The Essence of Zen Practice

I'm going to talk about what is most essential from my perspective about Zen, and I wrote

down four Japanese words or phrases that immediately came to mind.

The Japanese phrases, because I come from a Japanese Zen tradition, I first began meditating

in 1975, and I did my first Sesshin when I came to Seattle after graduating undergraduate

at UCLA on Vashon Island, just outside of Seattle across Puget Sound with Rano Osho

San.

Rano Osho San, who was a lead monk at a Heiji, so a Soto Zen priest, and I had a, I guess

you'd call it a breakthrough, an opening of some sort, a shift in consciousness that was

so transformative for me that I thought, wow, I'm going to have to keep doing this, and

that if I could be a part of transmitting some form that would allow other people to

experience this shift in the way of seeing things, that would be the greatest gift I could give.

In late 1978, Genki Takabashi, who was a Rinzai Zen priest, came and became the resident Zen teacher

of the Seattle Zen Center, which was founded by Dr. Glenn Kangan Webb, who was an art history

professor at the University of Washington.

He'd spent more than a dozen years training in Zen temples at that time, and he was an

expert, Glenn Webb was an expert in Japanese woodblock prints, amongst other things, and

he was told by the Roshis that hold the Zen treasures of Japan that, well, you can't even

look at these unless you've done Sesshin, so that's how he came to do Sesshin.

Anyway, Genki Takabashi was a...

Rinzai fellow, so it was then in 1979 that the Dalai Lama first came to Seattle, hosted

primarily by Dr. Webb, and he gave a talk to our little Zen group, which was about this

number of people in a living room of a house that we were having weekly sits, and that

was such a moving experience.

Genki Takabashi was a Japanese Rinzai priest, tears coming down his eyes to be in the presence

of the Dalai Lama, and so did the rest of us, and I heard him give a talk on the Four

Noble Truths at the University of Washington, and it was right after that talk that I talked

to Dr. Webb and Genki and said, well, I'm at a kind of transition place in my life and

this is what I want to do, what do I need to do, whatever you say.

And they said, well, let's see if you've got the medal for it by, you know, attending

the four Sesshins a year that we were doing, those are week-long retreats in Seattle, and

if you're still interested after doing that, we'll send you to Japan and shave your head

and you'll put on robes.

I said, fine, let's do it.

Of course, in the, especially in the Rinzai Zen tradition, one of the first koans is in

the Mumonkan, or gateless gate, the koan of Mu, and that's the first of these four words

or phrases that I want to speak to.

Mu is the word that means nothing, not, no, and refers to the vast void that is everything,

and from which the universe arises.

We don't know what that is, we don't know where that comes from, but when you encounter

it, which is part of our own depth, because all of us are like little leaves on the tree,

we may not know that we're a leaf on the tree, but we're a leaf on the tree, and when you

experience yourself as a part of the tree, that's realizing Mu.

Another way to say it, metaphor, when you realize that little ripple,

on the ocean, that you're a part of the ocean, that's realizing Mu.

Another way to say it is, if you, as a grape, you realize that you're a part of the vine,

that's realizing Mu.

You're already a part of Mu, you couldn't possibly be anything else, we're all fruit

of Mu.

But, you don't know what that is, but it's a hell of a feeling.

It's a great feeling, when you realize that you're something more than your narrow ego

identity.

And, that you're a part of a family that includes everything.

So, Mu is a pretty important first koan to work with, because it keeps pointing you,

pointing you, pointing you.

You are a part of the vine, you are a part of the ocean, you are a part of the tree.

And, that realization, you already are, but that realization is transformative.

And, it's considered just the beginning of practice.

Genki Takabashi, we call him Genki Roshi, who is the founder of Choboji, which is my

temple in Seattle, got started in 1983, when Genki and Dr.

Webb had a bit of a falling out.

I don't want to go into that story, but they went separate ways, and Choboji was founded.

So, Choboji, my temple, is an ancient temple.

He is the antecedent of the Seattle Zen Center, which, after Dr.

Glenn Webb moved away from Seattle, kind of fizzled.

So, Choboji is the descendant of the Seattle Zen Center.

Anyway, Genki Takabashi gave, always, when we would do a seven-day session or

more, would start the first day examining or investigating the Koan Mu, and the last

day, investigating Case 19 of the Momonkan.

which is Ordinary Mind as Tao

is one English translation

he used this phrase for Ordinary Mind as Tao

Hei Zhou Shin

and Hei he translated as like everyday

and Zhou as realized

and Shin as heart mind

so everyday awakened

heart mind activity

and that would be the bookend

of every seven day retreat

and every seven day retreat

that I lead in Seattle

and I lead four in Seattle and one in Europe

begins with Mu and concludes with Hei Zhou Shin

and why Hei Zhou Shin

you know when we

discover

being harmonious

in some activity

whether it's bike riding

or kayaking

or driving a car

reading a book

or having a conversation

or sitting in Zazen

or doing some simple task

like folding the laundry

or cleaning the dishes

or chopping the vegetables

or sweeping the floor

when we get in the groove

and we kind of disappear

in the groove

into the activity

we call that samadhi

and that's an example of ordinary everyday awakened activity

heart-mind activity

so anytime that we are being mindful

caring

attentive

and in the groove

we've lost a sense of kind of self and time

That is ordinary mind as Tao.

And you could really end there with those two bookends.

That is the essence of Zen practice to start.

The next phrase is shukyugyo.

And this comes from my Dharma great-grandfather,

Genpo Roshi, who was the abbot when he died in 1961.

