What you should know for practicing Zen

Practicing Zen, studying the way, is the great matter of a lifetime. You should not belittle it or be hasty with it.

People of the present say you should practice what is easy to practice. These words are quite mistaken. They are not at all in accord with the Buddha way. It is obvious that people who are fond of easy practice are not capable of the way.

In fact, the dharma spread and is present in the world because our great teacher Shakyamuni practiced with difficulty and pain and finally attained this dharma. If the original source is like this, how could the later streams be easy?

Students who would like to study the way must not wish for easy practice. If you seek easy practice, you will for certain never reach the ground of truth or dig down to the place of treasure. You should know that the Buddha way is vast and profound.

If the Buddha way were originally easy to practice, then teachers of great capacity from olden times would not have said that practice is difficult and understanding is difficult. Compared with the people of old, those of today do not amount to even one hair from nine cows. With their small capacity and shallow knowledge, even if people of today strive diligently and regard this as difficult and excellent practice, still, it does not amount to even the easiest practice and easiest understanding of the teachers of old.

What is this teaching of easy understanding and easy practice, which people nowadays like? It is neither a secular teaching nor Buddha’s teaching. We should regard it as the product of ordinary people’s extreme delusion. Even though they try to attain liberation, they find nothing but endless rounds of suffering.

To harmonize the mind is most difficult. The practice of prolonged austerities is not difficult, but to harmonize bodily activities is most difficult.

Brilliance is not primary, understanding is not primary, conscious endeavor is not primary, introspection is not primary. Without using any of these, harmonize body and mind and enter the Buddha way.

Shakyamuni said, “Avalokiteshavara turns the stream inward and disregards knowing objects.”

That is the meaning. Separation between the two aspects of activity and stillness simply does not arise. This is harmonizing.

If anyone could enter the Buddha way by means of brilliance or broad knowledge, then the senior monk Shenxiu would have been the one. If anyone of ordinary appearance or humble position were excluded from the Buddha way, how could Huineng become the Sixth Ancestor? It is clear that the Buddha way’s transmission lies outside brilliance and broad knowledge. Search and find out. Reflect and practice.

Being old or decrepit does not exclude you. Being quite young or in your prime does not exclude you. Although Zhaozhou first studied when he was over sixty, he became a man of excellence in the ancestral lineage. Zheng’s daughter had already studied long by the time she was thirteen, and she was outstanding in the monastery. The power of buddha-dharma is revealed depending on whether or not there is effort, and is distinguished depending on whether or not it is practiced.

When you practice with a teacher and inquire about dharma, clear body and mind, still the eyes and ears, and just listen and accept the teaching without mixing in any other thoughts. Your body and mind will be one, a receptacle ready to be filled with water. Then you will certainly receive the teaching.

Nowadays, there are foolish people who memorize words of texts or accumulate sayings and try to match these words with the teacher’s explanation. In this case, they have only their own views and old words, and have not yet merged with the teacher’s words.

For some people, their own views are primary; they open a sutra, memorize a word or two, and consider this to be buddha-dharma. Later, when they visit with an awakened teacher or a skilled master and hear the teachings, if it agrees with their own view, they consider the teaching right, and if it does not agree with their old fixed standards, they consider his words wrong. They do not know how to abandon their mistaken tendencies, so how could they ascend and return to the true way?

Students should know that the Buddha way lies outside thinking, analysis, prophecy, introspection, knowledge, and wise explanation. If the Buddha way were in these activities, why would you not have realized the Buddha way by now, since from birth you have perpetually been in the midst of these activities?

Students of the way should not employ thinking, analysis, or any such thing. Though thinking and other activities perpetually beset you, if you examine them as you go, your clarity will be like a mirror.

Dogen (1200-1253)

Excerpted from Moon in a Dewdrop – Writings of Zen Master Dogen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi

I often marvel at how contemporary the ancient writings sound. You can see how students of all ages fell into the same pitfalls of practice we do. Teachers always seem to talk about students of “today” not having the same intensity or commitment to difficult practice.

There must have always been people talking about an easy path, a shortcut, a revolutionary “3 Steps to Enlightenment” method; hence the need to step back and ask ourselves, if it were all really that easy, then why aren’t more people living an enlightened life?

Then there is also the admonishment given that to really study, one needs to find an awakened teacher to transmit the teachings. Let’s remember the Buddha’s story. He had no awakened master to go study with; he sat under the Bodhi tree in meditation and struggled with Mara and his own mental distractions until he broke through. The greatest function of a teacher or a spiritual friend is to honestly point out when we stray off track, when we are fooling ourselves, an extremely difficult task to do for oneself.

However, reality is that many people have not found an awakened master to trust their spiritual training to. So in this real world, where for many people, there are not the funds nor time to go hunting all over the world to find this person, what do we do? Even though the purist may take issue with our approach, we are left with studying as best we can with these masters of old, tried and true, to guide us.

The difference is, there is no one going around correcting our posture in meditation or striking us if we fall asleep on the mat; there is no master to have a spiritual encounter with to challenge us, and that IS the crux of our situation. We can so easily fool ourselves into complacency.

Who will wake us up? Zen Master Zuigon had his own unique approach:

Every day Zuigan used to call out to himself, “Master!” and would answer, “Yes!”
Then he would tell himself, “Wake up!” and he would answer himself, “Yes! Yes!”
Then he would say to himself, “Don’t be deceived by others, any day or any time!” and he would again answer himself, “Yes, yes!”

What creative approach will we find to wake ourselves up?

Waking up once again,

Elana, Scribe for Daily Zen