The Stupid Way

Not a Long Way to Tipperary for the January Buddhist Retreat

2011-12-15T10:24:00.001+09:00

My friend Harry Bradley is organizing a Zen Buddhist retreat next month in the lovely Glen of Aherlow in County Tipperary. The retreat will start at 7 pm on Friday 20th January and end at 5.30 pm on Sunday January 22nd.

The focus will be on zazen (seated meditation), kinhin (slow walking) and samu (work periods). There will be no chanting or formal ceremonies, although zendo etiquette will be observed (bowing on entering and leaving the zendo, bowing before and after sitting).

The retreat is suitable for anyone who’s already practicing meditation or who’s been to a Buddhist retreat before. There will be no official teacher there, but some of the people attending have a good bit of experience with meditation. There will be some themed discussions during the retreat as well.

The venue for the retreat is “Tigh Roy” in the picturesque Glen of Aherlow in Tipperary. The Glen of Aherlow sits between the Galtee mountains on one side and the Slievenamuck Ridge on the other, and has five spectacular lakes and some really breathtaking scenery. It should make a fine setting for the retreat. There’s more information about venue at http://www.tigroy.com/

The cost of the weekend, including all meals and accommodation, is €145 (per person sharing rooms with two single beds). Booking is essential as places are limited. A deposit of €45 will ensure a place on the retreat.

For more information or to book a place, email Harry at harrybradley@eircom.net.

You can follow some updates about the retreat at http://longriverzen.blogspot.com/

A Question of Existence and Time

2011-11-21T11:20:00.001+09:00

Time and existence are as important for Buddhists as for anyone else. But the Buddhist idea about time and existence is different to most other ways of thinking about them. In general, we tend to think of time and existence as two separate things. I know I do anyway. Time is one thing, and existence or reality or whatever you like to call it is something else. The Buddhist idea isn’t like that though. Buddhism says that time and existence are two ways of talking about the same thing, they’re not separate from each other.

A while back, before he entered hospital, Gudo Nishijima sent me a copy of an email he wrote to someone who asked him about this.

The question was:

I read the chapter Uji (Existence and Time) in Master Dogen’s book Shobogenzo. In the chapter Master Dogen said:

''It is a complete realization that the whole of time is what the whole of existence is, and that there is nothing more than this''.

When he writes that, is he talking about the existence of a human being or about the existence of the Universe? If he’s referring to the whole existence of the Universe in that statement, it means that even the Universe is not limitless and consequently is dependent on time?

Gudo Nishijima’s answer was:

Master Dogen doesn’t say anything about the existence of a human being or the existence of the Universe in that statement. He says that existence and time are absolutely related with each other.

Master Dogen insists that without existence, time can not exist, and without time, existence can not exist at all. In other words, he insists that without existence, time never exists, and without time, existence never exists.

Therefore we should think that existence and time are very much related with each other. So it’s impossible to think about existence without thinking about time, and it’s impossible to think about time without thinking about existence.

Existence and time should be considered together, and it might not make sense to consider the question of existence and time without thinking about them like that.

Master Dogen clearly insists such opinion.

Gudo Wafu Nishijima

It’s only a small point in some ways, but that’s the Buddhist idea about existence and time. That’s why you sometimes hear people talking about “being here and now”. “Here” is the existence side, and “now” is the time side. And even though people use that phrase to describe feeling really present in the moment and focused on what’s happening right now and nothing else, actually the phrase “being here and now” applies to everyone. To you and me and all the folks in the neighborhood. And it’s like that right throughout our lives. There’s no other way. The only place we can ever be is where we are at each moment. So in a way it’s not a big deal. It’s the same for everyone.

What happens to most of us, though, is that our thoughts distract us from where we are and what we’re doing. So instead of focusing on slicing the veggies, we’re thinking about what happened a couple of weeks back when we saw those dancing elephants in Iceland. Or maybe we think about how great things would be if we could manage to get a nice job in London… We all know how it goes. We’re doing something that we’re not too excited about and our mind is drifting off somewhere else.

This is something you’ll notice if you do meditation. You’ll be sitting there on the cushion, and your mind will be going all over the place. That’s what happens to me anyway. When I do meditation, very little is happening outwardly, I’m literally just sitting there. But my mind can get really active imagining all sorts of different scenarios about different things or dreaming about all kinds of experiences that are never going to happen. But if you sit there for a while, gradually your mind starts to settle down all by itself, and during the meditation you can notice that, hey, you’re just sitting on the cushion doing your meditation. That’s basically “being here and now”. It’s not a big deal, and in a way it’s very simple, but it’s kind of a nice thing to notice too.

And when you get up off the cushion, that “being here and now” might stay with you for a while, and you might notice that being here and now isn’t so bad after all. The only thing about it is that even though people can write and talk about it, “being here and now” isn’t really something we can leave to our imagination. It’s something we have to experience for ourselves. That might sound difficult, because sometimes when we hear words like “being here and now”, it sounds like it must be something really intense that’s very faraway from where we are at the particular time. But actually it’s not like that. You’re already experiencing it. It’s just a matter of noticing, or maybe not noticing, it.

When I used to talk to Gudo Nishijima about this kind of thing, he used to say something like “we are enjoying the present moment”. It sounds really simple, and in many ways it is, but a lot of times we get dragged away by our thoughts of somewhere else or some other time and miss out on the things that are happening right in front of us. Doing meditation helps us to notice that.

So if you’re looking for a way to enjoy the present moment a bit more, you know what to do. And figuring out where and when to do it is easy too, right?

I Know a Way to Eliminate Suffering from Life

2011-11-14T15:09:00.001+09:00

My friends Ingrid and Jiku-san came to Tokyo recently from Chile for a short visit. Ingrid is a student of Gudo Nishijima Roshi and Jiku-san is a student of a Japanese monk named Daisetsu Tangen Roshi. They both became interested in Zen Buddhism after they had been practicing yoga for a while.

Ingrid’s first experience with meditation was at a yoga class in Chile. After doing meditation there, she decided to try it at home, and continued to practice at home for 10 years. Later she began to practice with a small Buddhist group in Santiago. She came to Japan a few years later and met Nishijima Roshi in Tokyo. Afterwards, she started a Buddhist meditation group in Chile, and helped to organize Nishijima roshi’s visit for talks and retreats in Chile in 2004.

Jiku-san’s first name is Patricio, but people usually call him by his Buddhist name “Jiku-san”. He first encountered zazen when he was doing a yoga instructor’s course in Nepal. A few years later his job as a photographer brought him to Japan to do a feature on a Zen retreat at a temple named Bukkokuji. Bukkokuji is in a town called “Obama-shi” in Fukui prefecture. Daisetsu Tangen Roshi is the abbot there. When Jiku-san came to the temple, he liked the life there so much that he decided to stay. He eventually spent 10 years at Bukkokuji, before deciding to return to Chile to teach people about zazen and Buddhism. When he returned to Chile, he and Ingrid opened a Zazen dojo together and began to hold retreats and classes. Jiku-san also taught zazen at a prison there for 7 years. Recently, Ingrid and Jiku-san opened a new dojo called “El Zendo” in Chile. El Zendo is in a small town named Tunquen on the Pacific coast, about two hours from Santiago.

I asked Jiku-san and Ingrid to give a talk to our Saturday Zazen class while they were in Tokyo. They kindly agreed. Jiku-san told us about how he first became interested in Buddhism, and about life at Bukkokuji temple, including the daily schedule and going on begging rounds (called “takuhatsu”), and how the 10 years there changed his own life. He also told us about his experiences teaching Buddhism in Chile and at the Chilean prison, and about El Zendo. Ingrid told us about her experiences practicing at home on a daily basis for 10 years while raising her family, and how she ended up meeting Nishijima Roshi when she came to Tokyo, and later on began to practice together with Jiku-san in Chile.

I recorded the talk on my MP3 recorder. It lasts about 50 minutes. There’s also plenty of questions and answers during the talk. (The title of this post is something that comes up during the talk.) You can click here to download the MP3 file (47 MB).

By the way, one of the things that Jiku-san mentions during the talk is that people at the temple used to scrub themselves everyday with a “tawashi”. A tawashi is a small scrubbing brush that the Japanese usually use to scrub vegetables or pots and pans, but at the temple they found it was a good way to keep themselves clean too.

You can check out the El Zendo website at www.elzendo.cl. Jiku-san and Ingrid hold retreats there on a regular basis that everyone is welcome to attend. They told me sometimes people visit them from other countries in South America and from North America too.

Incidentally, the photo at the top of this post was taken the day we held the talk. Ingrid is in the center, and Jiku-san is on her right. The person on Jiku-san’s right is Harumi Saito. Harumi Saito began to practice zazen in the 1970’s with Nishijima Roshi at his Saturday classes in Tokyo, and has helped to organize the Tokyo classes for many years. He also taught zazen in a city near Tokyo for several years. He still comes to the Saturday zazen practice on a regular basis. On Ingrid’s left in the photo is Kimika, also one of Nishijima Roshi’s students. Kimika was one of the people who accompanied Nishijima Roshi on his visit to Chile in 2004. I’m the bald guy on Kimika’s left. (Thanks to Shinji for the photo.)

Zazen Practice in Tokyo

2011-09-09T14:04:00.001+09:00

Just a note to say that our zazen class in Tokyo will be starting up again tomorrow after the summer break. The class is suitable for beginners, and anyone interested is welcome along.

The times are:
11.00 - 11.25 Zazen
11.25 - 11.35 Kinhin (slow walking meditation)
11.35 - 12.00 Zazen
12.00 - 12.30 Break (for lunch or a rest)
12.30 - 1.00 Zazen
1.00 - 2.00 Talk (optional)

Click here for more information and directions.

I Knew You Were Going To Ask That

2011-06-02T22:00:00.001+09:00

Here’s a question someone asked me a while ago:

Do you have a sixth sense? How do you experience it?

Everybody has a sixth sense, except they don't notice most of the time. In Japan there's an expression "i-shin-den-shin" which means something like "heart-to-heart communication". Without saying anything you can sometimes pick up a vibe from someone else. Or it’s almost like we can communicate with someone even though they’re not anywhere near us. It's like if you stop off at the bakery on the way home from work and see a nice apple strudel and decide to buy it. But when you get home the person you live with has bought the exact same thing!

I watched a TV show recently about research someone did to see if a dog could tell when their owner was on the way home. It wasn’t to check if the dog had figured out the time the owner came home at each day. It was to see if the dog could tell if its owner was on the way home at a random time during a particular day. The dog lived in a house in a country town, and its owner spent most weekdays in a nearby city. The researcher arranged for the owner to come home from the city suddenly one afternoon, and recorded the dog’s behavior from around the time the owner started to make her way home. Sure enough, the dog started to become more alert right around the time the owner began to leave the city. By the time the owner got within a few miles of the house the dog was waiting right next to the door. It was strange to see, but the owner or the dog didn’t seem to care too much. They were just happy to see each other.

I’ve a feeling that if we worked on this we probably wouldn't need mobile phones anymore.

Or maybe it's just a coincidence...

Dublin Fundraising Concert For Japan

2011-05-04T15:04:00.000+09:00

Here’s some information about a special fundraising concert being held in Dublin next week to aid the Japan disaster victims. Many of Ireland’s very best traditional musicians are taking part, and it sounds like it’s going to be a great night. It’s being held next Tuesday, May 10, at The Button Factory in Temple Bar. All proceeds go to aid Japan and the Japanese Red Cross.

Here’s what’s happening:

Traditional Music Legends to Show Solidarity with Japan

On Tuesday, 10th May, a host of traditional music legends will show their solidarity with the people of Japan by holding a special fundraising concert in The Button Factory, Dublin. T with the Maggies, Altan, Dervish, Liam Ó Maonlaí and Dónal Lunny will whip out the jigs, reels and beautiful ballads on the night in a celebration of traditional music.

The concert will be streamed live online so that people in Japan can see that Ireland is in solidarity with them. All the groups and musicians have a huge following in Japan where some fans are so dedicated to Irish traditional culture and music that they even learn to speak Gaeilge.

"All of us in the trad world wanted to do something after the years of support the Japanese have given to both Altan and the other bands. This is our small way of showing that they are in our thoughts. We guarantee a great night on May 10th and you can be sure that a few surprise guests will show up also!" said Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Altan & T with the Maggies, who is co-organizing the concert.

"The concert is being co-organized with Chika Usami who is from Iwaki City, Fukushima, Japan but lives in Ireland. Chika said, “If I had been in Iwaki during the earthquake I would have been affected, my friends and family are still under threat from the nuclear power plant which is only 40km away, and I thought there must have been a reason for me to have been in Ireland. I wanted to do something to help Japan and tried to think what connected Ireland and Iwaki and I thought of Altan. They had performed in Iwaki in 2009 and I had met Altan after the concert and they invited me to come to Ireland sometime. Part of the reason I came to Ireland was because of how much I enjoy traditional Irish music and culture.”

ADM: €20 (Unreserved Limited Seating).

Advanced sales are available from www.tickets.ie or Claddagh Records, Cecilia Street, Temple Bar Tel:353 1 677 0262

Further Enquiries : www.buttonfactory.ie | TEL: +353 1 670 9202

3-day Zen Retreat in Golden Week

2011-04-22T15:35:00.001+09:00

If you’ll be in Japan during golden week and wouldn’t mind spending a few days at a Zen temple in the countryside, you might be interested in a retreat we’ll be holding at Tokei-in temple in Shizuoka from April 30 to May 2. The retreat is suitable for beginners, and anyone interested is welcome along. There’s some more information about the retreat here.

My Earthquake Experience

2011-04-17T12:55:00.001+09:00

As everyone knows, we had a terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan last month. Tens of thousands of people were killed, and hundreds of thousands were left without their homes and jobs and belongings. About 150,000 people are still living in temporary shelters at schools and other public buildings. Several towns and villages were completely destroyed. To make things even worse, the Fukushima nuclear power plant was severely damaged, and it’s been leaking radiation into the atmosphere for more than a month now. There have been lots of strong aftershocks since then too, and people are worried that there may be another big earthquake before long. So it’s been a horrible time for people in Japan. But despite it all many people are doing what they can to help each other, and are trying not to lose hope for the future.

I live in a place called Ibaraki Prefecture. It was one of the areas affected by the earthquake, although the damage here wasn’t as bad as in the worst affected areas further north. I’ve lived in Ibaraki for almost 20 years. We’ve had some strong earthquakes before now, but the earthquake in March was on a different scale to anything anyone here experienced before. Usually when an earthquake occurs, there’s a big kind of “thud” right at the start and then things start shaking and the vibrations gradually become stronger, and finally ease off after a minute or so. But when the earthquake struck on March 11 it was such a strong “thud” that it was clear from the start that it was a huge one. I was at home that day, and was doing some zazen on a cushion beside my desk when it struck. When the earthquake started, it was so strong that right away I jumped off the cushion and went under the desk. The walls in my room started shaking and all the things we had on shelves or in cupboards began to fall onto the floor. The shaking kept getting stronger and stronger, and everything was moving or falling down. The walls were moving back and forth and I thought the whole place was going to collapse.

