Zen | Bob Schwartz

February 7, 2017

Hell-dwellers, Beasts and Hungry Ghosts: Do We Become What We Behold? Do We Become What We Oppose?

Yokitoshi

There is an ancient theme that says you must become a criminal to fight crime, you must become insane to stop the insanity. It is the basis for many profound stories.

I remain uneasy about allowing myself to be pulled into the miasma of current events. The analysis and criticism and predictions may be cogent and justified. But still, if we think we are untouched by that process because of our good intentions, we are mistaken.

I was reading Bankei (1622-1693), who is unique among Zen masters for his simple explanation of buddhahood. His is not a shortcut to becoming a buddha; there is no shortcut because there is no path. Each of us already has the marvelously illuminating Unborn Buddha Mind. Some will become aware just by hearing Bankei explain it.

But there is a catch. After realization, you may go back to your old ways. And that, says Bankei, would be worse:

But at our meeting today when you thoroughly grasp that each of you has the Unborn Buddha Mind right within himself, from today on you’ll live in the Buddha Mind and be living buddhas forever after. What I’m telling you all is simply to make you realize that the Unborn Buddha Mind is marvelously illuminating. When you’ve thoroughly realized this, from then on forever after you’ll possess a buddhas body no different from Shaka’s73 and never again fall into the Three Evil Realms. However, even if you grasp the Unborn Buddha Mind when I explain it to you here like this, once you go back home, things you see and hear may start up your angry mind again. And then, even if it’s only a tiny bit of anger, your sin will be a million times worse than it was before you’d heard me tell you about the Unborn Buddha Mind! You’ll switch the Unborn Buddha Mind you learned about now for hell-dwellers, beasts and hungry ghosts, transmigrating forever.

That is why thinking and writing about extreme and troubling current events does make me uneasy. Like it or not, to some degree we do become what we behold, we do become what we oppose. It may be worth it, even imperative, but we do pay a price.

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January 26, 2017

A Hundred Uglinesses or A Thousand Stupidities: The Upright Cauldron

liu_ding

Despite a hundred uglinesses or a thousand stupidities, the upright cauldron is naturally beneficent.
Zen Master Hongzhi

A note in Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi says:

As an idiom, “cauldrons,” means simply “uprightness.” The cauldron is a traditional Chinese implement for alchemy and cooking and so is associated with spiritual transformation. Here it is an image for the context of meditation practice and its yogic reliability. Cauldron is the name of hexagram 50 in the ancient Chinese classic Book of Changes, or I Qing: “To change things nothing compares to the cauldron; this is the vessel used to refine the wise, forge sages, cook buddhas, and purify adepts. How could it not be very auspicious and developmental?”

About I Ching Hexagram 50—Ding (Cauldron), Establishing the New—Master Alfred Huang says:

This gua [hexagram] takes the image of a sacrificial vessel to expound upon the importance of honoring and nourishing wise and virtuous persons for the growth of a new country or a new situation. The image of the gua is an inverse form of the preceding one. The preceding one is an act of revolution to abolish the old system or condition. The purpose of revolution is not merely to overthrow the old but, more important, to establish a new situation and a better order. Abolishing the old is difficult; establishing the new is even more so. Both abolishing the old and establishing the new need qualified personnel of extraordinary ability. This gua offers a proper way to reorganize the old order. The key point is to respect wise and virtuous persons and rely on them to establish the new order. On the other hand, eliminating those who are mean and unqualified for their position is equally important.

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January 22, 2017

Zafu

zafu-and-zabuton

The zafu is the center
Of the universe.
I sit and I am not there.

Q: Is the cushion the center of the universe?

A: Yes.

Q: When you sit on the cushion are you the center of the universe?

A: No.

Q: Is the cushion the center of the universe?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: The center of the universe is everywhere.

Q: Are you everywhere?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: I’m here on the cushion.

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January 18, 2017

The Cathedral and the Grass Hut

cathedral-lafayette-la

“I’ve built a grass hut where there’s nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.”

Grand
Grander than grand.
Splendid glory
Magic carpet
Of gold and glass
Whisks us away
To God’s neighborhood.
The grass hut reminds us
That houses and vehicles
Are just that.
Means not
Journey or destination.

“A shining window below the green pines—
jade palaces or vermilion towers can’t compare with it.”

Quotes from Song of the Grass Hut by Shitou Xiqian (700–790), translated by Taigen Dan Leighton and Kazuaki Tanahashi.

