 TAKING REFUGE IN THE TEACHING, I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO ENTER DEEPLY INTO THE SCRIPTURES WITH WISDOM AS DEEP AS THE SEA.[1] This gāthā is the second of three that we know elsewhere collectively as the Verse of the Three Refuges (San kirai mon三歸禮文). In Japanese, this text is: jikie ho 自歸依法 to gan shujō 當願衆生 jin nyu kyo zo 深入經藏 chie nyokai 智慧如海 Sōtōshū’s translation in the Gyōjikihan reads: I take refuge in the scriptures, with the prayer that living beings may enter deeply into the canon, that ocean of wisdom. The translation used here at Sanshin (from Sōtōshū’s chant book) reads: I take refuge in dharma May all living beings Deeply enter the sutras Wisdom like an ocean. Across these various translations, we have five words being used to indicate the same thing: teachings, scriptures, canon, dharma and sutras. It’s a reminder that there are three kinds of dharma treasure. The manifesting dharma treasure is the teachings that the Buddha gave during his time in the physical world; these are what are preserved in the scriptures or sutras. In general, scriptures are the sacred texts of a religious tradition. In the case of Buddhism, we call these texts sutras. One meaning of the Sanskrit word “sutra” is sayings or aphorisms, short verses or teachings that provide spiritual guidance. At first, Buddha’s teachings were only memorized rather than written down. Interestingly, “sutra” also means thread. Stringing these sayings together, if you will, into longer texts helped with memorization since they were collected and organized around main ideas. When eventually the sutras were written down, they took the form of palm leaf “books” held together with a cord. The sutras have been preserved not only in Pali and Sanskrit but also in Chinese and Tibetan, and today they’ve been translated into many modern languages and spread around the world. It’s these scriptures that make up a canon, an authoritative collection of texts or rules. According to Sōtōshū, “The canon (kyōzō 經藏, S. sūtra-pitaka) is the collection of sutras that embody the wisdom (chie 智慧, S. prajñā) and teachings (hō 法, S. dharma) of the Buddha, which are said to be vast and deep, “like an ocean” (nyokai 如海).” In the Kyōjukaimon, Dōgen describes the maintaining dharma treasure as “[The truth] that expresses itself [in the form of the Buddha’s teachings stored in] the ocean treasury and [recorded in the scriptures] on the pattara leaves in order to transform animate and inanimate beings.” In Buddhism, we have the Pali canon, the oldest sutras, which were written in Pali and provide the foundation for the Theravada tradition. A canon establishes the standards for teachings and practice in a religion. (Of course, non-canonical texts can be important too, such as commentaries or stories.) These preserved teachings in the forms of sutra, scripture, or canon are known as the maintaining dharma treasure. Although first spoken 2600 years ago, they are still available to us today. The absolute dharma treasure is simply the way things are, or the reality of the functioning of the universe. The Buddha didn’t create this aspect of the dharma treasure himself; it was here before he awakened to it. Since there is more than one dharma treasure, there is more than one way to deeply enter into it. Deeply entering into sutras can mean studying them carefully. Perhaps you’ve encountered the argument that Zen or the dharma are beyond words and letters, and therefore study is useless. It’s true that the dharma cannot be contained in words or language, but we need to use words to go beyond words. Reading texts written by someone who’s farther along this path than we are gives us the chance to share that author’s experience, to be encouraged, and to see things in new ways that may lead to new understanding or insight. Reading and studying alone aren’t enough—we have to put teachings into practice for ourselves—but they can point us in a helpful direction. When undertaking dharma study, we need to approach teachings with an open mind and some flexibility. We might not immediately agree with what’s being said, and that’s OK. We have the chance to investigate where our reactions and resistance are really coming from. Are they about the text or ourselves? Maybe if we accept that this teaching is true, we’d have to change how we see ourselves, or the world, or our own habits. That can be unsettling, but it’s also an opportunity to see where we’re stuck. Study is one of the ways in which we cultivate wisdom, first by seeing and hearing, and then by thinking and reflecting. Learning the basic elements of our tradition, such as the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Three Treasures, and other things, gives us the basis for further study and discussion, and for our day-to-day investigation of the dharma with body and mind. (See our Buddhist Essentials page for an introduction to eighteen important elements of our Sōtō Zen tradition.) Sometimes folks wonder what particular texts they might study as practitioners of Sōtō Zen. In addition to the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, it can be helpful to be familiar with the Vimalakīrti, Laṅkāvatāra, and Lotus Sutras. These are long and complex texts, so it’s good to find competent commentaries to read alongside the sutras themselves. Given Sanshin’s historical focus on the teachings of Dōgen, those practicing here also frequently take advantage of the offerings from our Dōgen Institute, including our Introduction to Dōgen series. Delving into the works of our immediate three 20th century ancestors—Kōdō Sawaki, Kōshō Uchiyama and Shohaku Okumura—gives a sense of what we’ve centralized in this dharma family and why. When it comes to deeply entering into the absolute dharma treasure, all we need to do is let go of the separation between ourselves and the rest of the universe, or, as Dōgen encourages us, to drop off body and mind. Like all of the verses in this series of essays, our gāthā comes from the eleventh chapter of the Avatamsaka (Flower Ornament) Sutra, “Purifying Practice.” The preface to this sutra is where we find Buddha’s wisdom being compared to the ocean: “The pellucid waves of his deep, sea-like wisdom are empty, yet hold myriad reflections.” The text goes on to give several more examples of the connection between form and emptiness, or the individual and the universal. Here, the ocean represents something that appears still, deep, and clear, without boundaries, and it’s likened to the wisdom of complete awakening. Yet the ocean also has waves, and beneath the waves are myriad sea creatures, as well as the geologic features of the ocean floor. The waves are manifestations of the ocean’s functioning, and they also reflect light back into the world. They’re distinct from the rest of the water’s surface but not separate from the water itself. The water faithfully and completely reflects whatever is above it but is not disturbed or changed by that reflection. Okumura Rōshi explains, The phrase “wisdom like the sea” refers to an unlimited and boundless perspective. We are like a frog in a well that can see only a patch of sky. Our view is limited, yet we think we are the center of the world and know everything. We base our actions on our conditioned understanding, perspectives and opinions. The beginning of wisdom is to see that our view is limited. The view we have at sea is wider than in a well. There is no limitation to something so vast and boundless.By studying the Buddha’s teachings we become free from our limited views and open ourselves to boundless reality.[2] Entering the ocean of wisdom can be a metaphor for our zazen. We sit quietly, letting go of the small self without negating it. As information comes in through our sense gates—the barking of the neighbor’s dog, the smell of lunch being prepared, the sight of the changing shadows on the wall, the thought that there’s one more thing to add to the shopping list when we get up—we don’t push it away, but we also don’t grab it. Sense data come and go like waves on the ocean, and we sit on, undisturbed. This is the absolute dharma treasure, simply the dynamic functioning of the universe, with nothing left out and nothing extra. Deeply entering the ocean of wisdom that is the dharma is nothing more or less than this. Next time: TAKING REFUGE IN THE COMMUNITY, I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO ORDER THE MASSES, ALL BECOMING FREE FROM OBSTRUCTION. [1] Translations are based upon Thomas Cleary’s translation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, and have been recast by Hoko in the form of standard Sōtōshū gāthās.
