Author Archives: James Holloway

  1. Forgiveness, hara and tanden

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    Traditional Zen is not sentimental – frugal with words, and not showing emotions. It may be due to its origin – monastic, warrior e.g. Japanese samurai-like ethos or simply because for centuries it was a male domain. But we must not forget that Zen teachings are grounded in Buddhism: in its religious form compassion, gratitude and magnanimity are woven into Zen practice. Teaching of these virtues happens in an oblique way, often through koans, but also through stories about famous Zen personages, both masters and accomplished laymen. A serious Zennist would not dream of saying ‘I want to become a good person’ or ‘I do zazen in order to become a Buddha’. The lovely story of a master polishing a tile to make it into a mirror mocks such an aspiration of a hapless monk.

    So how do we go about improving ourselves, to become truly grateful, compassionate with the respect of all sentient beings, and be able to put past hurts behind? The typical reply from a master would be ‘more zazen’, ‘sitting, sitting and more sitting’. A modern Zen master may give some pointers such as look at your actions, not just at actions of others. And be generous: magnanimity has a lot to do with forgiving.

    For example: recall a situation or person when you were badly hurt and can’t forget. Then start sitting with the intention of forgiveness, maybe saying aloud or mentally ‘I forgive you’. Likely it will not work straightaway, but persistence will eventually bring about a shift in our attitude. After time a grudge will dissolve, making us healthier and happier.

    That all sounds a bit mysterious. We want to know how it works, and more importantly how to confidently set this process working. Here the modern psychology comes to aid. Dr Fred Luskin, the cofounder and director of the Stanford University Forgiveness project, devised the nine-steps to forgiveness method. To find a link to our Zen practice, let us inspect the first four steps (Forgive for Good, p. 211):

    1. Know exactly how you feel about what happened, and be able to articulate what about the situation is not OK. Then tell a couple of trusted people about your experience.
    2. Make a commitment to yourself to do what you have to do to feel better. Forgiveness is for you and not for anyone else. No one else even has to know about your decisions.
    3. Understand your goal. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciling with the person who upset you or condoning their action. What you are after is peace. Forgiveness can be defined as the peace and understanding that comes from blaming less that which has hurt you, taking the experience less personally and changing your grievance story.
    4. Get the right perspectives on what is happening. Recognize that your primary distress is coming from the hurt feelings, thoughts, and physical upset you are suffering now, not what offended you or hurt two minutes – or ten years – ago.

    Let’s look at the first point. How can we find out how we feel or felt about what happened? Here the unborn mind practice – fusho or Shikantaza to give it the Japanese name – comes to aid. We just sit, like a mirror which reflects everything which comes and passes. Let emotions and feelings come, let them go but we don’t engage with them, we don’t follow. If you like it’s like watching a movie where you play one of the main roles. This distance brings some objectivity: we may not like what unfolds but stay with our practice. Some things can dissolve on their own, some will merit further inspection, or they will fade away when we return to our practice next time. Feelings and emotions are just what they are. We may even feel a bit silly mulling over things past that we cannot influence as they are gone.

    We may or may not tell others the new story. What’s important that we’ll recognise on the bodymind level, that it’s just a story which can be retold or maybe dropped altogether.
    On the second point of making a commitment: I’d link this one to the intention when we start sitting. Perhaps it’d be very specific: I want to forgive X for not helping me when I really needed it. It may be simply that you undertake facing whatever comes up in zazen, and sitting through it until it resolves. In this form, it is less specific that determining what makes you feel better as sometimes zazen can be walking through hell. It’s good once we get out.

    Understanding your goal: once your bodymind let go of the grudge, maybe in a convoluted way, you’re more likely to be at peace with yourself. In this process working with a variation on the koan ‘Who am I?’ is helpful. You can rephrase it as ‘Who is hurt?’ Once we really reach the core of this koan, many things pale in significance.

    The fourth point, getting the right perspective, is self-explanatory. This what happens almost organically when we sincerely engage in Zen practice. We resolve matters by having more emphasis on the body – through breathing and posture – then by mentally working through them. I don’t want to diminish the importance of various strains of psychotherapy: I merely am saying that the main work happens in the body.

    The remaining five steps have a greater intellectual and psychological overlay than just sitting. After all, forgiving is one of the ways of letting go, and often zazen on its own is not sufficient. Help may be sought in therapy or self-help books. But the beginning and the end is in zazen – steering through stormy seas, and arriving at calm waters.

  2. Who is the master?

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    It’s impossible nowadays to miss the ever-present word mindfulness. It’s freely used by religious and non-religious people alike. In Zen, mindfulness is often understood as attention, and is of utmost importance. But attention to what?

