Ox Herding

Seung Sahn: No Problem!

Today's video, a ten-minute excerpt from the flim Wake Up!, wonderfully captures the directness and good humor of Zen Master Seung Sahn's teaching.

You'll see portions of a dharma talk given in Oslo and also observe part of an interview with three students.

This film was shot during one of Dae Soen Sa Nim's last visits to Europe and, when I watch it today, I'm struck by the enthusiasm and excitement he brought to his teaching. It wasn't simply charisma - it was his genuine concern for his students' awakening.

Thank you for reading Ox Herding. May you always keep don't know mind!

Barry

Seung Sahn: Try Try Try

Zen Master Seung Sahn wrote thousands of letters to his students, most of which concluded with a version of this sentence:

I hope you only go straight - don't know; try, try, try for 10,000 years non-stop; keep a mind which is clear like space, soon get Enlightenment, and save all people from suffering.

This summarizes his entire teaching, especially in its emphasis on try-mind.

Try, non-stop, for 10,000 years.

I went on my first long retreat in 1991 and one afternoon Zen Master Wu Bong came to give a talk. After the talk, he took a few questions. Someone asked, "What is the most important thing in Zen practice?"

I was a pretty new student and expected him to say something that seemed (and still seems) impossible, like "you must attain enlightenment" or "always keep a clear mind."

But, instead, he answered the question with one just word:  "Try."

I've never forgotten the power of that moment, contained in one three-letter word.

Just try.

When we bring try-mind to our life, Zen Master Seung Sahn's wonderful teaching phrases appear naturally, without effort.

May we together try, try, try - non-stop! Soon get enlightenment. And save all beings from suffering.

Seung Sahn: Together Action

 

When I consider Zen Master Seung Sahn's teaching words, one phrase seems to go against the grain of Western identity:

Together action

Together action means: let go of John Wayne-mind and act in harmony* with others. 

For Dae Soen Sa Nim, this wasn't just good advice.

It was the basis of all practice. Because, harmony arises only when we put down our opinions and ideas.

No wonder I struggle so much with together action - I would actually have to let go of my very good opinions!

So, to help people like me, Dae Soen Sa Nim created impossible projects and situations (see yesterday's post about preparing the grounds of the Providence Zen Center). And his dharma heirs continue to encourage the impossible.

Those of us foolish enough to attempt these tasks (Three month retreats! Travel the mountains of Tibet! Teach in Communist-controlled Europe!) have the opportunity to learn something new about ourselves.

We're not separate. No matter what we think.

* Harmony does not mean being polite or stuffing feelings, of course. It simply means: just do it!

Seung Sahn: You Can, You Can. You Cannot, You Cannot.

You probably have the experience of feeling a deep connection with certain teaching words, while others may seem less resonant or meaningful. I certainly have that experience.

Of all of Zen Master Seung Sahn's teaching phrases, the one that feels most alive to me is:

You can, you can. You cannot, you cannot.

I remember the first time I heard this phrase. A group of us were racing to prepare the grounds of Providence Zen Center for the Kwan Um School's 20th Anniversary celebration (in 1992). Rain was flooding the grounds but we rolled out sod around the new pagoda, planted shrubs and raked autumn leaves.

The day before the ceremony, Zen Master Seung Sahn came outside and stood in the rain to watch us. As his clothes became soaked, he turned his palms up to the sky and said, "Ah, wonderful!" And then went back inside.

I was a newbie and, later, asked a monk about this: "Why did the master think that the rain and mud was wonderful?"

And that's when I first heard, You can, you can. You cannot, you cannot.

Although I never heard Zen Master Seung Sahn put it this way, this particular teaching phrase seems to encapsulate the entire Avatamsaka Sutra, which says:

If you want to understand all the Buddhas of the past, present, and future, then you should view the whole universe as being created by mind alone.

We create our world and its possibilities and impossibilities. If we take responsibility for this creation, we can accomplish more than we ever might imagine. We might even wake up!

On that rainy day 18 years ago, those of us working outside could. And we did. The grounds looked wonderful.

Dae Soen Sa Nim would also encourage us to:

Just do it!*

Just do it! was perhaps his shorthand version of You can, you can. You cannot, you cannot. It points to the importance of setting aside our ideas, opinions, and beliefs and confronting what's right in front of us.

If we believe in ourselves 100%, then it gets done.

And it's wonderful.

