First off I have updated my book tour page again. Some of the specific locations for European gigs that have lacked them are now filled in, particularly in France.
I have also added info about the annual Dogen Sangha Zen retreat in Shizuoka. Since my new book is coming out in September, the organizers have moved the retreat to July. In past years people from overseas have been attending the retreats in Shizuoka. You’re always welcome to attend. It’s a good retreat. But contact the folks in Dogen Sangha Tokyo about it, not me. The contact info’s on their website.
Also, John Graves, who is now the president of Dogen Sangha Los Angeles, made this neat Sit Down and Shut Up/Shobogenzo Index. Check it out. He found all the references to specific parts of Shobogenzo in the book Sit Down And Shut Up and cross-referenced them so you could look ’em up if you wanted to. Why didn’t I do this myself? Because I am lazy, that’s why! But John did it and it is full of awesome. I’ve added it to the links section on the left as well.
I was chatting today via Skype to a friend of mine who is 21 years old. I seem to have a lot of friends considerably younger than me these days. But, then again, I never saw Nishijima interact with anyone less than twenty years his junior. Most people he hung out with were closer to forty years younger than him. Maybe it goes with the territory.
Anyway she’s got a whole lot of choices to make in life, as you do when you’re 21. And as you do when you’re 46 too. So I wrote her this:
“You have to decide what you love the most, I think. And go for that. And don’t believe people who say you can’t do it. I semi-believed those people and it really held me back. It turns out they were wrong. They’re still telling me I can’t do it even while I am actually actively doing it! This is kind of comical.”
It’s funny the things you say in response to people. I teach myself a lot that way, which is why I like doing Q&A; sessions and interviews. But it’s really true. There seem to always be naysayers who delight in cutting you down and trying to make you feel like you’re not capable. It’s important to know how to tell those people to go fuck themselves. Sometimes you have to say it politely. Sometimes you have to say it only to yourself. But it’s important to be able to say it.
Chuck Schodowski was a popular horror movie host in Cleveland, half of the teams Hoolihan and Big Chuck and later Big Chuck and Little John. He inherited his position from the great Ernie”Ghoulardi” Anderson (director Paul Thomas Anderson’s dad) who preceded him. Chuck took a lot of shit when he started because his style was very different from Ghoulardi’s.
In his book, Chuck talks about a letter he got from Ernie Anderson when this was going on. If the book wasn’t in storage I’d quote it directly instead of from my poor memory. But Ernie Anderson said something like, “If the people who are telling you you’re doing it wrong could do it themselves, they’d be doing it themselves. Guts it, baby, guts it!”
It’s good advice. We all have a role to play and there are always those around you who’ll stupidly envy you and think they could do whatever it is you do better, if only. I used to hear this kind of shit from lots of folks when I worked at Tsuburaya Productions, guys who knew that if they just got out of mom’s basement they’d do so much better marketing Ultraman than I was doing. Now I hear it from people who’d be so much better Buddhist writers if only someone would give them a book deal. But there’s a reason you’re in the position you are and those guys are not. So they can all suck it.
As for the wide world of choices… it never ends. When I was 21 I woulda figured that by age 46 I’d either have had everything worked out or I’d be dead. As it turns out neither option panned out. These days my best advice to myself is to do what I love the most, to the best of my ability to do so. Sometimes your own karma places you into a position where it seems like you have no options. But I’ve stopped believing that. There’s always some way to make whatever situation you find yourself in into a place you want to be. I’ve even managed to do this in endless traffic jams on the Los Angeles freeway system, or in a hospital bed with kidney stones so bad I thought the pain alone might kill me.
I made a lot of mistakes because I half-believed those who said I couldn’t ever accomplish the things I truly wanted to do. I majored in history in college not because I liked it that much, but because I believed those who told me I’d never be able to land a career in the film business. Much less in the film business in Japan making giant monster movies. That I’d have far better of a chance getting a job teaching history in high school. All those people can suck it.
And still there they are! Look in the comments section of this very blog and you’ll still find people telling me I can’t do what I am already doing. They’re clever enough not to put it in those words. But that’s the message. They can suck it too.
When they tell you the same thing, just remember they can suck yours as well.
Guts it, baby.
"These days my best advice to myself is to do what I love the most…"
Is head of DSI part of that?
It seems from what you've written that Gudo Nishijima Roshi dumped DSI and other things onto you and you took it and have been wriggling ever since.