After one or two minutes the shaking eventually started to ease off. I got out from under the desk to see if our place was okay. Some things had broken, but luckily there was no really serious damage. Our TV had fallen over, but it was still working. I turned it on to check the news. All the channels had emergency news about what was going on. The earthquake had destroyed buildings all over the north east of Japan, and the news was warning people about a large tsunami. The announcers were telling people to move away from the coast as quickly as they could. The channel I was watching was showing live pictures of the ocean that were being taken from a helicopter. It showed the tsunami approaching the coast and then moving inland through one town. A lot of people were trying to escape from the tsunami in their cars and on foot, but the tsunami was too big and moving too fast. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it. People were being swept away without any chance of escaping. It was very shocking to see what was happening. The tsunami moved inland for several kilometers and destroyed everything in its path. Then it went back to the ocean again. Almost nothing was left standing after it had gone.

Later on there were stories on the news about some people who managed to survive the tsunami. Even though they had survived, many of them had lost their parents, or spouse, or children in the tsunami. There were reports of how people tried to escape the tsunami by going to designated safe areas in their towns. The designated safe areas were meant to be safe places to go in the event of a tsunami, but the tsunami that day was so big that even those safe areas were washed away.

Over the next few days, we started to get more information about what had happened. Reports about the number of dead and missing kept increasing. Soon we heard that almost 10,000 people were missing in one town alone. Thousands of people had been buried under the debris left by the earthquake, and thousands more had been swept away by the tsunami. The rescue teams are still searching for missing people now, but many of them may never be found.

We also started to hear about a major problem at a nuclear power station in Fukushima. Fukushima is about 160 kilometers from where we live. The power station had been hit by the tsunami, and the reactors were damaged and radiation was escaping into the air and sea. The people living in towns nearby had to leave their homes and move to temporary shelters further away. Some of those people had lost family members and friends in the earthquake and tsunami, but were unable to return to their towns to search for them because of the radiation. The people who had to leave those towns may not be able to move back again until the radiation levels drop. No one knows how long that’s going to take, but it might be five or ten years or more.

There were a lot of problems in our own area for the first week or so after the earthquake. The water and gas supplies were cut off, and there was a shortage of gasoline because the gas stations had run out. Most of the shops were closed because they were damaged by the earthquake and it was unsafe to let people inside. The shops that were open soon ran out of food and water. It was difficult to buy any food for a few days, and there were huge queues even if you could find a shop that was open. The trains had stopped running too because of damage to the rails. There was an awful lot of concern about the radiation from the nuclear accident too. Nobody knew exactly what was going on, and whether it was safe to go outside or not. Some of our neighbors left the area because they were worried about how the radiation was affecting us.

But even though there was a certain amount of panic, most people were trying to stay calm and do what they could to get through it. People were sharing things and trying to help each other. After a week or so, things began to come back to normal in our area at least. The water and gas were gradually restored, and shops began to open again. The schools reopened as well after a few days. After another week or so the trains started running again and the gas stations opened too.

In some ways life is returning to normal in Japan now. But there’s an awful lot of recovery work to be done, and the Fukushima nuclear disaster is going to be with us for a long time. There is still a very deep sadness about what has happened, but it seems like the people who were directly affected by the disaster are taking each day as it comes, and trying to do what they can each day. The community spirit is very strong in Japan now too, and a lot of people are working together to help each other recover. Even the people in our neighborhood seem to be a lot closer and friendlier than before. I don’t know how long that’s going to last, but it seems like the disaster has changed the way a lot of people think about what’s important.

I like to think that Japan will recover from what’s happened, although it’s going to take a long time. Probably some things will return to something like the way they were before the disaster, but some things in Japan will never be the same.

Gudo Nishijima Roshi, 91

2010-12-03T20:38:00.012+09:00

Gudo Nishijima turned 91 last Monday. To mark his birthday, we asked him to give a talk last Saturday at our zazen meeting at the Young Buddhists Association in Tokyo. We also invited him to a small birthday lunch afterwards at a nearby Indian restaurant.

I arranged to pick him up at his apartment on Saturday, and then take a taxi together to the place (called “Hongo-sanchome”) where we hold our zazen meeting. I called for him at about 11.30 am. He was still getting himself ready, and he asked me to wait for a few minutes while he finished getting ready. He offered me some fruit while I was waiting. He recommended the persimmons. He told me they that were really ripe and tasty now. He gave me one and a knife to cut it up with. He was right. The persimmon did taste great. When he saw I’d eaten it quickly, he offered me another one. I didn’t want to eat all his persimmons, so I said I was okay. I was hoping we’d have the chance to eat some lunch together before we went to the zazen meeting, but it was getting a bit late and Nishijima was worried about keeping the people at the meeting waiting. So we decided to skip lunch. Instead Nishijima brought a few bananas with us to eat in the taxi.

It took us a while to get a taxi after we left his apartment. Nishijima doesn’t walk so quickly nowadays, and I didn’t want to hurry him either. There were a lot of autumn leaves on the road as we were walking along. Nishijima told me the particular leaves that were on the path we were walking along are used as the symbol for Tokyo. The tree they’re from is called “ichou” in Japanese. In English it’s called the “ginkgo” tree.

When we reached the main road, we stood at the kerb and eventually hailed a passing taxi. Nishijima told the driver where we were going and a good way to get there. We chatted for a few minutes, and then he decided to eat some of the bananas. I was wondering if the taxi driver would object to us eating, but he didn’t seem to mind. Nishijima told me that a former prime minister of Japan, named Nakasone, used to keep some bananas in his office desk and whenever he was too busy to eat lunch, he’d eat the bananas instead. So Nishijima and myself were following prime minister Nakasone’s example with the bananas. Anyway, it was fun eating the bananas together in the back of the taxi. I think Nishijima enjoyed doing it like that.

We were late arriving at the meeting, and Nishijima felt bad that everyone had been waiting. But I think the people understood that Nishijima had made a big effort to get there, and they were happy to see him. The room we hold the talks in is on the second floor, and there’s a steep flight of steps to get there. Nishijima did his best to walk up, and me and Saito-san helped him along. He managed to climb the steps without too much trouble. Then he went into the room and started his talk.

He hadn’t given a talk in English for about a year, and he was a bit rusty at the start. But after a while he got into his stride, and spoke about how he got interested in Buddhism and Master Dogen. He also told us how he began giving lectures in the same building we were in about 50 years ago. He told us he first came across Master Dogen’s book Shobogenzo when he was 16 years old. He had a read a lot of books before then, and felt he could understand all the books that he had read. But when he read the Shobogenzo he couldn’t understand it all. Even though it was written in Japanese and he could understand the words, he just couldn’t understand the meaning of what Master Dogen had written in the Shobogenzo. He was very surprised that there was a book written in Japanese that he couldn’t understand. So he decided to try to find out what the meaning of the Shobogenzo was. He said he used to have a pocket edition of the Shobogenzo, which he carried around with him all the time. He said he read it on the train on his way to school and work and whenever else he had the chance. He read it over and over many times, and he eventually realized that the Shobogenzo was a very valuable and special book. He said he found that the Shobogenzo contained a real treasure. He said that what Master Dogen had written in the Shobogenzo was the “truth” itself. He said that even though he had read lots of books, he had never found one that he believed contained the truth. But after he’d read Shobogenzo over and over, he realized that he’d found a very special book. So he decided to devote his life to reading the Shobogenzo, and eventually he began translating it and giving lectures on it.

Nishijima told us that when he was 40 years old he asked the then head of the Young Buddhists Association at Tokyo University (the same place we were having the talk last Saturday) to allow him to hold a Buddhist meeting there. Nishijima’s idea was to hold a zazen class and afterwards give talks on the Shobogenzo. The head of the Young Buddhists Association agreed to Nishijima’s proposal, but told Nishijima that the Association wouldn’t be able to pay him any money for holding his lectures. Nishijima said he didn’t mind that, and he was happy to hold his classes for free. So he began to hold meetings there. Two Tokyo University students helped him organize the first few meetings and came to the zazen practice and his talk too. But then the students became busy with their other studies and couldn’t come to his class. The next time Nishijima held a class after that, no-one came to the zazen practice. But he decided to do zazen in the room by himself anyway. Just as he was finishing zazen, two people came in and asked him where the library was. He chatted to them for a few minutes and said that they could come and listen to his talk that day if they wanted, so he ended up giving a talk to the two people who came looking for the library. After that the number of people attending his talks started to increase. The following week he said five people came, and after that seven people attended. After a while 30 or 40 people were coming to his talks. Later on he started giving talks in English at the same place (which is how I met him). He told us he felt very happy that he was able to give a talk on the Shobogenzo to so many people there. He said he was really happy to see that the meetings (in Japanese and English) he started all those years ago were still continuing even now.

After he finished talking, we presented him with some flowers and a birthday card that everyone at the meeting had signed. His students in Finland had also sent him birthday greetings which they had all written. Some of his other students outside Japan had sent him a card or a gift as well.

After the meeting we took some photos with Nishijima Roshi, and then we went to a nearby Indian restaurant. The restaurant wasn’t that far away, and some people went by foot. But it was too far for Nishijima to walk to, so we went by taxi. While we were in the taxi Nishijima told me that he was very, very happy to be able to give a talk there that day. He said it was the happiest day of his life. He said he felt really happy that he had been able to give talks on Buddhism to people at the Young Buddhists Association.

It was around 3 pm when we reached the restaurant. There was 13 of us, and the restaurant put a few tables together to accommodate us. Nishijima sat in the middle and told us about the time he visited India and some other stories. He also answered some questions we had about Buddhism. At the end of the meal, we all stood up and sang “Happy Birthday”. Just about everyone who was in the restaurant joined in. I even heard the cooks joining in in the kitchen. After we finished singing, Nishijima said it was the happiest day of his life.

It was a real pleasure for me to spend time with Gudo Nishijima that day. It’s a day I’ll always remember.

Stopping Silence Bell

2010-11-21T16:54:00.013+09:00

If you practice mediation with a group, more than likely someone there strikes a bell to signal the start and end of each mediation period. I don’t know if there’s any other way people do it, although one time we used an empty wine glass and a fork to signal the start and end because we didn’t have a bell.

In the Soto Zen style, we hit a bell three times to start zazen and once to end it. If we’re doing a couple of periods of zazen in a row, we do a period of slow walking meditation called “kinhin” in between the two zazen periods. Kinhin is done to give everyone a chance to stretch their legs and shake off any sleepiness between zazen periods. If we’re doing a session like that with zazen, kinhin, and then more zazen, we ring the bell like this:

three rings to start zazen

two rings to end zazen and start kinhin

one ring to end kinhin

three rings to start zazen again

one ring to end zazen

Believe it or not, the Soto temples in Japan have a term for each set of rings. The three rings to start zazen is called “shijosho” (止静鐘), the two rings to end zazen and begin kinhin is called “kinhinsho” (経行鐘), the ring to end kinhin is called “chukaisho” (抽解鐘), and the ring to end zazen is called “houzensho” (放禅鐘). I don’t know if there’s an “official” English translation for those terms, but here’s the way I translate them:

In the first one, shijosho (止静鐘), the three rings at the start, the first character “shi” (止), means “stop” or “cease”, the second character “jo” (静) means “silence” or “calm”, and the third character “sho” (鐘) means “bell” or “chime”. So it means something like the “stopping silence bell”, or the “stop silence bell”, or maybe even the “cease, silence bell”. When I first saw this one I thought it must be the name for the one ring to end zazen, but actually it’s the one to start. (Maybe it’s a koan?)

The translation for the second one, kinhinsho (経行鐘), the two rings to start kinhin, is easy. The first two characters “kin-hin” (経行) mean, you guessed it, kinhin, and the third character “sho” (鐘) means “bell” or “chime”, same as in shijosho. So it means the “kinhin bell” or the “slow walking bell”.

In the third one, chukaisho (抽解鐘), the single ring to end kinhin, the first character “chu” (抽) means “withdraw” or “pull out”, the second character “kai” (解) means “separate” or “solve”, and the third character is “sho” (鐘) which again means “bell” or “chime”. So you can translate “chukaisho” as the “(let’s all) withdraw and separate bell” or even the “withdraw and solve bell”.

Houzensho (放禅鐘), the single ring to end zazen, translates like this: the first character “hou” (放) means “release”, “liberate” or “set free”, the second character “zen” (禅) means “meditation” (bet you knew that), and the third character “sho” (鐘) means “bell” or “chime” like before. So you can translate “houzensho” as the “release from meditation bell” or maybe something a bit more poetic like the “liberating mediation bell” (which might make a good name for the bell to start zazen, but let’s not get into that).

I’m not sure how useful this information will ever be, but at least if someone asks you sometime when the stopping silence bell or the liberation meditation bell is, you’ll know what they’re talking about. Just remember which is first.

Gudo Nishijima Roshi on Buddhism and Reality

2010-11-14T10:07:00.038+09:00

I met my Buddhist teacher, Gudo Nishijima, at his apartment in Tokyo yesterday. He’s 90 years old, but is still active for his age. He gives a Buddhist talk in Japanese every month in Tokyo, and travels to Osaka a few times a year to give a talk there. He’s also working on a new book in Japanese and he gets a lot of email from people interested in Buddhism. He told me he’s happy to be busy like that.

Physically, of course, he’s not as mobile as he used to be. This year the Tokyo summer was the hottest for over 100 years. The temperature got up around 35 Celsius everyday for about 6 weeks. Nishijima told me he tried to get out for a walk or to do his shopping each day during the summer. Unfortunately, he fell over one day on his way home with the shopping. When that happened he realized he’d have to be more careful. He said he realized he “was being too brave.” Nowadays he takes more care when he’s out and about. When I met him recently he told me he’s “training to be an old man”. He still feels young inside, but his body won’t always let him do the things he’d like to.

He was in good spirits yesterday, and always is as far as I can see. It’s a real pleasure to meet him. He’s always willing to discuss Buddhism, and I learn something every time we meet. It's great to meet someone who's cheerful and upbeat all the time. That's another thing I learn when I meet him. I get to see how someone is after studying Buddhism for more than 70 years!

I recorded some of our chat yesterday. It was a discussion about what Buddhism sees as the difference between matter and reality, or what Buddhism calls the "dharma". We also talked a bit about the reason to do zazen and about what Buddhists refer to as the "balanced state". Nishijima’s idea is that when we do zazen our body and mind become more balanced, and that balanced state is the natural state of humans. So when we do zazen we notice what it means to be human. Our talk went something like that anyway. Here's the mp3 file. It lasts about 12 minutes (11 mb).

Early Morning Meditation

2010-11-07T17:01:00.002+09:00

An Indian friend of mine is interested in Zen Buddhism. He knows about meditation and other practices in India and tells me some ideas the Indians have about meditation. The other day we were talking about good times during the day to do zazen (zen meditation). He told me the Indians consider early morning to be the most auspicious time to do meditation. I don’t know if “most auspicious” means “best” in this case, but I think it probably does, or at least it means “very good”. Of course it’s nice to do meditation any time during the day, but the yogis in India seem to have noticed that there’s something particularly good about meditation in the early morning. My friend said they’ve even narrowed the most auspicious time down to between 4 am and 6 am.

That actually made sense to me. I’ve worked some jobs in the past where I used to have to get up around those times to go to work. Even though it was hard to get up that early (and it still is), I noticed there was something about going to work at that time that felt alright in some way. So recently I’ve been getting up earlier than usual to give early morning meditation a try and see if it feels any different. My impression so far is that it's a bit different alright. The zazen itself doesn’t feel too different when I'm doing it, although there’s a lot less noise about. I do notice, though, that I feel more active afterwards than I usually do, and the rest of the morning has a slightly different feel to it too. That’s so far anyway.

