Study Hall

As a final study hall post from me, something from Shohaku Okamura's newly-published Living by Vow, which I was naturally excited to pick up at the bookstore a couple of weeks ago:
"Usually, taking a vow is like making a promise: if we don't keep it, we feel bad, or fear that we might be punished. But vow in Buddism is not like that. It's not something we do with our intellect or shallow emotion. We vow toward the Buddha, toward something absolute and infinite. As a bodhisattva, we can never say, 'I have achieved all vows'. We cannot be proud of our achievements, because in comparison to the infinite, anything we achieve is insignificant. Each of us has different capabilities of course. If we cannot do very much, we practice just a little. There is no reason for us to feel small or to say we're sorry. We just try to be right there with this body and mind and move forward one step or half a step. This is our practice in a concrete sense.
Katagiri Roshi used the expression 'living in vow' because it sounds natural in English. I like 'living by vow', perhaps because D.T. Suzuki has this expression in his book Living by Zen. In the Japanese translation of this book, he says something like, 'All living beings are living in Zen, but only human beings can live by Zen'. Saying that all living beings - dogs, cats, plants, flowers - are living in Zen doesn't mean they abide in meditation or samadhi, but rather that they are living the reality of life as it is, or tathata in Sanskrit. Everything lives in the reality of life, in Zen; but only human beings have to make a conscious effort to do so. We devote ourselves to the study and practice of Zen, and consciously live by Zen. As Suzuki says, only human beings do this, but that doesn't mean we are superior to other beings. Because of our doubts and delusions we cannot simply live in reality. We have to consciously return to reality and make an effort to live on that basis."

Study Hall

Still unpacking karma from Each Moment is the Universe: "Human action appears on the surface of life, and the next moment it is gone. Zen teachers sometimes say, 'Just be present, here and now!' so you may think this means when you do something you should just take care of human action that appears on the surface. But that is really a messy way of life. If you pay attention only to what manifests on the surface of life, you don't understand human beings, because there is something else - unmanifested karma.
Unmanifested karma occupies the basis of human existence. Whether you realize it or not, whatever you do, your action leaves behind a kind of smell in the depth of human life. We have to take responsibility for our behavior, whatever it is, good or bad, right or wrong, because even though our actions disappear from the surface of life, the smell of what we have done is still there as unmanifested karma. If you don't understand that there is unmanifested karma, you cannot understand the depth of human life, and you don't realize the importance of your actions.
Everyone carries the unmanifested karma of human action from the beginningless past as a sort of inheritance or property. It's not something like original sin; it's completely nothing. You simply cannot put any label like good or bad, right or wrong on unmanifested karma, because it is completely beyond the moral sense. So I use the term neutral nature. This karma is always present in your life, stored in your body and mind. If it doesn't appear on the surface, no-one knows it's there. You don't know either, so it doesn't bother you. The fact that unmanifested karma doesn't bother you is its neutral nature.
No-one knows how to open the door to that big store-house of karma at the depth of human life, but there is something that can open the door - time and occasion. When time is right and conditions are arranged, something happens. The door suddenly opens, bubbles come up to the surface, and human action appears."

Study Hall

I did not finish Each Moment is the Universe before I went away, and in the latter chapters of the book, Katagiri Roshi is talking about karma: "When you ignore the fact that you belong to a group, society, or nation, and only try to develop your individual karma, you may develop your character, but that development is based on ego. For instance, if you live with another person, how do you live together in peace? How do you develop your own personality in that situation? It's not so simple. You think, 'I want to live with you, but on the other hand I want to live my own way.' Or you want to marry, but in the next moment you want to divorce. This is egoistic.
In America I am different from most people because I am Japanese. But I have to give Buddha's teaching in a way that is beyond race and culture. So I can walk together with all people and try to develop my own personality with all beings. When you develop your individual character in the broad perspective of not-individual karma, then your personality develops very gently, in a humble way.
Sometimes Americans who study Zen Buddhism don't want to follow the Japanese way of practice. Instead of following Japanese customs they want an American way of Buddhism. That is really an intellectual understanding. So I always say, 'Pat your head and go beyond your individual understanding.' We have to develop the character of an American way of Buddhism by taking care of human life, because American karma is not separate from human karma. Can we understand America separate from Europe and the East? No, there is no way. If you want an American way of Buddhism to develop naturally, pay attention to the entire cosmic situation. Nevertheless, you have to develop your own character. How? Humbly."