You've said you've promised Gudo Nishijima Roshi not to do anything before he dies but is there any reason why you cannot change that?
You seem to enjoy writing and touring and stuff so why carry whatever Gudo Nishijima Roshi has put on your shoulders?
Hi Steph,
I always liked your posts, they are like an open window bringing fresh air into a smelly room full of agitated little boys.
Keep on posting !
Cheers,
Gerald
You seem to enjoy writing and touring and stuff so why carry whatever Gudo Nishijima Roshi has put on your shoulders?
Is there any conflict?
Isn't Brad writing and touring, which includes leading retreats and teaching, as head of DSI?
Your "suck it" mantra makes you sound like a 90s WWE wannabe wrestler.
Also, it's interesting that your post makes it seem that you draw inspiration (of a sort) off of the negative attitude of others.
At least I find it interesting and somewhat telling.
The internet is an awful place. It brings out the worst in people kind of like airports and sporting events. It's weird but the written Brad and the Brad I see in talks and videos seem to be two different people. One is calm, cool, funny, articulate, and humble, while the other, the symbolic Brad of the internet, sometimes comes across as arrogant and whiny as evidence by this latest blog.
I think this goes to show that the living zen embodied by a person's physical presence and vibe is always more effective than whatever that person might convey through the written word.
I know Brad isn't nearly as douchey as he comes across in this blog. The internet rather and the kinds of unhealthy interactions it demands, some how give rise to a certain douchiness of mind that not even zen adepts can avoid. That is unless they avoid the internet altogether, which most aren't willing to do. I guess the only option is to somehow be mindful of our behavior in this virtual landfill and not let the stench of it go to our heads.
I guess I shoulda put the part about making wherever you find yourself into the place you most want to be in big bold letters.
Also, I wasn't talking so much about going for your dreams as about not listening to dickheads who try and tell you how to be you.
If I was in a better mood I'd say sorry for writing so unclearly. But I'm crabby today.
yes this a good article. nice one.
There's always some way to make whatever situation you find yourself in into a place you want to be. I've even managed to do this in endless traffic jams on the Los Angeles freeway system, or in a hospital bed with kidney stones so bad I thought the pain alone might kill me.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hmm…
I wonder how many people properly read what Brad – or anyone else on this blog – writes.
Hands up if you slowly consider every word of those longer posts you don't wanna agree with.
…put your hand down, 108.
I wasn't talking so much about going for your dreams as about not listening to dickheads who try and tell you how to be you.
Ain't that the truth!
Especially dickheads who imagine they are zen masters.
dickheads who imagine they are zen masters
Did you imagine that there were zen masters?
Huang-po instructing the community said: All of you students are gobblers of dregs. If you go about traveling in this way, if you go about like this, when will you meet today? Don’t you know that there is no zen teacher in all of the land of China.
At that moment a student came forward and said: What about all those people who teach meditation and lead communities?
Huang-po said: I did not say that there was no zen; it’s just that there are no teachers of zen.
"Don’t you know that there is no zen teacher in all of the land of China."
I firmly believe this to be true. Anyone who takes up teaching zen is a screwball and is to be avoided.
So Ran, you are trying to say that the concepts of things like music styles being good and bad is an objective fact, instead of them being (obviously) opinions?
I ask this question fully aware (from reading your posts) that you will most likely twist my words to support your argument with the kind of logic seen here.
Any chance of a visit to australia sometime Brad?
Oldish Newbies
I smoking as I write this. I want to smoke. I also don't want to smoke and am slowly cutting it out.
Right now, after two hours without one, this roll-up is like tube of light, to paraphrase a famous British playwright dying of cancer and with weeks to live, now unburdened of having to decide whether to quit or not. And as I write this, I'm getting that nagging feeling.
I sat for thirty minutes this morning, because, of course, I wanted to. But a large part of me didn't.
My wife and I got a little annoyed with each other yesterday. We didn't want to be off with each other, but admitting to each other why we did helped us to have a lovely day thereafter.
In dealing with our considerable difficulties, we had developed this notion that it was much better to think of two wants, which we had take care of. Relating in this way to ourselves and each other has been invaluable in realising what we truly wanted.
It was only later that I bought Stephen Bachelors' poetical interpretation of Nagarjuna.
On opening the the first page I red these words which rang like a bell:
'The dharma taught by buddhas
Hinges on two truths:
Partial truths of the world
And truths which are sublime.
