Hokoku An Zendo
Seido Ronci, Director
Columbia, MO 65201
573-875-5428
More zazen!
Daily Zen Meditation Practice at Hokoku-An
|
|
A zendo is not a place for bliss and relaxation, but a furnace room for the
combustion of our egoistic delusions. What tools do we need to use? Only one.
We’ve all heard of it, yet we use it very seldom. It’s called attention.
-- Charlotte Joko Beck
Hokoku-An Zendo opened its doors on Easter Sunday, April 15th, 2001. Its primary purpose is to offer a space,
reserved exclusively for the practice of zazen, to anyone who wants to sit. It is sometimes difficult,
in the midst of daily activities, to find the time and the space to practice meditation. Hokoku-An is a place
of daily practice with a set schedule. It is the “sacred space,” if you will: the cave, the grotto, the temple,
the chapel, the hermitage: the place one goes just to go away, to step outside, to sit down and be quiet for
awhile; breathe and be totally present. As my brother monk Seiju, director of Albuquerque Zen Center, says,
“In this world, at this time, the Zen Center is an oasis of clarity and compassion. It offers a path to
wholeness in a divided world.”
The name “Hokoku-An” means “valley treasure hermitage.” The zendo was given
this name by Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi, my teacher for over 20 years. It took me 2 years to wake up to the
“hermitage” aspect of the name Hokoku-An. For 2 years I was referring to Hokoku-An as a “Zen Center.”
Hokoku-An is not a “Zen Center” in traditional terms, it is, at present, strictly a hermitage where the practice
is zazen. There is no membership. There are no dues. There is a mailing list for the newsletter, a dana bowl for
contributions, but all contributions go to charity. At present, Hokoku-An is like a foundry – a furnace to cast
Buddhas-in-training. The practice at Hokoku-An is the practice of zazen. The sangha of Hokoku-An will determine
the future -- if the time seems right, perhaps we will become a full-time, fully functional Zen Center.
At present, Hokoku-An also serves as a gateway for further, more traditional Zen training. Practitioners from
Hokoku-An have gone for extensive formal training at Mt. Baldy Zen Center, Bodhi Manda Zen Center, the San
Francisco Zen Center, Tassajara and Green Gulch Zen Center.
If you lose the spirit of repetition, your practice will become quite difficult
-- Suzuki Roshi
The practice of zazen can be compared to going to the gym to work out. If you really want to be in shape,
you don’t go to the gym once a week and sweat on the treadmill for half an hour. Going to the gym becomes
part of your life, your daily practice at least 4 or 5 days a week. Sitting zazen should be no different.
The schedule at Hokoku-An allows for each practitioner to create their own version of it. If you can only
come on Tuesdays and Thursdays, make that part of your routine, your discipline. If you can only come on
Wednesdays, on campus, do that. If you can only come in the mornings, make it a point to set your alarm clock,
etc. Use the schedule to step outside of your ordinary experience of what “I” want and what “I” need or think.
Just as one would go to the gym or the dojo, ideally, one goes to the zendo to practice on a routine basis.
This requires discipline and perseverance. Those who cannot make it to the zendo on a regular basis should make
an effort to schedule time for practice at home. I always recommend creating a schedule around an activity rather
than a specific time. So instead of saying, “I’ll get up every morning at 6:00 to sit zazen,” say, instead,
“I’ll sit zazen each morning after I wash up.” This way, whether you get up at 5:00 or 8:00, after you wash
up you sit.
By bowing we are giving up ourselves. To give up ourselves means to give up our dualistic ideas.
So there is no difference between zazen practice and bowing.
-- Suzuki Roshi
Bowing provides us with a way of letting go. As we enter the zendo we bow. To what? We just bow.
In the Western World when we think of bowing it’s usually to “your highness, your majesty” etc.
Do not be confused. To bow is simple: it is the deliberate letting go of one moment to the next.
In that moment, there is no God, no Buddha, no Heaven, no hell, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue,
nobody, no mind. Just to bow, to bend the body and straighten it again, as we enter the zendo and as
we take our place at the cushion to sit.
When we do a full prostration -- standing with palms joined together in gassho and then kneeling and
touching our foreheads to the floor while raising our hands up a few inches from the floor, it is said
we are lifting Buddha up by his feet. He is standing in the palms of our hands and we lift him. What does
that mean? It is a profound act of letting go. One need not think of the Buddha when bowing, one must BE
a Buddha when bowing. To lift the Buddha in the palm of your hands is nothing more or less than letting go
of all attachments to a personal self. Simply follow through on the act of bowing with no attachment to what
you’re doing.
Here at Hokoku-An, as with other Rinzai-ji Zen Centers, we chant in Japanese. Part of the reason for
this is out of respect for our teacher, Joshu Sasaki Roshi, a master of the Myoshinji lineage in Japan.
