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Being
Breathed
by
Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho
a
Series of Four Dharma Talks.
Being
Breathed, Part 1
May
11, 1996
[Ven.
Shikai Zuiko osho in a “Good Morning America” radio announcer voice]
Good
Saturday morning to you. It's a bright minus 26 degrees here in the capitol
with a wind chill factor of minus 44. But of course you, sitting here
in the Hatto, know that because you walked here through the bright morning
of the second coldest capital city in the world. As you were walking along,
it bit your nose. It pinched your lungs. It reddened your cheeks. It was
right there in front of your face. You walked through it. It carried you
here through the brightness of morning.
It
brings you light from the candles and scent from the incense. It bows.
More intimate than any lover could be. Stronger than a bull, bigger than
an elephant, it supports the earth and gently moves as you.
Now
in a little while, we'll have practice interviews and The Question
will be asked, “How is your practice?” And you've all had differing
experiences of what happens when those sounds are heard.
This
story, a short story that I am going to tell you is not about one student
but rather it is a compilation. The densho rang. I rang the gong in the
Zendo. The student opened the door, bowed, and walked towards The Seat.
We bowed and the student sat down. The student took a deep breath, waiting.
“How
is your practice?” I asked.
The
student gulped, gulped again, reddened, and said, “I never...I don't know...but
at home...earlier this week...I noticed that my breath was moving in and
out of my body and that it was the air in the room. I noticed my cat was
breathing...the same air...my friends, my mother's people I loved people
I would never know...all breathing the same air...and then I got scared...it
was too big!” The student stopped. Eyes looked around.
“What
did you do then?” I asked, “When you noticed you were scared...”
“Aahaa...”
There was a long pause. “...I tried...no, no, that's not right...I noticed
the breath?”
“Yes?”
“I
saw that being scared was really a thought...and then...I noticed the
breath. I felt the breath. At the tanden.”
The
student had recognized something that was true about how they were in
that moment which was long gone, and what they were experiencing in this
moment. Yes. The student felt the breath at the tanden moving the body
in and out and said, “And I remember I wasn't afraid then and I'm not
afraid now...”
The
student had practised that moment of clear seeing; by making a choice
to feel the breath rather than propagating the story about being scared,
the student practised. And this practice is about, of course, noticing
how you are in this moment.
A
long, long time ago, I lived in the country with my family and our family
business was caves. We didn't manufacture them. We took people on tours.
We were in the tourist business and this business was five miles from
anywhere. As a ten-year-old unwaged tourist guide I didn't even have a
bicycle. So for recreation, after walking through the caves, talking about
them to people, I would go and lie on my back on the limestone near a
waterfall. That limestone, I knew, was four hundred million years old.
Four hundred million years ago, that limestone was mud at the bottom of
a tropical sea. Hard to believe, isn't it? I would lie on my back looking
at the sky. I breathed in and breathed out. Noticing breathing in and
breathing out, I knew that the sky, the breath, the rocks, the flight
of swallows following currents of air around the descent of the waterfall
were this moment. I knew I was simply a part of it, no more, no less.
Thirty-five
years later I was in the Zendo at Zazen-ji when Anzan roshi spoke of the
intimacy of our lives in a Dharma Talk for his associate and general students
that was later called “The Sky Talking” he pointed out what I had recognized
then and pointed further. The sky moves through breath, is present in
the breathing out of every word we say and hear, moves up as far as the
blue of the sky and into the deepest cave. We are not just a part of this.
This all-pervasive context, this vast activity, indicates something of
the vastness, which we all are. Sky, breath, bodies, minds, you, I, are
just part of what we each are. I vow to bear this in what I say and hear.
It will be difficult to remember it always in each moment. But each moment
shows, this so I have only to allow it. As do you. Here is a poem:
this
breath
explodes
space
this
thought
this
non-thought
forms,
forms,
sounds,
sounds
at
this moment
what
else but just this
This
is how Zen Master Anzan Hoshin expressed this moment of practice in “The
Sky Itself: Poems on Zen practice”, published in 1986. At this moment
what else but just this? What a question! Answer it with this whole bodymind
in this moment.
