April 24, 2020

April 24, 2020 By

Equanimity

“When you truly understand this fundamental principle you will not be anxious about your life and death. You will then attain a steadfast mind and be happy in your daily life. Even though heaven and earth were turned upside down, you would have no fear. And if an atom bomb went off, you would not quake in terror.”  – Yasutani Rōshi (1)

When I read those words in 1977, they seemed so outrageous that I immediately sought out a teacher, and became a Zen student.

In this fourth post in the series, I’ll present and then briefly comment on Dàhuì’s third theme, “You must assume a stance of composure.” In addition, I’ll fill in some background on how Dàhuì cultivated the keyword method with his first student who realized kenshō, significantly, the nun Miàodào. 

First, the usual series introduction and disclaimer:

In the recent translation of The Letters of Chan Master Dàhuì Pujue, translators Jeffrey L. Broughton and Elise Yoko Watanabe offer nine themes, motifs, that emerge in the letters about how to do keyword practice (話頭 huàtóu, Japanese, watō). I’ve been sharing them on the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training for students working with keywords, and I’ll also be sharing them here for others who might be interested. Close study of an ancient text can help both students and teachers notice details of the method and refresh their practice spirit. If you are working with a keyword with another teacher, consult with them, of course, and rely primarily on their guidance.

Two entries: principal and practice

A sidebar from Bodhidharma’s Two Entrances:

“Now, in entering the path there are many roads. To summarize them, they reduce to two types. The first is entrance by principle and the second entrance by practice.”

Dōgen was all about principle (理  or “inner pattern”). Pick up the Shobogenzo almost anywhere and you get the inner pattern through a firehose. Dàhuì was clearly a practice guy (行, practice, doing, religious acts, deeds, or exercises, aka, method). He focussed on a refining a method for helping people realize kenshō by arousing Great Doubt and skillfully employing the keyword (e.g., mu). Throughout his career he seems to have continued this inquiry, modifying his teaching practice based on experience.

So principal and practice are two entries. One of them isn’t better than the other. Think two foci in intimate dialogue. Some of the great teachers were more inclined toward one of the gates than the other, due to their personal proclivities, and the needs of the times.

A woman does it again (and gets little credit)

It might help at this point in this series to offer a little more context about the development of the keyword method. I mentioned in a past post that Dàhuì was uncommonly devoted to householder and women practitioners. In fact, early in his career, he refined his keyword method with a nun, Miàodào, who first studied under the Cáodòng (Japanese, Sōtō) master, Zhēnxiē Qīngliăo (1088-1151; Japanese, Shinketsu Seiryō, aka Choro Seiryō, an ancestor in the Sōtō lineage that continues today).

In fact, Miàodào left a summer retreat with Qīngliăo – a really big deal – in order to train with Dàhuì. The fact that Dàhuì accepted a run-away nun reflects his characteristic lack of concern with being polite. He even made a vow, “Even if this body of mine is pulverized into minute atoms, I will never compromise the buddhadharma to accommodate customary etiquette.”

Turns out that Miàodào is the one person from whom we have recorded teachings translated into English (as far as I know) that studied with both Qīngliăo and Dàhuì. She said that she learned from Qīngliăo, also an inner-pattern type, that enlightenment was not an event. She learned from Dàhuì that, indeed, it was. This distinction is still present in the just-sitting and kōan introspection circles today. And both, of course, are correct. Again, rather than right and wrong, think two foci in intimate dialogue.

When Miàodào left the practice period with Qīngliăo, she joined a group of 70 practitioners, meeting one-to-one with Dàhuì twice every day. And even though Dàhuì had been teaching with intensity for several years, Miàodào was the first to realize kenshō. 

Here’s Dàhuì talking about his work with Miàodào:

“I raised [for her] Mazu’s ‘It is not mind, it is not Buddha, it is not a thing’ and instructed her to look at it. Moreover, I gave her an explanation: ‘You must not take it as a statement of truth. You must not take it to be something you do not need to do anything about. Do not take it as a flint-struck spark or a lightning flash. Do not try to divine the meaning of it. Do not try to figure it out from the context in which I brought it up. ‘It is not the mind, it is not the Buddha, it is not a thing;’ after all, what is it?

“…One day…she got a moment of joy. She soon wanted to come to spit out [her understanding]. I saw that she wanted to open her mouth and shouted ‘Ho!’ and said: ‘Wrong! Get out!’

“Why? Because I saw that what she had was not the real thing. For her heels had not touched earth. In this kind of moment, even though she had a moment of joy, as it says in the [canonical] teachings, ‘in front there is no new realization, and if one goes back, one has lost the old residence.’

“The old cave hole had already been torn down by me, but in front of her there was no dewelling to live in. When one reaches this point, for the first time there is no gate through which to advance or retreat.

“After a while she came again, bowed, and said: ‘I really do have entrance.’

“You could say that I coddled her like a beloved child. I stopped blocking her path and opened up a path in front of her. I asked her: ‘It is not mind, it is not a Buddha, it is not a thing. How do you understand this?’

“[She] said: ‘I only understand this way.’

“Before the sound of her words had died out, I said: ‘You added in an extra “only understand this way.’

“She suddenly understood. In the several years since I became a head seat and took up teaching, she was the first [of my students] to succeed in investigating Chan.”

Here’s Miriam Levering commenting on this:

“The very earliest example of Dàhuì’s [keyword] practice instruction in general and of his standard instructions in particular is thus this set of instructions to Miàodào. Miàodào’s success with these instructions must have been significant in confirming what became Dàhuì’s characteristic approach to teaching.” (2)

Miàodào eventually became one of Dàhuì’s dharma successors. And Dàhuì’s keyword innovation – honed through his work with Miàodào, and her diligent work with Dàhuì – swept through the Zen world faster than scholars can track it, like the proverbial arrow flying past Korea, and still stands as one of the greatest innovations in meditation practice since Buddha Shakyamuni.

You can thank a woman for that too.

(Finally) Theme 3: You must assume a stance of “composure”

Broughton and Watanabe: “The mental attitude required in general for [keyword] practice is composure. Letters of Dàhuì … stipulates that twenty-four hours a day the student is to “make themself composed.” The [keyword] practitioner is to be calm, quiet, leisurely, composed, and unhurried:”

Letter #20.2: “If you want to make suffering and joy indistinguishable, simply do not ‘rouse yourself to engird mind’ or ’employ your mind to quell delusive thought.’ Twenty-four hours a day make yourself ‘composed.’ If suddenly habit-energy from past births arises, don’t apply mental exertion to hold it in check. Merely, in the state where the habit-energy arises, keep your eye on the [keyword]: ‘Does even a dog have buddha-nature? No [wu 無].’ At just that moment [wu 無] will be ‘like a single snowflake atop a red-hot stove.’” (4)

Comments

1. “If you want to make suffering and joy indistinguishable,” that is, not to be tossed away by the 10,000 things, and see the unfolding of the buddhadharma through each and everything.

2. Practicing composure is really quite subtle in the manner that Dàhuì presents it with a couple near enemies. First, let’s look at the phrase that’s translated “composure.” It is made up of five ideograms (放教蕩蕩地), and includes the senses of being calm and poised, unbridled, unfettered, and grounded.

These five characters could be literally be translated like this: “let go of making the ground flutter.”

That is, be composed. How? In English, we might say “make yourself composed,” but the composure that Dahui is advocating is a form of nondoing, letting go of making the ground flutter.

Now about the near enemies. Dàhuì’s instruction first says “…do not rouse yourself to engird mind,” that is, do not encircle the thought/feeling of the moment with the keyword in order to contain or control what’s arising. The keyword can and usually is first employed to repress what’s happening so that the student might appear composed. Dàhuì, however, is encouraging the keyword student to be really composed. To let go of making the ground flutter. Don’t neglect this point!

Dàhuì also instructs, “Do not employ your mind to quell delusive thought.” Mu, for example, can be employed to quell disturbing thought/feeling. And it works! A wonderful discovery when a student begins diligent practice with a keyword and finds a new tool for their toolbox. And then the futility of the strategy sinks in.

Dàhuì describes this futility like this: “Even if their minds are temporarily ‘parked,’ it’s like grass with a stone pressing down on it—before you know it, it’s growing again.” (5)

Instead, a very important skill is to bring the keyword into the thought/feeling. Enfuse the thought/feeling with the keyword in the very place in the body mind where the thought/feeling is arising. Yes, let go of the focus on the tanden and even the hara.

“At just that moment [wu 無] will be ‘like a single snowflake atop a red-hot stove.’”

Notably, it is the keyword that evaporates! What happens to the thought/feeling – the red-hot stove? Investigate!

This post began with Yasutani Rōshi stressing how the mind post-kenshō is composed. Dàhuì emphasized that to realize kenshō, the mind must be composed. This kind of composure, letting go of making the ground flutter, is good at the beginning, good in the middle, good at the end.

(1) The Three Pillars of Zen, Rōshi Philip Kapleau, 86-87.

