by Kim Boykin
And then I realized, Hey, wait a minute! That's what Zen practice is all about-practicing being with our actual lives, seeing the freedom and joy that are right here, in our lives just as they are. We don't need to change anything in order to be free. We don't need to wait until we've made further progress on a spiritual "journey." The freedom we're searching for is right here, wherever we are. In zazen, we rest in that freedom. We express that freedom. We manifest our inherent buddhahood.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to change ourselves or our situation or the world. The desire for change can be rooted in selfless compassion for others, for ourselves, for everything. When we open our awareness to things as they are, the wise and compassionate response may be to try to change things. The problem, as the Second Noble Truth observes, is when the desire for change is not just a desire but a craving, when our desire for change is centered on the "self," when it is possessive and aggressive. Craving gives rise to suffering for ourselves and others.
But this sounds a little worrisome. Our desire for change usually is possessive and aggressive. Our Zen practice usually is motivated by ego-centered desires. That's just fine. Of course we're self-centered. That's inevitable and normal, and that's what we practice with. Our attachments and aversions, our possessiveness and aggressiveness, the self-centered quality of our desire for change-these are fodder for practice. We notice the possessiveness of our desire for change, and we return our attention to the present moment. We notice the aggressiveness of our desire for change, and we return our attention to the present moment. We notice how we're turning Zen into another self-improvement project, and we return our attention to the present moment.
In Zen, we practice opening our compassionate awareness to things exactly as they are, including ourselves exactly as we are, with all our self-centered projects. Zen is not about changing ourselves. It isn't even about changing our desire to change ourselves. We can't change ourselves into Buddhas, not even by getting rid of our desire to change ourselves into buddhas. We are already buddhas. Nothing about us needs to be different.
Before he got into Zen, Issan Dorsey did all sorts of drugs, had frequent run-ins with the police, and performed in drag shows in San Francisco's North Beach district, billed as "Tommy Dee, the boy who looks like the girl next door." Once, at a question-and-answer session at the Zen Center where Issan was abbot, a Zen student said to him, "`I've been studying for six months now and I don't notice any difference in my behavior or thoughts. You've been doing zazen for twenty years, have you noticed any difference in yourself?' After a few minutes of hesitation and puzzled facial expressions, Issan replied, `Well, I don't wear high heels anymore."'
Although Zen practice may change our behavior or thoughts, that isn't fundamentally what it's about. Zen practice is an expression of our inherent buddhahood. We don't need to change ourselves into buddhas. We are already buddhas.
We Are Not Yet Awakened
While Zen observes that we are already buddhas, Zen also observes that we are not yet awakened. This is not news to us, of course. It is readily apparent that we are not awakened. We may be buddhas, but we sure don't feel like buddhas, and we don't act much like buddhas either. The Third Noble Truth says we can be liberated from suffering, but we aren't liberated yet. We suffer, and we cause suffering for others. This is the bad news of Zen. Our lives are permeated with suffering. We are not yet awakened. And awakening isn't easy. Letting go of the attachments, aversions, and ignorance that give rise to suffering takes practice and determination.
We may begin Zen practice out of simple curiosity, but we are probably hoping that Zen will change our lives in some way. Perhaps we want to lower our blood pressure or improve our concentration. Perhaps we have encountered pain and impermanence in a way that has frightened and confused us, and we are trying to make sense of it all. Perhaps we once had a taste of our inherent selflessness and freedom, but it has faded into a poignant memory and we want to recapture it. Or perhaps we just have a vague feeling that there's more to life than this. In any case, we want something to change. We want our lives to be different. We want our lives to be better. And we sense that spiritual practice is the key.
At the monastery where I lived, each night at the end of evening zazen, while everyone is still sitting silently in the darkened meditation hall, the timekeeper chants:
Let me respectfully remind you,
life and death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost.
Each of us should strive to awaken.
Awaken. Take heed.
Do not squander your life.
Zen master Dogen said that you must practice meditation as if your hair is on fire. If your hair is on fire, what do you do? You put out the fire! You don't procrastinate. You don't give the fire your partial attention while also attending to other things. You don't wait to do something about it until someone else shows up who can help you. If your hair is on fire, you put every bit of your attention and energy into immediately and completely extinguishing the fire. Zen practice requires this same urgent, single-minded intensity.
Bodhidharma and Hui-k'o are models of the intensity and determination needed in Zen. The semihistorical, semilegendary Bodhidharma is known as the first patriarch of Zen in China. Buddhism was already in China when the Buddhist master Bodhidharma arrived from India in the sixth century, but Bodhidharma is credited with bringing to China a form of Buddhism focused on meditation and direct realization-a form of Buddhism that when melded with the indigenous Chinese Taoism would become Zen Buddhism (called Ch'an in Chinese). Bodhidharma reputedly spent nine years at Shao-lin monastery in northern China doing zazen facing a wall. He is always depicted with a big nose and a bushy beard-very unChinese-and with huge eyes. I've heard two explanations for the huge eyes. One is that his Indian eyes looked strangely large to the Chinese. The other is that Bodhidharma once got so furious about falling asleep while doing zazen that he cut off his eyelids. Where his eyelids fell to the ground, they grew into the first tea plant, and ever since, tea has kept Zen meditators awake and invigorated.
