Sensei Ryodo Hawley: Just Sitting - A Matter of Urgency

Sensei Ryodo Hawley

On Sunday, April 10th, Long Beach Meditation welcomed Sensei Ryodo Hawley. 'Sensei' is a Zen word meaning teacher. This time I was prepared and took notes from the start, more or less. I think we also got an audio recording - if so, I'll add the link later. Meanwhile, here are my notes of Sensei Ryodo's clear and illuminating talk on Zen, followed by questions from the sangha.


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It seems there's a central point all spiritual traditions reach, whether Christian contemplatives, Sufis, or a part of the many schools of Buddhism; they all seem to get to the one place you can't name. I'll talk about how it is in Zen.

Dogen Zenji, founder of the Soto School of Zen in Japan, used the phrase, "just sitting" or shikantaza. Previously, Zen Master Hongzhi expounded about "silent illumination". 

The book, "Cultivating the Empty Field" which came out a few years ago, is a useful book, Zen in bite-size pieces: a four line poem here, a 20 line practice piece there. Perfect for dipping into.

Here is a piece written by Hongzhi Zhengjue. He lived from 1092 - 1157, yet his teachings are perfectly applicable to us today.

The Backward Step and the Upright Cauldron

"With the depths clear, utterly silent, thoroughly illuminate the source, empty and spirited, vast and bright. Even though you have lucidly scrutinized your image and no shadow or echo meets it, searching throughout you see that you have still distinguished between the merits of a hundred undertakings. Then you must take the backward step and directly reach the middle of the circle from where light issues forth. Outstanding and independent, still you must abandon pretexts for merit. Carefully discern that naming engenders beings and that these rise and fall with intricacy. When you can share your self, then you may manage affairs, and you have the pure seal that stamps the ten thousand forms. Traveling the world, meeting conditions, the self joyfully enters samadhi in all delusions and accepts its function, which is to empty out the self so as not to be full of itself. The empty valley receives the clouds. The cold stream cleanses the moon. Not departing and not remaining, far beyond all changes, you can give teachings without attainment or expectation. Everything everywhere comes back to the olden ground. Not a hair has been shifted, bent, or raised up. Despite a hundred uglinesses or a thousand stupidities, the upright cauldron is naturally beneficient. Zhaozhou's answers "wash out your bowl" and"drink your tea" do not require making arrangements; from the beginning they have always been perfectly apparent. Thoroughly observing each thing with the whole eye is a patch-robed monk's spontaneous conduct."

There are many different meditation techniques. I consider them tools in one's spiritual toolkit.

Imagine you are carving a statue. You start with a big block of wood. You don't begin with fine sandpaper - you begin with a chain saw!  

Getting the body into a good, solid, upright position is the foundation for meditation. This is the chain saw.

Then you get a chisel and hammer and start cutting pieces off, working on getting some details. This is working with the breath, counting the breath. Each complete cycle of the breath, in and out, is one number. The counting completely absorbs the mind. Count to ten and begin again at one. Be fully present; there is nothing else except the breath. Bringing the mind back to the breath is a finer tool. The breath is useful, like a handrail on a staircase. You know the mind goes off - how to bring it back? The breath is a good strong tool to bring it back.

Now you need a rasp or a file (I'm not a sculptor but I'm guessing) to carve out ears and nose. Using rough sandpaper or a motorized sander is like following the breath. Once you get settled, the numbers (from counting the breath) become too coarse and heavy: they fall away and you stay with the breath, without counting.

Finally, you need fine sandpaper, or even just a brown paper bag, This might be the "silent illumination" the Zen masters speak of. You're not using any tools at all, you are just sitting. You're not using the breath, you're not working on a koan, saying mantras - now there is nothing between you and reality as it is. 

Look at the way the sun is shining through the stained glass windows - look! There is a great silence when we just look. This is pure life, reality as it is, when the little me hasn't added anything to it. 

"With the depths clear, utterly silent, thoroughly illuminate the source..." What IS the ultimate reality, the source? If it really is the Ultimate Reality, the Truth, it will be true no matter what I think about it. Anything I think about it will be a picture - maybe a very advanced picture - but if you want to see what is, just look. I could tell you what time I think it is right now, I could make a good guess, I could speculate - or I could just look at the clock. No speculation.

