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Newsletter of Dharma Rain Zen Center Portland, Oregon Volume XXV Number 2 March-April 2000
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"Withdrawing and Not making enemies -This alone is Invincible." Painting and calligraphy by Koso Itabashi Zenji, abbot of Daihonzen Sojiji, and Kanshu of the Soto Zen Sect. This is from a collection used on calendars. Pilgrims from Dharma Rain Zen Center received calendars from Zenji-sama when visiting Sojiji last October. |
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(This is the transcript of a Dharma talk given by Sallie Jiko Tisdale in November, 1997, shortly after her transmission ceremony and the beginning of her move into the role of lay teacher. Jill Bukkai Washburn recently received transmission as well, and now will be moving toward the same role.)
I want to make the point that I am always going to be sitting in the student's seat - that's what being a teacher really looks like to me now. Learning how to sit in the student's seat is how I learned to sit in this seat. It was a long, hard road, and I didn't find it that simple. But our whole lives are like this; our practice is always about switching places. We are a parent one moment and a child the next, a boss one moment and an employee the next. Here, we are always being junior, senior, then junior again. Learning to flow through those changes is key to a maturing practice.
We talk a lot about the teacher-student relationship. This relationship is central in our tradition and central in my practice. Years ago, I heard the saying that the teacher arises when the student steps forward, and I puzzled over that. I looked and I saw a teacher, but I didn't know how to step forward. For a long time, I struggled with how to get this teacher to come to me, before I figured out that it didn't happen that way. I had to step forward, because student and teacher make each other. This is a lot like question and answer - there's no question without an answer; no answer without a question. There is no student without a teacher; no teacher without a student. This is why we say that you and your teacher are "not-two." Not one - but not two.
This is true in all our relationships, with all the many objects and people who teach us, as well as in the particular relationship of teacher and student. It's always crucial that the student move forward, and a lot of what the teacher does is watch this process - this stepping forward. For me, it was a process of moving forward and stepping back, stepping sideways and moving forward. My teacher watched and sometimes guided and made suggestions. Sometimes I found his guidance put me on a rocky and painful path, and I didn't understand what kind of teacher would do that to me. I didn't understand then that teachers are still moving forward, too, and walking paths that are sometimes painful ones, and know from experience some of the rocks along the way.
Kyogen is my teacher, but only to the extent that I step forward as his student, and invite him to be so. Taking responsibility for my own mess is a big part of it. I don't know how many times I went into sanzen in a glib way, because I had a cool question. That's such a waste of time, of course. I always knew better and he always knew better. Until you go to to the teacher and speak honestly, Zen is not a very painful practice. But honesty can be painful and it takes courage. I invite Kyogen to be my teacher by my behavior, by my deportment, but also by raising my own questions, by holding what is called the "doubt mass," and being able to come forward willingly with whatever I am holding, whether I think it is attractive or not.
I prepared for this shift in my practice for quite some time, and part of that for me was to read a lot of Dogen. I want to read a quote from Raihai-tokuzui, which can be translated several ways: "paying homage and acquiring the essence," "making a prostration and attaining the marrow," or "honoring that which has got the Truth." This means to recognize the Truth wherever it appears, but I like the word "attaining" because that is our delusion. We have to ask: What is there to attain? What is doing this attaining? What is it that's "got" the Truth? We may practice for many years with the belief that something out there has the Truth, and somewhere there is a method or person that will give it to us.
Human teachers are an example of what is called the flawed vessel, like a nice big bowl with a few cracks. How can such an imperfect vessel hold the perfect Dharma? But this leaking bowl is the only bowl we've got. It can still hold water, but there's a long phase of disappointment about these cracks. We're unhappy and we may keep looking for perfect bowls elsewhere. There just aren't any around! All human vessels are flawed vessels. Eventually, miraculously, the flaws become beautiful additions to the unique and precious bowl we do have.
