Celebrating Nishijima Roshi's Calligraphy

[lorax]

Ah Jundo, Treeleaf is clearly now both "bricks and mortar" and virtual. Love calligraphy and weathered wood. Will have to send you a picture of the gate into my studio area where hangs an old slab of cedar with my feeble attempt of carving a greeting in kanji. Love to see that Treeleaf has a real home.

SAT TODAY

[Geika]

Oh! Jundo, you got it. Those videos are what I was talking about.

And what a nice letter exchange... Thanks to Nishijima Roshi.

Gassho, sat today.

[Kyonin]

Thank you for the videos.

Something about Nishijima Roshi always makes me smile and feel calm.

Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday

[Seishin]

Jundo

Finally seen the pics, so thanks for fixing the links. The craftsmanship of the carving look fantastic, beautiful work. I'll catch up on the videos over the next few day, they look very interesting.

[Kyosei]

Jundo,

Thanks for the movies, will watch them later.

How were the retreat schedules when directed by Nishijima Roshi?

I noticed some talks where he tells about Zazen being good to the "balance of the autonomic nervous system", why did he talks in this way? Did he wanted to rip religious ideas of Zazen practice (or maybe show it as a more modern practice, aligned to science, technology)?

Gassho

#SatToday.

[Kyosei]

Just watched the movies. Loved the documentary and the absolutely lovely personality of Gudo Wafu Nishijima Roshi.

I'm very proud of learning in a Sangha that comes from him. With a teacher that was his disciple.

Man. In a sea of "enlightened masters", to find someone that replies a commentary ("you make things very clear") with "maybe it's because of my stupidity", with that clear eyes of no second thoughts or false modesty is definitely a win.

Thank you Jundo!

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

The final scene, just after the credits, is the best (and maybe resumes it all) !

*** END OF SPOILER ***

Gassho

#SatToday.

[Seido]

Beautiful. And extra surprises from everyone on Roshi.

Gassho,
Seido
SatToday

[Jundo]

Hi Marcos,

How were the retreat schedules when directed by Nishijima Roshi?

I don't exactly recall, except up early in the morning, many sittings during the day, work Practice, walks in the mountains, some simplified Oryoki, lectures by Nishijima Roshi, bed ... for a few days. Not too intense, not too light.

I noticed some talks where he tells about Zazen being good to the "balance of the autonomic nervous system", why did he talks in this way? Did he wanted to rip religious ideas of Zazen practice (or maybe show it as a more modern practice, aligned to science, technology)?

Ah, you have actually touched on a bit of a complicated topic. I have written about this and my own feelings ... this is from when we re-released his book a couple of years ago ...

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I have written from time to time about some of Roshi's beliefs that were a bit unique to him. He was someone who sat Zazen for 70 years, encountered great Balance and Clarity in Body and Mind, and then tried to express that Balance and Clarity in western philosophical terms and medical-physiological terms that might have been, well, a little his own language and way of putting things, and sometimes an awkward fit. Although a great Zenman, I do not think he was particularly an expert in Western philosophy or medicine, but tried to describe Buddhism in such ways. My teacher, like all Zen teachers before him, has tried to express in words the experience of Zazen that is ultimately beyond words ... and to do that, Nishijima Roshi has had two very good ideas about Zazen, and his own unique way to say it.

One is that Zazen has a medical and physiological aspect in the body, which he terms balance of the autonomic nervous system (although I always tried to convince him that there are many many physiological aspects in addition to that. Nishijima was still something of a pioneer to say that much of what we do is a physical effect of the brain and nervous system).

The other is his idea of Zazen as a practice of "Action" or "Pure Doing/Being", and Buddhism as a "realistic" philosophy beyond idealistic religions or materialistic philosophies. Below a description in a nutshell, although it is a bit more than this. It is actually a very sound description, but he tried very hard to fit the Four Noble Truths into that. I am not sure it was a good fit. You will have to read the book to see how he tried to do that. I do not know anyone in the many flavors of Buddhism who would express them as he did. On the other hand, the POINT he was trying to make about the Four Noble Truths is itself quite good. Further, even Nishijima said he was not trying to replace the traditional view of the Four Truths, so much as add another way of viewing them.