Here
we sit in the Hatto of Honzan Dainen-ji, the main monastery of the White
Wind Zen Community. We sit here in this moment being breathed. Listen...you
can hear the sounds from your bodymind as the ribs rise and fall, the
spine straightens and maybe snaps and pops with the life that is living
as you. Beside you and behind you are other sounds; sounds of bodyminds
being breathed. There are coughs and sighs, and swishes and swooshes,
and the sound of the fan. Are you paying more attention to the breath
of the person beside you or to the breath moving across my vocal chords
than you are paying to the breath breathing you?
Balance
it out...now. At this moment practice just this.
[Pause]
Isn't
it funny that we talk about “my breath” and “your breath” and “the cat's
breath”? As if we could stake a claim on something that we literally cannot
hold. As if we could mark it and keep it separate. And on those increasingly
frequent occasions when we do notice the breath for a moment, judgment
arises. “Aaah it's too fast, too shallow, too loud.” Well, too bad. Let's
not settle for our puny little stories. Come on; let's have a look at
what's really going on.
Picture
the earth as seen from way, way up in space. We're incredibly lucky. We've
all seen the earth from space in films, on television, or in photographs.
I'm amazed every time I think that I was amongst the first generation
that has actually been able to see our home from space. The beautiful
blue pearl turns in space. As we move closer, space becomes sky. As we
penetrate the cloud cover and get closer to the earth, we are able to
breathe the air unassisted. Just as fish are at home in the water, we
air-breathers are at home in the sky. Sky becomes breath; breath becomes
sky again.
This
morning, January 22 nd , at the formal sitting, we chanted a memorial
for Hanamatsu Daiji Tenku daiosho, your great-grandfather in Dharma. The
“Tenku”in his name means “ku” or “empty”, “ten” or “sky”. “Tenku – “empty
sky”. This is from the memorial we chanted.
[Osho
reads from the Memorial to Daiji Tenku daosho composed by Ven Anzan Hoshin
roshi ]
In
deep snow, in cold wind, your voice sounded forth, striking the sky
and setting it ringing. Awakening all beings to the Actual Nature, you
blazed in silence as the Great Acala. With the hammer and tongs of Great
Compassion you forged Buddhas and Bodhisattvas out of whatever came
to hand and set them spinning like suns for beings to find their orbit
around them.
Throughout
war and devastation, you sheltered the lamp of luminosity. Its light
shines even now and lights up our faces, our eyes. It is because of
you that we can see.
The
Lineage speaks as the sky. Many hundreds of years ago Zen Master Dogen
in “Jippo” wrote, “The ten directions are the breath of the Awakened Ones.
This is the point of our practice.”
Zen
Master Dogen never saw the earth from the sky but he said that this breath
is the point of our practice. The only place our practice can occur is
wrapped around this breath in this moment. You may as well notice it.
It is, after all, your life.
The
world turns in space and we can know that at this moment, it is night
dark somewhere. It's bright at ten o'clock in the morning here in the
Hatto but it is, nevertheless, this moment everywhere. In a cave under
the earth, there may be total darkness. No waves of light may penetrate
to the retinas of beings and there may be no seeing. In other darkness,
some light waves travel through the air and some beings can see to hunt.
In the bright daylight on the other side of the globe, we sit in the brightness
of the Hatto facing a white wall. Waves of light move and touch our retina
creating images and light and dark. Light waves move through the air we
breathe.
Sound
waves move through the air being breathed as you and you and you. A voice,
sound waves of a certain amplitude created by the movement of air over
the flesh of the vocal cords, travel through the air of the Hatto and
strike your tympanic membrane making sound. Scent molecules travel through
this air and you can smell the incense and taste your own breath. Warmth
from the radiators travels through the air and strikes the skin and we
feel hot. Walking in kinhin, we can feel colder air beneath our feet.
We
sit in the air being breathed. Walking, we move through the air as we
are being breathed. The air moves through us as breath. The air, the breath,
is the context of all our experiencing. Without this breath, without this
air, there can be no experiencing. In this Hatto, in the monastery, the
city, the country, the world, the air is the context within which contents
arises. The content may be called weather, rain, snow, rocks, rivers,
dogs, or people. The content may be called seeing, hearing, tasting, touching,
feeling, smelling and thoughts, but it can all only arise in this moment
of breathing in and out. You may as well notice it. It is your life.