(2) The material on Miàodào and Dàhuì is from “Miao-tao and Her Teacher Ta-hui,” Miriam Levering, https://www.douban.com/group/topic/34099801/.

(3)  The Letters of Chan Master Dàhuì Pujue, 58:4: Smashes perverse teachers.

(4) Ibid., “Introduction: Recurring Motifs in Huatou Practice,” trans. Jeffrey L. Broughton and Elise Yoko Watanabe.

(5) Ibid., “10.4: Fu has violated Dahui’s directive to avoid perverse teachings.”

Dōshō Port began practicing Zen in 1977 and now co-teaches with his wife, Tetsugan Zummach Sensei, with the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training, an internet-based Zen community. Dōshō received dharma transmission from Dainin Katagiri Rōshi and inka shōmei from James Myōun Ford Rōshi in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. Dōshō’s translation and commentary on The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans, is now available (Shambhala). He is also the author of Keep Me In Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri. Click here to support the teaching practice of Dōshō Rōshi.

April 10, 2020

April 10, 2020 By

Sushi in a Bamboo Hat and Clogs

Some years ago, a Zen teacher was leading a sesshin for Catholic monastics. In the thick of third day, within the challenges of waking up early, sitting after sitting, rounds of the awakening stick, and vigorous face-to-face meetings, one of the brothers said, “Roshi, in our tradition, we rest in the silence of prayer, and let God work in us. Why is Zen so difficult?”

The Roshi responded, “In our tradition, we believe that God has already done the work.”

This is the spirit of all the ancient teachers in the Zen tradition: you have to do it on your own.

In the recent translation of The Letters of Chan Master Dàhuì Pujue, translators Jeffrey L. Broughton and Elise Yoko Watanabe offer nine themes, motifs that emerge in the letters about how to do keyword practice (話頭 huàtóu, Japanese, watō).

I recently began sharing these with Vine of Obstacles Zen students, particularly for students working on their first, break-through keyword. (This, by the way, is the second in the series on the teaching of Dàhuì; see The Most Revered and Most Reviled Zen Master Ever for the first post).

In this post, I’ll share the first theme that Broughton and Watanabe identify in Dàhuì’s Letters, offer their examples of the theme in excerpts from Dàhuì‘s Letters, and add a couple comments. Specifically, I’ll address what it is that must be done on your own, and then look at what on your own means.

Theme 1: You Have To Do It On Your Own

Broughton and Watanabe summarize: “The practitioner cannot get awakening from anybody else. It must be accomplished on one’s own. Letters of Dàhuì speaks often of self-confidence, awakening on one’s own, and so forth.”

Letter #31.2: “The buddhas and [ancestors] have not a single teaching to give to people. All that is necessary is for the person on duty to have confidence on their own, give assent on their own, see on their own, awaken on their own.”

Letter #14.5: “The hilt of this sword lies only in the hand of the person on duty. You can’t have someone else do it for you. You must do it yourself. If you stake your life on it, you’ll be ready to set about doing it. If you’re not yet capable of staking your life on it, just keep pressing hard at the point where the uncertainty [aka doubt] is not yet smashed. Suddenly you’ll be ready to stake your life on one throw—done!” (1)

Do what?

The it that Dàhuì refers to here is to break birth-death mind. It isn’t primarily about stillness, or to sit in a specific pose. (2) The birth-death mind is the mind of dualism, the mind of gain and loss, I and thou. To break the birth-death mind is to see true nature (kenshō), to realize that there is truly nothing to get.

Doing it on your own will probably require an existential crisis. You might not feel good about your separate self while in the thick of the work. Keyword practice might illuminate and temporarily exacerbate your desperation, competition, and self-judgement. And there is no guarantee. So some Zen teachers these days discourage students from aiming at breaking the birth-death mind.

Dàhuì might say that this is like “jumping into the water to preempt the boat’s capsizing!” (3)

Importantly, it is not getting some special experience. Breaking the birth-death mind breaks the mind of having something to attain. “The person on duty right now,” wrote Dàhuì, “is naked, neat and tidy—there is nothing for them to grasp at.” (4)

God has already done the work.

On your own?

The keyboard is under your fingertips. The hilt of the sword of wisdom is in your hands.

Perhaps it seems obvious – you have to do it on your own – but you might investigate that sense that it is obvious. Is it really? This is especially important for those who’ve long struggled with a keyword without breaking the birth-death mind. Investigating the possibility that you are deferring responsibility in some clever way just might be crucial to your process.

One way to defer responsibility, to hide behind other-power, is to believe that someone (Buddha, God, the teacher) will magically do it for you. “If I could only be closer to the teacher! Then I’d break the birth-death mind! But now, I just do not have enough energy.”

Another way to defer responsibility for breaking the birth-death mind, also common these days, is to believe that the method will save you. As a student recently put it, “If I just return to the keyword again and again, isn’t that enough?” With this attitude, the practitioner may well do the method in a rote kind of way, full of faith in other-power, rather than taking full responsibility and applying energy with due diligence.

Dàhuì challenges these deferrals of responsibility. Now is the time. Here is the place.

A related issue is about where this practice takes place. Dàhuì’s medium for communication is letters, of course, not in-person work. In our time, I bet he’d be all over online platforms. In his many letters to householders he encourages diligent practice, and although the householders sometime mention wanting to practice directly with Dàhuì, he seldom suggests that this is necessary. Instead, he focuses on guiding people right where they are. Right in the lives that people have, without over emphasizing his role, or the monastery, and thereby encourages “you have to do it on your own.”

On your own and together

Working with your teacher, the ancestral teachers, the community near and far, all the many irksome beings, etc, doing it on your own does not negate them. After all, it is in supportive letters to students that Dàhuì tells them to do it on their own. Standing on your two feet also means realizing true connection.

Next up

Theme 2: You must generate a singular sensation of uncertainty.

(1) The Letters of Chan Master Dàhuì Pujue, “Introduction: Recurring Motifs in Huatou Practice,” translators Jeffrey L. Broughton and Elise Yoko Watanabe.

(2) “Breaking birth-death mind” (生死心破) is rendered by Broughton and Watanabe as “smashing the mind of samsara.”

(3) Op. cit., “2.4: Intellectual brilliance is an obstruction to one’s attaining realization.”

(4) Op. cit., “2.6: Also quotes an ancient worthy’s words to cut off intellectual understanding and kudzu-verbiage.”

Dōshō Port began practicing Zen in 1977 and now co-teaches with his wife, Tetsugan Zummach Sensei, with the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training, an internet-based Zen community. Dōshō received dharma transmission from Dainin Katagiri Rōshi and inka shōmei from James Myōun Ford Rōshi in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. Dōshō’s translation and commentary on The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans, is now available (Shambhala). He is also the author of Keep Me In Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri. Click here to support the teaching practice of Dōshō Rōshi.

April 6, 2020

April 6, 2020 By

Dàhuì Pujue

Now that I’ve completed the manuscript edits for The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans, the section of The Record of Xutang with his unexcelled capping phrases, translated and with comments by yours truly (coming to you in early 2021 from Shambhala), I’m back to doing some dharma study not directly related that project or to what I’m teaching on Vine of Obstacles.

What fell in my cyber lap is a newish (2017) version of The Letters of Chan Master Dahui Pujue, translated by Jeffrey L. Broughton and Elise Yoko Watanabe. The translation also includes annotations from three sources – a great joy for a Zen geek like myself. The most quoted is by the extraordinary Rinzai scholar-monk Mujaku Dōchū (1653-1744), from the Japanese tradition, and the commentary that he worked on for decades, Pearl in a Wicker Basket.

In addition, Broughton and Watanabe offer selections from Notes on the Letters by the great Korean Sŏn master Chin’gak Hyesim (1178–1234), as well as another Korean source, Notes on Plucking Out Difficulties from the Letters, by an anonymous Korean monk.

Dàhuì’s teaching had a particularly powerful and long-lasting effect on Korean Sŏn, so it is especially fitting to include these annotations.

As I work through the text, I plan to blog about it, similar to how I maligned Hakuin’s teaching, but maybe not for a whole year as I did in that series. We’ll see how it goes. First up will be a series of nine posts on the nine themes that Broughton and Watanabe identify in the letters, directed to householders, by the way, who are working with keywords (Chinese, huàtóu, Japanese, watō) like mu in order to have an initial awakening.

For example, the first theme, “you have to do it on your own,” brings up some current issues like the difference between in-person vs. remote work (letters in Dàhuì’s world). Pretty darn fitting for this pandemic world.

And speaking of the pandemic, I find that the fruit of dharma study, reconnecting with deep sanity, incredibly refreshing, even if it is about a controversial figure, and not everybody is always behaving in the most awakened manner. That’s especially the case when dharma study is backed with zazen and engagement.

A bit of background on the controversial Dàhuì

Few if any figures in Zen history have elicited as much admiration and antipathy as Dàhuì (1089–1163). He trained rigorously with several Cáodòng teachers, Línjì teachers in the Huanglong line, and then finally with Yuánwù Kèqín, of The Blue Cliff Record fame, in the Yangqi line.

