Overintellectualizing... Zen

Well, yes. It's time for another Practice Period, one I have been eager to join -- though I'm having problems doing so given the build up of other things.

The text for study is a translation of the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi by Dongshan, c. 850ce or so. (The link is to a somewhat different translation which includes the original Chinese.)

I recognized it from much earlier Buddhist readings I had done 50-60 years ago, but which I hadn't reviewed in many decades. Much of my Buddhist training and practice was absorbed at one point in my life -- mostly long ago -- and that was it: there was no need to return to the specific sutra or teaching. I think this is how most of us are educated. We receive a teaching in school or life appropriate to the grade or stage of life we're in and once taught the teaching is never returned to. If it is, it's probably due to a contrary teaching we pick up later in our education and life.

That seems to be a the root of some of the problems some of the participants and having with this text. To me, it's very simple, straightforward (though poetic) and... easy to grasp. But then, this isn't new to me. I absorbed it so long ago and in doing so, the text an the thinking of it became part of my being. It doesn't vanish because I haven't sat with it for a long time, and it isn't more difficult this time around than it was the first time around.

For many of the participants, however, this is their first encounter with it, and the whole concept of "thusness" or "suchness" (long academic treatise on the study-text) is new to them. Many, I've discovered, are PhDs, MDs, and so forth, with all kinds of advanced degrees, credentials, academic accomplishments, books written and read, and a certain level of regard if not renown in their fields. 

Who would have thought this would be problematical? Well, it is. The tendency to overintellectualize the teaching is overwhelming. 

It is when it comes to Zen and Buddhist teaching. Which, for the most part, is very simple and is a very different, almost an opposite approach to learning than they or most of us are used to. It can be very hard to accept if it shatters the mold of hard-won learning-living experience. And no, I am not immune as my struggles with the Mountains and Waters Sutra (and lingering disregard for Gary Snyder) have demonstrated.

It is human nature in some respects, and we practitioners of the 8 Fold Path are advised to respect that.

As I've learned that Zen grew out of the Japanese samurai culture of medieval times. It's adapted from the contemporaneous Chan Buddhism found in China which was taken to Japan by Dogen, and which spread rather quickly through the upper reaches of Japanese society. It was never -- and is not now -- a popular practice. 

There are more Zen Buddhists outside of Japan than there ever were in Japan, and there aren't a lot of Zen Buddhists anywhere. It's a particular form of Buddhist practice that can be over-rigorous for many. And also kind of silly. When you're into it, you know how silly it is, and if you don't laugh, your practice is stunted.

Samurai culture is not the culture within which most of us live, and while Zen has tried to adapt, especially in the US, to different cultural expectations and norms, and has adopted a wide range of other Buddhist practices, outlooks and teachings (so much so that I hardly recognize it as Zen Buddhism any more) the samurai origins of the practice are not completely absent.

Samurai were warriors after all, and Zen was a way not so much to tame them as to give them the psychic tools to transcend warriorism and potentially become better warriors. Not all of that has disappeared in today's Zen practice, but it has definitely mutated. 

Warriors are trained in a very narrow and specific manner. Zen opened that narrow path wide. Still does.

I've ruminated on the fact that what's presented as Zen these days in the US only superficially resembles its Japanese roots. Once Suzuki Roshi passed in 1971, Zen in America and subsequently elsewhere except in Japan became something else again. I've struggled with some of those changes, too.

There are plenty of those of us who practice now who struggle with those changes. Why not, we may wonder, just be Tibetan Buddhists if that's what seems right for the moment? Why not follow Tich Nhat Hanh directly in a hybrid Vietnamese/French Zen practice? Why maintain the trappings of Japanese Zen when that practice seems either obsolete or inappropriate? 

We've moved on. Haven't we?

Then we get to study the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi and -- at least for me -- it all falls right back into place. "Thusness," "Suchness" is the core teaching and this is how it can be approached.

I was asked during the last ango I participated in whether I chanted, and I said no, not out loud. The Song is one of the chants used by this Zen Center (widely elsewhere, too) but chants, to me, are rote and ritual like the Pledge Allegiance signifying... what? As a child recites the Pledge, what? Meaning? Nah.

So chanting to me obscures the point and meaning of what is being chanted while reinforcing a tendency to be satisfied with repeated empty ritual. This is one reason I've never been a church-goer or felt tied to a religious institution.

But if "suchness" is the core of the teaching of Zen, what is it?

Wrong question. There's no answer. 

