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FIRST SESSHIN
Jane Kashnig
I chose to attend the July sesshin in order to work on my practice and to
experience why sesshin is considered central by many others. When I
realized I was the only first time attendee, I decided my best option was
to focus on awareness, do what others did, and not be concerned whether I
got it wrong or right. Orioki (eating practice) provided several memorable
opportunities for awareness and non-concern as, among other things, I
spilled tea, dropped food on the floor, used the wrong bowl, and generally
never figured out the right order of doing things.
Zazen during the sesshin was more strenuous than I’d anticipated.
Beginning the second day I became preoccupied with completing each sitting
period as achievement or failure. It helped somewhat when I noticed all
participants—including the teacher—made sitting adjustments throughout the
sesshin. I also tried to use aches and pains as practice reminders to
follow my breath, for example.
As the last activity on the last day, individuals shared their sesshin
stories, some vivid, some subtle. Mine was about the pleasure of not
having to talk, which is a practice opportunity I’ve since taken into my
everyday life.
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CALMING THE BEAST
Jeff Smith
My first sesshin was at the Zen Center of San Diego in the early 90's. One
afternoon I was sitting in the backyard during a break. Other people were
sitting around quietly drinking tea, stretching or resting under the
trees. Suddenly there was a commotion and a young man charged into our
midst. He was center stage, shouting and stomping around. The Tasmanian
Devil from the old Chuck Jones cartoon came to mind.
He lived in the apartments next door and was furious because someone had
called to complain that he was playing his stereo too loud. He was puffed
up and red-faced and looking for a fight. I don't think he had any idea
what he had stumbled into the middle of. We had been sitting for four or
five days by that time so people showed interest but nobody reacted. We
just continued drinking our tea and watched the scene unfold.
At first this response, or lack of response, infuriated him further. I
have tried to imagine what that must have been like for him. Perhaps if he
had charged into a clearing in the forest shaking his fists and cursing
the birds and the trees and the squirrels he would have received a similar
reception: curious looks but not much else. It must have become
embarrassing to him at some point because you could actually see him
deflate and the anger melt away. He did look a little ridiculous standing
there alone on the patio with no takers. Finally someone walked up to him
and calmly asked, "Can I help you?" and that was the end of that. The poor
guy went home with his tail between his legs.
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WORDS ON SESSHIN
Wendy Maland
I now see sesshin as a friendly corner. The corner says, “hey, sit here
with me. stop running. Let the world stop. Find the friendliness of
sitting down to yourself.” It’s an invitation to sit down deep, to open up
to the mystery of this life.
But the “friendly” part—well, this wasn’t so clear at first.
For a long time, sesshin was kind of like the “friendliness” of a big lake
filled with really cold water. Mostly, I knew that something in me wanted
to jump in: I was tired of living on the edges of things, tired of feeling
like there was something big and deep right in front of me that I didn’t
have the guts to check out-- but I dreaded it.
I dreaded it..but because I was tired of living in a television set,
flipping around a bunch of dreams, stuck in a box, dreaming my life
around, I sort of liked the way sesshin was so difficult and demanding, so
ongoing and endless and exacting…sort of liked the way it asked so much of
me, demanded I bring so much of myself to it…
So. I went to sesshin. Again, and again, again, again…year after year…kept
going: through all kinds of disappointments, struggles and doubts….and
over time, I learned not to be so afraid—so afraid of myself, mostly—my
self-hating thoughts, my depression, anger, my sadness, my
disappointment—and not so afraid, either, of all the things in me that
were crumbly and tender, kind, uncertain, hearty and good….
Sitting quietly, hour after hour, labelling thoughts, opening up to my
body—I learned to be awake to all that messy, selfy stuff, and what I
discovered is that right there in the thicket of all that selfy stuff was
the wonder of breezes, the quiet whoosh of traffic, the encouraging song
of birds and crickets chirping. The sky, the night—things big, free, open
and kind—all of this I discovered sitting there, struggling away, in pain,
on my cushion…
“This practice is for those who persevere.” That’s what Joko kept telling
me.
And I’m so glad, now, when I sit down in the friendly corner that is
sesshin, that I listened… because even though I’m still a very messy,
tangled and selfy person on occasion, I know something else, too. And for
that? Well, I’m profoundly grateful.
So thanks, my good friend, sesshin…
--- the kind of friend that wakes us up and nudges us out of our comfort
zone…so in the face of this friend, we may ask ourselves, why do I want a
friend that makes me so uneasy? why would anyone choose a friend like
this? why don’t I just walk away??