Dàhuì is reputed to have had eighteen great awakenings and innumerable small awakenings. Here is the report of one of his great awakenings:

“Yuánwù said, ‘Once I asked [Wǔzǔ Fǎyǎn], “What about ‘being’ words and ‘nonbeing’ words which are like a wisteria vine clinging to a tree?”

Wǔzǔ said, ‘You cannot describe it, you cannot depict it.’

I asked further, ‘Suppose the tree falls and the vines die—what then?’

Wǔzǔ said, ‘How important their companionship is to them.’”

The minute I [Dàhuì] heard him raise this, I understood. I said, “I got it!”

Yuánwù said, “I am only afraid that you have not yet become able to pass through the [kōans].”

I said, “Please raise them.”

Yuánwù then raised a series of [kōans]. I cut through them in two or three revolutions. It was like setting out on a trip in a time of great peace—when you get on the road you encounter nothing to stop you.

Yuánwù said, ‘Now you know that I have not deceived you.’” (1)

Additional verifications for Yuánwù’s authorization of Dàhuì comes in the first letter in The Letters of Chan Master Dahui Pujue. Vice Minister Ceng shares this: “I received a letter from your teacher, old Master Yuánwù. He praised you [Dàhuì] by saying that, even though you were a follower who came to him a little late in the day [at age 37], your attainment was singularly magnificent.” (2)

As a teacher, Dàhuì strongly emphasized the keyword method for realizing kenshō and harshly criticized, not always skillfully, the silent illumination practices of some folks within the Cáodòng lineage. For more, see Just Sit or Wake Up? A Tale of Two Old Teachers.

A scholar who focussed much of her career on Dàhuì, Miriam L. Levering, writes, “Dàhuì comes across as a brilliant, clear, inspiring teacher with a deep grasp of Chan practice as lived every day and an extraordinary gift for relating Buddhist philosophy and psychology to ordinary mental and emotional experiences.” (3)

The haters

In a moment, we’ll get to one of the all-time biggest Dàhuì haters, another most-revered Zen master, Dōgen. But Dōgen was not hating singularly. Dàhuì, after all, was sent into exile a couple times so those in imperial circles must also have been among the haters. In addition, Dàhuì made enemies in Cáodòng circles by being too upfront with his criticisms in a very unZen way.

First, this:

“In 1141 the official Li Hanlao, a longtime friend, wrote about the impression Dàhuì made on those who knew him in an inscription (ji) for Mount Jing to commemorate the opening of the new dormitory:

‘The master is the twentieth generation grandson of Línjì. His Way is broad, and those whom it attracts are myriad. His gate is steep, and those who climb it find it difficult [to live up to his strict standards]. His instructions hit the mark, and those who are enlightened under him feel close to him. His discussions are lofty, and those who listen are amazed. But, there are also people who become frightened and disconcerted by his lofty talk. Among his contemporaries, those who doubt him criticize and slander him. I know that there is gossip, defamation, and suspicion circulating about the master and cannot but feel enraged by this.'” (4)

“Enraged” and right there in an inscription for a dormitory! In addition, “gossip, defamation, and suspicion” – kinda odd for a dormitory plaque praising your teacher. What was going on that prompted Li Hanlao to lay that out there like that? I don’t know, but sounds like something someone would say in a passive-aggressive way on social media, and after pushing “send,” regret it.

Among those who were still defaming Dàhuì about one hundred years later was Dōgen. Yup. The founding Sōtō ancestor. Early in his career, though, Dōgen had praised Dàhuì thusly:

“Once Zen master [Dàhuì] had a swelling on his buttocks [apparently hemorrhoids]. A doctor took a look at it and said it was critical. [Dàhuì] asked, ‘Is it so serious that I might die?’

The doctor replied, ‘Possibly.’

[Dàhuì] said, ‘Well, I am going to die anyway, so I shall practice zazen that much harder.’

He pushed himself to sit and, eventually the swelling broke and went away. The mind of this ancient master was like this. When he got sick, he sat zazen all the more. Students of today, despite being well, don’t let up practicing zazen!'” (5)

Disclaimer: Neither the author nor anyone at Patheos (as far as I know) has actually undertaken this practice, nor do we recommend sitting on your hemorrhoids until they burst. Do not try this at home.

Anyway, later on, Dōgen had a much less flattering appraisal of Dàhuì, especially in “Self Realization Samadhi” (“Jishō zanmai”自證三昧) where he launches into a five-page rant, I believe it is the longest of the many rants in Shōbōgenzō, about what a faker Dàhuì was, how he shopped around for transmission, was seen as a total one-chopstick job by every teacher he ever had, and never really had a final awakening.

Here’s just a bit of Dōgen’s summary:

“But from beginning to end, [Dàhuì] did not seem to have a unique point of understanding. He did not show any point of understanding in his own lectures or talks. Know that the recorder of his words mentioned that he had had divine enlightenment or dharma of great ease and bliss, but did not admit that he had actually had realization. Do not take him seriously. He was merely a student. If we take up Yuánwù’s words and examine senior monk [Dàhuì], we see that he did not have wisdom close to that of his teacher and he did not have wisdom equal to his teacher. Furthermore, it seems that he had never dreamed of wisdom beyond his teacher. Thus, know that [Dàhuì] had less than half the capacity of his teacher. He only memorized lines from the Avatamsaka Sutra and the Shurangama Sutra and spoke about them. He was not yet the bones and marrow of buddha ancestors. (6)

Notably, Yuánwù, who Dōgen praises highly, seemed to have disagreed. Yuánwù gave Dàhuì transmission, after all, and regarded his “attainment was singularly magnificent,” if Yuánwù was a great teacher, as Dogen acknowledges, Dōgen, who didn’t know Dàhuì, seems to be just mouthing sectarianism. Gossip, defamation, and suspicion!

Even the great Dōgen, of course, had his issues, and here he reinterprets Dàhuì’s biography in a blatantly self-and-his-lineage serving way.

The whole five pages in “Self Realization Samadhi” is also notable in that Dōgen focuses his Dàhuì take-down on Dàhuì’s alleged lack of awakening, something that many in contemporary Sōtō Zen do not regard as important, and they support that misunderstanding by selectively citing Dōgen. Some argue that Dōgen didn’t have a definitive awakening. If he hadn’t, or if awakening wasn’t important for Dōgen, why go on for five pages? And Dōgen never even mentions Dàhuì’s most important contribution – culling out and highlighting the keyword method.

Conclusion

Love him or hate him, Dàhuì’s teaching had legs. Every kōan student for the last 1,000 years that received and embodied mu, owes him a debt of gratitude.

For a concise summary of his contributions, I turn to Miriam L. Levering:

“Dàhuì formulated and popularized the form of [kōan] study called “looking into and observing a saying,” the saying being a word, sentence, or phrase that crystallizes a specifically chosen [kōan] problem. This method of [kōan] study is sometimes called “inspecting the [keyword],” or in Chinese, kan huàtóu. This method of [kōan] study remained at the heart of most Chinese Chan training not only for the rest of the Song dynasty but also for all the succeeding centuries in China, Korea, and Japan.” (7)

(1) Steven Heine, ed., Zen Masters, “Dahui Zonggao (1089–1163): The Image Created by His Stories about Himself and by His Teaching Style,” Miriam L. Levering, 104.

(2) The Letters of Chan Master Dahui Pujue, trans. Jeffrey L. Broughton and Elise Yoko Watanabe.

(3) Levering, op cit., 111.

(4) Levering, op cit., 110.

(5) Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, trans. Shohaku Okumura, 187.

(6) Eihei Dōgen, Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, trans. Kazuaki Tanahashi, 704.

(7) Levering, op cit., 91.

Dōshō Port began practicing Zen in 1977 and now co-teaches with his wife, Tetsugan Zummach Sensei, with the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training, an internet-based Zen community. Dōshō received dharma transmission from Dainin Katagiri Rōshi and inka shōmei from James Myōun Ford Rōshi in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. Dōshō’s translation and commentary on The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans, is now available (Shambhala). He is also the author of Keep Me In Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri. Click here to support the teaching practice of Tetsugan Sensei and  Dōshō Rōshi.

January 2, 2020

January 2, 2020 By

Harada Daiun Sogaku Rōshi

When I was training at Bukkokuji Zen Monastery in Obama, Japan, on the twelfth day of every month, we all took a short walk around the bluff to a small hermitage that lay a short distance outside the wall of our neighboring monastery, Hosshinji, to perform a memorial ceremony at the retirement home of the late Harada Daiun Sogaku (大雲祖岳, Great Cloud Ancestral Huge Mountain, October 13, 1871 – December 12, 1961). The hermitage was a place of lingering radiance. The teacher under whom we trained at Bukkokuji, Harada Tangen Rōshi (1924-2018), was the last and youngest of Harada Rōshi’s fourteen successors, highly revered his late teacher. In fact, a near life-sized portrait (see below) of Harada Rōshi sat behind Tangen Rōshi in his dokusan room. 

