley, which was beautiful but had language so that he immediately found himself saying to the dog, “I must not show myself.”  “Must not.”

Lost, the boy and the dog walked deep into that valley. At the bottom they found a clear, fast running river. They followed the river downstream. Walking along with each other they heard nothing but the songs of the birds, the rush of the wind, and the eternal ringing of the river as it flowed over the earth. After many miles the boy and the dog became thirsty, so they stopped to drink from the river. The boy knelt next to the dog and they both stooped down to drink. The boy saw his own reflection. Next to him he saw the dog, above him tree branches, leaves, the sky and clouds. He heard the language of the universe spoken by the long silver tongue of the earth. An enormous black bird flew down from the sky, skimmed the surface of the river, and flew far away.

Last Saturday was a very auspicious occasion. We held a ceremony to ordain two new priests in our community at Clouds in Water. Genjo Sam Conway was ordained by Byakuren Ragir, and Shojin Be Alford was ordained by Sosan Flynn. This is not the kind of thing that happens very often - I was working on a talk about a completely different subject when it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to talk a little about ordination in our tradition, and something about the history and practices associated with it.

I’m going to explore a bit about the history of ordination and the precepts in our lineage and a little about the path of priest ordination in Soto Zen Buddhism in the 21st century U.S. I’d like to express something about why I decided to pursue ordination and what I think it means to be a zen priest.

EARLY BUDDHISM

The original form of ordination was called the “Come, monk” formula. The Buddha’s very early disciples, before the establishment of a formal Buddhist order with procedures for admission, were ordained this way. At this point, if a spiritual seeker (this did include some women, although it was mostly men) wanted to be the Buddha’s disciple the Buddha would ordain them by saying:

“Come, monk, the Dharma is well proclaimed; live the holy life for the complete ending of suffering”.

Obviously this was a very simple way to do it. No rehearsal, ceremony, or reception afterward. In spite of the simplicity, it did have a pretty cool finale: some literature says that after the Buddha uttered the phrase making them his disciples, “…they found themselves shaved, covered with the robe and provided with the alms-bowl and the pitcher that ends in the beak of a bird; having beard and hair of seven days, they appeared with the proper aspect of monks who had received ordination a hundred years ago.”

Dogen writes in the chapter of Shobogenzo called Leaving the Household:

Mahakashyapa followed the World-Honored One, aspired to leave the household, and expressed hope to awaken all beings.

The World Honored One said, “Come, monk.”

Then, Mahakashyapa’s hair dropped all by itself and a Kashaya wrapped around his body.

VINAYA

As the sangha grew, they lived and practiced together. When a group of people lives together it doesn’t take long to discover the challenges of living in community. Originally the Buddha and his disciples lived and practiced together during the rainy season, and they traveled throughout India teaching the rest of the year. These rainy season residencies together are the origin of our angos, or practice periods. As they lived together a set of regulations for the monastic order called the Vinaya was created. Each time one of the Buddha’s disciples made a mistake, the Buddha said “don’t do that again” and that rule was added to the regulations along with the origin story for the rule. The Vinaya has about 250 rules for monks, and another 100 additional rules for nuns. At this point (and still today) the essential meaning of becoming a monk or nun was receiving the precepts. The ceremony for conferring the precepts was held in a place called a “sima” or ordination platform. This is a consecrated space outlined by some kind of boundary – precepts could not be given outside of this kind of space. Monks also gathered twice a month to recite the precepts on this platform or sima.

In the Buddha’s time there was a pretty flexible view of these regulations. Rules were made in response to situations in the sangha, but exceptions or changes were often also made as was required by the conditions. 

In the Vinaya we find these two rules set one after the other (edited for length a little bit). First:

Now at that time the Blessed One walked up and down in the open air unshod. Noticing that, the Thera Bhikkus also went unshod when they were walking. But though the Master and the Thera Bhikkus went unshod, the Khabbbaggiya Bhikkus walked with coverings on their feet.

The temperate Bhikkus were annoyed, murmured, and became angry, saying "How can the Khabbaggiya Bhikkus walk shod when the Master and the Thera Bhikkus walk unshod?" They told this to the Blessed One.

'Is it true, what they say, O Bhikkus, tha the Khabbaggiya Bhikkus walk shod, though the Master and the Elders walk unshod?'

'It is true Lord.'

He rebuked them, then addressed the Bhikkus: 'None of you is to walk shod when your teachers or those who rank as your superiors are walking unshod.

