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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2004 White Wind Zen Community. All rights reserved.
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