Sit

by Taisen Deshimaru

  But it is not necessary to think, "I must create a strong hypothalamus. "Mushotoku-without goal-this is what is necessary. Mushotoku: automatically, naturally, unconsciously.

  MONDO

  Analysis vs. repetition

  QUESTION: During zazen what we practice then, is selfanalysis?

  Master: No, don't analyze, don't analyze! During zazen it is not necessary to analyze your mind. If you concentrate on your posture, you can be like this. (Sensei takes up the zazen posture), unconsciously, naturally and automatically. I have explained this. You don't understand? (The questioner shakes his head, no.) Zazen is not the same as when you read books. Practice is very important. Repeat: Dokan. This is very difficult to understand. Do you understand? (Silence). Sure, you cannot understand. You are trying to understand with your head. You observe with your frontal brain. Another question?

  In the toilet

  QUESTION: Why must one remove his rakusu before going to the toilet?

  Master: So that your rakusu will not become dirty. If you let it fall into the toilet, it will come out dirty and smelly. The rakusu is better clean. Respect it.

  It is also a bit of a custom (to remove one's rakusu or kesa before entering the toilet). Modern toilets are very clean; and in the old days the toilets were clean too, but they smelled. And to go to the toilet in a Japanese temple is a very complicated matter. To remove your kolomo and your chukin," and to do so exactly, and to put them in order is quite difficult. And the pee-pee posture, which is not the same as the western style, is also complicated-in a Japanese temple it is necessary to sit down like a woman. Then you must do gassho. The preparation alone takes five minutes.

  So it becomes a habit, a posture; it becomes deep. It is not the same as with dogs. For dogs it is very convenient; they can do pee-pee anywhere.

  Very important, manners. Important! Another question?

  QUESTION: To do zazen should one not be politically engaged?

  Master: As you like. You must decide for yourself. I do not oblige or order.... Why, do you want to follow some political party?

  Answer: Not a party, but a direction.

  Master: People who receive my ordination, people who become my disciples, them I can educate on this. But not others. It is as you like, you must decide: if you want to become a government deputy, or even a minister, it is possible. You can become that.... What do you like?

  Answer: Ecology.

  Master: Ecology is good. But to become too attached to it is not good. I like ecology. And I have read Konrad Lorenz. He is very interesting.

  The anger of a true educator

  Stephan: Sometimes Sensei is very kind with his disciples and we like him very much, but other times he is very hard on us and we are not so happy.

  Master: So?

  Stephane: So sometimes we don't like you. Does this matter?

  Master: If you make a mistake it is necessary that I become angry. When one is always testing his parents, or the master, if the master does not become angry then he is a little crazy. A true educator must become angry.

  In modern times parents are very protective and much too kind. So afterwards the parents become afraid of their children.... Democratic education is not always so good. The educators make mistakes, they rarely become angry, and when they do, even a little bit, people escape.

  In my ten years here in Europe, many people have escaped. I do like this and like that (Sensei gestures with his hand for the presumed disciple to come closer, then he makes a grabbing gesture), and then pa.'! So they escape.... It is very difficult to educate. Another question?

  QUESTION: Professor Durckheim38 sometimes has his followers practice meditation while in the posture of zazen. For example, he has them meditate on the symbol of the cup, the bowl, the tree, the symbol of the onion....

  Master: Professor Durckheim could not understand my Zen, and he left. He is basically a psychoanalyst, but he is not a Zen master and he does not at all understand Zen. Anyway, the method you speak of is professor Diirckheim's method, and if you want to follow it, it is possible; you can use everything. But this is not Zen. Another question?

  Kito

  QUESTION: What is kito?

  Master: You looked, you saw it being performed didn't you?

  Answer: Yes.

  Master: So you can understand. It is like that.

  QUESTION: Yes, but how can kito cut karma?

  Master: This is a psychological and a metaphysical problem. Something arrives during kito. But if I explain it, it becomes a category, (it develops) a meaning.... Kito is a very delicate matter. For people who believe in it, kito changes karma. But for me, this is not so.