And immediately following:

Now at that time a certain Bhikku had an eruption on his feet. They used to carry that Bhikku out when he wanted to ease himself. The Blessed One was passing through the sleeping places, saw them doing so, and said, 'What is the disease from which this Bhikku suffers?'

'This venerable brother has an eruption on his feet, Lord, and we are carrying him out to ease him.'

Then the Blessed One addressed the Bhikkus saying, 'I enjoin the use of foot coverings by one whose feet hurt him or are blistered or who has an eruption on his feet.'

The Buddha’s view of the meaning of ordination was also quite flexible. Dogen illustrates that with this story in the chapter Leaving the Household:

“When the Buddha was at Jeta Grove, there was a drunken Brahman. He went to see the Buddha and asked him to make him a monk. The Buddha told the monks to shave the Brahman’s head and let him wear a buddha robe. When the man became sober, he was shocked to see himself turned into a monk, so he ran away.

The monks asked the Buddha, “Why did you allow that drunken Brahman to become a monk? When he saw what you had done, he ran away.”

The Buddha said, “That Brahman would never intend to leave the household even for innumerable eons. But, because he aroused a faint aspiration when he was drunk, due to such causes and conditions he will leave the household and attain the way in the future.”

The regulations also changed in various ways as Buddhism was transmitted from culture to culture. For example, monks in India supported themselves by begging. They begged for food in the morning and were forbidden to eat after noon. When Buddhism moved from India to China this regulation was no longer viable – there was no tradition of supporting religious mendicants in China. Monks had to grow their own food (agriculture had also been forbidden in India). In addition, it was cold in China so monks needed to eat in the evening as well. We acknowledge the tradition of not eating after noon today in the way the we regard our evening meal when eating in a formal oryoki style (sesshin, for instance). In fact, we call it medicine instead of a meal. We also don’t do the chanting done at breakfast and lunch, and we don’t use the largest bowl in our oryoki set, which is considered to be Buddha’s begging bowl.

MAHAYANA BODHISATTVA PRECEPTS

As groups of Mahayana practitioners arose, they distinguished themselves from so-called Hinayana practitioners in various ways. Similar to the original simple “come, monk” formula for ordination, the early Mahayanists took a very simple bodhisattva vow: to achieve Buddhahood in order to liberate all beings. Eventually more formal codes of conduct arose - the set of precepts that were transmitted in our lineage originate in the Bonmokyo (Brahma’s Net Sutra). Although the Bonmokyo is reputed to have been translated from Sanskrit to Chinese by Kumarajiva, it was most likely written originally in Chinese in the mid-5th century CE.  In this sutra we find 10 major and 48 minor precepts. These are known as the Bodhisattva Precepts and are received by both monks and laypeople in the Mahayana tradition. Monks also continued to receive the Vinaya in the traditional way.

There is a noticeable difference in the feeling of the Bodhisattva Precepts as opposed to the Vinaya code. The rules in the Vinaya are generally quite practical and not subject to a lot of interpretation. For example:

--A deliberate lie is to be confessed

--Should any bhikkhu set a bed, bench, mattress, or stool belonging to the Community out in the open — or have it set out — and then on departing neither put it away nor have it put away, or should he go without taking leave, it is to be confessed.

-- Should any bhikkhu chew or consume staple or non-staple food at the wrong time, it is to be confessed.

The Bodhisattva Precepts leave quite a bit more room for interpretation, and in fact the author of the entry on the Bodhisattva Precepts in the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism asserts that “…one of the secondary infractions of the bodhisattva code is not to engage in killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying divisive speech, harsh speech, or senseless speech when in fact it would be beneficial to do so.” An example of this is the precept against speaking about the faults of others. It’s not difficult to imagine how this precept could be misused to cover up abuses of power in the Buddhist community. The Bodhisattva Precepts are not rules that we can simply follow. They require us to be engaged with the world around us and to make decisions about what would be most helpful in the current situation.

JAPAN

The essence of the tradition Vinaya stayed intact through all this, and everyone ordained in any Buddhist tradition throughout the world still receives those 250 or 350 precepts. Every tradition, that is, except ours and almost all others that come from Japan.