Then it can be a great relief to realize that you don't have to follow a perfect example. Your guide is an ordinary human being making mistakes, and we can learn by watching each other make mistakes, by seeing someone get up when he falls down. We can see the perfection that is in all of us manifest itself in a human being's actions, and this is greatly reassuring. But there's another way to see it, and that is to see that a cracked vessel isn't flawed at all. We delude ourselves by thinking we know what perfection looks like - and it's always elsewhere. Katagiri says, talking about our birth and death, that "the china bowl is beautiful because it will break."
Raihai-tokuzui simply means to be student, completely, ready to move forward instantly to meet this teacher arising everywhere - because what has "got the Truth" is everywhere, and moving forward without hesitation is the only way we can meet it. Dogen wrote:
"The teacher is neither a young person nor an old person, and even if the teacher is the apparition of a wild fox he will be a good teacher He may be 'you,' 'me,' or 'him' for the true teacher is completely emptyThat is to say, if the mind treasures the Dharma, then one's helper may be a pillar, a lantern, all the Buddhas, a fox, a demon, male or femaleTherefore, you should entreat trees and rocks to preach the Dharma, and you should ask rice fields and gardens for the truth. Ask pillars for the Dharma, and learn from hedges and walls."
At the same time, if we really enter into this method, we must come face to face with another human being. Hedges and walls are great teachers up to a point, but we can turn away from people in turning towards hedges and walls. We also have to turn back towards people. Kyogen tells a story about a salesman who walks down a block and knocks on every door, and every door is slammed in his face. When he gets to the end of the block, he says, "I'll try again." So he goes down the block again. We all do that, trying the same thing over and over. I had to get thoroughly sick of where I was, so sick that I had to try going down another block. I love to give this next quote to people, because when it was given to me I really needed to hear it and didn't want to hear it: "The Way is found by doing that which is hardest to do and bearing that which is hardest to bear." You are the only one who knows what that is.
I once had so many ideas of what a teacher-student relationship was like, and I had to let go of those ideas and learn to meet the Dharma just as it appears - naked, and not knowing. Until then, a lot of my relationship with Kyogen consisted of him sitting there watching me race around, afraid of his disapproval, trying to be a good little student. I wanted him to give me happiness, peace, truth, knowledge - everything. "Make it right." "Fix me." Then it just became, "Tell me what you want me to do." He told me at one point that there is a place where neither approval or disapproval can slow you in your progress. Nothing can throw you off the path; everything spurs you forward towards the challenge. You stop turning away from disapproval, and just say, "Oh," and wonder, "What does this mean and what is this about?"
A teacher-student relationship that just provides approval and reassurance would be a pretty stagnant one, and full of pitfalls. Yes, we are perfect just as we are, but it doesn't do us much good to be told only that - then we think we don't really have any practice to do and can just go home. A key image in Buddhism is that of planting seeds in the dark soil. A lot of the witnessing a good teacher does is just that - patiently watching those shoots come up.
This morning I had an image of walking along the beach and coming upon a strange artifact that was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Imagine an alien artifact of a strange substance, with a shape and a design that is completely unknown to you. How do you pick that object up? There is an attitude we call "don't-know mind" - curious, without preconceived notions. Confronted with this alien artifact, preconceived notions don't work. This fresh, matter-of-fact, not-knowing can come forward in every moment. In every relationship, every conversation. It totally transforms the experience of conflict to bring forward this mind and say, "I have no idea what this person is talking about. I have no idea what this language is. What do these words mean to this person? I want to understand." You can bring not-knowing to every moment of your life. It's not easy - in fact, it's very difficult. It might happen one second a month, but it's a great second.
Buddhism is really about freedom. There really nothing more to this freedom than this flow, this moving moment to moment without hesitation or resistance - instantaneous, completely present. In a sense, this is freedom from your karma because it is the freedom not to be driven by your karma. It is the freedom to embrace your karma, dance with it. This is the freedom not to be elsewhere, not to live in opposition to reality.