[2] Okumura, Shohaku. Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2012. Page 66.
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 TAKING REFUGE IN THE BUDDHA,
I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO CONTINUE THE LINEAGE OF BUDDHAS, CONCEIVING THE UNEXCELLED ASPIRATION. This gāthā is the first of three that we know elsewhere collectively as the Verse of the Three Refuges (San kirai mon三歸禮文). This first one relates to the Buddha, while the remaining two are about the dharma and the sangha; we’ll consider those in the next two essays. In Japanese, this text is: jikie butsu 自歸依佛 to gan shujō 當願衆生 taige tai do 體解大道 hotsu mujōi 發無上意 Sōtōshū’s official translation reads: I take refuge in buddha, with the prayer that living beings may embody the great way and give rise to the highest aspiration. The translation used here at Sanshin reads: I take refuge in buddha Together with all beings Immersing body and mind deeply in the Way Awakening true mind In the kanji for taking refuge (kie 歸依), the first means to return, with a sense of coming home. The second is about depending or relying on something. When we first encounter Buddhism and learn that taking refuge in the Three Treasures is one of the first steps on the path, it may seem strange that we’re to come home to something that’s new to us. Yet somehow, as we practice, we may feel that this way of being in the world seems comfortable and familiar, like something we’ve been searching for all along. Ah, yes, this is how things really are, in spite of my preconceptions and self-involved ideas. I’m beginning to see that now. That’s where trust begins, and it starts to make sense that what we can really rely on is what’s real, rather than the fabrications in our heads. Buddha may sometimes be a tough taskmaster, reminding us that we can’t ignore what’s right in front of us even if we want to look away, but we know that we can trust him, and the awakening that he embodies, to show us the truth. The three phrases “continuing the lineage of Buddhas,” “embodying the great way,” and “immersing body and mind deeply in the way” are all pointing to engaging in practice, and doing that with our own bodies and minds. Embody is taige 體解. The first kanji refers to the body, but also has a sense of reality itself. The second means to solve or explain. To embody the great way in this gāthā is to directly understand the nature of reality by engaging with it concretely through our physical form, as Shakyamuni did. It’s not a matter of believing something, debating about philosophy or just reading about the dharma in books. Zen is a practice, something we do. As Okumura Rōshi has said, just reading about practice without ever actually engaging in it is like reading a cookbook and never cooking or eating the meal. We carry out Buddha’s practice with our own bodies moment by moment, not just in the temple or the zendo but at all times throughout our daily lives. Elsewhere I’ve discussed the three bodies of Buddha. Of these, the nirmāṇakāya is his form as Shakyamuni, his physical presence in the world 2600 years ago. This is the historical Buddha, who is considered to have founded the lineage when he transmitted his dharma to Mahākāśyapa, and it’s this Buddha who appears on our altars in places where we carry out liturgy. This is the embodiment of awakening, and our aspiration is to emulate Buddha’s practice, wisdom and compassion. By carrying out our practice, we keep Buddha alive and transmit his dharma across space and time, continuing his lineage. I think the intersection of embodying and being immersed in the way is an interesting one. Even though Dōgen reminds us several times in the Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki that we are all vessels of the dharma, it’s not a matter of containing the dharma in the body and carrying it about. That would create an artificial separation between inside and outside. We’re always immersed in the dharma because there is nowhere that Buddha’s way does not reach. Even if we may feel like we’re swimming around in a dharma that’s “out there” beyond our bodies or separate from our physical form and our day-to-day functioning, the reality is that it permeates everything. The Zen tradition uses metaphors like the fragrance of burning incense or an early morning mist to illustrate the way that the dharma interpenetrates all things. We embody Buddha’s practice in that we enact it with our bodies and minds, but we do that as part of the total dynamic functioning of the universe. The second part of the gāthā makes reference to “conceiving the unexcelled aspiration,” “giving rise to the highest aspiration,” or awakening true mind.” The Japanese is hotsu mujō i 發無上意. Interestingly, the first kanji, translated as arousing or awakening, is used in modern Japanese phrases like generating electricity or sending a telegram. It has a sense of emitting or transmitting power. The second two kanji indicate something beyond which there is nothing higher or above. Finally, the fourth is feeling, thought, or meaning, and this kanji contains within it the kanji for heart/mind. Overall, we can see that this phrase is about arousing bodhicitta (bodaishin 菩提心), the thought of awakening, or the intention to attain buddhahood. This aspiration is not for oneself but for the sake of all beings, as we say when we chant the four bodhisattva vows: Beings are numberless; I vow to free them. We might think that aspiration is the beginning of our practice, but Dōgen says they arise together. Where aspiration is present there is already practice; practice is already awakening; practice-awakening is nirvana. Thus “aspiration, practice, awakening, and nirvana” are not sequential stages. Dōgen’s teaching is that Buddha as supreme awakening is the same as aspiration/practice/awakening/nirvana, so it makes sense that Buddha as a refuge appears in this gāthā together with aspiration. Taking refuge in Buddha is already the same as arousing bodhicitta and embodying awakening. Dōgen also says that we take refuge in Buddha as a good teacher. Taking refuge in Buddha means we look to him as our guide for how we live, although the idea of taking refuge goes back to India before Buddha. Originally, it meant declaring allegiance to a powerful person in exchange for receiving protection from various dangers. Early followers of the Buddha adopted the same custom, but they weren’t asking the Buddha to personally to intervene to provide protection. We face dangers from the three poisonous minds and we want freedom from them, but we’re committing to the three refuges and to our practice because we recognize that we create our own suffering. We’re committing to cultivating wisdom and skillful intentions that keep suffering from arising, and following the teachings helps us do that. In taking refuge, we look to Buddha when we lose our way, but he’s not something to worship that’s outside ourselves. We’re simply recognizing that we and Buddha and all of reality are not separate. It’s easy to lose sight of that and to turn to other things for comfort or refuge when we’re fearful. There are lots of things we might look to in order to “save” us from misfortune or suffering, things that only perpetuate suffering for ourselves and others. There are plenty of people and ideologies out there claiming to have the ultimate answers. What are they embodying, and encouraging us to embody? If we’re honest with ourselves, are these characteristics to which we want to come home? Do they feel comfortable in a way that makes us say to ourselves Ah, yes, this is the way things really are? Coming home to Buddha means not only immersing ourselves in a comfortable environment that deeply makes sense to us, but also embodying truth and awakening ourselves, taking them with us when we go back out into the world. Returning to zazen, settling down and letting go of distraction and delusion, we can hit the reset button and regain clarity, not because we want to use zazen to make ourselves feel better but because wisdom arises naturally when we put aside the desires of the small self and just sit in Buddha’s house, wearing Buddha’s robe, doing Buddha’s practice. Buddha is right there, and he is us. Next time: TAKING REFUGE IN THE TEACHING, I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO ENTER DEEPLY INTO THE SCRIPTURES WITH WISDOM AS DEEP AS THE SEA.  FORMALLY LEAVING HOME, I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO LEAVE HOME WITH THE BUDDHA AND RESCUE ONE AND ALL.