In order to be ordained and receive the Vinaya precepts, in addition to there being a Precept Platform, there must be also be a preceptor and 10 other monks who have received the Vinaya. Around the time of what we now call the Golden Age of Zen Japan had largely cut off ties with China. This meant that in 8th century Japan there weren’t 10 fully ordained Buddhist monks in Japan so it wasn’t possible for Japanese Buddhists to be ordained as monks or nuns. The Japanese had been inviting teachers from China to come, but it seems there weren’t any who wanted to make that journey. Finally, a monk named Ganjin agreed to come and bring around 30 of his disciples. Over the course of about 10 years (beginning in 743) they tried to come, but each time there was a problem: once a typhoon destroyed their boat, another time they were blown off course to Viet Nam. In the end, in 754, they succeeded in making the voyage. By this time Ganjin was blind. This was the first time Vinaya tradition existed in Japan. Ganjin went on to found Toshodaiji, which was and still is the main monastery of the Ritsu (Vinaya) school of Buddhism in Japan. When he arrived they built an ordination platform, he conferred precepts on the emperor, but the Ritsu Shu was never widely accepted in Japan.

In contrast, the next important figure in this story is Saicho (767 – 822 CE). Saicho is one of the most important figures in the history of Japanese Buddhism and the founder of Tendai Buddhism in Japan. Eventually the Tendai school grew to become the largest and most popular sect. It had a dominating presence in the social, political, and even military spheres in Japan for hundreds of years. After returning from China to Japan and establishing a center for Tendai practice on Mount Hiei, Saicho, who had received the Vinaya precepts, decided to give them up, declaring that in order to be a Tendai monk one only needed to receive the 10 major and 48 minor Bodhisattva precepts from the Bonmokyo, not the full Vinaya. Saicho decided to do this because he believed that Japan was a fully Mahayana country, and anything from the so-called Hinayana tradition was not necessary. After this all Buddhist schools in Japan except the small remaining Ritsu (Vinaya) school conferred only the Mahayana Bodhisattva precepts, not the Vinaya. This happened only in Japan – the full Vinaya is necessary for ordination in every other Buddhist country.

By the time of Dogen in the 13th century the common belief was that they were living in the degenerate age and all Buddhist practice, including following the precepts, could no longer be effective. Dogen did not accept this viewpoint. Again, in Leaving the Household he wrote,

“Clearly know that the attainment of the way by all buddhas and ancestors is only accomplished by leaving the household and receiving the precepts. The life vein of all buddhas and ancestors is no other than leaving the household and receiving the precepts. None of those who have not left the household are buddha ancestors. To meet a buddha and to meet an ancestor is to leave the household and receive the precepts.” (trans. Tanahashi)

To leave the household means to be ordained as monk. Does Dogen mean that only ordained monks can attain the buddha way? That is one possible interpretation, but that’s not how I read it. To me, leaving home does not necessarily mean literally leaving one’s home. I think it means to vow to leave behind greed, anger, and ignorance, the three poisons. Behavior based on those three poisons is our karmic home. I think anyone can leave this home by taking the Bodhisattva vows and taking up the practice of living their lives based on the Bodhisattva vows rather than our karmic direction impelled by greed, anger, and ignorance.

Dogen also says that to meet a buddha or ancestor is itself to leave home and receive the precepts. I think we should investigate what it means to truly meet someone. When we encounter someone outside ourselves we break down the barrier we have imagined between ourselves and the rest of the universe. This kind of meeting is a manifestation of the Buddha’s fundamental teachings of dependent co-arising and emptiness. When we intimately encounter those teachings with our bodies and minds, this is itself to receive the precepts. As usual, Dogen’s view is unique and turns our usual thinking on its head.

In Soto Zen, the tradition we receive from Dogen Zenji, we receive 16 precepts – the 3 refuges, the 3 fold pure precepts, and the 10 grave precepts. This is an adaptation of the Mahayana Bodhisattva precepts that come from the Bonmokyo. The precept ceremony we still practice today is basically the same as the ceremony for transmission of the precepts that Dogen recorded 900 years ago. In our tradition all people receive the same sixteen precepts. There is no separation between monks or priests and laypeople. Japanese Buddhism is very special in its relationship to the precepts and the Vinaya. It’s an open question whether this is a good or bad thing. It can certainly be a cause of confusion, but I think it also reflects Dogen’s teaching and the spirit of the Mahayana and helps to create a more horizontal relationship between priests and lay people.

In 1868 a political upheaval called the Meiji Restoration took place in Japan. This new government had a strongly anti-Buddhist stance. During this time Japan moved away from its feudal system and adopted Shinto as the state religion. The Buddhist precepts had been state law, but this ended in 1872. This change meant that monks could eat meat, and maybe more importantly that they could marry and have families. This again makes Japanese Buddhist monastics unique in that they are the only ones who can marry. My understanding is that this change was made by the Meiji government in order to dilute the power of Buddhist institutions in Japan. A priest with a spouse or partner and children has considerably less time and energy to devote to political power struggles than a single, celibate one.