In this post, I’ll sketch the life of Harada Rōshi, emphasize his role in working with women and lay people, and touch on a few of the controversies that continue today, specifically, whether he received Rinzai transmission, his pre-war and wartime support for fascism, his powerful legacy and the danger of having many successors. I’ve also included some videos related to Harada Rōshi below, as well as links and footnotes with other resources.

The Life of Harada Daiun Sogaku

Let’s begin with the end. Here is his death poem:

For forty years I’ve been selling water
By the bank of a river.
Ho, ho!
My labors have been wholly without merit.

Forty years of selling water by the river, and about fifty years before that gathering water in a wicker basket. Ho, ho!

Harada Rōshi began his monk life early, at age seven, in the same Bukkokuji that I mentioned above. After his Sōtō transmission, he still agonized over the great matter of birth and death, so he sent letters to several Buddhist leaders “…[asking] for a rock bottom answer to the question of life and death: When a human being dies, does he vanish like the clouds and mist, or is there a life after death?” (1)

Only Shaku Sōen Rōshi’s response impressed him:

“If you experience kenshō, you can clear up that little problem before you sit down to breakfast. Both kōans, ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping? ‘and … ‘If all things are innately pure, then how is it that the mountains, rivers, and the great earth suddenly arise?’ are good. If you clearly penetrate either of these koan, your problem will promptly be settled.” (2)

Harada Rōshi then began a twenty year process of training with Rinzai teachers, primarily at Shogenji and Nanzenji. Here is how Harada Rōshi summarized his process of clearing up his “little problem:”

“I was able to hear ‘the sound of one hand clapping.’ That is to say that upon attaining kenshō, I really had deep peace of mind for the first time. As anyone who has had the experience knows, a very special joy accompanies that first kenshō, and in that joy I went off to myself and danced a little jig. But after a month or two, even that experience became doubtful, and I plunged into a deeper anguish than ever. Once again I threw myself into practice. Memories of things like sitting in the snow and doing zazen stark naked in a bamboo grove swarming with mosquitos come from this period. My second kenshō experience may sound a little distasteful. One morning while I was on a long begging trip, an old woman happened to urinate in the toilet beside a farmhouse gate as I passed. When I saw the frothing urine I had satori.” (3)

But he wasn’t done training. Eventually, he practiced under the great Rinzai master, Dōkutan Sosan Rōshi (a.k.a. Dōkutan Toyota, 1840-1917). Harada Rōshi said this about Dōkutan Rōshi:

“Dōkutan Rōshi was an outstanding training master, endowed with both the power of buddhadharma and with moral excellence. I am truly fortunate to have been able to practice under such a highly respected teacher…. Dōkutan Rōshi trained to this extent despite a weak constitution from childhood. He always spoke very softly, but when this rōshi would scold me, in a voice one could just barely catch, a cold shiver of sweat would break out of my armpits. I had been hauled roughly over the coals by other masters before and remained relatively cool, but while Dōkutan Rōshi’s words were similar or equal, his strength of character added force. I learned from him that strength of character alone can move [people].

And the following passage from Three Pillars of Zen summarizes Harada Rōshi’s process training with Dōkutan Rōshi:

“He was accepted by Dōkutan as a disciple, and for the next two years came daily for koan practice and private instructions while living with a friend in Kyōtō whom he assisted with the affairs of his temple. At the end of two years Dōkutan Rōshi, impressed with his disciple`s uncommon intelligence, ardor, and thirst for Truth, offered to make him his personal attendant. Though now almost forty, Sogaku Harada accepted this signal honor with alacrity and went to live at Nanzenji. There he applied himself intensively to zazen and completed all the koans, at last opening his Mind’s eye fully and receiving inka from Dōkutan Rōshi.” (4)

There are a couple points to highlight here. First, a Sōtō monk was accepted into one of the main Rinzai training centers as the teacher’s attendant. This would be against the rules for both Sōtō and Rinzai today. If a Sōtō monk wants to enter a Rinzai training center, they first need to be reordained. I don’t know if the rules have changed or if the case of Harada Rōshi was exceptional.

In any case, Harada Dauin Rōshi lived an exceptional life of Zen awakening and training.

Controversy surrounding inka shōmei

The second point that stands out above is the issue of Harada Rōshi receiving inka shōmei (印可証明), literally, “evidence of the mark,” from Toyota Dokutan Rōshi. Meido Moore explains that a qualified teacher in Rinzai Zen,  “…means not only that the teacher has completed the requisite training and received inka shōmei, the seal of lineage inheritance from a legitimate master; more importantly, it means that the teacher manifests some degree of embodied realization, ideally including the spontaneous, extraordinary means of guiding students.” (5)

So for a Rinzai master to fully authorize a Sōtō monk is most unusual and remains controversial to this day.

James Ford Rōshi lays out the controversy like this: “There is debate within the Zen community as to whether he actually received dharma transmission from Dōkutan Rōshi. I was told by Maezumi Rōshi that while Dōkutan Rōshi considered Harada Rōshi to have completed all necessary training with him to be an independent master of the koan way, there was no formal transmission. In that time and place such a formal recognition would have also had Harada leave the Sōtō school, something that he had no desire to do.” (6)

Given that Yasutani Rōshi, one of Maezumi Rōshi’s teachers, had publicly stated (see below), that Toyota Dōkutan Rōshi had indeed given inka shōmei to Harada Rōshi, Maezumi Rōshi’s statement is puzzling. Perhaps for it to be “formal transmission” in Maezumi Rōshi’s eyes, it would have needed to be a “public transmission.”

On the other hand, Yasutani Rōshi, Harada Rōshi’s most prolific direct successor, wrote that Harada Rōshi had told him,

“When I received inka (completion of examination in dokusan) from Dōkutan Rōshi, he said to me, ‘The Sōtō sect is a large religious denomination. If you say that it has no true teachers, and that you went and got dharma transmission from a Rinzai master, it would affect the Sōtō sect’s reputation. So keep this secret and say that you got dharma transmission from an appropriate person within the Sōtō sect….’ I was truly grateful for these words. And so I would not indiscreetly divulge the fact that I was given transmission by Dōkutan Rōshi.”

Yasutani first published about this in Japan in in the early 1960’s, shortly after Harada Daiun Rōshi had died, in “… A Soliloquy on the Five Modes, Threefold Return, Three Unified Pure Precepts, and Ten Grave Precepts, “Geneological Chart of the Buddhist Ancestors’ True Dharma Transmission.” Harada Sogaku’s dharma lineage records him as being a dharma successor of seventh-generation Hakuin descendant Kōgen Shitsu Dokutan Rōshi…” (7)

In my view, in the Japanese and monastic culture  in which Harada Daiun Rōshi lived, it seems unlikely that he would have given something that he hadn’t received. He clearly felt confident teaching kōan widely and giving inka shōmei to fourteen students. This suggests to me that he had likely received inka shōmei from Toyota Dokutan Rōshi, as the statement from Yasutani Rōshi attests. If so, it is an example of Harada Rōshi navigating the Japanese monastic cultural waters with skill. He acted like he had received inka shōmei from a Rinzai master while never saying so (as far as I know) in a public venue. Such behavior limited the shame of the Sōtō sect, while exercising his capacity to facilitate the awakening of many students.

Teaching career

According to Harada Rōshi, “In my youth, I formulated a rough schedule for my life. I would devote myself to practice and study until I turned forty. Then from forty to sixty, I would work for others, giving religious instruction. From sixty on, I would continue to make every effort within my power. However, when the scheduled age of forty came around, it looked as though I had no alternative but to accept a teaching post in the university I had been attending. I taught at Komazawa University for twelve years – until I realized that it was far more important to train Zen monks than to follow the teaching profession. So I started Hosshinji Monastery, and I have been there ever since….” (8)

The sesshin led by Harada Rōshi at Hosshinji were famously intense. The kyōsaku was used frequently and with intensity. Phillip Kapleau, one of the first Westerns to train extensively in Japan, is said to have sewn a piece of leather in the shoulder of his koromo to mute the effect of the persistent use of the kyosaku. When his “accommodation” was discovered, he was not treated kindly.

During Rōhatsu Sesshin particularly, participants would aim to sit through the night every night, and if sleep threatened to overcome them, some would go the pond near the main gate, cut a hole in the ice, and jump in.

In addition to the many monks training at Hosshinjin, many lay people, both women and men, from all over world came to train with Harada Rōshi. During Harada Rōshi’s forty years at Hosshinji, he also travelled throughout Japan, frequently offering sesshin. His lay students included the head of Mitsubishi, Iwasaki, who realized kenshō, and his daughter, Yaeko Iwasaki. Although frequently sick with tuberculosis and bedridden, Yaeko passed through kenshō to great enlightenment in a period of a few days, just before she died at age twenty-five. See Yaeko Iwasaki´s Enlightenment Letters to Harada-Rōshi and his Comments for a jubilant and heart wrenching account of her awakenings and death, including comments by Harada Rōshi that give us some sense him and of how he worked with students.

