How does your vocation inform and integrate into life?

[Bion]

Interesting how we came across the same author in the Stories of the Lotus Sutra - Chapter 1

I like the vision of a priest like this, but I also like another vision of being a priest - an ambitious person who works ad maiorem dharmae gloriam, as it were:
- a businessman guided by precepts,
- a bodybuilder promoting peace,
- a person in power building schools and hospitals.
Both are possible, I guess - the ones who spent their time in the meditation hall and library, and those active in the world, being the salt of the world, quoting the guy from Galilee.

gassho
satlah

It's precisely why we are given and accept the precepts at jukai, to be such persons.

gassho
sat lah

[Jundo]

ad maiorem dharmae gloriam

Thank you Latin translating AI! "For the greater glory of the Dharma."

One might say that we need various kinds of priests who do good in various ways (we never need bad priests who do harm.) Some may meditate all their life in caves or quietly in a monastery, never putting themself forward. Others may be more active in the world. All good! In the past, Buddhist priests were the doctors, the civil engineers building bridges (literally and figuratively), the advisors to governors, the artists and poets. I like to point out that neither Dogen nor the Buddha himself just sat silently on their cushion, but they GOT UP, travelled here and there, built and managed large organizations, taught all their life for the benefit of sentient beings.

Today, I see priests who can combine that role with also being doctors and nurses, community leaders and activists, parents and poets, musicians, school teachers, police and fire fighters, even (although tricky) politicians and business leaders who help the hurting, leaving this world better. Janitors, waiters, store clerks and bus drivers don't get off the hook, and they can leave the world better too, including those people they meet daily.

Nishijima Roshi had a vision of the Zen priests in his Lineage which I wrote about in his obituary (by the way, January 28th was the anniversary of his passing, which we will recall in our Parinirvana remembrance this month):

1 – STEPPING THROUGH THE TRADITIONAL FOURFOLD CATEGORIES OF PRIEST & LAY, MALE & FEMALE: ... Nishijima advocated a form of ordination that fully steps beyond and drops away divisions of “Priest or Lay, Male or Female”, yet allows us to fully embody and actuate each and all as the situation requires. ... When I am a parent to my children, I am 100% that and fully there for them. When I am a worker at my job, I am that and embody such a role with sincerity and dedication. And when I am asked to step into the role of hosting zazen, offering a dharma talk, practicing and embodying our history and teachings and passing them on to others, I fully carry out and embody 100% the role of “Priest” in that moment. ...

2 – FINDING OUR PLACE OF PRACTICE AND TRAINING “OUT IN THE WORLD”: For thousands of years, it was nearly impossible to engage in dedicated Zen practice except in a monastic setting, to access fellow practitioners, teachers and teachings, to have the time and resources and economic means to pursue serious practice, except by abandoning one’s worldly life. By economic and practical necessity, a division of “Priest” and “Lay” was maintained because someone had to grow the food to place in the monks’ bowls, earn the wealth to build great temples, have children to keep the world going into the next generation. Although Mahayana figures like Vimalakirti stood for the principle that liberation is available to all, the practical situation was that only a householder with Vimalakirti’s wealth, leisure and resources might have a real chance to do so. Now, in modern societies with better distributions of wealth (compared to the past, although we still have a long way to go), ‘leisure’ time, literacy and education, media access and means of travel and communication across distances, many of the economic and practical barriers to practice and training have been removed. This is the age when we may begin to figuratively “knock down monastery walls”, to find that Buddha’s Truths may be practiced any place, without divisions of “inside” walls or “outside”. For some of us, the family kitchen, children’s nursery, office or factory where we work diligently and hard, the hospital bed, volunteer activity or town hall are all our “monastery” and place of training. We can come to recognize the “monastery” located in buildings made of wood and tile as in some ways an expedient means, although with their own power and beauty too. There are still times when each of us can benefit from periods of withdrawal and silence, be it a sesshin or ango, or the proverbial grass hut in distant hills. Yes, this Way still needs all manner of people, each pursuing the paths of practice suited to their needs and circumstances, be they temple priests catering to the needs of their parishioners, hermits isolated in caves, celibate monks in mountain monasteries, or “out in the world” types demonstrating that all can be found right in the city streets and busy highways of this modern world. Nishijima, a zen priest yet a working man, a husband and father most of his life, stood for a dropping of “inside” and “out”. He was someone that knew the value of times of retreat, but also the constant realization of these teachings in the home, workplace and soup kitchens.

LINK

Gassho, J
stlah

[Seido-nigo]

Myo-jin, thank you for starting this thread. It has been fascinating and heartwarming to hear everyone’s thoughts and experiences. Thank you everyone for sharing your stories.