[i] When householders take the precepts, that ceremony is called zaike tokudo 在家得度, staying home and acquiring the Way. When novices undertake ordination, that ceremony is called shukke tokudo 出家得度, leaving home and acquiring the Way. Becoming a homeleaver harkens back to the story of Siddhartha Gautama coming to a decision as a result of his discernment and physically leaving his home and family in pursuit of spiritual liberation, eventually experiencing awakening under the bodhi tree. Thus, this gāthā deals with some of the oldest content of our tradition. Prince Siddhartha of the Shakya clan was raised in a sheltered and luxurious environment. His parents had received a prediction that he would either become a great king or a great religious leader. Naturally, his father wanted him to succeed to the throne, and he tried to shield his son from the harsh realities of life that might set him on a path of spiritual discernment. Nonetheless, in four trips outside of the palace walls with his charioteer, Siddhartha encounters an old man, a sick person, a corpse, and an ascetic, and begins to understand the inevitability of suffering in the human condition and the impermanence of life. He decides to search for a way to overcome this suffering, and realizes that his comfortable life can’t provide the answers he’s looking for. In an act traditionally known as “The Great Renunciation,” Siddhartha leaves home to continue his discernment and find the solution. He sacrifices his connection with his wife and infant son and the luxuries of the palace and secretly departs at midnight to become a homeless ascetic, determined not to return until he had achieved his aspiration. Thus in the earliest days of the Buddhist sangha, leaving home really did mean giving up responsibilities to family and society and joining the wandering group of monks and nuns that practiced with Shakyamuni. This freed up the energy and attention necessary for devoting oneself entirely to the project of manifesting awakening, without the hindrances and distractions of home life, running a business, cultivating the fields, or raising children. In fact, the name of Shakyamuni’s son, Rahula, means “fetter.” This sort of obligation kept one tied to worldly concerns and was seen as an obstacle to practice. Creating the optimal conditions for sincere, intensive practice was a question that Dōgen considered and reconsidered during his life. In the Shukke-kudoku (The Virtue of Homeleaving) fascicle of the Shōbōgenzō, he wrote, “Those who are clear inevitably leave family life. Those who are dull end their lives at home, which are the causes and conditions of bad karma.” Okumura Rōshi explains that when Dōgen was young and idealistic, he didn’t want to leave the city to practice in the mountains, but as he got older he changed his mind. He may have concluded that the practice of government officials, military leaders, and others in society was not entirely sincere and may have become disillusioned, deciding instead to move to a quieter, simpler, and more isolated environment in order to practice intensively with others who shared that aspiration–in other words, to leave family life and the causes of bad karma and follow the Buddha in a way that felt more authentic. Authentic transmission became a recurring theme throughout Dōgen’s teachings. These days in North American Sōtō Zen, most lay and ordained practitioners live in their own homes and have families and often jobs. These are seen not as hindrances but as opportunities to practice with the day-to-day activities and situations that present themselves, without feeling the need to become isolated or detached. The bodhisattva of the Mahāyāna tradition works to liberate beings in this very place, rather than practicing in order to leap free from the wheel of rebirth in samsara and land permanently in nirvana. It’s not a “better” or “worse” approach than any other, but it is important to understand why we practice this way. Though we still refer to “homeleaving” when speaking of ordination as a novice, it’s a figurative homeleaving. We do need to spend six months to a year living and practicing in a training temple (senmon sōdō) in Japan in order to be authorized by the Sōtō Zen denomination to teach and represent the sect,[ii] but in the end, we return to our living places and take up the work of spreading the dharma in the world. Our homeleaving is a change of orientation from a worldly career and personal fame and profit toward a life as a bodhisattva. It’s the difference between living by karma and living by vow. Okumura Rōshi says, “Part of the definition of a bodhisattva is a person who lives by vow instead of by karma. Karma means habit, preferences, or a ready-made system of values. As we grow up, we learn a system of values from the culture around us, which we use to evaluate the world and choose actions. This is karma, and living by karma. In contrast, a bodhisattva lives by vow. Vow is like a magnet or compass that shows us the direction toward the Buddha.”[iii] In the human experience, leaving home is part of the normal process of growing up and individuating, preparing ourselves to go out into the world and take care of our opportunities and responsibilities as adults. It’s both a scary and an exhilarating time, full of possibilities, when we let go of some of the handrails that are in place in the parental home and see how we can do on our own. If in our youth we’ve developed a solid sense of who we are and what we value, we can build lives of meaning and fulfillment for ourselves. We have a direction and some measure of confidence, and we’re not afraid to commit to the effort and attention it will take to accomplish our aspirations. Leaving home with the Buddha gives us that direction. Simply leaving everything behind and making a leap into the unknown without wisdom, ethical underpinnings, and insight into the way the universe works would make it very difficult to establish a foothold and start walking toward the things we want to realize. Walking the Buddha’s path and bearing in mind the central elements of the tradition give us a place to start, and a place to which we can return when we get a bit lost. We’re not alone in this thing; Siddhartha Gautama is walking this path ahead of us, serving as an example and pointing out the Way. Of course, the Buddha’s direction is not one of self-involvement but of liberating beings from suffering. He’s not pointing us toward ourselves and our own cravings and attachments but toward others and being an encouragement and support in their awakening. This is what we’re really preparing to do when we leave home, formally or otherwise. In the beginning, our primary concern is naturally our own comfort and desires. In early childhood, we start to recognize that others are separate beings with their own needs and wants and perspectives, which may be different from our own. Our play starts to teach us something about how to have relationships with other people. In middle childhood, attending school with our peers further refines our understanding about how we see others and how they see us. We begin to develop empathy and the ability to cooperate and move beyond a purely egocentric view. By the time we’re adolescents, our brains have developed enough for abstract reasoning and a more advanced understanding of multiple viewpoints, and our self-concept includes the subtleties of the perceived reactions of others to our presence and behavior. Now we’re ready to leave the nest behind and try out our wings as adults. In fact, another word for a bodhisattva is dainin 大人, or great being. In everyday Japanese, dainin is literally a big person–an adult. In the end, a bodhisattva is someone with the maturity to function wisely, compassionately, and independently in the world and yet never lose sight of nonseparation and the emptiness of the self. An orientation toward rescuing one and all requires that we leave behind our childhood idea that we are the center of the world and move outward toward the understanding that we are part of not only our immediate family but the network of interdependence that is universal functioning. The more we see of and experience the world, the better we may become at recognizing suffering and its causes and conditions in ourselves and others. Thus does bodhicitta arise, the aspiration to live as a bodhisattva in this samsaric world on fire, doing what we can to ease the tribulations of everyone. Taking the precepts, whether as a householder or a homeleaver, cements our commitment to that path. Next time: TAKING REFUGE IN THE BUDDHA, I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO CONTINUE THE LINEAGE OF BUDDHAS, CONCEIVING THE. UNEXCELLED ASPIRATION. [i] Translations are based upon Thomas Cleary’s translation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, and have been recast by Hoko in the form of standard Sōtōshū gāthās.