Part of the preparation for my ceremony has been sewing, and I love sewing (laughing). Small motor skills are not my strong point. I was sewing between soccer practices and telephone calls, during conversations, through work deadlines. Sometimes I was sewing what seemed like three stitches at a time before having to move on to something else. This gave me a chance to think about lay practice. What does sewing practice mean when you can only stay at the sewing machine for ten minutes at a time?
I realized midway through the first kesa I made that the seams were about as straight as anything else I have ever done in my practice. I found myself thinking, midway through the second kesa, "Well, I hope nobody gets too close, because I don't want anybody to look at these seams." One thing this transmission means, to me and the sangha, is that I am now inviting you to look closely at my seams, even though I know how crooked they are.
I was surprised to discover an upwelling of sadness, of loss. This is an opening, but it's also a closing. We counsel, "no dwelling place." This doesn't mean there's no rest; I have found ease and rest in myself, where I least expected it. "No dwelling place" means that whenever we get comfortable, we have to move forward. After many years of struggle, resistance and confusion about what it meant to be a lay disciple, I'd become happy in those robes and in that relationship. I learned to become a disciple by learning about bowing, about not-knowing, about being willing. But that comfortable place is dangerous, and usually something comes along and pushes you forward.
"Transmission" is a tricky word. Nothing is given and nothing is received - it is more a matter of identification with or a recognition of each other's essence, and it must happen, in Dogen's words, "face to face and eye to eye." This is important to me personally, but it also feels like nothing special. We say, "the golden bell rings but once." When the bell rings, the sound of the bell goes out and out and out into the world, never stopping. We stop hearing it, but those waves go out and out and we're surrounded by them always.
A couple of years ago, Kyogen told me that I had become transparent to him. By then, I'd known him for fifteen years and been his disciple for nine years, but my first reaction was, "I don't like being transparent to you." It took a lot of work to put this armor on and gather these shields around myself, and here's this person saying he can see right through it! I asked him, "Well, what do you see?" He said, "I see you." This did not satisfy me at all, and was a mystery for a time. Gradually, I came to see that when a person is transparent to you, what you see when you look through him or her is absolutely nothing. Our true nature is as clear and flowing as water. There are obscurations in the water, there is pain in there, and strange little behaviors, but really, it's all just clear and flowing. When you see all the way through, the only possible reaction is love, because we naturally love that clear, flowing nature.
Here, in front of us, is a teacher. If we confront another human being very clearly for awhile, out of this human being a Buddha steps forward. We look at this other person, and we still see their habits, their personality, their limitations and little quirks - but out of this humanity, their Absolute nature steps forward. One day, I looked at Kyogen and saw a Buddha step forward, and lo and behold, he was holding up this brightly polished mirror. When I looked in that mirror, I saw my habits and personality, my limitations and quirks, all that I had projected on him and everything around me, all that had arisen in my life, reflected back. But not that long ago, I stepped forward as a student in a new way, a more complete way, and our relationship was no longer about that or my arguments. Then, I was looking at and enjoying the Buddha in him, and a human being stepped forward. And that human being held up a mirror, and in it I could see a Buddha. When I looked more closely, I could see reflected back every human being with me.
Kyogen has been really kind to me - I can't tell you how kind. For a long time, I shoved my pain at him and he just held it. Sometimes he gave me his full attention at a moment's notice, but he was also kind enough not to give me attention every time I asked for it. He was kind enough not to say what I wanted to hear, kind enough to sometimes say exactly what I didn't want to hear. He was kind enough not to give me what I thought I wanted. Most of all, he was kind enough to sit nearby and let me sew the kesa of my own understanding all these years.
The tenth precept is, "Do not defame the Three Treasures." Part of the commentary we use says, "In the realm of the One, holding no concept of ordinary beings and sages is the Precept of Not Defaming the Three Treasures. To do something by ourselves, without copying others, is to become an example to the world." Kyogen showed me what it was like to not copy another's practice or understanding, and it is probably the greatest gift he has given me.