  QUESTION: And for you, can the kito be effective?

  Master: Other people doing a kito for me? I am beyond a kito.

  But for believers, for people who believe in me, kito is very effective. For others, though, it is not at all effective.... During the ceremony the disciples sing the Hannya Shingyo and the master chants the kito and so there is a special atmosphere, and a strong mental influence is created.

  QUESTION: I want to thank you very much for having opened up my karma and my ego, for having helped me to abandon my little ego.

  Master: Sure!

  QUESTION: But I am sometimes pessimistic. How can one change the karma of others? How can I change universal karma?

  Master: You have not to manage the whole world.

  Answer: Yes, but we are sitting on an atom bomb!

  Master: True.... This Madame attends all the different religious congresses. Whenever there is a religious congress, she is there.

  Madame: And at the political congresses as well. (Laughter.)

  Master: Are they effective?

  Madame: Not so effective.

  Master: So what's your conclusion?

  Madame: I am pessimistic.

  Master: It is not necessary to be pessimistic. Just continue zazen. Like me. It is better. The middle way.

  Madame: But we are not alone! For other people, other people, other people!

  Master: Other people, other people.... During this camp more than one thousand people have come. It is spreading, and my disciples are becoming stronger, and they influence all of Europe, all the world.... To seek the way, this is important. What is the way? The way is under our feet.

  4 P.M.

  HEARING THE SUTRA

  or cutting the mind which sticks

  How obtain perfect wisdom? This is explained in Hannya Shingyo. All is ku, all is mu,39 all is negated. (Sensei recites the Sutra Hannya Shingyo.) At this time perfect and complete wisdom arises.

  Occidental philosophy is the world of epistemology, while Buddhist philosophy is the world of experience. We can make the immediate experience during zazen. We experience objective observation and objective certification of the ego. Because (sometimes) we are not looking, not hearing, not tasting, not touching. All this time there is no perception from the five organs of sense.

  But imagination, coming from memory, rises up like a dream. This is the subconscious which we create. This is "meditation."

  This is meditation in other religions. In other religions they imagine (create images) with their own consciousness. But zazen is not to continue imagination, not to continue so.... It is to be not attached to anything. Do not run after anything, do not escape from anything.

  Eno, the famous 6th Patriarch: his father died when he was a boy, and he had no brothers or sisters, just a mother. So he cut wood and carried it off on his shoulders to sell in town. One day while he was walking on the path it began to rain, so he took shelter in the doorway of a house. From where he was standing he could hear the beautiful chanting of a sutra. He did not understand its meaning, but still he was impressed.... (Even if you cannot understand its meaning, a good sutra will mark you, impress you. It's the same as when we chant them here. It is not like singing songs.)

  (During the following twenty minutes, the master chants the Diamond Sutra in old Kanbun.)
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br />   "What is this sutra?" Eno asked the monk after he had finished chanting.

  "The Diamond Prajna Paramita Sutra"4° replied the monk.

  When we do not stay on anything, at this time true mind arises..." True mind means the true nature of Buddha. Here true perfect wisdom arises.

  So at this moment when he heard this phrase, Eno got satori. From this phrase of eight ideograms.

  There are many famous short statements in the sutras. Like this one: (Sensei chants.) When a great master chants, one single phrase can change a person.... Satori-there are many stories of this in Zen.

  If we are not attached, if our consciousness does not stay (on something), then we can have perfect satori, perfect wisdom. But most people always stay; most are always attached to the foolish ego. They cannot abandon the ego.

  In modern civilization in particular, people have a strong ego. Selfish: they are always thinking of self-preservation; and they make their own publicity to give themselves more value.

  So you must escape, separate, cut yourself from this mind which sticks! Then you can obtain true wisdom.