[ii] For more on the process of ordination in the Sōtō Zen tradition, see the section on resources for novices and pre-novices on Sanshin Source. [iii] Okumura, Shohaku. Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2012. Page 15.  PUTTING ON ROBES,
I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO BE UNDEFILED IN MIND AND FULFILL THE WAY OF THE GREAT SAGE. Some of us do physically put on robes before going into the zendo to practice, and this kind of outward display of aspiration and intention can be very helpful and meaningful. However, we could also say that the more important robing activity is to embody the qualities of a bodhisattva, known as the six paramitas (generosity, morality, patience, energy, meditation, and wisdom). As Sawaki Rōshi reminds us, the robe and the dharma are one, so to put on a robe is to enter into the dharmakāya, or the dharma body of Buddha. This is everyone’s practice, regardless of their clothing. The dharmakāya, or the dharma body of Buddha, has two aspects: the things that Shakyamuni taught, and the reality of all beings. The root of the Sanskrit word dharma has a meaning like something that is established or something that is firm; the connotation is of something that supports or bears up. Dharma as a term predates the Buddha in India; in Hinduism, dharma is the religious and moral law governing individual conduct. There’s a broad dharma that applies to everyone and includes virtues like truthfulness, non-injury, and generosity, and there is also a specific dharma to be followed according to one’s class, status, and station in life. In Buddhism, “dharmas” means all the interconnected elements of this phenomenal world, as in “the myriad dharmas.” This means the Buddha is still here even though his physical body died 2500 years ago. This is the dharma as one of the absolute three treasures; it has no boundary and can’t be separated from buddha and sangha or from anything else. The dharma existed before Shakyamuni; he didn’t create it but he’s not separate from it. The historical or real-world manifestation of the dharma is the teachings of Shakyamuni, what he saw and helped his followers to understand. This is the dharma as one of the manifesting three treasures. There is also the dharma as the sutras, Buddha’s teachings that were written down and we can still find in books today. This is the dharma as one of the maintaining three treasures. In the Kyōjukaimon, Dōgen says that “[The Reality that is] pure and free from defilements is the [absolute] Dharma Treasure.” Aha–now we have a connection to the third line of our verse. We might think that having an undefiled mind, or being in an undefiled state, means being without impurities such as the three poisons that are the basis of suffering. After all, one word for defilement is sen 染, which means to dye or stain. When your clothes are stained, you can’t see the original fabric. Likewise, when our minds are stained with delusion, our true nature is hard to see. When we take refuge in the three treasures, we take refuge in “the dharma, honored as the stainless.” This is the reality of Dōgen’s Kyōjukaimon. Yet we know from our own experience that reality certainly includes all kinds of things we would consider impurities. We don’t have to go far to encounter mean-spiritedness, short-sightedness, or self-aggrandizement. How can this dharma world be said to be stainless? Still, from the non-dual point of view, which is the view taken by the Avataṃsaka Sūtra that contains this verse, separating pure from impure is a dualistic approach. Because all things are interconnected, and because there is nowhere that Buddha’s awakening does not reach, there is nothing that can be called defiled. We hear this again in the Heart Sutra, in which Shariputra hears that “all dharmas are marked by emptiness; they do not arise nor cease, are neither defiled nor pure, do not increase nor decrease.” Being empty doesn’t mean they don’t exist; it means they are empty of a permanent self-nature. Because they are impermanent and subject to constant change, there is nothing we can grasp as “defiled” or “pure.” Our clothes and our minds are perfectly clean. Assuming the outer form of the bodhisattva means meeting people where they are and wearing what’s appropriate. Bodhisattvas appear in whatever form is necessary to liberate beings from suffering, which means sometimes they look like radiant mysterious beings and sometimes they look like scruffy old men. We too need to be skillful in discerning what’s really needed in this moment based on who’s in front of us and their true situation. We need to offer what’s actually helpful, and not just what we want to offer, as good as our intentions may be. In order to do this, we need to let go of self-clinging, which is the most fundamental of defilements: the illusion that we are separate from others and that their gain is our loss. The Lotus Sutra says that in order to teach and practice the dharma, we must “enter the Thus Come One’s room, put on the Thus Come One’s robe, [and] sit in the Thus Come One’s seat.” The Buddha’s room is made of compassion, and it’s big enough to include all beings, seeing all of them and empathizing with all of them equally. The Buddha’s robe is a mind that is gentle and forbearing, and it serves as a protective garment when we encounter slander, abuse, or persecution. It gives us the patience and equanimity not to respond in unskillful ways and create further suffering. Finally, the Buddha’s seat is emptiness. From this seat, we are free from attachments, the craving, grasping, clinging, and greed that keeps us transmigrating through the realms of samsara. We can see how these three are related, and how entering the room, putting on the robe, and sitting down are really all the same thing. This is fulfilling the way of the Great Sage, Shakyamuni. Sages know the truth of existence not solely by study but their own experience and realization. Although there’s nothing to attain that isn’t already here, we still need to practice in order to see reality clearly and to act skillfully in the world. Thus the path is not linear, with a prize at the end, but a circle of developing wisdom and compassion and then offering them to all beings. Fulfilling the way doesn’t mean we come to the end of the road and declare victory, because that’s not possible. We ourselves can’t really liberate all beings, end all delusions, enter all dharma gates or completely embody awakening without any stumbles. Nonetheless, we aspire to understand that we are already entirely filled with the dharma. Dōgen encourages us in the Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki by reminding us several times never to think that we are not vessels of the dharma. Our practice is not characterized as a “way” by accident. In early teachings, this is the Sanskrit marga. In the world of Sōtō Zen, however, the meaning is not so linear—it’s not so much a means of moving from one place to another or achieving a goal, but activity itself. For us, the Buddha Way is not a path from delusion to awakening or a set of steps and stages toward buddhahood that we can follow using a roadmap. A more useful perspective might be to consider a way as an approach or a practice. Rather than “This is the way to the kitchen, or to the zendo,” we’re talking about a way in the sense of “This is the way we cook a meal,” or “This is the way we do zazen.” In other words, this is our practice of cooking, or our practice of zazen. The kanji (道 do) comes to us from the Chinese as the Dao of Daoism. The Dao is the underlying function of the universe, things doing what they naturally do, and the practice is to fold into this functioning and move easily through the world without resistance. When we understand the way like this, we can see that there are myriad gates opening onto it. The so-called “way arts” are one example; these activities aim to give practitioners an opportunity to see through and let go of the clinging and obstruction of the small self. Gadō 画道, the way of painting; kadō 歌道, the way of poetry; kadō 華道, the way of flowers; shodō 書道, the way of calligraphy; kendō 剣道, the way of swordsmanship; and kyūdō 弓道, the way of archery are such practices. They’re everyday activities done with a high degree of cultivation, paying attention to deportment and how one carries oneself. When we’re paying attention, there’s no wasted motion or energy, and our movements are conscious, deliberate and precise. There’s no obstruction or hindrance to universal functioning, and the small self takes a back seat. Simply being on the path is itself a complete expression of awakening. — • -- Next time: FORMALLY LEAVING HOME I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO LEAVE HOME WITH THE BUDDHA AND RESCUE ONE AND ALL.  WHEN SHAVING OFF MY HAIR,