The Buddhist monk Hui-k'o traveled to Shao-lin monastery to become a student of the great master Bodhidharma. Hui-k'o stood in the snow outside Bodhidharma's cave for several days and nights, repeatedly asking Bodhidharma to teach him, but Bodhidharma ignored him and kept facing the wall. Finally, to prove his earnestness, Hui-k'o cut off his own left arm and presented it to Bodhidharma, who then accepted Huik'o as a student. After six years of intensive meditation training with Bodhidharma, the master designated Hui-k'o as his successor, the second patriarch of Zen in China.
Or course, the stories about Bodhidharma and Hui-k'o may well be hyperbolic-one historian says that Hui-k'o's arm was probably cut off by bandits-but the point of the stories is clear. We must practice like someone whose hair is on fire, like someone who would do zazen facing a wall for nine years and cut off his eyelids to stay awake, like someone who would cut off an arm to receive the teachings. We are not yet awakened, and we should strive with all our might to awaken.
Already and Not Yet
But there seems to be a serious contradiction here.
Zen says that we are already buddhas-already "awakened ones"-and Zen also says that we are not yet awakenednot yet buddhas. Zen says that striving won't get us anywhere, and Zen also says that we must strive to awaken. Zen says that we can't work our way to liberation, and yet Zen practice sure does seem like hard work. Zen says that we don't need to change a bit, and yet we're suffering and can be liberated from suffering, and wouldn't it be a tremendous change to be liberated from suffering? Zen says that enlightenment can't be attained, and Zen prods us to enlightenment.
What's the deal? Are we buddhas, or aren't we buddhas? Is striving pointless, or is striving vital? Does Zen practice change us or not? Are we inherently enlightened, or do we need to become enlightened? Are we there yet or aren't we? Which is it?
The answer is bot
h. We are already buddhas, and we are not yet buddhas. We are inherently enlightened, and we must strive to become enlightened.
Does this make logical sense? No.
Or the answer is neither. Zen teacher Hakuun Yasutani says that when one who is inherently a buddha attains enlightenment and becomes a buddha, it's "like some sort of goblin who puts one head on top of another." But those who say that enlightenment is unnecessary are "like fools who cut off the head and then look for the tongue." He sums it up: "If you're enlightened, it's no good; if you're not enlightened, it's even worse." You can't say you're already a buddha, and you can't say you're not yet a buddha.
Does this make logical sense? No.
In trying to make sense of this, we might assume that the answer is really a combination of already and not yet-that in one sense of the word enlightened, we are already enlightened, and in another sense, we are not yet enlightened. Or we might assume that the answer is really somewhere in between already and not yet-that we need to find a "middle way" between not striving at all and striving mightily. These answers are satisfyingly rational. But Zen isn't saying these rational things. Zen's answer is nonrational.
When Zen says anything at all, Zen often says one thing and the opposite thing at the same time. Or Zen denies one thing and the opposite thing at the same time. This paradoxical language points to a truth beyond language, beyond logic, beyond purely intellectual understanding.
We are both already enlightened and not yet enlightened. Or we are neither already enlightened nor not yet enlightened. Or both of those. Or neither.
I personally don't much like this sort of paradoxical rhetoric. I think it gets overused in Zen, when some ideas could perfectly well be expressed in ways that are more straightforward and also more helpful to those seeking liberation. I think paradoxical language sometimes gets used in place of addressing hard questions or thinking things through clearly. But I do think there is an important place in Zen for paradoxical language.
Zen master Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is a classic of American Zen and is full of paradox. Suzuki says, for instance, "For us, complete perfection is not different from imperfection. The eternal exists because of non-eternal existence." For many years, even while I was living at the Zen monastery, I suspected that a lot of the enthusiasm for this book was an "emperor's new clothes" phenomenon. That is, a few respected people said it was wonderful, so then everybody said it was wonderful. I figured its aura of profundity was largely due to Suzuki's congruence with our image of mountaintop gurus-his short sentences and limited English vocabulary and his paradoxical language that sounds deep even though nobody has a clue what it means. More recently, I've come to think that the emperor really does have clothes and that paradox is the best form of language for expressing some of the fundamental truths of human existence, like the truth that we are already enlightened and not yet enlightened.
Expressions of Already and Not Yet
One way that Zen points to truths beyond logical understanding is with paradox. Zen also uses images, stories, poetry, actions, silence-whatever works. Here are a few expressions of "already and not yet."
Yasutani Roshi says that searching for enlightenment is like riding around on your ox searching for your ox:
"Where are you going on your ox?"
"Oh, yes, I'm going to look for my ox."
"If it's your ox you're looking for, aren't you riding on it?"
"Ah! So I am!"
