Formless Forms I

Dharma Assembly

Teisho Presented by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi

Mondo (Discussion) Presented by

Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho and Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho

Dainen-ji, January 23, 1999


You will have heard me say over and over again that sitting facing the wall in zazen, you face yourself. But how can you face yourself when you have never, will never, and never can see your own face? You will have seen reflections of your face in a mirror, perhaps in someone's eyes, floating on the surface of tea held in a bowl. But your face is not its reflections.

 

  Who and what you are is faceless but it presents itself as each and every face and each and every body and mind and each and every possibility of experience. You are formless and yet you come and go as all forms. You are the richness that unfolds itself as all possibilities. The only thing that you are not capable of is to be a “self”. The sense of a self, the image of a self, the sense that knowing is being done by a knower is obviously, utterly idiotic. The sense of self is itself known and so it can't be doing the knowing. Just as the eye cannot see itself, the fingertip cannot touch itself; the sense of an “I” betrays this little charade. And yet you fall for it again and again and it's not even that clever a trick.

 

This is like believing that your face is one of its reflections; this is like believing that you have to hold a mirror in front of your head all the time in order to be able to do anything, in order to be able to hear a sound; in order to be able to stand up or sit down. Imagine how limited you would become if you believed that your face was one of its reflections. You'd have to carry that damned thing around all the time: up and down stairs, in and out of cars. For the most part you couldn't see anything because you'd have this mirror in front of your face the whole time. You'd have to try to make out shapes that are reflected over your shoulder. A similar set of limitations arises when you believe that the sense of self is what it pretends to be.

 

  Now, what I've just told you is utterly obvious and it should be enough. However, self-image and its project of contraction, of narrowing, of limitation, is not merely a bad idea. It is an activity that is engaged moment after moment after moment. This activity occurs within seeing, hearing, bodily feeling, but also within very subtle moments of perception and cognition and it happens over and over and over again. So you see, I can't just talk you out of it. Instead I have to find more direct ways to show you how you are avoiding who you are, to show you how you choose to suffer unnecessarily, how you choose to condemn yourself to the round of birth and death. And this is why we have zazen: because moment after moment, after moment, you miss the moment. And then all of a sudden something happens, something stirs, something opens, something shifts, and here you are – momentarily.

 

  The practice of Zen does not produce Awakening. The practice of Zen shows you all the ways in which you avoid the richness and luminosity that is always already the case until finally, you just can't fall for it anymore. Zazen involves an alignment of body, breath, speech and mind. The body is aligned so that it can rest in balance point; ears over the shoulders, nose over the navel. Speech is aligned because you shut up for once. And then you notice all the talking that's still going on. Noticing this, you notice that all of these stories, all of this discursiveness is a means of withdrawing from your own experience. Noticing this, you can bring the capacity to speak, the capacity of understanding and speaking a language more and more into alignment with your actual experience as it actually presents itself.

 

  The breath is freed from having to continually having to act out our various stances of passion, aggression and stupidity. Usually, throughout the day as states come and go, the breath mirrors and reflects this. When you are angry [Roshi makes a hissing sound] your breath is a particular way. When you are sad, [said with a sigh] your breath is a particular way. But when you sit in zazen, the breath can just breathe.

 

  Alignment of the mind means realizing that the mind is not separate from the body. There is a bodymind and this bodymind is seeing and hearing and touching and tasting and smelling and thinking and feeling. It is alive.

 

  With this kind of alignment of body, breath, speech and mind, you can then align yourself with the fact that no matter how much knowledge you might have, you don't know what anything truly is. You don't know what a thought is, what a cup is, what the breath is, what the floor is. You might know all kinds of things about these things, but you do not know what it is. And you will never know what it is until you allow this recognition of unknowability to present more open modes of knowing. And even so you will never know what anything is or who you are until you allow this to become a direct questioning into the nature of knowing and knowns as such.

