Throwing Away Your Toys
Some years ago I had the good
fortune to stumble upon a weeklong meditation retreat in the wooded Uplands of
Indiana led by a teacher whom I’d never heard of before. With the exception of
its duration and the fact that it was in a natural setting and in the Soto Zen
tradition, I had no idea what to expect. My job, simply enough, was to show up
and remain open to experience. Anyway, after arriving and taking one look at
the schedule posted on the door of that little rustic cabin turned zendo – the fourteen
daily periods of seated meditation (zazen) separated by brief periods of
walking meditation (kinhin) – the first experience that I opened up to was that
of fear! Fourteen fifty minute periods of zazen each day! Could I physically
take it? Could I mentally take it? I didn’t know!
The schedule struck me as dauntingly
unrelenting – nothing but zazen and kinhin interspersed with just enough time
to eat and sleep and attend to the barest of personal hygiene needs. Why were
there no periods of chanting or work practice on the schedule – no lectures or private
interviews with the teacher, either? Oh, how I loved chanting and Dharma
talks and work periods, it suddenly occurred to me! Come to think of it,
though, I might have then welcomed a scheduled root canal for the fact that it
would give me a break from all of that meditation! This was a desolate lunar
landscape of zazen, after all, an alien environment devoid of distractions and
diversions. There weren’t any toys to play with, dammit! There was nothing to
keep me from doing what I knew in my heart I’d gone there to do – engage in the
practice of zazen with the entirety of my being. No, let me rephrase that; there
was nothing to keep me from being zazen – purely and simply.
I hadn’t known it at the time, but
the teacher leading that retreat, Shohaku Okumura, was and is one of the
foremost authorities on the Zen practice of Dogen Zenji. He’s been instrumental
in translating Dogen’s writings into English, as well as leading teaching
retreats during which he expounds upon their more nuanced meaning. Okumura has also
been instrumental in bringing to the West the rigorous form of meditation
retreat practiced at Antaiji monastery under the tutelage of his teacher, Kosho
Uchiyama Roshi. The schedule that I was barely able to wrap my mind around as I
stood there on the doorstep, so to speak, was a variation on this
“Antaiji-style”. But that wasn’t all. Whether practiced in the Antaiji-style or
any other perhaps less taxing variation, this meditation retreat was the most
seriously regarded of any in the Zen Buddhist calendar. The meditation journey
that I was about to embark upon was, in fact, rohatsu sesshin.
Rohatsu
literally means “the eighth [day] of the twelfth month” (Schuhmacher &
Woerner, 1994, p. 292). When used in this context, rohatsu refers to the eighth day of the twelfth month of the
Asiatic lunar calendar – the day on which the Buddha is thought to have
awakened to ultimate reality upon seeing the appearance of the morning star
after seven straight days spent sitting in meditation. Sesshin, according to Schuhmacher
and Woerner (1994), literally
means “collecting (setsu) the heart-mind (shin)” (p. 311). In a 1992 lecture
given at the beginning of sesshin, Robert Aitken Roshi stated similarly:
The word sesshin
is a compound sino-Japanese term made up of two ideographs, setsu and shin.
Shin means mind. Setsu has several meanings – touch, receive, convey. Usually
sesshin is literally translated to touch the mind, but it also means to receive
the mind, to convey the mind. All of these meanings are included in that one
expression, sesshin.
Kosho Uchiyama Roshi states that
“‘sesshin’ means to touch or listen to one’s true mind” (1993, p. 78). Rohatsu sesshin, then, is a period of
practice during which one strives to the best of one’s abilities to actualize
that which the Buddha actualized in those seven days leading up to and
including his enlightenment. Perhaps it was just as well that I’d arrived with
no expectations!