I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO FOREVER DIVORCE ALL AFFLICTIONS AND PASS ON TO ULTIMATE TRANQUILITY. In the Sōtō Zen tradition, members of the ordained sangha shave their heads on days with a date ending in a 4 or a 9. This shaving practice is known as jōhatsu 淨髮, literally something like “purifying the hair.” In the training temple, on these days the schedule is a little lighter and there’s a bit of personal time for head shaving, cleaning one’s room, patching one’s robes, and taking care of other individual needs. Like all elements of temple life, head shaving isn’t just a maintenance task, but an opportunity to sincerely and wholeheartedly practice. In some temples, one does the shaving on one’s own, and in others, everyone gathers in robes, pairs off, and shaves each other. In any event, as a practice of purification it’s accompanied by the chanting of this gāthā. In Japanese, it’s like this: teijo shuhatsu 剃除鬚髮 tōgan shujō 當願衆生 yori bonnō 永離煩惱 kugyō jakumetsu 究竟寂滅 The first two lines of the verse are pretty self-explanatory, and follow the usual form of a gāthā. The last two invite us to consider the nature of bonnō 煩惱, afflictions or delusions, and of jakumetsu 寂滅, the tranquility or stillness of nirvana. You may recognize bonnō from the second of the bodhisattva vows: bonnō mujin seigan dan, or “Delusions are inexhaustable; I vow to end them.” Bonnō are worldly cares, sensual desire, passions, unfortunate longings, suffering, or pain. Delusion is not a simple thing, and one word really isn’t enough to convey all the complexity of bonnō. No wonder they’re inexhaustible. The first kanji of bonnō (煩, bon) refers to troubles, worries, vexations, concerns, afflictions, or annoyances. It has a feeling of being noisy, fussy, and distracting, something clamoring for our attention. The second (悩 or 惱, nō) gives the feeling of seduction or enchantment, something we yearn for or long for. These are the sufferings born from our desires. We want things even when we know they won’t help, when they’re distracting us from what we really need to do or from more wholesome things. They’re like potato chips; they seem desirable and we eat them, but they don’t really provide much nourishment, and the salt makes us thirsty. A short time later we’re hungry again, maybe for real food this time, but potato chips are easy and taste good and satisfy our body’s desire for fat and salt. Bonnō has a feeling of temptation. We suffer because we are tempted by our attachments. Even when we know we’re going to suffer because of them, somehow we can’t resist. Whenever I overindulge in internet shopping, I have trouble paying my bills — but I just can’t resist that new jacket or book or video game. Maybe this time it won’t really be a problem somehow! This is one kind of delusion, which comes from compulsions and habituated thinking. We do the same things over and over and somehow don’t accept the result. We loosen the grip of these predispositions as we engage in shikantaza, settling down and seeing clearly and for ourselves how this kind of suffering arises. Another Japanese word related to (or sometimes used for) delusion is mayoi 迷い. In Buddhism, it means maya, the illusion of thinking that duality is the real nature of things. As an everyday Japanese word, it has a feeling of being lost. We hesitate and we are bewildered because we’ve lost our way. We become deluded and we believe in things that contradict the way the universe really works, and we do it because of ignorance, a word which has the same root as “ignore.” This delusion that comes from ignorance is the second kind of bonnō. Most delusions are the ignorant kind. The way to loosen their grip is to cultivate a deep understanding of the four noble truths (and therefore the nature of reality). Any time we’re in error about the nature of reality, we can’t be our true selves. In order to be fully awake, we have to completely understand how things really are, before we paper them over with our concepts and habits of thought. If there’s the slightest misunderstanding, there is some delusion there and we are not able to exist in pure awareness. Delusion is ignorance of the true nature of things. Regardless of the form they take, delusions obstruct our ability to manifest buddha-nature. Delusion is subtle and pervasive. It motivates us to think and act in certain ways, and then it supports those patterns and keeps them going, leading to suffering in this phenomenal world. Once that train is on its way down the track, it’s pretty hard to pull the brake. It’s said that there are 108 bonnō to overcome to reach nirvana, and this is a number that reappears throughout the Japanese Buddhist tradition. Temples and shrines often have 108 steps leading up to them. In Japan at the New Year, the temple bell rings 108 times. One traditional explanation is that shiku hakku 四苦八苦, an expression representing the sufferings of life, has the same sound as 4, 9, 8, 9, shi ku ha ku. If you add up 4 times 9 and 8 times 9 it comes out to be 108 – shi ku ha ku helps you get rid of shikuhakku. The physical act of ringing the bell or walking up each step is a kind of body practice to symbolically eliminate each of the bonnō. The Yogacara school of Buddhist philosophy says that there are four fundamental bonnō from which all the other ones spring. 我 (ga) at the beginning of each of these refers to the self, and that itself indicates where the problem of clinging lies. Gachi 我癡 is ignorance of the reality of egolessness and impermanence. Gaken 我見 is clinging to our established views of the things around us; it can be translated “selfish mind,” literally “looking at myself.” Gaman 我慢 is arrogance, putting ourselves ahead of others. Ga-ai 我愛 is self-attachment, literally self love. Ignorance, egocentric view, arrogance and self-attachment are the basic bonnō, and they’re all centered on “my” attachment to certain things: my point of view, my concept of myself, my need to be better than others. Cutting off the hair is a reminder about cutting off our attachment to self, including our physical image. In the bodhisattva vows, delusions are inexhaustible, just as our hair never stops growing. We never run out of delusions. Worldly cares, sensual desire, passions, unfortunate longings, suffering, and pain all keep showing up; we don’t have to count up to 108 to know there are a lot. Yet our bodhisattva vow is to liberate all beings by helping them understand the nature of this delusion. To do so, we have to start with ourselves, taking