Without knowing how they differ,
You cannot know the deep;
Without relying on conventions,
You cannot disclose the sublime,
You cannot experience freedom.'
So at the moment, my working rule of thumb is: there is those tugging wants and what I truly want.
I didn't read Brad's post as a call to follow your dreams re Stephanie and Hater et al. Although I didn't read it as a denial of doing so either. I think there are reasons why folk want to read Brad's post one way or another and why the world wants them to — one of them being what C20th linguist outlined and also what the Diamond Sutra seems to be pointing to.
For some reason this all reminds me of a bit in Robert Aitkin's Zen Master Raven:
'Black Bear appeared one evening and said, "Tell me about Mara. I understand that he is the Great Destroyer."
Raven said, "The Great founder."
Black Bear said, That's what the Buddha Shakyamuni is called."
Raven said, "Yes, but he never learned to blow smoke from his ears."
I think that if Brad tried to spell everything out so clearly, it might be a long boring read with even more bits for folk to snag on to. I think post-structuralists where onto something when they characterised reading as a continual process of mis-reading: an of often interesting chain of distractions, a chinese-whisper version of no ignorance and also no ending of ignorance, perhaps. And so and so and so on.
(Oh, by the way, there is the lesser known term Misandry, Mysogeny gets all the press these days it seems. There are both little girls and little boys.)
Re Mason Moore's challenge to Ran K, and oldish newbie's reference to Nagarjuna…
There are, says Nagarjuna, two truths –
1) samvrti-satya (empirical/relative truth);
2) paramartha-satya (highest/ultimate truth).
An example might be:
1) 'some art is beautiful and worthy. Other art is ugly and not worthy.'
2) 'As all phenomena are ultimately empty, no art possesses innate characteristics.'
So perhaps Ran was simply arguing the truth of 1), and I was arguing the truth of 2).
I wonder of he'll disagree…
Notice Buddhist relics @ 4:46 pm here.
Coming back to THIS moment again and again. From this point you are the great bodhisattva, the great zen writer and teacher, the great artist, the great doctor, the great store clerk, the great janitor…..
If someone says you cannot do this, it is because they are lost in a dream.
Thank you everyone.
[Another translation of samvrti-satya is 'conventional truth'. The sanskrit samvrti, is derived from the root /vR, meaning to cover, conceal, hide, obstruct – the sense being that our conventional interpreatation/understanding of the 'evidence' of our senses and experience conceals, or hinders, the (ultmately) real situation. However, our conventional experience and understanding is not 'wrong'; it too is true – how else do we arrive at the notion of paramartha-satya, "ultimate truth"? But having understood the notion – the view, we should drop it: "…Gautama…taught the true dharma for the relinquishing of all views" (last verse of MMK). Truth is not a view.]
Meanwhile…
Gudo's puter is now fixed, so he's blogging again. Here is his latest post, "How to practice Zazen". No detail, just a recommendation to find a teacher and do it everyday. But, I noticed, not one reference to the ANS!…and this award-winning typo:
"…read my book " Wow to practice Zazen" through Amazon."
that we learn from teaching is insightful. it would appear that all the poster's [hater's or otherwise] have also had insight from this post which the felt strong enough about to share/teach.
EDIT
I wrote "…our conventional interpreatation/understanding of the 'evidence' of our senses and experience conceals, or hinders, the (ultmately) real situation."
Idiot! Nothing can "hinder the real situation". What I meant was…
I firmly believe this to be true. Anyone who takes up teaching zen is a screwball and is to be avoided.
I think most zen teachers are asked or given permission to teach by their own teachers. If it's a career choice and a zen student sets out to become a zen teacher I think your point is valid.
Jinzang:
The Huang Po story has several levels of meaning, as do many koans.
No teachers of zen;
Can zen ever really be taught?
You can be shown how to sit in the right posture or given a koan. A teacher can give talks, write or blog and offer help in one on one meetings. No one can eat for us.
No teachers of zen;
No, no, no…eye, ear, tongue, nose, body, mind…And as the Diamond cutter sutra says, in truth there are no sentient beings to be saved. And no-one to save them.
Oldish Newbies
I found anon #108's post an interesting example of the difficulty of expressing the two truths. Eg:
"1) 'some art is beautiful and worthy. Other art is ugly and not worthy.'
2) 'As all phenomena are ultimately empty, no art possesses innate characteristics.'"