Dogen's koan was exactly that: If we have this perfect Buddha nature, why do we need to practice? His answer came with the understanding that we are always awakening, awakening, awakening. We may be "sleepy, stupid Buddhas," but we are Buddhas. Still, every moment is brand new and requires our complete practice, but fortunately, that's what Buddhas do. The sun is shining behind the clouds, but that's so easy to forget.
Sometimes I see myself standing in a beautiful field on a sunny day, and there's one little, tiny cloud in the sky and I'm standing under it. If I can take just one step to the side, the shadow dissolves. A lot of my own struggle had to do with fear, and part of the fear was that if I didn't work so hard, if I stopped struggling, I would die. My way through that struggle was partly about accepting this moment-to-moment awakening. Going on. Right now, I'm enjoying a time when I sense how clear and simple our relationships really are. They're clear skies, and what we mostly do with them is make clouds. We make big gray clouds and little white clouds, but they're all clouds in a clear sky. Even in the clouds, I try to remember that the sky is always clear.
By Eric Doshin Collison Arrived Friday. Hitched a ride on the meditation energy already developed. Saturday fuse out cold. Cold steel chair. Cold butt. Burning butt. Numb butt. New ancient form at meals. Beautiful folding of napkins. Scraping bowls and sucking spoons-whoa, big trouble at the monkey mind. Sanzen. Kyogen says work with it. Beano enzyme not in enough use around the zendo. Work with it. Zazen. Silence. The wall. The breath. Wider vision, peace slide in and out. I know again why I am here. Monkey mind and peace bubble and flow. Building a dam. Pressure. Going in circles.
Outide. Looking back into the almost empty zendo. The sacristan is arranging the zendo. The form is right. Moving from the porch into the open. Plentiful rain is falling. Glistening curtains slide down past the streetlamp. Dharma rain. Under the light the drop-covered grass is a field of diamonds. Every step changes the thousands of gleaming facets. Rain caressing all. Space and time, empty and full. All fit. Gravel crunches underfoot. Hooded Kyogen walks by. Thanks. Pull away from the diamond grass. Down the shining steps to the dorm. Looking up at the light. From the dark above the tall trees. A meteor shower of drops feeding life. Standing on the porch with the river gushing by. Open air, rain, glistening plants, flowing river. Cycles into cycles. Peace an active process. Moving in the peace. Can't keep the peace. Darkness pushes me inside. Time for bed. Deep thirst. Long drink of water. Being filled with rain. Wonderful. Staring at the bunk above. Feeling the water become blood. A lamp shines through the window. Snoring begins in the dorm. All is perfect just as it is.
Shosan. Hearing the heart of others. The walk. Sangha all around. The face of the teacher. The eyes of the teacher peering deep-looking to give the right answer. Me looking for the right question. Nailed to this moment. Stillness. Looking. The dam breaks. Total exposure. Saying it. Wanting to hear the bamboo ping. Wanting the form to take me there. Lamenting where I really live. Suffering and loss. Fear of suffering and loss. Knowing by glimpses the Way is real. Feeling like I'm asking the impossible-knowing I'm not. Much spills from me outside of memory. A direct line to the teacher. Kyogen says the question is the answer. The intent and energy of the question is the form. These are not the exact words. This is what I hear. The answer is right. Something inside me is knocked loose. Does he know about my path. Is it already in the name he gave me. Yes. Back in line swimming in something thick and deep. Following days. A little different.
Many of the women we cite on the female lineage were lay people. In India, China and Japan, throughout most of Buddhist history, women were not allowed to be ordained as monks without permission from parents or husbands. The two women described below achieved their understanding outside the monastery, through the crucible of daily life.
Sumana
She was the lay disciple most eminent in Shakyamuni's time. She could not be ordained because she had to care for her grandmother, who had raised her. She made an effort to attend the Buddha's lectures whenever he was near.Sumana was an old woman herself before her grandmother died. At that time, she and her brother were ordained together. On that very day, "she experienced immediate and complete realization" because of her long ripening in lay life. She took as her enlightenment poem words spoken to her by the Buddha:
"Lie down, old woman
In the robe you made.