It is also the way we were trained at Mt. Baldy Zen Center. But there is a more significant reason: the
practice of chanting is a practice of complete concentration. As we hear the mokugyo (wooden fish) being
struck, keeping time, we give our concentration completely to the syllables of the chant: Kan ji zai bo sa
gyo jin han nya ha ra mi taji sho ken... and so on. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! One syllable to the next,
one moment to the next. Translations of the chants should be read because they are profound texts; but the
act of chanting goes beyond the meaning of the words.
To be frank, when I started my monastic training at Mt. Baldy Zen Center I absolutely hated having to chant!
I was a graduate student in English at the time and I wanted to know what I was chanting. Why not translate
these chants so that I could memorize words instead of syllables that mean nothing to me? I was so hungry for
meaning! As my practice continued I realized I was, who know show, learning the chants by heart. It was very
gradual, but it seemed sudden: one day I realized I was chanting The Heart Sutra without looking at the chanting
booklet. Over the years I’ve learned to appreciate this practice of chanting like the parting of the Red Sea
by Moses. No matter what’s transpired during the course of the day in the secular world, when I start chanting,
the day or night I’ve just lived dissolves into Shu jo mu hen sei gan do, bon no mu jin sei gan dan, homon mu
ryo sei gan gaku, butsu do mu jo sei gan jo.
No matter how many years you sit doing zazen, you will never become anything special.
-- Zen Master Sawaki
Sitting posture is the foundation of Zen practice. It becomes your home, the most intimate place
of all places, like sitting inside your coffin. As in the story of the Three Little Pigs, your
posture must be made of stone so that you can sit like a wall, gazing. Otherwise, the mind will
huff and puff and blow your house away. To be rooted firmly in the present, the body stable, the
breath smooth and quiet -- that’s the foundation of zazen. It begins and continues, day after day,
year after year, with the posture and breathing. What more basic activity can a human partake of?
Sit down. Be still. Be stable. Be. And do it regularly. Return to zero -- before thinking; before
the spouse, the job, the kids, the years racing by. There is that famous koan: What did you look
like before your parents were born? Well?
But it’s true, even when you go on vacation there’s plenty of baggage! So when you sit in zazen,
thoughts will inevitably arise. And they should. Just as the eyes see, the ears hear and the nose
smells etc., the brain thinks. That’s its function. You sit and you hear the birds chirping outside,
the kids playing in the neighborhood; you smell the incense, the flowers. This is done with no effort
on your part. You feel your body, the posture sometimes hurts, your knees ache, a foot falls asleep,
your neck is stiff, you’re tired, you have allergies or a cold. And the brain thinks about it and says,
“Ow!” or “This sucks!” That’s the brain’s function. Just as the eyes see and the ears hear, the brain
thinks. Do you ever say, “I am my eyes! I am my nose! I am my tongue”? So why do we automatically
assume, “I am my thoughts”? Why do we attach ourselves so strongly to the brain’s function? Sitting
in zazen means sitting in the midst of all these natural occurrences. Don’t think that sitting is a
passive activity. One must not fall asleep; rather one must be awake and alert to being present.
A strong and stable posture helps to keep us rooted in the moment. When thoughts arise we do not chase
them down nor do we try to stop them from coming. With our attention on posture and breathing, gradually
their significance diminishes. As Zen master Daikaku said, “You should work on meditation most
meticulously and carefully; don’t take it easy!”
From the beginning there is no permanence.
The sleeping and the dead, how like brothers they are.
Do they not both make a picture of death?
The man-as-he-was-in-the-beginning and the hero:
are they not the same when they arrive at their fate?
As for death, its time is hidden. The time of life is shown plain.
-- Utnapishtim to Gilgamesh (tr. Gardener)
Thoughts are the accumulation of infinite conditions. They are the mind’s closed fist.
All that we love and all that we hate are a result of circumstances. We all know the words
from the Bible: In the beginning was the Word, and the word was made flesh. Who were you before
the Word? Before the Beginning? As soon as we say “beginning” we imply a middle and an end. That
means there’s a narrative at work. That narrative is the Word. And the word, such as it is, while
it is the root of suffering, can also teach us. What does the Word tell us?
It all depends upon where we look. When we look at the great myths that have lasted for
centuries -- the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, Gilgamesh, TheIliad, the Odyssey, the Old Testament
and the New Testament, Beowulf, Gawainand the Green Knight, etc. (there are so many from all over
the world) -- the story is the same: what is the meaning of birth and death? How should I live my
life? What does it mean to be alive? And more importantly, what does it mean to die? Indeed, life
would seem a cruel, sadistic joke if after 50 or so years of trying to be a good person the last few
years of life simply boiled down to physically and mentally falling apart, getting sick and dying a
painful death.