 

  Now, some of you might have experienced that there can occasionally be some discomfort in zazen. I know it sounds unlikely, but some people have actually experienced this: twinges of pain in the knees, the ankles, so we can only keep you sitting for so long. And so we have kinhin. We have a range of practices: chanting, listening to teisho, aligning our movements and activities with those who are practising with us. We have an environment which continuously presents the fact of this moment in all of its dignity and richness and simplicity and humour.

 

  Throughout this Dharma Assembly I would like you to use every opportunity that is offered by and as each and every moment to strengthen and deepen not only your formal practice, but your informal practice. You might think that you have a life outside of the monastery. We regard it simply as your informal practice.

 

  Basically, life is a sesshin. There are periods of zazen, kinhin, eating, samu or caretaking practice, and occasional free periods. If you live your life like this, then you will be able to live as that which lives as you and as all beings.

 

  There are many aspects to practice, many facets to this precious jewel, but all of these forms are formless; none of them are rigid and frozen and fixed. The forms of our practice, how we stand, how we move, how we bow, are about this present moment of experience and a process of alignment and Transmission.

 

  Originally, when the Buddha taught his first five students, he just sat down with them and pointed out some very basic things called “The Four Noble Truths”. All conditioned experience is suffering, is contraction. This suffering is unsatisfactoriness, the sense that everything is broken and fragmented, arises because of fixation, grasping, recoil, contraction. This is no fun and not at all necessary and there is a way to put an end to the process of contraction: first of all seeing that following contraction leads to further contraction. See how you do it. Stop it. Just stop it! Don't be silly.

 

  Now, one of the Buddha's first students had a very deep insight at simply hearing this. This was called “Stream Entry”, later called “First Daikensho”. The other four students thought what the Buddha had to say made a great deal of sense, they understood it, but not intimately. And so he started talking again. These five students realized that in order to actualize what was being presented to them, they needed to live in the company of the Buddha, do what he did, and so they became his first monks. The form of this ordination was very simple. He said, “Come here monks.” That was it. “Eihei Bhikkhu”. However, as time went on, it became necessary to provide ways of doing things that involved a process of questioning into who we are, not just occasionally, but always. And as the Dharma, as the Teachings were Transmitted from India to China to Japan and to right here, now, these forms have become clarified and sharpened.

  

  The forms that we practise here are not merely traditional. We do them because they work. We wouldn't otherwise because, to be frank, I can't stand them. I think they're silly. I would like to be able to just say to you “Awareness is the only condition. All that is arises as the display of Awareness. And this is the seamless expanse of all that is” and have you all just Wake Up. But although the truth is as simple as that, you make things very, very complex.

 

  Originally, when the White Wind Zen Community was formed, there were very, very few forms. One simply bowed at the door of the Zendo, took care of one's zafu, practised zazen and kinhin, listened to teisho, had dokusan and so forth. However, it became very, very clear, very, very quickly, that unless people were shown a way that would stop them from rushing past what was going on, they would miss everything. And so over time, the classical forms of our “Shingi” or “Standards of Deportment” have been applied to the practice environment. We try to keep things as simple as is possible for everyone. However, since many of us have different understandings and different aspirations in our practice, this simplicity can vary a great deal.

 

  For example, at the general sittings, of course, there are very, very few forms. There are no Great Bows down to the floor, no chants, because we want things to be kept as simple and straight forward as is possible. You will notice when I, as Abbott, move about in the Hatto, I do so in such a way that it always takes a certain number of steps to reach this point before the Butsudan, the “platform of Awakening” or the alter; a certain number of steps to turn and bow. There's a certain way in which I do everything and it is always the same. That too is a kind of simplicity because you will find that the forms not only make you stop and pay attention to what's going on, but have many, many subtle nuances.

 

  Fundamentally the forms are about a process of alignment of not only body, breath, speech and mind, but of the bodymind and the energy of experiencing as such. This is very difficult for me to speak about in this particular situation but I hope one day you'll know what I mean.