One thing I’m not sure about though is whether the “auspicious” time is between 4 am and 6 am for everyone all over the world, or whether it depends on where you live. My guess is that in most countries around daybreak might be an “auspicious” time for meditation. But I might be wrong about that so I’m going to stick with the “between 4 am and 6 am” meditation for a while and see how it goes.

By the way, when I was back in Ireland during the summer we did a 3-day meditation retreat at a small center that’s right on the coast. We did some early morning meditation there. After the meditation we had time to walk down to the shoreline and look across the bay to the Clare hills. It was all calm and quiet. I grew up in that area, but never really noticed how nice it can be in the early morning there, in summer anyways.

So if you’re one of those people who doesn’t mind getting up a little early in the morning, then try a bit of early morning meditation some time. See if you notice a difference.

This is Heaven

2010-06-11T12:28:00.000+09:00

We held a 3-day zazen retreat recently at Tokei-in temple in Japan. We were a fairly big group, with people there from all parts of the world like North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. There was even a woman there from the same place as me in Ireland. We'd never met before, but it turned out she’d attended the same school as one of my (very few) old girlfriends. I don't know which of us was more surprised about that.

I figured that the retreat might get a little disorganized because we were a fairly big group. But everyone pitched in and it felt like things went really smoothly. We were helped a lot by the cook (Tenzo) at Tokei-in. He's a Japanese monk who I guess is in his seventies. He's been at the temple for many years, and was the cook there when Nishijima Roshi used to hold his retreats there too. He did all the cooking and preparation by himself, and he made a lot of great meals. I was sleeping in the room next to him at the temple, and I heard him get up around 3.30 am on the first morning to start the preparation work and at around 4 am the next morning. There was a total of 28 of us for three meals a day, so it meant a lot of hard work for him. But he was always smiling and was the most helpful person you could hope to meet. I sometimes read things where people criticize some aspects of Buddhism in Japan. Maybe they’ve got a point about some things they criticize, but there are also a lot of good things about Buddhism in Japan that people maybe overlook. The cook at Tokei-in is certainly an example of some of the good things. Not just because of his hard work and great meals. His attitude was great too. We gave him a big round of applause and thanks before leaving.

We held the retreat over the first three days of what’s called “Golden Week” in Japan. Golden Week is a period with four or five public holidays in a row. It tends to be very busy on the roads and trains for the first day or two of the week. So I was worried it might be hard to get tickets, or at least a seat, for the train from Tokyo to Shizuoka, which is where we were holding the retreat. But it turned out okay. We all managed to catch the train and I think everyone got a seat on the way down. I was about the last to get on the train. I figured all the seats would be gone, which they were, but one of the guys had been keeping a seat for someone, and I managed to hook up with him. We had a couple of nice seats by the window. It was a very clear day, and we got a great view of Mount Fuji on the way (that's a photo I took from the train).

We were a little behind the scheduled time when we reached the temple, but we soon got into the zendo (zazen hall) and started zazen. Some people there were trying it for the first time. I gave some instructions on how to sit and how to do the walking meditation known as “kinhin”, and then we all had a go at it. Everyone seemed to settle into the zazen well. One person who was trying it for the first time was a bit worried whether she’d be able to do it or not, but she settled right into it and by the end of the retreat she was one of the first into the zendo when it was time for zazen.

I gave four talks during the retreat. It was more like three talks really, because the fourth talk was a kind of feedback session where people gave there impressions about the retreat or asked questions or talked about some particular point. In the first talk, I spoke about what we’d be doing during the retreat and talked a bit about doing zazen. In the second talk I spoke about the life of Gautama Buddha. In the third talk I discussed about Buddhist ideas about right and wrong and some other topics. There were a lot of questions during the talks, so we ended up touching on a good few different points.

One question that came up during one of the talks was about the Buddhist idea about heaven and hell. It was an interesting question, and wasn’t really something I’d thought about before. In some Buddhist texts and sutras you’ll sometimes read about people “falling into hell” or the Buddha coming down from “Tusita heaven” and things like that. My own opinion is that these stories aren’t meant to be taken too literally. When I was growing up, we were taught that heaven and hell were places that actually existed. If you were good in this life your soul would go to heaven after you die, and if you were bad your soul would go to hell. God was in heaven and the devil was in hell. There was also a place called “purgatory” where your soul would go if it didn’t go straight to heaven. After it had been in purgatory for a while to make up for any sins you had, it could go to heaven. That’s the way I learned it anyway.

Buddhism has a different view of heaven and hell. For me at least, the Buddhist idea about heaven and hell is that this life that we all live now can be either heaven or hell. If you’re happy in this life, it can be heaven. If you’re unhappy, it can be hell. Buddhism doesn’t say that after you die you’ll go to heaven or you’ll go to hell. So if you live a happy life, then it’s like heaven. And if you live an unhappy life, then it’s like hell. That’s a bit simplistic, but I think that’s about as close as Buddhism gets to heaven and hell. Of course, we all have circumstances that we’re born into or grow up in that can determine to some extent whether we can live a happy life or not. But whatever circumstances we are in, it’s possible for us to make our lives happier or better. And Buddhism says that the way to live a happy life is to do good things, and don’t do bad things. The reason for this is that Buddhism believes in what’s called “the rule of cause and effect”. Basically what that says is that if you do “good” or “right” things, then that’ll produce good effects, and those good effects make your life happier. And if you avoid doing “bad” or “wrong” things, then you’ll stop producing bad or wrong effects that make your life unhappy. So no matter who you are or where you are, if you do your best to do “good” things and not do “bad” things, your life will become happier. For me, that’s what heaven and hell mean in Buddhism.

On the way back to the train station after the retreat, Kim told me a story about someone who had a dream in which they asked God to show them heaven and hell. God agreed and first of all brought the person to a dining room that had two tables, one on either side of the room. (Kim told me it was just like the dining room we ate our meals in during the retreat.) There was all sorts of delicious food stacked up on the two tables, and there was a lot of hungry people sitting next to the tables trying to eat the food. They could only eat the food by using chopsticks. But the problem was that the chopsticks were about two meters long. And because the chopsticks were so long it was impossible for anyone to pick up the food with the chopsticks and then put the food into their mouth. So everyone was very unhappy and frustrated and dissatisfied because they had all this great food in front of them, but were unable to eat it. God said “this is hell”. Next, God brought the person to another dining room that looked exactly like the first room. Just like in the first room, there were two tables on either side that were covered with all sorts of delicious food. People were sitting next to the tables, and had the same kind of long chopsticks as in the first room. But the people in this room were all happy and smiling and cheerful. When the person looked closely, she saw that the people in this room weren’t trying to use the chopsticks to pick up the food and put it into their own mouth. Instead they were using the chopsticks to pick up the food and put the food into the mouth of someone else on the other side of the room. It was easy to use the long chopsticks for that, and everyone could eat plenty that way. God told the person “this is heaven”.

Kim’s story about heaven and hell in some ways summed up what this retreat was about for me. I’ve attended a fair few retreats in the past, but of all the retreats I’ve been to, this was the nicest in many ways. So thanks to everyone who came and helped make the retreat work.

Regards,

Peter

3-Day Zen Retreat In Golden Week

2010-04-15T11:28:00.008+09:00

I’ll be holding a Zen meditation retreat at Tokei-in temple on the outskirts of Shizuoka City from May 1 to 3. The retreat is in English and is suitable for beginners. The cost including meals and accommodation is 10,000 yen. So if you'll be in Japan around then and are interested in spending a few days at a temple and trying some Zen meditation, feel free to come along.

There’s some more information at: http://www.zen.ie/retreat.html

Regards,

Peter

Where Science and Buddhism Meet

2010-03-28T11:30:00.000+09:00

A friend sent me links to a couple of videos that look at similarities between what Buddhism and science say about reality. The videos are two parts of a video called "Where Science and Buddhism Meet".

When I first became interested in Buddhism, I used to think that science and Buddhism were far apart in what they say about the world. To me Buddhism was a kind of religion, and I assumed it said things about reality that were different to what science says. After checking it out for a few years I began to see that Buddhism and science weren't that far apart after all. I gradually figured out Buddhism is mainly about understanding reality, and anything about the world that is scientifically proven is okay by Buddhism. In that way, Buddhism doesn't set itself up to conflict with science. The big difference between them though is that Buddhism says there are some things about reality that science hasn't discovered yet, and maybe never will. So in some ways, Buddhism considers itself ahead of science as far as understanding the universe goes.

A big difference between Buddhism and science is the approach they take to studying reality. Buddhism places a big emphasis on understanding the world based on our own experience. So the things Buddhism say about reality are based on what people have experienced for themselves. For example, Buddhism says that the universe is "one" and that everything is "interconnected". This is because after practicing Buddhism for a while, you can start to feel that things are interconnected in a real way. Science takes a different approach. It tries to understand reality by gathering knowledge about the world, and making observations and proving theories based on the knowledge. In that sense, science and Buddhism are looking at reality from different dimensions. Buddhism looks at reality from the dimension of our own experience, while science looks at the world based on the scientific knowledge that's been accumulated so far. It's hard to know if either way is going to give a perfect answer, but I think that the more science finds out about the world, the better Buddhism starts to sound. Because what seems to be happening now is that as scientific knowledge increases, in some areas the scientific viewpoint is approaching the same viewpoint as Buddhism. And that makes the Buddhists think, "See, we were saying that all along, but no-one would listen!"

I was surprised by some of the parallels that came up in the video. One thing it looks at is Einstein's theory about "Spooky Action at a Distance", which is a lot like something that Buddhists notice. The video doesn't get into too much detail about the various similarities, but it's definitely worth a look if you've an interest in this kind of thing.

One idea that comes up that I found a bit hard to agree with, though, is where he seems to be saying that we can somehow control reality by using our mind. This isn't the way I understand Buddhism, but maybe I've misunderstood that part. I was thinking about this the other day, and it reminded me of a part on one of Neil Young's live albums where the rain starts to pour down during an outdoor concert he's doing. Neil tells the audience, "Maybe if we yell real loud, we can stop this rain!" And everybody starts shouting "No rain! No rain! No rain!" Unfortunately, it didn't work so well, and Neil had to play on in the rain. Mind you, if that kind of thing did work, I know we'd have been shouting it almost everyday when I was growing up.

Anyway, here are the videos. They're both about 10 minutes long.

Regards,

Peter

A Day in the Life

2009-12-31T15:42:00.003+09:00

I put a new article on a "talks" page I have on my website. It's about a day I went with Gudo Nishijima to a talk he was giving at a university in Tokyo. There's a link on the page to an mp3 file of Nishijima's talk that day, as well as a video clip (above) of Nishijima answering some questions. I was going to post it here, but that talks page is a bit bare, so I put the article there to make it look at least a bit more like a real website. Anyway, click here to read the article if you're interested.

And before we head into the new year, I'd like to thank anyone who's been reading my little blog here. I'd also like to say thanks to anyone who came to my zazen classes and retreats during 2009, and to you people who helped me during the year. I really appreciate it.

And as we say in Irish "Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh!!" (I know you'll guess what that means:-)

Peter

Gudo Nishijima's 90th Birthday

2009-11-29T22:21:00.006+09:00

Today is Gudo Nishijima Roshi's 90th birthday. To mark the occasion we asked him to give a talk at our zazen class at the Young Buddhists Association in Tokyo yesterday. He agreed, and asked me what topic I'd like to hear him talk about. Seeing as it was his 90th birthday, I said it’d be nice to hear him talk about his own life.

We arranged to meet at his apartment around noon yesterday, and to take a taxi together to the meeting place. While we were in the taxi, he said he felt very happy to be celebrating his 90th birthday. He said so many things had happened in his life, but now that he had reached 90 he felt really happy.

We reached the Young Buddhists Association with time to spare. Nishijima had time for some tea and rice crackers before his talk. There was a good number of people there, with the room more or less full. During his talk, Nishijima spoke about his family and upbringing and what caused him to become interested in Buddhism. Then we had time for questions. The talk was scheduled to last an hour, but there were plenty of questions, so we ended up running well past the hour.

I made a video recording of Nishijima's talk. In the following clip, he talks about his first teacher, Master Kodo Sawaki.

After the talk we presented Nishijima with some gifts and cards from his students in Tokyo and overseas. He seemed very happy to receive them and thanked everybody.

Later on we held a small birthday party at an Indian restaurant. Now that I think of it, we forgot to arrange a birthday cake. But I don't think Nishijima cared. He seemed very happy.

All the best,

Peter

The Heart Sutra

2009-11-18T15:03:00.000+09:00

Gudo Nishijima didn't do any chanting at his meetings or retreats. He preferred to just stick to zazen and afterwards give a talk and answer questions. Sometimes someone would ask why there was no chanting. Nishijima usually answered that he liked to follow Master Dogen’s ideas on Buddhism, and he felt Dogen didn’t particularly recommend us to chant as part of Buddhist practice. If he was pressed a bit on the subject, Nishijima would quote something or other Dogen wrote about chanting that indicated his preference for zazen. If you've read the Shobogenzo a bit you might have come across one or two passages on the subject.

But there are always exceptions. In Nishijima’s case, the exception to his chanting policy was the Heart Sutra. He used to chant this once each day after early morning zazen at his dojo. I was a bit surprised the first time I heard him chanting the Heart Sutra, because I'd listened to his opinion about chanting before. So afterwards I asked why he'd started to chant it. He told me that one time some Buddhist nuns stayed at his dojo for a while and they asked him if it would be okay to chant the Heart Sutra in the morning. He agreed, and so they started to chant it together at his dojo each morning after zazen. After the nuns left, Nishijima decided to keep chanting it each morning.

The Heart Sutra is a discussion between Gautama Buddha and his disciple Sariputra about something called “prajna”. Prajna is a Sanskrit word. The first part pra means “before” or “prior to”. The second part jna means “knowledge”. Nishijima usually translates prajna as “intuition”. A lot of people translate it as something like “real wisdom”. Whatever way you want to translate it, prajna is referring to something that’s completely different to what we normally consider to be knowledge or wisdom. We usually assume that we accumulate knowledge by studying or learning. But with prajna it’s a bit different. Buddhism says we develop prajna by practicing zazen. I know that sounds a bit strange, but that’s the Buddhist idea.

Another thing about prajna is that we don’t have any particular control over it. It’s either there or it's not. Sometimes we get a glimpse of it and sometimes we don’t. But if we get a few glimpses of it or experience it a few times we can get a feel for what it is. If we don't get a glimpse of it or notice it at all, it's a bit harder to believe such a thing actually exists.

Like I say, the theme of the Heart Sutra is prajna. Below is one part where the Buddha says that bodhisatvas rely on prajna. It’s a nice idea. To me it suggests that if you practice zazen everyday you can rely on prajna to help guide your actions. Mind you, it's not quite as simple as that, and sometimes we mess up, but the idea at least seems to be like that. Of course, the hard part is trying to rely on something you can't see, hear, touch, taste, smell, or even grasp mentally. But that's Buddhism for ya. Anyway, here's that part where the Buddha says bodhisatvas rely on prajna:

With nothing to attain,

bodhisattvas

rely on prajna-paramita,

and their minds are without hindrance.

They are without hindrance,

and therefore without fear.

Far apart from all confused dreams,

they dwell in nirvana.

All buddhas of the past, present and future

rely on prajna-paramita,

and attain full, complete realization.

Therefore, know that prajna-paramita

is the great transcendent mantra,

the great bright mantra,

the supreme mantra,

the unequalled balanced mantra,

that can eliminate all suffering,

and is real, not false.

