Before I start, anyone interested in having me do a lecture, retreat or other such event within an easy (4 hours or less) drive of Knoxville, TN around (but not on!) May 15th, please write me at bw@hardcorezen.info.
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In the film I HEART HUCKABEES there is a conversation between Dustin Hoffman as Bernard Jaffe (BJ) and Jason Schwartzman as Albert Markovski (AM) that goes like this (I’ve edited it a bit, for the whole thing go here or here):
BJ: Say this blanket represents all the matter and energy in the universe, okay? You, me, everything. Nothing has been left out. Alright? All the particles, everything. OK, let’s just say this is me, and I’m what, 60 odd years old and I’m wearing a grey suit. Blah, blah, blah. And let’s say that over here this is you and, I don’t know, you’re 21, you’ve got dark hair, Etc. And over here this is Vivian, my wife and colleague. And over here, this is the Eiffel Tower, right? It’s Paris! And this is a war. And this is a museum. And this is a disease. And this is an orgasm. And this is a hamburger.
AM: Everything is the same even if it’s different.
BJ: Exactly! But our everyday mind forgets this. We think everything is separate, limited. I’m over here. You’re over there. Which is true, but it’s not the whole truth because we’re all connected. Because we are connected. We need to learn how to see the blanket truth all of the time right in the everyday stuff. And that’s what this is for.
AM: Why do I need to see the blanket thing all of the time in the everyday stuff?
BJ: Well, you wouldn’t want to miss out on the big picture, would you?
AM: Nah uh.
BJ: When you get the blanket thing you can relax because everything you could ever want or be you already have and are. Does that sound pretty good?
AM: That sounds very good!
It’s a nice bit of dialogue and very Buddhist.
But when people hear ideas like this, they tend to think that the ultimate goal of a meditation practice is the experience of oneness, the “blanket thing” as the movie puts it. That being the case, the way to best actualize this goal would be to remain in that state of oneness as long as possible.
Many years ago I read Ram Dass’s book Be Here Now. It’s a very entertaining book. And yet the real world and history have not been terribly kind to it, even though it’s still in print. For example, in the book Ram Dass has lots of words of praise for an American spiritual seeker he met in India who called himself Bhagavan Das. These days Bhagavan Das can be found doling out cosmic wisdom like this, “If I was a twenty year old girl, I would love hanging out with me. What could be more fabulous than having sex with a really spiritual mystical person?”
Another person who gets even higher praise in the book is Neem Karoli Baba. This mystical man is portrayed as being so high on spirituality that all he does is sit under a blanket and twinkle his eyes. People gather around him and bring him food and take care of all his bodily needs while he twinkles away into the cosmos.
There have been allegations that Neem Karoli Baba wasn’t any more what Ram Dass thought he was than Bhagavan Das turned out to be. That’s not really my point. Or maybe, in a way, it kind of is.
I feel like there has long been a pervasive notion within the community of people who are into meditation that the ultimate state of a true meditator ought to be a kind of completely disconnected and permanent high. One would get so into the “blanket thing” that one would cease to have any real concerns about the straight, mundane world.
Bhagavan Das (left) with documentary director Jeff Brown.
Some people find that highly attractive. Some people find it terrifying and a good reason not to get into meditation at all. Some people make a very good living pretending to be that sort of a person and, apparently, you can be an ugly hairy guy in his sixties and still get lots of young ladies if you can do it convincingly enough.
Sure, I’m jealous. But there’s more to this rant than just that.
My point is that it really isn’t the goal of meditation to get to the “blanket thing” and just stay there. We’re not really made for that. Our real place is right here, in this realm, in the regular old work-a-day world. That’s where our greatest duty lies. That’s where our real job is.
This is one of my problems with lots of spiritual practices, especially those that involve drug use – although it’s certainly not exclusive to spiritual practices involving drugs. There’s a sense in a lot of these practices that the important things are all happening somewhere else. Their practices seem to be geared toward getting folks out of this world and onto some place cooler.
However, I feel like the practice of Zen is about integration. Sure, if you do it long enough, you start to notice there are lots of aspects of the universe that you were not previously aware of. Sometimes it’s really neat-o when you start becoming aware of this stuff. It can seem very attractive to want to get to those “high” places and just stay there.
But you can’t. You have to come back down. And if you’re like me, that come-down experience can be really hard. It can feel like the end of summer vacation did when you were a kid, or that feeling when you have to go back to work after a trip to some exotic country.
That’s not really it, though. Because, in truth, the place you’re meant to be is right here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
April 3, 2015 Pomona, CA Open Door 2 Yoga
April 24-26, 2015 Mt. Baldy, CA 3-DAY ZEN & YOGA RETREAT
July 8-12, 2015 Vancouver, BC Canada 5-DAY RETREAT at HOLLYHOCK RETREAT CENTER
August 14-16, 2015 Munich, Germany 3 DAY ZEN RETREAT
August 19, 2015 Munich, Germany LECTURE
August 24-29, 2015 Felsentor, Switzerland 5-DAY RETREAT AT STIFTUNG FELSENTOR
August 30-September 4, 2015 Holzkirchen, Germany 5-DAY RETREAT AT BENEDIKTUSHOF MONASTERY
September 10-13, 2015 Finland 4-DAY RETREAT
ONGOING EVENTS
Every Monday at 8pm I lead zazen at Silverlake Yoga Studio 2 located at 2810 Glendale Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90039. All are welcome!
Every Saturday at 9:30 am I lead zazen at the Veteran’s Memorial Complex located at 4117 Overland Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230. All are welcome!
