Zazen That Amounts to Nothing
Shundo Aoyama Roshi
On February 29, 1966, I arrived in Kyoto at dusk. It was raining. I was wearing worn-out wooden clogs and did not have an umbrella with me, so I considered taking a taxi to the temple, where I would be attending a sesshin to engage in intense zazen meditation. I did not know exactly where the temple was, let alone how to get there on my own. Feeling, however, that it was essential not to indulge myself before a sesshin, I set off by bus, determined to find my way.
After what seemed like a couple of hours, I finally arrived at Shaka-taniguchi, where the temple was located. Except for a single street light at the bus stop, everything was pitch black. In the pouring rain, the mountains and houses were submerged in dark shadows. I asked a young girl who had gotten off the bus with me if she knew where the temple called Antai-ji was, and she pointed to a thicket straight ahead. Lifting the hems of my nun's robes, I ran toward it in the rain. Stumbling over rocks on the mountain path leading to the temple, I pushed my way through the thicket and came to what seemed to be the entrance.
Was it Antai-ji or not? I was still unaware. But by peering intently in the faint light that came from within, I was able to read the words "Antai-ji, the Purple Bamboo Grove Monastery" carved intro a large, timeworn board. Thinking I had arrived at last, I pushed open the heavy outer door and called out, but no one answered. There seemed to be people moving about in the next room. I considered opening the inner door, but first tried asking for help from the outside. It was lucky that I did not open that door -- that was where the trainee monks were bathing. A voice answered my call: "Please hit the board twice."
Where was it? There was not a single light in that spacious entrance hall. By groping about, I was able to locate the board and hit it twice, as I had been instructed. The board was so worn that it had a large concave area in the center -- it made a funny, hollow sound. Before long a trainee monk appeared, and then Zen Mast er Kosho Uchiyama came out to greet me: "How good of you to come, Reverend Aoyama! Please remove your outer robe and make yourself comfortable." His welcome, which did away with formalities, made me feel relieved at finally having reached my destination. I visited his quarters right away to receive instructions concerning the sesshin.
On the first day of March, I awoke to the ringing of the temple bell at 4 a.m. I hurried over the long, creaky corridors toward the meditation hall. The cold wind blowing up through the cracks in the floorboards cut at my bare feet.
"Meditation hall" sounds impressive, but at Antai-ji it was just a single dilapidated room with only fifteen tatami mats on a low platform. At its entrance these words of instruction were posted: "Leave others alone. Individuals must engage in their own spiritual practice"; and "Everything must be done in silence. There must be no audible sutra reading or greetings." The night before, Zen Master Uchiyama had said, "Chanting the sutras would spoil our concentration, interrupting our zazen practice. Sesshin here means sitting in meditation for five days as though it were a single sitting."
All the participants entered the meditation hall and began to meditate in silence. The paper curtain in front of the entrance was lowered, and the signal to begin zazen was given. In this way, the five-day sesshin commenced without ceremony.
The hall was bitter cold. Icy drafts entered it from all directions, even blowing under my robes. Clumsy paper curtains that appeared to be made of sheets of wrapping paper from parcels covered the inside walls, flapping noisily in the drafts.
There was a five-minute break known as chukai every hour. It was during one of these breaks that I whispered to another woman in the restroom, "Cold, isn't it!" She whispered back, "It's comfortable now. Last month, there weren't any curtains, so the snow fell right on our heads."
I came down with a cold on the third day. I thought it would be a shame to stop meditating because of a cold. After all, I had wanted to participate in this sesshin for a long time. Since I wanted to get over my cold as soon as possible and stop bothering the people around me with my sneezing and coughing, I bundled up in as many layers of clothing as I could, including my night clothes, to try to sweat out my cold.
Zen Master Uchiyama worried about me and gave me some medicine, and so did the nun working in the kitchen. At night they put a foot-warmer in my bedding. I felt grateful -- it was more than I deserved -- and sorry, since I believed that my cold was due to my own carelessness. I continued in this way and was able to complete the sesshin without missing even a single sitting.
