There is no Zen in true Zen
By Arthur Wells Roshi (Zen teacher)
When Dogen returned to Japan in 1227 from five arduous years of studying and practicing Zen in China he said, “I learned that my nose is vertical and my eyes are horizontal.” Was he saying, “I wasted my time in China”?
A widely known Zen saying is “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” I’d turn it round and say, “When you kill him you meet him.” Do you understand? The great matter at the centre of Zen is much too important to mix up with religious notions. This why I say that in true Zen there’s no Zen.
When I was a younger man a respected Tibetan monk was visiting NZ, and I seized the opportunity to ask him directly, “What is Enlightenment?” He looked me up and down with a quiet smile and said, “It’s the great disappointment.” After letting me take this in for a few moments he added, “But you’ll love it!”
I am now deeply grateful for his words, and for Dogen’s similar words, and for all the sayings of the old masters that jolt us out of our complacency and vaporise the great bunch of useless ideas we have acquired all our lifetime about spiritual perfection.
When all the ideas fall out of our heads, what are we left with? There is actually no moment more perfect for awakening than this moment. Even a momentary flash of insight here, caught in the millisecond of relief we sometimes have in the midst of the mind’s deluge, tells us that this wonderful thing, this deeply important thing, was richly present in our childhood. So we wonder, “How did I ever come to lose this precious immediacy? How did my bright awareness become so engulfed and smothered by this endless thinking?”
The unfortunate truth for us all is that in learning to speak we fell under the spell of the subject-object split that delineates ‘self’ and ‘other.’ As we came to full adult awareness our minds grew so noisy that we lost almost all of our childhood intimacy with the world and even with our own bodies. This is why we all need some way of switching off the separative function of mind that we acquired from our first use of words.
Of course people use all sorts of things to address this felt need. It drives substance abuse and many other addictive behaviours. And yes, there’s often only a thin line between drunkenness and enlightenment. An ancient Daoist sage in China sloshed his wine into the pigs’ trough and lay down in the mud and drank with them, saying, “Why dishcriminate?”
Fortunately there are more dignified options. The most time-tested and stabilising way to recover our intimacy is to practice a serious form of meditation. By this I mean one that is powerful enough and used regularly enough to make a difference. Zen ‘open sitting’ or shikantaza is one such practice that can quickly win us freedom from the mind’s dominance. Here are some basic instructions for this style of practice:
Open to the body: You’ve heard of ‘out of the body’ experiences that happen to people in crisis sometimes? In zazen we seek an ‘in the body’ experience! Most of us spend much of our time caught up in anxious, preoccupied states, lost in the disembodied nowhere of thought. In Zen open sitting we rediscover ourselves in time and space and everything feels real and solid again. Anxiety subsides and bodily stability recovers. We feel we have returned to sanity. Bring an attitude towards yourself of kindness and support for this noble undertaking of cultivating a dignified, balanced and truthful state of mind.
Four essentials for being bodily present -- back, face, shoulders, belly: If we attend to the straightness of the back, relax the face and shoulders and drop our awareness into the belly, we will quickly experience the sweet sensation of release that is the essence of meditation and enjoy the grace and simplicity of the meditation posture. Firstly, to establish a good posture, push the crown of the head upwards until the back and neck feel quite stretched, then release all tension without losing the strength of the posture. Secondly, let go of any tightness in the face, relaxing the muscles around the eyes and mouth. Let the face be like a mask that carries no particular expression. Thirdly, release any tension in the shoulders, dropping them to the lowest comfortable position. Allow the arms and hands to be soft and relaxed. Fourthly, let the belly relax until the in-breath is felt pushing outwards inside the hip-bones.
Cultivate a sense of the whole body participating in each breath. If we develop a “whole-body” awareness it is only a small step to include the wider aspects of the environment—the air, the warmth, the play of light in the room, and sounds that are reaching us. Persist through difficulties and fears. Recorded in the deep tissues of the body are all of the losses and traumas each of us has suffered. As the whole body breathes we become more aware of these areas of locked-in pain. Notice them and allow them to be there, including them in the soothing sensation of breathing. In Zen meditation we lean gently towards areas of suffering rather than away from them. The practice itself provides the strength to do this, showing us that we too have the capacity of the Buddha to open ourselves to suffering and include it in compassionate awareness. (This is what statues of the Buddha seated in meditation were really meant to convey, not that he was some kind of god!)
Allow thoughts and feelings to come and go. Let them pass like clouds across the sky. Each time we notice we have become lost, release the thought and return to the sensation of the whole body breathing. We all have to return many times to the present moment before the mind quietens down even a little. After perhaps 10 or 15 minutes we spend less time caught up in imaginary dialogues, worrying, day-dreaming or planning and find ourselves in a quieter, more stable condition. The feeling of being a separate self will stop of its own accord when we stop trying to achieve anything and just pay attention to the present reality. This is the Zen of no Zen, when we know our nose is vertical and our eyes are horizontal. Strangely, this is the most bottomless joy we have probably ever known.
© Arthur Wells, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Arthur Wells is a Zen Teacher in the Diamond Sangha Zen tradition.
