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In this look at Brad Warner\u2019s new book,\u00a0It Came From Beyond Zen: More Practical Advice from\u00a0D\u014dgen, Japan\u2019s Greatest Zen Master,\u00a0<\/em>I\u2019m going to focus just on one issue \u2013 k\u014dan. But for decorum sake, let\u2019s start with this:<\/p>\n Brad Warner has done a lot of good for Zen in the West. Most practitioners I talk with who are under 40-years-old found their way to Zen through Warner\u2019s books, especially\u00a0<\/em>Hardcore Zen.\u00a0<\/em>Warner has\u00a0cultivated an image of being an irreverent iconoclastic, while ironically embracing orthodox S\u014dt\u014d Zen,\u00a0 for example, by exhibiting reverence for D\u014dgen\u2019s teaching, advocating no-goal zazen, and finding kensho and koan introspection\u00a0either insignificant or not a part of S\u014dt\u014d practice.<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s what I said about Warner\u2019s previous book,\u00a0Don\u2019t Be A Jerk: And Other Practical Advice from D\u014dgen, Japan\u2019s Greatest Zen Master (A Radical but Reverent Paraphrasing of D\u014dgen\u2019s Treasury of the True Dharma<\/a> Eye). <\/em>Read the whole review here<\/a>. All that still applies.<\/p>\n Warner\u2019s new book, It Came From Beyond Zen,<\/em>\u00a0is more of the same \u2013 a practitioner\u2019s helpful contribution to D\u014dgen studies. It includes a careful review of what the old boy (D\u014dgen, that is, not the 53-year-old Warner) said, paraphrased with phrases like \u201cWhat\u2019s yours, bro?\u201d thrown in, and a generous review of other translations. The chapters include commentary by Warner, as well.<\/p>\n As I said, Warner\u2019s near full-on embrace of post-Meiji S\u014dt\u014d orthodoxy, especially regarding k\u014dan, is what I\u2019ll dig into here in some detail, responding point-by-point to Warner. But\u00a0he\u2019s right, the cross talk between k\u014dan Zen practitioners and nonk\u014dan Zen practitioners tends not to be fruitful. People tend to take this issue as intensely personal. Click here<\/a> for my recent post about my history with\u00a0D\u014dgen and\u00a0k\u014dan Zen.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a lot of cross talk in Zen circles, about whether D\u014dgen practiced and taught what folks these days call \u2018k\u014dan Zen.'\u201d<\/p>\n K\u014dan Zen has developed a lot since D\u014dgen\u2019s time, so I don\u2019t know anyone who thinks that D\u014dgen practiced or taught k\u014dan Zen like it\u2019s practiced and taught in our post-Hakuin world (as if there was one thing that really existed now or then called \u201ck\u014dan Zen\u201d). D\u014dgen had received transmission from a Rinzai line before he went to China, but we have even less information about what their actual practice was and if they engaged in k\u014dan introspection.<\/p>\n However, it doesn\u2019t seem that D\u014dgen had any set curriculum and may have had a more panoramic approach to k\u014dan, rather than Dahui\u2019s key phrase method, as Steven Heine (Like Cats and Dogs: Contesting the Mu Koan in Zen Buddhism<\/a> <\/em>\u2013 my review here<\/a>)\u00a0<\/em>and Taigen Leighton (Just This Is It<\/em>, p. 12) have argued. The panoramic approach, though, is a series of key-phrases, so in actual practice the distinction falls apart.<\/p>\n Stepping back and looking at the whole body of D\u014dgen\u2019s work, it seems to me that what he was doing was subtle and nuanced and doesn\u2019t fit neatly into today\u2019s k\u014dan or nonk\u014dan (or panoramic and key phrase) hardening of the categories. What\u2019s interesting to me and my ilk is the incredible k\u014dan playfulness, creativity, and integration that D\u014dgen manifested in his writing, seemingly without limit. It\u2019s really inspiring. And that\u2019s the main reason I enter the forest of thorns here about D\u014dgen and k\u014dan \u2013 he provides k\u014dan practitioners with such inspiration that I want to point his work out rather than have it hidden under the \u201czazen-only\u201d bushel basket.<\/p>\n Granted,\u00a0D\u014dgen said a lot and so it is possible to pull together a poison blossoms bouquet for both\u00a0k\u014dan Zen and nonk\u014dan Zen. But what was\u00a0D\u014dgen\u2019s practice and what does that say about cultivating verification today? I find myself still interested in those questions even though I\u2019ve been researching them on and off the cushion for forty years, as well as writing about it here for almost ten years. Warner\u2019s view provides me with an opportunity to summarize some of that (just follow the many links for more).