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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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.

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.

We are delighted to announce that our teacher Shinzan Roshi will be visiting the UK in May this year. This is his first time teaching in the UK and a rare opportunity to study with a Japanese Rinzai Zen Master. Here is his schedule of public events:

17th – 22nd May – Sesshin, Zen retreat at Gaunts House, Dorset. Currently there are no places. Email zenways@london.com if you would like to be on the reserve list.

25th May – 10 am – 5.30pm, Day retreat at  The Buddhist Society, 38 Eccleston Square, London, SW1V 1PH. Call  020 7834 5858 to book. Places still available.

6.30pm – Public talk, “Continuity and Change in Zen” at The Buddhist Society, address as above, no need to book.

26th May 4.15 pm, Lecture, “A Zen Model for Human Development with reference to the philosophy of Nishida” at The Old Refectory, Wadham College, Oxford. Contact oxfordzen@yahoo.co.uk to book.

6.30pm – 9pm, Zazenkai (practice meeting) at The Oxford Zen Society, Quaker Meeting House, 43 Saint Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW. Contact oxfordzen@yahoo.co.uk to book.

29th May, 2-4.30pm, Public Talk at The 2600th Sambuddha Jayanthi, Anniversary celebration of the Enlightenment of the Buddha; at Hammersmith Town Hall, King Street, London W6 9JU. Email secretary@sambuddhajayanthi.info to book.

Sundays 4.30-6pm

Zen Practice/Meditation

at ZEN YOGA (Yugagyo Dojo), Opp 43 Camberwell Grove, Camberwell, London SE5 8RE.

We’re excited to let you know that our teacher Shinzan Roshi is visiting from Japan in May. He will be leading a sesshin 17th-22nd May 2011 at the beautiful Gaunts House (pictured) in Dorset. Places are limited and in demand, as you can imagine. The retreat will be suitable for beginners as well as experienced Zen practitioners. Shinzan Roshi will be teaching and sanzen (private interviews) will be available. The venue is top quality and the cost of the week is £395, concessions £345. Email zenways@london.com to book places.

Zen practice is designed to enable you to realise your true nature, who you really are. This realization gives you freedom in life and death, happiness and fearlessness. This retreat, is a rare opportunity to study with an authentic Japanese Zen Master from the rigorous Rinzai lineage. Shinzan Roshi has many years of experience of teaching westerners. Expect a powerful and transformative experience.

About Shinzan Roshi

Meeting Shinzan Miyamae Roshi is like meeting a Zen master from the golden age. Openly critical of the institutionalisation and routinisation of much of modern Zen and emphatic on the importance of genuine insight, he has charted an unorthodox course. Born in 1935 in Niigata, Japan, he graduated from Doshisha University with a degree in Economics. In his twenties he failed in three business ventures, experiencing great hardships. Contemplating suicide, he was by chance transformed upon reading a book on Zen. He was 31. He was ordained a Zen monk by Mitsui Daishin Roshi who sent him to train at Shogenji monastery with his own master, the formidable Kajiura Itsugai Roshi. Shogenji, known as the devil’s dojo, had the reputation of being the strictest training monastery in Japan. It was founded in the mountains of Gifu-ken on the spot where Zen ancestor Kanzan Egan (1277-1360) in his post-monastery training worked as a cow herder by day and sat zazen on a precipice by night. After completing his koan study, Shinzan Roshi took the unusual step of visiting every Zen Master in Japan seeking to test and deepen his insight. Later he restored Gyokuryuji, the mountain hermitage of the great Zen master Bankei. He has become known for teaching outcasts and foreigners and protesting against institutional abuses. He withdrew from the Myoshinji branch of the Rinzai Zen school over the system of excessive charges for funerals. He has taught in the US, Canada and Europe and has written two books in Japanese, one about true Buddhism and one about finding happiness.

Mark Westmoquette, astronomer writes about his experience in Japan.

“Japan Zen Enlightenment Journey – it did everything it said on the tin, and
more!

“To me this felt like the kind of experience where the more you put in, the more
you get back. The more you could take advantage of the beautiful, safe,
nurturing, and inspiring setting, the teaching and guidance that Shinzan Roshi
gave and the energy that our fantastic group generated, the more your practice
could really move on, become more focussed and go that much deeper. Roshi was,
with no doubt, the engine of the sesshin; a truly inspirational figure, both in
what he said and who he was. While you could sense a wild and ferocious side (a
character mirrored by his beautiful dogs), he came across as infinitely kind,
warm, understanding and approachable. He never stopped teaching, and obviously
put his all into the sesshin. This, my first retreat, gave me my first glimpse
into the world of liberation – I now understand what “zen” really means.

“Regarding the second week of sightseeing, it was an absolute honour to be able
to go to the places and do the things we did with Daizan and Matt. I cannot
thank them enough for showing us Japan so expertly and in such detail. They were
both (particularly Daizan) such founts of knowledge on almost any topic to do
with Buddhism, Japan, and just about anything else, that the guide book became
superfluous!! To us, it felt like the week went effortlessly – indicating that
they both must have put in an awful lot of behind-the-scenes work to make our
time so chock full yet run so smoothly. I couldn’t possibly decide which
activity was the highlight of that second week, although the lady tea master we
spent some time with left an unexpectedly powerful impression on me.

“I have a feeling this won’t be my last trip to Japan…=”

We’re looking at heading out again next May. It won’t be the same as this year, or last year – guaranteed! But every single person who’s come with us has found it a life-changing experience. Email zenways@london.com and I’ll put you on the list of interested people.

Best wishes Daizan