Also, click here for “No Place Not Known: An Audacious Awakening,” a talk about Yaeko’s awakening process with Harada Rōshi.

Harada Rōshi also gave inka shōmei to Nagasawa Sozen Rōshi (1880-1971), a Zen nun. Nagasawa Rōshi established the Tokyo Center for Nun’s Training and led many women to awakening. A Collection of Meditation Experiences (untranslated) recounts the awakening stories of sixty women and two of these stories are translated in Buddhism in Practice, ed., Donald S. Lopez, “Awakening Stories of Zen Buddhist Women,” by Sallie King. Sallie King writes,

“Nagasawa Rōshi was in her time perhaps the only nun directing a Japanese Zen nunnery and practice center and holding meditation retreats without the supervision of a male Zen master…. It is noteworthy that Nagasawa Rōshi is depicted as training her disciples in the same manner as other teachers in her line. Though a number of contemporary Western feminist Buddhists have criticized aspects of Zen training as “macho,” and some modern Zen masters have dropped some such practices, Nagasawa Rōshi seems to employ them all. She is depicted as being quite stern and even fierce with her disciples before they make a breakthrough in their practice, shouting at them and abruptly ringing them out of the interview room with her dismissal bell; she relies heavily on a koan practice in which the disciple aggressively assaults the ego, suffering a roller-coaster ride of blissful highs and despairing lows in the process; and she uses the ‘encouragement stick,’ a flat hardwood stick with which meditators may be slapped on the shoulders during prolonged meditation sessions to help them call up energy for their practice (it functions much like cold water splashed in the face and is not a punishment). This severity is what Zen calls ‘grandmotherly kindness’: the teacher’s aid to the student working to free herself from the limitations of ego. The atmosphere of the meditation retreats is portrayed as taut and austere; Nagasawa Rōshi herself is described as possessing exalted experience and, though hard and demanding before a disciple makes a breakthrough, warm and gentle when the breakthrough is achieved. It is clear that her students deeply respect her and are grateful to her. All this is classic Japanese Zen. Thus, while Nagasawa Rōshi does represent for her time a female incursion into a male world, she makes no changes in behavior within that world other than the significant change of inviting other women into it.” (9)

An incredible teacher. Unfortunately, Nagasawa Rōshi’s lineage seems to have died out.

One aspect of the Harada Rōshi’s lingering radiance is the wholehearted devotion awakening, free from categories, still apparent in his surviving lineage.

Controversy about wartime support for fascism

The lingering radiance of Harada Rōshi includes a lingering shadow.

James Ford Rōshi writes, “Harada Roshi was a prominent figure within the Sōtō church. And he has been criticized, and I think justly, for his fervent support of Japanese nationalism in the years running up to and through the Second World War. A caution, I feel, for all of us as we necessarily engage the cultures within which we live.” (10)

Here is an example of Harada Rōshi’s wartime views:

“The spirit of Japan is the Great Way of the [Shinto] gods. It is the substance of the universe, the essence of the Truth. The Japanese people are a chosen people whose mission is to control the world. The sword which kills is also the sword which gives life. Comments opposing war are the foolish opinions of those who can only see one aspect of things and not the whole. Politics conducted on the basis of a constitution are premature, and therefore fascist politics should be implemented for the next ten years …. Similarly, education makes for shallow, cosmopolitan-minded persons. All of the people of this country should do Zen. That is to say, they should all awake to the Great Way of the Gods. This is Mahayana Zen.” (12)

While I was training at Bukkokuji, on the four and nine days we had a lighter schedule with time for personal cleaning. We would “sleep in” until 5:00am, practice zazen, do liturgy, have breakfast, and then have quasi-formal tea with Tangen Rōshi. After we all enjoyed some matcha, Rōshi would give a short talk and usually take questions. On one such day, his long-time translator, Belinda Ataway, asked about Harada Rōshi’s books during the war. “I’ve been reading them,” she said, “and am having a hard time understanding how an enlightened teacher could hold such views.”

Tangen Rōshi said that he also had held the view that the emperor was god and supported the military regime, hoping to die for Japan. “We believed that Americans were devils,” he told us, “and that saving the Mahayana was up to us. After the war, we discovered that we’d been completely duped so we changed our views.”

He said that Harada Rōshi’s support for Western students was part of his repayment for his previous wrong doing. And that Harada Rōshi had seen from political errors in pre-war and wartime Japan how he much he still needed to work on himself.

Legacy

Harada Daiun Rōshi impacts on global Zen Buddhism continue to unfold almost sixty years after his death. He not only brought kōan practice and awakening back into Sōtō Zen, his reformed curriculum, excising the aspects that required post-doctorate Chinese and Japanese language skills, made kōan training accessible to non-Japanese speaking students. His emphasis on lay training, as well as the full inclusion of women, broke cultural barriers and made Zen relevant and accessible to modern practitioners.

Of his fourteen successors, the successor who has likewise profoundly impacted Zen today is the least monastic among them, Yasutani Rōshi. The source of the practice and awakening in the White Plum, Diamond Sangha, Sanbo Zen, Kapleau lineage, and many others (including the Aitken-Tarrant-Ford branch I represent) is Harada Rōshi. The website Harada-Yasutani School of Zen Buddhism and its Teachers lists about 400 teachers who have received transmission in the Harada-Yasutani lineage, some teachers now eight generations removed from the old teacher. About half of these teachers appear to be women, and almost all are lay people or nonmonastic Zen priests. (12)

And, yet, it all isn’t light and kenshō. Problems with rigor and integrity have come with the rapid growth in authorized teachers. In some lines descended through Harada Daiun Rōshi, “passing” kōans, including the initial kōan, has been reduced to dharma play without kenshō. One student told me that they passed mu by saying that mu was “everything,” knowingly lacking any experience of being mu or seeing mu. Another student told me that in a line also descended from Harada Rōshi, that they were instructed to skip mu because the teacher felt that it was too difficult. Another student said they had worked through the whole of the Harada-Yasutani curriculum, but when I tested with the first mu checking question, the student was at a loss.

Nevertheless, the radiance of Harada Rōshi’s practice, awakening, and teaching linger still. Although not without shade and shadow, truly, I’ve found, this radiance can be a light in our troubled times.

 

“The straightforward mind is the training place,” by Harada Daiun Rōshi

 

(1) “My Life in Zen Temples,” at https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/harada.html

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid.

(4) The Three Pillars of Zen, pp. 305-306.

(5) The Rinzai Way of Zen, Meido Moore, p. 155.

(6) See “The Great Cloud Dies: Recalling Zen Master Daiun Sogaku Harada,” by James Myoun Ford Rōshi here.

(7) Sanbo Zen Newsletter, Kyosho 370.

(8) “My Life in Zen Temples,” at https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/harada.html

(9) In Buddhism in Practice, ed., Donald S. Lopez, “Awakening Stories of Zen Buddhist Women,” by Sallie King (Princeton Readings in Religions) (p. 397).

(10) See Ford blog post above.

(11)  Zen at War, by Victoria, Brian Daizen, p. 137.

(12) Harada-Yasutani School of Zen Buddhism and its Teachers. “400 successors” is a “give or take” number. Some listed on the linked site have died, some listed aren’t authorized, and some with full authorization are not included, probably because they have not asked to be.

Dōshō Port began practicing Zen in 1977 and now co-teaches with his wife, Tetsugan Zummach Sensei, with Vine of Obstacles Zen, an online training group. Dōshō received dharma transmission from Dainin Katagiri Rōshi and inka shōmei from James Myōun Ford Rōshi in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. He is also the author of Keep Me In Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri. Dōshō’s translation and commentary on The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans, was published in 2021 (Shambhala). His third book, Going Through the Mystery’s One Hundred Questions, is now available. Click here to support the teaching practice of Dōshō Rōshi.

 

November 29, 2019

November 29, 2019 By

You can’t do what alone?

Traditionally in the buddhadharma across schools, samādhi (calming, concentration or absorption) and vipaśyanā (insight, or in Zen, “kenshō,” seeing true nature) are regarded as the two wings of meditation. And although there seems to be wide agreement in the general tradition that both are necessary for waking up and living accordingly, there is a wide range of views on the emphasis of the two wings, including within the Zen tradition.

At it’s best, the present just-sitting tradition, for example, emphasizes samadhi (e.g., Bokusan’s “Deeply settled heart of the Sōtō school”), while the kōan-introspection tradition emphasizes kenshō (e.g., “mu,” “who?” and “sound of one hand”). It is generally agreed, however, that some degree of samādhi is necessary for awakening, but, as I said, you will find a great deal of variance between and within schools, as well as within and between sub-lineages.

Personally, samādhi was vital for my process and continues to be, as Dōgen said, “the dharma gate of peace and happiness.” But it is seeing through kōan that really enlivens and provides clear instruction for how to integrate samādhi and kenshō within the vertiginous vicissitudes of daily life.