There seems to be an endless regression in terms of expressing the two truths, for one could re-configure the above contrast thus, for example:
1) There is the coming together of the art object and my subjectivity, the coming together of the object as held in my subjectivity and my pre-existing expectations/experiences, the coming together of the reconfiguration of my subjectivity and any other activity or experience which constitutes what keeps coming together, along with any realisation that this isn't really anywhere near the totality of what's going on or how to express it, and so I might as well call this relative arrangement the first truth, even though the second truth is really no different, apart from such parallel assertions that there is always another side to the coin, even with the relative, hence what one might call the absolute, the utlimate contingency or emptiness of things, and which ends up being relative to relativity, rendering the absolute a big bag of absolutes, each like some big bag of absolutes in a big bag of absolutes that appear to be related: a rather confusing and paradoxical flip of the coin, even though flipping a coin is the simplest thing in the world — it happens even when you drop a coin, or when a breeze topples a conveniently piled pile of pennies, although to realise coin flipping fully one would need not to just observe and talk about it, but actually practice it.
2)Sentences such as the previous one will only go on for so long.
I found anon #108's post an interesting example of the difficulty of expressing the two truths.
Ain't that the truth!
**************************************
Oo. Nearly forgot…
Gudo's latest blog post concludes:
It is not necessary for us to get the so-called enlightenment. Because the so-called enlightenment is just a Romantic story, which many children love. But Buddhism is never a Romantic story, but it is just Action. It is just sitting. It is just Practice. It is just Reality.
Oh dear.
What now?
Get it.
Regards,
Harry.
Anon 108:
Don't worry, Gudo's a Romantic. Gudo and his heirs love assertion and negation. Reality is always something beyond assertion and negation.
If Huang Po had said everyone and everything is to be your teacher, that would have been equally correct.
You people sure love to philosophize up in this bitch.
Hi,
If reality is beyond assertion and negation then it's not right here and it's not totally inclusive, which would not be total reality. It may be just a form of self, and/or other, loathing.
It's true that reality is already 'beyond' in the sense that it's not a positive or negative philosophical perspective or a perception. But it's also true that we are holding it in our hand, that it is our hand holding, otherwise it's not inclusive reality but may just be some disembodied idea/ideal.
I doubt you're interested in a sincere discussion, but I live in hope (in my own stupid reality).
Regards,
Harry.
…let me at 'im, 'arry!
Hi 107b,
The quote from Gudo was from a very brief blog post entitled "How to do zazen". Here's the beginning of the quote (not the whole post) again, complete with the preceding sentence:
Zazen is a kind of habit, and it is necessary for us to establish the daily habit without fail. It is not necessary for us to get the so-called enlightenment…
In that context he was saying, I think, 'don't pursue or hope for "the so-called enlightenment" in zazen. Just sit.'
That's hardly a new idea, is it? – or one unique to Gudo, his heirs, or romantics.
You are free, of course, to pursue "the so-called enlightenment" with all the zeal you can muster. Unless you already have it. If you do, please tell me whether it was worth the effort.
"Gudo and his heirs love assertion and negation". You just made that up, didn't you 😉 Sounds good; means nothing. As for this bit: "Reality is always something beyond assertion and negation" – just stealing Gudo's material.
"Sounds good; means nothing."
Yeah baby, that's the way I roll
" As for this bit: "Reality is always something beyond assertion and negation" – just stealing Gudo's material."
and theft.
"You are free, of course, to pursue "the so-called enlightenment" with all the zeal you can muster. Unless you already have it. If you do, please tell me whether it was worth the effort."
I'm good at pursuing but not at catching. I don't know if anythings worth the effort of chasing.
"I don't know if anythings worth the effort of chasing."
Had sex recently?
A big empty world is a very dreary place to live.
Regards,
H.
"Had sex recently?"
No. Maybe that's the problem!
Hee hee, nice one. Motivation is not my strong point either. I need to get a job.
Know of anything that's good for a person who's expert at talking shite on internet blogs anyone?
Regards,
Expectant.
alrite, 'arry i'll leave the kid alone. but next time I'll 'ave 'is bleedin nuts for breakfast.
tha's a promise, chum.
I think the key phrase of the koan is:
if you go about like this, when will you meet today?
When you meet today, you will also meet Zen, teacher or no.
Jinzang:
yeah…
that works…
Master Gudo said:
"It is not necessary for us to get the so-called enlightenment. Because the so-called enlightenment is just a Romantic story, which many children love.
Master Dogen said:
Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.