"Then you must take the backward step..." I step back out of entanglement with the world: my opinions, my wants, my likes, my dislikes, my story. I can step back out of that, almost like through a beaded doorway, as in hippie days, and see my story out there, detached.

"... and directly reach the middle of the circle from where light issues forth." You get to the center yourself and see what's there and let it all drop. In Zen, we talk about the "mind dropping." It falls. The breath falls down here [he pointed to his lower stomach] if the back is nice and straight. They say "the spine fights gravity and everything else joins gravity" - like an ice cream cone melting, the breathing just falls. While you sit, let gravity do the work. When you breathe in, straighten your spine again. When you sit cross-legged in a lotus position, it's the scaffolding for everything - feet, hands, breath - and then you let the mind fall, dropping like honey down the sides of a container. Gravity takes it, it settles here. The all you do is not fall down. That's it! That's the illumination - we see what's there.

Samadhi is concentration; prajna is wisdom. Don't spend mental energy. Let concentration build up, by not frittering it away, and then wisdom grows: what is really true, not from what we think is true, or what we want to be true. What IS. This is the ultimate freedom from my wants, my desires, the way I want things to be.

Questions:

Do you sit facing a wall in Zen?

In traditional Soto Zen, we sit facing a wall; at the Westchester Zen group, we sit in a circle, facing in. 

What is the difference between Soto Zen and Rinzai Zen?

Soto Zen is called Farmer's Zen: you cultivate the mind, "cultivating the empty field". You allow wisdom, samadhi, to grow. Imagine a mountain - in Soto Zen, you take the switchback path that slowly but inexorably leads you up the mountain.

Rinzai Zen is called Warrior Zen. This is for people who want to get it right away, who want to know. They emphasize koan study. And they bound to the top of the mountain.

Can you explain what stream entry is compared to full enlightenment?

Stream entry is the first of the so-called supramundane paths, when you have totally seen through the illusion of self, lost all doubt in the teachings of the Buddha, and seen that rites and rituals in themselves cannot bring you to liberation.

Before that, there are several "mundane paths" before reaching stream entry, for instance, learning the precepts, practicing the precepts, learning to meditate, learning to sit without moving. You practice these over several lifetimes until you reach stream entry. After that, there are three more stages of enlightenment: once returner; non-returner; and arhat. An arhat has nothing left to do. So they say - I've never met one!  All the "ten great obstructions" - e.g. the idea of self, doubt, attachment to sensual desire and ill will, the desire to be born in celestial realms, and so on - fall away. When you become enlightened, you'll see there is nothing to be enlightened. In Zen, the point is to see that for yourself. Doubt it all!

None of the phrases encapsulate it; the best they can do is point to it. 

"Where is the center of the source?" If you haven't developed samadhi, you can't penetrate questions like this. 

The Ten Oxherding Pictures

The ten ox-herding pictures from Taoism and Zen-Buddhism, show ten breaths of self-remembering. In picture one to six, a child is struggling to find the bull, the lower self, and bring it under control. The child symbolizes the ruling factor or the mind, which Gurdjieff called the steward. The sixth picture shows that the lower self is now under control. After having control over the lower self, prolonged presence can occur, symbolized by the following four pictures. They are four breaths of rest and emptiness. In six breaths or steps of action, one uses short reminders to be present, and then one stays present for four more breaths.

http://japanesesymbolsofpresence.com/oxherding.html

In the ten oxherding pictures, the last one shows a jolly person walking into a marketplace, a laughing Buddha. He has no worries left, he is here to help others. There is no search for enlightenment anymore, just 'how can I help?'

Are there other tools that can work for you?

Chartes

My wife and I spent our honeymoon in France. Entering the cathedral in Chartres, you just step back and say "wow!" Because that's what cathedrals are designed to do. A redwood forest can have the same effect, can also lift you up - as could sitting in an empty hut. The Buddha often ended his instructions to the monks, about maintaining internal serenity of mind, following the precepts, and so on, with the words ..."and dwell in empty huts." All these forms are marvelous for getting us to that point when you let it all drop. Each person has their own form - think of cogs fitting together - once you find the right fit, then you can let it all drop and be open to the source.

redwoods

monk's hut

The passage you read us speaks of being "without expectation". If you are without expectation, what is the motive to come sit?