SOTO ZEN IN THE U.S. IN THE 21ST CENTURY

There are three basic phases for ordained people in our tradition. First, what is sometimes called Novice ordination, then shuso practice, and finally one receives dharma transmission from their teacher. I’ll give a little explanation of what each of these is.

That first phase is what Shojin and Genjo entered into yesterday. Here at Clouds in Water we call it being a Priest-In-Training. Generally, in the U.S. people have already practiced for a substantial amount of time before making this commitment to practice and training. In Japan, however, it is normally very young people (often teenagers) who receive this ordination. Preparations for doing this vary from teacher to teacher. In my lineage, and in Katagiri Roshi’s lineage, the person to be ordained sews their own robes by hand. This means they sew a 7-row okesa, a zagu (the bowing cloth), and a rakusu. In the ordination ceremony they receive all these things from the teacher, along with the koromo (the black robe with the big sleeves), a set or oryoki eating bowls, a paper called a kechimiyaku, which means blood line. This paper documents the line of transmission of the precepts from its recipient (Genjo or Shojin) back to the historical Buddha. We know that in many ways this lineage is fictional in its details, and some aspects of it were created for the purpose of political maneuvering at various points. However, what is not fictional is that this teaching and these precepts have been transmitted from teacher to students for thousands of years by people who have devoted their lives to preserving them.

During the last 3 ½ years I have been a priest-in-training. I have been studying and learning in as many ways as possible. Of course I have been studying my teacher’s books and lectures, and also studying the history and foundational literature and thinking in our tradition. I’ve also been really lucky to spend time around several different teachers with different styles and approaches. Watching how they talk to students, how they manage themselves in sesshin, or how they wash dishes has been a really important piece of my education. When I spoke to my teacher about what it means to be ordained he said it means making a transition from being a consumer to being a service provider. In other words, being a priest or monk means making yourself of service to the community. It’s normal for people to perceive those of us wearing these beautiful robes as being something special, but at least from my perspective it’s not true. It is true that it requires a special dedication to working for the Dharma, but the essential practice of a priest is not necessarily different from anyone else. We should see ourselves as supporting from below, not above, the rest of the sangha.

Being shuso is the next marker of a new phase in one’s practice. Shuso means head monk or head student. One is shuso for the length of an ango (practice period) – usually 2 or 3 months. The tradition is that the shuso shares the teacher’s seat with the abbot of the monastery. For a long time, the only thing I really knew about shuso practice was that it is the shuso’s job to clean the bathrooms. That’s true, actually. It is the shuso’s job to support the practice of the community, and become even more visible to the sangha as they begin to move into the role of a teacher. The culmination of the shuso practice is the shuso ceremony in which the shuso, teacher, and sangha acknowledge each other, and the community has the chance to ask the shuso questions about the koan they have been studying and working with over the course of the ango. Our fall ango, or practice period, begins today. We’re having a ceremony immediately after this talk where we will install GD as the shuso for the ango. I hope you all will support her work and practice as she makes this pivot and transformation in her role in the sangha.

There are a lot of ideas about what Dharma Transmission means. It varies widely from lineage to lineage, teacher to teacher. Here is what my teacher, Shohaku Okumura, wrote to his disciples last year on the subject of Dharma Transmission:

As I often say, dharma transmission in our lineage is not receiving certificate to be an enlightened person, or receive authority to be a Zen teacher.

It is simply a passing-rite to be the new phase of practice to prepare to become a teacher.

Japanese Sotoshu has about 15000 temples in Japan that means more priests than the number.

To be temple priests, all of them have to receive dharma transmission.

Dharma transmission is not a way to select enlightened elites.

It is simply a process to be temple resident priests.

No one in Japan think all Soto Zen temple priests are enlightened people or qualified Zen masters.

I received dharma transmission when I was twenty-six years old.

Including myself, no one thought I was ready to teach.

Actually, it took me twenty more years of on-and-on study and practice until I feel I have something to offer as a Zen teacher.

As our practice is good-for-nothing, dharma transmission is also good-for-nothing.

It does not make us great enlightened people.

Rather, we need to be more humble by reflecting how small and deluded we are when we compare ourselves to our ancestors.

Please understand this point regarding dharma transmission.