Registration is now open for our 3-day Zen & Yoga Retreat at Mt. Baldy Zen Center April 24-26, 2015. CLICK HERE for more info!
Plenty more info is available on the Dogen Sangha Los Angeles website, dsla.info
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Your kind donations help me get by in this work-a-day world. Thank you!
HA!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAPPPCDaBVY
Brad, sometimes you remind me a bit of Kodo Sawaki Roshi, with his cranky admonitions about “Those of you who want to strengthen your hara,” and so forth. But I actually share your point of view, so maybe I’m cranky too.
If Bhagavan Das is getting his rocks off with some young lady, that’s right here right now in the present moment, isn’t it?
And if you drop some acid, you aren’t necessarily going anywhere, and you might experience right here now just with greater intensity, color and detail.
If Bhagavan Das wants to get his rocks off with young chicks and they want to get their rocks off with him, that’s fine. I don’t have any problems with that. It’s just that his desirability appears to be based on the image painted of him in Be Here Now, which isn’t really true. It’s like claiming to be a millionaire when actually you were just once mistaken for a millionaire. Still, if it works for him, then OK.
As far as dropping acid and experiencing here and now more intensely and colorfully… sure. I think that’s mostly what happens. Yet sometimes folks elevate the experience to absurd levels.
I read Be Here Now about 10-15 times, and Yoni-man didn’t really stick out to me.
Brown did a hatchet job on him to max his street cred selling spiritual soothings.
Who is Brown?
Mr. Brown has gone to town.
I wondered, too. Google tattles that he made a documentary about his relationship with BD. Found it on Amazon video and watched it last night. What an amazing technology we have! Anyway, Fred, thanks for the pointer to Karmageddon.
Yeah Dad but at least Brown left in that bit from Ram Dass.
Dave Brown, the guy making money from Soul Searching, etc. He lived about 30 minutes away from me, but I never checked him out.
http://www.soulshapinginstitute.com/certificate/
I know for a fact that when I start to feel high, I can just talk to Safu, and I get pulled right down.
Apparently, you can be an ugly hairy guy in his sixties and still get lots of young ladies if you can do it convincingly enough.
One can always hope . . .
The best book on Neem Karoli Baba is not Be Here Now -a mash up of a bunch of spiritual mystical stuff done up in different fonts and papers that entertained a lot of us hippie seeker-types back in the day, or The Only Dance There Is, a collection of talks (both books by) Richard Alpert, aka Baba Ram Dass.
The best one, however, might convince even skeptical types like Brad that this guy was the real deal, and recognized as such by many:
http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Love-Stories-about-Karoli/dp/0525476113
Oh yes! This story is good:
A man was having the darshan of Maharaj-ji. Maharaj-ji gave this man a very big case of puris. Something like thirty six puris in that package. The man was trying to refuse so much prasad because he was traveling by train and with his other baggage it would be very difficult. Still, Maharaj-ji persisted and the man took the puris. Riding on the train the man felt the train begin to slow a little and at the same time he began to notice an elephant in the distance running toward the train. As the train continued to slow the elephant continued to run at the train. When the train finally stopped the elephant came directly to the window. The man fed all the puris to the elephant.
Yeah, it would take at least 36 puris to fill up a hungry elephant. Duh
Mom must have been fooling around with the milkman before you were born.
“…his desirability appears to be based on the image painted of him in Be Here Now, which isn’t really true.”
Brad, are you the same guy portrayed in your books? Don’t you think that people who encounter you now often think you’re “that guy”? Do you disavow yourself of association with your “past selves” or use that as an advantage when it is convenient to do so?
Sure, I do use that as an advantage.
Anyway, whatever. Bhagavan Das has fun. I have fun. Fun is good.
Oh, now I reread your post, you’re just “jealous.” That makes more sense.
“Connecting to the mystical through the mundane world” – Bhagavan Das.
Is it bullshit, Brad?
I can see why Ryushin Sensei turned the way he did. You can not deny what is inside, and that path may be the one of a mystic.
Just as Brad could not deny, that there is no God and he is always with you.
Thanks for posting this, Brad.
http://quotespictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/put-down-the-drugs-and-come-get-a-hug-life-quote.jpg
http://maharajji.com/Video-of-Maharajji/old-video-of-maharajji.html
Apparently I’m doing it wrong.
I have a dearth of young 20-somethings spreading themselves for my about to be 53rd year on the planet.
Instead I find myself carrying food trays or taking people older than myself to the bathroom as part of what I must do. Smiling as I bring their pain medication or helping them get wiped after a bowel movement.
Or maybe I’m doing it right and these guys are just proving that you never give a sucker an even break.
Either way I’m going to continue to give of myself to others. I’ve been doing it for years, but sitting and shutting up helps me to do it with more joy than I knew before. Now I know I don’t do it just for a paycheck. I do it because that is where I belong. I smile while doing it. Not because the boss says so. I do it because that’s what comes from within the flesh I call ‘Me’.
thanks, sri_barence:
‘Developing real hara means putting aside your personal attitudes.
If it’s even the slightest bit personalized, it isn’t pure, unadulterated zazen. We’ve got to practice genuine, pure zazen, without mixing it with gymnastics or satori or anything. When we bring in our personal ideas — even only a little bit — it’s no longer the buddha-dharma.
In a word, Buddhism is non-self [muga]. Non-self means that “I” am not a separate subject. When “I” am not a separate subject, then I fill the entire universe. That I fill the entire universe is what’s meant by “all things manifest the truth”.’
