way of suffering and the necessary (but insufficient) first step on the path for both home leavers and home dwellers is some form of renunciation, a dropping our self-styled ideas and taking up the way of freedom.<\/span><\/p>\nIn other words, you gotta be sick of your self to begin practice.<\/p>\n
When we don\u2019t see that our way is the way of suffering, we aren\u2019t quite ready yet to take it up. Indeed, unless there is renunciation, then the practice serves merely as an ornament of the ego. And as an ornament, the dharma sucks (and it\u2019ll bite back too), so if that\u2019s what you\u2019re looking for, look somewhere else. Take up whatever will make people\u2019s mouth\u2019s drop in awe at the oh-so-totally-cool you.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, there are good examples in the not so distant past. In Bokusan\u2019s commentary on the Genjokoan<\/span><\/span>, for instance, he talks about how he as a young man came to Zen, looking for How to do everything in accordance with the Buddhadharma. Katagiri Roshi was so strongly of this bent that he wiped his butt with clay balls just like Dogen did. Due to the movement of the dharma to the West, we now have the added wonderful challenge of finding the Way within a new cultural context (a.k.a, the dharma of wiping our butts with toilet paper).<\/span><\/p>\nOf course, in entering the kind of practice I\u2019m talking about, a wise person investigates a teacher and tradition carefully for several years and if they jump in the ocean, they take responsibility for their circle of protection. The teacher might be quite a duffball and still make a good teacher for you. It really isn\u2019t about the teacher, anyway, but about whether you are willing and able to drop self-clinging for a heart beat or so.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, practice in the West has already gotten so confused that there are dharma centers that offer workshops in how to design your own practice, a practice that really<\/span><\/span> works for you. It would be like a sick person coming to a clinic and the doctor prescribing a disease while insisting that it really is a medicine.<\/span><\/p>\nOne qualifier: especially for home-based practitioners, it isn\u2019t so simple as doing exactly what you\u2019re told, although that might be a good thing at the beginning. As a person develops practice legs, it is important that they walk on their own and declare the truth with their own voice.<\/p>\n
Also, in order to practice for the long run, it takes a cultivated sensitivity to what\u2019s possible and called for in the moment \u2013 get up at 5am and sit or sleep in, for example, given the many demands of the upcoming day. But a mature person while practicing will take up the practice exactly as it\u2019s offered, dropping self-clinging and sitting in the student seat.<\/p>\n
If a person comes to me and wants to study Zen, I don\u2019t prescribe a disease and call it a medicine but prescribe a medicine and let them discover how it is a disease.<\/p>\n
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