Study Hall

This passage from Each Moment is the Universe by Katagiri Roshi follows nicely from the previous extract: "Action itself is momentum. You cannot separate the two, because action puts you right in the middle of momentum. When you are right in the middle of that momentum, you can see many things coming up from the depth of existence. From moment to moment all things in the phenomenal world come up - the whole universe comes up. That is practice in action.
If you practice and penetrate this very moment, you are absorbed into the flow of that undefiled, clear, and pure activity. Then when you do something, you feel something wonderful. You cannot explain it, but this is creativity in life. It's beautiful! Everything is there, melted into your form and clear like a jewel. If you become a sportsman or artist, you can do this in a certain area of life. But in spiritual life, it must be done in every area of life. You have to create this every day, in every daily routine. That's pretty hard. But through this form of practice your life becomes mature and you can live your life smoothly in peace and harmony".

Study Hall

"A diver jumping off the cliff, a mountain climber, an artist, a poet, or a musician creates a beautiful form that manifests the maturity of his or her life. But spiritual life doesn't have that same sense of performance. So creativity in religion cannot manifest in the same way. Of course you do manifest maturity because, as Dogen says, 'you cannot avoid detachment from the zazen posture'. But then, next you must be free from that manifestation. In Japanese we say gedatsu, meaning emancipation, or freedom. Moment after moment you must be free from the beautiful form you created, because the moment in which the form existed has already gone, and the next moment is coming up. Life becomes mature, constantly. You cannot stop it, not even for a moment, so you have to keep going. You must keep practicing to create this beauty again and again. This is spiritual creativity.
So, what is this zazen practice that we do? It's not doing zazen. If you believe it's doing zazen, then practice is just a task, and that task becomes a really big burden for you. That is not a true understanding of practice. Buddhist practice is to constantly create beauty. Beauty is the functioning of wisdom. That's why Dogen Zenji says that you have to abandon the usual understanding of the form of zazen and touch the heart of zazen. Otherwise you cannot maintain this kind of practice. That's why I have to explain it and why you have to understand very deeply what practice means. Then, if you understand even slightly, you should keep going. That makes your life mature" - Katagiri Roshi, Each Moment is the Universe.

Study Hall

Sometimes it might seem that Katagiri Roshi is saying the same thing over and over, but then I think it is good for us to be reminded, again and again.
"Buddha is something alive, constantly moving. Digest sitting Buddha and it becomes energy for your life. That is called faith, or confidence. This energy is not a philosophical teaching - it's within you already. How can you be one with it in your life? All you can do is constantly, steadfastly, approach to this very moment. Don't attach to your idea of yourself as either form or not-form, because both are impermanent: each appears but in the next moment it disappears. If you attach to one when it appears, you create a discrepancy between yourself and the rhythm of nature. Then when it disappears, you are confused. So just be host to time and place, and then jump in. At that time you can open your heart and meet something with true heart. That experience is called enlightenment, or awakening.
If you manifest creativity in your life, you are manifesting your complete life: form and not-form come together and work together. Where? That is your time and opportunity. When time and opportunity are working within your activity, form and not-form are dissipated, melted right in the middle of total activity. That is called beauty. It is very quiet. There is nothing to say. All you can do is be present from day to day, from moment to moment" - Each Moment is the Universe.
I will add that while I will try to be present from moment to moment today, I am also very much looking forward to heading to Tassajara tomorrow; the weather is gorgeous right now, and will make it even more beautiful if it stays like this, which it is forecast to do. It couldn't be better.

