Hm. Not quite a week into the program, I think I've got a handle on at least some of what's going on. Ango is a study-practice period in Zen monasteries, and this one will be going on for close to a month. Today is Easter, so there is something of a pause -- though we are free to continue practice as we see fit on our own, and there will be several Zoom sits during the day and evening.
"Practice." It consists of hours of sitting Zen, walking Zen, working Zen, and Zenning out. And immersive study. Textural study, dharma study, Bodhisattva study, listening, reading, thinking, and on occasion speaking about this study.
Years ago, one of our cats, Joe, was a Zen master. Joe would spontaneously go into a Zen state and calm everyone and had cat-compassion for everyone. He taught other cats to Zen, too, particularly the hyperactive ones, and Larry was one of his students. Larry was wildly hyperactive and always on edge. Larry learned after many failed attempts that he could sit Zen like Joe, and after Joe passed, it was up to Larry to teach the others. It was something to see. Larry still practices with complete assurance. Others are less likely to, but some of them can, and when they do, in the cat-sangha, there's an incomparable peace and quiet that descends on cat-landia.
Practicing Zen in the monastery is very strict, patterned, ritualized and somewhat... I don't want to say "empty" but maybe that's the right word. There are about a dozen residents and staff at this Zen center, and they go through the rituals several times a day, much as you might see at a Catholic church -- like today at Easter. By performing these practice rituals over and over again, they increase compassion in the world for all beings according to the dharma and bodhisattvas. Practice itself is the increase of compassion.
Intellectually, this does not make sense. Practice -- on the material plane -- increases or decreases nothing except perhaps one's personal condition.
There are about 200 online participants-practitioners over Zoom, but I've learned that there really aren't that many, that some have multiple log-ins, so maybe there are actually about 150 participants. More or less. It's a significant number whatever the case.
Sitting on Easter has been an interesting experience as there are far fewer participants for each sit than usual, and we see practically no one in the zendo. There are bhikkhu/ni
sitting behind the camera, five or six usually, but we don't see them over Zoom unless they participate in chants, vows, or other liturgical activities near the altar.
The sits are broken up now with five or ten minutes of kinhin (walking meditation) in the middle of what is usually a one hour zazen session. I can't do an hour's sit, half an hour or less is my maximum, but surprise, the kinhin break at the half way point makes it possible to sit the next 20 minutes or so relatively easy. I say relatively. It's still a challenge due to my various infirmities.
As it has gotten physically easier for me to do the sits, clarity of mind has also increased. In the beginning, I was really flooded, almost overwhelmed with thoughts while I sat. This was not surprising, but it was definitely annoying. Gradually, though, the imposition of thoughts, desires, ideas, plans, etc. has diminished to the point where they're not absent, but they're not at all overwhelming. They come as they do, and I let them go, and there's more and more "quiet time" -- just sitting -- between them.
I tried an experiment one day, having the audio-book of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Suzuki Roshi of the San Francisco Zen Center (c. 1970) playing during a sit. You're not supposed to do that, of course, but there are all sorts of sounds and noises throughout the sit at the zendo over Zoom. Some are very loud and disruptive. Others are purposeful and welcome. But the sit at the zendo is by no means silent. Far from it. So what happened when I let Zen Mind play in the background? Nothing. That is to say, I could hear it but not necessarily follow the reading (Peter Coyote at the mic), but I didn't have to. I knew most of it already. What gross ego stroking that is! But here's the thing: I'd read it long ago when it came out (and I probably have a copy still -- somewhere). I had also listened to it, or most of it, several days ago. So I didn't have to listen closely again, and what happened was that the sound of the reading was enough to cancel out intruding thoughts. I'm serious. It was almost like white noise. For as long as I sat with the reading in the background intruding thoughts practically vanished -- there were some, easy to let them go -- and I was able to sit more than 20 minutes for the first time. I thought it was a good experiment though I'm dubious about mentioning it when I talk to Kozan next Saturday. (Kozan is a priest at the practice center, one of the faculty and apparently one of the principal organizers of the ango.)
I haven't used a background sound like that that since the experiment, but subsequent sits have been much less burdened with intruding thoughts. And occasionally they've had disruptions from all sorts of sources. So I take the experiment as something to consider for future sits.
One thing I'm concerned about as this gets easier is that I may encounter the "void" again, something that happened after I had sat zen for a couple of years back in the day. In those days, I would sit facing a wall or door, and often sat with closed eyes. Eventually, I was not troubled by intruding thoughts at all. Instead, what seemed to happen was that my mind entered a void -- in the universe, if you will -- wherein there was Nothing. This is the Cosmic Nothing. Or so I thought. And that's all there was. I would go into this void, this state of Nothingness almost instantly after a few trial sits, and once there... it would let me go anywhere and do anything. It wasn't Enlightenment or Buddha Nature, I knew that, but I thought whatever I was experiencing was a stage toward Enlightenment. Well, maybe it was, but if it was, I now think it was leading away from Enlightenment so that, maybe, I would revise my ideas about the course I was on.
In those days, I didn't have a teacher except for books, and while they can give you some guidance, they aren't really intended to help through difficult periods of practice.
I didn't realize till recently how difficult this period of practice long ago was. I would rather not have that same experience again. Nothing in these current sits and study has indicated that whatever happened then will take place again, but you never know....
In some ways, I feel like I've come back around to the beginning or near the beginning of my Zen practice, only in a sense to start again. So what if it's been almost 60 years? I'm finding something new every time I sit Zen. One time, for example, the statue of Bodhisattva Manjushri on the altar in the zendo which is straight in front of me on the flickering Zoom screen started to dance, slowly and carefully, Bollywood dancing style. I smiled. I've heard tell that people see all kinds of things in the patterns of the floor boards of the zendo as they sit Zen. And that's ok. Like any thought, let it come and let it go. We are advised not to sit with our eyes closed (though we can) so that while we sit, we remain connected through our sight to the "world as it is" (samsara?) and never lose sight of it.
Some of the bhikkhu/ni who sit in the zendo face away from the altar and the rest of the practitioners. They apparently face the walls at the sides of the zendo, though we can't really see what they are facing on the Zoom. Others face inward toward the center of the room, and all face the center when liturgy and honor to Buddha and the Bodhisattvas is performed, generally by one of the high ranking hoshi or sensei. Interesting, though, that bhikkhu/ni conduct the chants (very well, too). They also do the chimes, bells, gongs and clackers (as time-keeping and "attention" devices.)
I'm astonished at how flexible some of the older practitioners are. That they can complete multiple full prostrations is nothing short of amazing. I couldn't do one. But then, they've been doing it for many years, and I haven't.
No, my practice in the past was I've heard called "book Zen" -- never with a specific teacher or necessarily with a specific intent. You read the books and just sit. That's it. From that point, you're almost entirely on your own. While that can be a good thing, it isn't necessarily. This experience is quite different.
Orderly. Structured. Sitting and study. Occasional dharma talks, occasional community get-togethers (on Zoom) for teaching, discussion, questions, etc. Several texts assigned. More study and sitting according to a comprehensive schedule. All with the intention of releasing Bodhisattava spirit and what they call bodhichitta "Awakened Mind," compassion for the world and all its creatures and not creatures. "All equally empty; all equally to be loved; all come a Buddha." (Kerouac in Dharma Bums.)
I thought I had a pretty good handle on this Zen stuff when I began this practice period, but I've learned I don't. I could do it, yes, but...
There was oh, so much more to learn.
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