(here)
This is actualizing the power of Samantabhadra.
at 56:38:
“Near the end of a sesshin, Suzuki roshi had a lecture- announced- it was late evening and rather dark-and said that a student in the sesshin had just become enlightened and didn’t know it, but he would eventually find out.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMGSFhXU1I8
Wait, there’s more:
‘If we try to achieve some awakening or enlightenment, it doesn’t succeed. We hear that sitting is to clarify the true nature of the self, but it seems nothing is clarified, nothing happens. You just spend time and have lots of pain and a stumbling mind. If you sit all day you have a good sitting once or twice, but when you compare the good sitting with the rest of have a very regretful mind. “What was I doing. Drowsy. Powerless sitting.” ‘
(Kobun, from the section “gaining”, here)
“When the wooden man begins to sing, the stone woman gets up to dance”
“A dragon howls in a withered tree.”
“When the temple pillars gets pregnant then how do we discern their absence?”
Dogen was a mystic, too, not a dead stump in drowsy. powerless sitting
I’m sure he was drowsy sometimes too.
Dogen was a piker. No one can do drowsy, powerless sitting like me!
Dogen lifted a lot of his material outright, I think.
It was eerie to watch the video of Tasajara in the early days, just ’cause it did indeed look to me like a cult, after all these years.
Not that I was there and could say that it didn’t look like a cult at the time; I wasn’t there, but I was powerfully inspired by Kobun’s presence in Santa Cruz in the early 70’s, so I feel I can relate to what the people affiliated with the San Francisco Zen Center must have felt, when Suzuki was with them.
Just that on film now, or at least in the film I linked, it’s hard to feel that inspiration. And maybe that’s the same phenomenon that Brad is pointing to: Ram Dass’s book and the figures in it probably seemed like a part of the coming age of Aquarius to many at the time, but now all the actors that were part of the drama back in the day just seem ordinary and even tarnished, in a lot of cases.
Expectations were high. Philip Kapleau wrote a book about the kensho experiences of modern students. Suzuki Roshi said somebody had become enlightened (even if they didn’t know it at the time)- that’s a good one, isn’t it!
Kobun spoke of his guerilla army.
Even now, Grace Schireson is inspired by her second teacher saying that the equality of women is what’s happening in American Zen, and he pegged her roshi-o-meter just like Kobun did mine.
I don’t disagree with Brad, that the expectation of charisma and enlightenment in Zen is something of a distraction these days, and can blind us to “the place where (we) are, (where) practice occurs”. I guess that says a lot about how far we’ve come, in terms of accepting Everyday Zen ® , but how many know that this involves the same ishinashini that got Sasaki into trouble?
Did you know Angie, Mark?
I have a Dharma friend who lives in Texas. Our friend, A beginner, must know him. Anyway, he took up with Fr. Pat Hawk of the Diamond Sangha (and Redemptorists). Before Hawk-roshi’s death, my friend would brag about his total lack of charisma.
Still around, Andy? I thought I should say that reflecting on what teacher you would want is somewhat parallel to teenagers talking about their ideal bf/gf. Love happens beyond your control. Whom nature and Aphrodite throw together is often surprising.
Not that there is no utility to thinking about it.
Wish Angie lived on the East Coast.
I have tried to watch that movie twice and never gotten more than half way through. (I’m kind of hit and miss with David O Russell.) But I do remember the blanket scene.
Good article. Thank you.
It is one thing when a Ramming Das makes himself believe that young chicks would be attracted to him. Another thing is when others easily find that possible. I have seen guys like him, and they regularly had to pay. Otherwise their selection would have just become too limited to suit their vaning libido.
nope, its waning.
Vaning’s a good word.
“Weather vaning is when a ship/boat/wings of a windmill/aircraft is allowed to spin in the direction of wind freely”
Rammy lets his penis spin in the wind freely hoping something good will happen to it.
“Our real place is right here, in this realm, in the regular old work-a-day world. That’s where our greatest duty lies.”
Gasp!…Does this mean….Brad has got himself a real job? Say it ain’t so!
C’mon! We want to go on believing a Zen master can just do the Zenning on the weekends and get along, you know, with the occasional reunion of his rock band and donations and stuff.
Speaking of that, I personally want to applaud “a begginner in Texas” (fine state btw) for finding his practice in his work and his work in his practice. That is a rare thing, indeed. Just ask Brad!
otaku00: I see you’re still here. Sorry that I let ‘tomorrow’ slip by without my promised reply. (given timezones and such, tomorrow is a bit of a movable feast, but still I’m definitely late).
Thanks again for your reply to my original query (about what you meant by ‘reality’/’illusion’, and how you thought Dogen or Nishijima diverge from original Ch’an). The reason that I didn’t respond is, I don’t know what to say: I was thinking about it, but couldn’t come up with anything. Your conception of what Buddhism is about, and what Ch’an is/was, seems so radically different from mine, that I couldn’t see a basis for conversation that wouldn’t turn into an interminable debate about the definition of terms. (this may just be a symptom of my own simplistic or one-sided understanding)
I am genuinely grateful for your thought-provoking response, though. Thanks.
“Even now, Grace Schireson is inspired by her second teacher saying that the equality of women is what’s happening in American Zen, and he pegged her roshi-o-meter just like Kobun did mine.