<\/p>\n That said, I think we in S\u014dt\u014d Zen make way too much of\u00a0D\u014dgen. Afterall, he is long dead and wasn\u2019t God or the lord Jesus but a person like us, a self-proclaimed broken-wooden ladle. In addition, if we\u2019re going to make a big deal out of dead people, there have been a lot of great Zen teachers in China, Japan, and Korea (at least). And\u00a0Rujing, one of D\u014dgen\u2019s primary teachers, gave instruction for how to engage the mu\u00a0k\u014dan (click here<\/a>), as did Dogen (click here<\/a>), which would have been kinda silly if no one they were talking to was doing it. Finally, D\u014dgen\u2019s immediate successors, at least through Keizan, practiced, woke up, and taught through k\u014dan (click here<\/a> and\/or\u00a0click here<\/a>).<\/p>\n In my view, the k\u014dan innovation is one of the most generous and illuminating developments in meditation practice in fifteen hundred years or so. And Hakuin and his close successors were incredible spiritual geniuses. So even if\u00a0D\u014dgen really did teach that zazen MUST be a\u00a0k\u014dan-free zone, well, so what?<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the kind of Zen [k\u014dan Zen] in which your teacher gives you a tricky question like, \u2018What is the sound of one hand clapping?\u2019 or \u2018If a tree falls on a mime does he make a sound?\u2019 and you meditate on it. Then you\u2019re supposed to go to your master and present your answer.\u201d<\/p>\n Ok, \u201cIf a tree falls on a mime does he make a sound?\u201d \u2013 I like! A wonderful found\u00a0k\u014dan!<\/p>\n However, Warner\u2019s trivializing portrayal of\u00a0k\u014dan Zen exists only in Warner\u2019s mind. I hope. K\u014dan Zen is not about meditating on a k\u014dan, referred to by Warner elsewhere as that \u201cRinzai thinkee thing,\u201d but about being the k\u014dan, doing the thinking, not thinking, non thinking thing. And Warner\u2019s notion that\u00a0k\u014dan Zen is like elementary school where the student is called to the front of the room and put on the spot for \u201cthe answer\u201d is a feeling that people sometimes have but isn\u2019t the actual work.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s somebody (John Tarrant<\/a>) who knows about\u00a0k\u014dan Zen describing what it\u2019s about:<\/p>\n \u201cThe method of immersing yourself in a great question is more ancient than Buddhism and seems to arise naturally in some people when they turn to spiritual things. It is a method that faces human ignorance squarely and at the same time has faith that remedy for suffering exists, and that a sincere effort will reveal that remedy\u2026. Over and over again, [k\u014dan] Zen is not about having the answer but about moving in the darkness of what is unknown and uncertain and trusting both your moves and the darkness that opens as you enter it.\u201d<\/p>\n Briefly put, k\u014dan introspection is for people that are driven to investigate the essential questions of life and death in relationship with someone who is also doing that investigation.<\/p>\n For you visual learners, here\u2019s Hakuin\u2019s \u201cBlind Men Crossing a Bridge\u201d (thanks, Robert L.) that gives a wonderful illustration of the process:<\/p>\n \u201cD\u014dgen did not teach this sort of \u2018k\u014dan Zen.\u2019 Period. End of debate. Forever.\u201d<\/p>\n On this we can agree. Nobody taught or teaches Warner\u2019s parody of k\u014dan introspection, including D\u014dgen.<\/p>\n \u201cD\u014dgen \u2026 wrote very extensively about what kind of Zen he did practice and teach. He is abundantly clear about it, especially in his essay \u201cFukanzazengi\u201d \u2026 there is nothing in that or, indeed, in any of D\u014dgen\u2019s writing in which he recommends that anyone sit and contemplate a\u00a0k\u014dan and then try to answer it for their teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n I beg to differ. We know that\u00a0D\u014dgen was a great\u00a0k\u014danizer (click here<\/a>), reframing monastic life from the kitchen to the toilet in terms of\u00a0k\u014dan. Did he leave zazen out? Well, no, in my view, he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Right in the \u201cFukanzazengi\u201d (\u201cUniversal Recommendations for Zazen\u201d), <\/em>despite what Warner believes,\u00a0D\u014dgen defines zazen as the \u201ck\u014dan realized.\u201d\u00a0Click here<\/a>. Further, when\u00a0D\u014dgen taught what he saw as Buddha\u2019s zazen in the \u201cFukanzazengi\u201d and several other places, he used the \u201cthinking, not-thinking, non- thinking\u00a0k\u014dan<\/span>.\u201d Remember, it\u2019s not about meditating on something but about being it.<\/p>\n Still,\u00a0is it the case that D\u014dgen never recommended working with the traditional k\u014dans? No, it isn\u2019t. Take this, for example:<\/p>\n \u201cGood gentleman, when you meet a teacher, first ask for one case of a k\u014dan story, and just keep it in mind and study it diligently (Eiheikoroku,\u00a0<\/em>Hogo 14).\u201d<\/p>\n Notably,\u00a0D\u014dgen didn\u2019t say \u201c\u2026just keep it in mind EXCEPT in zazen.