So we might resist the friendship… might dream of another kind of friend,
the kind that is more like a television set that lets us sit and dream,
flip the channel if we don’t like it….
We might think fondly of all the drifting off, the fluff and ease of a
television kind of friendship. but, see, the television-type friend always
leaves us unsatisfied: the drift and fluff isn’t satisfying, as our own
deep itch for life is left in the dust. don’t you see this is what your
friend sesshin is asking you to attend to—your own deepest wish, your own
deepest itch—for life? for all the alive, aching, tangled, messy wonder of
life? to be awake to all of that—because this is where wonder of breezes,
the quiet whoosh of traffic,the wonder of birds and crickets chirping
lives also. we find everything beautiful in the midst of the thicket of
ourselves, down deep in our own core, and sesshin—kind, good friend--knows
this.
So. We won’t wake up to life without waking up to the dark tangled shadows
of ourselves. we have to go straight into the unease, and then, slowly, we
make friends with all of it—just by sitting—quietly, in stillness, on a
cushion. we are making friends with all of who we are, and for quite a
while, this won’t feel or look all that pretty.
But see, sesshin teaches us patience, too. sesshin—wise, good
friend—teaches us how to be friends—to ourselves and to our world. slowly,
slowly we learn this. And we are grateful.
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Freedom: Baizhang’s Fox
(an edited Dharma talk of July 15, 2005)
Elihu Genmyo Smith
Zen practice is freedom, being this unconditioned life we are.
Unfortunately, we often think of "freedom from," "freedom to, or say
“emancipation from,” “liberation from,” connecting them to various
conditions. Freedom is not connected to conditions. Nevertheless, our
unconditioned life is only right here in the midst of conditions, no where
else.
The Buddha's teaching, the Dharma of practice, is of the nature of
reality, the karmic law of cause and effect. Being this is our life;
seeing and clarifying this is ongoing practice. We might think that
freedom and cause and effect are in conflict, or that freedom means
freedom from karma. In holding to these beliefs and to what we “know,” we
misconstrue life and misunderstand cause and effect. There is a wonderful
koan which enables us to clarify this. Apropos, one meaning of the word
koan is “the settled case,” the settled law of what is, thereby clarifying
reality. The following is part of case 2 of the Mumonkan, the Gateless
Gate.
“Whenever Master Baizhang gave a talk, an old man sat with the monks to
listen and always withdrew when they did. One day, however, he remained
behind. The master asked: Who are you standing here before me? The old man
replied: I am not a human being. In the past, in the time of the Kasho
Buddha, I was the head of this monastery. Once a monk asked me: does an
enlightened person also fall into causation or not? I replied: ‘he does
not.’ Because of this answer I was made to live as a fox for 500 lives.
Now I beg you, please say the turning words on my behalf and release me
from the fox body. The old man then asked Baizhang: does an enlightened
person also fall into causation or not? The master said: ‘he does not
ignore causation.’ Hearing this, the old man was at once enlightened.
Making a bow to Baizhang he said: I have now been released from the fox
body, which will be found behind the mountain. I dare to make a request of
the master. Please bury it as you would a deceased monk.
The Master had the attendant strike the gavel and announced to the monks
that there would be a funeral for a deceased monk after the midday meal.
The monks wondered, saying: we are all in good health. There is no sick
monk in the nirvana hall. What is it all about? After the meal, the master
led the monks to a rock behind the mountain, poked out a dead fox with his
staff, and cremated it. In the evening, the master ascended the rostrum in
the hall and told the monks the whole story.”
Mumon's commentary and poem: “Not falling into causation - why was he
turned into a fox? Not ignoring causation - why was he released from the
fox body? If you have an eye to see through this, then you will know that
the former head of the monastery did enjoy his 500 happy blessed lives as
a fox.”
“Not falling, Not ignoring, Odd and even are on one die.
Not ignoring, Not falling, Hundreds and thousands of regrets.”
I will explore part of this koan today. Baizhang (Hyakujo in Japanese)
lived in 720-814 CE in China; Baizhang is the name of the mountain on
which he lived. The old man-fox would also be Baizhang, since abbots took
the name of this mountain where they lived. The time of Kasho Buddha
refers to the Buddhist tradition of past Buddhas in pre-historical times
before Shakyamuni Buddha. In Buddhist tradition, the karmic wheel (of
cause and effect) results in conditioned existence and suffering.
