UnMind 66. Keizan Quartet 4: Pure Meditation IV

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All of the teachings
are met within this zazen:
pure meditation!

In the last segment we ended with Keizan’s discussion of the Precepts, the true ones that go beyond mental characterization. These are the manifest Precepts, that do not depend upon our practice. They are natural, and universal. Such constructions as, “Do not kill,” “Do not steal,” and “Do not lie” become statements of the truth — that actually, the universe that gives us birth is that which actually ends life, and we cannot even own anything, let alone steal it. We cannot actually tell the truth, no matter how erudite, or glib, our speech. These, of course, are absolutist views of the Precepts, which also have relative meaning. In this segment we will continue with what the master says about the remaining two “aspects of spiritual training” he mentions. Beginning with mindfulness:

“Mindfulness” is the observing that there is nothing that is in excess. When seated in pure meditation, we let go of “body and mind,” abandon “delusion and enlightenment.” We are unchanging, immovable, unwillful, impervious. We are like a simpleton or a legless man. We are like a mountain or an ocean: no trace of “movement versus stillness” has yet arisen. When mindful, there is no fixed state of things.

Short and sweet, but comprehensive. Reminds again of Hsinshinming, “The Way is perfect like vast space — nothing lacking, nothing in excess.” Compare with the modern take on mindfulness, from the pop meditation of the same name, meaning “being in the moment.” In our anxiety- and uncertainty-ridden society, just being able to be in the moment for a moment or two, rather than obsessively ruminating over the past, or planning for the future, is certainly welcome. However, it does not begin to answer the question, Mindful of what? Keizan’s abbreviated answer is meant to focus like a laser on one key point, but we would be prone to include mindfulness of the Four Noble truths and other central teachings of Buddha. However, his main point here is that we should also not obsess over these teachings, as such. After all, they are only pointing at the reality in front of our face. Which has nothing extra, nothing truly separate, in mokurai, the complementarity of movement and stillness. He takes a similarly blunt approach to defining wise discernment:

“Wise discernment” is being selective within enlightened awareness. When seated in pure meditation, what is intellectually known spontaneously vanishes and self-consciousness is discarded. Your whole being’s Eye of Discernment possesses no “specialized insight”: It clearly sees Buddha Nature and is, from the first, not deluded.

Keizan uses this kind of expression, “from the first,” repeatedly. We will find Hakuin Zenji starting off his Song of Zazen with “From the beginning…” This captures the meaning of “refuge” in Zen — having the connotation of returning to the safe place from which we originated. It has all been like a bad dream, but we are the authors of that dream, and when we wake up, everything will be okay with us. The rest of the baggage that we carry with us — delusion, and the intellectual ramblings and self-centered striving that result — fall away. The emphasis on spontaneity means that this is not something we can do intentionally, but it can happen. Before launching into another litany of practical things like seeking a “good, quiet place,” a thick cushion, avoiding “mist, smoke, or fog” and “rain and dew,” keeping “your sitting place neat and clean,” et cetera, and repeating some of the prior instructions, he delves again into more specifically mental, or better, counter-mental, techniques:

This is the technique for meditating: Let go of, and abandon, awareness of thoughts; put to rest looking at mental fancies and images. Do not devise some notion of what “realizing Buddha-hood” is. Do not let right and wrong control you. Act as if you were saving your head which was ablaze!

Here we are hearing echoes of Dogen, for sure. Again, the “hair-on-fire” expression may have been a common trope in this period, much as it is currently. The “…give up even the idea of becoming a Buddha” is, again, pure Dogen. It begins to look like this document may have been a result of someone taking notes, or writing down a spontaneous talk given by Keizan Zenji to an audience. It has that kind of character, of jumping from point to point, and being careful to remember and transmit some of the golden nuggets he had inherited from the newly-developing legacy of Dogen’s lineage. Many of the passages sound like direct quotes, perhaps paraphrased, and morphed in translation, from various of Dogen’s written teachings, which have a more structured feel. Keizan is either quoting or channeling Dogen’s Jijuyu Zammai when he says:

Do not get involved with the burning of incense, the making of bows, the reciting of the Buddha’s name, the undergoing of some penitential ritual, the reading of Scriptures, the holding on to a daily work schedule: just sitting, without “doing” anything, is what you should aim at above all.

This does not strike me as the kind of advice and encouragement to a kind of indolence that the parents of the young monks in Keizan’s charge would approve. But with a couple of notable exceptions, it seem lifted verbatim from his predecessor. It is notable that in the first line to Jijuyu Zammai, “practice” is the only thing that Dogen mentions and does not repeat in the following two lines, which seem to refute the first. Don’t take my word for it, check it out. Practice transcends the relative, absolute, and even the nondual Buddha Way, whereas “…delusion and realization…birth and death…buddhas and sentient beings,” the other binaries recited as examples, apparently do not. “Practice, practice, practice!” sayeth the Preacher.

Next, another whiplash:

As a general practice, when doing seated meditation, you should put on your kesa. (Remove it in the dark before dawn and at dusk, as you come out of the meditation state.) Do not omit this.

He segues instantly from recommending against following traditional protocols to insisting on wearing the formal robe. The kesa, for the uninitiated, is the quilt-like outer robe, which is typically donned at the beginning of zazen, and removed after. This seeming contradiction may be resolved by a sober analysis of what else the average monk would have available to wear, other than the robe, which can hide a lot of sins. The three undergarments in usage today — the juban, or undershirt, with some sort of boxer shorts; and the kimono and koromo, the Japanese and Chinese under-robes, respectively; may not have been universally in vogue. We do have to keep up appearances, to some degree.

