A MEDITATION ON THE (ZEN) ART OF JUST SITTING

The text is brief. “The Huayen Sutra says, ‘Now when I look at all beings everywhere, I see that each of them possesses the wisdom and virtue of the Tathagata, but because of their attachment and delusion, they cannot bear witness to it.’”

I suggest this longish sentence contains the essentials of our silent illumination way, both the details of how and to what purpose we take it on.  Koans make assertions from the standpoint of wisdom and invite responses. This case simply lays it all out for us, and very much, invites us into an intimate conversation, a dance with reality. It also shows where koan and silent illumination become a single practice.

Earlier today I was re-reading Taigen Leighton’s Cultivating the Empty Field, a collection of Hongzhi’s writings together with a very interesting introductory essay by Sensei Leighton. And it was Taigen’s essay that sparked these thoughts about Hongzhi, and the case. If you haven’t read it, I commend it to you.

As you probably know, Hongzhi Zhengjue lived from the end of the eleventh century through the middle of the twelfth century. One thread of our Boundless Way lineages passes through his Dharma sibling Changlu Qingliao. And, of course, we’re eternally indebted to him for the Book of Serenity, which he compiled, and which features prominently in the Harada Yasutani koan curriculum that we follow here.

Again, as you probably know, Hongzhi has a place in Zen folklore as one half with Dahui Zonggao as the great early Twelfth century Chinese debaters about the relative merits of silent illumination and koan introspection practice. It is a subject that should be deeply interesting to us as folk who hold both disciplines as our heart practice. While often set up as opponents Dahui and Hongzhi were in fact close friends, and both engaged the discipline which they criticized only in its extreme forms. The master of just sitting was deeply intimate with the koan way. The master of koan never abandoned the pillow. So, perfect exemplars for us as we follow the path of awakening.

Their warnings are important. The criticism of a one sided devotion to koan introspection is how it can become arid, intellectual, and disconnected, while silent illumination practice can slip into torpidity, into a mere quietism.

As regards the missing of the point in just sitting, over the years I’ve seen a fair number of people who romance the samadhi states one encounters in deep zazen and lollygagging in the shallows, miss the boat of awakening. As Dahui warned this one sided romancing of silent illumination is teaching “people to stop and rest and play dead.”

And, without shikantaza, just sitting, as Dogen called it, or silent illumination as Hongzhi called it, we’re also lost, playing games with enlightenment. Hongzhi clearly understood this, writing in his Guideposts, “If illumination neglects serenity (the potential shadow of over emphasizing koan practice) then aggressiveness appears… (and) if serenity neglects illumination (the potential shadow of over emphasizing just sitting) murkiness leads to wasted dharma.”

So, what is the middle way of the Zen disciplines? What is our boundless way?

Well, it is about the whole of our lives, it is about life and death and everything in between. It is about healing the great hurt that lives near most everyone’s heart.

We sit not just for ourselves, but for the whole world.

It requires diligence. And it isn’t without cost.

As I’ve recounted elsewhere I first learned breath counting, a related practice to silent illumination, while sitting at Shunryu Suzuki’s temples. It was several years later when I took up with Jiyu Kennett that she told me to stop counting and to just sit. I did, but really, at first I didn’t really get it. The samadhi aspect, I got quickly. I was living in community and sitting a lot. And those lovely states just come naturally when you sit a lot.

Fortunately I wasn’t given a lot of time to wallow.

I’ve told this elsewhere, but it seems particularly germane for this talk. Myozen was a South African who went to Japan to study karate. She was attractive and to the Japanese exotic and soon had a boyfriend. She also came from a fairly strict Calvinistic Afrikaner family, and didn’t believe in fooling around outside of marriage. But when she declined his repeated requests to have sex, for her out of the blue, he killed himself.

Not long after that his ghost starting visiting her. She went to the local Shin priest and told him about this. He said this wasn’t really up his alley and that she should go to the Zen temple. Kennett Roshi was the abbess there. She told Myozen she could fix the problem, setting the young woman to sitting in shikantaza for long periods of time.

I don’t think a lot of instructions were involved. Sit down. Shut up. Pay attention. However, the roshi would, at irregular times come into the zendo and use a kyosaku, the awakening stick, to beat her violently on the shoulders. Eventually the ghost moved on the easier pickings.

Some years later, in San Francisco, when the roshi left the temple we sat at for a visit to England, she left Myozen in charge. I was set to sitting for long periods of time, and she would come in at irregular times and beat the shit out of me.

It drove me into a real presence.

I wasn’t just sitting, dreaming. I was sitting aware of everything, particularly the door into the zendo.

It was lively.

It was presence.

And it worked.

Now, we don’t need such things to get to the power and immediacy of just sitting. There are more gentle pointers. For instance case 67 of the Book of Serenity.

“Now when I look at all beings everywhere, I see that each of them possesses the wisdom and virtue of the Tathagata, but because of their attachment and delusion, they cannot bear witness to it.”

The little secret is that we’ve never, ever been separate from that intimate wisdom.

So, come on, bear witness.

It is all already here; we just need to notice.

All we have to do is to let go of attachments to this or that. Only for a moment, only for a heartbeat, or two. Certainly don’t worry; the attachments will come back. But worry about that when it happens. Right now. Right here. Let go of the stories that have sustained your ideas of reality. I’m not good enough. I’m way too good for this. Whatever. Let go, just for a moment, turn the eye inward, and just notice.

Be present.

Bear witness.

In the Grass Roof Hermitage our direct ancestor Shitou calls us to “turn around the light to shine within and then just return.” Hongzhi calls us to “turn within and drop off everything completely, and realization will occur.” Dogen tells us to “cease practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself. Body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will be manifest.”

You don’t need a stick beating you into the moment.

Just turn the eye inward, look and notice.

The whole thing will reveal itself.

As it has for many over the many years.

For instance, this becomes the stuff of Dogen’s awakening. When his master Rujing found the young monk sleeping, he says “To study the way is to cast off body/mind. Why are you engaged in single minded sleeping instead of single minded sitting?” With these words Dogen saw into the fundamental matter.

Bearing witness.

Don’t cling to this or that.

Just notice.

Still not clear?

Directly to the point of the case, at early in his training, while at Shangshan Temple, Hongzhi heard a monk reciting from the Huayen Sutra, “The eyes which our parents give us can behold three thousand worlds.” Hearing this he had his first awakening.

You can do the same. Just listen with your full being.

Cast off attachments to body as something special, or to mind as something special. Just be here. These eyes, these ears, this body beholds the three thousand worlds.

Just this.

Just this ordinary body that you were given by your parents. Here’s the secret. Your body has within it a full and complete capacity to know the Buddha’s wisdom and virtue. Not someone else’s body. Yours. And it isn’t found some other place. Here. Just here.

Always, just here.

The practice of our way is the practice of presence. This is silent illumination. This is just sitting.

Need a little more? How about some practice instructions from our master Hongzhi?

A person of the Way fundamentally does not dwell anywhere.

The white clouds are fascinated with the green mountain’s

foundation. The bright moon cherishes being carried along with

the flowing water. The clouds part and the mountain appears.

The moon sets and the water is cool. Each bit of autumn contains

vast interpenetration without bounds.

This is silent illumination.

This is just sitting.

This is the way.

Any questions?