I had a bit of trouble at mealtimes, however. The master and monks seemed to finish very quickly, but perhaps this was the regular pace at monasteries. There was no sign of haste in the way they ate, yet they each consumed two bowls of rice. I had been one of the faster eaters at the training temple where I lived, but here I was no match at all. In addition, the meals included brown rice. Since this was the first time I had eaten it, I mistook it for sakura-meshi (rice cooked in sake and soy sauce), a favorite dish of mine, and was secretly delighted when it was scooped into my bowl. But when I took a good look at it, I noticed that it was actually brown rice. Hesitantly, I put some in my mouth. It had been skillfully prepared, but it was harder than whie rice and smelled of bran. There were even a few unhulled grains in my bowl.
Looking around me, I saw that no one was trying to pick out the unhulled grains, but that everyone was eating with gusto, so I tried to do the same. Two orange slices with rinds had been placed on top of the salad, and these, too, were being devoured, rinds and all. It being Zen vegetarian cooking, the only meaty things were the small dried sardines in the bean-paste soup. Though the others finished effortlessly in time for a second serving, my first serving of brown rice seemed not to diminish no matter how much I ate, perhaps because the trainee monk had packed my bowl so well. Bewildered, I swallowed the coarse brown rice, ate the orange slices, rinds and all, the dried sardines, heads and all, and ended up being one of the last to put down my chopsticks, along with a student who looked like a beginner.
While I was eating, I thought about the time the Buddhist priest and scholar Kazuyoshi Kino invited me over to try brown rice. I was afraid that I would have stomach trouble, so I declined. I now realized I should have accepted his invitation. I recalled his words: "If there is a task that you must do, no matter how much you detest doing it, you must do it thinking 'I love it, I love it.'" There was nothing to keep me from enjoying the brown rice that everyone else was eating with relish. I told myself that I must somehow get to like it during the five days of the sesshin.
Before meals we did not chant the sutras as usual, nor did we perform the ritual of removing the cloth covers around our bowls as is customary at other temples. Still, every part of the day was strictly regulated. The foreigners and other beginners were not yet familiar with the temple routine and were apt to forget that silence was to be observed. Sometimes they were noisy. Had I been in charge, I would have told them to be quiet, but Zen Master Uchiyama and the trainee monks pretended not to notice. Later, Zen Master Uchiyama explained, "Not saying anything at such times is also part of one's spiritual practice. You are tempted to say, 'Be quiet!' but should you do so, that would be the end of it. People would merely be obsessed with being quiet. If zazen is truly practiced, it naturally happens that no sounds are made. Until this comes about, you must guide people kindly in their zazen."
No regular cleaning was done during the sesshin. The trainee monks had simplified everything as much as possible so that the participants could devote themselves exclusively to zazen. They could not very well go without cleaning at all for five days, but they managed to restrict it to less than twenty minutes during the break after breakfast. They would fill buckets with water and carry them silently to the temple. Anyone who comes to Antai-ji is treated as a trainee, regardless of whether he is a university professor or a company president. Each person was expected to help clean the floor. People would tuck up their clothing and, without a word, wipe the floor with a wet cloth at lightning speed; then they would quickly enter the meditation hall.
The signal to begin zazen was then given. No matter how many hours pass, no matter whether dusk falls, dawn comes, or whole days go by, everyone sits like a simpleton in a speechless world. There are no lectures by the master, no chanting of sutras, no circulating of the kyosaku (the meditation stick used to awaken those who doze), and no interviews between the master and disciples. There is not a single thing to distract one; there is no one to show off to. Left alone by the monk in charge, everyone faces the wall from beginning to end. The meditation stick yawns upon the sutra table. No matter how much you doze, there is no one there to do you the favor of waking you.
Yet it is impossible to sleep for five days. Your eyes open even though you may not want them to, and you must come face to face with yourself. For the first time, I came to know real zazen, in which people must be led with true kindness. After all, living is neither something that other people can help you do nor something that you can have them do in your place. You are completely on your own. You sit in a state of awareness, straightening your back and confronting that fact. Zazen as practiced at Antai-ji is the true was human beings should live. It is ideal zazen. . . .