* Dae Soen Sa Nim's usage of "just do it" precedes the Nike advertising slogan by about 10 years. Nike first introduced the slogan in 1984. Perhaps they followed Dae Soen Sa Nim's lead!

Seung Sahn: Don't Know

This week, Ox Herding will focus on several of the essential teaching phrases used by the Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn (Dae Soen Sa Nim).

When Dae Soen Sa Nim first came to America, he spoke no English so he quickly learned to encapsulate vast chunks of Buddhist teaching into a few short English phrases. He deployed these with great precision, even after he gained fluency in the language.

Of all these expressions, none was more central than don't know. He used this phrase repeatedly but never wore it out. Here's a sample:

Throw away all opinions, all likes and dislikes, and only keep the mind that doesn't know. This is very important.

Don't know mind is the mind that cuts off all thinking. When all thinking has been cut off, you become empty mind. This is before thinking.

Your before thinking mind, my before thinking mind, all people's before thinking minds are the same. This is your substance.

In Zen, this don't know mind traces directly back to Bodhidharma, who famously replied, "Don't know!," to Emperor Wu's question about his identity.

But the tradition of not-knowing greatly precedes Bodhidharma, appearing even in early Greek philosophy:

The Greek philosopher Socrates used to teach, "You must understand your true self."

One time someone asked Socrates, "Teacher, do you understand your true self?"

Socrates replied, "I don't know. But I also understand this don't know."

And, of course, about the same times as Socrates, the Buddha emphasized the importance of not-knowing, which he called wisdom ("prajna" in Sanskrit). Prajna means "before thinking" (pra=before; jna=thought).

And what is before thinking? Don't know. The Buddha said:

"The sharp butcher's knife" is a term for noble wisdom - the noble wisdom that cuts, severs, and carves away the inner defilements, fetters, and bonds. (Nandokovada Sutta)

Correct wisdom [says]: "This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self." (Dhatuvibhanga Sutta)

By cutting away everything, the Buddha taught that don't know precedes name and form, including the names and forms of Buddhism. Thus, Zen Master Seung Sahn once said:

I don't teach Korean or Mahayana or Zen. I don't even teach Buddhism.

I only teach don't know.

Fifty years here and there teaching only don't know. So only don't know, okay?

Okay!

What I'm Reading: Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems

Since the late 1960s, I've kept Gary Snyder's poetry near to hand. His writings have touched me in many ways, but especially in their emphasis on the long unfolding of a single human life.

I return most frequently to Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems (first published in 1965) for its focus on ordinary work and its connection to wildness within and without.

And Snyder's translation of a selection of Han Shan's poetry continues to be the best available (in my view as a non-Chinese reader).

Here's Snyder reading "Hay for the Horses," one of my favorite poems from the book.

And here's the text of the poem:

Hay for the Horses
by Gary Snyder

He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
With his big truckload of hay
        behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the
        sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under black oak
Out in the hot corral,
---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."

Thank you for reading Ox Herding. Best wishes for the weekend!

Barry

 

What I'm Reading: This Is Getting Old

 

Susan Moon has written widely on Buddhist topics, as former editor of Turning Wheel (the newsletter of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship) and as the author of engaging works such as The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi.

She recently published This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity. And I've had the pleasure of reading it.

This is not a treatise on aging, nor is it an encouragement to practice. Rather, it's a candid (thus, dignified) look at the indignities of living with an older body (thus, the humor).

Moon tells wonderful stories based on her own life and uses her experience to look beyond the obvious, as in this example:

I have come to the point of diminishing returns as far as sitting cross-legged goes . . . now in my sixties I have arthritis in my knees . . . When I consulted an orthopedist last year . . . he scolded me for sitting cross-legged. I now have doctor's orders to sit in a chair. I could have asked him for a note for my teacher, but I didn't need to, because these days, fortunately, all the Zen teachers I know have become tolerant of chair-sitting. It's allowed, even though it's not exactly de rigueur. The harsh taskmaster within is the one who still gives me trouble.

And then there's sex, a topic that comes up more than once in This is Getting Old:

I used to like sex a lot if I liked the person, but when I didn't have it, I didn't miss it much. Sometimes I missed the person. Saying I miss sex is like saying I miss wearing my hiking boots, when what I miss is standing at Paiute Pass watching the cloud shadows run across the lake below.

No matter our chronological age, each of us is older than we were just a moment before.