Some people (almost all people in some way) dream of an idealized world (or "heaven" or "enlightenment" or a "purified society after the revolution comes" ... whatever) that is always good by our little human standards ... candy cane trees and ice cream mountains. Or, they feel lack between how the world "is" and how they wish it "should be" in their ideals. At least, they dream of some state much better than the present state. In contrast, this world of ours is less than ideal. That is an "idealistic" view. There is also a sense in most religions of some "ideal" world that is the world of the spirit, which is the world we need to get to by escaping this world of the "flesh".

On the other hand, some other people think of this universe as just blind processes, dead matter that happened to come alive as us, going no place in particular. (I really abbreviate the description ... but this is generally a materialistic view of the world). Although seemingly dispassionate and "coldly objective" about the world, this view will often cross the line into asserting that the world is "meaningless" or "pointless" or "survival-of-the-fittest cruel" or just "we are born, we work, we die" ... some such bleak thing. He also sometimes uses "material" to mean the "world of the flesh, this sometimes disappointing and hard life" as opposed to the above idealized "world of the spirit" found in most religions.

Both those views tend to judge that there is something lacking in the present state.

However, Buddhism is an existentialist way of being in and as this life-world-just-as-it-is, meaning the world and this life before we impose our judgments and dreams upon it. We neither judge the world lacking in comparison to another ideal world, nor do we judge it cold and pointless and hopeless. We just let the world be as it is, and we go with the flow ... to such a degree that we can no longer see perhaps the divisions between ourselves and the world in the flowing. In that way, as Nishijima describes it, it swallows whole both materialism and idealism by finding this world, just going where it goes, to be ideally just what it is. And that way of seeing beyond "beautiful" or "ugly", "peace" and "war" is .... pretty darn Beautiful and Peaceful! Material and Ideal merge into each other and are transcended. This is Nishijima's view of Buddhist "realism", his third philosophy.

However, theory alone is not enough. More than words describing this "realistic" perspective, we must actually taste it in the practice-experience of Zazen. So, Zazen is the pure action whereby we actually experience this being of reality.

Something like that.

Nishijima Roshi sometimes had his own lingo, and ways of expressing the basic Zen and Mahayana worldviews.

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My late, dear Teacher (recently departed, yet always with us) was not a scientist, but he was a former runner (long ago) who found a great stability and balance of body-&-mind in Zazen. He often compared this to the peace and balance he found in his running. In those days, almost nobody in Japan tried to explain Zazen in terms of neurology and physiology, and Roshi was on the cutting edge of doing so. Now, we put monks and meditators in MRI machines, and all this is accepted. Nishijima was way ahead of the curve in speaking in such terms.

However, Nishijima himself was not a scientist, just a Zazen fellow, so developed some rather personal and a bit simple scientific layman's ideas about what was happening in the body and brain. Nishijima Roshi was very influenced by some of the research on meditation by Dr. Herbert Benson and, earlier, by Karl Menninger. Nishijima came to compare the experience of balance and oneness experienced in running to the sense of peace/balance/wholeness/oneness that is often experienced in Zazen. Nishijima Roshi came to attribute this in significant part to the physiological effect of the sitting posture itself. Here is a sample of Roshi's writing on the subject:

More here ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?12270-30-Questions-on-Zen-Buddhism-and-Practicing-Zazen&p=127594&viewfull=1#post127594

Gassho, J

SatToday


PS - And this is about Nishijima Roshi's book, which I translated ... "A Heart to Heart Chat with Old Master Gudo"

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?13153-In-Memory-of-My-Teacher-Gudo-Wafu-Nishijima-Roshi-%28-re-issue-of-his-book-%29