"We do this sitting that has no point." Sitting has no point. But why do we sit? Because of the First Noble Truth: life is suffering, life is pain. If you have a spiritual yearning to see the truth for yourself, ask yourself, what brought you here? What brought the Buddha, a prince, over the wall of his palace into the world of suffering? And what do you do, once you are here? Nothing! You are going to accomplish what you set out to do - by doing nothing. Then your true self becomes clear. 

Bernie Glassman of the Zen Peacemakers talks about three principles that apply to war, to your own spiritual needs, to any situation that arises during the day:

1. Not knowing. 

Drop everything that you know, that you assume: your mental and emotional baggage. This church where you meet is a place where you can set it all aside.

2. Bear witness. 

See what is true right now. Taking the backward step is like rebooting your computer; sitting is rebooting! 

3. Selfless action.

If something needs to be done, simply do it. 

When you're hungry, eat. When you're tired, sleep. Enlightenment has to do with weight - drop off all the weight! 

Remind yourself why you are sitting, it brings up the urgency. Tell yourself, "It's Sunday at three o'clock. I've set a lot aside to do this, so I'd better do it properly." In a zendo, the monks shout, "SIT!!!!"

And here in the West, the monks will thwack your shoulders, right and left, if you ask them to. The sharp pain brings you back. To what? Nothing! 

I have an old high school friend I recently found again through Facebook. Turns out he's been meditating for 25 years and he has Acute Myeloid Leukemia, something that will kill him. When he went to the doctor and she gave him some particularly bad news concerning test results, he said, "Thank you, doctor. It is what it is." She was intrigued. Nobody had ever responded to bad news like that before. But through his meditation practice, he was able to drop the self. And when you drop the self, you drop outcomes.

This is of the ultimate urgency. I am speaking of my friend and his terminal illness, yet I could be hit by a car tomorrow and be dead in an instant. Life is a terminal disease so let's make the most of it. How do we do that? We drop it all.

When we want to look at a specific circumstance, we use deliberate observation, labeling as in Vipassana meditation:

1. Step back into the objective world. If you clearly label everything, you are not enmeshed in it.

2. When you are solidly in a place of detachment, take another step back. This is the place of "silent illumination". In Zen, this would come about after decades of practice, by the way - it's really hard to do! My teacher said he could stay "just sitting" for maybe two minutes. I was shocked - he's been doing this for decades, and two minutes is all he can do? Now I realize ten seconds is amazing. But time is not important. What is important is that you are always returning. Open that hand of thought and start again. 

Tell yourself, "I was off for x minutes and my thoughts were a,b,c,d." Step back and you're free. Ultimately we're at the goal. We've always been at the goal, the sun has been shining all the time on our "original face."

Make "not knowing" your home. Then step forward once in a while to work on the details. But then - go home. There's no point. The point, the outcomes, are in storyland. Arrange your schedule so you can leave it all outside the door and sit - in your true home.

Larry Ward: Entering The Buddha's Mind

On Sunday April 3rd, Larry Ward and his wife Peggy Rowe Ward were guest teachers at Long Beach Meditation. Peggy and Larry have been practicing with Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) since 1990; they were even married by him at Plum Village in 1994.They received the dharma lamp transmission from him in 2001. 

They co-authored "Love's Garden", and Peggy also co-authored "Making Friends with Time". Larry is working on his Ph.D in religious studies with a Buddhist emphasis and working in culturally linguistic services. Peggy has her Ed.D in adult education and is a teacher and artist. Together they support Thay's teaching across the US and on tours.

Peggy led us in a gentle guided meditation and Larry gave the dharma talk on "Entering the Buddha's Mind". I took notes, feeling myself to be a bit redundant, since the talk was being recorded - but I like taking notes, it helps me pay attention and remember better. Sometimes though, Larry spoke so well I stopped writing and just listened - so my notes are not complete. And this turns out to be a pity, because the recording device didn't work and my incomplete notes are our only record of what was a very inspiring talk. 

Ah well. The notes are better than nothing - 

Larry Ward: 

Entering into the mind of the Buddha requires that we dare enter into our own minds. Two weeks ago I was in New York City to deliver the eulogy of someone I have known for 35 years - she was a friend, a colleague and a student. I asked her husband if I could have some of her ashes to sit with in the 24 hours prior to the memorial service. Which I did. I walked around the city, holding my friend's ashes in my hand. I ended up standing on the bridge over the Hudson River on that night when the moon was the closest it had been to the earth in years. 