When sincere in the way, I have not felt like I had to force changes upon my life or aspire to something or build myself into a specific direction in a top-down intentional way. Change happened, but the calling for it, the opportunity arose on its own within me, not out of any deliberate planning on my part to make it so. The path I have walked from the first day I sat zazen till now has far exceeded my own imagination in terms of the changes my life has undergone. One of the continual lessons I return to in this practice is the need to let go, let go of my own pre-conceived notions of what needs to happen, how things must be, what I must do, how I must be. If I did feel forced or tried to force my way, things tended to go pear-shaped rather rapidly which had the great effect of showing me how deluded I was/am and I have sat zazen feeling lots of chagrin, then humour, then love at this silly self and then letting it go. This process can take many days.

Sitting zazen cracked me open like being hit by lightening but with the gentleness of a breeze. I knew very early on I would take the precepts and that I will take the nun vows. My previous sangha encouraged me to just sit, don’t think too hard, in part because they knew me as an intellectual with a deep thirst for learning. Being a thinking person is a gift and joy but it can also massively get in your way when you intellectualise yourself into a non-existent pit. I am still grateful for that teaching because it nurtured a deeper knowing from my heart and body. I still get in my own way all the time.

The Godo at Muijoji would say “Every time you sit, you are nun”. I don’t (thinking) know when I will take the vows, but I (heart) know and have faith. The rest will follow. There is no need to worry because “Erstens kommt es anders und zweitens als man denkt” - Things happen first, differently, and second, differently to what you think i.e. things rarely go as planned.

Here are some wise words from Sawaki Kodo which resonate with me and the thoughts I picked up from this thread.

We often wonder who here is really better? But aren’t we all made out of the same lump of clay?
...you think it’s obvious that there is a “you” and “the others”.
Buddha-dharma means seamlessness. What seam runs between you and me?

When you practice Zen, it has to be here and now, it has to be about yourself. Don’t let Zen become a rumor that has nothing to do with you.
Zazen is the buddha that we form out of our raw flesh.
Zazen means putting into practice that which cannot be thought.

We don’t practice in order to get satori. It’s satori that pulls our practice. We practice, being dragged all over by satori.
You don’t seek the way. The way seeks you.

- Sawaki Kodo: https://antaiji.org/archives/eng/kod...i-to-you.shtml

Gassho,
Seidō-nigo
Sat/Lah

[Hokuu]

It's precisely why we are given and accept the precepts at jukai, to be such persons.

I read it as a dismissal of my idea. Is my perception correct? Are you saying a priest can not (or maybe should not) be:
- a businessman guided by precepts,
- a bodybuilder promoting peace,
- a person in power building schools and hospitals?

gassho
satlah

[Bion]

I read it as a dismissal of my idea. Is my perception correct? Are you saying a priest can not (or maybe should not) be:
- a businessman guided by precepts,
- a bodybuilder promoting peace,
- a person in power building schools and hospitals?

gassho
satlah

No, not at all. I am saying that already by receiving the precepts we commit to being just that. So, it begins before there´s any home leaving, and also, that no home leaving is needed for one to be that person and express the dharma in that way.

gassho
sat lah

[Myo-jin]

Myo-jin, thank you for starting this thread. It has been fascinating and heartwarming to hear everyone’s thoughts and experiences. Thank you everyone for sharing your stories.

When sincere in the way, I have not felt like I had to force changes upon my life or aspire to something or build myself into a specific direction in a top-down intentional way. Change happened, but the calling for it, the opportunity arose on its own within me, not out of any deliberate planning on my part to make it so. The path I have walked from the first day I sat zazen till now has far exceeded my own imagination in terms of the changes my life has undergone. One of the continual lessons I return to in this practice is the need to let go, let go of my own pre-conceived notions of what needs to happen, how things must be, what I must do, how I must be. If I did feel forced or tried to force my way, things tended to go pear-shaped rather rapidly which had the great effect of showing me how deluded I was/am and I have sat zazen feeling lots of chagrin, then humour, then love at this silly self and then letting it go. This process can take many days.

Sitting zazen cracked me open like being hit by lightening but with the gentleness of a breeze. I knew very early on I would take the precepts and that I will take the nun vows. My previous sangha encouraged me to just sit, don’t think too hard, in part because they knew me as an intellectual with a deep thirst for learning. Being a thinking person is a gift and joy but it can also massively get in your way when you intellectualise yourself into a non-existent pit. I am still grateful for that teaching because it nurtured a deeper knowing from my heart and body. I still get in my own way all the time.

The Godo at Muijoji would say “Every time you sit, you are nun”. I don’t (thinking) know when I will take the vows, but I (heart) know and have faith. The rest will follow. There is no need to worry because “Erstens kommt es anders und zweitens als man denkt” - Things happen first, differently, and second, differently to what you think i.e. things rarely go as planned.