[Harsh treatment] is really the easier way of practicing zazen. Try being left alone, regardless of whether day breaks or night falls. You start to want to scream "Hit me!" or "Say something!" Left all alone, a person cannot stand himself. Even if you were to cry out, it would be useless. Such is life. The more we struggle, the muddier the water becomes. There is no one to save us; no one to breathe for us; no one to get sick in our place. We must live our own lives. Thus we must do zazen with determination. . . . [W]e are kindly placed in a situation where we can meditate as it we were sitting alone under the trees or on the rocks in an isolated mountain valley. Such is the zazen practiced at Antai-ji. That is truly the kind way to lead a sesshin.
The five-day sesshin ended with a number of rituals. The paper curtains at the entrance to the meditation hall were raised, and everyone proceeded from the hall to the master's quarters. There we all bowed deeply and thanked him from the bottom of our hearts. Continuing on, we went to the kitchen and bowed in gratitude to the old nun in charge of the meals. These rituals, in which a dynamic spirit was manifested in form, spontaneously unfolded one after the other. For a person like me who was used to empty religious practice, everything in these rituals was revealing, down to the most insignificant detail. It was then that I recognized the original purpose of those solemn rituals. The first words we uttered after the five days of silence were "Thank you very much." These words after the long silence gave me a new understanding of the value of speech.
Before long, the wooden clappers signaled teatime. For the first time, I took a close look at the people with whom I had meditated for five days and was surprised that almost half of them were foreigners. I learned that most of them had saved for three or four years to come to Japan in search of Zen. After visiting various Zen training halls, they had settled on this temple, secured temporary lodgings nearby, and commuted to the monthly sesshin, zazen sessions, and lectures on Zen. For example, the couple who happened to sit next to me took turns: from four in the morning until noon, the wife was there; from noon until bedtime, the husband. When I asked them why they did this, they replied, "Since we have a baby, we can't both be away from home at the same time." They seemed truly dedicated to Zen.
Other participants came all the way from Kyushu, Shikoku, Niigata, and Tokyo. Furthermore, they did so every month. I was amazed to find that I, who thought I had come from far away, was among those who lived closest. The Japanese participants all felt that they could not compare in zeal with the foreigners, who had left everything behind to come to Japan. I thought that I had understood that distance is not a problem for the mind that seeks the Dharma, but these people provided me with new insights into that truth.
Zen Master Uchiyama had said the previous fall, "If a person has the mind the seeks, he or she should come to Antai-ji." I now understand in my heart that this was not an exaggeration but was in fact happening. We often make excuses for not being able to take part in zazen sessions and Zen lectures, saying that we are too busy or that the place is too far away. These are lame excuses. If you really have a mind that seeks, you can find time for these activities. People who say they do not have the time lack willpower.
Smiling wryly, Zen Master Uchiyama said, "Even though so many foreigners come here, not a single trainee monk at this temple can speak English. On top of this, my Japanese is not standard. It is a Tokyo dialect, so that some of the words and expressions I use are not in the dictionary. Thus the foreigners have a hard time understanding me."
Yet foreigners gather in great numbers at Antai-ji. A foreign woman who had, together with myself, spent five days living and meditating at the temple, said in broken Japanese that this zazen of the Soto sect was more difficult than that of the Rinzai Zen sect. She said that this was because sitting itself was a koan for Soto Zen. Even though the foreigners did not understand Zen Master Uchiyama's every word, they seemed to grasp exactly what was essential. After all, it is not important to understand something with words or with the intellect.
There was a student having a hard time because of pain in his legs from sitting for long periods in meditation. He appeared to be new to zazen. No one thought he would last through the sesshin. In spite of that, he persevered to the end. Turning to him, Zen Master Uchiyama said with a teasing smile, "You are great. You are worthy of an award for your fighting spirit. You would be all right even if you were in jail." (Prisoners in Japan sit on the floor.) Then to everyone he said, "The zazen practiced here amounts to nothing, no matter how long you sit. But it would come in handy were you to be put in jail, " and he laughed. Zazen is a world in which we have thrown away all of the cravings of the mind, including all forms of seeking and anticipation. Zazen is a world beyond losses and gains -- even beyond seeking enlightenment. One simply sits, casting off the whole of one's beggarly disposition. That is what Zen Master Uchiyama calls "the zazen that amounts to nothing."
