Wake Up
Page 10
Mumon, the teacher who collected these koans of the ancient masters, added a commentary which reminds us not to reside in an understanding that’s too superficial, but to cull the koan’s subtleties: “All you Zen students training in the Way, don’t be victimized by sounds; don’t be blinded by forms,” he said. “You may have realization on hearing a sound or awaken on seeing a form; this is natural. But don’t you know that real living Zen students can ride sounds and veil forms? They will see all and sundry clearly. They handle each and every thing deftly. Perhaps you are such a person, but tell me: does the sound come to the ear, or does the ear go to the sound? And if you have transcended sound and silence, what do you say at such a point? If you listen with your ear, it’s hard to understand. If you hear with your eye, you are intimate at last.” Dogen Zenji works the same edge in his Genjokoan: “That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things is called delusion. That the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self is enlightenment.”
There are echoes of this in Colin Wilson’s book Poetry and Mysticism, published some fifty years ago and just full of attitude, or what an old professor of mine once called “the necessary piss and vinegar.” Wilson critiques what he calls the “passive fallacy” in literature and life: “Most wild creatures are under the protection of their parents for a very brief period, then they are out in the world. By comparison, human beings spend a very long period being fed, clothed and educated. That is, being more or less passive. The period in which a small bird opens its beak and has worms dropped into it lasts only a month or so. The period in which human beings open their mouths and expect food may last 20 years or so. This encourages a habit of passivity, and the habit becomes very deeply engrained. Moments of sudden intense happiness are accepted as a gift from nature. And this habit of passivity leads to the total loss of motivation.” Wilson rails against writers who were “children of opulence,” like Proust, who was spoiled, as he freely admits in his novel, and who consequently “spent his life like a bird with its mouth open; coming to believe that life was hostile because it refused to supply him with worms.”
As a student of poetry and the tradition of literary criticism, I loved Wilson, but it took years to let what he was teaching really have its deeper impact. Could it be that the world is not hostile just because we’re not getting what we think we need to be happy? Could that be so, even in the world we live in now, with its atrocities and disappointments? What is the world? And what happens when we stop waiting for the worm to be delivered?
This is the koan Yunmen gave his monks, to make sure they didn’t settle into some dharma nest. It is the koan entrusted to us as well, in every moment. We have everything we need to realize it. Dig into boundless mind with zazen, and don’t wait to feel some other way in order to sit down in the center of your life. That sparseness in your plain heart: just put your trust right there, and live.
Resources
OTHER BOOKS BY BONNIE MYOTAI TREACE
Winter Moon: A Season of Zen
A collection of dharma talks by Zen teacher Bonnie Myotai Treace, Sensei, touching on topics from koans to poetry, ancient Buddhist masters to contemporary issues.
Empty Branches: A Season of Zen
Explores how the ancient stories of Zen (koans) can support more genuine encounters with one another, oneself, the earth, and all creatures.
To order a Hermitage Heart Just-the-Right-Amount bowl or frameable copy of the Seven Thresholds, contact: https://www.hermitageheartzenbmt.com
BOOKS
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
Shunryu Suzuki
In the thirty years since its original publication, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind has become one of the great modern Zen classics. It’s a book to come back to time and time again as an inspiration to practice.
Zen Women: Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens, and Macho Masters
Grace Schireson
This landmark presentation at last makes heard the centuries of Zen’s female voices. Through exploring the teachings and history of Zen’s female ancestors, a more balanced dharma practice is presented.
Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food
Dr. Jan Bays
Drawing on recent research and integrating her experiences as a physician and meditation teacher, Dr. Jan Bays offers a wonderfully clear presentation of what mindfulness is and how it can help with food issues.
The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path
Norman Fischer
In an inspiring reframe of classic Buddhist teachings, Zen teacher Norman Fischer writes that the paramitas, or “six perfections”—generosity, ethical conduct, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and understanding—can help us reconfigure the world we live in.
Waking Up to What You Do: A Zen Practice for Meeting Every Situation with Intelligence and Compassion
Diane Eshin Rizzetto
Using the Zen Precepts as tools to develop a keen awareness of the motivations behind every aspect of our behavior—to “wake up to what we do”—from moment to moment.
The Eight Gates of Zen: A Program of Zen Training
John Daido Loori
This accessible introduction to the philosophy and practice of Zen Buddhism includes a program of study that encompasses practically every aspect of life.
MEDITATION APPS
Headspace
headspace.com
Designed to make meditation accessible to secular audiences, particularly those who have never meditated before. Useful timer for scheduling meditation and receiving reminder notification at set times. Some may find it overly simplified.
The Mindfulness App
themindfulnessapp.com
Timed Sessions: guided and silent meditations, from 3 to 30 minutes; customizable meditation with guided introduction, bells, and nature sounds; meditation reminders to help stay mindful throughout the day.
Calm
calm.com
Calming exercises, breathing techniques to help you relax, walking meditation, and a Calm Kids section with meditations for kids between 3 and 17. Works with Apple Watch.
Buddhify
buddhify.com
More than 200 meditations to reduce anxiety and stress, promote sleep, and manage difficult emotions.
10% Happier
tenpercent.com
Designed for “skeptics”; new content added weekly. Daily videos and guided meditations.
Insight Timer
insighttimer.com
Thousands of guided meditations, discussion groups, music tracks, and ambient sounds to calm the mind and promote sleep.