Here are some wise words from Sawaki Kodo which resonate with me and the thoughts I picked up from this thread.



Gassho,
Seidō-nigo
Sat/Lah

No worries, I was a bit cautious of asking these questions so bluntly but decided that unasked questions don’t get answered. I’m just glad others have found it as informative as I have.

You mention not having to force yourself to aspire or build yourself in any particular direction. I see that too, Jeffery Lewis said that he thought perhaps conscious attempts at growth were stupid, even arrogant, and I think he was probably onto something there.

In any case it seems rather to miss the point of zen practice to try to be other than what you are, to try to be another persons idea of a practitioner, monk or a priest.

I mulled over the idea of joining a monastery years. Lived a couple of years as a hermit in a caravan, got involved in daily routines of devotional practice, but somehow never ‘got the call’ to formally ordain as a monk.

When ‘the call’ came it was to be who I am now. That meant letting go of some preconceived notions, realising that to be ‘on the path’ is to a great extent being with reality as it is, not as my daydreams would have it.

The inner ideal of the Monk still has his place, not just in Zazen but in how I try to live each day. But ideals are like stars in the sky, great for navigation but we shouldn’t expect to ever arrive at one!

Gassho

Satlah

Myojin

[Seido-nigo]

No worries, I was a bit cautious of asking these questions so bluntly but decided that unasked questions don’t get answered. I’m just glad others have found it as informative as I have.

You mention not having to force yourself to aspire or build yourself in any particular direction. I see that too, Jeffery Lewis said that he thought perhaps conscious attempts at growth were stupid, even arrogant, and I think he was probably onto something there.

In any case it seems rather to miss the point of zen practice to try to be other than what you are, to try to be another persons idea of a practitioner, monk or a priest.

I mulled over the idea of joining a monastery years. Lived a couple of years as a hermit in a caravan, got involved in daily routines of devotional practice, but somehow never ‘got the call’ to formally ordain as a monk.

When ‘the call’ came it was to be who I am now. That meant letting go of some preconceived notions, realising that to be ‘on the path’ is to a great extent being with reality as it is, not as my daydreams would have it.

The inner ideal of the Monk still has his place, not just in Zazen but in how I try to live each day. But ideals are like stars in the sky, great for navigation but we shouldn’t expect to ever arrive at one!

Gassho

Satlah

Myojin

We are of one heart and mind.

This may be the limitations of language carrying different connotations and barriers from the online format without personal context, but respectfully, I do not agree that conscious attempts at growth are stupid or arrogant. I am surely not alone in sitting with myself, seeing myself truly, and realising that some of my actions are harmful to myself and others. There is a deep sense of sorrow, love, tenderness and empathy behind this and it does lead to conscious efforts. None of this is stupid or arrogant, nor is it admirable or praiseworthy. It’s simply a realisation of truth and from that, a resolution for change, not just for myself, or just for others, but for everyone and everything of which I am a part.

There is a subtle aggression when we approach our practice and our lives with an ideal in our mind of something we should reach towards because often that image does not include ourselves or any true living thing. We’re technically sitting on our zafu, but actually we are grasping hungrily towards something else entirely. We create a life in which our gaze is turned outwards and dismisses the self we are, devaluing it in favour of an ideal or seeing these things as separate. This is a form of self-violence, and it seeds suffering and violence towards others. I have done this and again, am surely not alone in this, but my sense is this is not what the way asks of us.

When we gassho, it includes everyone: the roshi, the priests, the lay ordained, the new visitor sitting zazen for the first time who does not know what gassho is, the street cleaner outside the dojo who does not hear the bell and might never sit zazen in this lifetime.

Please forgive me, my words and ways are rough and unskilled. What ideal Monk? What stars? What navigation? The stars are in us, there’s no need to go anywhere. Whose call do we hear? Is it not our own call?

Gassho
Seidō-nigo
Sat/Lah

[Myo-jin]

This may be the limitations of language carrying different connotations and barriers from the online format without personal context, but respectfully, I do not agree that conscious attempts at growth are stupid or arrogant. I am surely not alone in sitting with myself, seeing myself truly, and realising that some of my actions are harmful to myself and others. There is a deep sense of sorrow, love, tenderness and empathy behind this and it does lead to conscious efforts. None of this is stupid or arrogant, nor is it admirable or praiseworthy. It’s simply a realisation of truth and from that, a resolution for change, not just for myself, or just for others, but for everyone and everything of which I am a part.

There is a slight misunderstanding here, and I've been thinking about how to address it. I think that when we consider it deeply, we are actually talking about the same thing from different prespectives.