Regards,

- peter

Tale of the Two-eyed Monkey

2009-11-09T12:14:00.016+09:00

I don't get as much time as I'd like to read books. Like a lot of people, I've plenty of books that I bought ages ago but haven't managed to read yet. Recently though, my older son and I have started reading books together for about 20 or 30 minutes before he goes to bed. He's still in elementary school, and until recently I used to read him children's books at bedtime. But nowadays he prefers to get his own books at the library and read them himself. So we sit beside each other in the evening reading our own books.

A few nights ago, my son asked me about a book I was reading at the time, called “Everyday Zen”. He asked if it was about Buddhism. I told him it was. Then he asked what Buddhism is about. Now, my son knows I teach some kind of zazen class, and he sees me doing zazen at home, and he even does some zazen himself once in a while, but this was the first time he ever asked about Buddhism as such. I was a bit surprised. I wasn't too sure what to tell him, but I figured he might like the story about the two-eyed monkey. It's a fairly well-known story in Zen Buddhism at least. Here it is :

-----------

Once there was a monkey with two-eyes who lived on an island. One day there was a terrible storm and the monkey got washed out to sea on a log. The monkey drifted on the log for weeks until he was washed ashore on another island far away from where he used to live. The monkey was hungry so he ran up to the edge of the jungle to look for food. At the edge of the jungle he saw another monkey. But the other monkey had only one eye, so the two-eyed monkey was very surprised. But when the other monkey saw the two-eyed monkey, the other monkey began laughing and howling. Then more and more monkeys came to see what was going on. All the monkeys who came had only one eye. When those one-eyed monkeys saw the two-eyed monkey they all started laughing and howling. They all pointed at the two-eyed monkey and said “Look, look, he's got two eyes! He's got two-eyes! Ha, ha, ha, ha...”

-------------

I wasn't so sure if my son would enjoy the story, but he seemed to think it was alright. After that, I also told him that what's important in Buddhism is not so much what we say, but what we actually do. I gave him the example of someone saying they're going to do their homework tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes they forget all about their homework and just watch TV instead. That made sense to him too, although I'm not sure he liked the example.

When he's older, if he asks me what Buddhism is about again, I'll probably tell him that in some ways Buddhism isn't really about “Buddhism” at all. It's just about being himself. So he doesn't have to worry about being a Buddhist, or a Christian, or a Hindu or things like that. He can just be himself all the time, and that's all he needs to do.

Of course, it's not always easy to be ourselves. Because we think maybe there's something wrong with us, or other people won't like us or we won't fit in and things like that. But one thing we can learn from Buddhism is that just to be ourselves is the best way. That's why we're here.

Regards,

Peter

Gudo Nishijima Doing Zazen

2009-06-25T10:14:00.034+09:00

I visited my Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima at his new place in Tokyo yesterday. It was around 2 pm when I arrived, and he was just starting to practice zazen. When he told me he was going to be doing some zazen, I asked if I could video him for part of it. He said okay, so I got out my camera and started recording.

Here's the video. It lasts about 8 minutes.

It was a very hot day, and there was no air conditioner in the room. He opened the window to cool the place down a bit. I think the heat was making him feel a bit sleepy, but he kept sitting anyway. His new apartment is very near one of the train stations on Tokyo's Yamanote line. It's a busy line with lots of trains going back and forth. The trains and station announcements got a bit noisy sometimes, but it was alright.

He kept sitting after I stopped recording. I wanted to do some zazen too, but I couldn't see another zafu there. So I folded up a jacket I had in my bag and did zazen on that until he finished.

After zazen we had a cup of tea and a chat. A few people have asked me if he was okay after his recent house move. He's 89 now, and not as mobile as he used to be. And if you watch the video you'll notice that he hasn't completely recovered from a back injury he suffered a few years ago when he fell at his zazen dojo. When I asked how he was feeling, though, he said he was alright, although he noticed he was getting older day by day. While we were chatting he mentioned he gave a lecture last Saturday to some of his Japanese students in Tokyo. Overall he seemed to be doing pretty well.

I left at about 4:30. He told me the telephone company were due to come to his apartment later on to help set up his computer for email and the internet. He sounded like he was looking forward to getting his blog and email going again.

Hope you enjoy the video.

All the best,
Peter

Dharma Nature

2009-06-01T16:06:00.020+09:00

I just finished reading a short chapter titled "The Dharma Nature" in Dogen's Shobogenzo. It's chapter 54 in Book 3 of the Nishijima/Cross English translation. ( you can download book 3 here)

"Buddha Nature" is a phrase you come across a lot in Buddhism, but Dogen's the only person I've read so far who talks about Dharma Nature. In the intro to the Nishijima/Cross translation, they explain Dharma Nature as meaning the "essence of the universe", which makes it a pretty big deal. Here's the full intro:

---------
[54] HOSSHO
The Dharma-nature

Ho means Dharma, that is the Buddha's teaching, or the Universe itself. Sho means essence, or nature. So hossho means the Dharma-nature, or the essence of the Universe. Needless to say, we are living in the Universe. Therefore what the Universe means is one of the most important philosophical problems in our life. Some people insist that the Universe is something spiritual. Others insist that the Universe is something material. But from the Buddhist standpoint, the Universe is neither spiritual nor material, but something real. It is, however, very difficult to express the Universe as something real using words, because reality usually transcends explanation with words. Master Dogen undertook this difficult task, in order to express the nature of the Universe, in this chapter.

---------

It's one of those chapters you don't hear about so often, but it's a nice one nonetheless. Worth a look if you're interested in that kind of thing.

Regards,

Peter

Child Abuse

2009-05-22T11:13:00.048+09:00

I grew up near a town called Galway in the west of Ireland. Galway is well-known for its tourist attractions, and has some nice beaches and plenty of sightseeing spots nearby. One of the nicer parts of Galway is a place named Salthill which is popular for its beaches and nightlife. I spent a lot of time around Salthill when I was growing up, and had a girlfriend out that way for a few years. We were too young to go into bars or nightclubs, so we spent a lot time hanging around with not much to do.

One person I met while I was hanging around Salthill was a guy named Tom. He didn't live with his parents. Instead he stayed at an "industrial school" in Salthill. Industrial schools were mostly run by priests, and were set up to care for orphans or children who couldn't live with their mother or father for some reason. The idea was that the children could live under the care of priests at the schools, and also learn a trade or skill of some sort that could help them find a job when they were old enough to leave.

The industrial school Tom stayed at was run by priests from an order named the Christian Brothers. When I first heard it was run by priests I thought that it must be an okay place. But Tom used to tell us stories about some things that went on there. He made it sound like an awful place. The Christian Brothers were well known in Ireland for being strict disciplinarians, but the stories Tom told about the behavior of some priests seemed to go far beyond just strict discipline. When I heard some of his stories I used to think that he was making them up, and that a priest would never do some of the things he mentioned. But later on I found out that Tom was telling the truth about what was going on in the school, and that people who thought like I did were completely wrong.

Back in those days, priests were beyond reproach in Irish society. To make an accusation of wrong-doing against a priest was a very serious thing, and it would be hard to get anyone to believe you if you did. So anyone who made an accusation against a priest or religious person would likely be accused of lying.

Very slowly, though, the truth about what was going on in the industrial schools and similar institutions throughout Ireland started to come out. A lot of stories about child abuse in those places began to surface. It become clear that thousands of children had suffered abuse. The Irish government set up a commission to investigate what had happened. The commission took 10 years to report on their investigation. They finally published their report yesterday. You can read more about the report here. Here's the summary of what they found out. Their findings showed that the extent of child abuse was much worse than anyone had ever imagined.

Since the report was published, there's been a surge in calls to a helpline set up for victims of abuse at those institutions. It's clear that a lot more people were abused, but didn't or couldn't report it until now. It's also likely that such kind of child abuse has been going on for many, many years. We're only finding out about some of it now.

Beginner's mind retreat

2009-05-16T11:29:00.032+09:00

We held a 3-day zazen retreat last week at Tokei-in temple in Shizuoka, Japan. I was leading a retreat for the first time, so I was a bit nervous about how it was going to turn out. Thankfully, things worked out better than I expected. 18 people came, and there was a nice mix of different nationalities.

A lot of people who came were doing a zazen retreat for the first time. One or two people were even trying zazen for the first time. I thought that some of the zazen periods might be a bit hard for some people, but everyone seemed to get through them okay. There was a nice atmosphere at the retreat too. It may have been because a lot of people were doing a retreat for the first time and concentrating on the basics, including me in some ways. One person who was trying zazen for the first time told me she decided to come to the retreat when she heard about it from her friend. She didn't really know anything about zazen or Buddhism, but wanted to check it out anyway. At the end of the retreat she told me she figured having no particular ideas or expectations about what the retreat was going to be like was probably the best way for her. She said she could just accept it all as it was.

I learned a lot by "leading" the retreat. I'd seen Gudo Nishijima hold retreats there before and give talks and so on, but I never really knew how much it involved from his side. He used to put a lot of effort into his talks and into answering people's questions and the other things he did there. Going back on the train to Tokyo with him after some of his retreats I used to notice how exhausted he was. I can understand where he was coming from a bit better now. It was nice to lead the retreat and I enjoyed giving the talks, but I realized it requires plenty of energy too.

On the last day we had a general discussion about the retreat in which everyone gave their impressions or some feedback about the retreat. Most people seemed happy enough with the way it went. One or two people mentioned it might be good to incorporate some stretching exercises into the retreat. That's a fair point, and is something for me to work on for next time. I also got a few emails with some feedback after the retreat. Here's part of an email from someone who was doing a zazen retreat for the first time :

-----
...The discussion on the last day about full and half lotus also reminded me of my tendency to sometimes think "if only..." in regard to my sitting. When I first started sitting at home I used to sit on a pile of sweatshirts. If I was having problems settling I would sometimes think things would be different if only I had a zafu. So I made a zafu. And to be honest, it's a bit more convenient but that's about it. So I started thinking about the fantastic balance I would have if only I could sit full lotus... and so it goes on :-)

So it was good to be reminded that I shouldn't get frustrated chasing some imagined perfect state that only exists in my imagination. Just sit without expectation and accept that my legs are a bit wonky sometimes.
-----

Thanks again to everyone who came to the retreat, and to the people who inquired but didn't make it this time. Hope we can do it again next year.

Regards,

Peter

Golden Week 3-Day Zazen Retreat

2009-03-20T16:47:00.026+09:00

“Golden Week” is the name the Japanese give to a week around the beginning of May that’s got three or four national holidays in a row. It’s a nice week as almost everyone’s off work and school, and the weather's usually good. The only problem with golden week is that a lot of places you might want to visit, like Kyoto, are packed with tourists. The airports are real busy as well, as a lot of people use the week to head overseas. Airline prices rocket up around then too, so it’s not such a good time to go anywhere by air. One good place to visit in golden week, though, is Tokyo. The streets and trains aren’t half as busy as normal and you can get to a lot of places without any hassle. Just don’t even think of going to Tokyo Disneyland.

Another nice place to visit around then is Shizuoka, which, incidentally, is where I’ll be holding a 3-day zazen retreat in May. The last time I did a retreat in Shizuoka in May was in 1996. I’d just started going to Gudo Nishijima’s Saturday Zazen meetings a few months earlier, and someone there had told me about a retreat Nishijima was going to be holding sometime in May. I asked Nishijima about the retreat, and he said I could go along as his “guest”. It turned out the May retreat was for employees of the cosmetics company he used to work at. He held four retreats for the company each year, as well as an English retreat for his foreign students and one for his Japanese students.

Most of the people at the company retreat I went to were, you guessed it, folks that worked at the cosmetics company. But Nishijima had an arrangement with the company that meant he could invite up to 6 people as his guests too. Going as a guest was a great deal, as it meant I could attend for free. I’d never been to any kind of Buddhist retreat before that and didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out to be alright. There were 3 other foreigners there as Nishijima’s guests too, and they filled me on what to do during the retreat. The schedule wasn’t so full of zazen either, which made it good for someone like me who was just starting off.

One of the main things I remember about that retreat was hearing a bird singing outside the zendo while we were all in doing zazen. It was a bird that the Japanese call the “uguisu”. The dictionary I have translates “uguisu” as the (Japanese) nightingale. The uguisu sings a very long and distinctive song that goes on and on and on. And just around May is the season when it’s looking for a mate (or at least the one I heard was), so that guy sang and sang right through zazen. I’d heard the uguisu singing before but never really noticed it, but whatever it was about sitting on my zafu in the zendo there, I could hear it loud and clear. I’m pretty sure everyone else could too. So that’s my little memory of my first ever Buddhist retreat. (Now, wasn’t that nice?)

Another thing I remember about that retreat was sitting on the same platform as Nishijima when I was doing zazen. In the zendo there you sit on kind of wooden platforms (I don’t know if that’s the right word) that are about 50 centimeters off the ground. Each platform is big enough for two or three people to sit on for zazen. Anyway, for some reason or other I was put on the same platform as Nishijima. I’d just started doing zazen regularly about 4 months previously, so I was really nervous about having to sit on the same platform like that. Luckily there was another foreign guy there, called Herve, and he sat in the middle between me and Nishijima so I could kind of hide a bit. Not that Nishijima cared of course, but you know how it is when you’re just starting like that. You feel like you should be doing it exactly “right”. Anyway, after I while I relaxed a bit and realized it wasn’t so bad sitting on the same platform with Nishijima, and it didn’t matter much about my funny posture.

Anyway, one reason I’m telling you all this is that this year I’ll be holding a retreat for the first time at Tokei-in temple in Shizuoka for three days in golden week. Tokei-in is the same temple that Gudo Nishijima used to hold his retreats at. So if you’ll be in Japan around golden week and want to spend a few days at a Buddhist temple, then why not drag yourself along to Tokei-in for our little retreat. Anyone interested is welcome. The dates and times and other details are below. Email me at procca@gol.com if you need more information.

________________________________________
3-Day Zazen Retreat in Shizuoka
- May 3 to 5, 2009 -
________________________________________

We will hold a three-day Zazen Retreat, Zazen practice and lectures on Buddhism, at a temple in Shizuoka City from May 3 to May 5, 2009. Instructions and lectures will be given in English. Anyone interested is invited to attend and participate in the full, but not exhausting, schedule of Zazen practice, lectures, and meals taken in the traditional style. Beginners are welcome. The quiet, tea-covered hills surrounding the temple provide a pleasant setting for a brief taste of Buddhist life.

Dates: From Sunday, May 3 at 1 p.m. to Tuesday, May 5, at 2 p.m.

Place: Tokei-in (a Soto school temple)
Address: 1840 Hatori, Shizuoka City, 421-12. Phone: 0542-78-9724

Lectures: There will be four lectures during the retreat. The lectures will focus on the teachings of Zen Master Dogen, who introduced Buddhism to Japan from China in the 13th century.

Cost: 10,000 yen excluding transportation fare.

Clothes: Comfortable clothing is recommended for practicing Zazen.

Deadline: Registration will be accepted by email (procca@gol.com) up to Thursday April 23rd, 2009.

Transportation and directions to the temple:

Shizuoka is about 180 km west of Tokyo, 1 hour or so from Tokyo by Tokaido Shinkansen (bullet train). A single one-way ticket costs 5,670 yen. The easiest way to reach the temple is by taxi from the north exit of Shizuoka station. Tell the driver "Hatori no Tokei-in." Participants should plan to arrive by 12 o'clock.