Thank
you for listening.
Being
Breathed Part 2
February
5th, 2000
At
the beginning of the sitting round when the gong was struck we all bowed
and exhaled in the same moment. The gong rang again. We straightened and
the air entered each and every one of us at the same time. Another strike
on the gong and as if one exhalation in this moment breath dispersed and
mingled with the air in the Hatto.
Zen
Master Anzan Hoshin told us In “The Pivot”, one of the “Saturday Morning
Talks” series given for general and associate students during the late
1980's and early 1990's that,
In
the moment of breathing out,
There
is just each moment of the out breath.
Each
moment being this moment,
This
moment displaying itself as breathing out.
There
is a slight pause,
It
is ever so slight,
A
slight trembling,
And
then,
Breathing
in.
And
each moment of breathing in is this moment.
Each
sound that is heard,
Each
sensation that rises and falls,
Is
the activity, the turning of this moment.
You
and your world are arising here.
You
listen to me repeating Roshi's words or you might have listened to the
tape and at the moment of hearing it's so clear. “Aha! Yes...of course...!
At THIS moment it is so clear isn't it? I understand.” Feels good.
You
congratulate yourself. You pat yourself on the back because you understand.
You think all the effort really has been worth it. “Yes!” you say to yourself
as you are seduced by the “good” feeling, the “good” thoughts. “Yes, now
I am really practising.”
Excuse
me? Excuse me!
You
have forgotten the breath. You have forgotten to notice a thought as a
thought.
“Oh
no!” self-image declares, “not again...I thought I had something there.”
Wait…Wait...
Don't follow it. This isn't a problem even though self-image will try
and make it one because that's really its only job. Anzan roshi says,
Breathing
in turns to breathing out.
Holding
a feeling turns to holding a thought,
Turns
to holding another thought and another thought.
The
thoughts rise and fall,
Turning
in the light of Awareness,
Turning
in the knowing of them.
You
see, you're not the only one in this Hatto who gets lost in thoughts and
feelings; nor are you the only one in this Sangha, or this year, or this
century. For 2600 years students have been getting lost in thoughts and
feelings forgetting to notice this moment, this breath. Forgetting to
notice the only thing that is going on - reality.
In
the Satipatthana Sutta: Foundations of Mindfulness as translated from
the Pali by Anzan roshi, the Buddha, Gautama Siddartha, is said to have
instructed his students (who were required to be monks), thus:
Breathing
in, one is mindful, breathing out, one is mindful. Breathing out a long
breath, one understands, I breathe out a long breath.” Breathing in
a long breath, one understands, “I breathe in a long breath. Breathing
out a short breath, one understands, “I breathe out a short breath.”
Breathing in a short breath, one understands, “I breathe in a short
breath.”
This
instruction is clear is it not? However it can be misunderstood. (And
as Roshi has said, “If we can misunderstand our practice we will. And
if we misunderstand our practice we practice our misunderstandings.)
It
can seem as if this passage is instructing us to identify and judge the
depth and the quality of the breath. Many of you have commented in practice
interviews that you aren't breathing deeply enough or that your breath
is shallow. And that's okay, but you have forgotten a number of things:
First, those comments are thoughts. You notice the thought; we know that
because you articulate it, in doing so noticed something that is true
about how you were in that moment. That moment of noticing IS the only
moment that you can practice and you do so by feeling the breath at the
tanden, feeling sensations in the body. Noticing seeing, and hearing,
and tasting, and touching, and feeling, and smelling, and breathing, you
are practising in this moment.
Fortunately,
endless opportunities are offered up for this noticing. Sometimes it can
seem to be too much. Recently, a student, who was looking very worried,
“It seems like practice is too much work. I can't keep track of everything.
I keep trying but...” This student was asked to notice how experiencing
was in THIS moment of breathing in and out. Upon doing so, the “trying”
was exposed for what was: a pattern. This was a pattern that came up over
and over again for the student in other aspects of life. “Oh my,” the
student sighed, “no wonder I feel tired a lot. I am trying to do things
I can't do and that I don't have to do. I'm putting far too much energy
into “trying to notice” when all I need to do is notice.”