Study Hall

"We can see the functioning of the universe in all our activities - walking, standing, sitting and sleeping - not just in zazen. When you act wholeheartedly, your activity becomes very clear, calm, flexible and magnanimous. It is boundless, and simultaneously it is you. So studying the boundlessness of activity is studying the self. This is called intimacy.
How can you know the meaning of intimacy? You cannot see it objectively because intimacy is not the result of activity; intimacy blooms right in the midst of activity itself. If you try to understand intimacy intellectually, as a concept, you never know real intimacy. Delusion and enlightenment are also concepts, but the perfect supreme state of enlightenment is completely beyond concepts. You are already enlightened, but you can never conceptually know what enlightenment is because when you think of it you create a gap between yourself and enlightenment". Katagiri Roshi kicks off the week in the right way,  from Each Moment is the Universe.

Study Hall

It's nice to dive into Each Moment is the Universe again after a couple of weeks away from study:
"Dogen constantly emphasizes that practice is shikan. Shikan is just wholeheartedness; it is experience, so practice is experience.
Practice as experience is based on the manifestation of reality. Manifestation means the relationship between subject and object. We manifest subject and object in many ways through the six consciousnesses of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. So we can manifest practice with our mind. But practicing just with the mind is not good enough; we also have to practice with our body.
For example, if you are cooking, and you use a vegetable, if you think, 'This is a vegetable', it immediately becomes an object, something that is separate from you, and you see the vegetable in the ordinary way. But you can take a different attitude toward the vegetable. Before you consciously label the vegetable, you can touch and handle the vegetable as something more than a vegetable - Buddha - and face the vegetable in terms of timelessness with no label.  This is really the attitude we should take. This is wisdom. Then cooking is practice based on manifesting reality.
This is a very difficult practice, but with wisdom you can face the real vegetable, which is not something separate from you. Then even though your dualistic consciousness says, 'Oh, that is a vegetable', wisdom keeps you straight. So calm your dualistic consciousness and just face the vegetable. Place the vegetable right in the middle of timelessness. When you place your object, the vegetable, in the middle of timelessness, then your subject, you, is also placed in the middle of timelessness. At that time, all things come back to nothingness, emptiness, and you wake up.
But practically speaking, you cannot ignore the fact that you and the vegetable exist in everyday life. So how should you deal with a vegetable? First place the vegetable in timelessness, where carrots, cabbage and potatoes all exist with no discrimination. Then come back to everyday time, where you cannot cut a carrot the same way you cut a potato, because a carrot is a being with its own characteristics. Recognize that a carrot is a carrot and deal with your carrot without confusing it with potatoes, water, or the pan. When you deal with a carrot like this, you manifest yourself as a cook and the carrot as a particular being, but at the same time, both you and the carrot are manifested as Buddha".

Body And Mind Of Themselves

It is often said that the reason we get up so early in the morning is to have the opportunity to be awake - more or less - before the habitual conscious mind can get a firm hold on us. Moving through familiar routines without much mental activity involved, there is the chance for body and mind to experience spaciousness during zazen.
I am often sleepy during afternoon zazen, more specifically during the first half of the period; around the time I hear the six o'clock chimes from up the road, I start feeling more alert. This seems to be the tired body's natural response to stopping after a day of activity, but I have found it a useful place to be  - the other day, somewhere close to the tipping point between waking and sleep, I had the sense that I should tilt slightly to the right from the mid-point of the thorassic curve in my spine. Having adjusted my posture, I felt the release of balance and settledness, but since it wasn't dictated by the conscious mind, I have found it difficult to repeat the movement since then, however much I would like to.
Reading Katagiri Roshi this morning, I came to the sentence, "Dogen constantly emphasizes that practice is shikan. Shikan is just wholeheartedness; it is experience, so practice is experience." At that moment, without really thinking about it, I understood this as the energy to go forward and meet things. I also know that recently I have been practising with letting go of some of the forward drive in my everyday attitudes, which I have been doing by noticing a certain bodily tension and allowing the muscles in my ribs to relax. In both cases, it seems that it is allowing the body to function more naturally without so much interference from the mind, like those twilight moments when the brain is not fully in gear.