Most of the participants will be traveling to Shizuoka together from Tokyo. We will meet at 9.30 am on May 3 outside the outer ticket gate at the Yaesu Central Entrance (Yaesu-Chuo-Guchi) of JR Tokyo station, and then travel by the Tokaido-Shinkansen Hikari No. 467 train, leaving Tokyo station at 10:03 and stopping at Shizuoka at 11:06. You are welcome to join this group.

If you are going directly to Shizuoka, you can meet with the group coming from Tokyo outside the ticket barrier at the North Entrance at Shizuoka station at around 11:10.

Happy Paddy's Day!

2009-03-18T10:15:00.009+09:00

My memory of Saint Patrick's Day in Galway was doing the guard of honor for the parade in the rain with the FCA. It wasn't much fun standing around all morning getting wet, but we got to see the majorettes up close and later on we were given a free lunch in Lydon's restaurant, which was a big deal for most of us.

A few years later I was living in New York and went to see the massive parade on fifth avenue over there. I ended up staying out most of the night speaking in my Irish accent (from the bits I remember). Paddy's Day in Galway was never the same again.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Peter

Pedaling Buddha

2009-03-12T17:48:00.027+09:00

I recorded part of a chat I had with Gudo Nishijima recently about the difference between doing zazen regularly and not doing it regularly (or not doing it at all even). Nishijima thinks doing zazen regularly is the most important part of Buddhism. Doing it everyday helps us stay "balanced". He compared doing zazen to riding a bike. If we keep pedaling we keep our balance and the bike keeping moving, but if we stop pedaling we end up losing our balance and falling off.

I asked him some other things too, like what he thinks "Buddha" is.

You can download the mp3 file here (lasts about 6 minutes).

Now I'd better go and get a new bike,

Peter

Looking at a Picture

2009-01-29T17:40:00.013+09:00

Shobogenzo is the title of a well-known book by a Japanese monk named Master Dogen. Dogen wrote many texts on Buddhism, but Shobogenzo is regarded as his most important. It’s a collection of lectures Dogen gave during his life. It can be a difficult book to read, though, because in Shobogenzo Dogen is trying to describe reality with words. It’s not an easy thing to do, so some parts are hard to understand because he doesn’t write things the way we’re used to. If you read Shobogenzo you’ll find places where you don’t have a clue what Dogen is trying to say –at least, I don’t anyway. When that happens though I just keep reading through the passage, and after a while there’s usually a bit that’s not too hard to understand.

One interesting thing about Shobogenzo is that it was kept more or less secret for several hundred years after Dogen died. One reason for this was that Dogen's ideas were very ahead of his time, so the priests who followed Dogen figured it best to keep the book hidden away in Dogen's old temple called Eihei-ji. The first time it was published was the start of the 19th century, which was about 600 years after Dogen had died. That's a long time. Even then it took another hundred years or so before it began to attract attention from anyone other than a small number of priests in Japan. I think one reason it took so long for Shobogenzo to be published was that some of the stuff Dogen wrote must have seemed pretty strange, even to Buddhists. There are also parts where he criticizes people that he felt were misrepresenting Buddhism, which was probably a dangerous thing to do in medieval Japan.

I used to wonder about the point of reading the Shobogenzo when it was hard to understand a lot of what was written. I asked Gudo Nishijima about whether he thought it was important to understand everything in the Shobogenzo when you read it. He said “No, no. Reading Shobogenzo is like looking at a picture. When we’re reading a particular chapter or paragraph some parts stick out and make an impression, while other parts don’t. But it’s good to just read it anyway.” I stopped worrying about how well I understood the Shobogenzo after that.

Not all the chapters in Shobogenzo are difficult to understand, but some of them definitely are. That's maybe one reason people might buy a copy of Shobogenzo Book 1 (the first 21 chapters), but then won’t bother to read Books 2, 3, or 4. It takes a bit of effort to read some of those chapters. I can understand that. At the same time, though, if you're interested in Buddhism it's a pity not to try to read the rest of it. Some of the later chapters are shorter and easier to understand.

My own way of reading Shobogenzo is to pretty simple. I just start at Chapter 1 in Book 1 and read the chapters one after the other. Sometimes I hit a chapter that I get bogged down in and it can take me few weeks to finish it. That happened me recently with a chapter titled “Bussho” (The Buddha Nature). Bussho is the first chapter of Book 2 in the Nishijima/Cross translation, and it’s a hard one to understand. But I decided to just stick with reading it and eventually managed to finish it, even though a lot of it went right over my head.

As well as reading Shobogenzo cover to cover like that, sometimes I just pick out a chapter at random and read it through. That’s kind of a hit and miss way I suppose, but it can be easier to read some chapters like that.

The Shobogenzo translation I read is by Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross. It's made up of four volumes. Each volume has about 25 chapters. You can download volume 1 and 2 from the Numata Center website. It sounds like they’ll eventually have volumes 3 and 4 on there for downloading as well. There are other English translations of the Shobogenzo out there too, but the Nishijima/Cross version is the only one I’m familiar with.

The best known chapters in Shobogenzo are probably Bendowa (chapter 1) and Genjo Koan (ch. 3). Bussho (chapter 22), the chapter I was stuck on for a while, is also considered an “important” chapter. For me though, just about any of the chapters in Shobogenzo are worth reading, because you can pick up some point or idea Dogen had about Buddhism from any chapter. That’s why I think it’s a good idea to read the whole 95 chapters if you can. That way you get a better understanding of what Dogen was about. It’s also something you can brag about to your friends or mention down at your local zen group. It’ll be sure to increase your street cred (at least a little).

Having said all that, here are just a few chapters in Shobogenzo that aren't among the best known ones, but which are worth a bit of a read:

1. Raihai-Tokuzui [Prostrating to Attainment of the Marrow] -- Chapter 8 (Book 1)
In this one, Dogen gives us his take on the equality of men, women, and children in Buddhism. He says we should respect anyone who has got the Buddhist truth, regardless of whether that person is a man, a woman or a child. Nowadays Dogen’s idea doesn’t seem so strange, but it probably would’ve sounded pretty radical at many Buddhist temples in medieval Japan. Here’s an excerpt (from the Nishijima/Cross translation):

Again in Japan, there is one particularly laughable institution. This is either called a ‘sanctuary’ or called a “place for practicing the truth of the Great Vehicle” where bhiksunis (nuns) and other women are not allowed to enter.

2. Gyoji [Pure Conduct and Observance] -- Chapter 30 (Book 2)
Buddhism is based on action. In this chapter Dogen quotes lots of examples of the action of Buddhist masters down through the centuries. It’s a fairly straightforward chapter to read. It’s an encouraging one for anyone practicing zazen on a regular basis. Nishijima told me it’s one of his favorites:

Master Chokei Eryo was a venerable patriarch in the order of Seppo. Going back and forth between Seppo and Gensa, he learned in practice for a small matter of twenty-nine years, In those years and months he sat through twenty round cushions. People today who love Zazen cite Chokei as an excellent example of an adorable ancient – many adore him, but few equal him.

3. Butsudo [The Buddhist Truth] – Chapter 49 (Book 3)
In this chapter Dogen says that there is only one Buddhism – the Buddhism established by Gautama Buddha in India. Dogen disapproved of using words like “Zen” Buddhism, or of describing different sects like the “Rinzai sect” or “Soto sect.” Nowadays, some people make a big deal about differences between various types of Buddhism. But as far as Dogen was concerned true Buddhism is just the Buddhism of Gautama Buddha:

Do not concede that the Buddha-Dharma might even exist among people who claim to be the “Zen Sect”. Who has invented the name “Zen Sect”? None of the buddhas and ancestral masters has ever used the name “Zen Sect”. Remember, the name “Zen Sect” has been devised by devils and demons.

4. Zanmai-o-zanmai [The Samadhi That is King of Samadhis] – Chapter 72 (Book 3)
The word "samadhi" means the "balanced state of body and mind". In daily life, there are lots of times when we might feel "balanced", like after a long walk or a jog or doing some activity. But in this one, Dogen says the balanced state we feel when we do zazen is the best one. So Dogen described zazen as the king of the samadhis:

My late Master, the eternal Buddha, says, ‘To practice Zazen is to get free of body and mind. Just to sit is to have attainment from the beginning. It is not necessary to burn incense, to do prostrations, to recite the Buddha’s name, to confess, or to read sutras.’

Regards,

Peter

Year-Crossing Noodles and Zazen

2008-12-31T18:50:00.004+09:00

Japan more or less shuts down for the first few days of the New Year. Most businesses are closed and people tend to stay home and take it easy.

It's traditional to visit a shrine or temple in the first few days of the year here to pray for happiness or whatever it is you hope for in the coming year. Most people still do that, so the temples and shrines get very crowded around this time. Tonight, New Year's Eve, is the busiest night of the year for most temples and shrines. Thousands of people will be lining up at some of the temples, waiting to get in their prayer first thing in 2009. It's considered a fun thing to do, and for a lot of people it'll be the only time they'll visit a temple all year.

Another tradition is to eat traditional food called "osechi-ryori" during the first few days of the New Year. Osechi-ryori is only eaten around this time of the year and the shops usually don't sell it any other time. My wife went to the supermarket earlier today to buy an "osechi set", but they were all sold out. So it's no osechi-ryori for us this time.

The traditional food for New Year's Eve is "toshi-koshi soba". "Toshi" means "year", "koshi" means something like "cross over" and soba are buckwheat noodles. My English translation is "year-crossing noodles", although that web site link translates it as "end the old year and enter the new year soba noodles". As you can guess from that name, Japanese people eat them on New Years Eve to mark the end of the old year and the start of a new one. They're also made longer than normal noodles to signify leading a long life. We managed to pick up some of those today, so we'll be having "year-crossing noodles" and tempura tonight.

The other thing I'm hoping to do later is some "year-crossing zazen". I'll probably start around 11.40 and continue to around twenty past midnight.

One other thing that happens over here on New Year's Eve is the temples all ring their bells 108 times around midnight. Usually we can hear the bells from our house.

Hope you have a good New Year's Eve wherever you are, and thanks for reading my little blog.

Nishijima-Cross Shobogenzo translation online

2008-12-08T16:40:00.014+09:00

I just read on Mike Cross's blog "Treasury of the Eye of True Sitting" that Book One of the Nishijima-Cross Shobogenzo translation is available online from the Numata Centre website.

Sounds like Books 2-4 will be online as well in the future. Good news.

Regards,

Peter

Gudo Nishijima Roshi's 89th Birthday Lecture - What I Want To Do

2008-11-30T12:19:00.025+09:00

My teacher, Gudo Nishijima, gave a talk in English at Dogen Sangha's Saturday zazen meeting in Tokyo yesterday. He doesn't give talks in English there so often now, but he agreed to give one yesterday as it coincided with his 89th birthday.

The theme of his talk was "What I Want to Do." He covered quite a few topics during the talk. Some of the things he spoke about were how Buddhism is different to idealism and materialism, his ideas about Western civilization and Buddhism, and whether Buddhism is a religion or not. He also talked about how he used to doubt if there really was something called "the truth", and how he thinks people should study the truth if they want to be happy. He also answered questions on Zazen practice and other topics for about 15 minutes at the end.

I recorded the talk on my digital recorder. Click here to download the audio file (about 22 Mb).

Btw, at the start of the lecture we recited "The Verse to Open the Sutras" in Japanese. That lasts about a minute. After that, Gudo Nishijima starts his talk in English.

And here’s a link to Nishijima Roshi's blog.

All the best,

Peter

One Person's Zazen

2008-11-11T22:37:00.013+09:00

"Remember, even if the countless buddhas in ten directions, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, tried with all their power and all their Buddha-wisdom to calculate or comprehend the merit of one person's Zazen, they could not even get close."

- Master Dogen

Man of the Moment

2008-11-06T11:40:00.008+09:00

"Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place," - Nelson Mandela

Well done Barrack!

The Eternal Mirror

2008-11-04T17:03:00.017+09:00

A while ago I wrote about the Heart Sutra and something Buddhists refer to as“prajna” or "real wisdom". When I first heard Gudo Nishijima talking about prajna I found it hard to believe what he was saying. I’d never heard anyone talk about that kind of thing before, and I assumed something called “prajna” or "real wisdom" didn’t actually exist. But after a few years of going to Nishijima's talks I began to think that maybe what he was saying was true after all. His idea was that we develop some sort of intuition by practicing Zazen regularly, and that that intuition helps guide our actions and decisions so we don’t commit “wrong” actions or make “wrong” decisions. But Nishijima wasn’t talking about intuition as some kind of extraordinary ability we get from practicing Zazen. The way he described it, it was like a natural function we all have but most of us don’t work on or notice much.

Sometimes you can meet people in Buddhism who have strange ideas about extraordinary abilities they have. I spoke with a man recently who told me about a Buddhist teacher he studied with for 10 years. He described some things that happened at his former teacher's retreats. He said one time his teacher, a Buddhist nun, claimed some special power she had made a hurricane change course so it didn’t come to where they were doing their retreat. At another of her retreats, my friend said that he had been sick for the first few days of the retreat and had to stay in bed. He had some medicine in his bag, but didn't want to use it at the retreat. After a few days though, my friend started to take his medicine and began to feel better and walk around. When his teacher saw that, she declared to her students that her powers had helped cure my friend’s illness. When that happened, my friend finally decided to give up on his teacher because she was claiming things that weren't true. But he said some of her students believed the stories about hurricanes and miraculous cures.

I asked my friend why he joined in the first place. He said someone told him about that teacher's group, so he went along to one of her meetings. He said it was good at the beginning, but things started to change after a while. The teacher began to act differently and didn’t want people questioning her ideas or teachings. Later on money became more and more important to her. He told me that his ex-teacher still holds retreats now, but that it costs a lot to attend them. She also looks for donations of a few hundred dollars from anyone who attends.

Someone else I know told me that his first Zen teacher used to charge him 100 dollars an hour when he visited him to ask about Buddhism. My friend came to his senses after a while and stopped visiting that teacher and handing him the 100 bucks. But he was annoyed about what had happened, so he decided to check out the teacher’s background. His teacher had told him that he trained for several years with a well-known teacher at some temple in Asia, so my friend took the trouble to visit the temple to check out the teacher’s story. When my friend visited the temple he asked the monks if they knew his former teacher. But, you guessed it, no-one there had ever heard of the guy.

If you're interested in Buddhism, sometimes you can be unlucky enough to meet people who aren't what they claim to be or who are different from what they claim to be. In those situations, most people can figure out fairly fast that something isn’t right. But sometimes it can be hard to know. Those "teachers" usually know something about Buddhism, and if they know more than you know they'll use that to take advantage of you. Sometimes, there’ll be stuff on their website or whatever about how they studied with some famous teacher and practiced at some well-known temple in Asia or something like that. And if you meet them in person they’ll tell you the same thing. So it can be hard to know if they're lying, or exactly how much of what they’re saying is true. In my friend’s case, he was unhappy about being ripped off by his teacher so he went to some trouble to check out the teacher’s background. But most people probably wouldn't bother. They'll just accept what’s written on the website or what the teacher tells them as the truth. And even if you try to check out about a particular “teacher,” sometimes it can be hard to find out for sure.