    Rather than speculate, let’s take the famous koan Zuigan calls his master, which is sometimes translated as Zuigan calls himself master. This is an interesting koan in its own right, being unusual in that it has only one character. Typical koans have an exchange between two or three people. This koan is presented as Case 12 of the Mumonkan in Two Zen Classics, translated by Katsuki Sekida like this:

    Zuigan Gen Oshō called to himself every day, “Master!” and answered, “Yes, sir!” Then he would say, “Be wide awake!” and answer, “Yes, sir!” ”Henceforward, never be deceived by others!” “No, I won’t!”

    Mumon’s comment

    Old Zuigan buys and sells himself. He takes out a lot of god-masks and devil-masks and puts them on and plays with them. What for, eh? One calling and the other answering; one wide awake, the other saying he will never be deceived. If you stick to any of them, you will be a failure. If you imitate Zuigan, you will play the fox.

    Mumon’s verse

    Clinging to the deluded way of consciousness,

    Students of the Way do not realize truth.

    The seed of birth and death through endless eons:

    The fool calls it the true original self.

    Who was Zuigan? His full name was Zuigan Shingen, and he was thought to live sometime between 850 and 910 AD. He was a disciple of Ganto Senkatsu, who in turn was a disciple of a very famous master, Tokusan. As far as koan training goes, Zuigan had only one koan. Every day, he would call himself “Master!” answering “Yes, sir!” Then he would admonish himself “Be wide awake!” meaning “be clearly aware of yourself”, answering “Yes, sir!” Being awake has several meanings, such as “are you being clear and not obscuring yourself?”, “is your Zen eye open?” And most pertinent to this case, are you truly in the Zen mind state? Do you know what that is?

    Before looking at the closing sentence of the case, it’s worth recalling that, in traditional Zen training, there are strict rules both as to presentation of a koan and standard answers. Rather than simply saying “yes” the monk would bellow “Yes, sir!” as if addressing a general. You may find other translations of this koan where the shout is translated simply as “Yes!” Monks and lay people alike may struggle for years before hitting the so-called right answer. But what the Zen master is looking for, first and foremost, is the authenticity of the answer, which represents the state of mind conveyed in the koan.  

    “Never be deceived by others” has a few layers of meaning. It means to not be influenced by the opinions of others as only you can experience and know the Truth. The original kanji translated here as “deceive” means to stand firmly in your beliefs and to not lose sight of Reality that you have glimpsed in kensho. The case instructs us to transcend common thinking, and to stay in the Zen space. And that is what Zuigan is doing daily: reminding himself of the treasure of enlightenment, keeping his Zen mind strong along with the need to maintain the sight of the master. 

    Now who or what is the Master? Part of the answer can be only given in sanzen. But before long, hopefully most Zen practitioners will realise that “Master” here is their essential nature, the Absolute, the Buddha nature, or the face you had before your parents were born. 

    How can we make the concept of Master familiar to a Western practitioner? Let’s look at a bridge between Eastern and Western viewpoints as set out by Karlfried Graf Dürckheim in his book The call for the master. Here, the Master is considered as both an idea and reality. In this context the word master has three meanings: the eternal master, the here-and-now master, and the inner master. Whereas the eternal master is an archetype, the here-and-now master is a real person embodying this principle. Meanwhile the inner master, in Dürckheim’s words “is the possibility – individually sensed as promise, potential, and obligation – of giving the eternal master physical form and reality in one’s own life”. All three signify the Absolute realising itself via the human life.

    In the Western view of the world there is no such thing as the Buddha nature. Instead, this inexpressible, greater-than-us quantity is referred to by other names. Words like Life and Being are often used. While Zen is supposed to be largely wordless, Life and Being make it easier for us to identify with this cosmic principle. Then here-and-now master is a living person whose duty is to guide others. There is no master without students. They must feel the urgent need to find, and to unite with the eternal master, through their inner master.

    So how can we interpret the monologue of Zuigan in this context? He is both a master and a student, flitting from one role to another. That’s what Mumon means by “god-masks” and “devil-masks” in his commentary. These are just concepts, what Shinzan Miyamae Zenji called a human idea. So “do not be deceived by others” means both seeing through this, but also using the masks, with awareness, when necessary. It means having confidence in your own awakening. Even if the Buddha himself would question it, you must not waver. That’s one of the deeper meanings of Zen as experiential practice.

    Mumon’s verse is more enigmatic. It refers to those seekers who haven’t yet transcended duality and believe that the consciousness goes somewhere else after death. In Buddhist theory, this is the reason for never-dying delusions such as life and death. But these fluctuations are not the essential nature.

    Meanwhile, in Zen practice, master, student and the Way merge into one. This throws some light on the Zen insistence that there is no living Zen without a living master, but also that in doing zazen you meet the masters of old. In the latter case this is the eternal master, the idea, and the archetype. As students of Zen, we embody all three masters: the eternal,  the here-and-now, and the inner. And in the end, it’s the awakening of the inner master that we seek, perhaps with the help of others who have been through this process before.