 

  Well, although I am sure I am going to have to start talking again at some point soon, I think I would like to end now because it really is time for you to just sit there and face the wall.

 

[Teisho ends with three strikes of the hansaku]

 

  


 

Formless forms I

Mondo

Presented by Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho

And Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho

Dainen-ji, January 23 rd , 1999

 

[When this mondo was presented Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi was still referred to as “the Sensei"; Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho was training in the monastic training post of “Godo” and Jinmyo osho was training in the monastic training post of "Ino"]

 

[Shikai godo]: Isn't that amazing? You all knew what to do. In the monastery, the environment is very much alive and when we learn to attend to what's presenting itself, somehow you know what to do. You've had a tour through the monastery this morning, so now we will have a tour of the Hatto or Dharma Hall, which of course is where we are sitting and for this period we are sitting with our backs to the wall, facing outwards so we can see each other.

 

  When we enter the Hatto we bow at the door. We use that moment of entering into the Dharma Hall to stop, to look, to feel the breath moving the body in and out, to see how we are, because as the Sensei says, through this process of looking into how we are moment-after-moment, gradually we uncover who we are.

 

  Everything in the Hatto is here for a reason, for a purpose. There are tools for you to use. We have the Butsudan, which was designed by the Sensei, this, you could call it “altar” but as you know already “Butsudan” means the “platform of Waking Up” so it shows to you the possibility of you Waking Up to who you are.

 

  The blue seat is the Teacher's seat, the “Hoza”, so of course, zap, we go “Yes, of course, “seat”, “zazen”, “sitting Zen” - Hoza. “Ho” means “Dharma”; “za” means “seat”. So that is the Dharma seat, the seat of the Teacher. It is in the Hatto that the formal Teachings are presented and for the first time many of you had the opportunity to be present as Zen Master Anzan Hoshin presented a teisho and there was a form for that as well. There was a strike three times on the floor to say “Now Wake Up, pay attention, there's something happening here. Listen.”

 

  The Teacher's seat, often, in Ch'an monasteries in China , is sufficient to represent the Lineage as it stands at the moment the Teachings are presented so there may not be a Butsudan or altar in Ch'an monasteries. The Sensei has made sure that we have one so that by looking at the rupa as you are in the Hatto and as you are circumambulating during kinhin, you can see something that looks vaguely like you. It's a human form and presents to you over and over, the possibility of your Waking Up.

 

  The room is alive because of the Lineage of Transmission. On the wall, above where the Ino is sitting, we have a sho, a portrait, of Bodhidharma executed by the Sensei. Bodhidharma, the perfection of the Awakened Mind, the mind that has Wakened to reality, was a monk who traveled from India to China in the 500's, I believe it was. And he had big eyes, big eyes, very wide open. Sometimes when people are walking, especially when they are on retreat, those eyes looking at them can remind them, as they are coming around the corner, what they are doing here. Legend has it that the reason why his eyes are so wide is because when he arrived in China , at Shaolin Temple , he sat for nine years and perhaps got a little tired. So in order to continue sitting, he cut off his eyelids, tossed them away and they grew as tea plants. Now that's the legend and green tea plays a very big part in Zen monastic life, traditionally, because it's very high in caffeine. So monks who are sitting for hours and hours and hours would be served green tea.

 

  Across from the Bodhidharma portrait, we have a portrait of Dogen zenji or Dogen Kigen or Eihei Dogen, who was the founder of this Lineage in Japan , this Soto Zen Lineage. He was born in 1200, lived until 1253. He entered monastic life very early. He was a very young monk. When he was 23 he went to China . He traveled from Mount Heie, where he was training as a Tendai monk to Tientong Sh'an and studied with a Teacher named Rujing and Woke Up to the actual nature of experiencing, Woke Up to who and what he was and went back to Japan and took with him the Soto Zen Lineage or the Ch'an Lineage.