One genius aspect of the mu kōan is how it serves as both a samādhi practice (“be mu“) and an insight practice (“what is mu?”). Subsequent kōan serve to clarify awakening, while also encouraging cultivating verification. Authentic samādhi, by the way, generally requires extensive retreats, while kōan were developed in order to support people doing the work of awakening during chaotic times and in the midst of householder lives.

Through my Zen teaching practice, I’ve seen quite a wide range of capacity for samādhi. That is, some students find settling the mind easy and some find it difficult. And even after the mind settles, there are numerous challenges that arise before a student settles into samādhi and doesn’t mistake subtle laxity, for example, for one-pointedness.

Because some degree of samādhi is usually necessary for awakening, it is important to work with a skilled teacher to cultivate a settled mind to the degree possible for you and within your life circumstances. During this “setting the heart” stage of practice, it is necessary to focus and restrain from chasing after shiny objects, even/especially shiny dharma objects.

Although there are many positives to our present “dharma scene,” including access to a multitude of teachings and teachers via the internet and also “coming soon to a dharma center near you,” given that none of us have much time in this life, it may be best to practice some serious restraint. The many teachings and teachers quickly become noise in the system.

Take kōan for instance. You’ll hear many things about them, pro and con, often from people who haven’t seen through a single kōan, so most of what you’ll read is much like gossip. Of course, some amount of information about the pros and cons can be helpful, and it is wise to know something about what you’re getting yourself into. And then, if you are determined to see it through and through (mu or who? or whatever you’re assigned), then wide reading and learning can just result in dissipation and confusion. So I recommend finding a skilled teacher with whom you feel some affinity, and then taking up the practice you’re offered, throwing yourself into with wholeheartedness, uncommon focus and integrity, and minimal looking around.

Perhaps the essential quality of taking the student seat is to acknowledge that we don’t know what we’re doing, and we aren’t sure where we are on the path. We then inquire of our teacher (e.g., the practitioner on the teacher’s seat) to learn about samādhi and subtle realization. We place ourself in the care, under the guidance, of someone who has direct experience through their own process, not just from browsing on the internet. We allow our teacher to see where we’re at on this journey, and make adjustments to our practice as prescribed. This relational aspect of practice is an essential skill very different from the self-diagnosis of both samādhi and kenshō that seem to be raging on the internet now, especially in Facebook forums.

The possibilities of samadhi and kenshō do not function apart from the teacher-student and community relationships. These are essential for the full functioning of awakening, carrying all beings across.

May we all fully awaken and function freely.

May 20, 2019

May 20, 2019 By

Hakuin’s “Dragon Staff,” given to those who heard the sound of one hand

Was Hakuin Ekaku (1686 – 1768), the great Japanese revitalizer of Rinzai Zen and the inspiration for much of modern-day kōan introspection, a hater of that other Zen school – Sōtō Zen? What would have happened if Hakuin and a Sōtō monk had met face-to-face?

The short answer to the first question is “No, Hakuin was not a Sōtō hater.”

The short answer to the second question is that it happened a lot and, well, see below. From Hakuin’s reports, a good number of Sōtō monks studied with him and when Hakuin was a young monk, he also studied in Sōtō monasteries.

Hakuin did, however, have blistering criticisms of the silent illumination tendencies of the Sōtō Zen of his day. See my Hakuin’s Blistering Criticisms of Sōtō Zen: Who and What for a more detailed look at this. Briefly, Hakuin had at least these four criticisms:

  1. The zazen of silent illumination Zen is a passive pursuit of a state of perfect purity, and sometimes just a do-nothing practice of zoning out, sleeping, and generally wasting the resources of donors.
  2. Silent illumination Zen takes kensho as something that is inherent, too pure to experience, or already realized, and so denies the reality and significance of a personal experience of kenshō.
  3. Because silent illumination Zen denies kenshō, it has no inclination for post-satori development like Hakuin’s method for post-satori practice – digging into many kōans and sutras.
  4. Silent illumination Zen takes the dharma as a belief system and so the power of such teachings as “formlessness” and “no mind” is lost in doctrinal dharma (as opposed to personally putting it to work).

You may notice that some of the above seem to apply to much of today’s Sōtō Zen. Nevertheless….

Rinzai and Sōtō: Never the Twain Shall Meet?

Despite his often-repeated negative criticisms of Sōtō Zen, especially Sōtō with a silent illumination emphasis, Hakuin borrowed the Five Ranks teaching of Dòngshān from the Cáodòng (Sōtō) school, rather than use Línjì‘s Four Views, for example. Hakuin received instruction in the Five Ranks from either his main teacher, Shōju Rōjin (aka, Dōkyū Etan, 1642–1721), or from his own encounter with Sōtō priests at Inryō-ji, teh Sōtō temple referred to above that Hakuin stayed at for a practice period shortly after he left Shōju Rōshi. (1) Or perhaps both.

By this time, Hakuin was already suffering from Zen sickness, but had yet to meet Hakuyū and learn the “soft-butter method” that cured him. (2) Due to Hakuin’s affinity with the Five Ranks, they now serve as central (but quiet) organizing principles in both the contemporary Rinzai kōan curriculum and the reformed Hakuin-Yasutani kōan curriculum transplanted to the West by the likes of Rōshis Yasutani, Maezumi, Kapleau, and Aitken.

In Hakuin’s day, it should be noted, Sōtō and Rinzai were not as separate as they are today, at least, in Japan, where I’m told that if a Sōtō monk wants to train in a Rinzai monastery, they would need to reordain. Apparently, the reverse is also the case. This was not the case in Hakuin’s time.

In my view, it is a sad development. I have greatly benefited from study in Rinzai Zen and in the Harada-Yasutani kōan tradition, and would like to see more Sōtō practitioners have that opportunity, and visa versa. At the same time, both Sōtō and Rinzai lineages have a “family style” with integrity and could both make important contributions to sincere practitioners more interested in awakening than to sectarian purity, as well as to our fledgling global culture. So my hope is that both continue vigorously.

To complicate the situation, however, there are also some lineages that are neither Sōtō nor Rinzai in the traditional sense. I’m referring to all those who are descendents of Harada Daiūn Rōshi (1871 – 1961), the Sōtō monk who trained extensively in Rinzai Zen and received inka shōmei (proof of succession) from Tōyōta Dōkutan Rōshi (1840-1917), a Rinzai Zen master. Harada Daiūn Rōshi had a long teaching career in a Sōtō monastery, Hōshinji, used a reformed kōan curriculum, and also trained lay people together with monks, something that just was not done in his day.

Some of Harada Daiūn Rōshi’s present day successors regard themselves as Rinzai, some see themselves as Sōtō. In my case, due to the good steeping in Sōtō I received from my time with Katagiri Roshi, I emphasize the flow of Sōtō (aka, “forms”), and the importance of Dōgen’s teaching. At the same time, I think that kōan introspection inspired by Hakuin and Tōrei, is the greatest meditation innovation since the Buddha saw the morning star. From this hybrid perspective, Dōgen’s teaching is esteemed but not privileged. After all, there have been a lot of great Zen teachers.

But let’s get back to Inryō-ji

where Hakuin had a lovely practice period in a Sōtō monastery. Later, he described fifty monks practicing earnestly, including a monk named Jukaku Jōza, someone Hakuin felt he’d know for many years, and who Hakuin recognized for his genuine aspiration for the Way. At first, though, Hakuin saw him as “…an old man who seemed half-demented, with an unsightly face and a robe hanging in tatters from his body . . . who ran off when he saw me coming.” (2)

Fortunately, Hakuin sat next to Jukaku during the 90-day practice session. When Hakuin finally cornered Jukaku and they had a chance to talk, Hakuin says that they found their minds to be in complete agreement. This inspired them to sit an extreme sesshin together.

Here’s how Hakuin told the story:

“On one occasion, the two of us engaged in a private practice session. We pledged to continue it for seven days and nights. No sleep. No lying down. We cut a three-foot section of bamboo and fashioned it into a makeshift shippei. We sat facing each other with the shippei placed on the ground between us. We agreed that if one of us saw the other’s eyelids drop, even for a split second, he would grab the staff and crack him with it between the eyes. For seven days, we sat ramrod-straight, teeth clenched tightly in total silence. Not so much as an eyelash quivered. Right through to the end of the seventh night, neither one of us had occasion to reach for that cudgel. One night, a heavy snowfall blanketed the area. The dull, muffled thud of snow falling from the branches of the trees created a sense of extraordinary stillness and purity. I made an attempt at a poem to describe the joy I felt:

If only you could hear
the sound of snow
falling late at night
from the trees
of the old temple
in Shinoda!” (4)

The abbot of the Inryō-ji, a Sōtō lineage monk, even asked Hakuin, a Rinzai lineage monk, to be his successor at Inryō-ji. Hakuin seems to have been tempted, noting that “…the temple holdings included some very rich and productive fields, making it possible to provide for forty or even fifty visiting monks at annual summer retreats.” (5)

It wasn’t an easy choice, but Hakuin eventually decided he was not ready to settle down, so he declined the offer, and went on with his pilgrimage. On the day that Hakuin left Inryō-ji, he reported that “… Jukaku slipped away from the assembly, walked along at my side for several leagues, and then turned back.” (6)

So tender!