In the assemblies of the enlightened ones there have been many cases of mastering the Way bringing forth the heart of plants and trees; this is what awakening the mind for enlightenment is like. The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. . . . Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.
The bringing about of enlightenment by the opportunity provided by a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, and the effecting of realization with the aid of hossu, a fist, a staff, or a shout, cannot be fully understood by discriminative thinking.
Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass
I come to realize that mind is no other than mountains and rivers and the great wide earth, the sun and the moon and stars
When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves.
Chitta is an Indian word which we call the discriminative mind. Without this discriminative mind we could not give rise to the enlightened Mind. I am not saying that this discriminative mind is the enlightened Mind; rather, we give rise to the enlightened Mind by means of the discriminative mind.
Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life."
Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.
That you carry yourself forward and experience the myriad things is delusion. That the myriad things come forward and experience themselves is awakening
When human beings attain enlightenment, it is like the moon reflected in the water. The moon appears in the water but does not get wet nor is the water disturbed by the moon.
If you think you can become enlightened just by worshipping images and relics, this is a mistaken view'
It is true that our predecessors recommended both the koan and sitting, but it was the sitting that they particularly insisted upon. There have been some who attained enlightenment through the test of the koan, but the true cause of their enlightenment was the merit and effectiveness of sitting. Truly the merit lies in the sitting.
Adhere to the Precepts as set down by the Buddhas and Ancestors.
Source?
I am not taking part in the argument or discussion, – but whose translation is this, and where did you find it?
"…Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life."
Indeed, but, not being awakened, how do we know what 'being awakened' is?… We make it up, of course!
Regards,
Harry.
Yes indeed, anon @8.07pm.
Gudo, I'm sure, agrees with every word (but maybe not with the translations). He's a big fan of Dogen, you know.
The '"so-called" enlightenment' that Gudo refers to is the romantic, idealistic notion of a moment of sudden breakthrough that shatters, once and for all, the world of our illusion and delusion, and replaces it with a new world of perception and understanding that has transcends samsara. Having attained enlightenment, we become a Buddha, and unlike ordinary sentient beings, dwell in Nirvana….That kind of idea is, I'm pretty sure, what Gudo means by 'the "so-called" enlightenment'.
Gudo has spoken of and written about 'enlightenment' many times. He doesn't deny 'enlightenment', or 'realisation', or 'awakening'. But, in common with Dogen – and the whole Soto lineage – he has a view that differs from that ^^ one.
Driving ourselvs to practice and experience the myriad dharmas is delusion. When the myriad dharmas actively practice and experience ourselves, that is the state of realization. Those who greatly realize delusion are Buddhas. Those who are greatly deluded about realization are ordinary beings.
(From Shobogenzo Genjo-koan, trans Nishijima and Cross)
Practice itself is awakening or enlightenment so don't go making it into another idea or concept. Dogen is trying to bring you to the present moment and encourage and motivate you to practice.
So enlightenment is something but not something to get, especially not something to get conceptually or intellectually.
Just do it.
Personally I don't believe in enlightenment nor would I claim to be enlightened but I do practice a lot so maybe I could say I practice awakening.
Hope this helps, if not just tell me to shut up and sit down -)
A very big problem for most of us trying to understand what Dogen wrote is that most of us read him in translation – translations that vary significantly, and cannot, I'm reliably informed, accurately reproduce his highly idiosyncratic medieval sino-japanese.
Dogen never said, or wrote:
"realize…enlightened ones…awakening the mind for enlightenment…attain enlightenment…The bringing about of enlightenment…effecting of realization…enlightened Mind…strive to awaken…When human beings attain enlightenment…become enlightened"
And, of course, centuries of cultural divergence and development seperate us.
I don't think that's an insignificant problem.
Dreaming of awakening.
Zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz…
H.
nice one, 'arry 🙂
Rinzai practitioner's favorite movie?
A: Satori Night Fever.
Ducking,
H.
It makes a person wonder what all those Rinzai children think they are up to..
Hi Chuck-
They can speak for themselves, but…
They might well say that although a kensho or satori experience is valuable – even essential – it's certainly not the be-all and end-all of practice.
I'm also pretty sure they'd say that many Soto folks grossly misrepresent what they teach and do.
I reckon they'd almost certainly be right about that.
The 'standard issue' Soto cartoon of Rinzai is pretty poor; but then, the 'standard issue' Soto cartoon of Soto is often pretty poor, as is the Rinzai cartoon of Rinzai etc etc…
Regards,
Harry.