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| Sensei Ryodo Hawley |
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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.
"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?
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| 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.
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| redwoods |
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| 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.
Beautiful, Alison. Thank you so much for sharing this and other experiences with us.
ReplyDeleteAndrea