There are some deep-dive details noted in the text that may be of importance to scholars and historians, another reason I suspect that this may have been recorded from a live presentation in the zendo, or lecture hall. Before going into boilerplate instructions for the posture, one mention by the master I think is useful to clarify some confusion that arises yet today:

Whilst on your mat… do not always sustain the cross-legged, “lotus” sitting position; range from a half-lotus position to, later, sitting with your feet under your spine. This is the method of sitting of the Buddhas and Ancestors: sometimes to do full lotus, sometimes half-lotus.

This is different from Dogen’s written record, but may have been characteristic of his live instructions. Remember that Keizan was born only 15 years after Dogen’s demise, so his teachers had lived with and learned from the great founder in person. Note the admonition, more than a mere suggestion, to “not always sustain the cross-legged” position. This will come as a relief to many contemporary practitioners, who have been told that they must assume the “correct” posture, and heaven forfend if you should move. Buddha moved. I guaran-damn-tee you, Buddha moved.

We recommend rotating through the various postures — over time, not continuously — to develop the requisite flexibility in the lower body, hips, knees, legs and ankles. Also sitting on a chair, including the ergonomic kind. Zen is always contemporary, as Matsuoka Roshi insisted. There is nothing magical in the lotus posture. It is, simply, more stable than the others, like the proverbial three-legged stool. What follows is familiar enough to those who follow Soto Zen praxis that we can skip it here. However, there are a couple of details that I think worth retelling, separated by more details in the text (italics mine):

Next, your should settle down in your sitting placed by swaying your body seven or eight times in ever smaller movements, then steadily sitting erect.
When you wish to arise from meditation, first, place your hands respectfully on your knees and sway your body seven or eight times in ever larger movements.

This is a small, but not insignificant, improvement over the written instructions in Fukanzazengi, as the “ever smaller” movements in the beginning help us to find the central “sweet spot” in the posture, where we come into equilibrium, or equipoise, with gravity, the most efficient and effortless proprioception. The “ever larger” pendulum moves at the end of the session likewise loosen the musculature, especially the lotus-position base, allowing us to rise without strain. This set of moves is most often forgotten by many contemporaries, but makes the approach to zazen more like any other physical exercise.

Keizan goes on to give similar instructions when rising and beginning walking meditation, when sleepy, and for breathing while walking, which he treats as an antidote to sleepiness, none of which I recall from Dogen’s documentation. Doesn’t mean they weren’t there, but Keizan’s emphasis does seem to be on some other syllables. Included in the advice for kinhin is the nugget:

Although you are walking, do it as though you are not walking: be calm and tranquil, and do not thrash your body about.

The last thing anyone who has done kinhin would associate with it, I think, is thrashing your body about. This rather comic image may reflect the young age at which some of the young monks, or unsui, would be sent to the monastery. Walking as if you are not walking is a wonderful idea. Matsuoka Roshi would often say, “Put your whole self into the walking” or “into the sitting. If you can put your whole self into this, you will gain the power to put your whole self into everything you do, and will become the strongest person in the world.” Today we might say that you will become the best version of yourself.

I often say that zazen is like “falling asleep staying awake.” In other words, like drifting off to sleep, our natural, busy monkey mind preoccupations tamp down to a dull roar, we begin to lose sensory awareness, maybe even experience sudden vertigo, and in general, lose the turgor associated with normal awakeness and anxiety. But while this process sets in, we stay awake and observe it rather scientifically. Keizan seems to concur, offering some evasive maneuvers to fight off sleep:

If drowsiness persists, you should make a vow, saying, “Because my karmic habits are already heavy, I am now shrouded in sleep. When will I awaken from my dark and confused wandering in the mind? I pray that the Buddhas and Ancestors will confer their great compassion on me and remove my dark and heavy suffering.”

I suspect that these techniques address what we might recognize as symptoms of sleep deprivation. The dawn-to-dusk design of retreats, and especially the time-honored tradition of sitting up all night on occasion, surely are meant to challenge the circadian rhythm, with notably direct effects on perception. The entreaties to Buddhas and Ancestors we might consider extraneous to this problem, but they tend to remind us that all of our lineage went through privations and self-discipline at least as trying as those we face, in the relative comfort of an environment fueled by electricity and fossil fuels, as well as indoor plumbing. We got no room to complain about our “dark and heavy suffering.”

Interestingly for a Soto Zen priest, Keizan also recommends that “If your thoughts are still not at rest, you should call to mind some short koan which your Master has given you to guide you, such as ‘What is It that comes like this?,’ ‘A dog’s not having Buddha Nature,’ ‘Ummon’s Mount Sumeru,’ Joshu’s oak tree,’ for instance: ‘bland talk is what meets the need.” So koans were not eschewed entirely in early Soto Zen, even when doing zazen, but were considered relatively bland, not disturbing to equanimity. He also recommends focusing on death to calm the mind, “the great matter where your breathing comes to an end and your eyes close forever.” Or, “focus on the ‘not-yet-born state’ before a single thought has arisen. In modern parlance, neither of these images would be considered especially calming. But then he predicts that even “when you are doing your daily activities, you will suddenly give rise to the two types of ‘emptiness’ — that of there being no personal self and of there being no permanent self in phenomena — and your scattered thoughts will, without fail, lose their force. Again, seemingly not very soothing.

In closing, he brings it home: “Then, what is right before your eyes will be your koan.” Which he rephrases, “At that moment, what the koan is is ‘right before your eyes.’” In between he notes, “You and it will not be ‘two things going around each other.’” Again, the great master seems to be throwing out, at random, all the fingers pointing at the moon that he can muster, in the hopes that one will stick. He ends with “Wholeheartedly do I pray for this; with all my heart do I so pray.” Can I get an amen?