Case 45 never ends, yet now comes ...
Case 46: Tokusan's Completion of Study
I believe that Zen Practice truly comes to fruit when one can experience, through and through beyond doubt, the Flowing Wholeness of Emptiness whenever and wherever one wishes (not necessarily constantly, but almost) ... like pushing a button to turn on the light, all is illuminated (even if, sometimes, the switch don't work
) ... looking at the pencil on our desk, in the presence of a friend or enemy, judging a majestic mountain or a tin can at the side of the road, in all the ocean as well as in a single drop, as the fish or the fish scale, reading the most heart-rending stories in the newspaper or experiencing the most heart-rending or heart-fulfilling moments of our life, in a temple or in the shopping mall, in the face of the greatest happinesses and tragedies and in betweens ...
... timelessly wherever and whenever (though not always constantly), when Buddha Mind is summoned (even if sometimes a little hard to summon up), all becomes Clear. Instant attainment in each and every such instant.
In this way, Wisdom and Compassion are something like knowing True Love. One cannot merely know love from some description in a book, nor on an intellectual and philosophical level. No psychologist nor the greatest poet has ever come close to love lived. It is not a hollywood movie or a cheap novel. True Love with a life partner is not to be confused with a one night stand, a crush, a marriage of convenience or the "we'll live on love alone" romance of the honeymoon when all seems golden and beyond all care. Rather, True Love only proves itself as the years flow by, the relationship deepens, and together a couple stands As One through all the happinesses and tragedies of life. It manifests when, like old Shakyo, life grabs us by the nose and gives us a hard pull. Then, the power of love is known.
And like the honeymoon, one can think that some sudden and powerful "Kensho" is what all the fuss is about, when "all we need is love". Well, as thrilling as that might be, it is still light years away from True Love where the real power or weakness of the relationship must be shown where the rubber meets life's road ... when there are bills to be paid, children demanding attention, health crisis and all the rest, the Moon of Enlightenment far beyond the honey. Emptiness ain't worth nothing unless manifesting even as life has you up to the neck in mud. (Thus our reading says, "The pure ground [of Emptiness] without an inch of grass for 10,000 miles or the clear sky without even a speck of clouds [the "grass" and "clouds" representing the separate individual phenomena of life and our thoughts] still deludes people [who cannot find Enlightenment even in each blade of grass and shining through and as the clouds of thought, in each separate phenomenon of life both beautiful and ugly and everything else]" ...
In fact, like True Love it is even there when we have our doubts. It might not be tasted in every single moment, and sometimes we may wonder if we have lost the way, fallen out of love. Yet, soon, it manifests again and we know.
And so for this Practice too, for Enlightenment, as the proof is in the pudding, and one knows such when one embodies and experiences such beyond doubt. Realization is obvious in how life is realized. At such point, the Buddha shuts his mouth, and can be hung from the wall like a dusty old map no longer needed by the fellow who knows the way. When you know this, the universe is not impeded and space will not fall, no matter what nails and wedges are knocked in or pulled out.
QUESTION: WHEN DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANG THE BUDDHA FROM A HOOK? DO YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS TRUE LOVE?
Shishin Wick says, "When you're sitting facing the wall ... if you think it's you facing the wall [or the wall facing you], then what is it? When you can let go of the separation between you and the wall, then what's revealed? If you don't realize it, then it's just an idea up in your head. You have to see how it functions when your're facing the wall. When the entire body and mind is facing the wall, then the wall is facing the wall. ... If the body and mind are then entire body and mind hanging in space, it is the body and mind of the universal emptiness. And if not, it's just some kind of an idea, some kind of a concept ..."
I sometimes say this on wall facing ...
QUESTION: CAN ONE SIT AS A WALLLESS WALL, BUDDHA FACING BUDDHA, FACING IN AND OUT?
Gassho, J
Case 46: Tokusan's Completion of Study
I believe that Zen Practice truly comes to fruit when one can experience, through and through beyond doubt, the Flowing Wholeness of Emptiness whenever and wherever one wishes (not necessarily constantly, but almost) ... like pushing a button to turn on the light, all is illuminated (even if, sometimes, the switch don't work
) ... looking at the pencil on our desk, in the presence of a friend or enemy, judging a majestic mountain or a tin can at the side of the road, in all the ocean as well as in a single drop, as the fish or the fish scale, reading the most heart-rending stories in the newspaper or experiencing the most heart-rending or heart-fulfilling moments of our life, in a temple or in the shopping mall, in the face of the greatest happinesses and tragedies and in betweens ... ... timelessly wherever and whenever (though not always constantly), when Buddha Mind is summoned (even if sometimes a little hard to summon up), all becomes Clear. Instant attainment in each and every such instant.
In this way, Wisdom and Compassion are something like knowing True Love. One cannot merely know love from some description in a book, nor on an intellectual and philosophical level. No psychologist nor the greatest poet has ever come close to love lived. It is not a hollywood movie or a cheap novel. True Love with a life partner is not to be confused with a one night stand, a crush, a marriage of convenience or the "we'll live on love alone" romance of the honeymoon when all seems golden and beyond all care. Rather, True Love only proves itself as the years flow by, the relationship deepens, and together a couple stands As One through all the happinesses and tragedies of life. It manifests when, like old Shakyo, life grabs us by the nose and gives us a hard pull. Then, the power of love is known.