 

  Here we have a “han”, this block of wood, and on it is written “Great Matter” and you heard it struck this morning. It says “Wake Up”, pay attention. There is a verse that is chanted during sesshin which is called the “Daiji-no-ge”, the “Verse of the Great Matter” and the verse is this:

 

The Great Matter is birth and death.

Life slips by and time is gone.

Right now, Wake Up! Wake Up!

Do not waste time.

 

  So that is the basic message throughout the monastery, to Wake Up. Now, do you have questions about the forms? The Ino will be going over with you the forms for taking your seat and care of your zafu and zabuton and anything else that needs refreshing. But you do have an opportunity right now to bring up questions.

 

[Student]: I have a question about kinhin and how we are supposed to space ourselves in relation to each other. If there is a big gap, what are we supposed to do?

 

[Shikai godo]: Well, Jinmyo ino will speak to that question because fortunately we also had something in this week's eMirror and you haven't had a chance to read it so that's great. We know you weren't reading it.

 

[Laughter]

 

[Jinmyo ino]: Well, when we stand up for kinhin we are often all situated at this end of the room, so the main thing is just to move down and fill up the space of the room because it's a really big room and we don't want to be all cramped together. The jikido will stay next to their seat because they start the round and do the full circle and come back to their seat and that is when they end the round. The Ino sets the pace. So we spread out around the room everyone can see what the pace is; the people on this side of the room can see the people on the other side of the room and can adjust their pace.

 

  We also need to maintain the same distance between ourselves and the person in front of us. So this can be very interesting because there is a tendency sometimes to speed up or slow down and of course, we can notice that and let go of whatever arrangement of attention there is in place that is causing us to do that.

 

[Shikai godo]: Anything else?

 

[Student]: I have a question about forms for home practice. Listening to the Sensei's teisho this morning, I got the sense that there really isn't a “correct form”; it's just important to have a form that you adhere to strictly, to keep aware. So I know, with a home Zendo, thinking about the forms – oh dear, what's correct? The sense I'm getting now is there is no really “correct” it should just be dignified and consistent and that's then an appropriate form. Is that true?

 

[Shikai godo]: Well, yes, partially. It could be true. Everything is contextual so we have to take that into consideration. A person may have in their…in their home Zendo maybe there's a bit of wall this big [Godo uses hand movements to trace a very small section of wall] so the best thing to do would be, in my view, to talk to a practice advisor about it, describe what your situation is so that we know when you are sitting and for how long, how often, what physical layout the room is and so on. And then a form can be worked out that would be suitable.

 

  But there is an important point which you raised and that is that they should be consistent. They can and will evolve as your understanding of your practice and of your use of the forms matures.

 

[Student]: We were introduced to the idea of the altar's sho and rupa. Is there not a danger of that becoming a god by any other name and drawing attention away from the central practice, which is zazen?

 

[Shikai godo]: Not here.

  

[Laughter]

 

  You're right, it can be. But it won't happen here. We enjoy these kinds of questions. Self-image can make anything into a ritual. Self-image can make anything into a cosmology. I don't think you've actually listened to the tape about the cosmic muffin yet. Have you come across that one? I'm sure you will.

 

  Yes, we can take anything and turn it into a ritual, something to worship, something to save us from ourselves or some horrible thing. But I guarantee this will not happen here.

 

[Student]: Can one walk between the Teacher's seat and the altar?

 

[Jinmyo ino]: No. This space is reserved for specific functions. This is the space that the Sensei or the senior leading the sitting will enter into to lead the bows; where formal announcements are made; where a student receiving vows will offer bows to the Lineage. Senior monastics will enter into this space or those who are caring for the space itself. There is an altar attendant who takes care of the Hoza and so forth, but this is not an area one would just walk through.

 

[Shikai godo]: Did you mention a retreatant, because a retreatant will of course enter into that space when they are lighting candles or placing incense. So if you are the only person in the room or if you are leading the retreat then of course you would enter into it because in that sense you are opening and closing the sitting and because you are engaged in intensive practice you can enter that space. But there should be no casual crossing.