The
Sutta goes on to say that:
One
practices, “I will breathe out with full experience of the whole body,'
One practices, ‘I will breathe in with full experience of the whole
body.' One practices, ‘I will breathe out, calming the tendencies of
the body.' One practices, “I will breathe in calming the tendencies
of the body.
What
can seem to be a thought that one is being asked to say to oneself, “I
will breathe out with full experience of the whole body,” is more a statement
of intentionality, This instruction to practice cultivates, as you continue
to practice, a knowing which is before thinking, and beyond, and without,
words. You are noticing, simply noticing, that which is always already
the case.
The
Sutta continues:
Just
as a skilful turner or a turner's apprentice, making a long turn knows,
‘I am making a long turn,' or making a short turn knows, ‘I am making
a short turn,' just so monks, the monk practices breathing out a long
breath knowing, “I breathe out a long breath.
A
turner as described is a potter or a woodworker. Whether we are a skilled
potter or only an apprentice, whether we are a monk or a lay student,
we have to know what's going on. We don't have to be an expert. We don't
have to already know what we don't know in order to know this. We just
have to be willing to learn from what is actually going on how to pay
attention to what is going on. We have to be willing to know that we don't
know and to be willing to make mistakes.
As
we sit we can know the turning of the breath. Sky turns to breath. In-breath
turns to out-breath and is this moment displaying itself as the out breath.
In the “Pivot” Roshi said,
Each
sound that is heard,
Each
sensation that rises and falls,
Is
the activity,
The
turning of this moment.
Speaking
of “turns and turning” I went skiing two days ago for the first time in
two years. You may remember that beautiful day with the bright, clear
blue sky. It was glorious.
I'm
not a great skier. As with almost everything it seems, I was a late starter
and then I stopped in the mid-eighties. This was just about the time when
I started practising and studying with Roshi. I did not go skiing for
over a decade. One day a student asked me if I would like to go skiing
and it sounded like a good idea. On the way to the slopes I noticed some
thoughts coming up which, if fed with my attention, could have turned
into feelings I might in the past have called “fear” or “anxiety” or “worry.”
I practiced the moment of noticing and guess what? That first run was
the best time I had ever had skiing. What I had learned on the zafu was
presenting itself skiing on the mountain.
After
a few years I stopped going and before I knew it I hadn't been for two
years. Upon waking from sleep four days ago I knew I was going to ski
that day. I did and guess what? It was the best skiing I have ever experienced.
Effortlessly the interaction of mountain, snow, skis, and body, breath,
and mind, presented a curving down the slope that was this moment. A little
while later I started thinking about it, trying to come up with a strategy
to recreate that effortless arcing through the pristine powder snow and,
of course, I fell. Actually I slide halfway down the mountain on my back
with a cloud of sparkling crystals around me fracturing the sunlight and
manifesting rainbows of light. Self-image had started to try. It's everywhere.
Getting in the way, causing problems. What to do?
Practice.
When
knowing becomes a thought about knowing, obstruction is presenting itself
and it is ready to be released.
And
the Sutta continues:
And
further, monks, in going forward, and in going back, complete knowing
is realized. In looking ahead and looking behind, complete knowing is
realized. Bending and stretching, complete knowing is realized. Carrying
the robes and bowl, complete knowing is realized. In eating and drinking,
chewing and tasting, complete knowing is realized. Excreting and urinating,
complete knowing is realized. In motion and in stillness, in sitting,
in sleeping and waking, in speech and silence, complete knowing is realized.
Complete
knowing is this moment. Knowing this moment completely is your life. Really.
You may as well notice it.
Roshi
said in the “Saturday Morning Dharma Talk” I quoted from at the beginning;
“Each moment of breathing in is this moment. Each sound that is heard,
each sensation that rises and falls is the activity, the turning of this
moment. You and your world are arising here.”
As
we breathe in this sky in this moment together, whether we recognize it
or not we are all present in this moment: here, there, everywhere. I realize
I haven't even talked about alignment of breath, about great bows, about
the moment of bowing together in Dokusan or a practice interview. Hmmmm,
well..