What would happen if Hakuin met a Sōtō monk face-to-face? In this case, they entangled eyebrows, and became fast dharma friends.

(1) See Complete Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn, trs., Norman Waddell, “58. Informal Talk on a Winter Night,” for Hakuin on Rujing and Dōgen. Here and in other places, Hakuin spoke highly of Dōgen, who, by the way, was also critical of silent illumination.

(2) See Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin, trs., Norman Waddell, “The Soft Butter Method,” pp. 105-107.

(3) Precious Mirror Cave, trs., Norman Waddell, pp. 185–6.

(4) Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin, trs., Norman Waddell, pp. 50-51.

(5) Ibid.

(6) Ibid.

Dōshō Port began practicing Zen in 1977 and now co-teaches with his wife, Tetsugan Zummach Sensei, with the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training, an internet-based Zen community. Dōshō received dharma transmission from Dainin Katagiri Rōshi and inka shōmei from James Myōun Ford Rōshi in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. Dōshō’s translation and commentary on The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans, is now available (Shambhala). He is also the author of Keep Me In Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri. Click here to support the teaching practice of Dōshō Rōshi at Patreon.

May 14, 2019

May 14, 2019 By

My wife and co-teacher, Tetsugan, and I have been noticing how participation falls into five types (give or take): visitor, member, student, apprentice, and successor. In this post, I’ll briefly flesh out those levels of participation.

By the way, and with synchronicity, James Myōūn Ford Rōshi has a recent post, Zen Practice for Everyone, with two levels: Openers of the Way and Followers of the Way. What I’m doing here is offering a way to see James’ “Followers of the Way” with more nuance. Or perhaps, as he cautions against, I’m holding “… the distinctions too tightly.” You get to be the judge.

Another piece of background is a psychological approach that I find helpful. It looks at the group dynamics at play in group membership – the FIRO Theory – and posits that people are sorting out three questions, simply put as:

“In or out?” (inclusion)
“Up or down?” (control) and
“Near or far?” (affection)

I sense that many people that come through the door are looking for something, but many are not yet clear what that is. The process of Zen practice can help clarify the heart’s innermost request, and we have skills that can assist visitors through the process of clarifying intention.

And like James said in his post, “One may participate at this level for as long as one wishes. There are many reasons this might be one’s best option for a lifetime. Family concerns. Work. Those other spiritual obligations. Life is messy, and there should be no judgement. This ‘light’ connection can bring forth good fruit.”

And in the end, we’ll all visitors here.

Member

The second level of participation is that of a member in the community. After some time checking out the community and teachers, some visitors will feel moved to support what’s happening with regular participation, a regular financial contribution, and a more regular practice, usually once a week or more. Some members practice zazen at home, and others don’t. No problem.

Hopefully, membership will fulfill a member’s need for belonging. Excellent. We live in a time of atomization and alienation, so this is not only understandable, but it is one of the services that we offer. Some people remain as members for years, and that’s fine. When a person participates at the member level, the community is more important than the teachers.

To members, we say with Rumi, “Are you stranger who just wandered in? Welcome home, my friend, welcome home.”

Some people become members as a way of taking another step closer to see if participation here in this community, with these teachers, addresses their heart’s longing to return home, and to be at home wherever they are. If that’s the case, then a member is on their way to becoming a student.

Student

Students begin to focus more of their time and energy into “open-hearted inquiry and audacious awakening”. How does that look? Students show up for zazen, classes, and sesshin. They engage the teachers regularly in dokusan (brief one-to-ones that happen during zazen) and occasional practice meetings (longer, relaxed, and scheduled when it works). They become more involved in the work of the center, becoming timekeepers, liturgists, and board members. Although visitors and members are also welcome – and encouraged – to join in the work of the center, it is often students who weed the garden, oil the hinges on the back door when needed, clean, serve tea and coffee, and notice when visitors and members need help. Yet the work of a student is primarily about their own zazen, study, and engagement (living the way), and secondarily about serving others.

Some students will begin working with kōan, while others will continue with the breath. Some students will decide to deepen their involvement and commitment to the buddhadharma through focused study of the precepts, with the intention to hone their capacity to not only do no harm, but to benefit living beings. They may go on to sew a rakusu, and then formally receive the precepts (Japanese, jukai). At that point, most will choose to remain students. Some will explore a closer relationship with the teachers and become apprentices.

Apprentice

Becoming an apprentice involves more fully making the above-mentioned shift from “what do I get?” to “what can I give?” Apprentices answer the FIRO questions – “In or out?” “Up or down?” “Near or far?” – by saying “In,” “Down,” and “Near.” For an apprentice, zazen, study, and engagement become about clarifying the great matter so that they can help others clarify the great matter, not necessarily by becoming teachers, but by however they can serve. If a visitor needs a support cushion, a support cushion appears. If a meal needs to be cooked, a tenzo appears. If a toilet needs cleaning, an apprentice holding a toilet-cleaning brush appears.

An apprentice has a close teacher-student relationship, is devoted to daily zazen, and vigorously participates in sesshin as often as possible. In addition to classes offered through the center, under the guidance of the teachers, the apprentice also engages in a rigorous study of the sutras and commentaries that are of significance on the Zen path. We have a Formal Training Curriculum for this.

Apprentices are also expected to play through the Harada-Yasutani kōan curriculum, which serves as a trellis for kenshō, deepening and clarifying the initial kenshō, then more and more fully cultivating verification within the myriad vexations of daily life.

One of the key decisions that apprentices make is whether to undergo the training as a householder or a homeleaver (aka, Zen priest). This is a big topic beyond the scope of this post, so I’ll keep it simple. The key difference in the training of a householder and homeleaver centers around the mastery of Sōtō Zen forms or rituals. This includes how to wear priest robes, zendo decorum, liturgical positions, and conducting ceremonies. In order to master these Zen forms, a period of monastic practice is necessary.

By the way, Robert Aitken Rōshi said somewhere (I believe he did, but this is from memory and I can’t find the source, so it could be me), that he found that it took 2,500 people coming through the door for even one to stay ten years.

Successor

For both householder and homeleaver apprentices, the process usually takes about ten years. After their apprenticeship, some will become teachers, but others will not. We don’t offer this program with any guarantee that it will “make you a teacher.” We recommend to people that explore apprenticeship training to do it if it is what they love to do, and not for what they will get out of it. Especially not for any credential. After all, teaching Zen in our culture is likely to pay less than minimum wage.

Most successors will have completed the Harada-Yasutani kōan curriculum and participated in at least several hundred days of sesshin. They will be fluent enough with the literature of the buddhadharma to know how to use big chunks of it as mirrors for people who want to see who they are. Also, a successor will know how to serve people in the context of Zen practice. In order to teach, a person should have the appropriate psychological, pedagogical, and interpersonal skills for such an undertaking, as well as be in life circumstances that support it.

And they need to be ready to not know what they’re getting into.

December 29, 2018

December 29, 2018 By

“Clam Kannon” by Hakuin: “The one who can cross over in the body of a clam reveals how the clam body also expounds the dharma.”

At the beginning of 2018, I began a year-long focus on Hakuin’s teaching, specifically, Norman Waddell’s newly translated Complete Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn: The Zen Records of Hakuin Zenji. In this blog post, I want to share the most important thing that about Hakuin’s Zen.

First, a little background. Hakuin (1686 – 1768) was a Japanese monk in the Rinzai tradition. Widely regarded as an exceptional artist, story teller, and fierce Zen master, he and his successors kept alive the Rinzai lineage in Japan, and largely through the efforts of the Sōtō monk, Harada Daiun Sogaku, are the source of much of the kōan introspection practiced outside of Japan today. For more on Hakuin, click here.

Some Cool Stuff About Hakuin That Aren’t Most Important

One of Hakuin’s outstanding gifts to us is the raw openness with which he showed up. He repeatedly took the Japanese custom of self-disparagement beyond normal limits and into fresh and sometimes hysterical extremes. For Hakuin, the bodhisattva of compassion, Kannon, as a lowly clam crossing over from the shore of suffering to the nirvana, was it. He inspires us to be exactly who we are. For more on this, see the image above and click here.

Furthermore, Hakuin penetrated the depths of the buddhadharma and shared his insights, usually through a vividly immanent expression of old Zen kōans, but also through reinvigorating the study and practice of the sutras. He also created new kōans like, “What is the sound of the single hand?” “East wall strikes west wall,” and “What is the color of the wind?” Indeed, Hakuin was a kōan master the likes of whom are seen only rarely on this little blue dumpling planet.

Hakuin also emphasized the importance of kenshō (awakening) and also the essential importance of continued post-kenshō training, vigorously moving through all the barriers and nasty briars left by our dharma ancestors. For more on this, click here.

