In Zen we chant the Makahannyharamitashingyo, The Heart Sutra. This text can seem inaccessible or mysterious.

If we go back to the foundation of the Buddhist teaching, we know the Buddha practiced meditation.  He looked very deeply into himself.  With the same penetrating eye he also looked outside himself. What he found as an underlying principle underneath everything is the principle of change.  Everything, slowly or quickly, is changing.  These days that is very easy for us to recognise.  Scientists are telling us that all atoms are in constant movement, even in a piece of wood or something seemingly very solid such as a diamond.  At the time of the Buddha, this view was very new.  It was a new vision.  Looking within himself the Buddha couldn’t find anything that doesn’t change. Looking outside himself he couldn’t find anything that doesn’t change.

This was important because at the time, in spiritual culture, there was a very strong view that each person had a soul and this soul was like a little piece of God that was separate and was on a journey back again to God.  This piece of God was seen as something that didn’t change and would be passed on from life to life like a baton in a relay race.  The Buddha however looked very deeply inside himself.  He looked very deeply outside himself.  He said he couldn’t find anything that corresponded to this unchanging piece of God.  Because everything changes, because there isn’t this fixed element within us or within anything else, he also realised that, by the very nature of things, no one thing, no one person, no one situation can ever completely satisfy us because it is changing.  We are changing.  Everything is changing.  So when we fixate in our minds about having a five bedroom house, a Maserati, a new Apple laptop, a new boyfriend or whatever we will never be satisfied.  We will never be completely fully happy when we get whatever it is we want.

In the old Indian texts, these three qualities are called:

“anatta”, the universal principle of change;

“Anicca”, the fact that there is no fixed essence within us;

and “dukkha”, a sense of the unsatisfactoriness of things.

These three qualities together form the foundation of all Buddhism.  When you put all of these qualities together, a shorthand word is “shunyata,” emptiness.  But emptiness  doesn’t mean that we don’t exist.  It doesn’t mean that things don’t exist.  Emptiness means that things are changing and nothing has a fixed essence. Nothing is permanently satisfactory.

Everything that we think of as a thing is actually a process which is moving, dynamic and alive. Every person is actually a process.  It is what we call in Buddhism, “shunyata”, or “ku” in Japanese.

It is to this negation that the Maka Hannya Haramita Sutra is pointing. The text says, “No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind.” The truth is actually when I point to my eye, this is no eye, when I point to my ear, this is no ear, this is no nose  and this is no tongue.  When we make things more solid than they really are, we enter the world of illusion . When we allow things to be dynamic, fluid, ungraspable, we enter the world of enlightenment.

The cornerstone of our practice is to see reality as it really is. As we start to see this life, this flow and this movement.  This seeing, is called “hannya” in Japanese or “prajna” in Sanskrit. It means a view that is based in wisdom and clarity and in seeing how things really are. So in a sense what is being referred to throughout the whole text is what this perception of emptiness is like.

It is however important we don’t make emptiness into a thing. it is not a thing. It is a quality of all things. It is just the way things are. And the more that our practice develops, the more we get to see this ungraspable nature of things, and then we automatically let go. Because why would we hang on to things that are changing? Why would we try to hold on to a mountain stream?  When you let go, you enter the world of reality and you can know what it is to have satisfaction rather than dissatisfaction; to find peace rather than a sense of unhappiness and to find true joy and beauty. All based in looking deeply, both into ourselves and into all things.

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In tough times it’s easy to contract in your thinking and your activities. The tradition we come from doesn’t advise this. Shakyamuni Buddha teaches:

“If people knew as I know the results of giving and sharing, they would not eat without having given…

Even if they were down to their last bit of food, they would not eat without having shared it, if those to receive it were present.”

Itivuttaka 26

Try it, in a manageable, sane, gradual way. Notice how your world completely transforms.

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Wishing you health, happiness and great success in 2012.

New Year’s first snow — ah –
just barely enough to tilt
the daffodil.

Basho

This is a picture of Gyokuryuji, our home temple, in the snow. Over here in London it’s been a mild winter so far. We’re pleased to welcome Zen monk, Matt Kuke Kane from Japan to practice with us over the next few months.

Thinking back to May, 2011. Here’s a picture of Shinzan Roshi and Daizan Roshi at Wadham College, Oxford University, immediately before Shinzan Roshi’s lecture on the zen philosopher, Nishida. The Zenways Sangha were so happy to welcome Shinzan Roshi to the UK. We look forward to practicing with Shinzan Roshi in the future.