Study Hall

"Whoever you are, the whole world gives you energy to be free from what you think your capabilities are, from the form of a lifestyle, from the form of Zen or any teaching, whatever it is. Time is constantly giving you energy to emancipate yourself from any form or idea, even though you want to hold on to it. How can we accept time like this? Try to realize that you have already set yourself out in the vastness of the Buddha's world because you exist as a human being. So all you can do now is make every possible effort to live in Buddha's world with a way-seeking mind.
Usually we don't want to do this. If we step outside the familiar patterns of our lives we are scared. But we have to do it sometimes, so we should do it positively. This is very important for us. If we do it positively, we realize how great our capability is. That doesn't mean to become strong by expressing our ego. Expressing our ego seems to make us strong, but it is the complete opposite. In Zen monasteries the ego is always being hit on the head, like pouring water over a burning fire. Immediately pffft! Nothing is left, but this is the way to become strong.
Human beings have big, egoistic, balloon heads, so Dogen Zenji is always puncturing them, one by one, making a little hole and letting the air come out. Finally a balloon pops and you say, "Ah, I understand." But by that time maybe it's too late; maybe you understand right before you have one foot in the grave. That's why Dogen teaches us how to accept time as being and how our life can be illuminated right now" - Each Moment is the Universe - Katagiri Roshi.

Study Hall

"If you set yourself out in Buddha's world and practice zazen, the way-seeking mind, the bodhi-mind, appears. This is mind arousing time as zazen. In the next moment you hate zazen and want to go back to sleep, so the way-seeking mind disappears. Where does it go? It disappears in timelessness. Later you want to do zazen again. That is time arousing mind as religious aspiration. So you sit down and come back to practicing zazen. Then the way-seeking mind comes up again. All you have to do is continue arousing the way-seeking mind. If you practice like this, this is arousing time as zazen. So do zazen as whole-hearted practice and become completely one with time as zazen. Then time takes care of your life.
The way-seeking mind is not something you try to get. You just set yourself out in Buddha's world and do zazen whole-heartedly. When the time is ripe and conditions are arranged, the way-seeking mind comes up in your life, blooms, and is the rhythm of the whole world. Then time is called zazen and zazen is the whole world of time.
The whole world comes together into your zazen, but it doesn't bother your zazen. The sound of a car doesn't bother you, the sound becomes one with zazen. People sitting next to you don't bother you. Zazen doesn't bother you, and your zazen doesn't bother others. You just sit, blooming your life. This is called satori, enlightenment" - Each Moment is the Universe, Katagiri Roshi. It only gets denser.

Study Hall

"We cannot see real time unless it is manifested as twelve hours of everyday life because real time is formless. It is formless because it is constantly moving. Real time is always with us, but we cannot know it objectively.  In our daily lives we constantly touch real time, but we don't pay attention to it. Instead of paying attention we suffer and grumble. We cannot see ourselves straightforwardly because we are always judging and evaluating, feeling good or bad. This keeps us busy. Sometimes it gives us a headache.
If we do touch the zero of time, we cannot stand up there. We try to escape, crying and screaming; sometimes we go skiing or watch TV. We keep busy, constantly working, because we  don't really understand how time functions. But the busier we are, the more we want to push ourselves, doing more and more, until finally, we don't know how to take a breath. We become crazy, exhausted, or sick.
How can you take care of time before you go crazy? Try to realize that real time is nothing but dynamic function, so time itself possesses the great power to emancipate you from the limitations of your idea of time.
Our modern daily life is pretty busy, but can you always be busy? No, you cannot stay with twelve hours or you would go crazy. So busyness has the great power to emancipate itself. That's why you want to find a way to be free from busyness and just be present quietly. This is quietness, tranquility. When you are calm, tranquil, and still, twelve hours of time returns to no-time or timelessness. Can you stay with quietness? No, quietness has the great power to act. You cannot stay with timelessness or you would die, so timelessness must become twelve hours again. At the pivot of nothingness, timelessness manifests as your daily life. This is busyness, dynamism. Busyness and quietness are always working together in your life. This is reality" - Each Moment is the Universe, Katagiri Roshi.

