Category: quote

Suzuki Roshi

June 25, 2022

‘How to help people is very– not very difficult thing, but it is rather difficult to explain how to, you know. To help people, in its true sense, is just to join their life, and lead their life as they do, and to be always friend of others. That is the only way. And if they find me something different from them, even though we are in same condition and living same way. This is, I think, how to help them and how to teach them real practice of Zen.’ (from the Suzuki Roshi archives)

Interestingly, I had just pulled this quote up when a student texted me to ask how it was that they could help people.

Issho Fujita

June 24, 2022

‘In zazen our mind pervades throughout, resting with the body that is sitting and breathing. It does not engage with any other activity…

To do zazen means just to sit solely aiming at a correct posture. There is no other need to reach a certain state of mind as a goal or to attain a special experience. Therefore we are freed from anxiety and frustration which comes from seeking for a special state of mind and experience which we have not yet attained and are able to peacefully rest in the here-and-now as it is, nothing special.’ (Polishing A Tile)

Dale S. Wright

June 23, 2022

‘In their effort to establish a more comprehensive understanding of Buddhist morality, Mahayana sources frequently classify morality into three increasingly significant categories. First, morality as restraint, which aligns with most concerns of early Buddhist moral precepts. Steadfast in renunciation of ordinary worldly desires, the bodhisattva observes the precepts with great care and exactitude and does this with no thought of reward. Second is morality as the cultivation of virtue. Mmore comprehensive than following the Buddhist precepts, the second level of moral practice is grounded in meditation and its concerns for mindfulness. Attentive to all the ways in which enlightenment can be cultivated, the bodhisattva undertakes these regimes of training in order to prepare for the final stage. Third is morality as altruism. This dimension of morality shows the bodhisattva’s overarching concern for the welfare and enlightenment of others. Moral action at this stage, therefore, entails loving service to others, which includes everything from teaching to care for the poor and the sick. In the final analysis, moral action is not individual but collective, and the bodhisattva engages in morality for the betterment and enlightenment of all.’ (The Six Perfections)

We turned back to this book in my student group last week, and this paragraph provided some food for thought.

Jisho Warner

June 22, 2022

‘Our practice depends on our personal initiative and energy, and yet that is only part of it. We are oriented and taught by the world around us, by what we don’t yet know. The energies we call on for inquiry and action rise in us but don’t originate in us as our own independent entities…

Great energy is native to the four great elements of earth, air, fire, and water. It is equally native to our human selves, so often described by the five aspects of self (skandhas: form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness), which are of course made of the four elements. It is no different whether we think in terms of the four great elements or the hundred-plus elements of the periodic table. The basic elements interact energetically in all things, functioning with the power we call life, or ten-direction universe, or buddha, or dharma. Dogen says that all naturally practice; that is all fulfill their nature completely. And he says that the power of this fulfilled nature is the basis of our practice; it is the motive power, the engine.’ (Receiving the Marrow)

I took this book to Wilbur with me, and it informed and articulated what I felt as I walked and sat in the landscape. Look out for more posts from this chapter soon.

Domyo Burk

June 20, 2022

‘It is sometimes said it is the job of the teacher to “keep pulling the rug out from under us” until we no longer fall down – until we are standing in the unassailable place, not on any simple rug. My teacher did this by not-doing; in a sense she refused to offer me any rugs, at least not when I was being really demanding about it. I craved her approval and understanding, but could never get it when I really wanted it. I struggled with this for many years, until finally I truly didn’t need her – or anyone’s – understanding or approval any more. Not that I didn’t want and appreciate connections with others, I just didn’t need their approval to know I was fundamentally OK.

Pulling out the rug is especially important when it comes to spiritual insight; the teacher must keep testing the student, not allowing him/her to concretize an experience, get stuck in a concept or memory, or become arrogant or complacent because of a sense of spiritual accomplishment.’ (from Snow Covered Peaks)

Katagiri Roshi

June 18, 2022

‘To sit on the chairs of silence is not enough to realize what you are and who you are. Everybody can sit on the chairs of silence and tranquility, on the chairs of understanding transience. Actually, every time you encounter the various phases of human life it is possible to understand what a human being is. Through your experience, I think, you can see that understanding transience is not enough to improve your life in the future. Understanding tranquility or silence is not enough to elevate your life. You have to develop silence and tranquility. The understanding of silence and tranquility on a higher level is the actual practice. In other words, give it life, vivid life …. 