Wisdom, grace, kindness, compassion, empathy, insight -- these are the ultimate attributes of a
life well-lived. Why? Because wisdom, grace, kindness, compassion and empathy all spontaneously
arise when we practice letting go of the brain’s accumulated agendas. We are not merely what the
brain tells us we are. As it has been said: True self has no self. In the beginning was the Word,
who were you before the Word?
In the story of Parsifal and the Holy Grail, Parsifal need only ask the question: Whom does the
Grail serve? He does not have to answer the question, he simply has to raise it. Doubt! Hakuin’s
great doubt: “Walking, standing, sitting, reclining, active or silent, whether in favorable or adverse
situations, plunge your spirit into the question of what is it that sees everything here and now?
What is it that hears?” Whom does the Grail serve? The Grail serves the Grail King. Who is the King,
who is the Buddha, Who is Yahweh, who is the Christ, who is Allah? Who is “I”? and, who wants to know?
To raise the question, and inquire deeply, fully, even passionately brings us to the realization that
there is no answer to be found in the realm of the intellect. This “don’t know” is before
“the beginning,” before “The Word.” Unborn, undying. It’s important that we don’t conceptualize
this supposed state-of-mind. Ideas about enlightenment are just ideas -- the realm of words.
Ying-an said, “Do not predefine understanding, and do not make a principle of non understanding.”
When people come to Hokoku-An for meditation instruction I teach them a variety of meditation
postures. That done, I tell them: When sitting, don’t judge, and have no expectations. It is wrong
to try and imagine what enlightenment is or what extraordinary things might happen while meditating.
Don’t waste time thinking, “What’s supposed to happen? Am I doing it right? When do I see the bright
lights?” Just focus on posture and breathing and have faith in the practice itself. Let it teach you.
If you chase wildly around, wanting to follow others, even after three great world ages you
will only end up by returning to birth and death. Better it is to have nothing further to seek,
and crossing one’s legs on the meditation cushion, just sit.
-- Zen Master Rinzai
All forms give us the opportunity to let go of what “I” want, what “I” like or dislike, etc.
I once heard Seung Sahn Soen Sa Nim say something like “Freedom doesn’t mean being able to stay
in bed as long as you want, it means being able to getup whenever you must and it’s not a problem.”
Bowing, chanting and zazen are all ways to practice following form. This is where zen training begins,
with the regular practice of letting go. And this is what we do in the zendo. But ultimately, while
the zendo is a place of training and practice, the depth of our realization is manifested in the midst
of worldly affairs. How do you live your life?
When you can recognize that doing the dishes, the laundry, changing diapers, shopping at the mall,
paying the monthly bills are all practice and training, then you have taken zen out of the zendo and
into the world. These are all opportunities to let go. You do what you must according to circumstances.
When you stand in line at the supermarket waiting to check out, if you complain about how long the line
is and criticize the cashier for being slow and all the people ahead of you just for being there,
you’re creating your own hell because you’re attached to what “I” want, what “I” need, etc. You’re
just shopping. This is the “form” of the supermarket. The same holds true for all the mundane activities
of secular life from changing diapers to doing the laundry: we do what needs to be done and we do it
without attachment to personal preference. This practice of letting go applies to all the other forms
that shape our lives: being a spouse, raising children, making a career, planning for retirement and
death. Often, but I hasten to add, not always, most of the hell of our lives is because of our attachment
to thinking. We get stuck to the small self like a fly on flypaper. This is samsara. Each time the fly
is reborn it keeps going back to the flypaper. Sometimes, it seems, we just never learn: we’re trapped
in patterns of thinking. We look at our lives and there are problems that we just can’t get rid of.
Where do these problems comes from?
Sometimes our worst nightmares have nothing to do with our thinking. War. Sickness. Old age.
Death. Look at the daily news. What more can I say? In the vernacular: shit happens. So how do
we practice in the midst of all this shit? At this point, the inside and the outside become one
and we realize that both internally and externally, this life is suffering. We make our own hell
by attaching ourselves to echoes of being, and we live in a global hell that is the result of these
echoes of being that we attach ourselves to. So, how do we become free from the sound of being?
Whether internal or external, the question remains the same and the duality is no longer duality --
the world out there and the world inside are the same; so, who am I? Bombs are being dropped on me,
viruses are killing those I love, everyone’s getting old... and still my thoughts return to better days,
longing for them; and worse days, regretting them, despising them. Whose thoughts are these?
Form. In the beginning was the Word. Who were you before the beginning? Before thinking?
Before the Word? This is why we always refer to Zen as a practice. To practice means to sit in
the midst of all this and investigate the origin, again and again:
Mazu replied, “Not mind, not Buddha.”