I was considering that "dream" I had when I was late for zazen one morning during Spring Practice, the "dream" of leaving my apartment in San Francisco, walking to Union Square, sitting zazen on a bench with an old Chinese man for a while, then walking clockwise around the square and eventually to Market Street, up to Taylor, then up to Geary and back to my apartment where the whole thing started over again.

This sequence of events actually happened to me as I described it, and as I relived it in the "dream." I didn't know why it came back as clearly and suddenly as it did or why it repeated that morning, but I think my teacher understood though she wouldn't say. Of course, it was up to me to figure it out. 

And this practice period, it seems to be figuring itself out. 

Prior to my physical experience of those events in San Francisco so long ago (what, it would have been 1975? about then) I had sat zazen in my apartment on Geary St. daily. I had a zazen experience during which I entered what I came to call The Void. Nothingness. No sight, sound, color, thought, feeling, anything, just Emptiness. Initially, it was bewildering. I could enter and leave it with relative ease, but I didn't know what "it" was, and I recalled warnings from study-texts that said something like "this could happen while sitting zazen, and don't put too much store in it. It could be false, just another delusion, but one that could be dangerous. "

I took the warnings to heart, and as I didn't have a teacher at the time, I tried sorting through it on my own with whatever study-texts I had (I don't remember the titles except for "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" by Suzuki Roshi) and recognized/acknowledged that every time I sat zazen after that, the Void would return, and that was that. There wasn't another sitting experience.

So the events described in the "dream" of sitting with an old Chinese gentleman in Union Square happened shortly after a Void-Sit in my apartment. It was an instruction which I recognized as such at the time but didn't have the resources to fully appreciate. I knew "something had happened." But I didn't know what. 

I may know now, thanks to the Winter Practice Period study-text of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi and the somewhat spotty participation I'm doing with the Zoom-sangha. 

It is not really describable in words, however, nor will deeds necessarily clarify. But I understand better why I'm reluctant to become an official member of this sangha. 

I go back to a very early teaching: "The Buddha is within you; the Dharma is you; the Sangha is with whomever you encounter on the Dharma Path."

The core of the Teaching (Dharma) is "Thusness."

In other words... no words.

Thusness, Zen and Not Zen

I was considering a lot of Zenish nonsense not long ago and found some wonderful archival videos (home movies and tv film excerpts) of the San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara from the 1960s that was very evocative and memory jogging. What I liked especially were the segments featuring Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, the Japanese founder of the Zen Center.

I was driven to find these YouTube videos by part of a day-long intensive program through the New Mexico Zen center I associate with that featured Kazuaki Tanahashi, a Japanese Zen artist, writer and elder who had been a colleague of Suzuki Roshi and who became part of the San Francisco Zen Center after Suzuki Roshi's death in 1971. He shared some of his memories of those long-ago times, and I sought to rekindle some of my own. The videos I found more than satisfied my interest and curiosity, and I suspect I'll go back to them many more times. This is one of the playlists I found consisting of segments of a KQED documentary from 1968, close to the time when I first got in contact with the SFZC (c. 1964-65). The film above is quite long but includes most of the clips on the playlist as well as quite a lot of other archival material.

Zen has evolved so much in this country since then it's sometimes hard to believe it's the same practice, and I believe that in many centers these days, it's not. Sukzuki Roshi might laugh, I think, at what passes for Zen these days, and yet he'd probably say "Why not? Sure." Zen Not Zen.

Zen practice had been evaporating in Japan since before the War in the Pacific, and after the War it seemed close to disappearing altogether from the land of its birth in the 1200s AD.

This is kind of ironic given Zen's cultural grounding among samurai and the shogunate; ie: warrior culture. It was in effect Buddhism for warriors and rebels. 

And that was the essence of what Suzuki Roshi brought to the United States starting in the late 1950s.

That was still the essence of what I came across through the SFZC in the mid-1960s.

In those days, Zen was sitting practice (zazen) and other Japanese Zen rituals, study of the sutras, Dharma talks which involved extensive Q&A with participants, and learning to live a fulfilling, happy, and 'generous" life. It was not psychotherapy, grief counseling, or rehab. It was practice, training. It was based on Japanese Soto Zen practice, but it was not monastic Zen, at least not for lay people though some monastic practices were incorporated. And after the Tassajara retreat opened, monastic Zen was offered to those who were interested and could withstand the rigor.

