The Monk and the Samurai

There are several version of this tale. Sometimes, Hakuin is the hero. A Zen monk was once visited by a samurai warrior. “I want to know about heaven and hell,” said the samurai. “Do they really exist?” he asked the monk.   The Monk looked at the samurai and asked, “Who are you?”   “I am a samurai,” announced the proud warrior.   “A samurai, really?” exclaimed the monk.  “Look at yourself ! You're unkempt, dumb and dirty. Indeed you're a disgrace and an embarrassment to the whole samurai class ! What makes you think you could understand such insightful things? Go away and do not waste my time with your foolish questions,” the monk said, waving his hand to drive away the samurai.   The enraged samurai drew his sword to slice the monk's head off, and the monk calmly retorted,  “THIS,  is Hell.” The samurai was taken aback. His face softened. Humbled by the wisdom of the monk, he put away his sword and bowed to him. “And THIS, is heaven,”  stated the monk just as calmly. Most people think this story is about the compassion and courage of the Monk who does not hesitate to put his life in danger to teach the Samurai. They are missing the point. No matter how admirable compassion is, it does not help people break the chains of suffering. The problem is not Hell or Heaven, the problem is Liking or Disliking. By insulting the Samurai the monk sets in motion the whole chain of dependent origination. On hearing the words "unkempt, dumb and dirty", rage - suffering - dukkha -  instantly raises in the samurai.  His proud ego  - He - is born anew.  And as soon as he hears "This is Hell", he realizes what has been happening. This same ego  - He - dies. The monk in fact skilfully demonstrated to him the mechanisms of Dependent Origination: how our ego constantly dies and is reborn in us.  In our ignorance of the dharma we are addicted to the world and ego we have built. Until we figure out how we can use the same mechanisms that have been enslaving us to free ourselves, we will suffer, just like the samurai suffered when the monk insulted him. The Buddha himself taught that Dependent Origination was a complicated and subtle thing to realize. It is so confusing that  it has been interpreted in very different ways by numerous Buddhist sects. In Zen, we do not put much emphasis in studying it, relying on the Heart Sutra's  negation of it : "There is neither Ignorance, nor extinction of Ignorance, neither Old Age and Death nor extinction of Old Age and Death".  But for a slow and thick headed learner as me, studying the basics : 4 Noble Truth, 8 fold path, and Dependent Origination is very helpful. I do not take them as Dogma or Theories, but as Efficient Tools to be used toward a Practical Goal.  Take Dogen's "Dropping body and Mind". People who are much more advanced than me wrote fascinating and abstruse stuff about it. But if you study Dependent Origination, it appears very likely that Dogen was simply  referring to the 4th link of Dependent Origination : Body/Mind - Nama/Rupa and that there is no need to  think of anything more complicated than that.  Before you run, learn how to walk, always practice basics... The great way is not difficult,  For those who have no preference...

Samadhi of Action - Judo

In Judo, normally, when two persons practice, each of them grasps the collar and sleeve of the other, and tries to score with throws and pins. Through intensive practice, one can develop muscular strength and use it to control an opponent if victory is strongly desired. We can see this competitive process, for example in the style of competitive judo which is now an Olympic sport, and as judo is practiced in many places in the world. 

People that only know this type of judo may not understand the concerns voiced in the following remarks by Jigoro Kano - the founder of modern Judo in 1918:

In the Kodokan, each person practices randori by grasping his opponent’s collar and sleeve. This must be done for beginners to improve their skill, but that method is not the ultimate one. If you grasp your opponent’s collar and sleeve, you must grasp extremely softly and without strength. Otherwise, you cannot move quickly.

This clearly and amazingly demonstrated here by Kyuzo Mifune, 10th dan.

Now this is Mastery. And the lightness of Mifune Sensei is a perfect illustration of the first verses of Zen Master Seng Can's Shin Jin Mei:

The Great Way is not difficult
For those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
Everything becomes clear and undisguised.

Keep training...

Our Mundane World

This "Mundane World" is an expression we often hear, an other name for the "World of life and death" or Samsara. A world we should try to avoid because of its shallowness...

It is interesting to note that originally "mundane" means "of the world". So that really, the mundane world is the world of the world, or the worldly world...

 

Are we really meant to avoid the world of the world ?

Sitting in Zazen to experience nirvana, possibly reach great levels of spiritual accomplishments and why not save the world may seem like a worthy enterprise.

But in the end, we are rooted in this mundane world, there is no other world and this is where we are meant to daily operate.

"To return to the root is to find the meaning" (1). The mundane world, the worldly world, this is where the root is, and if we look for it in a different, non mundane world, we act just like a man trying to find his eyeglasses when they sit on his nose.

(1) Shin Jin Mei

Jesus said somewhere : “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

What exactly is a Rich Man ? Generally, it is any human entangled with earthly, physical possessions. Basically, in our societies, Things that Money can buy.

If you have something other people don't have and wish to have, you are richer than them.

These things can be of different nature - they can be hard assets - house, car, land... they can also be less tangible. You can be rich of a knowledge or expertise of intellectual, practical or spiritual nature : Nuclear Engineering, Chinese poetry or Psychology; Karate, Watercolor painting or Ice skating; Yoga, Zen or Christian contemplation.

If it is easy to understand for most of us how craving for mundane things - so called hard assets - is going to be a serious hindrance on the way to enlightenment (to access the Kingdom of God).

But what is less obvious is that cravings and attachments to other riches, the intellectual and spiritual ones, are also going to be a problem.

It is however clearly taught, and rightly so, by various traditions.