Hakuin’s Definitive Awakening and the Most Important Thing

But none of these are his most important contribution to us. Hakuin’s most important contribution came from his own definitive awakening. For this, I’ll quote Waddell at some length:

“The religious quest that had been the single focus of his life for more than a quarter century finally came to an end one night in his forty-first year. He was in his chambers at Shōin-ji reading the Lotus Sutra, the very same chapter, the one on parables, he had dismissed years before as ‘a mere collection of simple tales about cause and effect.’

“In that chapter, the Buddha reveals to his disciple Shariputra the true nature of the Mahayana Bodhisattva, whose own enlightenment is but the first step in his career of assisting others to attain theirs. This is identical to the teaching Shōju had tried to drive home to Hakuin years before. Like Shariputra, Hakuin had erroneously regarded his original realization as full and perfect enlightenment, and he would have been unable to proceed beyond that realization without the timely assistance of a genuine teacher.

“As Hakuin read, the sound of a cricket churring at the foundation stones of the temple reached his ears; at that instant, he crossed the threshold into great enlightenment. The accumulated doubts and uncertainties of forty years suddenly ceased to exist. The reason why the Lotus Sutra was regarded as supreme among all the Buddha’s preachings was revealed to him ‘with blinding clarity.’ He found teardrops ‘cascading down his face like strings of beads—they poured out like beans from a ruptured sack.’” (1)

Simply put, the point of dharma practice, of a human life well-lived, is to awaken thoroughly enough to help others awaken. Hakuin’s open-hearted presentation, his art, his kōan offerings, his emphasis on kenshō, are all just about this – actualizing the bodhisattva vow. A quick search of the Complete Poison Blossoms finds Hakuin returning to this theme 80 times (more or less). 

Spurring Forward the Wheel of the Four Great Universal Vows

Here is verse where Hakuin lays it out most clearly:

“Even if you are able to enter through the gates into nonduality,
If you lack the Bodhi-mind you’ll end up under Mara’s sway.
Anyone who wants to achieve complete mastery of the Dharma
Has to spur forward the wheel of the four great universal vows.” (2)

Yes! Cutting through all of the secondary and tertiary motivations for Zen practice (love of zazen; psychological, spiritual, physical healing; the subtlety and depth of the kōan literature; fluidity in life and death; mastering expression of the great matter; etc.), Hakuin returns, simply and finally, to Great Vehicle Awakening Truth (aka, Mahayana Buddhism), encouraging us through his example, to put our shoulders to the wheel of the four great universal vows. (3)

Hakuin’s Zen offers a path where fulfilling the four great universal vows is an actual possibility, clearly defined, not just vague buddha-dogma. I find the clarity of this focus utterly vivifying, cutting through the self-centered focus of our present culture and dharma scene.

It’s really about this great love. This great love isn’t a mushy, idealistic, romantic love, but a tough and messy love that is made alive through cultivating wholehearted verification, and then showing up in this world to help others realize this very mind is buddha.

That is it.

(1) Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin, Hakuin Zenji & Norman Waddell, (Kindle Locations 410-413). 

(2) Complete Poison Blossoms from a Thicket of Thorn, Hakuin Zenji & Norman Waddell, p. 138.

(3) An interpretive version: “The many beings are numberless; Vowing to carry them across.
Greed, anger, and ignorance rise endlessly; Vowing to cut off the mind road.
Dharma gates are countless; Vowing to wake to them all.
Buddha’s Way is all embracing; Vowing to follow through.”

Dōshō Port began practicing Zen in 1977 and now co-teaches with his wife, Tetsugan Zummach Sensei, with the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training, an internet-based Zen community. Dōshō received dharma transmission from Dainin Katagiri Rōshi and inka shōmei from James Myōun Ford Rōshi in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. Dōshō’s translation and commentary on The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans, is now available (Shambhala). He is also the author of Keep Me In Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri. Click here to support the teaching practice of Dōshō Rōshi at Patreon.

October 16, 2018

October 16, 2018 By

“Dragon Head Kannon” (2008) by Mayumi Oda. Case 24, Blue Cliff Record. Iron Grindstone LiuThe Record of Empty Hall,  Case 67: Iron Grindstone Liú’s Upside Down (1)

Raised: Zǐhú asked Iron Grindstone Liú, “For a long time, I’ve been favorably inclined to ‘Iron Grindstone Liú.’ Is there someone for whom this [name] would be suitable or not?”

Grindstone said, “I won’t go there.”

Hú said, “Turn left, turn right.”

Grindstone said, “Venerable, is there someone who goes upside down?”

Hú then struck.

[Xūtáng’s] alternate saying for Iron Grindstone Liú: “Not knowing, rely on meeting an outsider.”

Hakuin said, “Where the darkness and the light do not reach, there is a good view.”

Comment:

Iron Grindstone Liú was a close disciple and successor of Guīshān. Even though she was one of the few women to receive transmission in the good old days of Zen, she does not have an entry in the Record of the Transmission of the Lamp. And despite all of her grinding away at the half-baked understanding of various (male) practitioners, there are just two known stories about her – this one and the better known “Guīshān and Iron Grindstone Liu.” that begins, “Old cow, you’ve come!”

See Melissa Blacker Rōshi’s wonderful article in Lion’s Roar for the remainder of that case and her commentary – click here.

Regarding the Grindstone, Hakuin said, “After considerable exertion, having broken through ten thousand miles of barriers, finally you come to the time when the six nations are cleared.” 

That is, Grindstone has not only realized the undivided heart but worked through post-kenshō barriers to actualize in daily life so that peace reigned far and wide.

In the present case, we have two wonderful adepts playing with the buddhadharma like it’s hacky sack. Unfortunately, we also don’t know much about the other character, Zǐhú. We do know that in the Record of the Transmission of the Lamp, Zǐhú is listed as a successor of Nánquán, a dharma brother of the Grindstone’s teacher, Guīshān. And this case is the one story included for Zǐhú. (2)

Yuánwù, however, in his commentary on the Blue Cliff Record, has this:

Zǐhú set up a sign on his outside gate; on the sign were words saying,

“Zǐhú has a dog: above, he takes people’s heads; in the middle, he takes people’s loins; below, he takes people’s legs. If you stop to talk to him, you’ll lose your body and life.” Whenever Zǐhú saw a newcomer, he would immediately shout and say, ‘Watch out for the dog!’ As soon as the monk turned his head, Zǐhú would immediately return to the abbot’s room. (3)

Watch out for the dog! Where’d he go, where’d he go?

Zǐhú had heard about the Grindstone’s exploits and was favorably inclined, despite their different styles. While he was prone to slip away, the Grindstone ground away. Here, however, there is no mention of his warning sign for his dog. He just wonders if she thinks she’s a fit person to carry such an awesome name.

As if changing places, Grindstone tries to slip away, being a person of neither yes or no – “I won’t go there.”

Zǐhú then goes cha cha cha, turning to the right, and turning to the left.

The dialogue, you may remember, began with Zǐhú wondering, “Is there someone who …” and Grindstone now shares her wondering – you can go left and right but are you someone who can go upside down? In other words, are you upside down in this world of upside down views? So, just to be clear, are you right side up?

Pow. Zǐhú strikes. 

And that’s the story. Yuánwù, though, uses this as an example of someone raising an interpretation, missing the point, and getting hit. He sees Grindstone’s “Venerable, is there someone who goes upside down?” as a the-horse-already-left-the-barn interpretation and even has Hú hitting her before she finished speaking.

I say, baloney! If Grindstone’s words were interpretive, then Zǐhú too missed the mark. If they’re both wrong, then everytime words are spoken by anyone, a clear-eyed person would just strike. Muttering along as he does, Yuánwù’s name is right there, clear as day, on the same indictment as Grindstone and Zǐhú. 

Xūtáng and Hakuin both see the point here to be about practicing don’t know mind in our daily life encounters, in this case with an outsider – a woman adept in male dominated Zen. “Where the darkness and the light do not reach, there is a good view.”

So although this case is complete, the implications roll on and on.

How do you relate?  

(1) “Empty Hall is Xūtáng. For more about him, click here.

(2) Record of the Transmission of the Lamp, Whitfield, V3, p. 58. This story also appears in commentary to the Book of Serenity, trs, Thomas Cleary, p. 253.

(2) Blue Cliff Record, trs, Thomas and J.C. Cleary, p. 529.

Dōshō Port began practicing Zen in 1977 and now co-teacheswith his wife, Tetsugan Zummach Osho. Dōshō also teaches with the Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training, an internet-based Zen community. Dōshō received dharma transmission from Dainin Katagiri Rōshi and inka shōmei from James Myōun Ford Rōshi in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. He is the author of Keep Me In Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri.

Follow Us!
Browse Our Archives
TRENDING AT PATHEOS Buddhist
Recalling Ram Mohan Roy who coined the word...
Noting a step toward a coherent theology of...
When You Come to a Fork in the...
Getting Motivated to Start Mindfulness Meditation
The Truth about Shame, Worry, Insecurity and Fear
Unveiling Your Mental Brilliance: A Journey to Enlightenment
view all Buddhist blogs