I don’t disagree with Brad, that the expectation of charisma and enlightenment in Zen is something of a distraction these days, and can blind us to “the place where (we) are, (where) practice occurs”. I guess that says a lot about how far we’ve come, in terms of accepting Everyday Zen ® , but how many know that this involves the same ishinashini that got Sasaki into trouble?”
Good stuff, and we get to bash on Grace.
That will-less paw belonged to a fox that had trouble with cause and effect.
“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.”
– Dogen Zenji
“Strive to awaken” Is that the same as experience/not experience enlightenment?
No Dad, it means you need to get up in the morning and go to work to pay my college bills. Where’d that milkman go?
“how you thought Dogen or Nishijima diverge from original Ch’an”
The living Chan flows through portals of reality that give shape to the perception of its emergence.
This Chan is ungraspable, ie., the Tao that can be known isn’t it, and we confuse the shape of the portal of expression for the unknown.
THIS Chan is ungraspable…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc-A_DXa1nw
It takes a Chan to know a Chan.
“The living Chan flows through portals of reality that give shape to the perception of its emergence.”
Now you’ve got me doing it, Fred.
“Now you’ve got me doing it, Fred.”
An empty hand grasps the hoe handle
Is it just me?…
The Jackie Chan clip was great, thanks, Shinchan; might have to rent that one!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfYmc1MLG8o
Hey, Mark! Bet you missed my asking you, a-way up yonder, if you knew Angie from Jikoji times.
I think I’ve heard Angie Boissevain lecture once, I can’t remember when. Smiled at her at the last Kobun memorial sitting, and she smiled back. She was arriving Saturday afternoon, along with Frances Carney and I believe Carolyn Atkinson, as I was leaving.
Did you sit much with Angie?
I spent two months in Arcata eleven years ago. I had already sat, once or twice in decades past, with a group started by a Humboltd State professor. My intent was to do everything they offered while I was there.
The group had lost their teacher, Maylie Scott, to cancer just a couple of years before that. The hoi polloi essentially ran the place.
After two weeks of sitting at every service and temple maintenance, I was socially integrated enough that, when Angie came up for a three-day, she thought I was a regular. The first thing we did, about twenty of us, when she arrived was take a long beach walk up by Trinidad Head. Great way to get to know each other.
I sat next to her at oryoki. Watching her clean her bowl with the setsu, I felt resonant.
James said there’s something special about Kobun’s lineage. Some teachers are like the tide; some like a thunderstorm. Angie was like a trickle of water flowing down a mossy rock.
“Now you’ve got me doing it, Fred.”
“Is it just me?…”
Doing what, Mark? Is it just you what?
It’s probably just the order I read things in, Fred, but suddenly everything seemed like a double-entendre. Ah, well, say no more!
Gosh darnit (is that right?). I made a mistake and put a post on an old thread, here: http://hardcorezen.info/the-scarlet-letter-z-for-zen/3269/comment-page-2#comment-68004 . Don’t miss it. It’s very important.
Malcolm on Z.F.I
“The bodhi, the understanding/wisdom/enlightenment/awakening referred to by the Buddha is the integration of a holisitic philosophy and way of living that we might, in modern terms, characterise as a kind of pragmatic humanism with therapeutic purpose and method, not access to a supramundane state in which privileged insights into ultimate metaphysical truths are revealed and/or modes of blameless behaviour granted like boons from the gods.”
I said holisitic, didn’t I. I’ll sort that. Thanks.
“1. as a kind of pragmatic humanism with therapeutic purpose and method
2.not access to a supramundane state in which privileged insights into ultimate metaphysical truths are revealed.”
Many people have experienced/not experienced but were being the supra/supermundane state, so much, that you could say that the insight was not privileged.
This truth of experience/no experience was not metaphysical, ie. not above and beyond physical reality. It was the truth right here and now, of the here and now, without intervening input from the abstract, conditioned intellect.
Fair enough, Fred. The ZFI post addressed a particular question from Michaelmj :
“Almost every man and his dog are reporting enlightenment :blush:
I wonder if some scholars could look at the actual word in the language of the day from which it originated and tell us if the translation is accurate.”
I think there are difference between what Gautama Buddha was talking about and later applications/understandings of his teaching (particularly Zen).
I make an attempt to deal with some aspects of the points you make – the (no)experience, non conditioned-intellect thing – in my up-coming blogpost. I doubt you’ll be impressed.
Here, for the skipping-backwards-and-forwards averse, is a link to the ZFI post: http://www.zenforuminternational.org/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=10993&p=170311#p170311
““Almost every man and his dog are reporting enlightenment :blush”
What would you expect with the commercialization of mindfulness?
I appreciate scholarship as well as people’s opinions, especially those worthy of respect, like your linguistic endeavors Malcolm, or Fred’s opinions. Or Brad’s one-note bitching about other spiritual teacher’s. However, for me, it is simply entertaining. This is not something I will be taking with me…
I am not knocking or begrudging any sort of belief in an afterlife or the accumulation of good behavior vs bad that buys a person some kind of golden key to heaven.
For me, I get great peace knowing there’s nothing out there waiting for me. Nothing. And nothing I do here will affect that one way or the other.
Where I came from I will go to again, and while I am here I recognize I am always there as well, and in that there is great and abiding peace.
One way to knock down self-importance and self-cherishing is to think of our grandparents. Or if possibly we were close enough to know them, maybe go back one further: your great-grandparents. Did you know them?
They were human beings just like we are, with hopes and dreams and lifetimes of experiences that they thought were special in their own way. Do we know what they were? Has that information made it into this present tense? Does it mean anything to us now?
