Ox Herding

Revelation

I'm pretty certain I've posted today's video before. But it won't hurt to see it another time. Chances are that none of us absorbed its meaning the first time.

In this talk, Zen Master Dae Kwang observes that meditation reveals ourselves to ourselves. This is important because:

The person no one wants to meet is very close to you. It lives right inside your own skin.

When we sit down in meditation, we have an opportunity to meet that person. When we do a retreat, the odds of meeting that person increase. And the longer the retreat, the better the odds. No wonder most folks avoid retreats at all costs.

Thank you for reading Ox Herding. May each of us meet ourselves this weekend!

Barry

Expensive Pain

The other day, the Providence Zen Center blog posted the wonderful teaching below. It reminded me that if our life direction is clear, then conditions and situations (snarkiness, illness, death) present no hindrance.

This struck me as good teaching for the holiday season.

In those last days of his life, Zen Master Seung Sahn was in the hospital and in a great deal of pain. Dae Kwan Sunim [a dharma heir and teacher at the Zen center in Hong Kong] was with him and asked if the teacher would give his pain to her.

"No, no, no, no! It's enough only I experience this. Never give to you . . . only I keep!"

Dae Kwan Sunim insisted, but Zen Master Seung Sahn said, "My pain is very expensive!"

"How much, sir?" she ased him. "We will buy it from you."

"My pain is so expensive, you cannot buy it!" Zen Master Seung Sahn replied.

Dae Kwan Sunim leaned into his ear and said, "Then maybe I will sell the Su Bong Zen Monastery, gets lots of money and give it to you. Then you give us your pain!"

There was a moment of silence.

Dae Kwan Sunim continued, "If we give you all this money, then what will you do with it?"

Zen Master Seung Sahn replied, "I take your money, then rent another Zen center, save all beings from suffering!"

At these words, everyone burst out laughing. Then he said, "That's not a bad business deal, yah?"

 

Meditation, 3

As I wrote yesterday's post, I remembered the story about Nanyue and Mazu (check it out, if you didn't read the post).

Put yourself on Mazu's cushion. You're alone in the meditation hall. You're really into it, deep in samadhi or whatever, everything quiet and calm. (And, of course, your peers aren't around. Ego satisfaction is sweet, isn't it?)

Then the Zen master walks in and says, "What the fuck are you doing in here on such a nice day?"* To make matters worse, he gets a clay tile and starts scraping it with a rock. Imagine the noise! Imagine your anger.

To complete your humiliation, the old fellow tells you that you're wasting your time. Unless you're a roof tile yourself, you're gonna get pissy.

Judy Roitman, a fine teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen, has been scraping this blog with a stone for the last couple of days (here and on Facebook), trying to get my attention.

Yesterday she wrote (for the second time), "I said it before and I'll say it again: The questions isn't why [or what], but for whom?"

I'm pretty confident that once his initial irritation passed, Mazu understood Nanyue's inner meaning. I'm grateful to Judy for her persistence but less confident that I really understand her meaning.

For whom do we practice?

Good question, eh?

*Nanyue was originally from Philadelphia.

Meditation, 2

Yesterday's post produced a number of thoughtful responses to which I'm incapable of responding in kind.

I'm still bothered by the question of what we do when we meditate. David L's comment most accurately captured my own puzzlement:  "Any answer that pops up seems trite, glib."

I'm not ready to let go of this, however. Perhaps we can consider the word training, a term we sometimes use interchangeably with practice.

Athletes train in order to develop certain skills and capacities. Is that what happens when we meditate?

Some say that if we undertake Zen training, we'll develop compassion, wisdom, awareness, love and/or the ability to stay put. We might even wake up. (Which, obviously, I could use right now.)

Such "promises" suggest that the mind (?) is like a muscle in need of a good regimen.

Perhaps.

But do we really think that sitting on a cushion is going to produce these transformations?

Dang, I just realized that I'm channeling Nanyue right now.

Here's the story:

One day Nanyue found Mazu sitting alone in the meditation hall and asked him why he was meditating. Mazu answered, "I wish to become a buddha."

Nanyue then picked up a roof tile and began rubbing it with a stone. Mazu asked, "What are you doing, teacher?"

Nanyue replied, "I want to polish this tile and make a mirror." Mazu said, "How can you make a mirror by rubbing a tile?"

Nanyue replied, "How can you make a buddha my meditating?"

Of course, some people may read this and turn away from meditation - a certain mistake. Right?

Meditation, 1

I led practice yesterday morning at the Zen center, so I had plenty of time to think. Which bears no resemblance to meditation. Or maybe it does. I dunno.

In any case, I sat there thinking about what I was doing (leading practice), and started wondering: what are we actually doing when we practice meditation?

A pianist practices by playing exercises and compositions, with the goal of . . . playing compositions.

A tennis player practices by hitting forehands and backhands and playing games, with the goal of . . . playing tennis.

But what about meditators? What's the goal of our practice?

I'm not trying to be clever here. Seriously, what are we practicing?

Craft

On a whim, I picked up A Poetry Handbook (by Mary Oliver) at the library last week. Many of us have enjoyed her poems and thought it would be interesting to read her guide to "understanding and writing poetry."

Two pages into the introduction, in a passage on the craft of writing, I came across this:

It is craft, after all, that carries an individual's ideas to the far edge of familiar territory.