Sit
in the sky being breathed as this moment.
Move
through the air being breathed as this moment.
See,
hear, taste, touch, think, feel, breathe, as this moment.
When
the gong strikes, signaling the end of the sitting round, you have another
vivid opportunity to notice with the whole bodymind as the out breath
returns to the sky, a pause, a sound, a feeling, the taste of breathing
in this moment as this breath... turning...turning, noticing....
Effortless,
This
easy and joyful practice.
Thank
you for listening.
Being
Breathed Part 3
April
8, 2000
By
the age of forty you will have breathed twenty-five billion, two hundred
and twenty nine million, three hundred thousand times. This is a minimum
calculation based on 12 breaths a minute. The calculation does not include
Leap Year or any times you've increased your respiratory rate through
climbing up stairs or mountains, running a marathon or exercising your
dog. It doesn't take into account laughter, or sex, or lifting a child,
walking, carrying groceries. getting out of bed or giving birth.
How
many have you noticed?
Before
we begin to practice we have usually only noticed our breath when we can't
‘catch it' or when it's too short or too long, or laboured or impeded
in some way. In short, as with so much of our life before we began to
practice, we only notice it when there is a problem or when we are ‘working
with it' as a relaxation technique, or in learning to swim, sing, or play
a wind instrument or in response to illness or injury. Otherwise we're
just not aware of our own breath.
When
we first encounter the Teachings of our Hakukaze Soto Zen lineage and
read “The Four Gates of Zen Practice” by Ven. Anzan Hoshin sensei we discover
at some point that ‘Four Gates' refers to body, breath, speech, and mind.
We
are asked to practice mindfulness of breath and to use the breath as a
touchstone to reveal ourselves to this moment. Sometimes we understand
this and sometimes we don't. Sometimes we practice it and sometimes we
don't. And sometimes we pay more attention to someone else's breath than
we do our own: We find ourselves becoming irritated at the sound of the
person sitting next to us breathing in and out, and in and out, and in
and out.
If
we mention the arising of irritation to a practice advisor, we are asked
what we do at that moment and we might say that we “try to FOCUS ON the
breath”. The practice advisor will look at us astonished and goggle-eyed,
“Wherever did you get the idea that you were to focus on the breath? No
one here ever told you to FOCUS on the breath.” We start to flush, and
squirm and get angry. Self-image likes to be right and starts to look
for excuses and justifications. But before we can speak we are told to
“feel the breath at the tanden” or to feel “the body moving in and out
with the breath” and we'd just like to poke the monk or to scream. We
choke out that we are TRYING TO FEEL THE BREATH BUT IT'S TOO SHALLOW or
that we don't know how to breathe or that there are too many things to
notice. Or we just don't understand and what is the big deal about the
breath anyway?
As
has been said over and over (and as will continue to be said over and
over) the breath being breathed as and through you is this moment of your
life. It is this present moment. You may as well notice it because this
is where and when your life actually is. Simply by noticing, by being
mindful of the breath, the bodymind is being given a chance to balance
itself out. The bodymind can and does find its balance. Over time we start
to notice that our sense of being overwhelmed and pushed this way and
that by thoughts and feelings is less frequent.
In
“The Bodymind of the Way, Zen Teachings on Dogen Zenji's Shinjin Gakudo”,
Zen Master Anzan Hoshin says, “We welcome you with open arms, and I do
hope that you practice with wide open eyes and open breath. Open again
and again into this moment. Enter again and again into this life.”
As
our practice opens, words become increasingly slippery and shoot out of
our grasp. What we thought we understood of the meaning has changed. We
thought that “open” meant wide and deep and big. In this context it means,
“As it is”. It means not manipulated or changed. It means this moment
of breathing in as it is, and this moment of breathing out as it is. Should
you notice commentary or judgment as to the quality or length or shallowness
of the breath simply notice that commentary as a thought and feel the
breath simply as it is.
The
Roshi goes on to say,
An
open breath might not necessarily be a deep breath. It might be a shallow
breath, it might be a strangled breath. It might be a breath riding
the crest of a wave of anxiety. An open breath is a breath that is attended
to fully and completely, a breath that is breathed completely.