 

  And also, in the traditional monasteries – this is not exactly a traditional monastery as such because the Sensei has simplified a lot of the forms, however there would be a bowing mat placed there called a “zagu” which the Teacher would use for the Great Bows. So then you would be walking across that.

 

[Student]: I am wondering, both in general and specific what informs the choice of rupa. I've just noticed that there are different kinds so I am wondering on what would one base a choice of rupa and a specific question, how would one be experienced?

 

[Shikai godo]: This one was picked by the Sensei, I think it was when he first started the Zendo at Daijozan, which was over on Somerset Street East . And the form is very attractive. It's well balanced, aesthetically very pleasing and I do believe that is why that one was chosen.

 

  On the whole, picking rupas for yourself, it's a good idea first of all to go for something you are attracted to, that you find appealing and then check it out. You could bring a picture in or a description and find out what it is and what it means. Maybe it's from actual Zen practice or maybe it's a Hindu rupa. But the choice – the one that the – the Jizo downstairs in the Zendo is one that I purchased a good number of years ago. The Sensei and I were out and happened to see it so we bought it and it was offered up and then was placed on the Zendo altar here.

 

  I can't go through all of them right now, but basically they were picked because one saw them and they were appealing.

 

[Student]: I'm just curious; do we have any information what the Buddhist monks' practice or their forms were like? They must have sat regularly. Do you have any information on what they actually practised or what their forms were?

 

[Shikai godo]: There are some writings about that. There is a class that the Sensei is Teaching on the tradition as it has come down.

 

  Now, they were, of course, oral Teachings in the beginning and it was some hundred years later, I think, maybe more, when the Teachings were started to be recorded. I'm not an expert on that but I'll look into it for you and I'll see if there is something that you can read about it or something you can listen to.

 

[Student]: I was wondering about gassho, when there are monastics or other students, how it is used, when we do gassho or shashu bows.

 

[Jinmyo ino]: If for some reason you see the Sensei, to begin with if you're sitting you should immediately stand up, bring your hands to shashu and turn towards him because if you attend you can see what is going to happen and you just need to follow his lead.

 

  With senior monastics it's really just a matter of attending and following the lead of the senior. There could be all kinds of things going on that you can't see so as the Godo said, it is situational, depends on what's going on in the moment. If we just wait and follow the lead of the senior.

 

  The other thing is that there can be some confusion about where to bow and when. When we meet one another in a hallway it is appropriate to bow and in certain doorways. The exception to that would be certain times such as when we are doing samu. During samu that would just complexify things as we are carrying buckets and cloths and paintbrushes. But the rest of the time there is enough time and space to acknowledge each other's presence and we also acknowledge the space in which we all arise.

 

[Shikai godo]: Anything else? Any other questions?

 

[Student]: I am just wondering why we circumambulate clockwise.

 

[Shikai godo]: I don't know. I am just running through all of the pictures I've seen of people circumambulating stupas and so forth and as far as I can recall it's always clockwise.

 

[Student]: I'm just wondering if there is a reason for it.

 

[Shikai godo]: Well, again I will ask the Sensei about that. It's interesting.

 

[Student]: I have a question about malas. I've noticed that some students have malas with extra beads and I was wondering what they are used for.

 

[Shikai godo]: Well they may be using it as a counter because they may have been given as part of their practice certain mantra that they are reciting silently, certain practices. So they are counting off. As well as counting off they are using the bead itself, the weight of the bead, the contact of the bead between the thumb and the finger as a mindfulness tool because you can only feel that bead when we are feeling it. So sometimes it may be that for some reason they are having a lot of discursiveness going on in their practice, falling asleep etc.

 

[Laughter]

 

  And they may be using it as a “crutch” if you like. As the Sensei said, a mala can be a crutch. If you have a broken leg a crutch can be a good thing to have. So sometimes there may be just so much going on that one needs that tool. So again, it is contextual. Everything is always contextual and particular to the person's practice.