How long will even the things that we create -or the good things we do- that may survive us last? And what will they -what will “we” as people- mean to our grand kids or great grand kids?
Each has its own time and place, and then all goes back to not knowing. The priorities of daily living just do not require it. And rightly so.
At best our lives will be reduced to “you should’ve known your grandpa (or grandma or great grandpa/grandma, aunt/uncle, whatever)” “he/she was an interesting person.” And there will be little elaboration beyond this.
Who do we think we are? An accumulation of what exactly? Knowledge comes and goes. It changes with each generation. In no time what was once “new” is “old”, passé. An artifact. A memory. Forgotten.
Except for this, of course! 😉
Absolutely true!
” I doubt you’ll be impressed. ” I am impressed. I wonder when Mr Wonderwheel will wander into the fray and grab these enlightened mutts by their muzzes.
“They were human beings just like we are, with hopes and dreams and lifetimes of experiences that they thought were special in their own way. Do we know what they were? Has that information made it into this present tense? Does it mean anything to us now?”
My grandparents were Spiritualists communicating with the dead
Has Antony returned the favor?
*anyone*
Damn autocorrect!
No, no!!! Minkfoot!! No mistakes, just “happy accidents…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MDlMdu2gjw
Right! Antony, too!
If it be your will
Have a happy accident
Let me take this pill
Turn the light and
Shine it inward
Make this mind still.
Not my will but thine
Father, forgive them!
They have no more wine–
The fox has a den,
The Man must go a twisted line
To achieve his Eden
Sounds like a meditation on impermanence, Mumbles.
The last four of the sixteen in Gautama’s own practice were:
“[One] trains [oneself], thinking: ‘I will breathe in… breathe out beholding impermanence… beholding detachment… beholding stopping… beholding casting away.”
(MN III 82-83, PTS III pg 124)
anon 108, here’s an interesting juxtaposition: the “perfect wisdom” I assume is the same bodhi (per the Monier-Williams’s Sanskrit Dictionary definition):
“Whatever… is material shape, past, future or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, mean or excellent, or whatever is far or near, (a person), thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling… perception… the habitual tendencies… whatever is consciousness, past, future, or present… (that person), thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. (For one) knowing thus, seeing thus, there are no latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body.”
(MN III 18-19, Pali Text Society III pg 68)
Sounds a lot like Sawaki’s pure zazen, as far as “non-self”, but the ishinashini enters in with “there are no latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body”; Sasaki had no latent conceits about being the doer behind the hand.
And oddly enough, it’s this that is the force behind the hand, near as I can figure:
‘When “I” am not a separate subject, then I fill the entire universe. That I fill the entire universe is what’s meant by “all things manifest the truth”.’
And yet his beliefs seem to have entered into his actions. The crossroads of nonthinking and “thinking like all get out”, IMO, and “you better pray, that they never find you”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xXvZ3f7Z1A
Nice to hear about walking along the shore with Angie and the sangha, minkfoot, and your characterization of her teaching.
Sasaki was angry when called out on his sexual antics, even smashing a teacup.
He was the doer in regard to the consciousness informed body, and splitting off responsibility for the actions of the body was either a scam or a mental aberration locked in samsara.
‘The crossroads of nonthinking and “thinking like all get out”, is Dogen’s weighscale hanging in emptiness. In Sasaki’s case it tipped to one side, but his followers were blinded by the illusionary promise of enlightenment.
What I don’t get in those accusations is: Do the writers really not see that they are not (yet) able to get anything out on the level of Sasaki e.g.? Sasaki did not promise any enlightenment, on the contrary. In the teisho from the 70s (obviously one of the rare writings that we have from him) which Brad liked, too, he told his listeners:
a) Zen-masters can be very unfriendly.
b) Be who you are.
c) Zen is for the sick.
d) Don’t be attached to what I am saying.
It seems that some people are just the victims of their own projections on Sasaki. It isn’t that he didn’t inform them adequately.
Do you see words that say that Sasaki promised enlightenment. No.
You see ” the illusionary promise of enlightenment ” the attraction of the moths to the flame.
Anyway, I could go through his stuff and find words about becoming god, or whatever.
“Q: The eyes open state – is that an impediment to satori?
Joshu Sasaki : Actually the eyes open state is enlightenment.”
There is no need to project onto Sasaki. Clear words what he said are available.
Joshu Sasaki:
“There’s only one and yet there are many. When mother and father and child are in one embrace there’s no need to think. In other words, subject and object have both simultaneously vanished. That’s one satori and Buddhism teaches that husband and wife are always manifesting these different positions of subject and object. However, whenever both subjective and objective positions disappear that means the I am self has also disappeared. That means there’s no need to assert the I am self. But when the state of satori is manifest, husband and wife, subject and object, have both gone – vanished. So everybody will experience this state of subject-object, wife-husband, disappearing and find peace of mind in that. But we all must look forward to tomorrow and looking forward to tomorrow is just going from eyes closed to eyes open. Eyes open is looking toward tomorrow and when the eyes are open there’s a new wife and a new husband. They have to go on another honeymoon”
‘During our conversations he said all sorts of things. “I am like a doctor. You wouldn’t be angry if I touched your wife’s breasts or vagina if I were a doctor examining her.” “Ok, maybe I have a sickness, but I will be the leader of all those with the same sickness!” “My hand just moves. It’s will-less (ishinashini).”’
…I tried to defend my position to my friends and family. I told them I believed he was a very good Zen teacher, but I did not think he was trustworthy about anything to do with his own personal behavior in the realm of sex. It was a hard sell.