When I say 'concious attempts at growth are stupid, even arrogant', I don't mean we shouldnt try be better people, I mean we should be the best of who we are, and not try to be something we're not, and be pulled aside by an ideal that has no basis in reality (such as my impulse to go and live in a grass hut as a hermit).

Do you know the story of the Little Mermaid? Not the Disney version but the original. The mermaid falls in love with a human prince, and abandons her mermaid self in order to become a human, live on the land, and win his heart. In short, she sacrifices who she is for an idealised idea of who she should be, an act of violence against her nature, a 'subtle agression' as you put it.

She gets her wish, but every step on land is pain, she pays for her hubris with every step on feet that are not her own. She cannot speak, the prince doesn't understand her and marries somebody else. Finally in despair she goes back to the sea, becomes one with the sea foam, forced by circumstance to reclaim her mermaid identity, her real nature as a creature of the sea.

Her 'arrogance' was thinking that if she could only be a human then she would get everything she was longing for, and abandoning the actuality of her life in the process.

In short, a mermaid should be a mermaid, if she tries to be a human and walk on land she will only hurt and alienate herself.

I could explicate for hours, but would run long and probably be more confusing, so I'll leave it at that.

Gassho

Sattlah

Myojin

[Bion]

When I say 'concious attempts at growth are stupid, even arrogant', I don't mean we shouldnt try be better people, I mean we should be the best of who we are, and not try to be something we're not, and be pulled aside by an ideal that has no basis in reality (such as my impulse to go and live in a grass hut as a hermit).

I'd argue that who we are is not fixed and not just one thing. Who we are is reshaped constantly by what we have done, what we do, what others do, what we think and what we dream of, plus, where we direct our efforts. I wanted to be a singer, and worked towards that, then it didn't work out as I hoped, but I flowed with it, started writing and producing instead, then that became who I was and also who I ended up wanting to be. I was a christian and wanted to become a buddhist, so I went in that direction, which led me to want to be a real monk, so then I threw myself into the current of the flow and along I went all the way to ordination.

I'd even say that bodhicitta arising in someone is an impulse that we wholeheartedly follow and act upon, where we realize that who we actually are is larger than the box we've put ourselves in. Being ourselves is not easy

Gassho
sat lah

[Shui_Di]

Hi Myojin,

I remember Jundo always told me that practice and life is inseparable. Everyday life is practice too. But it doesn't mean that we don't do our "formal" practice like Zazen, reading, contemplating, etc.

I remember Jundo said, Zazen is not a out where we sit, how long we sit, or it is not sitting for 5 hours a day.

I remember about Dogen said that we practice not to chase for enlightenment, but we practice enlightenment. The practice itself is enlightenment. Sitting is enlightenment, walking is enlightenment, eating, working, even going to the restroom, as long as, when eat we just eat. In Working -- we just work. Then all is practice.

Sometimes when I am busy, I sit less, but keep practice in my daily business. When I am not so busy, I will sit more. So I am somehow more flexible. Because life is practice, and practice is life.

Gassho, Mujo
Stlah

[Myo-jin]

I'd argue that who we are is not fixed and not just one thing. Who we are is reshaped constantly by what we have done, what we do, what others do, what we think and what we dream of, plus, where we direct our efforts. I wanted to be a singer, and worked towards that, then it didn't work out as I hoped, but I flowed with it, started writing and producing instead, then that became who I was and also who I ended up wanting to be. I was a christian and wanted to become a buddhist, so I went in that direction, which led me to want to be a real monk, so then I threw myself into the current of the flow and along I went all the way to ordination.

I'd even say that bodhicitta arising in someone is an impulse that we wholeheartedly follow and act upon, where we realize that who we actually are is larger than the box we've put ourselves in. Being ourselves is not easy

Gassho
sat lah

Thinking about your reply from yesterday, I realised we may again be speaking on different levels. I don't mean to suggest that narrative identity (small self) is fixed. Careers, interests, religious paths, all naturally change over time. I’ve lived long enough to have that happen several times myself, but it's not what I’m referring to. I don't view receiving precepts or ordination in that light either. While for some it may be a life choice (the son who ordains to inherit his father’s temple), for others it's an expression of what's already true; my sense is that if I put on the robe for an idealised self-image then I've already strayed from reality and it becomes a sort of self-harm.

Your comment on bodhicitta points to the heart of it, though. The sense of opening, of realising we are larger than the boxes we put ourselves into, is an appropriate response to what is, rather than a forcing of the issue, the next step becomes natural rather than contrived to fit a self-image. It's very different from the mermaid cutting off her tail, and is more like the moment she drops the assumed (and ultimately false) human form and dissolves back into the sea foam: release, dropping off of the contrived-self and return to her original nature. To me that’s a much more important question, and the question of ordination is closely tied in with it.

Gassho

Sattlah

Myojin