And like the honeymoon, one can think that some sudden and powerful "Kensho" is what all the fuss is about, when "all we need is love". Well, as thrilling as that might be, it is still light years away from True Love where the real power or weakness of the relationship must be shown where the rubber meets life's road ... when there are bills to be paid, children demanding attention, health crisis and all the rest, the Moon of Enlightenment far beyond the honey. Emptiness ain't worth nothing unless manifesting even as life has you up to the neck in mud. (Thus our reading says, "The pure ground [of Emptiness] without an inch of grass for 10,000 miles or the clear sky without even a speck of clouds [the "grass" and "clouds" representing the separate individual phenomena of life and our thoughts] still deludes people [who cannot find Enlightenment even in each blade of grass and shining through and as the clouds of thought, in each separate phenomenon of life both beautiful and ugly and everything else]" ...
In fact, like True Love it is even there when we have our doubts. It might not be tasted in every single moment, and sometimes we may wonder if we have lost the way, fallen out of love. Yet, soon, it manifests again and we know.
And so for this Practice too, for Enlightenment, as the proof is in the pudding, and one knows such when one embodies and experiences such beyond doubt. Realization is obvious in how life is realized. At such point, the Buddha shuts his mouth, and can be hung from the wall like a dusty old map no longer needed by the fellow who knows the way. When you know this, the universe is not impeded and space will not fall, no matter what nails and wedges are knocked in or pulled out.
QUESTION: WHEN DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANG THE BUDDHA FROM A HOOK? DO YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS TRUE LOVE?
Shishin Wick says, "When you're sitting facing the wall ... if you think it's you facing the wall [or the wall facing you], then what is it? When you can let go of the separation between you and the wall, then what's revealed? If you don't realize it, then it's just an idea up in your head. You have to see how it functions when your're facing the wall. When the entire body and mind is facing the wall, then the wall is facing the wall. ... If the body and mind are then entire body and mind hanging in space, it is the body and mind of the universal emptiness. And if not, it's just some kind of an idea, some kind of a concept ..."
I sometimes say this on wall facing ...
Traditionally, Soto Zennies would "face the wall". I actually think it is better for less experienced sitters to do so, as it reduces the sensory stimuli, thereby facilitating calming the mind. In the West, many groups in the Harada-Yasutani Lineage (through the Maezumi Roshi Lineage and others) who combine Soto and Rinzai Practices sit facing inwards.
I tend to encourage folks to "face the wall", but it is not so important. I believe that the sitters' "looking downward toward the floor" also reduces sensory stimulation, so the effect is about the same. For more experienced sitters, I do not believe that it matters ... and, in fact, we should develop the ability to sit anywhere, however noisy, busy or distracting.
I was surprised when, a couple of years ago, I conducted an unofficial poll among teachers who are members of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association of North America, and found that most of the Soto teachers seemed to be open to sitting either way.
Anyway ... the historical reason may be a mistranslation of Bodhidharma, regarded as the First Patriarch of Ch'an or the Zen tradition, and a writing long attributed to him (The Two Entrances and Four Practices) that used the term in Chinese "biguan/pi-kuan". Historian Heinrich Dumoulin discusses Bodhidharma's wall-contemplation.
The actual meaning of "wall gazing" may not be a literal "sit while gazing at a wall", but closer to "sit as if a wall seeing". Nobody really knows what the term originally meant however. The great Zen Historian Yanagida Seizan has (ala Shikantaza) interpreted the term to denote a sort of witnessing of the world with the steadfast detachment of a wall in which one “gazes intently at a vibrantly alive śunyatā (emptiness).”
So, whether facing the wall, or away from the wall ... just sit, without thought of in or out.
I tend to encourage folks to "face the wall", but it is not so important. I believe that the sitters' "looking downward toward the floor" also reduces sensory stimulation, so the effect is about the same. For more experienced sitters, I do not believe that it matters ... and, in fact, we should develop the ability to sit anywhere, however noisy, busy or distracting.
I was surprised when, a couple of years ago, I conducted an unofficial poll among teachers who are members of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association of North America, and found that most of the Soto teachers seemed to be open to sitting either way.
Anyway ... the historical reason may be a mistranslation of Bodhidharma, regarded as the First Patriarch of Ch'an or the Zen tradition, and a writing long attributed to him (The Two Entrances and Four Practices) that used the term in Chinese "biguan/pi-kuan". Historian Heinrich Dumoulin discusses Bodhidharma's wall-contemplation.
"In an ancient text ascribed to Bodhidharma, his way of meditation is characterized by the Chinese word pi-kuan, literally wall-gazing or wall-contemplation. Except for the word pi-kuan, the same passage is found in a Mahayana sutra; it reads: "When one, abandoning the false and embracing the true, in simplicity of thought abides in pi-kuan, one finds that there is neither selfhood nor otherness, that ordinary men (prthagjana) and saints (arya) are of one essence." (Zen Enlightenment, p. 38).
So, whether facing the wall, or away from the wall ... just sit, without thought of in or out.
Gassho, J
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