Attending
to the breath does not mean to move attention toward the breath and away
from other moments of experiencing. That movement of attention would be
focusing on the breath and as I said before, no one told us to focus on
the breath. There's room for everything in this moment so include the
breath in this moment of attending to this moment.
The
Roshi continues, “The more fully that we breathe our breath, perhaps the
longer and deeper they become. Perhaps. However whether it is a long breath
or a short breath, it is this breath.”
This
sounds pretty simple. And it feels pretty simple when you're actually
doing it. But we understand for a moment and then it slips away. We need
all of the help we can get in this matter of mindfulness of breath. The
forms of practice in the Monastery offer this help and direction...relentlessly....
As
we enter the Hatto we bow. If we are attending completely to the moments
of the bow we can feel the lungs expand with the in breath as we lift
the arms to place the hands palm to palm. As we bend at the hips we can
feel the breath being exhaled from the body. As we straighten and bring
the hands back to shashu we open attention to the flow of air through
the nostrils, across the slightly parted lips, and as the air flows into
the lungs the torso expands. This moment is the hands, the feet, the bones,
the muscles, the seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, feeling, and the
smell of incense as we step over the threshold into the Hatto.
During
the formal bows as the incense is lit we are given another opportunity
to align with the Roshi or the monk who is leading the sitting. In this
moment we are also aligning with the Lineage even if we don't yet know
what this means exactly. In chanting practice we are asked to align body,
breath, speech, and mind with the chanting leader. Alignment means many
things as our practice deepens. It begins with just doing the forms together,
at the same time, as often as we can. When we notice we are off the next
breath gives us an opportunity to align and begin again. This opening
of attention relentlessly hones and sharpens our senses but without force.
We start to be able to attend more fully to this moment.
Practice
interviews, and, for formal students and monks, dokusan, are another opportunity
to practise this alignment. We start to see that alignment isn't a one
sided affair. At the moment of meeting the Roshi or the practice advisor
pay attention as we come to gassho together, aligned in body and breath.
The student waits for the senior to lead. Look carefully and you will
see that the senior is aligning with you as well. In this one moment two
people are breathing this moment together and recognizing and acknowledging
this moment as this moment, without, before, and beyond, words. This simplicity
highlights anything extra that comes up and gets in our way. Look carefully
and you will see how contraction occurs, how it shrinks and knots the
space of experiencing and how, if you fall for and propagate whatever
story is going on, a self comes into being. This self is frozen, like
a deer caught in the headlights of an on-coming car. Quick-notice it-open
the tendency to contract around that one moment of experiencing-see the
seeing, hear the hearing, feel the breath, and take your place on the
zafu. There is no problem. You are, however, beginning to see the functioning
of the formation of states. In that seeing you are being offered the key
to freedom from them.
Take
it. Use it. The Lineage of Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors invites us all
to receive our lives as they truly live.
Anzan
Hoshin roshi continues in “The Bodymind of the Way”,
To
try to manipulate and structure or restructure the breath; to try and
structure or restructure the mind, to shift around the contents of consciousness
trying to find a more pleasing pattern; to manipulate our lives by amputating
those parts that don't seem to fit...All of this is confusion about
who we are and what the world is, what the body is, what the mind is.
If you confuse yourself like this, then the mind will become bits and
pieces of a broken mind.
Open
to this breath, open to this moment, practise with wide-open eyes.
Open
this body, this mind, to the open air. And practise things as they are.
This
practice of things as they are requires no struggle. It cannot be constructed
or manufactured. This recognition of this moment of body, breath, speech,
and mind, is practising yourself as you are. Through this continuous practice,
this gyoji, Dogen zenji says. “Thus you will be able to steal the nostrils
of the Buddhas and Ancestors and make them breathe out.”
Thank
you for listening.
Being
Breathed Part 4
April
22, 2000
In
“Shinjin Gakudo: Studying the Way Through the Bodymind”, Dogen zenji said,
“Thus you will be able to steal the nostrils of the Buddhas and Ancestors
and make them breath out.”