Luckily, most Buddhist teachers aren't like that, and if you look around a bit you can usually come across a decent teacher. It’s harder though if you find a teacher that feels right for you, and then later on you start to see the teacher in a different light. Then you’ve got to decide is it worth sticking with the teacher or should you give up and try going elsewhere. And that might be hard if the teacher is giving you the impression that if you stick around just a bit longer he’ll help you solve the “great mystery”.

There are a lot of reasons people who know something about Buddhism become like that. The obvious one is they want to become rich and/or famous. It’s nothing new. Back in the 13th century, the Japanese Zen Master Dogen wrote about people “who only use Buddhism as a bridge to fame and gain”. So even back in Dogen's time people were using Buddhism to get rich or famous. Another reason is that some people like to have power or control over others. It's nothing new either. But of course those things go against what Buddhism is about. Buddhism is about seeing reality as it is and living the best life we can. It’s not meant to be a business or a way to become famous or control people. But there'll always be people who don't see it that way.

I met Gudo Nishijima after I'd been living in Japan for a few years. I didn’t really know anything about Buddhism, but I’d been doing some Zazen at home and had gone to a one-day Zen retreat at a temple in Kyoto. Back then, the Internet wasn’t really around, and it was hard to find information on Zen groups. But someone I met at that one-day retreat told me about a book called “Zen Guide” that had information about Zen groups in Japan. I bought the book and started to check the places it had listed for Tokyo. I went along to a Zazen sitting at one temple it listed, but there wasn't an awful lot happening there. I checked out some other groups it mentioned too, but they all seemed to have closed down or the person who was teaching had left. One group the Zen Guide did mention was what it called the “Nishijima Group”. It described Nishijima as a “businessman-priest.” When I read that part I decided not to visit Nishijima’s group, because I'd no interest in learning Buddhism from a "businessman-priest". But after I'd called all the other places, the Nishijima group was the only place left I hadn’t tried. So I called up Nishijima and he told me to come to his next Zazen meeting, which I did.

That was about 12 years ago, and I’ve been studying with him since then. One thing about Nishijima is that he’s never asked me for money or donations. As far as I could see he paid for his Buddhist activities out of his own pocket. When he held 3-day retreats for his English students, he used to pay a lot of his own money each time to help cover the cost. His idea was to work a regular job and pay for his Buddhist activity himself. His first job was in the Japanese government. Later on he worked in a securities firm, and after that he worked as an advisor for a cosmetics company. He kept working there until he was 85.

Like I said, when I first heard Nishijima talk about “prajna” I doubted what he was saying. But I did wonder why an elderly Japanese man like Nishijima (he was 76 when I met him) would bother saying something like that if it wasn’t true. That’s one reason I kept going to his talks. I couldn't see any reason why he'd want to lie. Of course Nishijima isn't the only Buddhist teacher who talks about prajna. The Heart Sutra is based on it, and a lot of other Buddhist teachers will tell you about prajna too. Master Dogen wrote about prajna as well. In Shobogenzo, there’s a chapter called “Kokyo”in which he talks about “the eternal mirror”. It's not an easy chapter to understand, but the introduction to it from the Nishijima/Cross translation gives an idea what it's about:

-----
[20] KOKYO

The Eternal Mirror

Ko means "ancient" or "eternal" and kyo means "mirror," so kokyo means "the eternal mirror." And what "the eternal mirror" means is the question. In this chapter Master Dogen quoted Master Seppo Gison's words "When a foreigner comes in front of the mirror, the mirror reflects the foreigner." From these words we can understand the eternal mirror as a symbol of some human mental faculty. The eternal mirror suggests the importance of reflection, so we can suppose that the eternal mirror is a symbol of the intuitional faculty. In Buddhist philosophy, the intuition is called prajna, or real wisdom. Real wisdom in Buddhism means our human intuitional faculty on which all our decisions are based. Buddhism esteems this real wisdom more than reason or sense-perception. Our real wisdom is the basis for our decisions, and our decisions decide our life, so we can say that our real wisdom decides the course of our life. For this reason, it is very natural for Master Dogen to explain the eternal mirror. At the same time, we must find another meaning of the eternal mirror, because Master Dogen also quoted other words of Master Seppo Gison, "Every monkey has the eternal mirror on its back." Therefore we can think that the eternal mirror means not only human real wisdom, but also some intuitional faculty of animals. So we must widen the meaning of the eternal mirror, and understand it as a symbol of the intuitional faculty which both human beings and animals have. Furthermore Master Seppo Gison said, "When the world is ten feet wide, the eternal mirror is ten feet wide. When the world is one foot wide, the eternal mirror is one foot wide." These words suggest the eternal mirror is the world itself. So we can say that the eternal mirror is not only a symbol of an individual faculty but is also something universal. From ancient times Buddhists have discussed the eternal mirror. In this chapter Master Dogen explains the meaning of the eternal mirror in Buddhism, quoting the words of ancient Buddhist masters.
----

Regards,

- Peter

Gudo Nishijima on Buddhism, realism, intuition, and precepts

2008-10-08T15:28:00.023+09:00

Below is a link to an audio recording of a talk I had with my teacher Gudo Nishijima yesterday. It's an MP3 file that lasts around 18 minutes (4 megabytes).

In the first part, Nishijima Roshi talks about the difference between Buddhism and Western philosophies.

Then I asked a question about a story in chapter 20 "Kokyo" in Dogen's Shobogenzo (paragraph [139]). The story's about two Zen master's talking about what they call the "Eternal Mirror".

Next Nishijima talks about his theory on how doing Zazen relates to the autonomic nervous system.

After that I asked him where he thinks Buddhist intuition comes from.

In the last part he discusses his ideas on the Buddhist precepts.

Well, our talk went something like that anyway.

Click here to download.

Regards,

peter

Right Action

2008-07-25T19:36:00.013+09:00

I went to a talk in Tokyo last Saturday by my Zen teacher, Gudo Nishijima. Nishijima used to give regular lectures on Buddhism in Japanese and English at a number of places in Tokyo and other parts of Japan until he went into semi-retirement about five years ago. He stopped giving talks completely for a while, but some of his students asked him back to give one talk each month in Tokyo. His students in Osaka heard about it and asked him to give a talk each month in Osaka too. From what I saw on Saturday, he looked happy to be teaching again.

There were around 25-30 people there on Saturday. Mostly his Japanese students, with me and a couple of other non-Japanese guys there too. Here’s a summary of the talk, or as much of it as I could take notes on. Sorry if this post is a bit disjointed.

The talk was mostly about “action at the present moment.” He spoke about the difference between our action and our thinking and sense perception. In everyday life we tend to assume that the thoughts we have in our head are actually true in the real world. But that’s not necessarily the case. Even though we can think lots of things in our brain, those things don’t always turn out to be true in reality. An obvious example is when you think something is going to turn out one way, but it turns out differently. If you want to take it a bit further, if you look back at ancient times, people used to have a lot of strange ideas about the world, like the world was flat or the sun rotated around the earth, but science proved that reality was different to the way people thought it was.

It’s kind of a similar situation with sense perception. When we look at something or hear something, we get sense stimuli in our brain. But those stimuli aren’t always accurate. We sometimes find out later that the sense stimuli in our brain didn’t reflect the actual situation too well. Of course, the objects that we look at are real, but the sense stimuli in our brain are different from the actual objects themselves. The stimuli are our way of interpreting the objects that we look at or touch or whatever. In some cases our sense organs just aren’t equipped to pick up the total situation of what’s happening. So sometimes we just perceive things partially, not completely. You can get an idea of this if you compare your hearing function with a dog’s hearing function, or your sense of smell with a dog’s sense of smell. Compared to a dog, our sense perception equipment isn’t too great.

That’s kind of related to why Buddhism says our real life is based on action. Thinking and sense perception support our actions, but the most important thing is just to act. If you want to do something or change some situation in reality, you have to act. Just thinking about something or noticing sense perceptions of something won’t make any real difference in reality.

So is life based on thinking or sense perception, or is life based on action?

Buddhism says our life is not just based on thinking or on perception. It says our life is based on what we do at the present moment. In other words life is based on action.

So what’s the connection between practicing Zazen and action?

When we do Zazen we enter what Nishijima refers to as “the balanced state”. The balanced state is a state where our body and mind are balanced with each other. If you’ve never done Zazen, an example of the balanced state might be how you feel when you’ve just done some kind of sport. After doing some sport, you probably won’t be thinking too much or perceiving things too strongly. It’s kind of like that when you do Zazen. And when we’re not thinking too much or perceiving things too strongly we can act naturally.

In Buddhism, this kind of natural action when our body and mind are balanced is very important. Because Buddhism says that natural action is “right” action. Nishijima calls it “action in accordance with the universal law” or “action in accordance with the rule of the universe”. Another word Buddhists use for “universal law” is “Dharma”. So if we practice Zazen everyday, our action should tend to be in accordance with the natural laws in the universe.

One important thing about “right action” is that it brings good or neutral consequences or effects. In other words, if you do a right action, you won’t be faced with bad effects as a result later on. And if you keep doing “right action” for a while, life starts to gradually get smoother. Because you no longer have to deal with some kind of bad or problematic situations as the result of some "wrong" action you did previously. And if you don’t have to spend a lot of time dealing with “bad stuff”, you can enjoy your life more and maybe enjoy your Zazen a bit more too.

So that’s the connection between Zazen and action. If you do Zazen regularly you might notice life starting to get a bit smoother or at least involving less hassle. The situation won’t be perfect of course, because even though we do Zazen there’ll bound to be times when we mess up for one reason or another. But overall things should improve.

At this point someone asked about the meaning of “the middle way”, which is what Buddhism is sometimes called. Nishijima’s answer was that “the middle way” is the middle between body and mind.

Next, someone asked Nishijima what reality is. Nishijima used the example of the sun.
He said something like:
"The sun rose in the eastern sky yesterday.
The sun rises in the eastern sky today.
I guess that the sun will rise in the eastern sky tomorrow.
This is what reality is. "

Someone asked about the difference between “right action” and other kinds of action.
Nishijima said that right action occurs when our body and mind are balanced, when we’re in the “balanced state”. He said he also considers the “balanced state” to be balance in our autonomic nervous system. When we do Zazen, our body and mind enter a state of balance with each other, and right action occurs naturally. Other kinds of action are done when we are not in the balanced state. Sometimes those kinds of action have undesirable consequences or effects.

Someone asked if thinking is the same as action. Nishijima said there’s a difference. Action is done with the entire body, while thinking is done with our brain cells. He said living means that our body is moving, thinking means that our brain cells are moving.

Near the end, he was asked to talk a bit more about the difference between action and thinking and sense perception. He said:
"What we think is not reality,
what we perceive (the sense stimuli) is not reality,
what we do (our action) is reality."

Someone then asked about doing things like watching movies or listening to music in the balanced state. Nishijima said that the balanced state is our ordinary state, so we can enjoy art, music, movies and so on in that state.

That was about it.

Regards,

Peter

The Adventures of Dogen

2008-07-17T12:35:00.020+09:00

There’s a show on in Tokyo at the moment called “The Adventures of Dogen”. It’s a musical based on the life of a 13th-century Japanese monk Dogen. Dogen is famous in Japan for establishing the Soto Zen sect here.

The role of Dogen in the show is split between one actress and one actor. The actress is Chiaki Kuriyama. She plays Dogen as a youth. She’s well-known in Japan and appeared in the movie Kill Bill. Another well-known Japanese actor named Hiroshi Abe plays the older Dogen. That’s Chiaki and Hiroshi in the photo with their wigs on.

As part of his role, Hiroshi has to do Zazen on stage for 40 minutes! When he was asked what it felt like, he said “It’s a battle with wicked thoughts and drowsiness.” I know what he means.

Anyway, the show is being held in Theatre Cocoon at Bunkamura in Shibuya. Looks like the cheapest seats (called "Cocoon seats" by the way) are 5,000 yen.

Might be worth a look. I just wonder what Dogen would say?

Summer in Japan and Zazen retreats

2008-07-09T19:51:00.029+09:00

It’s been a while since my last post. I won't bore you with reasons why I haven't been blogging for a while, just got a bit bogged down with some stuff.

One thing that kept me a bit busy for a while was preparing to come to Japan for the summer with my family, where I'm writing this from. It was nice to get back here for a while, although I'm still getting used to the heat.

Another thing that happened me recently was I went to my first Zazen retreat ever outside Japan (in France in May). I'd been to a good few retreats in Japan with Gudo Nishijima, but never to one outside Japan before. One reason I've only been to retreats in Japan is that there were no Buddhist groups around when I was growing up (I lived in Ireland and we was mostly all Catholics). Another reason was there was just no information about Buddhism anywhere when I was younger. It was long before the Internet, and the only Buddhist book I remember seeing in our local bookstore was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was the first Zen book I ever read. It wasn't a bad book, but didn't tell me an awful lot about Zen Buddhism.

Even when I got to Japan, it took me a while to check out Buddhism. What eventually got me hooked was a one-day Zazen retreat I did at a temple in Kyoto. When I did zazen there I felt like I'd found something I wanted to check out more. Later on I moved to Tokyo and was lucky enough to come across Gudo Nishijima.

So basically I hadn’t a clue about Buddhist groups or teachers even when I was practicing with Nishijima’s group. I remember one time a guy at one of Nishijima’s talks in Tokyo gave me a copy of Shunryu Suzuki’s famous book “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.” He looked surprised when I told him I'd never heard of Shunryu Suzuki. I read the book but didn’t think an awful lot about it. Not to say it’s not a good book, I just wasn’t really interested in Buddhist books then. I was just trying to learn whatever I could from Nishijima. Probably the fact that some guy I didn't know just handed me the book made me a bit uneasy about reading it too. I think I felt it could be like one of those books the Hare Krishnas hand out. Of course, I found out later I was wrong. In fact, the guy who gave me the book used to carry a supply of “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” books around with him in a satchel. He told me his way of spreading Buddhism was presenting a copy of Suzuki's book to people.

I’ve kind of gotten off the subject a little, but that was one reason I wanted to go to a retreat outside Japan - to see if there was much difference between the Zen retreats I'd been to with Gudo Nishijima and a retreat overseas. Obviously, I did notice some differences at the retreat in France, but the zazen wasn't too different.

By the way, when I was at the retreat there someone asked me what Nishijima's retreats in Japan were like. Basically, Nishijima liked to keep the retreats kind of simple and also follow his understanding of Dogen's way. So at the retreats we'd do Zazen, Nishijima would give four talks, we'd have meals in the traditional style, everyone would do 40 minutes of light work each morning, and we'd also have a good bit of free time. The Dogen Sangha retreat in September is still held in the same way that Nishijima followed, so if you're in Japan around that time it might be worth checking out.

In case anyone else is interested, here's a copy of the daily schedule from one of Nishijima's Zazen retreats (click on the "Zazen Retreat Schedule" link underneath if you want to see the original version). It's much the same schedule for the current Dogen Sangha retreats too, except an extra day.

Zazen Retreat Schedule - Upload a Document to Scribd

One more thing. At that retreat in France I was chatting to someone who told me she'd just started doing Zazen a couple of months ago, but that the very first time she did zazen she felt like it was the thing for her. I told her I felt the same way when I first did zazen too, although I never expected to be still doing it years later.

Zazen Notes 4: Shikantaza - just to sit

2008-04-18T00:37:00.027+09:00

Buddhism started off in India about 2,500 years ago. It was begun by a man named Gautama who was the son of the king of a small kingdom. Gautama had a very comfortable life as the son of the king. But he eventually began to wonder about “the meaning of life” and whether there was any kind of real truth. When he was 29 he decided to leave his family and his home to try to find some kind of truth. Gautama visited different teachers and tried different methods that they told him would help him. But after about seven years he reached a point where he'd became very thin and frail, and he began to wonder if there might not be a better way to find some kind of truth.