 

[Student]: To use a mala that way, it would be assigned, so would it be assigned by a practice advisor or…

 

[Shikai godo]: When one purchases a mala, when one wants to use a mala for whatever reason, it's good to discuss it with a practice advisor so that some instruction can be given as to how to use it and what it can show you. A mala can show you a lot of things. You may be using it because there's a lot of discursiveness or because you're sleepy, because you need that tool and you [Godo makes “ticking” sounds] are using it so fast that anyone can tell that you may not be using it in a mindful fashion and as everything about us communicates something, you – I don't know – if you've ever been around and heard this. As the mala slips from one's fingers. But then it is contextual and individual so you can just ask your practice advisor.

 

  Mala can be used in informal practice, too. Some of the smaller ones, a wrist mala. Because again, we don't want to do anything in our informal practice when we are at work or interacting with others that is going to cause them any problem. “What are you doing with that thing around your wrist? Is that a rosary?” and so on. That's not the point. It is to remind us of our practice and that can be very useful.

 

  Ino, anything you care to add?

 

[Jinmyo ino]: Yes, there was a question about hand position. This [demonstrating hand placed palm-up on thigh, fingers arranged] is actually a mudra. Just as you have your hands right now in a mudra (Dharmadhatu mudra), this is a mudra which is used by monastics who have received empowerment in a specific practice. So unless you have received empowerment this mudra won't have any meaning and so when you are using a mala, your hand should be placed palm-down on the knee so that you are feeling the hand resting on the knee, feeling the mala and so forth.

 

[Student]: I had the idea that a mala was used to time sittings. Obviously it was not, so how are the sittings timed?

 

[Laughter]

 

[Shikai osho]: The Godo has an LCD clock.

 

[Laughter]

 

[Student]: Godo, what do you think about having practice in a non-cultural context, like…this is very Japanese, very Chinese. Has any attempt made to westernize it more? Like do away with some of the cultural attributes and get a more western style?

 

[Shikai godo]: Well, this is really a western style. If you've ever been in Japan or China , into a monastery there, you will find that this is radically different. This is definitely trans-cultural. We don't want to lose tradition but we want to take what is useful and bring it forward. When culture comes into practice, any culture, practice is endangered, when any culture comes into it and starts to take it over. So what the Sensei has done here is take what works and what is useful.

 

  The Sensei is constantly looking at the forms, how we do things, looking at the arrangement of objects and so on to see if they're useful.

  Ino, would you have something to say?

 

[Jinmyo ino]: That question of whether something is useful or not is a good one. If something is useful then it doesn't matter what its origins are. It's a way of expressing something.

 

  Look at the ikebana sitting on the shelf. You could look at it and think, “Oh, Japanese flower arrangement” or something of that nature. But that isn't what's happening at all. When the Sensei does an arrangement, he arranges all kinds of different things. Sometimes it's leaves and stems, flowers; sometimes it's a piece of crumpled paper; sometimes it's rocks. He arranges them so that they point to the space in which they arise. Each one is unique, so it's not sort of following some formula for something. Appearances can be very deceiving.

 

[Student]: Oh, I didn't mean in the sense of there being anything wrong with the cultural attributes that we have. It's just that I was wondering if it wouldn't be just as effective to have a total non-cultural context. On the one hand it may attract a lot more people, on the other hand it would be more difficult in the sense of (one word inaudible). I don't see any reason why it couldn't be effective.

 

[Shikai godo]: Well, this is very effective and over the years it will change to reflect what's actually happening here, the use that's made of it by students who are here. But we don't want to compromise any of the Teachings.

 

  What has happened in some monasteries and in some Dharma Centres is that the forms and the presentation have been considerably westernized and on the whole it falls apart because it is not the Dharma that is being taught. (One word inaudible) social organization that is being set up, a bunch of like-minded people who get together to relax, whatever their understanding of it might be. So it doesn't seem to have actually worked very well.