When
we hear this or read it for the first time... or maybe the second or the
third time...there is a moment when we know what our Lineage Ancestor
Dogen zenji meant. “Ah...ahha yes. He's saying that if we practice thoroughly
and wake up we are the manifestation of the Lineage, of the Ancestors
right here, right now. We are the Lineage.”
But
we become confused as we think about our understanding. We worry it like
a domestic dog will worry a bone. ‘Worrying', shaking, biting, and sucking
on the bone coats it with slippery ropes of saliva, dirties it, and eventually
turns it into a shattered thing abandoned...to decay. The activity of
‘worrying' the bone exhausts the dog. And for what? The bone is not food.
The bone is an object around which the activity of this game of ‘worrying'
occurs. The bone has become an object of distraction for the dog and a
means of burning off energy.
Our
thoughts can be used as objects of distraction. They can have the appearance
of practice, a true expression of ‘the real thing'. When asked how our
practice is, we can adopt a particular ‘wise' tone of voice and say, ‘‘I
am starting to really see and understand how each thing affects everything
else.” Nodding knowingly,(not quite but almost doing a Pythonesque ‘nudge,
nudge, wink, wink to the practice advisor). It is really true.”
We
expect our sagacity to be rewarded. We want the practice advisor to declare,
in awe, “Yes, yes...well done...that's it...you've done it...you understand'
and we can join the ranks of THOSE WHO KNOW.
The
practice advisor instead of gasping in amazement and running off to get
the Roshi says, “ How is your practice right now.... What are you noticing?”
Left
hanging, breathless, in mid-air self-image starts to generate stuff: Wait
a minute...Wasn't the answer true? Sure it's true. I heard the Roshi say
something like that or I read it or something....I recognized something
didn't I?. sputter, sputter, splurt, splat.... Sooner or later with more
or less guidance we do notice what is really going on...
Everything,
of course, depends on how you are when you are uttering the words. Practice
is recognizing how you are and practising that moment of recognition.
The words are just words. They are neither true nor false. If you were
feeling the tongue against the teeth, the sounds reverberating in your
abdomen, neck, and chest, if you were noticing seeing and hearing and
tasting and touching and feeling and the breath moving across the vocal
chords carrying sounds across the tongue to be shaped into words what
you said may have been relevant to that moment.
If
you were not noticing seeing and hearing you were “worrying a bone”, pretending
to yourself to understand, instead of understanding this moment as the
only moment to practice. You are being breathed in and out, thoughts are
swirling, a “sense of self” is viewing this maelstrom. Practice the moment
you notice this sense of a self which is “experiencing practice”.
That
sense of self is how you are at that moment. You have noticed a ‘self'
coming into being. Practise that moment of noticing. Practise like this
until all moments of knowing are simply knowing in itself. All of the
Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors provide and have provided, and will continue
to provide us with instruction on how to practise this.
Zen
Master Anzan Hoshin points out in “The Bodymind of the Way”, his comments
on “Shinjin Gakudo” that,
The
real meaning of practice cannot be grasped because the moment that one
tries to grab onto one's practice and tries to ‘understand it', the
moment that one tries to limit one's practice by taking a look ‘at'
it, in that moment you have distanced yourself from it. You are then
no longer practising but are only pretending to practise. One is only
thinking about practising.
We
don't know if the dog was actually “thinking” about hunting when worrying
the bone. But we can know when we are “thinking” or more accurately propagating
a lot of thoughts about practice instead of practising. The more we choose
to allow attention to move into, and to entertain ourselves with, descriptions,
conjectures, thoughts, about what we have understood, the less likely
we are to be actually practising in that moment. But we do have the capacity
to practise fully and completely in that moment of noticing. Again, that
moment of noticing is the only moment we can practise.
Ancestors
such As Zen Master Dazhi of Baizhang caution that “If you just grasp onto
the view that primordial purity and inherent freedom will liberate you
or that Zen practice will enlighten you, you fall into holding the blind
view of spontaneous enlightenment.”