\u201d He just didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n In addition, D\u014dgen frequently used the expression \u201csit quietly and look into\u2026\u201d something. Like this:<\/p>\n \u201cI only ask that students sit quietly and look into the beginning and end of this body as it truly is. The body, limbs, hair, and skin come from the two drops of father\u2019s semen and mother\u2019s blood; when the breath ceases, they separate and decay in the mountains and fields, eventually turning into mud and earth. What do you have to cling to as your body? (Record of Things Heard<\/em>, IV, 3)\u201d<\/p>\n D\u014dgen in this example isn\u2019t using standard\u00a0k\u014dan from a curriculum, but instead, seeing\u00a0k\u014dan everywhere. This kind of questioning, sometimes mistaken as rhetorical, fills the Shobogenzo <\/em>and Eiheikoroku<\/em>. The questions function much like checking questions in the Harada-Yasutani k\u014dan curriculum. Here\u2019s an example that riffs with the \u201changing-from-a-branch-by-your-teeth\u00a0k\u014dan from the\u00a0Shobogenzo <\/em>in\u00a0\u201cThe Meaning of Bodhidharma\u2019s Coming from India:\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow, quietly examine the words \u2018What if you are hanging by your teeth from a tree branch on a one-thousand-foot cliff?\u2019 What is you? \u2026Let me ask you: what is the size of one thousand feet? \u2026What are the teeth? \u2026But is hanging in emptiness the same as hanging from a tree by your teeth?\u201d<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve got an eye for\u00a0k\u014dan, I think you\u2019ll see what D\u014dgen is doing in these examples. In my experience, once questions like these are taken up in earnest, they seamlessly permeate the thinking\/not thinking\/non thinking play of zazen as well as everyday life. Therefore, it seems unlikely to me that when D\u014dgen said \u201csit\u201d\u00a0and \u201cquestion\u201d he meant EXCEPT when you are sitting zen in zazen \u2013 which he himself said has nothing to do with sitting or lying down (\u201cFukanzazengi\u201d).<\/p>\n Moving along, is it consistent with the evidence to say that\u00a0D\u014dgen never assigned a\u00a0k\u014dan or invited a dharma presentation? No, it isn\u2019t. However, in the records that we have from D\u014dgen he is usually talking to a group, so he doesn\u2019t give a lot of individual instructions or ask for individual dharma presentations. Even in\u00a0D\u014dgen\u2019s\u00a0Eiheikoroku, <\/em>unlike most Zen masters\u2019 records, very few students appear. Kinda odd.<\/p>\n The many questions\u00a0D\u014dgen asked, though, can be seen as\u00a0invitations to pick up a k\u014dan. And occasionally D\u014dgen does<\/span> address an individual student. Here\u2019s one example of assigning\u00a0a\u00a0k\u014dan:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018This mind itself is Buddha.\u2019 Student [Ryo]Nen, understand this clearly (Eiheikoroku<\/em>, Hogo 9).\u201d<\/p>\n In this case, it sounds like\u00a0D\u014dgen is assigning one of his principal woman students, Ryonen, a\u00a0k\u014dan. Curiously, it is a related k\u014dan to \u201cnot mind, not Buddha, not a thing,\u201d that Dahui, supposedly\u00a0D\u014dgen\u2019s nemesis, assigned to one of his principal woman students, Miaotou (see the wonderful work of Miriam Levering on this \u2013 click here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Again, note that D\u014dgen doesn\u2019t say, \u201cUnderstand this clearly. But, oh, yeah, not in zazen \u2013 I really mean it. Do not think about this k\u014dan in zazen! Ever. Whatever you do, do NOT be<\/span> the mind-is-Buddha in zazen. Just don\u2019t do it!\u201d<\/p>\n And, finally, in terms of asking for a dharma presentation, how about this?<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Right now, monks, is there someone who has attained it?\u2019<\/p>\n At that time a monk arose and made prostrations. D\u014dgen said: \u2018This is what it is, only it\u2019s not yet there.\u2019<\/p>\n The monk asked, \u2018What is there to attain?\u2019<\/p>\n D\u014dgen said: \u2018Truly I know that you have not attained it\u2019<\/p>\n Then D\u014dgen said: \u2018How is the person who has attained?\u2019 After a pause D\u014dgen said: \u2018Body and mind are upright and direct, the voice is strong.\u2019 (Eiheikoruku<\/em>, 72).\u201d<\/p>\n So D\u014dgen did call people out sometimes. And the above passage might even get you to wondering if\u00a0D\u014dgen was really a personal-enlightenment hater as the post-Meiji S\u014dt\u014d orthodoxy would lead one to believe. But I\u2019ll leave that for another day. Or you can click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n In sum, it seems to me that\u00a0D\u014dgen certainly taught some kind of\u00a0k\u014dan Zen. I\u2019d\u00a0describe it as just-sitting, broken-wooden ladle, panoramic, shape-shifting, key-phrase, actualizing-the-fundamental-point k\u014dan Zen.<\/p>\nNevertheless, as I said, Warner writes,<\/h4>\n
Warner continues,<\/h4>\n
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Warner continues,<\/h4>\n
Warner continues,<\/h4>\n
And like I said in my review of Warner\u2019s last book,<\/h4>\n