Turn About

Hello All,

My practice over the last 25 years has been shikantaza or, as it is sometimes called, silent illumination. I, however, still also sit with koan. I do not understand them as Leighton does—objects of the mind ‘used’ for a particular purpose. I sit with koan exactly the same way I sit with pattering rain, cooing mourning doves, gun blasts from the gravel pit and the rustling and wrestling of the person sitting across from me. I know some koan groups use koan as barriers, as something to break through to something else. I know, at times, groups use koan with great masculine musculature and focus fierce energy on resolving them. This hasn’t been my path or way and I never quite understood the path of making koan into objects. Koan are expressions of the non-dual mind although we make them into riddles, puzzles, upsets, goals, skillful means etc. You have often heard me say, “Do not make your practice into an object.” Mu, for instance, is not an object, in fact, it is not even a subject. We sit with open hands and hearts allowing to arise what does and fall away what will. At some point in zazen (of course, at every point) there isn’t any arising or falling away…there is only—-what? This is how I sit with koan. I memorize whichever one I am sitting with and then when I sit down, I rock back and forth, forward and back a couple times until I feel comfortable enough. I then count my breath to 10 for 1 or 2 cycles, and then I just sit. Sometimes wind, sometimes sadness, sometimes croaking, sometimes koan. I do nothing more than this and nothing less.

Of course, in the early days of practice, we do make breath counting into something but that is our misunderstanding as beginners. We also can make koan and kensho into something but again, that is our misunderstanding. Kensho simply means seeing into (self) nature. These days, I might say, seeing through (the one who sees) the way Chao-chou saw through the old woman…maybe at the very same moment she was seeing through him?

When sitting with the eye that sees through, primacy is not given to anything over anything else. This is why, as we read Cultivating the Empty Field, we should be aware of the mistaken notion of turning about to look within. Leighton insists on this translation because of his own misperceptions. In fact, the truer understanding of turning about is evoked in Hakuin’s great Song, “Turn about to bear witness to self nature that is no-nature”. Turning within gives a primacy to thoughts, feelings and sensations. At the conclusion of Leighton’s preface, he says that Hongzhi uses poetic, literary language (another mistaken notion of the translator, it is koan language) evoking nature because we are indeed the clouds, moon and mountains. That being the case, why give primacy to turning within to note, analyze, or be aware of thoughts? Why not hold them the very same way that we hold all phenomena? We are each thing. We are no-thing at all. So why turn within—within what? We are porous, we are permeable. We begin and end where; with our outer skin, the heat we exude, our energy, our breadth?  Everywhere we look, each thing we hear, whatever we think (feel, sense) is us—-“wherever I go I meet it, but it is not me.” I’d say just turn about—and whatever meets you whether thought, incense fragrance, feeling, rain patter, wind blowing is the momentary awareness of ourselves in that form, in that moment.

A few moments ago, I brought up Chao-chou. Leighton said (pg. 18, 2nd & 3rd paragraph), that Chao-chou’s Wash Your Bowls is an example of ‘sincere mindful conduct of ordinary  everyday life.’ If Zen were only involved with eating breakfast, washing the bowls, drying and putting them away my grandmother and yours would have been Zen masters. There is a part of zen training which is simply doing what is before you but we also need to see through what is right before us…& before eye, before nose, before ear, tongue, body, mind. Zen is also before thought, feeling, sensation and this side/ aspect/ reality/ truth  of zen is repeatedly missed by Leighton’s practice-only point of view.

All this being said, I am deeply grateful for this book. Hongzhi is a master and it is a grand thing to be able to walk in his words. He wanders with great ease and joy through the great circle of wonder. Many years ago, Jana brought snippets of this book to dokusan and we would marvel at the clarity, depth, insight and succinct language of this Zen master. I can understand why Dogen referred to him with great reverence. He and his friend Da-hui clearly cast a golden spell on this period of Zen and zazen and that spell was wedded to this life right here, to these tasks, to this moment whether male or female, monastic or lay. I am much obliged to Leighton and feel bad about my seemingly disparaging remarks but I would feel even worse if I didn’t say what I know to be so.

Enjoy

Jack

Note to self: Carlos pg.111 Swampland. THANKS