And we can benefit from the companionship of those who have looked closely into this matter.

What I'm Reading: A Land of Ghosts

Although I rarely read non-fiction, I recently read A Land of Ghosts, by David Campbell, for the second time.

This extraordinary book explores the hidden streams and valleys that give rise to the Amazon River. It also painstakingly describes the ongoing devastation of that land.

Despite its tragic subject, A Land of Ghosts is a work of great feeling.

I came to the River for science, but I stayed for the beauty. My memories of the species I found—each an invocation of sunlight and water and minerals— and of the play of light in the canopy, the night sounds, the aromas and textures of the forest, the time and space shared with friends on the frontier make up a tapestry of experience so rich that now, years later and thousands of kilometers away, it imbues my papery life with dimension and perspective.

I once wrote a book about Antarctica, a place where form and light are distilled into a few simple, evocative phrases, where only a few species have managed to climb ashore and survive. Antarctica is parsimonious and therefore easy to characterize. It is biological haiku. But how do I describe the inchoate green tapestry of the Amazon Valley, this apex of earthly diversity? Imagine: there are more species of lichens, liverworts, mosses, and algae growing on the upper surface of a single leaf of an Amazonian palm than there are on the entire continent of Antarctica. How do I reduce this voluptuous diversity to words?

Where do I begin?

We humans depend wholly upon this whirling blue sphere. And yet we deforest 9,000 square miles of the Amazon basin each year. Might we want to know more about our home?

Land of Ghosts is a fine place to begin.

What I'm Reading: Stepping Out of Self-Deception

Despite my addiction to fiction, I do read an occasional Buddhist book. Right now I'm skipping around (my preferred reading style) in Stepping Out of Self-Deception by Rodney Smith, a Seattle-based Insight meditation teacher.

Smith's book covers familiar territory - the foundations of Buddhism, along with encouragements. And yet, his writing glows with the deep aliveness to daily life that arises from many years of training and teaching. In a word, insight.

This sentence captures this aliveness quite succinctly:

The purpose of meditation is to inform us about the true nature of relationships, and it will take us directly into the reactive patterns that keep us separated from all life.

Much later in the book a loud echo of this theme appears:

The most important quality of maturity may be flexibility. A mature person is never one way only, and if a situation calls for toughness or its opposite, the character arises to meet its responsibility.

Smith emphasizes that the Buddha's teachings undercut the self-deceptions of certainty, rules and structures - or any effort to determine outcomes. They only require us to come alive to life, as it is, in this moment.

Strongly recommended.

Note: Buddha Space recently published an excellent, in-depth review of Stepping Out of Self-Deception.

What I'm Reading: The Imperfectionists

This week I'll write about books that I've recently read - or am still reading. I hope you find interest in this "snapshot" of ongoing activity.

Given a choice, I'll reach for a good novel before picking up the latest Buddhist book. And some very good novels have been published this year. My favorite so far is The imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. Simply put, it's a stupendous work.

The Imperfectionists yokes together a wide cast of characters, all associated with an English-language newspaper set in Rome. It's brilliantly, even magically constructed, deeply insightful, and wildly funny.

One character comments that the newspaper is a "daily report on the idiocy and the brilliance of the species" - and so is the novel itself. Here's a short excerpt:

Annika [the partner of an editor] crouches before the washing machine in their apartment, unloading damp clothes. "I'm beginning to suspect that my purpose in life is laundry," she says. "All the rest is just fleeting glory."

Menzies stands behind her and touches his forefinger to the crown of her head, following the swirl of her dyed-black hair. he open his palm across the top of her skull as if to measure it, then hooks his thumbs under the straps of her dungarees and tugs. She leans against his palm and kisses his fingers, looking up. "Seven hundred and twenty-eight socks last year," she tells him. "That how many I washed."

"You counted?"

"Of course." She reaches into the washing machine and draws out a bedsheet that seems never to end.

Christopher Buckley, in his New York Times review of the novel began by saying:

This first novel by Tom Rachman, a London-born journalist who has lived and worked all over the world, is so good I had to read it twice simply to figure out how he pulled it off. I still haven’t answered that question, nor do I know how someone so young — Rachman turns out to be 35, though he looks even younger in his author photo — could have acquired such a precocious grasp of human foibles. The novel is alternately hilarious and heart-wrenching, and it’s assembled like a Rubik’s Cube.

If you like fiction, check it out!