and<\/em><\/strong> sacred.<\/p>\nMost spiritual paths are about transcending the mundane, but not so much about transcending the sacred. This Zen way is about transcending both samsara and nirvana. \u00a0And it depends on the power of zazen.<\/p>\n
Yet, the power of zazen and transcending mundane and sacred are not the same thing. Indeed, it\u2019s possible to sit upright so that when people come by they think you\u2019re a dead tree stump without going beyond. In our tradition in China, for example, there was a teaching style know as the \u201cdead tree stump hall\u201d where practitioners sat upright developing the power of zazen, really sitting through it all, but some we\u2019re told still did not open their hearts, transcending mundane and sacred. Revering samadhi is a trap that we can get into in this practice.<\/p>\n
Now, whatever you\u2019re working with on the Zen way, it is characterized by the simply becoming one-with. \u00a0If you are working with the breath, become one with the breath. \u00a0If you\u2019re doing shikantaza, earnest vivid sitting, become one with each of the myriad things as it arises and passes away. \u00a0If we\u2019re working with mu koan, wholly becoming mu. \u00a0No part left out.<\/p>\n
However, it\u2019s possible to miss the forest for the trees, to over identify with the minutiae of the technique and miss the spirit. \u00a0The living, open-hearted spirit requires fearlessness \u2013 and fearlessness can be painfully scary. \u00a0So instead, we can distract ourselves from the rawness of this practice by identifying with the technique.<\/p>\n
The Buddha, our original great teacher, sat under the bodhi tree with rigorous authenticity. Before he became the Buddha, he had traveled around ancient India and worked with a number of teachers and quickly mastered their systems. He was a sam\u0101dhi master.\u00a0Yet he noticed that his heart\u2019s innermost request was still yearning, because even in the wondrous states of mind that he realized, when the special state of mind passed, he was no closer to carrying all beings across, his one great vow, than he had been before whatever deep state of mind.<\/p>\n
He had come to a corner where he could not move an inch, and so having exhausted all the options, he just sat under the bodhi tree without leaning. \u00a0Just sitting through it all. Finally, sitting through the night, he must have been looked up from his just-sitting downward gaze and saw the morning star with open-hearted rawness, and the world turned around. He cried, \u201cI together with all beings and the great earth attain the Way!\u201d<\/p>\n
He realized intimate self-knowledge \u2013 what is this \u201cI\u201d?<\/p>\n
Keizan tells us,<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is to say \u2018I\u2019 is not Shakyamuni Buddha. Even Shakyamuni Buddha comes from this \u2018I.\u2019 And it does not only give birth to Shakyamuni Buddha, all beings and the great earth also come from here. \u00a0Just as when you lift a net, all the holes are raised, in the same way when Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened, so too were all beings on earth enlightened. \u00a0And it was not only all beings on earth that were enlightened, all the buddhas of the past, present, and future also attained enlightenment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Buddha transcended mundane and sacred by fully entering<\/em> who he was from the beginning of time. It\u2019s completely beyond discussion \u2013 an eighty thousand foot precipice in each of us. The Buddha\u2019s insight was that all beings \u2013 that includes us! \u2013 and the great earth attain the way. This is not offered as something you might understand and believe but something that must be personally verified so that it is has power in our lives.<\/p>\nOut of compassion for us, concerned about our clearly seeing the morning star, Keizan asks us, tests us, \u201cLet me ask you, practitioners, is the Buddha enlightened with you? Or, do you become enlightened with the Buddha?\u201d<\/p>\n
Now you might say that you\u2019ll take enlightenment either way.<\/p>\n
But Keizan is raising an important and subtle point here.<\/p>\n
What is your relationship with the Buddha? \u00a0Really, what is it? Which comes first \u2013 you or Buddha? \u00a0Is the practice of enlightenment a passive process, where the Buddha does the work? Or is it a process of activity, of assertiveness, where you make it happen, doing the Buddha\u2019s work?\u00a0\u00a0Is the Buddha enlightened with you, or do you become enlightened with the Buddha?<\/p>\n
