11/9-16-Relationship Not Each Other/True Suffering and False

[Jundo]

Hi Ken,

I read somewhere (William Jamaes' 'Varieties of Religious Ecperience'?) that there exists a dichotomy among Christians too. There are those who are constantly struggling to find God, to know God, to measure up to His expectations (yet, perhaps, never quite meeting the mark). The are filled with such doubt and feelings of sin that it must be washed clean in a great struggle and final "born-again" breakthrough.

Then there are those who simply see God in every window pane, insect's humm, blade of grass. No need to look or measure.

Perhaps it is the same variety of human types, this time found among Buddhists?

Gassho, J

** I can only find the first page of this book review, but it applies William James ideas, above, to Zen. I think it makes the distinction clear.

https://<br /> <a href="http://http...CO%3B2-Q<br />

[John]

Hi Jundo,

I'm not sure which of those two human types I fit into but I suspect, the former! Just looking through the Mumonkan it seems to abound in examples of exhortations to find one's true self or nature. Like this koan about Tosotu's three barriers:

Tosotsu Juetsu Osho set up three barriers for his disciples.
First barrier:
Monks, you leave no stone unturned to explore the depths, simply to see into your True Nature. Now I want to ask you, just at this moment: where is your True Nature?
Second barrier:
If you realize your True Nature, you are free from life and death. Tell me, when your eye sight deserts you at the last moment, how can you be free from life and death?
Third barrier:
When you set yourself free from life and death, you should know your ultimate destination. So when the four elements separate, where will you go?"

Sorry to pull in another analogy, but I want to check my understanding. Like your on-stage, off-stage analogy is it also like water and waves? Our small ego-centred self is the particular form of the wave but our true essential self is the underlying water?

Gassho,
John

[Jundo]

Hi John,

Both hard, direct, aggressive Karate and passive, flowing Ai-ki-do (receiving forces and turning circumstance as you turn) have the same objective of self-defense. Both work quite well. In like fashion, most Koans can be read with a hard, direct, violent inner voice ("Find Your True Nature, Damn You!")... or a flowing, soft style ("Please Find Your True Nature, my firend). It is still the same exhortation, same Koan ... heck same 'True Nature' (Paige once set me straight that, in the Linchi Chan meditation she is doing, they are not as militaristic with the Koans as the Rinzai Japanese).

In Soto Zen, Shikantaza, we are still "Looking for our True Nature", just as the Koan says, just as the Rinzai/Linchi folks are ... and its the same 'True Nature'! Yes, we must find it.

It is just that, in 'Just Sitting' Shikantaza, there was discovered a very shrewd, backdoor way to find our True Self via 'Not Looking!" We attain the Goal by radical Goalessness!! We find what is right here by going nowhere else. Got it?

Reminds me of an old joke ..

A guy is walking his dog down the street when he spots a guy on his hands and knees under a streetlight. The dog walker asks the man if he's lost something. Man says, 'Yeah, I dropped my contact lens (old version said "glasses")"' So the dog walker ties Fido to a phone pole and gets down on his hands and knees to help. They search up and down, back and forth, beneath that light. Fifteen minutes later the dog walker says, 'Buddy, I can't find it anywhere. Are you sure it popped out here?' The man says, 'No, I lost it over in the park.' 'The park?' the dog walker yells. 'Then why the hell are we looking in the street?'

The man points to the streetlamp and says, 'The light's better here.'

Yes, it is necessary for us to break down the stone wall of separation between the Self and all that is not the Self ... whereby all need for the words "Self" and "Other" vanish. Perhaps the hard, Rinzai, Karate people do it by pounding and kicking on the wall until a hole is punched through and both side merge. In Soto, we are more like the air, which naturally passes through and around all gaps between the stones, embracing and surrounding the whole wall, flowing and shaping itself to circumstances, thus one with the wall while spreading on in all directions ... the air is everywhere even without moving.

Does that image help for the difference between the Rinzai/Karate and Soto/Ai-ki-do approaches?

Sorry to pull in another analogy, but I want to check my understanding. Like your on-stage, off-stage analogy is it also like water and waves? Our small ego-centred self is the particular form of the wave but our true essential self is the underlying water?

Absolutely! It is a classic image. Pretty stereotypical. I wrote a book chapter on co-dependent arising using just that image, filled with cheesy, off-the rack lines like ...


As the waves on the sea, just the Sea
...


Sickness and death are no more than eddies in the waters of the world, the flowing passage of time, flowing back into the Sea.

...

When the wave does arise, the ocean has no loss;
when the wave does fall, the ocean has no gain.