I thought of these lines from Niko Kazantzakis, " We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life. As soon as we are born the return begins, at once the setting forth and the coming back; we die in every moment." [from "The Saviors of God - Spiritual Exercises"] He says this too, "Life startles us at first."

Life startles ME again and again and again - that's my experience. IF we have the courage to be present to it.

Let me respectfully remind you that your life and death are of great importance. Each of us should strive to awaken, awaken, awaken. Do not squander your life.

The Buddha is about our human experience and how we relate to our experience of our experience which determines whether we experience liberation or suffering. I like the story of Siddhartha and the four gates. There are many stories of him, but this is the one I like best. He leaves the palace with his servant, passing through one gate and he encounters a sick man. "What's the matter with him?" he asks his servant. His servant replies, "He is sick. And that is what is going to happen to you." They leave the palace through the second gate and encounter an old man. "What's the matter with him?" His servant replies, "He is old. And that is what is going to happen to you." Through the third gate, and there is a funeral pyre and a body burning. You know what the servant says by now. "That is death. And that's what's going to happen to you!"

This is not just a story. I was walking the streets of Manhattan holding the ashes of my friend in my hand. I encountered an old man. I thought of Siddhartha, "This isn't the Buddha's story, it's my story too!" And then an ambulance drove past... Since then, I have used that night to stay awake to my experience of old age, of sickness, of death. 


At the fourth gate, Siddhartha encountered a sage, whose serenity stopped the Buddha's mind. This too is a possibility for me. In this way, all of the Buddha's stories are potentially practices for us. 

 

The Buddha created a wonderful practice I use every day. It is called the Five Remembrances, so-called so I not to forget my human experience AND my choice: how I will shape my heart and mind and direct my experience of being human.


The Five Remembrances:
1. I am of a nature to grow old.

I can't stop it! This startles me! Where does aging come from? There's no location. I know this is hard to believe, I'm speaking in L.A. after all, but aging is a natural occurrence. This doesn't mean you shouldn't look good (as my mother would say). It means, don't be confused. Some moments I'm pleased about aging, some moments I feel displeasure. And some moments I feel neutral which means I'm in delusion. That's why the present moment is the practice. In this very moment, I cannot escape growing old.

2. I am of a nature to have ill health. 

I don't need to remind you of all the ways we can become ill. I teach in a hospital. At lunch one day, sitting with the doctors, I learned of fifteen new diseases that can kill you! "Why are you telling me this?!" I asked. We take it personally when we get sick, as if all the gods and goddesses of the cosmos had conspired ... to give us the flu. It's our nature to be vulnerable physically AND mentally - this is part of our experience. We are finding out, surprise, war has an impact on people! Life is not just what happens to you, life is what happens to you BECAUSE that happened to you. The happening within the happening.
Rumi writes, "Oh break my heart open, oh, break it again. 
So I can learn to love even more, again." 

3. I am of a nature to die. 
... to VANISH. That is the word I use when I think of death. My friend has vanished. Where is she? Where is my sister? Where is my mother? My father? My friend's husband told me his wife did everything right: she meditated, she went on retreats... he said, "I thought it would be a magic elixir." There is none.

4. Everyone I love and everything I cherish is of a nature to change.

I cannot escape experiencing change. Most of us have a philosophy about relationships: if you change, the way I think you SHOULD, then we'll be good. YOU are the cause of my suffering. If you just did what I said.... Only our experience shows that then somebody changes - and we don't like the change! We don't like the outcome of the change. Change creates change. And what change it will create, I have no idea. No control!

Well, so far, this is pretty grim, isn't it? American audiences don't like to hear about old age, sickness and death - it sounds so negative! But then there's the fifth remembrance:

5. My action is the ground upon which I stand. 

Meaning my action in thought, speech and body, which the Buddha borrowed from Hinduism.
It means being aware of how I relate to the other four remembrances. If they create suffering for me will depend on how I think or speak or what I do with my body in relation to these experiences. 

As one of my professors said, "Pain is NOT optional - suffering IS optional." Pain is inescapable. The practice is about how I train my heart and mind not to cling or push away or be deluded by growing old, getting sick, death and change. It is about my own power to live in every moment as a free person. This life is not about Larry achieving nirvana. I won't go unless everybody else comes too. I am profoundly having the experience of being human. This is so profound it opens compassion for all other beings having this experience. 