Sesshins Without Toys
My previous lament regarding not
having any toys to play with is not an original observation. Antaiji-style
sesshins are what Kosho Uchiyama Roshi refers to as “sesshins without toys” for
their scarcity of mental playground equipment (1993, pp. 78-92). Interestingly,
just about everything that we usually consider to be Zen practice is but a toy to
be played with when viewed through this lens. This might seem strange to
practitioners who revel in the learning of the chants and bell-ringing, and the
various forms and protocols of Zen practice. Indeed, Uchiyama has been called
iconoclastic by some. Iconoclastic or not, “sesshins without toys” makes
perfect sense when we consider the second of Uchiyama’s seven points of practice: “Zazen is the most venerable and only true teacher.” Likewise, this
point of practice makes perfect sense when considered in light of Dogen Zenji’s
Bendowa in which he states: “[P]racticing
zazen in an upright posture is the true gate” (Okumura, 1997, p. 19).
This “sesshins without toys” approach
should not be construed as a throwing away of so much of what we normally think
of as Zen practice. Not in totality, anyway. Chanting, bell-ringing, lectures,
work practice, and numerous other forms and protocols all have their place. When
it comes to sesshin, however, this
approach actualizes a deep understanding of why Dogen referred to zazen as “the
true gate.” Yes, it is possible to arrive at a modicum of insight while reading
a sutra, or listening to a teacher’s lecture, or by asking your thorny question
and having the mirror of reality turned back on your “self” by the answer, but
the deepest of insights occur while practicing zazen, while abiding in stillness,
after letting go of all ponderings and conceptualizations. This is the solitary
pursuit furthered by the practice of sesshin without toys.
If you’re preoccupied during your zazen
– yearning for the upcoming chanting of sutras in order to change positions and
enjoy glorious respite from the oppressive boredom in which you are drowning –
then perhaps that upcoming service has become your toy. If you’re pondering
during zazen what you will say during dokuson (your private interview with your
teacher), then perhaps that upcoming dokuson has become your toy. If you’re eagerly
awaiting during your zazen the teacher’s upcoming Dharma talk for the permission
it will grant you to look around at least a little bit and think about
something else for at least a little bit, then perhaps that upcoming Dharma talk has
become your toy.
In fact, if you’re approaching
practice as if you’re some little Zen child who needs to hold the teacher’s
hand all the way to awakening, then the teacher/student relationship has become
your toy. You’re an adult for Christ’s sake! You’ve been sitting zazen long
enough to know what needs to be done. Now do it! Don’t busy yourself with the
abundance of toys in your toy box when there’s work to be done! The Buddha
didn’t have anyone to turn to as the storms of his zazen raged. By the time he
came to be sitting under the Bodhi tree with the intention of awakening he’d
already arrived at the conclusion that zazen would be his most venerable and
only true teacher. And so it is that the teacher sits facing the wall along
with everyone else at an Antaiji-style sesshin.
So…, throw away your toys! Let
loose your concepts of gain and loss. Let go of the image in your mind of what
it means to practice Zen. Relinquish the counting of your breaths, for in
counting there is always one who counts. Forget breath-watching, as well, for
in watching there is always one who watches. Discard all techniques to pass the
time, for in such techniques are yearnings for something other than what is. Forget
the days yet remaining, and the periods until you sleep. Forget dinner, and the
bell, and your very next breath. Forget that you are on some path; you are
The Path. Forget that you are sitting zazen – you are zazen. This is
just sitting – shikantaza.
Back in my post entitled Absolute Freedom I observed that “there is great freedom in having nothing left to do –
absolute and utter freedom.” The beauty of an Antaiji-style sesshin and this “no
toys” approach is the quickness with which one comes to realize the absolute and
utter freedom of having nothing left to do but sit.
References
Aitken, R. (1992). Some words about
sesshin for newcomers to Zen practice. Transcription of a lecture given at
Sydney Zen Center, accessed via http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/aitken-0.txt
Okumura, S., Leighton, T. D. (1997).
The wholehearted way: A translation of Eihei Dogen’s Bendowa with commentary by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi. Tuttle Publishing.
(Original work published 1231)
Schuhmacher, S., Woerner, G. (1994).
The encyclopedia of Eastern philosophy and religion. Shambhala Publications,
Inc.
Uchiyama, K. (1993). Opening the hand
of thought. (Tr. by Okumura, S. and Wright, T.) Published by the Penguin Group.
Image Credits
Toy
Rabbit by Nevit Dilmen via:
Copyright 2012 by Maku Mark Frank
Comments
Post a Comment