\n
I stayed up last night reading some excerpts from a priest from San Francisco Zen Center,<\/span> Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler\u2019s, <\/span> Two Shores of Zen: An American Monk\u2019s Japan.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\nJiryu and I spent a little time at the same monastery in Japan, it turns out and he asked me to review his work. I\u2019ll do that in an upcoming blog and I very much enjoyed reading the excerpts that he sent and even had a good dose of nostalgia.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\nFor now, remembering Japanese Zen training, one thought stands out \u2013 we\u00a0 talk an awful lot in American Zen. Perhaps this is so salient because I\u2019m in the last few days of a writing retreat and have some more thoughts to share with you below.\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/div>\nIn order to have any semblance of balance, a student needs a lot of zazen. A lot, you hear me? \u201cOh, it isn\u2019t the quantity but the quality,\u201d you might say.<\/span><\/div>\nAnd I\u2019d say, oh, stop it. Enough eel wriggling psychobabble, avoiding the cushion. If you don\u2019t want to sit, don\u2019t do it but don\u2019t spew vomit on others.<\/span><\/div>\nDid I mention that I\u2019m rather crabby right at the end of a writing day? Yes, I am. And particularly today because Dogen has thrown up a barrier that I can\u2019t quite find a door through. Thank goodness.\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/div>\nAnyway, here\u2019s a little bit from yesterday\u2019s work that you might enjoy. It\u2019s about thinking in zazen. I begin with a bit of Dogen commentary and go from there.\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/div>\nAlthough he is not alone in \u201cthinking fixedly,\u201d Yueshan\u2019s words are singular:\u00a0\u201cthinking through not thinking.\u201d Thinking is the very skin, flesh, bones and\u00a0marrow; not thinking is the very skin, flesh, bones and marrow.<\/i><\/span><\/div>\nThe usual understanding of Zen is that we value not thinking more than thinking. For example, when Bodhidharma\u2019s disciples came forward to express their understandings, he said to them in turn. \u201cYou have attained my skin.\u201d \u201cYou have attained my flesh.\u201d \u201cYou have attained my bones.\u201d \u201cYou have attained my marrow\u201d for the one-armed guy who did a bow rather than offer words.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
An unbalanced view would be that Bodhidharma was ranking the understanding of each of his disciples and placing the nonverbal response as more central than the others. However, the view from mountain-still sitting fully embraces each view as it is, like a mountain accepts all of its visitors, not from picking a choosing. This is not to say that the views or visitors are necessarily equal, just that our practice is to confirm them equally.\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/div>\nAs such, Dogen says, \u201cEach one\u2019s attainment and understanding is skin, flesh, bones and marrow leaping from body and mind; or skin, flesh, bones, and marrow dropping off body and mind.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/div>\nTo enter into Dogen\u2019s Zen is to investigate mountain-still sitting like this. It isn\u2019t about reading words, spinning out in a head trip and then going back to our life, continuing to practice our pathology. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/div>\nHow can we vivify the attainment of each moment? By leaping through body and mind and dropping off body and mind. Every moment of thinking, every moment of not thinking is whole and complete lacking nothing, the vivid hopping along of life and death. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/div>\nThus Yueshan\u2019s words are singular. Just this person! Just this person! Even numbskull sitting is vivified as just this person! To vivify is to transform and transmit. To give birds to the air. To give flowers to the mountain. Thinking is what is transmitted. Not thinking is what is transmitted.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
For example, Katagiri Roshi once took the first two lines a poem by Ryokan and added his own conclusion, the last line.<\/span><\/div>\nFalling maple leaf<\/i><\/span><\/div>\nShowing front, showing back<\/i><\/span><\/div>\nNever fails to f<\/i><\/span>all.<\/i>
<\/span><\/div>\nThis moment gives us the first two lines of a poem to be tucked in our breast pocket. Only each one of us can write the punch line.<\/span><\/div>\n
![](\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_0uPSljNE9f4\/Szqk4TTqViI\/AAAAAAAAAvo\/x1SSdYI5Mak\/s1600-h\/101_1197.JPG\")
<\/a><\/div>\n