When Dogen returned to Japan in 1227 from five arduous years of studying and practicing Zen in China he said, “I learned that my nose is vertical and my eyes are horizontal.” Was he saying, “I wasted my time in China”?
A widely known Zen saying is “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” I’d turn it round and say, “When you kill him you meet him.” Do you understand? The great matter at the centre of Zen is much too important to mix up with religious notions. This why I say that in true Zen there’s no Zen.
When I was a younger man a respected Tibetan monk was visiting NZ, and I seized the opportunity to ask him directly, “What is Enlightenment?” He looked me up and down with a quiet smile and said, “It’s the great disappointment.” After letting me take this in for a few moments he added, “But you’ll love it!”
I am now deeply grateful for his words, and for Dogen’s similar words, and for all the sayings of the old masters that jolt us out of our complacency and vaporise the great bunch of useless ideas we have acquired all our lifetime about spiritual perfection.
When all the ideas fall out of our heads, what are we left with? There is actually no moment more perfect for awakening than this moment. Even a momentary flash of insight here, caught in the millisecond of relief we sometimes have in the midst of the mind’s deluge, tells us that this wonderful thing, this deeply important thing, was richly present in our childhood. So we wonder, “How did I ever come to lose this precious immediacy? How did my bright awareness become so engulfed and smothered by this endless thinking?”
The unfortunate truth for us all is that in learning to speak we fell under the spell of the subject-object split that delineates ‘self’ and ‘other.’ As we came to full adult awareness our minds grew so noisy that we lost almost all of our childhood intimacy with the world and even with our own bodies. This is why we all need some way of switching off the separative function of mind that we acquired from our first use of words.
Of course people use all sorts of things to address this felt need. It drives substance abuse and many other addictive behaviours. And yes, there’s often only a thin line between drunkenness and enlightenment. An ancient Daoist sage in China sloshed his wine into the pigs’ trough and lay down in the mud and drank with them, saying, “Why dishcriminate?”
Fortunately there are more dignified options. The most time-tested and stabilising way to recover our intimacy is to practice a serious form of meditation. By this I mean one that is powerful enough and used regularly enough to make a difference. Zen ‘open sitting’ or shikantaza is one such practice that can quickly win us freedom from the mind’s dominance. Here are some basic instructions for this style of practice:
Open to the body: You’ve heard of ‘out of the body’ experiences that happen to people in crisis sometimes? In zazen we seek an ‘in the body’ experience! Most of us spend much of our time caught up in anxious, preoccupied states, lost in the disembodied nowhere of thought. In Zen open sitting we rediscover ourselves in time and space and everything feels real and solid again. Anxiety subsides and bodily stability recovers. We feel we have returned to sanity. Bring an attitude towards yourself of kindness and support for this noble undertaking of cultivating a dignified, balanced and truthful state of mind.
Four essentials for being bodily present -- back, face, shoulders, belly: If we attend to the straightness of the back, relax the face and shoulders and drop our awareness into the belly, we will quickly experience the sweet sensation of release that is the essence of meditation and enjoy the grace and simplicity of the meditation posture. Firstly, to establish a good posture, push the crown of the head upwards until the back and neck feel quite stretched, then release all tension without losing the strength of the posture. Secondly, let go of any tightness in the face, relaxing the muscles around the eyes and mouth. Let the face be like a mask that carries no particular expression. Thirdly, release any tension in the shoulders, dropping them to the lowest comfortable position. Allow the arms and hands to be soft and relaxed. Fourthly, let the belly relax until the in-breath is felt pushing outwards inside the hip-bones.
Cultivate a sense of the whole body participating in each breath. If we develop a “whole-body” awareness it is only a small step to include the wider aspects of the environment—the air, the warmth, the play of light in the room, and sounds that are reaching us. Persist through difficulties and fears. Recorded in the deep tissues of the body are all of the losses and traumas each of us has suffered. As the whole body breathes we become more aware of these areas of locked-in pain. Notice them and allow them to be there, including them in the soothing sensation of breathing. In Zen meditation we lean gently towards areas of suffering rather than away from them. The practice itself provides the strength to do this, showing us that we too have the capacity of the Buddha to open ourselves to suffering and include it in compassionate awareness. (This is what statues of the Buddha seated in meditation were really meant to convey, not that he was some kind of god!)
Allow thoughts and feelings to come and go. Let them pass like clouds across the sky. Each time we notice we have become lost, release the thought and return to the sensation of the whole body breathing. We all have to return many times to the present moment before the mind quietens down even a little. After perhaps 10 or 15 minutes we spend less time caught up in imaginary dialogues, worrying, day-dreaming or planning and find ourselves in a quieter, more stable condition. The feeling of being a separate self will stop of its own accord when we stop trying to achieve anything and just pay attention to the present reality. This is the Zen of no Zen, when we know our nose is vertical and our eyes are horizontal. Strangely, this is the most bottomless joy we have probably ever known.
© Arthur Wells, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Arthur Wells is a Zen Teacher in the Diamond Sangha Zen tradition.