Study Hall

"As long as demons exist in this world, they have their own reason to exist. That reason is completely beyond our human speculation., but demons exist in Buddha's world. So we have to find the realm of buddhas within the realm of demons. In other words, in the realm of pain and suffering, we have to find the realm of peace and harmony. This is religious practice. You cannot find any peace by escaping from human pain and suffering; you have to find peace and harmony right in the midst of human pain. That is the purpose of spiritual life.
The important point is: don't react quickly to pain and suffering with hatred or anger, because that is the cause of human troubles. Deal with demons immediately, but try to deal with them with a calm and peaceful mind, not with hatred or anger. If you become angry, as soon as possible make your mind calm. Be kind. Be compassionate. That is the practice of patience. If you do that, very naturally demons will subdue themselves" - Katagiri Roshi, Each Moment is the Universe.

Study Hall

Still enjoying Katagiri Roshi's Each Moment is the Universe enormously: "If you want to deepen your life, and satisfy your profound human desire to know the fundamental truth, what should you do? First, accept that your life is produced by the full commitment of the cosmic universe to movement. Buddhism explains the structure of the human world based on the functioning of interdependent co-origination, which means that everything is moving dynamically.
Interdependence is not the usual idea of relationship. It is a place where everything is empty and interconnected, beyond human speculation. Then, at that time, interdependent co-origination comes into existence as the contents of emptiness, and a new moment arises. Co-origination is working constantly, so from moment to moment your life is dynamically arising from the source of existence. That is kiya: just arising, the energy of time, impermanence appearing as your life. So accept it, demonstrate full commitment to life, and just be there.
Your life constantly gives you a chance, a great opportunity to touch the truth. If you touch it, everything becomes alive in a refreshing way. This refreshing life is called flexibility, fluidity, or freedom. At that time, you can really do something - something more than what you would have thought".

Study Hall

In advance of this week's memorial for Katagiri Roshi, I went to the library to take out Each Moment is the Universe, which I think I tried to read when it was first published, but as with Returning to Silence, found it hard to crack. This time round I am enjoying it immensely. Here is a section from the end of the first chapter, and there will be much more to follow:
"Buddhism is really hard, particularly Dogen's teaching. He gives you a very hard practice: Keep your mouth shut and look directly at impermanence! This living practice is called zazen. Zazen is not a way to escape from life by being mindful of something that is apart from the human world; it is the practice of being present in the real stream of time and looking directly at life itself. Zazen enables you to plunge below the surface and leads you to touch the core of your life. It's not so easy. But even so, you have to do it, because spiritual life originates from the direct observation of impermanence.
Observation shows you that you don't have to be upset and try to escape when you realize that time constantly cuts off your life, because there is another aspect of time. One aspect of time is to separate; the other is to connect. The aspect of time that separates you from others is the human world. The aspect of time that connects you to others is universal truth. You are connected with all beings in time, which permeates into every inch of the cosmic universe, and space, where everyone and everything exists together in peace and harmony. So you are you, but you don't exist alone; you are connected with others: to dogs, cats, trees, mountains, the sky, stars, Dogen, and Buddha.
Having the two aspects of separation and connection is called impermanence. It is called moment. This is the original nature of time. When you see this, you feel deep relief and live with a warmhearted feeling, because you understand yourself very deeply. You understand what a human being is. And you understand the one place, called the domain of impermanence, where you live alone and at the same time live together with all beings in peace and harmony. This is spiritual security".

Study Hall

A last excerpt from Returning to Silence for the time being: "The moment between before and after is called Truth or Buddha's world. We don't know what this is but we are there. Our life is completely embraced by this. We are present from moment to moment right there. That is what we call buddha, Buddha's world or Buddha-nature. That Truth is not something objective; it is the original nature of the self. Original nature of the self is not something different from the Truth. They are one.
The source of energy that helps the growth of our original nature is not in the conscious conceptual world. We are just going, so there is no room to say it is anywhere. It is continuous dynamic working and it is there we must stand up. Life is the full manifestation of total dynamic working. There is no room to conceptualize. It is just working. If we want to taste this, it is practice. We have to be right there, be present right there. We have to be in harmony with our original nature. If we are there, very naturally seeds of our energy grow, the source of our energy, our life, grows. But it is not an idea of 'right there'; it is more than that; it is nothing but dynamic energy, energy in motion. It is going on eternally, regardless of whether the world is born or not."