We’d like to invite you to a talk the on spiritual aspect of the samurai art of the sword at Zen Yoga on Sunday, November, 13th; 7-8:30pm. Our speaker is John Evans who trained for many years in Japan and is one of the highest ranking sword practitioners in the world. He’ll be talking about his recent book, “Kurikara; The Sword and the Serpent. It’s all completely free. There will be a collection afterwards – donations to go to Japan Red Cross to aid victims of the recent tsunami. It’s going to be fascinating. Please come and join us.

In the Zen school, Rohatsu – the anniversary of the Buddha’s Enlightenment is traditionally celebrated in early December by meditating through the night to the dawn. It is said that the Buddha sat down beneath the Bodhi tree and made the great resolve, “Though only my bones and sinews remain and my skin and flesh wither away, I will not leave this place until I realise complete  enlightenment”. He practiced through the night.

In the Denkoroku (The Transmission of the Light) Zen Master Keizan picks up the story:

Shakyamuni Buddha realized enlightenment on seeing the morning star. He said, ” I and all beings on earth together realize enlightenment simultaneously.”

After this great realisation, he spent the forty years of the rest of his life helping others to find what he’d found. This is the essence of Zen – to find the happiness that doesn’t depend on external conditions and to be a useful person in the world.

At our training place, Yugagyo Dojo, Camberwell, London, we’re celebrating the anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment with all night zazen meditation, December 6th-7th, 9pm-8am. There will also be sanzen, private practice interviews. You are very welcome to join us. Places are limited so you can book on the zenyoga.org.uk website.

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Book review originally published in The Middle Way, Journal of the Buddhist Society, November 2010.

BUDDHA RECOGNIZES BUDDHA, by Daishin Morgan, Throssel Hole Press, Northumberland,  2010, ISBN 0-9549139-1-4, pp 176, £8.00

“There is a profound nature at the heart of life that answers my human need to be at peace and to grow. It does not depend upon visions and great experiences, nor does it reject them. In my experience, it is found slowly and within the seemingly un-exceptional nature of the ordinary mind and heart.”

In this quiet way begins Buddha Recognises Buddha, an examination of how the principle of non-duality can find its expression in Buddhist practice. Written by Rev. Master Daishin Morgan, Soto Zen Abbot of Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey, the book explicitly acknowledges the influence of Dogen Zenji, the thirteenth century founder of Soto Zen in Japan.

Recognising the conventional opposites, the text continues: “The isolation that comes with being an individual leads me to discover the impossibility within the interconnectedness of life, of being alone. A faith born of daily experience shows that there is a sufficiency to be found within whatever happens. The present moment contains a jewel that cannot be conceived or stored up, but one can bow and find that there is no separation. My fears and desires come to look less like obstacles and more like signposts. I grieve for loved ones when they suffer or die, and I know that without mortality there is no beauty. At times, the perfection of things as they are elicits a deep peace from within and without. It removes the fear of death and reveals a simple joy in being. I am glad to be mortal and value each moment. It may not be logical, but eternity can be in a moment, even though every moment is not like that.”

Over eighteen chapters, Rev master Daishin reflects on the radical implications of the simple act of sitting still, a practice he calls “radical acceptance”. The resulting deconstruction of the conventional self and our structuring of experience is pursued most vigorously in the Chapter called, “Life is not biography.” He states, “When I am asked for an account of my life, even in the most general terms, I feel uncomfortable, as whatever I say does not feel quite true. I try to be truthful, but the story I relate never reflects the reality, no matter how sincere I am in the telling.”

This being so, it might, nevertheless help readers unfamiliar with Rev Master Daishin to know that he became a Soto Zen monk at Throssel Hole thirty-six years ago. In the old days, Zen Masters were often referred to by their temple names and if anyone deserves this honor in the west, it is probably Rev. Master Daishin. For most of its history he has set the tone for Throssel and this tone is clearly articulated in this book. Back in the early days of Throssel, a former smallholding on a windswept hillside with views out over the vast Northumbrian moors, the community sat zazen in a draughty barn. Not long after monastic ordination, he worked at a local lead mine to bring some sorely needed income to the fledgling monastery. Later, after the temple had been running for a decade or so and a rule of celibacy had been introduced, he steered the economy of the community from charging for retreats to operating on donations, similar to the Theravadin model. Now, three and a half decades later Throssel has a community of about thirty male and female monks and a complex of temple buildings set amidst a new-growth grove of native trees.