What
is required is the willingness to see how the energies of the bodymind
tend to be attracted to, and congeal around, views, concepts, slogans,
ideas, descriptions, conjectures, thoughts about the bodymind and thoughts
about practice. At the moment of seeing clearly what is really going on
we are instructed to recognize thought as thought, to feel the breath
and watch what happens as the bodymind releases its pattern of attachment
to that view, concept, slogan, idea, description, conjecture...our thoughts
about practice. We are instructed to recognize and realize the exertion
of the whole bodymind in this moment.
The
Roshi comments that “The teachings are not just a pile of junk lying in
an old house, they are the collected effort and energy of those who study
the Way”.
Chinese
Tiantai Master Zhiyi, who died in 598 C.E. wrote a book about studying
the way. In Chinese, the title is the Mo Ho Shi Guan, in Japanese Maka
Shi Kan. This has been translated by the Roshi as “The Big Book of Stopping
and Looking”. In “The Big Book of Stopping and Looking”, this Awakened
Ancestor described samatha and vipasyana, shi and ka'n, concentration
and insight, as like the two wings of a bird in flight. They were to be
practised together, each informing the other. We need at least a little
samatha or will-power or concentration to keep us on the zafu so we have
an opportunity to notice when we become concentrated or obsessed about
any particular thought and are using it to distract ourselves from everything
else that is going on.
Vipasyana;
insight or clear seeing, is recognizing that moment of waking up from
the distraction of thoughts, descriptions, obsessions. Seeing it for what
it is...a moment of waking up from a dream. Waking up to reality we are
instructed to feel the breath at that moment of waking up, arising as
this moment. Why feel the breath? If you're breathing you are alive in
this moment. May as well notice it.
As
master Zhiyi said some 1300 years ago, the bird needs to have both wings
in balance so that it can fly properly. It needs to be breathing in and
to be supported by the vastness of the sky.
The
essence of OUR practice, shojo no shu-realized practice is to align ourselves
with what is true about experiences and experiencing. This is the practice
of Aware Space. As taught by Zen Master Anzan Hoshin Hakukaze this is
the practice of the vastness in which everything moves. A little shamatha,
a little vipasyana, moving in the vastness of the sky.
Our
practice is not the wings of the bird, not the bird; it is the practice
of the vastness within which everything moves.
We
are freely offered endless opportunities for alignment of body, breath,
speech, and mind as we move, bow, chant, sit, have our posture re-adjusted,
do kata, meet the Roshi, or a Dharma Teacher, or a senior in a hallway.
All you really need to do moment after moment is stop and look. Then follow
the instruction which presents itself.
During
Great Bows, when aligned with the sitting leader we can notice that the
exhalation of the breath supports and guides the bodymind as joints bend
and we move toward the floor. The inhalation of the breath as we rise
pulls us up. The more our attention can be open the easier it is to move
that 100 plus pounds of meat, sinew, bone, and marrow through some 5 to
6 feet of space. Practise it.
The
Teachings are what the lineage ancestors have experienced and have expressed
about studying the bodymind of the Way with their bodyminds. Their bodyminds
were dedicated, through vows taken, to uncovering the Way, and through
that to help you uncover who you are before all your thoughts about who
you are.
This
Lineage of the Way has been expressed for 2600 years. The Lineage continues
to express through body, breath, speech and mind, what it is to be a real
human being. And the Lineage tells you how to do it.
The
Buddhas and Lineage Ancestors were people, human beings just like you
and me. The Teachings are what the Lineage Ancestors understood and subsequently
expressed from their own experiencing as uncovered through their own practice.
The Teachings are about their experiencing. The Teachings are a record
of how those experiencings and understandings were transmitted to students.
The
Teachings are about you in this moment. We cannot know this moment by
memorizing and spouting back some little slogan about “each thing making
everything else what it is” and expect to be convincing. We can see how
self-image is used to being a mimic, how it tries to construct and present
a self that “understands”rather than being the expression of understanding
itself.
The
recognition of this moment of body, breath, speech, and mind, is practising
yourself as you are. Through this continuous practice, this gyoji, you
become and recognize that you are, the Buddhas and Awakened ancestors.
When you truly are the full expression of that understanding in every
moment, “You steal the nostrils of the Buddhas and Ancestors and make
them breath out.”
Thank
you for listening.
©
2004 White Wind Zen Community. All rights reserved.
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