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December 22, 2016

Light the Icicle

icicles

Happy Hanukkah. Happy Christmas.

The Icicle

A zaddik told:

“On a winter’s day, I went to the bath with the master. It was so cold that icicles hung from the roofs. We entered and as soon as he did the Unification, the bath grew warm. He stood in the water for a very long time, until the candle began to drip and gutter. ‘Rabbi,’ I said, ‘the candle is guttering and going out.’

‘Fool,’ he answered, ‘take an icicle from the roof and light it! He who spoke to the oil and it leaped into flame, will speak to this too, and it will kindle.’ The icicle burned brightly for a good while, until I went home, and when I got home there was a little water in my hand.”

Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim

“People ask, ‘What is the Buddha?’ An icicle forming in fire.”

Dogen Zenji

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December 9, 2016

A Benefit of Observing Hateful Speech: Patience and Compassion

shodoka-3

A conventional reason for promoting free speech, even if hateful, is that it brings the hate out in the open, where it can be exposed and counteracted.

Here is another benefit, found in a verse from The Song of Realizing the Way (Shodoka) by Zen Master Yongjia Xuanjue (665-713):

There is benefit to observing hateful speech;
it makes you a good guiding teacher.
If you don’t hold a grudge against those who slander,
you don’t need to express patience and compassion.
(Translated by Peter Levitt and the Kazuaki Tanahashi)

Another translation:

When I consider the virtue of abusive words,
I find the scandal-monger is my good teacher.
If we do not become angry at gossip,
We have no need for powerful endurance and compassion.
(Translated by Robert Aitken)

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November 20, 2016

Talk

Breathe
While you talk
And every word
Is silent.

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November 15, 2016

To Live Is Just to Live

dainin-katagiri

“How often in our lives have we had feelings of happiness, unhappiness, pros and cons, success and failure? Countless numbers of times. But we are still alive. Regardless of whether or not we awaken to how important the essence of human life is, basically we are peaceful and harmonious. In other words, our life is just a continuation of living, that is all, “being living” constantly. That is why everyone can survive, no matter what happens. Is it our effort that makes it possible for us to survive for twenty years or forty years? No. Is it our judgment? No. Strictly speaking, it is just a continuation of becoming one with the process of living, that is all. This is the essence of living. The truth of living is just to live. This is a very simple practice.”

Dainin Katagiri, Returning to Silence: Zen Practice in Daily Life

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October 17, 2016

Star Trek Koan

Captain Kirk faced a crisis on the Enterprise. He summoned his ship’s doctor and his ship’s engineer. Bones says, “Damn it Jim, I’m a doctor, not an engineer.” Scotty says, “I’m an engineer, Captain, not a doctor.” Who is right?

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October 14, 2016

No Preferences

Xinxin Ming

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

Thus begins one of the most famous Zen texts, Verses on the Faith-Mind (Xinxin Ming), attributed to Jianzhi Sengcan (d. 606), the Third Ancestor of Zen.

This is one of the most common themes for way seekers. And as difficult as it is ubiquitous.

Smart or less smart, knowledgeable or less knowledgeable, all of us have preferences and opinions about this and that. We make distinctions. Good and bad. Better and best. All of us. All the time. Some people more than others.

There can be practical reasons. We want to know what to embrace or avoid. And if we think we know that, we want to tell others. On the less practical side, we may want to demonstrate just how discerning we are. How smart we are. That happens.

The point is to be watchful of our tendencies to fill our lives and time with those preferences and distinctions. They will, without our noticing, take us over.

Zen goes one step further. The reason to give up preferences is not primarily to improve something about ourselves and our relationships with others, though that may be an effect. More than that, those preferences and distinctions don’t exist. At all. We just impose them on whatever is. This idea seems not just unlikely from our experience, but impossible.

Don’t believe Zen? Believe Jesus, who made the same point. “Do not judge and you will not be judged” is not just about being fair and self aware and not being hypocritical. It is about the hollowness of judgments themselves. Of course we will make judgments, but clinging to them and making them the centerpiece of our time and life is not the way.

Infinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference, for definitions have vanished
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with Being and non-Being.
Waste no time in doubts and arguments
that have nothing to do with this.

One thing, all things;
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about nonperfection.
To live in this faith is the road to nonduality,
because the nondual is one with the trusting mind.

Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today.

From Hsin-Hsin Ming: Verses on the Faith-Mind, translated by Richard B. Clarke

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