But for the most part the rigors of the Japanese monastery were applied lightly if at all, and the practice was less about form and ritual than it was about doing more or less what came naturally within the structure of Zen. The structural outlines of Japanese Zen practice were there, some of the fashion and props, but most of the practice was involved with the rebel counterculture of the era, and that meant many modifications from the stricter Japanese Zen observance, even if those who were involved with Zen practice in San Francisco and Tassajara didn't quite know what was being modified to accommodate them, how or why.

Following those outlines kept Zen in America sort of Japanese yet not. Zen was becoming Americanized, and after Suzuki Roshi's death in 1971, the San Francisco Zen Center became something else again under his successor, Richard Baker. Something Big. Important. And Eccentrically Fashionable. It was "out there" in the sense that Zen still wasn't commonplace, but it was attracting the rich, the famous or would-be famous, and the well-connected. It was a hotbed for striving to see and be seen among the powerful and influential in California and San Francisco society and what was left of the counter culture. And it began to change.

When I lived in San Francisco in the mid-1970s, I consciously avoided the San Francisco Zen Center though some of the people I worked with attended zazen there (At the Page St. facility) more or less regularly and encouraged me to attend as well as I'd been introduced to Buddhism through the Center when it was at the Sokoji Temple in Japantown. I declined. At the time I was practicing zazen on my own, usually in my apartment on Geary St., but not infrequently in Union Square or in North Beach, Fisherman's Wharf, and other destinations where the cable car or 38 Geary bus would take me. (I had a car but hardly ever used it in the City.)

I had learned very early on that zazen practice did not require a formal set up, a zendo, a cushion, or really any of the trappings of traditional Zen practice. It could be done anywhere, any time, for as long or as short a time as one wanted or could, and in any position. Full lotus or no lotus or anywhere in between, or lying down, sitting in a chair, it was fine. The point was to sit without conscious desire or aspiration, without conscious thought, just sit. Once you learned to do that -- it takes practice -- you've found your center, and once you do, you can return to it pretty much any time under almost any circumstance. It was liberating. 

After 10 years or so of regular practice I entered into what I called The Void whenever I sat zazen. It's a state we were warned about because it could be (probably was) a delusion and it was best to let it go if you wound up there. Well, needless to say, striving to "let it go" merely reinforced it in me, so I let go of regular zazen practice instead. 

Afterwards, I engaged in zazen practice a few times a year, always encountering The Void, and being wary about it. I didn't have a formal teacher, so there wasn't really anybody I could discuss it with. 

But I think these encounters with The Void changed me significantly.

After I returned to regular practice this spring, I did not encounter The Void -- so far as I know, and things may have been happening that I was not aware of consciously. I did mention it to one of the teachers, but she didn't think it was particularly worrisome. I found sitting zazen to be easy most times, and that the way of zazen practice was akin to a body memory in me. It centered me. And it was almost automatic. 

I sat to sit, no other aspiration or motivation, and each time it was like a renewal.

I usually didn't sit for more than 20 minutes at a time, sometimes quite a bit less, but I found myself sitting throughout the day, not just at scheduled zazen times. I still do. It's still refreshing and centering and enables me to continue my tasks in a "proper" frame of mind, which means focused on the now and what is real in the now, not wandering (too much) off on tangential matters.

Richard Baker, who took over operations of the San Francisco Zen Center after Suzuki Roshi died in 1971, appears in a number of the films from the '60s. Though I don't recall ever meeting him or Roshi for that matter, I recognized him immediately even when he wasn't identified. Though advanced in age, he's still around I understand, founder of Zen centers in Colorado and Germany between which he spends his time, an honored if somewhat tarnished elder. As far as I know, the Zen center I associate with in New Mexico was started by him after he left SFZC in the '80s, and gifted in the '90s to the current roshi.

Baker took SFZC into realms and in directions I have a hard time thinking Suzukl Roshi would have imagined, particularly when it came to raising oodles of money, going into business, numerous businesses, buying lots of property and otherwise becoming a significant economic and cultural force in the City and the Bay Area. Numerous offshoots were set up around the country as Baker's vision of expansion came true. Much of it wasn't really Zen in traditional sense at all.

Zen Not Zen.

But it was very rewarding financially and very appealing to some people of wealth, fame, and/or power and that helped keep the expansion going for some time, even after Baker Roshi was asked to resign as abbot. 