Realizing that you are already on your ox is enlightenment. "This is a kind of silly thing," Yasutani comments, "but there is not even one unenlightened person who knows that sentient beings are originally buddhas." Even the Buddha, until he became enlightened, had not yet realized that all beings are already buddhas. Even the Buddha had to awaken to his buddhanature.
A more familiar version of the ox story is searching all over the house for your glasses while you have them on:
"What are you looking for?"
"My glasses."
"Your glasses are on your face."
"Oh. Dub."
Realizing that you already have your glasses on is enlightenment. Nothing has changed-your glasses were already on-but something important has changed. Now you know your glasses are on. Now you can settle into the comfy chair and read your book. Of course, you could have settled into the comfy chair to read your book before, but you didn't know that. You already had what you needed, but you hadn't yet realized that you had what you needed.
The Japanese Zen master Hakuin offers this verse on liberation from suffering:
The ogre outside shoves the door,
The ogre inside holds it fast.
Dripping sweat from head to tail
Battling for their very lives,
They keep it up throughout the night
Until at last when the dawn appears
Their laughter fills the early light-
They were friends from the first.
We are already friends with the ogre on the other side of the door, but we haven't yet realized it. It isn't necessary to defend ourselves from the ogre or defeat the ogre or scare the ogre away or negotiate with the ogre or make peace with the ogre. We need only recognize the ogre as an old friend. Then we can have a good laugh together and relax and enjoy ourselves.
These "already and not yet" images might actually make a little too much sense. For a while, I thought I had solved the puzzle of "already and not yet." I thought the paradoxical language was a poetic affectation. I thought one could, in fact, make logical sense of the apparently contradictory Zen teachings about enlightenment.
Here's the way I had it figured. Everything about my life is already OK exactly as it is except that I haven't realized that yet. That's the only thing about my life that needs to change. That's all I need to strive for: that realization. To be liberated from suffering, I obviously don't need to become rich or famous or powerful. I don't need to become smarter or more attractive. I don't even need to become less depressive or more centered or wiser. All I need is an enlightenment experience. All I need is the realization that everything about my life is OK exactly as it is.
Fortunately, I had that wrong. If that's what Zen says, it wouldn't be such good news. But Zen has some really good news. Everything about my life is already OK exactly as it is, including my not having realized that yet. I have not yet awakened, and I am already a buddha. The paradoxical rhetoric here is not an affectation. The Zen tradition is pointing to the truth as best it can using the limited tool of language. We are already buddhas, and we are not yet awakened.
Already and Not Yet in Practice
It is said that there are three requirements for Zen practice: great faith, great doubt, and great determination.
Great faith is trusting that things really are OK in some fundamental way, trusting that we are all buddhas. Great faith is believing that the Buddha and all the other enlightened teachers of the past were not lying or deluded but were pointing to the truth when they taught their way of liberation. Great faith knows the "already" of Zen: that we are already buddhas.
Great doubt is the gut-wrenching doubt that things could possibly be OK exactly as they are. It is the doubt, sometimes approaching despair, that this life of pain and impermanence could ever possibly be a life free of suffering and full of joy. Great doubt knows intimately that things are a big mess, that the world is full of suffering and our own lives are full of suffering. Great doubt knows the "not yet" of Zen: that we are not yet awakened. Great doubt even doubts the "yet" in "not yet." That is, great doubt suspects that liberation isn't even possible in such a mess of a world.
And great determination is the determination to awaken, to realize our buddhahood, to be liberated from suffering and to liberate others from suffering, to practice as if our hair is on fire.
We need all three. Great faith, great doubt, and great determination are the legs of the tripod on which our Zen practice stands. Our practice will topple if we're missing one of these le
gs. If we have faith but no doubt, we may be complacent. If everything is completely OK, why practice? If we have doubt but no faith, we may be driven to despair. If everything is an irredeemable mess, why practice? The dynamic tension between faith and doubt-between the "already" and the "not yet"-gives us a reason to practice. Then we just need the determination to practice.
Already and Not Yet in Christianity
I have borrowed the language of "already" and "not yet" from Christian theology. For the early church, God's reign had not yet come. Christians awaited the imminent return of Christ to judge the living and the dead and to inaugurate the kingdom of God on earth. Some Christian theologians in the twentieth century understood God's reign to be here already, having made itself known, or having come to be, in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Other contemporary Christian theologians have reaffirmed the future nature of God's reign. And others have proposed combinations of "already" and "not yet": that God's reign is in some sense already here and in some sense not yet here.
As far as I know, no Christian theologian has simply asserted both the "already" and the "not yet" with the brazen nonrationality we find in Zen. That is, no one has tried to say that God's reign is both already fully here and also not yet here at all. This strategy might be worth a try, and I don't think it's as radical as it might sound. The Christian tradition long ago settled on some paradoxical language for talking about God and Jesus. God is a Trinity-that is, God is both one and three. Does this make logical sense? No. Jesus Christ is both completely human and completely divine. Does this make logical sense? No. Is it OK that these key pieces of Christian theology don't make logical sense? Yes, at least in the opinion of many strands of Christianity. The Christian tradition is using the limited tool of language to point to truths beyond language.