On February 29, 1966, I arrived in Kyoto at dusk. It was raining. I was wearing worn-out wooden clogs and did not have an umbrella with me, so I considered taking a taxi to the temple, where I would be attending a sesshin to engage in intense zazen meditation. I did not know exactly where the temple was, let alone how to get there on my own. Feeling, however, that it was essential not to indulge myself before a sesshin, I set off by bus, determined to find my way.
After what seemed like a couple of hours, I finally arrived at Shaka-taniguchi, where the temple was located. Except for a single street light at the bus stop, everything was pitch black. In the pouring rain, the mountains and houses were submerged in dark shadows. I asked a young girl who had gotten off the bus with me if she knew where the temple called Antai-ji was, and she pointed to a thicket straight ahead. Lifting the hems of my nun's robes, I ran toward it in the rain. Stumbling over rocks on the mountain path leading to the temple, I pushed my way through the thicket and came to what seemed to be the entrance.
Was it Antai-ji or not? I was still unaware. But by peering intently in the faint light that came from within, I was able to read the words "Antai-ji, the Purple Bamboo Grove Monastery" carved intro a large, timeworn board. Thinking I had arrived at last, I pushed open the heavy outer door and called out, but no one answered. There seemed to be people moving about in the next room. I considered opening the inner door, but first tried asking for help from the outside. It was lucky that I did not open that door -- that was where the trainee monks were bathing. A voice answered my call: "Please hit the board twice."
Where was it? There was not a single light in that spacious entrance hall. By groping about, I was able to locate the board and hit it twice, as I had been instructed. The board was so worn that it had a large concave area in the center -- it made a funny, hollow sound. Before long a trainee monk appeared, and then Zen Mast er Kosho Uchiyama came out to greet me: "How good of you to come, Reverend Aoyama! Please remove your outer robe and make yourself comfortable." His welcome, which did away with formalities, made me feel relieved at finally having reached my destination. I visited his quarters right away to receive instructions concerning the sesshin.
On the first day of March, I awoke to the ringing of the temple bell at 4 a.m. I hurried over the long, creaky corridors toward the meditation hall. The cold wind blowing up through the cracks in the floorboards cut at my bare feet.
"Meditation hall" sounds impressive, but at Antai-ji it was just a single dilapidated room with only fifteen tatami mats on a low platform. At its entrance these words of instruction were posted: "Leave others alone. Individuals must engage in their own spiritual practice"; and "Everything must be done in silence. There must be no audible sutra reading or greetings." The night before, Zen Master Uchiyama had said, "Chanting the sutras would spoil our concentration, interrupting our zazen practice. Sesshin here means sitting in meditation for five days as though it were a single sitting."
All the participants entered the meditation hall and began to meditate in silence. The paper curtain in front of the entrance was lowered, and the signal to begin zazen was given. In this way, the five-day sesshin commenced without ceremony.
The hall was bitter cold. Icy drafts entered it from all directions, even blowing under my robes. Clumsy paper curtains that appeared to be made of sheets of wrapping paper from parcels covered the inside walls, flapping noisily in the drafts.
There was a five-minute break known as chukai every hour. It was during one of these breaks that I whispered to another woman in the restroom, "Cold, isn't it!" She whispered back, "It's comfortable now. Last month, there weren't any curtains, so the snow fell right on our heads."
I came down with a cold on the third day. I thought it would be a shame to stop meditating because of a cold. After all, I had wanted to participate in this sesshin for a long time. Since I wanted to get over my cold as soon as possible and stop bothering the people around me with my sneezing and coughing, I bundled up in as many layers of clothing as I could, including my night clothes, to try to sweat out my cold.
Zen Master Uchiyama worried about me and gave me some medicine, and so did the nun working in the kitchen. At night they put a foot-warmer in my bedding. I felt grateful -- it was more than I deserved -- and sorry, since I believed that my cold was due to my own carelessness. I continued in this way and was able to complete the sesshin without missing even a single sitting.
