Living Up to Our Insights

This week we’re looking at “forgetting the self” and I’ve asked the people in the practice period to comment on one of their dharma insights and how they’re actualizing it. Now, of course, we all fall down and are imperfect in our application of what we’ve realized to our everyday life.

One insight that we might apply is to forgive our bumbling selves and others as we walk along together.

To clarify what I said in the last post, I’m thinking that “balance” between practice and verification is less important (as well as “dualistic” and static) than to focus on the dynamic-practicing-verification conversation with ourselves, our teachers and our community. I’d call that Integrated Zen.

The Ten Ox Herding Pictures and Five Ranks and much of Shobogenzo (and lots of other sources) point to the importance of this aspect of practice. I find Ox pictures 4 – 6 particularly instructive and contrary to most students’ expectations – after a glimpse, then the ox metaphor shifts so that greed, anger and ignorance become the ox that must be dealt with.

This is also where the difference between our glimpse of the truth and our everyday life is nauseatingly apparent and ego dystonic! “In that gap,” Katagiri Roshi often said, “cold wind blows.”

I remember having dinner with a friend (now a priest and teacher in the altered state of California) during one such period in my practice and confessing that I couldn’t stand seeing how stinky I was. “Oh, well, so Dosho isn’t perfect,” she teased. “You goin’ quit or something just because of that?”

What a good friend.

Reflecting on this point, I remembered the often quoted Buddha’s advice to the Kalama people:

Do not believe something just because it has been passed along and retold for many generations. Do not believe something merely because it has become a traditional practice. Do not believe something simply because it is well-known everywhere. Do not believe something just because it is cited in a text. Do not believe something solely on the grounds of logical reasoning. Do not believe something merely because it accords with your philosophy. Do not believe something because it appeals to “common sense.” Do not believe something just because you like the idea. Do not believe something because the speaker seems trustworthy. Do not believe something thinking, “This is what our teacher says….” Kalamas, when you yourselves directly know, “These things are wholesome, blameless, praised by the wise; when adopted and carried out they lead to well-being, prosperity and happiness,” then you should accept and practice them.”

The whole “no not” part is what gets the most attention in our individualistic society but what I find most interesting and challenging is the Buddha’s simple ending: What you’ve seen yourself, accept and live up to.

Digging into this a bit, I found an essay by the Venerable Bhikku Bodhi about the context for this sutta and how it is often misunderstood (click here to check it out). Here’s his going-beyond-my-point conclusion:

What can be justly maintained is that those aspects of the Buddha’s teaching that come within the purview of our ordinary experience can be personally confirmed within experience, and that this confirmation provides a sound basis for placing faith in those aspects of the teaching that necessarily transcend ordinary experience. Faith in the Buddha’s teaching is never regarded as an end in itself nor as a sufficient guarantee of liberation, but only as the starting point for an evolving process of inner transformation that comes to fulfillment in personal insight. But in order for this insight to exercise a truly liberative function, it must unfold in the context of an accurate grasp of the essential truths concerning our situation in the world and the domain where deliverance is to be sought. These truths have been imparted to us by the Buddha out of his own profound comprehension of the human condition. To accept them in trust after careful consideration is to set foot on a journey which transforms faith into wisdom, confidence into certainty, and culminates in liberation from suffering.