On Separation And Resistance

J. asks: I want to ask about non-dual practice in relation to “resistance.” It seems to me that mindfulness itself is inherently non-dual. Therefore, when we single out something that is a “problem” such as “resistance” and try to do away with it…haven’t we left zazen? (Or ego? Or mind?)

I ask it because many teachers seem to, to me anyway, paint resistance in a corner as a bad thing that must go…how can one really practice like this?

Kind Regards, J.

Dosho’s response: From my perspective, mindfulness is inherently dualistic because with mindfulness there is a subject viewing an object. Maybe you mean something different by that word. As the mind settles more and more in zazen, it can be seen how subtle the dualistic mind is. Every moment of awareness seems to be tangled in I and thou. A mind being not-quite-full of something.

This separation can be “bridged,” so to speak but not by trying to kill the separation or by trying to kill resistance either. And of course cynicism or escapism or resistance don’t really deal with the issue either. A creative third way must be found by each practitioner simultaneous with the creative third way finding the practitioner, usually in the human form of a teacher.

“How can I go beyond self consciousness?” became my found koan when I was working with Katagiri-roshi. One of the chapters in Keep Me In Your Heart Awhile presents this issue and my experience working with it (warning: unabashed book plug). In my view it is the crux of the matter of our suffering and therefore a vital Zen issue that is probably necessary to work in the context of the teacher-student relationship.

Again, thank you for your question.

Comments about this or the following poem welcome.

Here’s Rilke (one Katagiri-roshi’s favorite poets) framing the issue:

We never have pure space in front of us,

not for a single day, such as flowers open

endlessly into. Always there is world,

and never the Nowhere without the Not: the pure,

unwatched-over, that one breathes and

endlessly knows, without craving. As a child

loses itself sometimes, one with the stillness, and

is jolted back. Or someone dies and is it.

Since near to death one no longer sees death,

and stares ahead, perhaps with the large gaze of the creature.

Lovers are close to it, in wonder, if

the other were not always there closing off the view…..

As if through an oversight it opens out

behind the other……But there is no

way past it, and it turns to world again.

Always turned towards creation, we see

only a mirroring of freedom

dimmed by us. Or that an animal

mutely, calmly is looking through and through us.

This is what fate means: to be opposite,

and to be that and nothing else, opposite, forever.

On Separation and Resistance