Within the book, there is absolutely no mention of the day-to-day milieu from which these teachings sprang, so perhaps I can mention my own experience. For fourteen formative years I studied with Reverend Master Daishin as a Zen monk, before continuing elsewhere with Rinzai Zen study. Within Zen monastic society the hierarchy is all- pervading and rigid. The first seven years I lived in the zendo, the meditation hall, with 3 by 6 feet of space on the meditation platform and two cupboards, one for bedding and one for robes. As junior monks we were almost never alone. Every action, twenty-four hours a day, was expected to be obedient to instructions, undertaken mindfully and with consideration of others. The monastery is a pressured environment. The image used to exemplify it was the rock tumbler. The months and years of living cheek by jowl gradually smoothing-off all the rough corners so that each monk would become a polished jewel.  The non-duality espoused in this book is thus a long way from any kind of laisez-faire anything-goes attitude.  Throssel Hole also has lay adherents who seek to practice zazen and mindfulness within their daily lives.

Continuing his critique of personal history, he continues, “It may be an uncomfortable truth to digest, but past experiences do not, in fact, bring true comfort in the present, nor do past sufferings make us suffer in the present. It is better to have done good in the past than to have done evil, but, in the end, if we wish to be truly content, we have to let go of both. There are no experiences wonderful enough to validate the rest of our lives, nor are terrible experiences enough to prevent our knowing the truth in the present.”

Many Soto teachers avoid much talk of spiritual experiences and Rev. Master Daishin is no different. For many people, although by no means all, the Soto style of zazen offers few landmarks of progress or development. Its very unstructured openness can be disorientating and discouraging for some. Rather than holding out vague hopes for a future “happy ending,” he returns time and again to the present experience. Hearing his tone of voice in the text. I am reminded of walking above the monastery. For much of the year, the broad, expansive moors are almost featureless, drained of colour beneath a leaden sky.  And yet, when you look down around your feet you see a world that is vibrant with colour and vitality. In the same way, Rev. Master Daishin urges us not to wait but to look deeply at the reality of our life right now, the reality of our meditation experience. Echoing the experience of many others he says: “I used to think enlightenment was something that would come when I was good enough or had done enough training, but such a view kept me from awakening to its presence. How could enlightenment be something that comes in the future, if it is indivisible? Once I seriously began to engage with it, Dogen Zenji’s teaching that training and enlightenment are one became a great catalyst. It raised a difficult question that I had to investigate, “If training and enlightenment are one, then enlightenment must be here and now, so where is it?”

Rev. Master Daishin points to Dogen Zenji’s famous dictum,  “To study Buddhism is to study the self,” writing that “Zazen goes beyond intellectual understanding into the realm of faith. This is not faith in any outside thing. It is the faith to entirely trust the Buddha that one is.” This non-dualistic stance, called in the Soto School, shusho funi, (lit training-realization not-two) leaves no room for a God or an Absolute conceived as above or outside of existence.

Within this orientation, “Zazen is sitting and nothing more. We do not, in the end, come to an acceptance through an effort of will. Instead, we come across the unadorned actuality of our life and find that in its true nature, it is deeply sufficient.”

Although this is not a “how-to” book (for that, see the author’s previous Sitting Buddha), nevertheless, Rev. Master Daishin does offer some practical steps. In times of distraction or sleepiness in zazen, he suggests introducing the question, “what is this?” He cautions against a facile understanding of mindfulness as a kind of heightened self-consciousness rather than the whole-hearted immersion in the present moment. In addition he looks at the role of the will, faith, hope, cause and effect, acceptance and other subjects from the non-dual perspective.

The final five chapters examine some of the most important scriptures within Soto Zen. I was particularly interested in his commentary on the Hokyozamai, The Most Excellent Mirror Samadhi, a long Dharma poem written by the Soto Ancestor, Tozan Ryokai. It’s not widely known, but Hakuin Zenji, the great reformer of Rinzai Zen, spent much of his early practice life in Soto establishments and was even offered the Abbacy of a Soto monastery. In Hakuin’s time and to this day, within the Soto School, the Hokyozammai is chanted every day. The text contains an outline of a highly sophisticated analysis of the inter-relation of duality and non-duality, often called Tozan’s five ranks or five stages, which Rev. Master Daishin ably expounds. The five ranks are essential study within both the Rinzai and Soto Zen Schools. In the programmed system of koan study that Hakuin and his students established, a series of koans concerning the Hokyozammai and particularly those examining Tozan’s five ranks form some of the most advanced. For this incisive commentary, for this thorough exploration of the ramifications of non-duality and for the distilled wisdom of three and a half decades of Zen monastic practice, I feel sure that this book would be interesting and valuable for all students of Zen, whatever the perspective or lineage that they espouse.