I was ordained because the practice of zazen, the precepts, and the study of Buddhist teaching changed my life profoundly. Those things came to me in a particular package – Japanese Soto Zen Buddhism from a small, poor temple called Antaiji. This style of practice and study has been transmitted to me and many other people around the world by Shohaku. I feel an enormous debt of gratitude to him and to all the people who came before him who devoted their lives to keeping this teaching alive. Since I received all these things in this particular form, my aspiration is to keep that form alive so that other people can encounter it the way I did. I can say, with no false modesty and complete honesty, that I can never measure up to the standard set by Shohaku-san or any of the other people I’m lucky to call teachers. But I do think that each of us is completely unique, and so has their own way of manifesting the dharma as an expression of the functioning of the universe. My aspiration is to continue practicing letting go of my personal agenda by sitting in zazen and carrying that practice as the foundation for the precepts and my life off the cushion.

To conclude I’d like to point out to Shojin, Genjo, and this amazing community that is supporting them and being supported by their practice that Dogen Zenji concludes his chapter called “Leaving the Household” by saying:

…ask, “How much is the merit of leaving the household?”

If someone asks in this way, say, “To the top of the head.”

I’ve been looking at a short section of a work called the Sutta Nipata. The Sutta Nipata is one of the very oldest collections of the Buddha’s teachings. It’s basically a collection of very short suttas, many of them are in a kind of question and answer format. The one I’m going to talk about today is from section 4 (The Chapter of the Eights) of the Sutta Nipata. #11: Kalahavivada Sutta (Disputes and Contention)

My teacher has drawn attention to this text many times over the years because of its very clear explanation about the way our day to day suffering develops, and also because of the resonance between the Buddha’s teaching about the end of that suffering and the teachings of Dogen Zenji and his own teacher Kosho Uchiyama Roshi.

The sutta leads off with this question:

“Sir, whenever there are arguments and quarrels there are tears and anguish, arrogance and pride and grudges and insults to go with them. Can you explain how these things come about? Where do they all come from?”

This feels pretty familiar. This is our day to day suffering. Our struggles with family members, coworkers, friends, acquaintances, other drivers on the road or passengers on the green line. Speaking for myself, I often find myself in tears or anguish, holding grudges or flinging insults with no idea how I got into that state at all. Maybe you have that experience too. So, the person asking this question wants to know how it happens. Where do these feelings come from? One minute we’re placid and enjoying what we’re doing and the next we’re filled with rage or sadness or some other emotion we experience as negative.

In this short sutra the Buddha lays out a very clear chain of events that we can understand. Not only that, he explains that actually it is possible NOT to do this. I won’t keep you hanging, the way to not end up in this kind of state is zazen practice. 

Here’s the chain of causation that the Buddha lays out for us. This chain has 6 links. There’s a more well-known version of this with 12 links that is developed later in the history of Buddhism. I like this one maybe because it’s simpler and I can remember it more easily. It looks like this:

Tears, anguish, SUFFERING <--  preferences <--   desire (clinging) <--   discrimination pleasant vs. unpleasant (sensation)  <--  contact <--  form (perception)

I’d like to say a little bit about each one of these, starting with the last one.

Form / perception / nama rupa
This is where it starts. Mind and matter exist. Mind and matter means the five skandhas, which according to Buddhism is what we all are – no more and no less. The five skandhas are form (rupa, matter), feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. Sometimes we say these things don’t exist. In the Heart Sutra that we chanted pretty much every day in Mahayana temples around the world we say NO before all these things. No form, no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no consciousness. So, this is pretty confusing and hard to wrap our minds around and I’m not going to clarify it much today except to say Yes to all of that. One of the things I’m saying YES to is that our bodies and minds exist. And the Buddha tells us this is the first step toward tears, anguish, arrogance, pride, grudges and insults.

Contact
The next link is contact. That means contact between this body and mind that I just said does actually exist, and objects around it. In Buddhism we have six sense organs: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, and mind. Each of these organs has an object – light, sound, smells, tastes, bodily sensations, and thoughts. When our sense organs come into contact with their object, something happens.

Sensation (discrimination)
The thing that happens is sensation – you see something, or smell something, or think something… but not only that. We sort those things into three categories. Things I like, things I don’t like, and things I don’t care about. The things that go into that third category don’t matter much to us, in fact we may not even really notice that they exist. But the first two categories are a very very big deal.

Desire
Desire in this case has a very wide meaning, and it’s based on the sorting we just did. Things that go into the I Like This category we want to get, or we want to keep. Things in the I Don’t Like This category we want to avoid or make go away.