Your desire is still.
You are quenched and cool."K'ung-shih Tao-jen
She was the heir of Ssu-hsin Wa-hsin, a nun, teacher, and poet. She wrote the "Record on Clarifying the Mind," which was circulated throughout the country. She was the daughter of a political official and married to the grandson of a chief minister. But K'ung-shih tired of her life quickly and returned to her parents, asking to be ordained. They refused, so she practiced in solitude. She was awakened after reading Tu-shun's "Contemplation of the Dharmadhatu." After that, she wrote poetry expressing her understanding. When her parents died, she went to live with her brother, and through him she met Ssu-hsin and they talked about the Dharma together. He approved her realization. Later, she ran a bathhouse and wrote Dharma poetry on the walls with signs demanding that her customers "demonstrate that they understand the meaning of dirt and washing" before they enter. She became a nun in old age.
The ceremony of Hossen, marking the end of John Dainin Morse's term of office as shuso (Chief Junior) was held Sunday, Jan. 30. at the zendo. Dainin's chosen verse came from Evening Service, Dogen's Fukanzazengi: "Therefore, put aside the intellectual habit of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest." Dainin displayed his understanding of it in the traditional question-and-answer form known as mondo. Several Buddhist teachers from other lineages were given a chance to test him in this public ceremony along with his fellow lay disciples and senior sangha members. Gyokuko-sensei, his teacher, confirmed his successful completion with the words, "You have done well." Thank you, Dainin, for taking care of us this past year!
A significant step in the development of our Sangha is the establishment of transmitted Lay Disciples who are working toward becoming Dharma Teachers. We have taken another step forward as Gyokuko-sensei gave Dharma Transmission to Jill Bukkai Washburn in December. "Dharma Transmission" means that Gyokuko certifies that Bukkai is a holder of the Lineage. Gyokuko and Kyogen each received Dharma Transmission from their teacher, Jiyu-Kennett Roshi, who received it from Keido Chisan Koho Zenji. While Dharma Transmission is usually reserved for ordained priests, Lay Transmission is a very old tradition that has been done in both China and Japan. Several other Centers in the West are also working on Lay Transmission, and Kyogen and Gyokuko have consulted with teachers at those Centers to help promote some consistency in the way this tradition develops among Soto Zen Centers in the US. With Lay Transmission, Bukkai begins her development as a Lay Teacher in this Sangha, joining Sallie Jiko Tisdale, who received transmission from Kyogen in November 1997. Our congratulations to Bukkai. We look forward to seeing her develop in this new role.
Thanks to the hard work of Jill Bukkai Washburn and Dawn Domyo Sater, the new improved version of the temple's cookbook, Kanzeon in the Kitchen, was completed in time for the holiday bazaar (although Domyo says there are a few illustrations that need straightening up). The recipes have been tested and approved by many hungry sangha members at home, on retreats and at social events. The cookbook is available at the Center's bookstore for $15.
The changing of the year was celebrated with eating, socializing and ceremony by a happy mix of DRZC and ZCO sangha members at the Dharma Center on New Year's Eve. Sacred dance, a form of circle folk dancing, followed a delicious potluck dinner and was in turn followed by a ceremony in which participants reaffirmed their commitment to the Precepts and repented any wrongdoings. People did zazen as the clock struck midnight. A number of attendees mentioned how peaceful it felt to start out the new century this way.
Officers of the board of directors presented a number of possible options for the future of the Zen Center to an interested gathering of members at the sangha forum held January 16. Hoyu Clardy, Gyokuko-sensei and Jiko Tisdale provided charts, handouts and photos of different scenarios and much lively discussion took place. An informal survey taken at that forum gave board members information on developing a formal survey on land development decisions to be mailed to members and donors this month. Watch your mail.
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