Which is it?<\/p>\n
Keizan then pulls the sitting mat out from underneath us: \u201cIf you say that you are enlightened with the Buddha, that you become enlightened with the Buddha, or that the Buddha becomes enlightened with you, this is not the Buddha\u2019s enlightenment.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you chose the Buddha doing the work \u2013 Wrong! If you chose you doing the work \u2013 Wrong! Passive won\u2019t do, active won\u2019t do. What is the self?<\/p>\n
In our thorough wrongness, our passive or active stance is illuminated. Illuminating our stance, we sit through it all in a corner where we cannot move an inch. In this same corner, we find the Buddha sitting through it all. No going back. \u00a0No going forward. \u00a0No one to do the work for us. \u00a0No work to do for ourself.<\/p>\n
Looking up, you might suddenly roar like a lion, \u201cAhhh! I together with the great earth and all living beings attain the Way!\u201d<\/p>\n
Like the lion\u2019s roar, the Buddha\u2019s roar comes from the primordial depths, rattling and shaking the great earth. \u201cI together with the great earth and all living beings attain the Way.\u201d Keizan\u2019s voice resonates through the ages, entwined with the Buddha\u2019s voice, inviting us to realize this for ourselves.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take a look at another story that might at first seem like a non sequitur.<\/p>\n
One day Keizan met with the nun Sonin and asked her, \u201cThe winter is coming to an end and spring is arriving. Certainly seasons come and go. There\u2019s an order to this. What is your understanding?\u201d<\/p>\n
Can you hear the child-like innocence here? Keizan is like a little kid asking, \u201cHow come winter changes to spring?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sonin said, \u201cIn the branches of a tree without shade, how could there be any season?\u201d<\/p>\n
For a tree not to have shade it would have to transcend light and dark, mundane and sacred, profane and holy. \u00a0The tree would have to be the tree under which the Buddha is sitting with nothing outside.<\/p>\n
Keizan said, \u201cWell, what about right now?!\u201d<\/p>\n
How can you make it real?<\/p>\n
Sonin just bowed.<\/p>\n
Right now! \u00a0Oh my goodness! \u201cI together with the great earth and all living beings attain the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now. Not twenty-five hundred years ago in India or seven-hundred years ago in Japan \u2013 right now.<\/p>\n
When we become the breath, shikantaza, or mu with no remainder and look up \u2013 \u201cOh my god! \u00a0Oh my god, right now!\u201d<\/p>\n
Sonin just bowed. She leveled herself, put herself horizontal with everything, and brought forth the great earth and all living beings. \u00a0Sonin just bowed.<\/p>\n
Keizan confirmed her awakening and gave her dharma transmission. With her body and heart, Sonin became perhaps the first woman in Japan to receive dharma transmission. Later, Keizan said that Sonin and he were closer than \u201ciron and magnet.\u201d<\/p>\n
So this story has a happy ending.<\/p>\n
How about your story? Will you have the end of your story written for you or will you write it yourself?<\/p>\n
If you allow your story to be written or write it yourself, it is not the ending of a Buddha\u2019s story. So what will you do? It\u2019s very important. The Buddhas of the past, present, and future, depend on what you do now.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Note: This is the second part of five, based talks from last year\u2019s Rohatsu that students (Brian, Ryan, Erik, and Vera-Ellen \u2013 thank you!) transcribed and I edited. The others will be posted here over the next couple weeks. Click here for the first part: \u00a0\u201cThe Root of Zen.\u201d Sitting so that the reeds grow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>Note: This is the second part of five, based talks from last year\u2019s Rohatsu that students (Brian, Ryan, Erik, and Vera-Ellen \u2013 thank you!) transcribed and I edited. The others will be posted here over the next couple weeks. Click here for the first part: \u00a0\u201cThe Root of Zen.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n