…The sentiment I remember hearing the most from other Oshos was some version of, “We must weigh the good of Joshu Roshi’s teaching against the bad. The good is incredibly good. He is probably the most enlightened person alive in this world. There is no way to stop the bad, only contain it. He will never change. The good, however, far outweighs the bad. If we try to guide Joshu Roshi towards changing his behavior he will resign and stop teaching, and all the good will be lost.”’
I would say that the reason the Oshos were all confident that Joshu Roshi had the right stuff is that sometimes his hand just moved, and sometimes his zazen got up and walked around- it was will-less. The action resulted from Sasaki finding the place where he was such that practice began, even at the top of the 100-foot pole amid the foaming breakers; Sasaki filled the whole world, his zazen got up and walked around, his hand just moved.
What did he teach: something he didn’t understand. The place where we are fills the world, the fundamental point is actualized, Sasaki embodied this. The role that belief plays, and the importance of science and culture in arriving at what we believe, is not on the radar of many Zen practitioners, but it’s coming around.
ok, maybe it’s not coming around. Maybe I made that part up!
Again, a teacher is what the students make of him. All those who complained and were fondled could have slapped his face. The thing is – he might have thought highly of them, or at least they should have thought so of themselves (“Alas, I am free to hit my master back!”). So the students failed as well.
Thirty years ago, one of the first women I talked to who was a zen-adept and had spent a long time in a Rinzai monastery in Japan told me of the common sex attacks by monks there, even some she considered rapes. She also mentioned how she got beaten up by her master during her training. I immediately asked (having come to zen through only after a first insight – still being a Christian -, and not out of curiosity) why she didn’t hit him back, and she was stunned by that question. It would have been impossible, she said. I immediately understood that s.th. was wrong with her perception. This continued over the last decades, and I am always reminded of that by new scandals and the archives about Shimano and Sasaki.
I read stories in the Sasaki-archive that he could very well respect a clear no and backtrack. I do not know if anyone went further.
I’ve posted my Enlightenment rant here: http://malcolmmarkovich.blogspot.co.uk/
108/Malcolm:
“How do we decide what an experience – particularly an unusual experience – means? What determines the mutation of a bare experience into something meaningful, like an ‘insight’ or an ‘awakening’? Do we trust the experiencer to correctly interpret the significance of an experience? Do we trust an authority on spiritual matters to confirm the truth of an insight? I don’t think so. A human being is a bunch of stuff. It’s pretty foolish of a bunch of stuff to assign stuff-transcendent meaning to a stuff-induced experience. Why should we expect ‘the ground of all being’ to reveal itself to us?”
Simon Child once said, “When you win the prize, there’s no one there to accept it.” So where’s the problem?
” Our real place is right here, in this realm, in the regular old work-a-day world. That’s where our greatest duty lies. That’s where our real job is…”
All of this sounds like a defense of the modernized, married suburban way of life, Brad.
I agree with you on:
“There’s a sense in a lot of these practices that the important things are all happening somewhere else. Their practices seem to be geared toward getting folks out of this world and onto some place cooler.”
HOWEVER,
Practice is about no longer fearing solitude and getting a good dose of it.
The truth is we are all alone. No one will be able to ever truly understand or sympathize with us, so we have to come to terms with how it’s only the mind’s conditioned habit of babbling that puts us down. Once the mind’s babble ceases, there are no others.
Frequent solitude helps with this the most.
Babble, babble, little self,
How I wonder what you are!
Emerging upward, up so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is gone,
The inward step turn upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the loner in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark;
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.
In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye
‘Till the sun is in the sky.
Your poetry isn’t that great, Fred, no offense…
It doesn’t come from an original mind.
But in a way, isn’t it rather remarkable that anything exists?
Once God let something come out of nothing, she had to let EVERYTHING come into being. It was only fair.
Boy, that’s some nothing, eh?
Should we be referring to this place as The Oops?
“Only if insight encourages behaviour resulting in less suffering for self and others does it mean anything worth meaning.”
Interesting to me that you stopped sitting, Malcolm.
My sitting first thing in the morning is literally the highlight of my day; maybe that means I’ll have to stop sitting soon!
“There are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened action”; ‘enlightenment is beyond understanding’: zen teachers who inspire me manage to make analogies and metaphors that express where their action is coming from, even if they don’t express a linear understanding.
In the short piece Fred quoted above, I feel Sasaki is talking about where his action comes from, the ishinashini and even the way of life Sasaki adopted.
“…we all must look forward to tomorrow and looking forward to tomorrow is just going from eyes closed to eyes open”- Sasaki
I would put it this way:
“When I allow what I feel to enter into where I am, then my awareness remains free, and I can relax and keep my wits about me.”
In particular, awareness remains free to shift and move (as I describe here).
Now to me, Sasaki’s “we all must look forward to tomorrow and looking forward to tomorrow is just going from eyes closed to eyes open” is exactly “when I allow what I feel to enter into where I am, then my awareness remains free, and I can relax and keep my wits about me”. He’s talking about time as it unfolds in place, when he says “we all must look forward to tomorrow”, even though time as it unfolds in place has no past and no future to speak of, just a freedom.
My sitting first thing in the morning is literally the highlight of my day
———————————————————————————-
And then it’s all downhill from there?