  NO THEATER

  Ze-ami, very well known in Japanese No theater, wrote books on the attitude of mind of No actors. It is looking-of-thenon-looking. (What is this? It is thinking-non-thinking. It is hishiryo.) Ze-ami was influenced by Dogen's Zen, and so it became No. Ze-ami wrote this himself.42

  The actor's mask leaves only little slits for the eyes. So when he acts he is like a blind man. He looks through little holes and he cannot see everything. Yet when he acts he must look over the entire stage; and off it too. He must look at the spectators; not just at their faces but at their minds as well. He must see all, but he can't-not through the little holes.... This is similar to Zen. No actors must understand Zen.... Looking-not-looking. The actor cannot look subjectively, yet in order to play we must look at everything. This way so9Yo shiki is developed. The actor acts through so gyo shiki.

  So, if we are not attached to one detail, we can look at everything. And when we look at everything, we must not lose sight of the details. This is the relationship betwen art and Zen.

  (Sensei recites a passage from Shodoka in Kanbun which finishes with: "...remember that Buddhism must cut the root and not the branches and the leaves.").... Cut the leaves and study the branches-I do not like this. What I like is to get to the root and not be anxious about the extremities.

  Your postures here are not good. I have talked for a long time and everyone's chins have fallen out. (Everyone except for the ten-year-old American girl; she has not moved at all.)

  Concentrate. Two more minutes. Then we will stop, for a mondo.

  When times are difficult, zazen is most effective. Then you cannot stay. You stay only on pain.

  MONDO

  The beggars sang shomyo

  QUESTION: I would like to know about the origins of shomyo. And I would also like to know about daihishin-darani.

  Master: The Japanese language has become shomyo! Shomyo is a special singing. It is a special tone, a special modulation. (Sensei chants in shomyo.) This is Zen shomyo. But there are many other kinds of shomyo; there is Tendai shomyo, Shingon shomyo." And then there is daihishin-darani. This is general, common singing (Sensei sings in daihishin-darani).aa

  Dahishin-darani is not the same in the Eihiji and the Sojiji temples. At Eiheiji it sounds like this: (he sings). While at Sojiji it is like this: (he sings again, this time more slowly). This singing is very slow; this is shomyo.

  (As it is impossible, here, to transcribe Sensei's words in proper grammatical syntax, I have summed them up in my own words: Shomyo developed at the Soto temples of Sojiji and Daijozenji-noto. The master of Daijozenji-noto, and once a disciple of the great Soto patriarch Keizan, had to walk thirty or forty kilometers from home every day in order to be with his disciples at Daijozenji-noto for the early morning zazen. So as not to become tired and also to keep himself moving along at a regular pace over the mountain early every morning, he invented this singing technique that came to be called °shomyo"-a technique which consists basically in singing the sutras more slowly than was the standard custom.... This method became popular, and especially so during the Tokugawa period, when beggars chanted the sutras in shomyo. They sang these simple melodies ever so slowly (much more slowly than even the monks in the temples) and the people cried and gave them money. Anyway, it was primarily because of these beggars that shomyo, in its more mournful aspects, spread throughout Japan.)

  (Sensei sings in shomyo; then he imitates a beggar's soliloquy:) "I cannot walk, I have no legs, and I am blind. Very pitiful am I, so please, have pity and give me money.... " They sang slowly, slowly. It sounded very pitiful, so people gave them money.... And then every night, when it grew dark, the (seemingly legless) beggars stood up and walked back home.

  The beggars changed the sutras. Even though they could not understand them.

  Shomyo is interesting. If I sang shomyo to a Japanese madame, she would surely cry.... Sometimes I sing this way at Japanese ceremonies for the dead. Exactly you can feel mujo, impermanence.

  QUESTION: Sometimes you write poems or you sing songs or you paint calligraphies. At these times do you feel yourself more as an artist than as a Zen monk?

  Master: Not at all. I don't reflect. When I write I am not conscious of it, I am not thinking, "Now I am an artist." And when I do zazen, I am not thinking about Zen or about Buddhism.

  This is an objective problem. Subjectively I do not think at all. But since you want to understand this objectively: when I write I am a Zen monk writing. This is a name. But subjectively there is nothing.