Enlightenment, fully accomplishing the Way, traditionally entails being
freed from this wheel of karma and from suffering. Are we bound and
trapped by cause and effect? Karl Marx says “Man was born free and
everywhere he is in chains.” But the chains, contrary to Marx, are not
circumstances and conditions. That is not the chains. Ignorance is what
maintains the wheel of suffering. It is delusion and attachment that chain
us.
“Baizhang’s Fox” is called a “nanto” koan, a koan used to clarify
Dharmakaya, the interpenetration of absolute and relative, of oneness and
differentiation. Shibayama Roshi says, “in this koan the fundamental truth
and its working aspects are so intricately interwoven that only those with
a clear eye can understand it,” can see it.
In the Western tradition the fox is a trickster. In the Chinese tradition
the fox has similar connotations, as well as connections to spirits. What
is Baizhang doing? This is a strange and funny story: a person becomes a
fox, a fox becomes a person, a fox is buried as a monk. Do “you” become
“someone” else after death? Who are "you" now? This is a trickster’s tale;
are you fooled? What is cause and effect? I am not asking what you figure
out, but [bangs stick] right here cause and effect, this moment breathing,
this moment sitting. This body-mind here is nothing but cause and effect;
nothing else. Nevertheless, right here is no birth, no death, no
cause-and-effect. So, what is freedom in the midst of cause and effect?
Not freedom from cause and effect, not freedom separate from cause and
effect. What is freedom? We have wonderful expressions in practice: “die
once on the cushion, and live freely ever after.” Not only die once; die
each moment, and live freely each moment – being ordinary, nothing
special. As Dogen Zenji says, “Body mind dropped away - dropped away body
mind;” this is everyday life functioning, eating, peeing, speaking,
listening.
Does one turn into a fox for a “wrong” answer? To paraphrase Dogen, how
many of us have given wrong answers; do we become a fox because of that?
How many of the Buddhas, the Ancestors, gave wrong answers at various
times. Did they become a fox because of that? I ask you, what is going on
here? The old man was asked ‘does an enlightened man also fall into
causation or not?’ And he replied: ‘he does not.’ But isn't that Buddha’s
teaching: a fully enlightened person is free from cause and effect, from
the karma wheel of life, death and suffering? What is wrong with his
answer? As for Baizhang’s response: “he does not ignore causation;” is
that different from “not falling into?” Is it correct? If this correct
answer enlightens and frees the fox, how come it doesn't enlighten us? We
hear correct answers all the time; even the floor and walls preach the
Dharma.
Is it the cause and effect of giving a wrong answer that leads to being
born as a fox? Hearing "not ignoring" and then being “enlightened;” is
that becoming free of cause and effect? The old man said, “I've been
released from my body of a fox.” If he is released from the fox body
because he was enlightened, isn't that the answer he gave 500 lives ago
(of the enlightened not falling into cause and effect)? This drama allows
us to see how we fool our self. Look closely; what is being free in the
midst of cause and effect of your life? What is ignoring cause and effect?
What is not ignoring?
A Zen Master wrote,
“Not falling into causation, And he was turned into a fox. First mistake.
Not ignoring causation, And he was released from the fox's body. Second
mistake.”
Why are they mistakes? Are both mistakes? Explanations are not the point
of this koan. Look, what do you believe about your life? Are you free? Are
you not free? The reactions of our life are a signal, a practice effort
opportunity of noticing believed thoughts; for instance, believing “I
gain” or “I lose.” The teaching of cause and effect is intended to allow
us to live freely, to be this unconditioned, this deathless, this unborn
Buddha functioning that we always are. If we misunderstand cause and
effect, holding to habits of body-mind, living out of what we “know”
rather than being open, being “not-knowing,” then our life of liberation
is bound up and manifests in suffering.
Being exactly as we are is this great freedom that is our life. How do we
live so being a fox, being human, making mistakes? Hundreds and thousands
of regrets; right, wrong, don't be blinded by such things. What is your
practice? Freedom isn't dependent on conditions, on freedom from, freedom
to. Freedom is exactly this life, this functioning, this emancipation
ongoing practice. Be free on the cushion, be free off the cushion. Be free
right now - it is not a matter of past, future, of being reborn, not a
matter of me, mine, gain, loss. Cause and effect is [bang] right now.
Saying too much, freedom is being exactly this cause and effect right now,
this body-mind-world. In the midst of this, be the freedom you are; not
falling, not ignoring; not ignoring, not falling. Mistake after mistake,
just go on. Thank you.
© 2005 Elihu Genmyo Smith |