Study Hall

"It is important to give quality to the effort, instead of expecting the result of the effort. All you have to do is just make your best effort, being free from a label or judgment that you are capable or not or that you are good or not. Forget it and just make an enormous effort.
If while making this effort you are also competing with somebody else or with an idea of how to become a buddha, it's very difficult to give quality to your effort. We always think that we are deluded, ordinary people who will never become a buddha. Such an idea is also competition. If we practice like that it's very hard; our zazen becomes 'hell' zazen. If someone else attains enlightenment, that is their story, not yours. If someone stumbles, help them; don't think about being first. Don't compete and don't expect results. This is the best way to be free from selfishness. This is called the practice of egolessness. This is our practice" - Returning to Silence, Dainin Katagiri.

Study Hall

"Whatever you do, wherever you may be, you are doing it in the Buddha's world. Buddha's world means the universe. The universe is nothing but the total manifestation of the truth by which all sentient beings are supported, upheld, naturally, if we open our hearts. If we don't open our hearts, it's a little bit difficult. Difficult means it takes a long time" - Returning to Silence, Dainin Katagiri.

Jinen's rakusu on the roof this morning during soji

Study Hall

More from Returning to Silence: "Repentance is to realize exactly the oneness of merging all sentient beings and buddha, delusion and enlightenment. All sentient beings are allowed to live, and are, from the beginning, forgiven for living their lives in this world. Everything, whatever it is, has some reason why it exists: evil, good, even something neither evil nor good. You cannot destroy devils just because you don't like them. Even though you don't like monsters, still there is some reason why they exist. Everything is entitled to live in the world in peace and harmony beyond our judgment, our evaluation. This is the first condition we have to realize - everything is buddha.
The second condition we have to realize is that the self must readily accept the compassion of Buddha's world. 'Buddha's world' means the Truth, or the same and one ground, or that which is beyond good and bad. Whether we like it or dislike it, we have to accept this. What is meant by readily accepting Buddha's compassion? It means that we must actualize Buddha's compassion in our everyday lives. We have to live our lives in the complete realization that we are already forgiven, that we are already allowed to live, and that we, ourselves, must make our lives come alive...But who is it that lives? We live by our effort, but this is a narrow understanding, so we have to live our lives with the understanding that we are allowed to live. This means we should appreciate our life. Then, if we appreciate our life, we can make our life come alive. To do this, we must not only be passive, but also active. Someone may say, 'The universe takes care of me, so I don't have to do anything'. Of course this is true, but it does not mean we can take a nap in the universe. The universe is always working with us, so if we become lazy, the universe appears as laziness. Then very naturally we are confused. So, constantly, we have to take the initiative. When we do gassho, we have to practice gassho with the forgiving universe, with appreciation for our lives, making gassho come alive. This practice is not a matter of discussion".

Study Hall

We are looking for texts to use at Young Urban Zen if we start talking about the precepts, and at Tim's suggestion, I picked up Katagiri Roshi's Returning to Silence. As he said, it is very dense, which also means it is very powerful, and I feel the effect more having not really been studying so much in recent weeks. It is hard even to extract one part of what he writes, but this paragraph ties in nicely with themes that have been floating around this past while:
"Put value on the Dharma, not on individual experience and feeling. This means to put value on the bigger scale of the world, and to open our hearts; even though you may feel pensive, open your heart. Then when you have to help, help; when you have to take care of your life, take care of your life. Whatever you feel, pensive or not pensive, like or dislike, open your heart, and then do what you have to do. From this way of life, you can really take care of individual feelings and experience; your life will bloom. It really helps".