 

  What we do here, which is not done, as far as I know, in many other places if any, is that we take texts from the Teachings, from the Pali, from the Sanskrit, from the Chinese, from the Japanese and bring those into contemporary language so that the instruction that is contained in the texts can actually be accessed by our students. So we will continue with that process and we of course are looking into, over time being able to have the Teachings translated into French, perhaps into German, depending on what the need is as it arises. The point is to make what is taught, to make the Dharma, the Teachings of Reality, accessible to people who want to practice and I think that's a key thing. Many people, most people, maybe, don't want to practice but they wouldn't mind being Zen students.

 

[Laughter]

 

  It shows in a sense the severity of the environment, the fact that there is tradition, the fact that it is representative of 2600 years. And when we look around the monastery we can see evidence of that. So everything, every object that is around can be opened up, as it were, and explored, looking into different aspects of the practice over those 2600 years. So everything tells a story and everything is useful and that's the key thing.

 

[Student]: One of the noticeable parts is that of dress. I wonder if you could speak about the significance of the different forms of dress the monastics are wearing. You're wearing [student points at Shikai godo's rakusu].

 

[Shikai godo]: This?

 

[Student]: Yes.

 

[Shikai godo]: The rakusu.

  Well, didn't we write something about that, just so we can refer to it? I'll go over it with you. I can't remember where it was written. It may have been in Absolute Zero.

 

  The story is that the Buddha and Ananda, one of the first monastics, were asked, or the Buddha was asked by the king to come up with some robes, some manner of dress that would let the king, the court, all the people know that this was a particular group of people who were studying with this particular teacher. So they were walking around “How do you do this, what do you do?” and part of what developed is that the Buddha, the monastics, made what they were wearing out of discarded cloth, cloth that was found in the charnal grounds, in the burial grounds; old shards, bits of this, bits of that. They were walking along talking about this problem, of coming up with something distinctive that would represent what the Buddha was Teaching. And they looked out, there was a rice field and they looked out over that and there was – not one rice field but rice fields. As you know they're patchwork farms, different fields, different sizes, different lengths, different widths, but there was a unity to it and Ananda said “Ah! Why don't we come up with – we take our pieces of cloth and sew them together in a way that is representative of these rice fields where there's diversity but there is a wholeness to it.”

 

  So that's what they did. But not in this size – big. So they would wrap this robe around and there was (one word inaudible) used to give some visual unity. If you look at a rakusu closely, that rice pattern is evident in these little strips of cloth sewn together. At a time when it became dangerous for monks to go around being monks, looking like monks because they could get killed, then the whole thing was shrunk down so you would have this little something that you could cover up and hide. So you would be constantly reminded of your vows, which is the seamlessness of everything and the vow to practice that. So then this became the rakusu, what we call the rakusu now. It's a code if you know how to read it because some have five strips this way; some have seven; some have nine. The Teacher's has nine. So when you know the code you can tell a lot about the history of the person. You can tell a lot about what's going on. That's explained in the article.

 

  The henzan, this is part of the tradition of robes but it developed from a shrunken samue, a Japanese garment that we extended to make it longer. We made it just held together with little stitches on the side and so on. My idea was that…I was thinking about robes and so on and thought, “Well” and discussed this with the Sensei. I had this idea that what we should be able to do was that wherever we are we should be able to pick up some cloth, a little piece of bone and sew ourselves, so they should be very easy to construct. So there's no buttons, they are tied and so forth. They follow from the Japanese, from the Chinese, the influence is there from the Tibetan. So what we do is take the best and combine it. (Next sentence is inaudible)

  

[Student]: What happens in a retreat? What do you do?

 

[Shikai godo]: That is a rather large topic but if you want to do a retreat, we do have and are working on a retreat manual which goes through the whole schedule and so on. Again it depends. You may be by yourself, in which case it would be one way; there may be others with you so it would be another way.