Preferences
This is called preferences. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I think we devote the vast majority of our effort to getting or keeping the things we want, and avoiding the things we don’t want. But it usually doesn’t work, at least not for long. And then we become angry, or sad, or jealous. And there are tears and anguish and arrogance and pride and grudges and insults.

This a very basic teaching of Buddhism. I think it’s pretty clear. If we stop here Buddhism seems like a pretty pessimistic way to look at the world. The very existence of our bodies and minds leads to suffering. This is not uplifting. But thankfully this short sutra isn’t quite over yet. The questioner has a couple more things to ask:

“What pursuit leads a person to get rid of form? And how can suffering and pleasure cease to exist? This is what I want to know about.”

The Buddha replies: “There is a state where form ceases to exist. It is a state without ordinary perception and without disordered perception and without no perception and without any annihilation of perception…”

• Without ordinary perception
• Without disordered perception
• Without no perception
• Without annihilation of perception

My basic hypothesis, which is really my teacher Shohaku Okumura’s idea, is that what the Buddha is talking about here and the zazen practice of Dogen Zenji as it is taught by Uchiyama Roshi and Okumura Roshi are the same thing. 

When the Buddha is outlining this chain in the sutra he says that suffering is a result of one thing: having preferences. The state the Buddha describes where one is free from all this is one outside of our day to day way of being, but also not so different. We don’t have ordinary perception, but don’t have some kind of strange or extrasensory perception either. We are still perceiving and not doing away with our perceptions.

In Fukanzazengi Dogen’s basic instructions for practicing zazen are

 “… put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest. If you want to attain suchness, practice suchness immediately…

…do not think in terms of good or bad. Do not judge true or false. Give up the operations of mind, intellect and consciousness; stop measuring with thoughts, ideas and views. Have no designs on becoming a buddha…

…Think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking? Beyond thinking.

…The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the Dharma gate of peace and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated awakening…”

The root of the problem, according to the Buddha, is preferences. Dogen’s instruction to us – do not think in terms of good or bad, do not judge, stop measuring. Have no designs on becoming a buddha. A state where form ceases to exist according to the Buddha, and Dogen tells us that in practicing zazen body and mind will drop away. Body and mind – the first link in the chain leading to suffering. Dogen even calls this the Dharma gate of peace and bliss.

Dogen says he’s not talking about meditation practice. To me, meditation sounds like thinking, like cogitating, like sitting and turning something over in my mind. This is exactly not what the Buddha and Dogen are talking about here. Our thinking is about discrimination – about understanding how things are. This is the same process as developing preferences. This is why don’t want to use that word. Of course I’m kind of trapped – we don’t have a better or different English word for it. At least for right now though I can get away with using zazen instead of meditation.

Sometimes I’ve really wondered about the transmission of the teaching. I’m a naturally skeptical person, and I have imagined it like a 2500 year game of telephone with the Buddha at one end and us at the other receiving some kind of unrecognizably garbled version of what was taught at Vulture Peak all those centuries ago. But looking at this settles that skepticism down a little. Dogen’s zazen feels an awful lot like what the Buddha was talking about here.

Sanshinji, my teacher’s temple in Bloomington IN published a transcription of Okumura Roshi giving zazen instruction. I’d like to share a short excerpt of it with you.

“In zazen we simply allow any thought, feeling or emotion to come up and then we simply let them go away; we actually do nothing. In sitting, any thought or condition of mind is like a cloud in the sky. Somehow clouds appear in the sky, changing form as they stay for a while, and then they disappear. Similar to clouds in the sky, any thought that appears in zazen simply stays for a while and then disappears. I have been practicing this style of meditation for more than 35 years, and in my experience, no thought stays in the mind forever. Everything is coming and going, and we just let things come up freely and let them go away freely. We don’t try to fight against our thoughts or any other mental condition, and we don’t try to interact with them, either. The intention is not to grasp what is coming up from your consciousness. We actually do nothing but let the things happening within the mind just flow. Yet when you become aware that you are interacting with what is happening in your mind, just stop interacting and return to the zazen posture while breathing with the eyes open. That means you let go of whatever thoughts come up, and you also don’t sleep. This is the point in our sitting practice.”

            But, if you show up at a Zen center like this one you pretty quickly start hearing about no attainment, practicing without gaining mind. For example, Sawaki Roshi said “What is zazen good for? Nothing! We should be made to hear this good-for-nothingness so often that we get calluses on our ears and practice good-for-nothing zazen without any expectation. Otherwise, our practice really is good for nothing.” In my understanding, zazen practice as a Buddhist activity is not what we all initially come here for.