He was the abbot of Hutaku-ji in Japan,

where I trained briefly in 1981 and 1982.

And when I was there in 1981,

it was the 20th anniversary of his bodily departure.

So there was a lot of stories that were being told about Genpo Roshi.

And then further,

by Soen Roshi, who I got to know.

He was alive there and was a retired abbot.

And Sochuch Roshi was the current abbot.

And then Edo Shimano was one of Soen Roshi's Dharma heirs.

And Soen was a Dharma heir of Genpo Roshi.

And I'm a Dharma heir of Edo Shimano.

So this is my Dharma great-grandfather.

Even though I don't speak Japanese,

there are some really,

really strong stories from my Dharma grandfather

that are so important to me.

And this one is a particular,

perhaps the most important.

Shukuko, he referred to as

the dried karmic intestinal dung

that is stuck to you.

And that once you have realized

that you are a dung,

that you are a part of the tree

or the vine or the ocean,

and you're cultivating this practice

of being in samadhi

in more and more places in your life every day,

of ordinary, everyday,

awakened, caring, mindful,

heart-mind activity,

and that's spreading in your day.

You've now made space

to encounter your shukugo,

if you haven't already come upon it.

And we,

we need to combust our shukugo

or burn it off

or kind of re-digest it

or release it in some way.

And that is the hard work.

And we say that there's a sign

that still hangs over my desk

that was painted,

calligraphy of Genki Takabashi,

who, when I had my head shaved,

said, you know,

this is the start of 30 years of training.

And it's the start of 30 years

of combusting shukugo,

of the karmic baggage

that we have collected

from our wounds and trauma

and from our personal history

with our family of origin

and going back generations.

That which we carry,

part of it is systemic racism,

but there's many, many, many other aspects

of what we carry generationally.

You might call it generational madness.

And we are the recipients of it.

And we may or may not realize that.

But the hard work is to burn that off,

to first, you know, face it,

in a way, accept it,

bring some light to it,

and to begin to burn it off.

So, Hakuin Zenji was the head

of all kind of Rinzai lineage in Japan.

And his very famous Rohatsu exhortation

said that in our Rohatsu,

our most difficult eight-day retreat of the year,

that we are here to continue

the practice, of course,

of opening up and realizing

that I'm a part of the vine of the tree

or the ocean,

and to our cultivation of samadhi

and more and more daily activity.

But that makes the platform

for burning off at least seven generations

of the madness that we all carry.

So that the world ends up

not quite so caught up in its greed

or its instincts of survival,

you know, we're all driven by instincts of survival

to have enough and maybe a little more.

And we are one of very few animals,

I think, in the universe

that realize we're all going to die.

And this is a problem because we're all going to die

and we all have instincts of survival.

Lots of animals understand death and grieve death.

But how many animals, we're one of them,

understand we're all going to die

and that impermanence is real.

That creates a kind of existential tension

that drives us nuts and produces our greed

and leads to collecting this karmic baggage

of generational madness.

Anyway, Shukugyo, burning off my personal family of origin,

cultural, societal, human baggage,

that, if we don't burn off more of it,

is really expediting the destruction of ourselves

and our own planet, our own home.

So pretty important that that is our most important work,

if we have some foundation to do it.

You know, we have these four great vows,

greatest of all vow is we say, beings are numberless, I vow to free them all. By the way,

jumping back to Mu for a moment, do you realize that the word numberless, inexhaustible, boundless,

and unsurpassable in the four great vows, those are all different translations of Mu.

And you'll find in the kanji for the four great vows where that word is translated in that

different way. But it's all talking about Mu. When we really bore into our great vow,

you could say to free or to save or to liberate all beings, you discover there's no one to liberate,

there's no one to free, and there's no one to save.

Because we're all a part of the same tree. We're all a part of the same ocean.

We're all on the same vine. So what's left of our great vow, if that's true?

And what really is present to me is not the word free, liberate, or save,

but to care. That's how I translate the great vow at Choboji. We vow to care,

care.

Care is the key word. Care for all beings, great and small, animate and inanimate.

And you can drop all the other words and just leave the word care.

Our great vow is to care for ourselves personally and collectively.

To care for the planet personally and collectively.

That's our great vow.

That's what it feels to me.

Then the three next vows follow in support.

Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them all.

This is Shukugyo.

I vow to recognize my delusions, my karmic baggage and see it,

accept it, own it, and release it, combust it.

And it's a

continuous process.

My delusions lead to my maturity.

Combusting my Shukugyo leads to what we might call maturity.

I wrote a book titled Reflections on Awakening and Maturity because the awakening is the easy part.

Maturity is difficult and it only comes by caring about our delusions in such a way that we mature.

The Dharma gates are boundless.

I vow to enter them all.

Everyone is my teacher.

The rocks, the trees, the grass, the drop of dew, every one of you, every chore.

If I can look and every bit of karmic baggage is my teacher.

If I can look at it that way, there's a chance to mature some more because maturing is not an arrival.

It's a process.

And wherever we are.

We're just beginning with that.

The Buddha way is unsurpassable.

I vow to embody it.

It's so true.

It's already out.

I'm already a part of it wherever I am in the process.

But I vow to at least walk my talk the best I can, which is let's see that we're really a part of one family.

And let's work on as best we can our delusions.

And I'll close with one last phrase, Okaga Samaday, which is, I am in your shadow.

I'm in your shadow of all of my teachers in Japan and the States and all of you that we're about to have a ceremony that is for.

Dharma teachers and whether I know them or not, I'm in their shadow.