I had a bit of trouble at mealtimes, however. The master and monks seemed to finish very quickly, but perhaps this was the regular pace at monasteries. There was no sign of haste in the way they ate, yet they each consumed two bowls of rice. I had been one of the faster eaters at the training temple where I lived, but here I was no match at all. In addition, the meals included brown rice. Since this was the first time I had eaten it, I mistook it for sakura-meshi (rice cooked in sake and soy sauce), a favorite dish of mine, and was secretly delighted when it was scooped into my bowl. But when I took a good look at it, I noticed that it was actually brown rice. Hesitantly, I put some in my mouth. It had been skillfully prepared, but it was harder than whie rice and smelled of bran. There were even a few unhulled grains in my bowl.
Looking around me, I saw that no one was trying to pick out the unhulled grains, but that everyone was eating with gusto, so I tried to do the same. Two orange slices with rinds had been placed on top of the salad, and these, too, were being devoured, rinds and all. It being Zen vegetarian cooking, the only meaty things were the small dried sardines in the bean-paste soup. Though the others finished effortlessly in time for a second serving, my first serving of brown rice seemed not to diminish no matter how much I ate, perhaps because the trainee monk had packed my bowl so well. Bewildered, I swallowed the coarse brown rice, ate the orange slices, rinds and all, the dried sardines, heads and all, and ended up being one of the last to put down my chopsticks, along with a student who looked like a beginner.
While I was eating, I thought about the time the Buddhist priest and scholar Kazuyoshi Kino invited me over to try brown rice. I was afraid that I would have stomach trouble, so I declined. I now realized I should have accepted his invitation. I recalled his words: "If there is a task that you must do, no matter how much you detest doing it, you must do it thinking 'I love it, I love it.'" There was nothing to keep me from enjoying the brown rice that everyone else was eating with relish. I told myself that I must somehow get to like it during the five days of the sesshin.
Before meals we did not chant the sutras as usual, nor did we perform the ritual of removing the cloth covers around our bowls as is customary at other temples. Still, every part of the day was strictly regulated. The foreigners and other beginners were not yet familiar with the temple routine and were apt to forget that silence was to be observed. Sometimes they were noisy. Had I been in charge, I would have told them to be quiet, but Zen Master Uchiyama and the trainee monks pretended not to notice. Later, Zen Master Uchiyama explained, "Not saying anything at such times is also part of one's spiritual practice. You are tempted to say, 'Be quiet!' but should you do so, that would be the end of it. People would merely be obsessed with being quiet. If zazen is truly practiced, it naturally happens that no sounds are made. Until this comes about, you must guide people kindly in their zazen."
No regular cleaning was done during the sesshin. The trainee monks had simplified everything as much as possible so that the participants could devote themselves exclusively to zazen. They could not very well go without cleaning at all for five days, but they managed to restrict it to less than twenty minutes during the break after breakfast. They would fill buckets with water and carry them silently to the temple. Anyone who comes to Antai-ji is treated as a trainee, regardless of whether he is a university professor or a company president. Each person was expected to help clean the floor. People would tuck up their clothing and, without a word, wipe the floor with a wet cloth at lightning speed; then they would quickly enter the meditation hall.
The signal to begin zazen was then given. No matter how many hours pass, no matter whether dusk falls, dawn comes, or whole days go by, everyone sits like a simpleton in a speechless world. There are no lectures by the master, no chanting of sutras, no circulating of the kyosaku (the meditation stick used to awaken those who doze), and no interviews between the master and disciples. There is not a single thing to distract one; there is no one to show off to. Left alone by the monk in charge, everyone faces the wall from beginning to end. The meditation stick yawns upon the sutra table. No matter how much you doze, there is no one there to do you the favor of waking you.
Yet it is impossible to sleep for five days. Your eyes open even though you may not want them to, and you must come face to face with yourself. For the first time, I came to know real zazen, in which people must be led with true kindness. After all, living is neither something that other people can help you do nor something that you can have them do in your place. You are completely on your own. You sit in a state of awareness, straightening your back and confronting that fact. Zazen as practiced at Antai-ji is the true was human beings should live. It is ideal zazen. . . .