Buddha teaches us that we have to have the Big Mind. Then what is the small mind? The Big Mind as taught by Buddha has nothing to do with the domain between big and small. Even though you think you understand the Big Mind as taught by Buddha, I think this understanding is still floating between your notion of reality and Reality itself. You say “I don’t like this,” but the suffering doesn’t move. 

For the sick student, the most important thing is that she expresses the decision to continue to listen through her everyday life, through the taking care of, through the benign and cheerful treatment of her disease, of her death. Listening to the silence, to the silence and the tranquility, is not merely a notion – it should be bound up with our everyday life …. ‘ (from Wind Bell)

I have been doing some reading around the shosan ceremony that I quoted from recently, and found a wonderful lecture by Katagiri Roshi on life and death.

Keizan Jokin

June 17, 2022

‘Zazen is far beyond the form of sitting or lying down. Free from considerations of good and evil, zazen transcends distinctions between ordinary people and sages, it goes far beyond judgements of deluded or enlightened. Zazen includes no boundary between sentient beings and buddha. Therefore put aside all affairs, and let go of all associations. Do nothing at all. The six senses produce nothing.

What is this? Its name is unknown. It cannot be called “body”, it cannot be called “mind”. Trying to think of it, the thought vanishes. Trying to speak of it, words die. It is like a fool, an idiot. It is as high as a mountain, deep as the ocean. Without peak or depths, its brilliance is unthinkable, it shows itself silently. Between sky and earth, only this whole body is seen.

This one is without comparison – he has completely died. Eyes clear, he stands nowhere. Where is there any dust? What can obstruct such a one?’ (Zazen Yojinki)

Keizan is usually considered the co-founder of Soto Zen in Japan, alongside Dogen; this text has echoes of Dogen’s work and other, older foundational texts from China, which some of you may spot – but then Dogen himself did this in his writing.

Corey Ichigen Hess

June 16, 2022

‘I think there is a real question we have. Like “What do I really care about…?” And I think the standing, the physical practice is a great free form way to allow the sincerity of that inquiry to open an internal alchemy. Like, facing that question, really facing it, physically, and it begins to open. And it’s not necesarily that there is an answer, but the physical experiential opening that occurs when we face that most sincere feeling about what we care about, will give us an ability to, in our own way, interact with life. Our way in. We won’t need the information to come second hand. We’ll see that our practice opens when we bring that bottom line. That’s what I do in the standing or sitting. That’s what I’m always talking about in being real. Now at this point, I don’t have a lot of fundamental existential questions. But that same laser beam sincerity can be used to open the body, open up to reality, open into more depth, learn, be a better husband, dad, etc. Once we see that sincerity is a gate that can open life, it opens up a lot of doors. So if you are struggling about how can I connect with practice, I suggest you face your most essential questions, with your whole body, and see if that facing will begin to open doors. In that way we are all on our own. Because we can’t read about someone else’s approach and try to imitate it.’ (from Zen Embodiment)

As regulars will know, I am a big fan of how Corey expresses his practice, and this answer to a question following a recent post was another wonderful articulation of this. It also happened to chime perfectly with a teaching session I was doing right before I read it, which always feels encouraging.

Willa Blythe Baker

June 15, 2022

‘A basic tenet of Buddhism is that our innermost being is already aware, clear, and unwavering. Not in the future, but right now. In some traditions, this fully wise, awake aspect is called buddhanature. In Mahamudra practice, it is called natural awareness. Natural awareness is not a state; it is fundamental to who we are. We meditate in order to witness this clarity, spaciousness, and compassion as our innermost being.

When we first sit on the cushion, we may have trouble believing there is anything of that nature in a chaotic mind full of churning thoughts and feelings. But as we sit more and more, eventually we discover that a very subtle, quiet awareness is watching the chaos. Natural awareness is not thrown off by the chaos of the relative mind. It remains grounded in every moment of experience, not separate from what it sees; it is a selfless, nondual watcher. It is completely ordinary and present in the now.’ (from Lion’s Roar)

Dogen

June 13, 2022

‘Risking our dewdroplike life in crossing the ocean of ten thousand li and crossing mountains and rivers of a foreign land, we seek the way. However, it is our lamentable fortune to see such a decline of dharma. How much of the pure dharma has perished before us? It is regrettable, truly regrettable.’ (Shobogenzo Semmen)

Is the beauty of this lyrical passage enhanced or diminished when you learn that it follows a paragraph where what Dogen is lamenting is that monks in China have bad breath because they do not use willow twigs?

The Treasure the Road study group has come to the end of that fascicle, and starting today, we will be looking at Receiving the Marrow By Bowing.