ONLINE TEACHING/TRAINING
wwzc.org/long-distance-training-program
White Wind Zen Community’s Long-distance Training Program was established in 1995 at Dainen-ji, the monastery founded by Ven. Anzan Hoshin.
www.vineobstacleszen.com/moodle/
Vine of Obstacles offers Zen practice under the guidance of a senior Zen teacher, Dōshō Port.
https://zenstudiespodcast.com
The Zen Studies podcast with Domyo Burk, a Soto Zen priest.
https://zmm.org/media
Zen Mountain Monastery podcasts and other resources.
GROUP PRACTICE CENTERS
Zen Centers in the US
http://iriz.hanazono.ac.jp/zen_centers/centers_data/usaNW.htm
Sorted by state, city, and center name; compiled in 2000.
Soto Zen Buddhist Association
szba.org
Soto Zen is one of the two major Japanese Zen schools; this list provides contacts for their major centers in the United States.
Mountains and Rivers Order
zmm.org
Western Zen Buddhist lineage established by the late John Daido Loori, Roshi. Monastery and Temple in New York, with affiliate groups worldwide.
The Kwan Um School of Zen
kwanumzen.org
International community of
Zen centers, close to 100 locations, founded by Korean teacher Seung Sahn.
Buddhanet
buddhanet.net
Lists various Zen Buddhist websites, blogs, and centers.
Acknowledgments
Really, it’s all my fault.
It is said that if someone attempts to explain Zen, their eyebrows will fall out. There’s also a revered tradition in Zen of offering apologies after a presentation. So, to those whose life and teachings inspired me, profound apology for the inadequacy of all herein. Your willingness to err in kind inspired me down to my bones. Thank you for your eyebrows.
Specifically: John Daido Loori, whose Beginning Instruction lecture was the most important half hour of my life. And for finding that mountain, and loving it and all who came there so well. And Shishin Wick, my Preceptor, whose heart seems always so still and clear. My thanks to Peter Matthiessen for insisting that we go through the entire koan curriculum, again, during dokusan out in his garden with the wind ruffling our robes. For Pema Chodron, who lingered over tea, wrote the best letters in the history of time, and could roar while whispering. I trust you as much as the Cape Breton shore rocks. And the great Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, famed founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, for giving me the name Hannah and winking as he said now I was “the protector of prayer” . . . and for that hour-long healing tape you took the time to make and send to me when I was wiped out with post–Lyme disease pain. You were compassion in spades. And Rabbi David Ingber, for those early conversations about everything and nothing, about how to best serve, and of course, the chicken.
I’d like to also acknowledge and thank the gorgeous spirit and presence of women teachers of Buddhism. To say “they persist” is to understate the challenges. I thank Tsultrim Allione, for her brilliance and commitment, and also for modeling the dignity of presenting the dharma just by the way she crosses a room. When you walked into the dining hall at the monastery, it was the first time I saw a woman occupy space with no remnant of apology or ego, and it changed the way I stood on earth. My gratitude for Chozen Bays, for showing up with tremendous kindness always, particularly when the conversations were running in the other direction, and being willing to enter the fray. And to Grace Schireson, for your friendship (“You’re not wearing that hat are you, Myotai?”), scholarship, and astonishing integrity. Thank you for all you’ve done to shine a light on the feisty females of the Way. My gratitude to Joan Halifax, for your coyote-howl, the permeability of your presence, and all that your deep intelligence has brought to the dharma. Special thanks as well to dharma sister Enkyo O’Hara, for walking alongside, for charging ahead, for hanging back. You are a true cowgirl and someone who sees, gives wholeheartedly, and never forgets that there’s a joke of sorts at the center of it all. I also am grateful to Gesshin Greenwood, who arrived on the teaching scene with a synthesizing wit that is like fresh air. And back around 1850, the Zen nun Rengetsu wrote and made pottery and fed the poor. Finding your work, Ren, when I was in my hut in the woods during my exile of a sort, set my mind on fire even as it chilled all anxiety. Thank you for going rogue, making art and making art and making art, no matter what. You saved me.
Special thanks as well for the sincerity and perseverance of all those who’ve studied with me. Your lives are the great teachings, and your willingness to engage inspires me nonstop.
I’d also like to apologize to my beloved, Rob, for every time I didn’t meet you well. Your talent for encouragement, and the daily-ness of creating home and practice, leave me speechless.
So, though there are a zillion more apologies owed and gratitudes to express, I should shut up now. But a few remaining notes have to be sounded: Resa Alboher and Alice Peck for your penetrating insights about writing, editors Vanessa Ta and Ruby Privateer at Rockridge Press for your good ideas and attention to detail, and finally, my mom, who gave me sets of bookends for birthday presents every year for years and years “to hold all the books (I) should get busy writing.” Okay, Mom.
About the Author
Bonnie Myotai Treace is a Zen priest, poet of meager renown, and ardent feminist. For many years she was a Zen teacher, or sensei, at Zen Mountain Monastery (as Vice Abbot) and the Zen Center of New York City (as Abbot). She is presently founder and spiritual director of Hermitage Heart Zen. No longer a bald monk but a gray-haired crone (irritant), she is particularly fond of 7 a.m., when the fog softens up the edges of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Many of her students are artists, writers, and other loner types, including those who, due to illness or disability, find retreat attendance difficult. She has written two previous books, Winter Moon and Empty Branches, and her teachings have appeared in various collected works and Buddhist publications and have been featured several times in The Best Buddhist Writing. She lives with her husband (along with the famous cat, Mr. Chickabee, and his servant, Abby, the gigantic collie) near Black Mountain, North Carolina.