My habit lately has been to sit around sunset – not necessarily the most “conducive” time, I’m finding. The other day, despite turning off my telephone ringer, I found myself with eyes closed, and yet a sudden flash of light came through closed eyelids and involuntarily I opened my eyes to read the caller ID on the silently “ringing” phone. But I did not have glasses on and was too far away to read it. Back to meditation, with newly-stimulated thoughtforms arising because of this “interruption”. When the meditation was over, I checked the phone – it was a telemarketer. They always call around dinnertime. But it’s amazing how sensitive the human nervous system can get to be, especially during meditation, at even the slightest environmental disturbance.
Strictly speaking of time and creativity, in the sense that the creative act measures time, or possibly tries to unmask time by leaving behind an undeniable artifact. Or possibly it is the artist’s confirmation or denial of mortality, or both. The artifact is a definite measure of time: of the time it took to appear in its present form, the investment of the artist’s time and effort within it, and ultimately how long it will last.
In the workaday world time just rolls, if it exists at all, in a flurry of really meaningless acts, futile acts, repetitive acts. Of course, any artistic activity resides in this all-encompassing use of the concept of time and accompanying human endeavor. But the artist fights against the meaningless flow by throwing out life rafts that are ultimately futile but just might alert one that there is a constant flow going on. So the artist is an agent of awareness, a cartographer of the peaks and valleys of human experience…
Houellebecq is an idiot, Mumbles. I looked into him more and he’s nothing but a modern day Marquis de Sade.
The true creative act is not within time and is like a spark. It is especially evidence in solitude when the mind is quiescent and words flow from the background of stillness.
Meaning is not dependent on words or letters as the Lankavatara Sutra pointed out. True meaning originates from the unborn silence of the mind, especially during deep Shikantaza or solitude within natural scenery.
Mark -I used to really enjoy sitting, too. Then one day I didn’t sit, then another… Very occasionally I’m aware of the thought ‘I wonder why I stopped? Why don’t I spend time worrying about it?’ The thought never lasts.
I do sometimes sit in full lotus when I’m using the computer. Some of those times sitting that way makes me turn off the computer and sit in silence for a half hour or so.
mb, over time I’ve come to the conclusion that repeated sittings don’t necessarily benefit my practice. They may have other benefits, but most often the sittings are a lot like Kobun described: “if you sit all day you have a good sitting once or twice…”.
I remember talking to Laura Shinko Kwong at Sonoma Mountain years ago, about possibly becoming a resident; her advice was that the important thing was to practice regularly every day, and that I could just as well do that from home and it might be better (or words to that effect).
I know a couple of Western teachers who would rather sit three day sesshins and forgo the seven day standard. These are abbots who must know what they are talking about, as far as the usefulness of extended sittings to them at this point in their lives (past 50).
That said, I would have to add that as I have expressed before here on Brad’s Comment Madness, I feel I have had particular developmental challenges in my life that I am still addressing. When I allow what I feel to enter into where I am, and my awareness remains free, I relax and my challenges unfold. There are no changes I can make apart from the natural unfolding of my challenges, as far as I’ve been able to tell. The best thing I’ve found so far is a sitting, for 40 minutes if possible, first thing in the morning.
John, the peculiar thing about art is the way one framework of time seems to be expressed in a work, in spite of the length of time required to produce the composition(s)- IMHO. Something as to why many musicians still think in terms of an album, in the iPad age?
Mr. MM, you and Drew Hempel; he used to write regularly about sitting in the lotus everywhere, including in front of the computer. Drew was sitting two hours straight in the lotus every day, because Chunyi Lin told him that’s what those who wanted to be healers had to do. Another career path I apparently will have to forgo!
clear as mud! What I meant to say, mb, was that unfolding my challenges feels like the most significant thing I do, and getting up off the cushion feels more the way Kobun described it, all for fun.
Hi Mark, I find that when I am writing, painting, or playing music I might go on and on for hours and completely lose track of time altogether, just like sitting practice.
What I was trying to say above was that an artist has something to show for the time spent on doing something, a marker of time that has passed, while experiencing timelessness within it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0JKCYZ8hng
Thanks for that Mumbles. Made me think of this, that I read recently…
… About the same time I started dabbling with zazen, I’d taken up playing the fiddle again (I’d put it down in my teens because guitars were better for pulling girls). After a while, people started telling me they liked my playing because it was ‘honest’ or ‘true’. That was encouraging. At the time I guessed that the zazen was somehow letting me let the music happen, instead of me making a point with the music, or showing off. A couple of times, it really seemed like music was playing itself. I guessed that when someone is performing at the edge of their ability, the brain has to let go of its ‘selfing’ function: to concentrate on the present moment of performance. All the “I want to’s” and “I’m gonna’s” get shelved, and the subject/object distinction goes away briefly.
I don’t play any more. Zazen gradually started to feel more important. Maybe I should. I hear that even a dogged zazen freak like Uchiyama had a sideline in origami. Maybe playing music is a good complement to meditation practice?
I’m still adding and substracting to/from my blogpost. This bit’s new:
Brad Warner says: “[E]nlightenment is not an experience. It is something we all possess. It is something we all are.” This sounds like a ‘ground of all being’ type of thing, and I while I agree that something whole is going on of which I am part, I wouldn’t call it ‘enlightenment’. Nor would I expect to recognise or understand it. We live in semidarkness.
Never finished. But right now I like the last bit.*
* which has changed 4 or 5 times during the course of writing this.
“* which has changed 4 or 5 times during the course of writing this.”
That’s just it, isn’t it Malcolm? Honest opinions change over time. When we’ve decided “Eureka! this is it!!” There isn’t any room for doubt, and doubt is an essential ingredient for dismantling the tyranny of thought & opinion.