He left the small group of ascetics he was practicing with and started to eat and drink properly again. He also began to consider about what might be a better way to find the truth. At that time, he recalled an experience he had sitting under a tree as a teenager. He remembered the good feeling he had when he was just sitting under the tree. So he decided to try that kind of sitting again. He found a nice tree near a river bank, and began to sit under the tree in the cross-legged posture. This time, though, he just sat there without any particular aim. He wasn’t thinking about mantras or enlightenment or things like that. He just sat there in the cross-legged posture.

The story goes that one morning while he was sitting under the tree, Gautama saw a star in the morning sky and was awakened. After that he devoted his life to teaching other people what he had discovered. The basis for what Gautama Buddha taught people was the simple sitting that he had done under the tree. Gradually more people joined him and Buddhism slowly spread.

One of the places that Buddhism spread to was China. In those days, the main link between India and China was the Silk Road, which was a series of routes connecting East and West Asia. The early Buddhist monks made there way along the Silk Road and eventually reached China. It’s impossible to know exactly when Buddhism arrived in China, but it seems to have arrived there by around the second century AD. Some Chinese people who heard about Buddhism went to India to learn more. These people then translated some of the sutras they came across in India into Chinese.

So some Chinese people were already familiar with Buddhist ideas by the time the legendary Indian monk Bodhidharma is said to have arrived there around the fifth or sixth century. Bodhidharma is traditionally considered to be the transmitter of “Zen” Buddhism to China. He emphasized the importance of the simple sitting practice that Gautama Buddha used to do. There are a lot of legends surrounding Bodhidharma, although it’s impossible to know how accurate they are. One legend is that Bodhidharma spent nine years doing zazen at a cave in Northern China. This made the early Chinese Buddhists more aware of the importance of zazen. Up to the time of Bodhidharma’s arrival, the people teaching Buddhism in China had focused on Buddhist sutras and ideas, and not placed a great emphasis on the sitting practice. So when the Chinese saw the monk Bodhidharma doing this sitting practice so often, they thought it must be some kind of special Buddhist sect. So they gave it the name “Chan” (or “Zen”) Buddhism. “Chan” is a Chinese word that means “meditation”. But for Bodhidharma it was just Buddhism.

People were still doing that simple sitting practice 700 years later when a Japanese monk named Dogen arrived in China looking for a teacher. Dogen had studied Buddhism in Japan with the Tendai Sect and the Rinzai Sect prior to going to China. But he wasn’t satisfied with the Buddhism that he was learning in Japan. He felt that he needed to meet a true teacher to find out what Buddhism was really about. So Dogen decided to travel to China to search for a teacher.

But when Dogen got to China he was a little disappointed. Most of the temples he visited belonged to masters in the Rinzai sect. So Dogen ended up encountering the same kind of Buddhist teachers that he’d met in Japan. He travelled around China for two years but still couldn’t meet a teacher who could help him. He was just about to give up his search, when he met an old monk who told him to visit a temple called Keitoku-ji. A new abbot, Master Tendo Nyojo, had just been installed at Keitoku-ji, and the old monk told Dogen that Master Tendo Nyojo might be the teacher he was looking for.

Dogen had already been to Keitoku-ji temple once. But at that time there was a different abbot there. So Dogen went to Keitoku-ji temple and met Master Tendo Nyojo. When Dogen met Tendo Nyojo he was sure that he'd found the teacher he’d been searching for. Dogen stayed in China for two more years to study with Tendo Nyojo, and then returned to Japan.

The main thing Dogen learned from Master Tendo Nyojo was that just sitting in zazen is Buddhism itself. Master Tendo Nyojo used the phrase shikantaza to explain this to Master Dogen.

Nowadays, shikantaza is a well-known phrase in Zen Buddhism. It's made up of four Chinese characters 只管打坐. These characters are usually translated by dividing them into pairs.

The first pair is 只管 (shi-kan).
This means: nothing but / earnestly / entirely / single-mindedly.

The second pair is 打坐 (ta-za).
This means: to do sitting.

So the four characters in shi-kan-ta-za together mean:

nothing but to do sitting,

earnestly to do sitting,

entirely to do sitting,

single-mindedly to do sitting.

Take your pick.

Zazen Notes III - body & mind drop off

2008-04-10T17:41:00.026+09:00

In my last couple of posts, I wrote about "non-thinking" and sitting in an upright posture. This post relates to both of those. It's about a Japanese expression shin-jin-datsu-raku which the Zen monk Dogen used to describe what happens when we practice zazen. Dogen first heard the expression from his teacher, Tendo Nyojo, when he visited China from Japan in the 13th century to meet a true teacher.

The usual English translation for shin-jin-datsu-raku is "dropping body and mind" or "body and mind drop off". Here's the meaning of the four Chinese characters (身心脱落) that make up shin-jin-datsu-raku:

shin (身) means "body"
jin (心) means "mind"
datsu (脱) means "shed"
raku (落) means "drop" or "let fall"

So shin-jin-datsu-raku literally means "body & mind are shed and fall". But the characters for datsu and raku go together, and mean "drop off". So shin-jin-datsu-raku is usually translated something like "body & mind drop off".

"Body & mind drop off" is a confusing expression. It's easy to think it means that when you do zazen your body and mind actually drop off and all that's left is some kind of "spirit". But that doesn't happen.

So what does "body & mind drop off" mean? My teacher Gudo Nishijima interprets it as meaning that when we do zazen our mind gets less active and our perception of our body sensations gets less active. So we're not actively considering things or perceiving things. Of course, we're sitting there with our eyes are open and we can see the wall and hear sounds, but we're not thinking about them. Our consciousness is clear and quiet. Master Dogen described this as "body & mind drop off".

One thing about "body & mind drop off" is that it happens naturally, without us having control over it. We do zazen and try to sit upright. When we're sitting, our thinking might quieten down and our sense perceptions might quieten down, and then we feel like our consciousness is clearer. We might not reach a point where our mind is completely blank and our senses have gone completely quiet, but we can feel like they're quieter than when we first sat down.

Nishijima uses the idea of +/- zero to describe what happens when we do zazen. When we first sit down our mind might be really active or we might be really conscious of our senses. And we can swing back and forth between a state where we're thinking a lot (a "+" state) and a state where we're really conscious of our senses (a "-" state). That can continue throughout our zazen. But at some point, our thoughts may slow down and our bodily sensations may ease off. At that time, there's not too much activity in our head and we're just sitting there. That's the kind of "zero" state.

Zazen is not about thinking. Zazen is a kind of action. You sit on a cushion and try to keep your back straight. It's a very simple action and a very pure action. There's not an awful lot going on when you're doing it. You're just sitting there. But you can notice your thoughts and notice your posture too. And after a while that consciousness of thoughts and of posture subsides and you sit there without much going on in your head. And when you get up from zazen you might feel a bit different from when you started. People who do zazen refer to that feeling as "balanced". It's a nice feeling. And if you practice zazen regularly, that feeling might stay with you for a good part of the day.

But you don't have to take my word for it. If you do zazen for a while you'll see for yourself.

Zazen Notes II - right posture

2008-04-05T18:48:00.017+09:00

This post is about the sitting posture in Zazen.

The Japanese monk Dogen wrote instructions on how to practice Zazen in a text called fukanzazengi (Universal Guide to Zazen), which he wrote in the 13th century. His instructions in fukanzazengi are generally regarded as the standard instructions for practicing zazen.

In fukanzazengi, Dogen used the expression sho-shin-tan-za (正身端坐) when he was discussing posture. Sho-shin-tan-za is made up of four Chinese characters:

1. 正 (sho) means right, correct, proper, or true
2. 身 (shin) means the body
3. 端 (tan) means upright, erect, or straight
4. 坐 (za) means sit

Together sho-shin-tan-za mean "sit straight with your body right" or "straighten your body and sit upright".

"Straighten your body and sit upright" is fairly straightforward advice, but Dogen gave some more specific instructions about what he meant by sitting straight. He said:

"Don't lean to the left or right, or forward or backward."

and

"Align your ears with your shoulders and your nose with your navel."

He also said to keep the mouth closed and the eyes open, and to breathe softly through the nose.

Dogen's instructions are easy to understand. Just sit straight. Don't lean to the left or right, or incline forward or backward. Keep your ears in line with your shoulders, and your nose in line with your navel. Close your mouth and open your eyes, and breathe softly through your nose.

It's not that much to remember. The hard part is that it takes a while to reach the stage where we can concentrate on those points right through zazen. After we sit down to start zazen, our head can fill up with lots of different thoughts and after a few minutes we notice that we're slouching over or leaning to the side. Or maybe our legs hurt and we start to think about moving them or adjusting our posture. So it can be hard to "sit straight with your body right." But if we stick with the practice for a while our posture gradually starts to develop and it becomes easier to sit straight. And even if, like me, your posture isn't quite perfect, and you lean or slouch over sometimes doing zazen, just stick with it. It doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. And if you do find yourself slouching a bit, just straighten your spine again and continue.

Gudo Nishijima used to hold regular zazen meetings and retreats in Japan. Sometimes complete beginners would come along and Nishijima would show them the posture and explain what to do. But he didn't spend a lot of time going around correcting everyone's posture. Occasionally he would, but he seemed to think that it was important for people to just do zazen, without worrying too much about having a kind of perfect posture right off.

When I first started to do zazen I used to get a twitch in my shoulder sometimes. It used to really worry me, particularly if I was doing zazen next to someone at one of Nishijima's meetings. But Nishijima never seemed to notice, and at some point, I don't remember when, the twitch thing just disappeared by itself.

I've noticed similar situations with other people I've practiced with. When they first started off they had trouble sitting for even 5 or 10 minutes. During zazen they'd take a little break and then start again. It looked like they were having a really hard time just sitting there. But they stuck with it and after a while they'd be sitting for 20 or 30 minutes without much problem as far as I could see.

Zazen's like that. If you're starting off, don't worry too much about whether your posture is right or wrong. Just stick with it and try to sit regularly. Your posture will gradually work itself out. Doing zazen will itself help your posture. But don't forget Dogen's pointers for sitting.

Notes on Zazen

2008-03-27T17:16:00.013+09:00

I came across some notes I took about practicing zazen from a talk at one of Nishijima Roshi's Zazen retreats. I decided to post them here to organize them a bit. It's also part of my effort to blog more often.

In the talk Nishijima talked about zazen from four aspects. I'm going to write about the first one, "not thinking", today. Probably nothing new here for anybody familiar with Zazen, but here goes.

(1) 非思量　Hishiryou
Hishiryou is an expression in Japanese Buddhism that translates as "not thinking". It literally means "denial of thinking". Nishijima described it as "transcending thinking and non-thinking".

There's a well-known zen story (a koan) in which a monk sees his teacher sitting in zazen. The monk asks his teacher "what are you thinking when you're sitting in zazen?"
The teacher replies "I am thinking the concrete state of non-thinking."
The monk asks him "How can you think about non-thinking?"
The teacher replies "It is different from thinking."

The point in the story about the monk and his teacher is that essentially zazen is different from thinking. Sometimes when we hear the word "meditation" we assume it involves thinking about something. That's not the case with zazen. Basically you don't want to think about anything at all. If your thoughts stop completely that's just fine. Just look at the wall. So the teacher in the story says that "zazen is different from thinking".

But when you sit down on your cushion and start doing zazen you can be pretty sure you'll be thinking lots of stuff. So what to do? Well, you might have heard this before but, when thoughts come up just let them go. Don't focus on your thoughts so much. Just let them come and go and come and go. Nishijima's advice is that if you find yourself thinking about something during zazen, just straighten your spine and concentrate on sitting with a straight posture. That might happen several times during one zazen period, but that's normal and just keep going. Thoughts come up, just let them go, straighten your spine, and after a while more thoughts come up and so on. That basically is the way it works. If you sit fairly regularly you might notice that the pace of your thoughts slows down after a while, or that's there's a change in the thoughts that come up.

So why do thoughts come up when we sit in zazen? Isn't it supposed to be some kind of real calm and blissed out state?

Nishijima's idea on this is that we usually suppress a lot of our thoughts in our day-to-day life. It may be because we're too busy to think about things properly or just don't want to deal with certain things. Whatever the reason, those thoughts and ideas get pushed down into our subconscious. But when we do zazen, all we have to do is just sit there with our posture straight. It's real simple. So at that time some of them thoughts that we've being suppressing start to appear. And when they appear, we should just let them go. Don't try to stop them coming up, but just let them go when they do. Don't worry, there'll be plenty more where they came from.

Nishijima gave a nice analogy for this thing about thoughts during zazen. He said it's kind of like a pot on a stove that's simmering away with its lid on. Once someone takes the lid off the pot, all sorts of steam and things start to rise up.

I noticed this thing about suppressed thoughts myself when I first did zazen at a one-day retreat years ago in Japan. Once I'd been sitting for a few minutes all sorts of thoughts started to come into my head. I felt like I could even see strange shapes on the wall paper. Then after a while my thoughts settled down a bit and I started to feel pain in my legs. By the end of the day, though, I felt a lot more active and I noticed zazen definitely had some kind of effect. Ever since then I try to practice zazen everyday.

Ok. So now go try some zazen and see if you get to think the "state of non-thinking". Although, to be honest, in my own case I usually end up with the stuff out of the pot.

What Is The Stars?

2008-03-12T20:37:00.022+09:00

I watched a documentary called “Master of the Universe” the other night on Channel 4. It was the second part of a two-part documentary about the British physicist Stephen Hawking, who's famous for the big bang theory (I missed the first part - think we were watching South Park). It described how he’s trying to work out a theory of everything. It also had bits about some ups and downs in his private life since he wrote “A Brief History of Time”. There were also interviews with other really clever-looking physicist types. The physicists basically reckon the universe started out as some sort of single superforce. But the superforce was split into the four known natural forces at the time of the big bang: electromagnetic, strong force, weak force and gravity. Those four forces should all be equal for the theory of everything to work, but for some reason gravity is weaker than the other forces. They’re trying to figure out why.

One reason this show interested me is that Buddhism never goes against anything that science can prove. So if science can prove that there are donuts in space, then Buddhism agrees. But Buddhism does say that even though what science has proved is true, science still hasn’t found the truth about lots of things – that there’s plenty of stuff science just hasn’t stumbled on yet.

One of the things they were talking about is “string theory”. It's considered one of the great breakthroughs. Now I honestly haven’t a clue how it’s meant to work, but the part that caught my attention was when they started talking about different dimensions. They figure the universe may consist of 11 different dimensions, but us humans are only familiar with four of them, up-down, left-right, back-forth, and time. One of the physicists said that basically we’re like fish swimming around in a fish tank. We think that what we notice in the fish tank is all there is, but there's probably much more to it than we’ve managed to figure out.

Anyway, one reason the 11 dimensions caught my attention is that I’ve heard my Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima talk about an extra dimension sometimes. I don't know if it's connected to what the string theory says, but basically Buddhism says that we’re all connected in some way, but we don’t usually notice. Some physicists may someday come up with ideas like that too, although probably best not to hold your breath.