I won't detail the scandal or scandals to come at SFZC, but I will say that abuse of authority at Zen and Buddhist centers, monasteries and temples is not unheard of and in fact seems to closely parallel financial and sexual improprieties and scandals that have riven most religious endeavours -- probably throughout history. I'm pretty sure it's in the nature of the beast. Zen abbots and roshis are often granted enormous spiritual, moral, and temporal power and authority over their followers and over quite a lot of property and investments. They are supposed to act with wisdom, and most do, most of the time (at least we'd like to think so), but the kind of power and authority religious and spiritual leaders have or can acquire may lead to significant abuse, too. Zen monasteries in Japan can be notoriously abusive to monks and sometimes lay people as well. Mostly it's been forgiven or excused, or even routinized, but the power abbots and roshis have over participants and monks is nearly absolute, and that too often leads to inappropriate action and uproar.

So in some ways, I feel lucky to have encountered SFZC relatively early on, before it became famous and fashionable, before it expanded into Marin, Berkeley, and other locations, before Tassajara, before it was what it became and to some extent still is. I'm grateful that my first encounters with Buddhism and Zen were through Suzuki Roshi, not through some of his successors -- although apparently I was corresponding with Richard Baker when I contacted the Zen Center '60s, all the literature I received was either Suzuki Roshi's own work or that of previous Buddhist and Zen teachers.

As for Suzuki Roshi himself, I think I must have seen some short films of his Dharma talks back in the day, probably at the Midnight Movies which I attended fairly regularly in the late '60s. When I see the clips now, though I may not remember the individual clips, I do remember the settings, the man, and the sound of his voice rather clearly. "This I've heard before" even though it may not have been that particular talk. 

The zendo at the Sokoji temple in San Francisco looks identical to my memories of it -- even though I'm almost certain I was never physically there. I probably saw films of it, again at the Midnight Movies, and that's what I remember. There is a bare possibility I was there once during a visit to San Francisco with my mother when I was 16 or maybe 17, as we would sometimes go on adventures in the City, but I don't remember seeing the outside of the building (very distinctive) which I'm sure I would recall if I'd been there. 

I have no memories of Tassajara as such. When i see films of it, it's an unknown place to me. I was aware of it, though, soon after its acquisition and I can recall meeting some people who had been there. I was encouraged to go to the Zen Mountain Center myself, but I never did.

As for Green Gulch Farm in Marin, until I heard Wendy Johnson talk about it during an intensive workshop this spring, I can't say I'd ever heard of it at all. Isn't that something? How could I have been so oblivious? However it came about, I was oblivious to Green Gulch and to the various business enterprises SFZC set up around San Francisco and the Bay Area, as well as to the various centers and temples that sprang up around the Bay Area led by former students of Suzuki Roshi and Baker Roshi.

Much of the history of SFZC under Baker Roshi and his successors is still around, the players are still active, and their influence is strong. I'm convinced there wouldn't be more than a tiny bit of Zen in the US or much of anywhere outside Japan but for them. I saw a statistic once indicating that there were more Buddhist practitioners and Zen practitioners in the United States than in Japan and that Japanese Buddhism is slowly fading away. Zen was never a popular practice in Japan in any case, as it was meant for the upper classes where it has largely stayed. Some of what passes for Zen in the United States is also very class conscious and seeks to appeal primarily to the upper strata -- where it's had some success.

In Zen, lineage and history are very important. Though it may be convoluted, you can trace any number of Buddhist endeavors right back to Shakyamuni Buddha or his immediate successors. Some lineages may be partly legendary, but others are extensively documented and there is no doubt of their authenticity.

Those lineages can show how and when the practice was modified and by whom. Adaptations and modifications were going on all the time and still are. Various schools of Buddhism and Zen have developed over the centuries, and they sometimes dispute vigorously and occasionally violently with one another. 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Buddhists generally make terrible national rulers. Buddhism is not a governing ideology or philosophy; often it's just the opposite. Not anarchy as such, but rebellion, individualism, and practical autonomy are core principles. Gautama Buddha was, after all, a rebel, and his followers were rebels back in the day, and many stories from Buddhist history are of rebellion from whatever Establishment then existed. Even as part of the Establishment, Buddhists are intrinsically rebelling against it. 

Buddhism concentrates attention on the individual coming to "know" him/herself from the inside out, and from that knowing, coming to realize how interconnected all people and things -- physical phenomena -- are. In the end, you come to the realization that at the ground state of being there is no separation into individuals. Everything is one thing, and one thing is everything. 

But you can't do much with that realization as it has no practical application in everyday life. So Buddhists are encouraged to see their autonomous existence as connected with all of existence and thus be compassionate toward existence as one would be with oneself.

It doesn't always work on the individual level, and it seems impossible to work on a large scale. 

Thusness.

(Which will have to wait for another post)