On Watering It Down For The West

I enjoy the “No Zen in the West” blog of Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler (it seems to be messed up somehow tonight though so you might check back again soon).

Recently Jiryu has been chewing on the question of whether to stick to the real McCoy of the true Buddhadharma or offer people what they want, re-creating the Buddhadharma to fit with people’s interests.

Jiryu begins “No One Cares in the West” with a quote he attributes to the Soto Zen Buddhist Association (SZBA):

“Even if there is no one who is interested in such a practice [shikantaza], still the task of a mature priest is to emphasize and teach this.”

I had something to do with the inclusion of this passage in the SZBA priest training document. When I was on the training committee, I wrote a draft of the section on the spirit of the Zen priest that quoted Katagiri Roshi – the source of the above statement. Somehow the attribution got dropped in the final draft. There are other Katagiri-isms in the document too and I smile every time I see them.

Originally, Roshi said something like this (I edited this from transcription):

Buddha’s teaching is what you have to do constantly right in the middle of Buddha. This is the most important request to everyone. If you become a priest, whatever happens, constantly be there. Even though people don’t like, still we have to emphasize. Even if there is no one who is interested in such a zazen, still you can emphasize and teach without poking your head into different beautiful colors people are interested in.

Roshi was quite a stickler for the fundamental, standing up right in the middle of Buddha, as he says. He goes on to talk about the Dr. Seuss book with the world gone completely human and a child appreciating the last flower and the hope for the future in that act.

Most everybody studying with Katagiri at the time got into that book which was quite cute. We were a bunch of overly serious, short haired Zennists in black, after all, sitting around reading Dr. Seuss like Dogen. I can’t remember the title, though, and dug around on the internet and couldn’t find it either. Maybe you, dear reader, know of which Seuss I speak.

Anyway, Buddha, the fundamental, is not an attachment to shikantaza or non-gaining as doctrinal points that we hoist on a flag and fight for, grimly sinking with the Zen ship.

Historically, other people have had this issue – hold fast or let go? The teaching of the four reliances are intended as reflections to help work this issue through, imv.

They are as follows:
rely on the teaching, not the teacher;
rely on the meaning, not the letter;
rely on the definitive meaning, not the interpretive meaning; rely on nondual wisdom, not discriminating consciousness.

The most relevant of the four for this conversation is the third – rely on the definitive meaning. Now there has been a lot of quiet reflection on what that is exactly and various opinions. I hold with those who favor the view that the only definitive teaching is boundless openness, a.k.a, emptiness, a.k.a., sunyatta.

Everything else, from how we bow to how we use the toilet, is interpretive and therefore not essential to the buddhadharma. All of our Zen culture, then, must be about actualizing awakened truth here and now.

And that’s one hot potato.

On Watering It Down for the West