But the part that interested me most was right at the end when Stephen Hawkins was talking about the big picture – who made the universe and all that. I’d always thought that the big bang theory meant that the universe wasn’t here before the big bang. It kind of interested me because Buddhism’s idea is that the universe has always existed – which is a bit of a strange one too. Anyway, it turns out Stephen Hawking thinks the universe always existed too, and that it keeps appearing and disappearing or something like that. I can’t remember what he said exactly, but whatever it was it sounded an awful lot like Buddhism’s idea about the universe.

On the face of it, scientists talking about black holes and parallel universes and things seems completely different to Buddhism. But actually they’re not. Scientists try to explain the universe based on scientific knowledge, while Buddhism tries to explain the universe based on what Buddhists experience in daily life. Buddhist meditation is a big part of that, because it helps you become aware of things you may not notice otherwise. And judging from that documentary on Stephen Hawking, it seemed to me like Buddhism and science aren’t too far away from each other after all.

But Buddhism goes a bit further than science. Buddhism comes out and says the universe is the truth itself. Buddhism says the universe is not just matter, but also has a kind of mystical side to it too. That's something that going to be very hard for science to prove.

When I first heard Gudo Nishijima talk about Buddhism being the "truth", I honestly couldn’t believe him. I didn’t think there was anything we could call the “truth”. Eventually I realized I was wrong. Buddhism does contain the truth. And if you ask Gudo Nishijima he'll tell you that there's only one truth. If you practice zazen for a while you'll start to get glimpses of it. It’s different to anything they teach in science class. But it’s there nonetheless. But don’t just take my word for it.

It was twenty years ago today..., or was it ten?

2008-01-16T01:59:00.002+09:00

The Buddhist precepts are rules to help you live the Buddhist life. I did a ceremony to receive the Buddhist precepts from my Zen teacher exactly ten years ago today. I thought this might be a good day to write a bit about it here.

In Zen Buddhism there are sixteen precepts. They're known as the “bodhisattva precepts”. The idea in Buddhism is that the precepts are guidelines to help live the best way. There are no sins in Buddhism, but there is right action and wrong action. Breaking a precept is not a sin, but it might result in some bad effect depending on the situation.

For the record, the sixteen precepts are broken down into three groups. Here they are in the way my teacher, Gudo Nishijima, interprets them. The first three are known as the three devotions. They are devotion to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

The next three are the three universal precepts. They are to observe the rules of society, to observe the moral rule of the universe, and to work for the salvation of all living beings.

Those first two groups are a bit abstract. The next group are most concrete. They're known as the ten fundamental precepts. They are: don't destroy life, don't steal, don't desire too much, don't lie, don't live by selling liquor, don't discuss failures of other Buddhists, don't praise yourself or berate others, don't begrudge the sharing of Buddhist teachings and other things, don't get angry, and don't abuse Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

You can can follow the precepts without doing a formal ceremony. But if you've access to a teacher, you can do a ceremony to formally receive the precepts if you want. After that, you’re officially a Buddhist monk or nun, or layman or laywoman, depending on how you feel about it.

For me, taking the precepts meant some kind of a commitment to Buddhism. I was raised as a Catholic, but lost interest in religion in general when I was a teen. It was no big deal and I didn’t worry about it very much. But after doing Buddhism for a while I felt a bit different. I used to hear Gudo Nishijima talk about “the Buddhist truth”, but I always presumed there was no such thing. But after a while Buddhism began to make some sense. I wasn’t sure how to follow up on it though, so I started thinking about taking the precepts. I’m not entirely sure why, but it seemed like a good idea. I’d been studying with Nishijima for a couple of years and I figured it might make some difference to me.

But I wasn’t exactly sure about turning Buddhist. And I didn’t want to start asking Nishijima about it and then back out. So I waited a while. Then one guy I knew from Nishijima’s Saturday meetings told me Nishijima was planning to do the precepts ceremony for another student, named Denis. I figured he might be able to fit me in at the same time. I decided to ask him about it and I tried calling him one morning at his zazen dojo. I dialed the number and waited and waited, but no-one answered. I tried again a few minutes later. This time I let the phone ring. Eventually a German woman who was staying at the dojo answered. I asked for Nishijima, but she told me they were doing zazen in the zazen hall (zendo) and to call back later. I felt really stupid. The phone was right next to the zendo. Nishijima and the others would have had to listen to the phone ringing for a few minutes while they were doing zazen. I hoped they didn’t mind. Anyway, I called back after lunch and asked Nishijima about it. He said okay and told me to do it the same time as Denis. It was going to be held on January 15 at Nishijima’s dojo. The dojo was in a place called Moto Yawata on the outskirts of Tokyo. The plan was to meet there at about 10 and practice zazen together and then do the ceremony.

So that was it. The arrangements were made. All I had to do was show up and do the ceremony. But I was still having doubts. I was real wary of religions, and even though Buddhism felt different I wasn’t entirely convinced. And those doubts weren’t going away easily. One time I was listening to one of Nishijima’s talks at one of his meetings in Tokyo with about 10 or 15 other people. Some people in the room seemed like dedicated Buddhists who had been studying for a good few years. They had shaved heads and were wearing a rakusu, which is a kind of bib your teacher gives you when you receive the precepts. All of a sudden I started thinking “who are these people, and what am I doing here?” I felt like getting up and leaving. I didn't though, and after a few minutes I just forgot about it.

The day for the ceremony, January 15, finally came round. It was a Thursday. Normally I’d have work that day, but at that time January 15 was a national holiday in Japan. It was called “coming of age day”. It was the day when people celebrate becoming 20 years old, after which they're legally adults. Nishijima usually arranged to hold any ceremonies on national holidays so they didn’t interfere with people’s work. Doing the ceremony to become a Buddhist on “coming of age day” felt like a nice touch too.

One problem, though, was the weather. It can snow in Japan in January, and sure enough it snowed the day of the ceremony. It snowed really hard too. There were a couple of feet (or at least 5 or 6 inches) of snow on the ground so it was going to be tough getting to the dojo. Nishijima wasn’t staying at the dojo that day either. He had a house in Tokorozawa on the other side of town where he stayed with his wife. He used to only stay at the dojo at weekends. He was going to have to make his way through the snow to the train station and try to make it to the dojo. He was 78 then, so it was a lot to ask.

I should have called up Nishijima and asked him to cancel the ceremony. But for some stupid reason I decided to head off for the dojo. It was kind of dumb. It was going to take hours to get to the dojo, and Nishijima could easily have slipped and fallen on the way. I guess I must have been really nervous about the whole thing and just got carried away. I walked through the snow to the train station and waited for a train. Eventually one came, and I made it to the dojo at around 11. Denis showed up a while later and eventually Nishijima too. He had walked through the snow from his house to the local train station, caught a train to Moto Yawata station near the dojo, and walked from there to the dojo. Not bad for 78. Most people wouldn’t have bothered. It helped dispel my doubts. He’d made a big effort to get there.

The original idea was to do zazen and then do the ceremony. But we were running late so we went straight up to the room to hold the ceremony. The place was freezing. I was still nervous about the whole thing and would’ve liked to do some zazen to settle my nerves first, but we didn’t have time. Nishijima changed into his formal robes and a few of us set up the room for the ceremony.

The person who does most of the work during the precepts ceremony is the teacher. He repeats each precepts three times, and asks the recipient if they can keep it until the end of their life. The recipient says “Yes, I can”. One part in the precepts ceremony that felt important to me was these four lines the recipient says towards the beginning:

"Our wrongs which we have committed in the past,
All came from eternal greed, anger and ignorance.
They were the products of body, speech, and mind.
So now we confess them all."

I’d done a lot of things in my past that were definitely “wrongs” that came from "eternal greed, anger and ignorance". I felt like I was getting a fresh start.

Towards the end of the ceremony the teacher says “You should do your best to keep these precepts”. That’s the basic idea. You’re not expected to spotlessly keep the precepts, just do your best. After that, the recipients do three prostrations and then walk up and sit on the teacher’s chair. The teacher walks round the chair a few times saying that the person receiving the precepts is at the same level as Gautama Buddha and is a child of Buddha. When that’s done the receivers get a rakusu and a certificate from the teacher.

When you receive the Buddhist precepts you also receive a Buddhist name. It's usually chosen by your teacher, but you can sometimes choose it yourself if you like. There’s cloth on the back of the rakusu where the teacher writes your Buddhist name, the date and the teacher’s name. The certificate has the same things written on it. Nishijima also wrote the Japanese version of this poem on the back of the rakusu:

How great is the clothing of liberation,
Formless, field of happiness, robe!
Devoutly wearing the Tathagata’s teaching,
Widely I will save living beings.

This poem is taken from a chapter titled Kesa-Kudoku (The Merit of the Kasaya) in Dogen’s book Shobogenzo. Dogen heard a Chinese monk recite it before he put on his Kasaya when he visited China. The Kasaya (or Kesa in Japanese) is the Buddhist robe that’s worn by most Buddhist monks and nuns regardless of which branch of Buddhism they belong to. The rakusu is considered to be a small version of the Kesa.

After myself and Denis received our rakusus, the ceremony ended. We took a few photos, and then went downstairs for a quick cup of tea, and headed home. One of the photos is at the top of this post. Nishijima's in the center, with Denis on the left and me on the right.

So that was it. I’d taken the precepts and gotten my rakusu and certificate, and had a Buddhist name. I had formally turned Buddhist, although I didn’t feel any different. But I felt very grateful to Nishijima for the trouble he went to. There was no money or reward involved for him. He did it because he believes in Buddhism.

The next time I met Nishijima was a few weeks later at one of his talks at Hongo-sanchome. I was on my way into the zazen room. I thanked him for doing the ceremony. He didn't say anything, just shook my hand really strongly and gave me a big, big smile.

Doing Your Best

2008-01-01T20:45:00.002+09:00

Let me start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

Hope you don't mind I'm a few days late. I'm still trying to get back to something like normal after the holidays.

I'll start off the new year with a few encouraging words about studying/practicing Buddhism from Gudo Nishijima. It's in reply to a question at one of his talks in Tokyo.

Q: I want to learn about Buddhism, but my family life and work takes up a lot of time. I also waste time watching TV and so on. The gap between what I want to do and what I do causes me some frustration. Have you any advice about the attitude we should have to learn Buddhism?

Nishijima: I usually think that to do my best is the best I can do. And all human beings can only do their best. It is impossible for us to do something more than our best. So even though you have some dissatisfaction in your daily life, including that dissatisfaction, you are doing your best. So I think you can be very optimistic in your daily life, because you are doing your best. So to do our best is the important matter. And even though our best is not so high, we should be satisfied with that low situation in day-to-day life. Because, even though it is low, the low situation is our best at that time. So, to live our daily lives sincerely is our best. And that is Buddhist life. It is not necessary for us to think about more ideal situations apart from our real life.

Winter Solstice and Buddhism

2007-12-24T01:40:00.001+09:00

In Ireland, the place to be on winter solstice morning is an old Megalithic Passage Tomb called Newgrange. It was built about 5,000 years ago and reconstructed in the 1960's. There's a passage and a chamber in the tomb that are illuminated at sunrise by the winter solstice sunlight. The sunlight passes through an opening over the tomb entrance and lights up the chamber. It lasts for 17 minutes and only happens on 2 or 3 days each year. It only happens on a clear day, so some years the chamber and passage aren't lit up at all. This year the weather was good, which was just as well, as they had the first ever winter solstice webcast from inside the tomb. The passage and chamber are very narrow, so only a small number of people can fit inside. So they decided to do the webcast so lots of people could watch. The webcast didn't work on the first day though, as lot more people wanted to watch than expected, so the system just shut itself down. But it was up and running alright on the second day, Saturday.

I didn't manage to catch the live webcast, but I took a look at an archive of it on Saturday. The whole show lasts about an hour. It's got the history of the place and things like that at the beginning, but I was mainly interested in seeing the part where the sunlight comes through the passage, so I skipped on a bit. It was nice to see. Right at the end an Australian professor guy who was inside the chamber comes on and is asked what he felt was so cool about being inside the chamber to see the sunshine coming through. He said it was the fact that people in the 20th century can experience more or less the exact same thing that those ancient people did 5,000 odd years ago.

I thought his answer was spot on. It reminded me of Zen Buddhism in a funny way. In Buddhism we do a sitting meditation called zazen. Most Zen Buddhists practice zazen everyday. It's the same sitting practice that the first Buddha, Gautama, practiced in India 2,500 years ago - long after the tomb at Newgrange was built. And kind of like what the Aussie Professor said about being inside Newgrange for the solstice, the thing about zazen is that when you do it, you can experience the same thing that Gautama and the early Buddhists experienced all those years ago. Which is pretty cool I think.

Zen Master

2007-12-20T21:10:00.000+09:00

I moved back to Ireland a few months ago after 15 years in Japan. As you can imagine it was a big change. Lots of stuff to do - get the kids organized in schools and things like that. Those little things can take ages. Been here about 5 months now, and it's been real busy. But thankfully the weather's been good.

I got an email yesterday from Gudo Nishijima. I sent him some socks and a scarf as a present from Ireland. I hope they'll keep him warm during the winter over there. He wrote to say thanks. He's been studying Buddhism and doing zazen for over 60 years now. He still practices zazen everyday. He's a real Zen master. But he'll still drop you a note to say thanks for the socks.

Buddhism and Death

2007-12-16T23:27:00.000+09:00

Most of us have questions about death sometimes. In this video Gudo Nishijima answers questions about Buddhism's ideas on death at one of his talks at Dogen Sangha's old dojo in Japan.

Opening the Sutras - Kaikyoge

2007-12-10T06:53:00.000+09:00

Buddhism isn't a spiritual religion. It doesn't say much about spiritual things like god or things like that. Instead it says the universe is god and that god is the universe. Buddhism also doesn't have a special holy book that everybody follows. Instead Buddhism has lots of sutras. All the sutras were written by ordinary human beings. Even Gotama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was a human being, though he was a very special one.

But even though Buddhism isn't a spiritual religion, it does have some things that seem a bit religious to most of us. When I first started to go to lectures on Buddhism in Tokyo, one thing I felt uncomfortable with for a while was reciting a verse in Japanese called Kai Kyo Ge (verse to open the sutras) at the beginning of each talk. I asked my teacher, Gudo Nishijima, if it was necessary for foreigners like me to recite the Kai Kyo Ge. He said it was just the tradition in Japan to do so, and of course nobody had to recite it if they didn't want to. For him, reciting Kai Kyo Ge was a way of expressing his respect and thanks to Gotama Buddha for teaching people about Buddhism.

I started to give talks on Buddhism when Gudo Nishijima retired from lecturing in English to devote more time to his translation work. I didn't bother reciting the verse to open the sutras at the first few talks I tried to give. Instead I just got right into trying to give a "talk". But somehow it didn't feel like a proper talk without having said the verse at the beginning. The atmosphere didn't quite feel right. So I started making sure to recite the verse at the beginning and the one at the end too just like Nishijima did. I realized Buddhist tradition can help sometimes.

Now I know anyone reading this probably couldn't care less about some Japanese verse about opening the sutras, but as this is my first real post I thought I'd just go crazy and put up a short video clip of Gudo Nishijima reciting the kai kyo ge at the start of one of his talks at Dogen Sangha's old dojo in Moto Yawata, Japan.

The Stupid Way

2007-12-09T02:46:00.001+09:00

Hi,

This is my first post on my new blog. I call it "the stupid way" because it's the way that I learn about Buddhism. I should probably call it "the hard way", but that title is probably already gone. I hope to post to this blog fairly regularly, so drop by once in a while.