every opportunity not to ignore delusion when it shows up, and letting go of it with both commitment and compassion. Taking head shaving as a practice gives us the chance to practice vow and repentance, recognizing that delusion keeps arriving and at the same time aspiring to cut off the attachments that lead to that delusion. In spite of the inexhaustibility of bonnō, this gāthā expresses our aspiration to be forever free from them. If we can manage that, ultimately we move into a place of tranquility, silence or stillness. This is jakumetsu, or nirvana. Jaku 寂 is stillness, and metsu 滅 has a feeling of extinction, as in extinguishing a flame. The roots of the word nirvana are about blowing something out, in this case, the flames of suffering and affliction that happen when we don’t see reality clearly.In the Lotus Sutra there’s a parable about a father trying to save his children from a burning house.It’s another way to depict the Buddha trying to help us experience nirvana by dealing with the fires of our delusion that keep us trapped on the wheel of samsara. There’s another head shaving verse in our Sōtō Zen tradition, one chanted during the novice ordination ceremony.This is the first time the novice engages in the head shaving practice that will then become a lifelong observance. In Japanese, it’s: ruden san gai chū 流轉三界中 on nai funō dan 恩愛不能斷 kion nyū mui 棄恩入無爲 shin jitsu hō on sha 眞實報恩者 At Sanshin, our English translation goes: Within the karmic life in the triple world The bonds of attachment are hard to break. Leaving them behind is to enter the Truth. Truly this shows one’s gratitude. The focus here is slightly different from that of the gāthā from the Avataṃsaka Sūtra with which we began.It’s still concerned with the symbolism of head shaving as an act of cutting off clinging and craving that leads to the delusion and suffering of the world of samsara, and developing the wisdom of seeing reality as it is.However, it’s also reassuring the novice’s family that he/she/they are not being selfish and ungrateful in cutting off social responsibility at the same time. A strong undercurrent of Confucian values remains in Japan, and under its influence, children are assumed to be responsible for repaying the care and kindnesses bestowed on them by their parents throughout their lives.That means caring for them as they age and making regular offerings to them after their death.Sons in particular are charged with having sons themselves to carry on the family line and ensure that there are descendants to care for the ancestors.If instead one chooses to leave home and become a monk, and to leap free from the wheel of samsara and land in nirvana forever, one could be criticized for abrogating these responsibilities.This second verse makes the point that life as a bodhisattva, devoting one’s life to practice and liberating oneself from transmigrating around and around the realms of samsara, is actually the best way to repay one’s family and “show one’s gratitude.” In North America, and indeed in modern Japan, becoming a member of the clergy does not require completely giving up home life, so this verse no longer has the immediate relevance it once did. Nonetheless, it’s a useful reminder that we don’t ordain or practice for ourselves alone. While opening up the opportunity for particular kinds of training and deepening personal practice, the point of ordination is to learn to skillfully give the gift of dharma to others. We have the chance to recommit to that aspiration every five days when engaging in the practice of head shaving and symbolically cutting the bonds of attachment over and over again. — • -- Next time: PUTTING ON ROBES, I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO BE UNDEFILED IN MIND AND FULFILL THE WAY OF THE GREAT SAGE.  SHEDDING LAY CLOTHING, I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO CULTIVATE ROOTS OF GOODNESS AND ABANDON THE YOKE OF TRANSGRESSIONS[1] This verse continues our consideration of the meaning of committing to practice. In this case, the circumstance is ordination as a novice, leaving behind one’s status as a layperson and vowing to carry the dharma and the Buddhist tradition in a formal and public way. Before the shukke tokudo, the soon-to-be-novice bathes and puts on a white kimono, having shaved off all but a small tuft of hair at the crown of the head. It’s in this condition that he/she/they enter the hall for the ceremony, which includes receiving the koromo (black outer robe) and okesa. Much has symbolically been left behind at this point. The aspirant doesn’t come into the hall still dressed as a layperson; that image has been set aside. However, this person is not yet a novice either, and won’t appear in a new guise until the end of the ceremony. Shedding lay clothing before the ceremony doesn’t indicate that we no longer love our families, or own our own homes, or function in the world. It means that whatever we’re physically wearing or doing, we’re wearing the robes of the clergy and carrying the practice and the dharma in the world. Naturally, we become more skillful and experienced at this the longer we study and engage in the work, and in the beginning we’re not expected to take on the same responsibilities as senior novices or transmitted teachers. Our focus in the beginning of our training is to establish a good foundation for our continued clerical development, including deepening our own practice. In the early Buddhist tradition, four good roots were said to appear when the practitioner had reached a higher level of maturity. These are described in various ways depending on sect and school, but suffice it here to say that the longer we sincerely practice, the less likely it is that we fall back into unwholesome habits of body, speech, and mind and the more likely it is that we will deeply understand the Four Noble Truths and act skillfully in the world. Having established this solid foundation for wise, compassionate, ethical action, we become less and less hindered and constrained by the three poisons and feel less compelled to break precepts, causing suffering for ourselves and others. The four roots of goodness are shizengon 四善根 in Japanese. Shi 四 is four, zen 善 is goodness or virtue, and gon 根 is root. (Interestingly, 根 can also indicate one’s true nature.) These virtues generally have to do with listening to teachings, particularly about the Four Noble Truths, and carrying out acts of kindness and compassion. The better we understand the nature of suffering and how it arises, the better equipped we are to deal with our own delusion and to help others deal with theirs. The wisdom of seeing emptiness and interconnectedness naturally leads us to benevolence and beneficence. While awakening is already here and there’s nothing “out there” that we need to gain through our practice, still, as ordinary humans we’re often driven by our karma rather than by our vow. Zazen, work, study, and ritual can help us see more clearly how the universe actually works and what’s really going on in this one unified reality. How do we develop these good roots? One way is by hanging around with others who are doing the same thing. We need to be immersed in sangha and learning intellectually and non-intellectually from teachers. However, it’s not enough just to learn. We also have to do. Actually engaging in bodhisattva work plants good roots that not only liberate beings here and now but also enable us to continue our own development. It’s not the case that we need to observe for awhile, lurking on the fringes of the Buddha Way, before we can do something with this body and mind. If we’re waiting for the perfect conditions