This is Heaven

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 :

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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

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

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:


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[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.

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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

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.