[Harsh treatment] is really the easier way of practicing zazen. Try being left alone, regardless of whether day breaks or night falls. You start to want to scream "Hit me!" or "Say something!" Left all alone, a person cannot stand himself. Even if you were to cry out, it would be useless. Such is life. The more we struggle, the muddier the water becomes. There is no one to save us; no one to breathe for us; no one to get sick in our place. We must live our own lives. Thus we must do zazen with determination. . . . [W]e are kindly placed in a situation where we can meditate as it we were sitting alone under the trees or on the rocks in an isolated mountain valley. Such is the zazen practiced at Antai-ji. That is truly the kind way to lead a sesshin.
The five-day sesshin ended with a number of rituals. The paper curtains at the entrance to the meditation hall were raised, and everyone proceeded from the hall to the master's quarters. There we all bowed deeply and thanked him from the bottom of our hearts. Continuing on, we went to the kitchen and bowed in gratitude to the old nun in charge of the meals. These rituals, in which a dynamic spirit was manifested in form, spontaneously unfolded one after the other. For a person like me who was used to empty religious practice, everything in these rituals was revealing, down to the most insignificant detail. It was then that I recognized the original purpose of those solemn rituals. The first words we uttered after the five days of silence were "Thank you very much." These words after the long silence gave me a new understanding of the value of speech.
Before long, the wooden clappers signaled teatime. For the first time, I took a close look at the people with whom I had meditated for five days and was surprised that almost half of them were foreigners. I learned that most of them had saved for three or four years to come to Japan in search of Zen. After visiting various Zen training halls, they had settled on this temple, secured temporary lodgings nearby, and commuted to the monthly sesshin, zazen sessions, and lectures on Zen. For example, the couple who happened to sit next to me took turns: from four in the morning until noon, the wife was there; from noon until bedtime, the husband. When I asked them why they did this, they replied, "Since we have a baby, we can't both be away from home at the same time." They seemed truly dedicated to Zen.
Other participants came all the way from Kyushu, Shikoku, Niigata, and Tokyo. Furthermore, they did so every month. I was amazed to find that I, who thought I had come from far away, was among those who lived closest. The Japanese participants all felt that they could not compare in zeal with the foreigners, who had left everything behind to come to Japan. I thought that I had understood that distance is not a problem for the mind that seeks the Dharma, but these people provided me with new insights into that truth.
Zen Master Uchiyama had said the previous fall, "If a person has the mind the seeks, he or she should come to Antai-ji." I now understand in my heart that this was not an exaggeration but was in fact happening. We often make excuses for not being able to take part in zazen sessions and Zen lectures, saying that we are too busy or that the place is too far away. These are lame excuses. If you really have a mind that seeks, you can find time for these activities. People who say they do not have the time lack willpower.
Smiling wryly, Zen Master Uchiyama said, "Even though so many foreigners come here, not a single trainee monk at this temple can speak English. On top of this, my Japanese is not standard. It is a Tokyo dialect, so that some of the words and expressions I use are not in the dictionary. Thus the foreigners have a hard time understanding me."
Yet foreigners gather in great numbers at Antai-ji. A foreign woman who had, together with myself, spent five days living and meditating at the temple, said in broken Japanese that this zazen of the Soto sect was more difficult than that of the Rinzai Zen sect. She said that this was because sitting itself was a koan for Soto Zen. Even though the foreigners did not understand Zen Master Uchiyama's every word, they seemed to grasp exactly what was essential. After all, it is not important to understand something with words or with the intellect.
There was a student having a hard time because of pain in his legs from sitting for long periods in meditation. He appeared to be new to zazen. No one thought he would last through the sesshin. In spite of that, he persevered to the end. Turning to him, Zen Master Uchiyama said with a teasing smile, "You are great. You are worthy of an award for your fighting spirit. You would be all right even if you were in jail." (Prisoners in Japan sit on the floor.) Then to everyone he said, "The zazen practiced here amounts to nothing, no matter how long you sit. But it would come in handy were you to be put in jail, " and he laughed. Zazen is a world in which we have thrown away all of the cravings of the mind, including all forms of seeking and anticipation. Zazen is a world beyond losses and gains -- even beyond seeking enlightenment. One simply sits, casting off the whole of one's beggarly disposition. That is what Zen Master Uchiyama calls "the zazen that amounts to nothing."