Once that house of cards comes tumbling down and “I don’t know” appears, you’re really getting somewhere. Um, In my humble opinion…
Honest opinions change over time…doubt is an essential ingredient for dismantling the tyranny of thought & opinion
Absolutely right ; )
This is really a comment for a couple of Brad’s posts back… Do you have a street ministry thing adjunct to the center, Brad? Are you taking it to the streets??
“It would be really easy to live in the city and teach at a Zen center and do nothing but Buddhist teaching. I wouldn’t want to do it that way. I’d rather go out and start working in the neighborhoods as much as I could, because I think you have to work the ground for a Buddhist society first. You can’t just leave your society the way it is and say ‘We offer this as one of the teachings.’ You’ve got to help the society get its feet on the ground before those teachings can begin to flourish.”
– Gary Snyder, “Nothing Need Be Done”
Thank you, Fred. That confirms what I said.
It contradicts what you said, but it doesn’t really matter.
3/10 for your trolling.
Important news: Minor adjustments for style and clarity are still ongoing with my blogpost, but I’m getting close to calling it done. Thing is, most people who are interested enough to read it will have already read the clumsier version. I should have waited. But one can only take so much deferred approval.
http://malcolmmarkovich.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/enlightenment.html , by the way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyFwu7VPbzQ
“Insight into the ultimately true nature of stuff is neither here nor there. Only if insight encourages behaviour resulting in less suffering for self and others does it mean anything worth meaning.”
Suffering comes from clinging to a viewpoint. A viewpoint could be that my wife whom I love very much isn’t suppose to die from cancer, or that my job isn’t suppose to be eliminated. In life anything and everything can happen. The atoms and molecules are being rearranged, and nothing stays the same.
If you expect everything to decay, how can there be suffering. Decay is normal.
Experiencing/not experiencing a state of no self is not going to change the external behavior so that someone else does not suffer. They create their own suffering.
Oh, I think it’s possible to add to the suffering of other beings. If so, it’s possible also to diminish it for others. True, however, that self-caused suffering can’t be relieved without the self un-causing it.
Any effect has more than one cause. Any cause has more than one effect. Absolute affirmations about particular causalities seemed doomed to inadequacy.
vayadhammÄ saá¹…khÄrÄ appamÄdena sampÄdetha
Your perseverance inspires me.
If the uncausing and unattached ones are modelling unsuffering, the suffering ones could be thinking ‘why have I not achieved that’ and feel double the suffering.
Cite?
On the other hand, if the uncausing and unattached ones are not modelling unsuffering, the suffering ones could be thinking ‘no one can achieve that’ and feel double the suffering.
If the suffering ones suffer irregardless of whether the uncausing and unattached ones do or do not model unsuffering, then there is nothing to be done. Strive on with diligence. What is and what should not be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzK0pYJbfKg
Or on the other hand, it’s just religious belief witch satisfies our natural desire for meaning.
The natural desire for meaning is a crutch to prop up the constricted self/ego so that it can go on suffering, deriving meaning from the suffering.
I suffer therefore I am.
While sitting on the zafu, one sees the snafu.
It’s basically a survival mechanism, one of many. Is our desire for food and water also a crutch to prop up the constricted self/ego so that it can go on suffering? According to the Buddhist belief system, probably.
Necessity, you inventive mothers!
No choice had the exalted one, and too bad he didn’t indicate that such was his condition, to those imagining otherwise.
Now some folks have to venture into water over their heads to rediscover necessity. Witness Gautama at the river, and Shunryu Suzuki at the swimming hole.
How ya gonna keep ’em, down on the farm:
“One needs to be a little wary of English translations as they may obscure aspects of the original. For instance the first two words might also be translated as “all things are disappointing. The word appamÄda can be translated as “mindful” but it has a specific reference which is not brought out by this rendering. AppamÄda could be translated as “not-blind-drunk on the objects of the senses” – which refers to the average persons intoxication with sensory and mental experiences. SampÄdetha does mean “to strive” but clearly also suggests success.”
Tie lead weights to their underwear, that oughta do it.
Hey, Malcolm; did you see my “Bat on a City Street”?- http://www.zenmudra.com/zazen-notes/blog_detail.php?post_id=165
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3IQpWoK6q4
Just read it, Mark. I like it. But I feel like I’m stuck in the Cartesian theatre pretty much all the time. You seem to be much more sensitive to information coming from other places.
and in other ways.
Holy crap, was that a rerun of a conversation. It felt like deja vu.
Thanks for reading it, Malcolm. I just like falling (upright), and am amazed to find the wind moving my limbs sometimes when I am. Ishinashini. Everything I write is groping in the dark to reconcile my experience with my beliefs, out of necessity.
Anybody up for self-mummification as a highly advanced spiritual state?
http://www.cnet.com/news/ct-scan-finds-mummified-monk-inside-1000-year-old-buddha/
“In Japan, monks seeking self-mummification would begin a 1,000-day diet of water, seeds and nuts, followed by a 1,000-day diet of roots, pine bark and a special tea made from the sap of the Chinese lacquer tree — a toxic substance usually used to lacquer bowls and plates, used by the monks to repel maggots and bacteria. Then they would be sealed in a stone tomb to await death.
A further 1,000 days after the monk’s death, the tomb would be unsealed; those monks who had achieved mummification would be venerated in temples, while those who had not would remain entombed, respected for their attempt”.