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.
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