Well, for starters, verifying the dharma and unfolding enlightenment in daily life is one way to live a vital and meaningful life, freeing everyone together while slobbering along through what Mumon calls \u201ca thousand mistakes, ten thousand mistakes.\u201d<\/span>\nOne or two more points on this for now.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\nPerhaps because of my cross training (koan and shikantaza) I think I see a couple things here that some of my friends who\u2019ve trained only in one or the other field don\u2019t.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\nFirst, the term that\u2019s used in koan Zen for breakthrough, \u201ckensho\u201d (literally, seeing nature), has a very specific referent. However, those with shikantaza training tend to use the term to nebulously refer to a large variety of dharma experiences of all types \u2013 spiritual excrescence, samadhi, and insight. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\nAnd indeed, there are a great many experiences that a diligent practitioner might have that seem to be breakthroughs. For example, we might see warm and fuzzy lights rolling through the zendo. This isn\u2019t a kensho but an excrescence.\u00a0<\/span>\nWe might breakthrough into a deep, wide and stable heart that fills the universe. This isn\u2019t kensho but probably a state of calm abiding.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nWe might have dharma insights about impermanence and nonself and compassion. These also are probably not kensho (or not necessarily) but might still be important and verify an aspect of dharma truth.\u00a0Bits and pieces of the true dharma eye.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\nThis seems to be one of the sources of miscommunication amongst us \u2013 we\u2019re not really talking about the same thingee.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n\u201cKensho\u201d in koan Zen is <\/span>quite precisely<\/span> operationalized as having seen Mu and then passed through the checking questions and a bunch more koans. I won\u2019t say what it is, of course, because it\u2019s really important to see it for yourself (and not because I want to jerk you around as a Soto priest recently said about koan teachers).<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\nOf all the realizations that one might have, for over a thousand years in some lineages, this one has been held up as the barrier of the Ancestral teachers. And indeed, it is powerful and important. This one among the many insights is regarded as a pivotal realization because this one among the many is a fulcrum in the sense that it \u201c\u2026<\/span>supplies capability for action\u201d (one of the dictionary definitions).\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\nThe realization of Mu is embedded in shikantaza Zen as well as koan Zen, of course, hidden in the wide open.\u00a0<\/span> <\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\nSeeing Mu and then according the circumstances is what the early steps in the koan process are all about. Following Mu, there is a constant call for the application of the realization in much the same way that carefully attending to the details of the forms of practice in shikantaza Zen call for the actual practice of enlightenment.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\nIn koan Zen, one call to practice enlightenment comes through verbal prompts in the privacy of the dokusan room.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\nIn shikantaza Zen, one call to practice enlightenment comes through the directions of how to sit, walk, stand and lie down. In many cases, it is just such an action that demonstrates the koan.\u00a0<\/span>\nAnd that leaves me wondering, for instance, what is the koan for which the most fitting response is to gassho precisely when entering the zendo?<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019ll leave that aside for now.\u00a0<\/span>
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The other point that\u2019s on my mind is that sincere shikantaza practitioners may have already seen Mu \u2026 without knowing it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nVery pure, I suppose, but also kind of a waste because the experience isn\u2019t culled out for ongoing practice verification.<\/span>
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My advice is that if you want to accord with kensho and practice it (not just dump it into the dust bin of nice memories), work with a teacher qualified in such things. <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n
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