before we practice, we’ll never get there. As Maya Angelou advised, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” The Avataṃsaka Sūtra says, “There is not a single enlightening being who can ever attain even a little bit of the knowledge and wisdom of buddhas without having planted roots of goodness in the company of buddhas.” Tonen O’Connor expands on this teaching: “Roots of goodness –the basis upon which our enlightenment rests. Without these roots, no ‘enlightenment experience’ will ever open the door to our universal self. Throughout the many previous pages of the sutra, the enlightening beings have been establishing their roots of goodness through every imaginable action, as well as a few beyond the reach of human imagination, to help sentient beings realize the truth that brings peace and contentment. “The deeper those roots of goodness are, the greater our ability to help the beings whose lives are inextricably bound to ours. Indeed, it is a wonderful circle, for the roots of goodness themselves grow deeper through our actions to help others. To be in the company of buddhas is to act as they have and as they do, and to honor and learn from the teachings they have left us.” Of course, engaging in zazen is also vital to establishing good roots. It’s there that we come to realize the nature of the universe as nonduality, and in that moment we liberate ourselves and all beings. On the basis of our wisdom and compassion, we can see the suffering of beings and act skillfully for and with them. Menzan Zuihō wrote in Jijuyu Zanmai, “In the Shōdōka we find the expression, ‘Being aware of reality, there is neither subject nor object, and we are immediately released from the karma of the hell of incessant suffering.’ When you sit in this samadhi, you will enter directly into the realm of the Tathagata. Therefore, this samadhi is endowed with the limitless virtue of the roots of goodness, and the limitless obstructions of one’s evil deeds caused by evil karma will disappear without a trace. As this samadhi is truly the incomparable, great Dharma-wheel, and the practice of ever going beyond buddhahood, it is beyond words and discriminating thoughts.” Traditionally, the way to cultivate good roots was to devote oneself entirely to studying the dharma and practicing the Way. Thus, this gate associates shedding lay clothing—leaving behind the responsibilities of being a householder and caring for family, fields, business and society—with a wholehearted commitment to practice. Another way to look at this, however, is to see shedding lay clothing as putting aside our habitual focus on satisfying our greed, indulging our anger, and remaining ignorant of things we don’t want to see. We make a shift from setting up conditions that result in worldly benefits—material gain, an impressive reputation, victories over rivals—to setting up conditions that result in moving ourselves and others toward understanding the Four Noble Truths and cause and effect. Worldly benefits may still arrive, but achieving them is not our goal or focus. We’ve redirected ourselves away from self-clinging and toward embracing all beings. We can all be bodhisattvas in the world regardless of social role or karmic circumstances. Becoming a novice and training to be clergy is one way to carry out vows, but there are others. No one is left out of the opportunity and obligation to repent of our misdeeds and reorient ourselves toward Buddha, dharma, and sangha. There’s a place for everyone in the universal network of giving and receiving, whether or not we’re aware of it or participating in an intentional way. In that way, the roots of goodness are planted without regard to the small self and what it aspires to do. Nonetheless, how much more good can be done in the world if we’re thoughtful about making space in our lives not only to act with kindness, but to learn from that action. The results of that activity are bigger than simply meeting a recipient’s immediate need for help or care. In the longer term, we’re setting up habits of paying attention, giving up clinging to things or self-image, and recognizing interconnectedness. Dōgen provided us with not four but eight roots of goodness in his Hachidainingaku (Eight Qualities of a Great Person). These are concrete activities that we can put into practice today in our effort to develop a foundation for our practice and cultivate skillful action. Shoyoku 少欲: having few desires Chisoku 知足: knowing satisfaction Gyojakujo 楽寂浄: enjoying serenity or seclusion Gonshojin 勤精進: making diligent effort Fumonen 不忘念: not losing mindfulness Shuzenjo 修禅定: practicing samadhi Shuchie 修智慧: practicing wisdom Fukeron 不戯論: avoiding idle discussion[2] These in turn are taken from the Sutra of the Buddha’s Last Teachings (Yuikyōgyō). Dōgen put them in front of us in his final writing because he was concerned that these roots were no longer being cultivated: “Few have laid deep roots in carrying out good because they have neither heard about these qualities nor seen them in action. In the past, during the time when the correct dharma was practiced or later when it was at least heard, those disciples of the Buddha learned and manifested these qualities (through their practice.) But today, only one or two out of a thousand monks know of these eight qualities.”[3] He seems to be strengthening the case for practicing with a sangha and paying attention to teachers and mature practitioners as examples of listening to dharma teachings and taking bodhisattva action. Dōgen goes on to lament that so few people were making the commitment to leave worldly affairs behind and take advantage of the incomparable opportunity of hearing Buddha’s teachings and putting them into practice. He concludes, “There are those who died before the Buddha entered nirvana. Unfortunately, they were never able to hear about these eight qualities nor learn or practice them. Today, we have had the good fortune to be able to hear this teaching and practice it, thanks to the roots of goodness that were planted in previous lives. Therefore, it is critical for us to study and practice [these qualities], to expand their merit in each successive life, to realize deepest wisdom; and, finally, just as the Buddha did, to expound that teaching for all sentient beings.” — • -- Next time: WHEN SHAVING OFF MY HAIR, I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO FOREVER DIVORCE ALL AFFLICTIONS AND PASS ON TO ULTIMATE TRANQUILITY. Notes:
[1] Translations are based upon Thomas Cleary’s translation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, and have been recast by Hoko in the form of standard Sōtōshū gāthās. [2] See Okumura Rōshi’s discussion of Hachidainigaku at https://dogeninstitute.wordpress.com/2025/02/23/eight-aspects-of-the-awakening-of-great-beings/ [3] Kōshō Uchiyama and Eihei Dōgen. The Roots of Goodness: Zen Master Dōgen’s Teaching on the Eight Qualities of a Great Person. United Kingdom, Shambhala, 2025, p. 32.  SEEKING INITIATION,