DAIZAN SKINNER Daizan, Rinzai, Zazen, zen, soto, Daishin, Northumberland, Throssel, Middle Way, Buddhist Society, Hokyozammai,rinzai, london, daizan, roshi, precepts, zazen, kensho, satori, non-duality, dogen Daizan, Rinzai, Zazen, zen, soto, Daishin, Northumberland, Throssel, Middle Way, Buddhist Society, Hokyozammai,rinzai, london, daizan, roshi, precepts, zazen, kensho, satori, non-duality, dogen Daizan, Rinzai, Zazen, zen, soto, Daishin, Northumberland, Throssel, Middle Way, Buddhist Society, Hokyozammai,rinzai, london, daizan, roshi, precepts, zazen, kensho, satori, non-duality, dogenDaizan, Rinzai, Zazen, zen, soto, Daishin, Northumberland, Throssel, Middle Way, Buddhist Society, Hokyozammai,rinzai, london, daizan, roshi, precepts, zazen, kensho, satori, non-duality, dogenDaizan, Rinzai, Zazen, zen, soto, Daishin, Northumberland, Throssel, Middle Way, Buddhist Society, Hokyozammai,rinzai, london, daizan, roshi, precepts, zazen, kensho, satori, non-duality, dogenDaizan, Rinzai, Zazen, zen, soto, Daishin, Northumberland, Throssel, Middle Way, Buddhist Society, Hokyozammai,rinzai, london, daizan, roshi, precepts, zazen, kensho, satori, non-duality, dogen

The Buddha established what have been called, “The four classes of Buddhist” – male and female monastics and male and female lay practitioners. Members of each of the four classes have realised enlightenment.,

Zenways member, Ha Jisho Tran, has left work as a city lawyer to pursue her Zen practice full time.  She is travelling to Japan to study at Gyokuryuji temple with Shinzan Roshi.  On Sunday 11th September at Yugagyo Dojo, our training hall, our sangha wished Ha every success for her practice as she took her leave.

The picture shows Ha with Shinzan Roshi at The Buddhist Society in London.

On 28th May, Shinzan Roshi opened our new training hall in London, giving it the English name, “Zen Yoga”, Japanese name “Yugagyo Dojo”.

“Yugagyo” is the Japanese version of the Sanskrit, “Yogacara”, which means “Yoga practice”. The Yogacara is the Buddhist philosophy and psychology of awakening. One of the key texts of Yogacara is the Lankavatara Sutra. The Ancestor, Bodhidharma, who is credited with bringing our lineage from India to China, is reputed to have arrived with the Lankavatara Sutra. In the early days, our tradition was known as “The Lankavatara School”.

Shinzan Roshi presented us with a huge enso, zen circle, to be the centrepiece of our dojo.

Wikipedia explains the enso thus: “In Zen Buddhist painting, ens? symbolizes a moment when the mind is free to simply let the body/spirit create. The brushed ink of the circle is usually done on silk or rice paper in one movement (but the great Bankei used two strokes sometimes) and there is no possibility of modification: it shows the expressive movement of the spirit at that time. Zen Buddhists “believe that the character of the artist is fully exposed in how she or he draws an enso. Only a person who is mentally and spiritually complete can draw a true enso.”

The Dojo will have classes in Zen Yoga as well as weekly zazen, sitting meditation, sessions. Sanzen – one-to-one practice interviews are available with our resident teacher, Daizan Roshi. You can book classes and find more information at zenyoga.org.uk.

Yugagyo; Shinzan Miyamae Roshi

We were honoured to have Shinzan Roshi come to the UK in May and lead a sesshin, a Zen retreat, at Gaunts House in Dorset.

Shinzan Roshi laid out the way to ‘kensho’ – ‘percieving your true nature’ meditating on the koan or spiritual question, ‘Mu’.

“If you want to pass this barrier, you must work through every bone in your body, through every pore of your skin, filled with this question:What is Mu? and carry it day and night.”

Then your previous lesser knowledge disappears. As a fruit ripening in season, your subjectivity and objectivity naturally become one. It is like a dumb man who has had a dream. He knows about it but he cannot tell it.” Mumonkan.

Shinzan Roshi urged-on the Zen students throughout the week. He reported that he was impressed with the level of sincerity he perceived and predicted that some fine future Zen teachers will be emerging from Europe.

We have an upcoming sesshin 18th-23rd September 2012 at Earth Spirit Retreat Centre, Glastonbury. Limited places available. Email zenways@london.com to book.

29 July to 5 August 2012

We’ll be at Gaunts House, a beautiful and comfortable retreat centre in Dorset. More information about the venue here http://www.gauntshouse.com/Venue#accomodation. Enquire about the special earlybird price for course fees at £1160 and full-board accommodation at £67 per day. There are a maximum of just sixteen places available, so you’ll need to get in early. Your first step is to email zenways@london.com.