I will read you the shortest of all the Buddha's teachings, the Sabba Sutta. At that time in India, there were many spiritual teachers, a bit like L.A. now. And this is a good thing - a very good thing. We could use more. The students were always getting together and comparing what they had learned from their teachers. The monks asked the Buddha, "What do we say you are teaching us?" 

This was his response:

"Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."

"As you say, lord," the monks responded.

The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."

What is he teaching? The Four Noble Truths. All practices are aimed at us achieving that. If we can know the six senses - the five, plus the mind - that is all we need to know. The Buddha doesn't speak of anything outside the six senses - 'It lies beyond the range." It is conjecture. The one who fully understands the All sees the mind differently. "Mental formations" covers everything! Memories, mental habits, evolutionary biology, social conditioning, family and individual conditioning - it's loaded! 


There is no pure experience. I bring my samskara [mental formations] to every experience. We don't even know how many webs we weave. In meditation, we train the self in discernment. Meditation is not an innocent practice. Our identities are created before we arrive. Just as there were streets already named before you arrived! Before you were born, there was a Sears, a Starbucks, concepts like black and white, race and nationality... In meditation, I know these categories are made up. Because of that, they don't define me. Therefore I am free to be human in this space. There is nothing more important I could do with my life than to be human in this space with you. 

When you go to the mall, notice what happens in you when you see things. Madison Avenue is paying attention! You better pay attention too! Be conscious of your experience of eye, ear, nose, body, mind. Why do you want some things and not others? When you see a pair of shoes you like, what do you think they will say about you if you buy them? 

After the memorial service, somebody said to me, "You didn't mention heaven!"
"That's right, " I said, because they were right, I hadn't mentioned heaven.
This person followed me and asked, "But WHY didn't you mention heaven?"
"Because I have nothing to report!"

We have this concrete precious life in this moment. Every moment! When we practice in this way, we see the wonder of our eye, our ear, our nose, our taste, our touch, our mind. We see the miracle that we can see, hear, taste, touch, think. The miracle of all this is available to us every moment. Even if there are moments we wish we were a chocolate bar, or a German Shepherd, or a tree, or Mt. Fuji. I have wanted to be Mt. Fuji. But if you have the opportunity to study Mt. Fuji, as I have, then you see that even Mt. Fuji is similar to me: subject to erosion, decay. Except Mt. Fuji has the benefit of not having my mind, Mt. Fuji is not able to create DRAMA, as I do out of my own life.

We see we become addicted to greed. It's not what I have, it's the experience of getting it that I want. The Buddha was not anti-pleasure, as some Buddhists think. But when we practice, we become attuned to our thirst and we see how it drives us towards pleasure, and ultimately, suffering. It's not that I went to the casino (if I have a gambling addiction); it's the thirst, alone in my mind, that motivated me to go to the casino.We practice so we can settle in our own hearts and minds.

I've given up being perfect. It's too much work and it's also very disappointing AND there's no such thing. There's our life. There's this moment. Anything else is speculation. 

If you have the opportunity to be with someone who is taking their last breath, take it. Don't run as fast as you can in the opposite direction, as we tend to do in this country, when we hear someone we love is dying. if you can't be with a parent or friend, join a hospice. Be there. When you witness that person taking their last breath you will understand a lot about Buddhism. You will understand why breath is the key.

If you want to change society, know that society is in us. Remember the streets already named that I mentioned earlier? They are already in you.

What are you left with? The lovingkindness available in the present moment - which can't be expressed if we're not there.

Compassion - how is it cultivated? By understanding the All. 

And then there is joy. In Taiwan, I learned the expression 'dharma joy'. The joy of understanding the All. Your life! If you spend time in monasteries, you will find a playfulness and a kindness there. 

You have equanimity, evenness of mind and heart. 

I have a picture of Avalokitesvara that I always keep with me. She is riding the waves of birth and death, standing on the head of the dragon, which symbolizes wisdom. She transforms tears into the nectar of healing and pours that nectar back into the world.

That is the practice of the mind of the Buddha. There is no Buddha outside of yourself. You are your own Buddha. Aren't you lucky to be here and have such a great place to practice? Be kind to one another, share your love with this planet and all beings on it, and don't be confused about the miracle of your own life. It's a true gift.