In Zen we have Master Sengcan's Shin Jin Mei :

If you want to know the truth
Do not hold opinions for or against anything...
Do not search for the truth
Simply cease to cherish opinions.

For Christian medieval mystic Meister Eckhart the path to freedom is found in “unbinding the attachments that constitute one’s preferences, desires, or inclinations.” 

No matter the tradition you follow, you have to totally empty your cup before it can be filled.  Make room for the Truth to enter. Empty it fully, even of your willingness to empty it... 

The only way to do that is to try and try again: daily practice. 

MAN-AN - On Zen practice by Lay People

Man-An Eishu was a prominent Soto Master of the early Edo period. He was a good friend of Samurai and Zen Master Suzuki Shosan, and tried to raise the Soto Zen of that period to a higher level. He rebuilt the Temple of Kosho-ji in Uji. Together with other Masters of this period, he was convinced that a general reform of Zen was necessary, but he lacked the influence to carry it out. (He possibly pissed off a few important heads of powerful Monasteries, favorites of the Tokugawa shogunate ...). Man-An never had on Soto Zen the influence that Master Hakuin had on Rinzai Zen.

This post is a passage from  "An elementary talk on Zen", from "Minding Mind - a course in basic meditation" , a collection of texts translated  by Thomas Cleary.

This first part is about the practice of Zen by Lay people (us...) Man-An was not always tender for some of his fellow Zen Masters...

         If you want to quickly attain mastery of all truths and be independent in all events, there is nothing better than concentration in activity. That is why it is said that students of mysticism working on the Way should sit in the midst of the material world.

The Third Patriarch of Zen said, "If you want to head for the Way of Unity, do not be averse to the objects of the six senses. " * This does not mean that you should indulge in the objects of the six senses, it means that you should keep right mindfulness continuous, neither grasping nor rejecting the objects of the six senses in the course of every day life, like a duck going into the water without its feathers getting wet.

If, in contrast, you despise the objects of the six senses and try to avoid them, you fall into escapist tendencies and never fulfill the Way of Buddhahood. If you clearly see the essence, then the objects of the six senses are themselves meditation, sensual desires are themselves the Way of Unity, and all things are manifestations of Reality. Entering into the great Zen stability undivided by movement and stillness, body and mind are both freed and eased.

As for people whose tout to cultivate spiritual practice is with aversion to the objects and desires of the senses, even if their minds and thoughts are empty and still and their contemplative visualization is perfectly clear, still when they leave quietude and get into active situations, they are like fish out of water, like monkeys out of the trees.

Even people who go deep into mountain forests; cut off relations with the world for ever, and eat from the fruits of the trees as ascetics can not easily attain pure singleness of, concentration. Needless to say, it is even more difficult for those who are mendicants in name only, or shallow householders, who are so busy making a living.

In truth, unless you have definite certitude of overwhelming faith, or are filled with overwhelming doubt or wonder, or are inspired with overwhelming commitment, or are overtaken by overwhelming death, it is hard to attain concentration that is pure and undivided in principle and fact, inaction and stillness.

If you are wholeheartedly careful of how you spend your time, aware of the evanescence of life, concentrating singlemindedly on Zen work even in the midst of objects of desire, if you proceed right straight ahead, the iron walls will open up. You will experience the immense joy of walking over the Polar Mountain and become the Master with in the objects of sense. you will be like a lotus blooming in fire, becoming all the more colorful and more fragrant in contact with the energy of fire.

Do not say that it is harder for lay people living in the world of senses and desires to sit and meditate, or that it is hard, to concentrate with so many worldly duties, or that one with an official or professional career can not practice Zen, or that the poor and the sickly do not have the power to work on the Way. These excuses are all due to impotence of faith and superficiality of the thought of enlightenment.

If you observe that the matter of life and death is serious, and that the world is really impermanent, the will for enlightenment will grow, the thieving heart of egoism, selfishness, pride, and covetousness will gradually die out, and you will come to work on the Way by sitting meditation in which principle and fact are one.

Suppose you were to lose your only child in a crowd or drop an invaluable gem: do you think you would let the child or the, jewel go at that, just because of the bustle and the mob? Would you not look for them even if you had a lot of work to do or were poor or sickly? Even if you had to plunge into an immense crowd of people and had to continue searching into the night, you would not be easy in mind until you had found and retrieved your child or your jewel.

To have been born human and heard true teaching is a very rare opportunity, so to neglect meditation because of your career is to treat the life of wisdom of the body of truths of the Buddhas less seriously than worldly chattels. But if you search for wisdom singlemindedly like someone who has lost a child or dropped a gem, one day you will undoubtedly encounter it, whereupon you will light up with joy.

People in all walks of life have all sorts of things to attend to, how could they have the leisure to sit silently all day in quiet contemplation? Here there are Zen teachers who have not managed to cultivate this sitting meditation concentration , they teach deliberate seclusion and quietude, avoiding population centers, stating that intensive meditation concentration can not be attained in the midst of professional work, business, and labor, thus causing students to apply their minds mistakenly.

People who listen to this kind of talk consequently think of Zen as something that is hard to do and hard to practice, so they give up the inspiration to cultivate Zen, abandon the source and try to escape, time and again becoming like lowly migrant workers. This is truly lamentable. even if they have a deep aspiration due to some cause in the past, they get to where they neglect their jobs and lose their social virtues for the sake of the Way.

As an ancient said, if people today were as eager for enlightenment as they are to embrace their lovers, then no matter how busy their professional lives might be and no matter how luxurious their dwellings maybe, they would not fail to attain continuous concentration leading to appearance of the great Wonder.

* Kaichi Sosan in the Shin Jin Mei