 

  The purpose of retreat is to give yourself an opportunity for some intensive practice. Your meals are taken care of. If you are sitting a two-day retreat, a three-day retreat you would sleep in residence in the Zendo or the Shuryo, depending on what's going on. But everything is taken care of for you. You don't have to worry about any of those things because we just want you to be able to do your practice, to practise as deeply as you can.

 

[Student]: What is the purpose of the chants?

 

[Shikai godo]: Well, chanting in general is an opportunity to align body, breath, speech and mind. We align body, we align breath, we align bodymind while we are sitting. When we are chanting we are actually using the air that comes into the body that we are breathing in and allowing it to express itself. So we align with the chanting of the leader; sometimes the Sensei, sometimes the Ino, sometimes myself. And chanting practice allows us very vivid opportunities to see how we can obstruct ourselves. The Sensei has often said that we could be chanting the phone book and that would allow us to practice with these instructions because thoughts will come up about “Oh no, they are going too fast” and of course you're lost. Or “Oh no, I don't know what these words are” and sometimes they are in English but we still…it's absurd that we don't recognize that. So as with any of the forms, it is to show how we are.

 

[Jinmyo ino]: We are also told that we should chant in our natural register.

 

[Shikai godo]: In the chanting text, “Chanting Breath and Sound” there is an introduction by the Sensei. I will see if I can find that. I'm sure as the practice of the Sangha matures - the Sangha itself is mature - so today was very vivid evidence of that because we were able to chant. Some of us had never chanted before and so we were able to just mouth the words, feel into (two or three words inaudible) of the chant.

 

  Ino, would you like to…

 

[Student]: What is this form, hands on your knees with the palms up? When is that used?

 

[Shikai godo]: That's used when there is a strike on the gong to let us know the hands are coming up and they're going to go up in gassho.

 

[Student]: Do students do that as well?

 

[Shikai godo]: We did it at the beginning of the sitting round.

 

[Student]: Well, that's what I've noticed but I didn't know when we should do it.

 

[Shikai godo]: Well, you did because you did it.

 

[Laughter]

 

[Shikai godo]: As the Sensei said and as the Ino has been saying, when we open ourselves and allow ourselves to be informed by the environment, we will know what to do.

 

  If the leader is doing that…in this situation you would watch the Ino. I think this is a point that we need to clarify, a very basic point. The Ino is the leader of the forms.

 

[Jinmyo ino]: I watch what the Sensei or the Godo will do and I sit in this position (seating) because most people can see me. People on this side of the room can see me, and you (other side of the room) can see them. With a strike of the gong I will bring my hands out. Just follow suit. You don't need to know all of the details of what is going on, you don't need to worry about what's going on. You don't need to formulate it at all. Just watch and follow and it will work out.

 

  There is one point I would like to clarify one point about bowing. For instance, when you come into the Dining Hall, you come to the doorway. Stop, feel with the whole body, stand with your hands in shashu. Open your eye gaze. If there is a senior in the room you should turn towards the senior because the senior leads the bow so you follow what the senior is doing. If you don't do that what happens is that you come to the doorway and you begin a bow and whoever is there is pulled into it as well and the whole thing becomes very much smaller and does not do what it is designed to do – which is to open our attention. The bow asks us to stop, see how we are, let go of anything that is hurrying, that is tense. Just stop, feel the body, align with the senior because then you can follow their timing. Timing is very important with the bows. And with the bow, feel the breath. There is breathing that goes with the bow. If you are not using that then your whole timing is going to be off.

 

[Shikai godo]: Well, one last question?

 

[Student]: In addition to the question about the hands. When I've stood near the front and not everyone is bowing and I've got caught in that. So I wonder if you could clarify that. There are times when you are doing the gassho and no one else is.

 

[Shikai osho]: That's when the Sensei…

 

[End of Tape]

  

 

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