...

A Sea which no name can hold, holding all namelessly


The only caution I offer, John, about that "Sea" analogy is that silly people (and silly religions) then try to impose all kinds of judgments, characteristics, assumptions and names (Brahma, God, Stanley) on the Sea, to think of the Sea as a thing which the pea-brained human can grasp. In our Zen Practice, we are not so presumptuous and recognize our state of Not Knowing. We Know some things (we are that Sea) but not some others (where exactly, if anywhere, the sea is flowing, to what shores it extends, its contours, how long it has flowed ... ) We can, however, know its warmth, saltiness and wetness right here, by tasting and feeling it ourselves.

In our Zen Practice, it is more that, finding ourselves mysteriously alive atop this sea, we cast out our arms and float, float ... letting it take us where the currents will.

We trust the Sea, as a child trusts its mother ... one that became two.

Something like that.

Is the Sea even aware of its waves? We cannot know. Still, flow, flow along.

To where will it carry us? We cannot know. Still, flow, flow.


Gassho, Jundo

[paige]

My point was only that there is nothing wrong with lumps of red flesh and shit-wiping sticks. They are Truth too.

Well... sure. I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense to think of this "true self" or "original mind" or what-have-you as something outside of our day-to-day lives. That's like "putting a head on top of the one you already have," if you'll forgive the cliche.

How can someone lose their "original face?" To where can it really go?

[Bansho]

Hi Jundo,

** I can only find the first page of this book review, but it applies William James ideas, above, to Zen. I think it makes the distinction clear.

https://<br /> <a href="http://http...CO%3B2-Q<br />

That's interesting - thanks. I did a further search for Conrad Hyers and also found this:

ONCE-BORN ZEN, TWICE-BORN ZEN
Today, the method of Soto and that of Rinzai seem to be quite opposed. 'Rinzai, the general; Soto, the farmer' is the popular image. Conrad Hyers makes an interesting study of these contrasts in his 'Once-born, Twice-born Zen' (4). Rinzai Zen is all fight and struggle, doubt and questioning. Hakuin's advice is typical:

".... at all times in your study of Zen, fight against delusions and worldly thoughts, battle the black demon of sleep, attack concepts active and passive, order and disorder, right and wrong, hate and love, and join battle with all things of the mundane world. Then in pushing forward with true meditation and struggling fiercely, there unexpectedly will come true enlightenment."(5)

Dogen on the other hand:

"The way is essentially perfect and exists everywhere. There is no need either to seek or to realize the way. The Truth which carries us along is sovereign and does not require our efforts... Essentially the Truth is very close to you; is it then necessary to run around in search of it ?....That which we call zazen is not a way of developing concentration. It is simply the comfortable way."(6)

Hyers uses William James's expression of once-born people and twice-born ones to explain the different mind-sets. The once-born grow serenely, are naturally good-natured, optimistic and accepting of the world; whereas, the twice-born personalities are filled with guilt, anxiety, dread, doubt, despair and melancholy --- they are restless seekers, for whom conversion, and born-again breakthroughs are characteristic modes of liberation. Hyers thinks that the first one tend to Soto Zen, the second to Rinzai Zen. So it is the psychology and temperament of the practitioners which make different Zens. Hyers upholds the gentle way of Soto Shikantaza as equally valid as Rinzai koan and kensho, and he tends to prefer the Soto way as superior. He ends his slim volume with an example of one who, reading Rinzai Zen books, gets into Zen and gets addicted to manic-depressive mood swings, traumas, and apocalyptic expectations. Finally, coming to Soto Zen, he sees the futility of all the dramatics, and settles down into peace and self acceptance. "The lotus rises from the bottom of the pond; the flower unfolds to the light."(7)

Source: http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachin...dharmaCome.htm

I guess that's one of the reasons why I ended up in the Soto camp. :wink:

Gassho
Ken

[John]

Thanks Jundo, Paige and Ken. I find myself a bit fascinated by koans but I don't think I would take to the Rinzai way of approaching them. I always imagine myself going in for an interview with someone fierce like Yasutani and having him ring his bell even before I had managed to stutter out a few words.

John Loori says in his 'Eight Gates of Zen. that he gives koan study to the more intellectually aggressive of his students. But he also says that there is a danger that the students who practice shikantaza can lapse into quietism so he asks them questions from the Fukanzazengi every now and then to stir them up.