I immediately thought about the craft of meditation practice. It also carries us to the far edge of the familiar. And if we're already teetering at that edge . . . then we might take one more step. Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!

At the beginning of the first chapter, "Getting Ready," Oliver describes what occurs when we commit to daily practice of our craft:

The part of the psyche that works in concert with consciousness and supplies the necessary part of the poem - the heat of a star as opposed to the shape of a star, let us say - exists in a mysterious, unmapped zone: not unconscious, not subconscious, but cautious. It learns quickly what sort of courtship it is going to be.

Say you promise to be at your desk in the evenings, from seven to nine. It waits, it watches. If you are reliably there, it begins to show itself - soon it begins to arrive when you do. But if you are only there sometimes and are frequently late or inattentive, it will appear fleetingly, or it will not appear at all.

Why should it? It can wait. It can stay silent for a lifetime. Who knows anyway what it is, that wild silky part of ourselves . . .

Has there ever been a better description of diligent practice, of showing up to the truth of life?

Without our intent to show up, the "mysterious, unmapped" aspect of ourselves - our "wild silky" Buddha-nature - may remain silent and hidden.

And all of us know the suffering that comes from its absence.

But we may not know (or not believe) that our diligence might reveal it fully.

All we have to do is ask, How is it, just now?

From this craft, we might ease the world's suffering.

Why Do You Meditate

In this Friday's short video, Zen Master Seung Sahn talks about our motivation for practice. He goes right to our intention - no messing around!

Thank you for reading Ox Herding! Enjoy a great weekend!

Barry

A Shoddy Little Mind

Yesterday's post excerpted a passage of J. Krishnamurti's teaching on wholeness. In that passage, he talked about the importance of self-observation. Of course, many teachers have stressed the importance of this, and many techniques have been devised to aid in this effort.

In this passage, Krishnamurti talks about technique and the mind.

So, one asks, can the totality of the mind be completely still? People have asked this question - really very serious people - they have not been able to solve it. They have tried tricks, they have said that the mind can be made still through the repetition of words. Have you ever tried it - repeating 'Ave Maria' or those Sanskrit words - mantras - repeating certain words to make the mind still?

It does not matter what word it is, make it rhythmic - Coca Cola, any word - repeat it often and you will see that your mind becomes quiet; but it is a dull mind, it is not a sensitive mind, alert, active, vital, passionate, intense.

Some say breathe properly; a shoddy little mind breathing very deeply, day after day, can be fairly quiet; but it is still what it is, a shoddy little mind.

Then what is one to do? Who puts this question? Surely such a question is wrong in itself. To ask "how?" is to look for a system, therefore destroying the very thing that is being inquired into. When you ask "how?" then there is the division between the observer and the thing observed.

When you realize that there is no method, no system, that no mantram, no teacher, nothing in the world is going to help you be quiet, when you realize the truth that it is only the quiet mind that sees, then the mind become extraordinarily quiet.

Source: The Flight of the Eagle, by J. Krishnamurti
Photo by Nathan Nelson

Talking with God

In this Friday's video, Zen Master Seung Sahn tells us what we need to do to talk with God. Give it a try!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Thanks for reading Ox Herding.

Barry

My Dharma Is Too Expensive

Thinking isn't worth much, is it?  But how much would you pay for not-thinking?

The Korean Zen tradition uses this wonderful story as a kong-an:

Once a student came to Zen Master Hyang Bong and said, "Master, please teach me the Dharma."

Hyang Bong said, "I'm sorry, but my Dharma is very expensive.''

"How much does it cost?"

"How much can you pay?"

The student put his hand into his pocket and took out some coins. "This is all the money I have."

"Even if you offered me a pile of gold as big as a mountain.'' said Hyang Bong, "my Dharma would still be too expensive."

So the student went off to practice Zen. After a few months of hard training, he returned to Hyang Bong and said, "Master, I will give you my life, I will do anything for you, I will be your slave. Please teach me.''

Hyang Bong said, "Even if you offered me a thousand lives, my Dharma would still be too expensive.''

A bit dejected, the student went off again. After several more months of hard training, he returned and said, "I will give you my mind. Will you teach me now?"

Hyang Bong said, "Your mind is a pail of stinking garbage. I have no use for it. And even if you offered me ten thousand minds, my Dharma would still be too expensive."

Again the student left to do hard training. After some time he came to an understanding that the whole universe is empty. So he returned to the master and said, "Now I understand how expensive your Dharma is.''

Hyang Bong said, "How expensive is it?"

The student shouted, "KATZ!!!"

Hyang Bong said, "No, it's more expensive than that.''

This time when he left, the student was thoroughly confused and in deep despair. He vowed not to see the master again until he had attained a deep awakening. Eventually that day came, and he returned. "Master, now I truly understand: the sky is blue, the grass is green. Now will you teach me?''

"No, no, no," said Hyang Bong. "My Dharma is even more expensive than that."

At this, the student grew furious. "I already understand, I don't need your Dharma, you can take it and shove it up your ass!"

Hyang Bong smiled. That made the student even angrier; he wheeled around and stomped out. Just as he was going out the door, Hyang Bong called to him, "Oh you!"

The student turned his head.

''Don't lose my Dharma," said Hyang Bong.

Upon hearing these words, the student was enlightened.