"Y"-Zen

Daibutsu (Big Buddha) Kamakura, Japan c. 1867

Zen Buddhism has often been referred to as a form of psychotherapy rather than a religion, and its practice is seen as a form of self-discovery and repair rather than idle ritual.

Zen practice can be alarmingly difficult, even brutal, particularly in sesshin, but typically it's not. Most people who practice Zen are not destined to become monks or nuns, nor will they become sensei or roshi (teachers or wise leaders). That is neither their purpose nor ambition in practicing Zazen. The goal, if there is a goal, for most Zen practitioners is an inner peace which may -- or may not -- be or lead to satori, sudden enlightenment.

I found in practicing Zazen many years ago that the presence of any desire inhibited practice. One cannot desire enlightenment, for example, or desire to count one's breaths, or desire to clear one's mind. These supposed benefits or objectives of Zen practice cannot be desired while in sitting meditation or the whole point of the meditation is lost. In fact, it quickly becomes apparent that meditation itself is impossible in the context of desire.

This is a conundrum and paradox in the Buddhism, one that the Buddha himself wrestled with constantly -- until he didn't. Desire itself, he learned, was the cause of suffering. Lose desire and you lose suffering. But how do you do that?

Luckily we have guides including the Buddha. In Zen many additional threads are woven together. In other words, we learn to practice not just from the Buddha but from a long lineage of disciples, devotees, teachers and masters, each of whom provides a distinct and ultimately necessary insight into the practice we call Zen today.

Why Zen then and not some other Buddhist school or practice? There are quite a few different versions of Buddhism after all. Zen is often considered the severest and most difficult. Oddly, or perhaps not, I didn't find it so at all.

In fact, it seemed remarkably easy.

That's not to say there wasn't inner struggle. Of course there was and still is. Sitting meditation (Zazen) itself, however, is not really hard to do. It's hard or impossible for me now to assume the correct posture sitting on the floor on a thin cushion. Nope, no can do. But it's not necessary. Sitting, yes, but not necessarily on the floor in the lotus or semi-lotus position. No, any position that is not too comfortable for you (so you don't go to sleep!) in a chair or sofa or bench or what have you is fine. The proper Zen meditation position (which I won't elaborate here, but which is quite detailed and complex, at least at first) is a necessity only for monks and nuns in training, and even then, exceptions can sometimes be made. The notion that every Zen practitioner must adhere to the proper form of sitting is laughable.

One sits as one will.

One sits though, and one allots a length of time, usually half an hour, for quiet meditation as one sits. Typically, the meditation period is announced with a bell or other signaling device at the beginning and end of the period. Years ago, we kept a small brass bell for the purpose, but now we use a Tibetan "singing bowl"  -- from Nepal, of course. Anything can be used though, anything that makes a distinct sound when struck, preferably one that holds a tone for a time.

One sits, eyes closed, head down; one focuses on one's breathing and counts one's breaths. That, almost entirely, is it. One does that for half an hour and at some point during the meditation, without really noticing it, one stops counting, one stops noticing one's breathing, one is liberated from thought, concept, presence, and perhaps only momentarily one stops being "one."

Is that satori? Mmm, could be.

Of course when you're doing this at distance, not in company with a sangha or in close communication with a roshi or sensei one doesn't really know whether what one has experienced in sitting meditation is this or that. And in the early-mid '60s, while there were a number of Zen communities in California, they were not directly accessible to me, so I had to do a remote and individualized practice which at the time seemed perfectly acceptable. I started on my own using a thin book as a guide, and then corresponded with a Zen teacher affiliated with the San Francisco Zen Center who encouraged my individual practice and didn't seem at all put off that I was doing it on my own. Many people did.

I'm not sure whether I still have the guide book (I suspect not, but with thousands of books accumulated over the years and no card catalog to sort them, who knows?) but at some point, it seemed unnecessary, even superfluous to my practice. Once you get into a sort of meditation groove as it were, guidance becomes more and more problematic.

That's because one's path in meditation is one's own. There are no universal absolutes. Satori is what it is, but it isn't necessarily the same for each individual. The Buddha seemed to understand that. My own Zen teacher certainly understood it. And when I reached a point we no longer needed to correspond, I honestly didn't know whether I had reached satori or not. And here's the thing: It doesn't matter. Because one still chops wood and carries water before as well as after enlightenment.

I thought of attending a dharma talk at a Zen center in Santa Fe a couple of weeks ago. The topic was interesting: The freedom to be Nobody. Turns out I didn't go. It's an hour-twenty to get there, maybe more giving allowance for traffic and possibly getting lost, and I ran out of time. But that's an excuse, as I could have arranged my time more carefully that day than I did, and I could have made it before the start of the talk.

I was put off, however, by some of the non-welcoming attitude, shall we say, of the Center's operation as reflected by its website. Certainly a serious Zen community will have rules, but in this case, it seemed obsessive to the point of absurdity. The dharma talks supposedly welcome anyone who wishes to attend, oh but...

One must arrive by a particular time, one must park in a particular place, one must dress in a particular way, one must observe particular rituals and practices that one might not be familiar with at all, one must engage in zazen as well as kinhin, one is expected to give dana to the speaker... wait, this is crazy. This is not a welcome to anyone who wishes to attend. This is a barricade against that very thing. Deliberately so. It's clear enough to me that this particular Zen Center desires most of all to keep people in general out, and wishes to welcome only a select class of participants and only on very strict terms.

If you don't follow the rules pretty much exactly, you are not welcome.

No, I'd put it more generally: you, a "nobody", are not welcome there at all.

Ironic given the topic of the talk.

A few days later, I listened to the talk on podcast, and I was not sorry I missed it. Well, there are many points at which Zen by its nature is a contradiction. The contradictions and occasional absurdities are part of the practice, and the whys are interesting, but I won't get into them here.

In the case of this talk, which I intend to listen to again, the speaker was not prepared, ran off on several tangents that weren't necessarily interesting in themselves, and ultimately he indulged his own personal desires (yes!) because he didn't know what else to say.

In fact, I'm listening to the talk again now because I suspect I must have gotten it wrong. We'll see.


...

RECONSIDERATION: All right. My first impression of this dharma talk was wrong. I have listened to it again, and for all its faults, the talk is actually on point, coherent and.. helpful. As a Bodhisattva, the speaker is illuminating the Diamond Sutra with many different lamps in many colors. As a "nobody" on pilgrimage, you may not be welcome everywhere or anywhere, but what's to worry?

I listened before with one ear closed, and I missed much of the talk through distractions, of which there were (are) many. I listened with both ears today, and found a far more complete.talk.  Letting go is a perpetual issue. It may have been simplistic and based in desire, but it was fuller than my initial impressions, and it was not because he didn't know what else to say or because he wasn't prepared.

I may have more to say about pilgrimage and letting go in due time. Which also has to do with my continued reluctance to join a sangha.

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