The koan books also keep talking about this 'great doubt' you're supposed to feel, especially when working with Mu, but I have never felt that so I guess I'd better stick to my 'farmer' Zen :-)

Gassho
John

[John]

Re: True and False Suffering. There is very little in this chapter that I could disagree with. I have seen the core teaching of this section put in the simple formula - suffering = pain x resistance. I didn’t get the bit that says ‘a 10th of an inch of difference, and heaven and earth are set apart’ the first time I read it but I think I see it now. The less we complain or wish to be someone or somewhere else other than who or where we are now; the more we can align ourselves with what is, or in other words ‘go with the flow’, the happier we will be. A big source of discontent for me lies in comparing myself unfavourably with others,

Gassho,
John

[Jundo]

John Loori says in his 'Eight Gates of Zen. that he gives koan study to the more intellectually aggressive of his students. But he also says that there is a danger that the students who practice shikantaza can lapse into quietism so he asks them questions from the Fukanzazengi every now and then to stir them up.

Hi John,

Well people get confused on this, and Daido Loori's comment can be quite misleading. We work with Koans too, in Soto Zen. Master Dogen's Shobogenzo is wall to wall Koans, as we shall see when we start looking at Genjo Koan in a few days. Koans are important statements of Buddhist Philosophy, meant to throw a monkey wrench in our normal way of looking at things.

However, we just don't focus on Koans during the sitting of Zazen itself. They are for study (although with "Zen Mind") outside Zazen.

Daido's lineage, which is really a Rinzai lineage in Soto clothing, tends to say things like that comment which mischaracterize the situation (it is probably what he was told growing up, by his teachers under the influence of Yasutani Roshi and such, and he has never quite shaken it But there are so many quotes like that from his line ... the RInzai influence is always giving precedence to Koan centered Zazen and 2nd class treatment to Shikantaza.). In fact, in Soto Practice, our "Just Sitting" will rarely lapes into quietism, and we are constantly studying Koans, the writings of Master Dogen, the Genjo Koan (Koan of Ordinary Life) etc. I hope that what we are doing around here, at Treeleaf, does not stike anyone as quietism.

Zen Philosophy without Zazen never gains life; Zazen without Buddhist Philosophy is a ship without a rudder.


Gassho, the Koan Cohen

[Eika]

Hi all.
Related to the chapter on False/True Suffering, I have a little story. Today I took my 3 year old son to the doctor. They had to do a finger prick test of his blood to see if he had a form of walking pneumonia that is going around currently (it turns out he does have it). When he found out that he would have to get his finger poked he started to cry and said he didn't want it. I tried to tell him that it was important to know so that we could help him get better--that didn't work. But, then I told him that I knew personally that being afraid of shots makes the shot/needle hurt worse and that just letting it happen without being afraid would make it not hurt much at all. I was really surprised that he could understand this. He immediately stopped crying and said that he would brave and let her stick his finger. When she did he was smiling and watched attentively while she got a few drops of blood for the test. He said "that didn't hurt" and he meant it, he didn't even wince or flinch. The nurse then said something like "wow, I wish everyone else took this as well as he did." He is way better at handling his fear than his old man.

Bill

PS--He seems to be getting better.

[Jundo]

Bill,

Thank you for that and the smile it brought. :-) Glad your boy is on the mend too.

I am often surprised by the innate wisdom of our kids. Children teach parents too.

Gassho, J

[John]

Daido's lineage, which is really a Rinzai lineage in Soto clothing, tends to say things like that comment which mischaracterize the situation (it is probably what he was told growing up, by his teachers under the influence of Yasutani Roshi and such, and he has never quite shaken it But there are so many quotes like that from his line ... the RInzai influence is always giving precedence to Koan centered Zazen and 2nd class treatment to Shikantaza.). In fact, in Soto Practice, our "Just Sitting" will rarely lapes into quietism, and we are constantly studying Koans, the writings of Master Dogen, the Genjo Koan (Koan of Ordinary Life) etc. I hope that what we are doing around here, at Treeleaf, does not stike anyone as quietism.

Thanks again Jundo for those enlightening comments. That post has cleared up a lot of my doubts and misperceptions regarding John Loori's teachings and other books like 'The Three Pillars of Zen',

Gassho,
John

[John]

I was really surprised that he could understand this. He immediately stopped crying and said that he would brave and let her stick his finger. When she did he was smiling and watched attentively while she got a few drops of blood for the test. He said "that didn't hurt" and he meant it, he didn't even wince or flinch. The nurse then said something like "wow, I wish everyone else took this as well as he did." He is way better at handling his fear than his old man.

What a brave little guy! That's a really touching story, Bill. I wish I'd had a Zennie daddy

Gassho,
John