  Karma continues

  QUESTION: What is karma?

  Master: Oh la-la! This is the question which people ask the most. In the ten years that I have been doing mondos here I have had this question asked me more than one hundred times. I am always answering this question. This is why last year I gave kusens on karma. For forty days I talked only on karma. Philippe wrote it down in The Voice of the Valley. (Sensei turns to his secretary:) And in French?

  Secretary: Yes, we have twelve kusens published in French on karma (Laughter).

  Master (to questioner): If I again explain karma, you will have to pay for another ten days.

  Anyway, for an outline on karma: karma means action. There are three kinds: body, mouth and mind. Concerning body karma: steal or kill and this action will completely influence the future. Action of mouth too, influences the future. You lie, you criticize and time will pass, but afterwards this karma, this action, returns exactly.... With action of mind it is the same: you say that you love, but in your consciouness you are always thinking hate. Well, this karma arrives in the future.

  In traditional Hinduism there is the Atman, the sou1.45 At death, the body dies but the soul continues. In Buddhism this is not so. Still, karma continues. Even after death; for eternity.46 So how do we cut karma? A religious man must cut karma. Another question?

  QUESTION: When zazen is almost over and you say: "We must suffer for two more minutes," at this time I hate you. What I want to know is what is happening in my mind when I think like this.

  Master: You think this way during zazen? Why? Why, during zazen?.... The American girl here is ten years old and she is more developed than you. You are childish. The little girl is the opposite of you: she does not at all move.

  Answer: Sometimes, when I suffer, I think that you are Hitler.

  Master (frowning): I am not Hitler. I have no mustache, and I am Japanese, not German. (Sensei turns to his secretary and asks her how many people have left the sesshin.)

  Secretary: Four people left today.

  Master: My education is very soft. But a little strength is sometimes necessary.

  Western people have become completely foolish. Their egos grow stronger and stronger. They are only individuals. Ten people have escaped since the beginning of the sesshin. They are completely foolish. Surely they thought that a sesshin in Val d'Isere is the sam
e as a holiday at the Mediterranean Club. So they ran away. Until death they will not become clever.

  8.30 P.M.

  ZEN AND BUDO

  The Rinzai master, Takuan, taught Yaku Tajima no Kami, a Kendo48 master and sage, the essence of kendo. (Takuan in Japanese means cucumber.) So master Cucumber taught him the essence. He gave Tajimanokami the Fudo Shinmyo Chi Roku, or the Record of the Non-Moving Excellent Wisdom 47

  (Herein) is the essence of kendo: looking without looking. During a kendo tournament it is either to kill or to be killed. It is not like a baseball game. There is no waiting. In western sports there is always waiting time. In the martial arts there is none. Kill or be killed.

  So it is necessary to look at the adversary's entire body, and not at just one part of it. You must attack the top of the head, but if you look only at the top of the head, this is a mistake. This is subjective, egoistic looking.... The adversary moves quickly, suddenly.... Does the hand move? The foot move? The eyes move?.... So looking without looking, this is very important.

  The first look is objective looking. The second look-without looking-is subjective looking. So it is looking objectively without looking subjectively.... So it is, too, during zazen: think without thinking, think from the bottom of non-thinking.

  In ancient budo, there are many different schools.49 There is Mu Gen Ryu, the school of the blind.50 There is Mu Nen Ryu, the school of non-thinking.51 This school is completely Zen.

  The school of Otanashino Kamae, which was founded by the blind samurai, Sukuae, means the school of attitude without sound.12

  The two most famous samurai sages of kendo were Miyamoto Musashi and Sukuae. Sukuae was blind but, like Miyamoto Musashi, he killed during tournaments."

  To be blind is more convenient. If the techniques of the two adversaries are equal, then the blind man has the advantage. The blind man's intuition is strong, and if the techniques are the same, then it is mind vs. mind.... In the beginning the combat is in the visible world, but in the end it is in the invisible one. And the blind man has had much practice in the invisible world.