I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO REACH THE NON-REGRESSING STATE, OUR MINDS WITHOUT IMPEDIMENT.[1] In the world of Sōtō Zen, we are always hearing that practice and awakening are one, and that there are no real stages of attainment arranged in a linear system that we have to pass through before achieving or attaining something, as taught in other sects of Buddhism. Nonetheless, it’s useful to consider what it means to make a firm commitment to practice, and how that commitment intersects with our aspiration to liberate ourselves from the hindrances or obstacles that get in the way of our bodhisattva activity. Initiation means various things across the Buddhist tradition. For us who practice Sōtō Zen in North America, it likely first means taking lay precepts. Later on, if our practice leads us to aspire to take leadership as clergy, it means ordaining as a novice and training to become a skillful dharma teacher. For the purpose of this immediate exploration, let’s assume we’re talking about receiving lay precepts and officially joining a lineage. At this point, we’ve established our practice, found a sangha, begun to get a sense of what the Buddha and our ancestors were teaching and practicing, and done enough discernment to decide that we’re ready to make a formal and public commitment to the path. In early Buddhist teachings, establishing a practice is sometimes called entering the stream. That stream is said to lead unfailingly to awakening within seven lifetimes, and in the meantime, the practitioner won’t regress, or be reborn in any of the lower realms of saṃsāra (hell, hungry ghosts and animals). In Japanese the stage of non-regression is futaiteni 不退轉位. Futaiten 不退轉 means determination, and at the point in our practice where we’re ready to commit, we’ve developed the determination to see this thing through. When we’ve reached the stage of determination, we’re no longer flirting with Buddhism, dancing around the edges and poking it occasionally to see what’s there. It’s no longer a weekend hobby, or something we simply debate in online chat rooms. It’s the way we see the world, the way things are for us now, the way we actually live. We’re ready to go all in. Four factors are said to be necessary for stream entry: associating with admirable people (in other words, finding a sangha), listening to the true dharma, paying appropriate attention, and practicing in accordance with the teachings. You likely have these things in place already by the time you’ve done your discernment and chosen to receive the precepts; it would be difficult to make the commitment without these foundational elements. An aspiration to receive lay precepts arises from a steady and well-established practice with a sangha.At Sanshin, we tell potential kaitei that it’s good to have been practicing here regularly and consistently (or within the Sanshin Network) for at least a year before considering making a commitment of this kind. They need to know that Sōtō Zen practice really is meaningful for them and that they wish to continue to maintain a steady practice after receiving the precepts. They should also have begun to get a sense of the basic teachings of Buddhism and Sōtō Zen, and started to attend sesshin, even if for only a day at a time. Stream entry, establishing a practice, and making a commitment, moves us toward liberation from three impediments of mind: self-identity views, uncertainty, and grasping at habits and practices. That’s because it supports and enables the opening of our dharma eye, which sees the emptiness of all things. The dharma eye is the eye of the bodhisattva, who moves skillfully through the world with wisdom and compassion. With the opening of the dharma eye comes the understanding of the causes and conditions of suffering and what leads to the cessation of suffering, which makes it possible to let go of these three impediments. When we clearly see that the five skandhas (form, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness) are not the self, and when we stop clinging to them as a way to create identity, we’re on our way to letting go of the first impediment, self-identity views. We’re released from doubt and uncertainty when we gain faith that the Buddha actually did awaken, that we can do the same, and that what the Buddha taught is indeed the way to establish a practice. We give up our grasping of habits and practices when we dive into their meaning and context rather than engaging in forms or rituals in place of zazen, work and study, or ascribing a magical power to them simply because they’re been handed down from a beloved teacher or from generation to generation. We engage in virtuous practice for its own sake, without expecting a reward.[2] All of these liberations are accomplished by sincerely undertaking the practice of the eightfold path as a bodhisattva. Early teachings on non-retrogression explain that there are three kinds (sanfutai 三不退). The first is not backsliding from the stage of development one has already attained. The second is not retreating from the practice itself. The third is not losing mindfulness and forgetting what Buddha taught. If we’re ready to make a public commitment to the precepts, we’ve established the determination to keep practicing and the aspiration for awakening to the reality of this moment, and we have faith that we can do it. Entering the stream is said to give us four characteristics: conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment, “four qualities that lead to a lay person’s happiness and well-being in lives to come.” Conviction undoes our uncertainty and doubt. In this case, it’s not so much about trusting the Three Treasures but understanding and accepting the workings of karma, or cause and effect. There is a cause of suffering, and without that cause, suffering ceases to arise and liberation is possible. Virtue is the sympathy and compassion for all beings that arises from understanding karma. Generosity needs to be present before initiation, but afterward, it’s turned in particular toward the Three Treasures and particular attention is paid to how our own conceit and greed get in the way. Discernment has to do with cultivating right view, particularly in relation to letting go of self-clinging. In early teachings, once a bodhisattva receives a prediction of Buddhahood, there’s no turning back. One has to receive such a prediction in order to experience awakening, and it can only come from a Buddha; one can’t determine such a thing for oneself. In the world of Sōtō Zen, where there are no stages of bodhisattvahood, we don’t find descriptions like this. Nonetheless, Uchiyama Rōshi had useful things to say about the potential for regression, forgetting what Buddha taught and somehow not getting around to actually carrying out our practice, despite our best intentions. [Y]ou have to live out your self as your own responsibility. Ultimately, development and backsliding depend only on you. It really is pointless to say that you became rotten because of your circumstances, or that your education is responsible, or that the blame belongs to somebody else. The fundamental attitude of the practitioner must be to live out one’s own whole self.[3] When he’s talking about one’s whole self here, he’s really pointing us toward the total functioning of reality, or the universe. While reality certainly includes the karma that provided causes and conditions that shaped us, what we do with this moment is what’s really important. We can be knocked back by challenges in our lives and practice, or we can hold onto our commitment to the Three Treasures and the precepts and go forward with our best effort. Thinking and sleeping on the cushion are not separate from zazen, saṃsāra is not separate from nirvāṇa, and practice and awakening are not two. Encountering difficulties is not a reason to give up practicing and go back to living based on the greed, anger and ignorance with which we arrived at the temple for the first time, being pulled around by karma rather than by vow. Because of our attitude of non-reliance, at Sanshin no one is going to go out and find you to drag you back into the zendo if you don’t show up. Beyond wanting to know that you’re OK, it’s not the business of practice leaders to keep track of how much time you put in or to monitor your “progress.” The only thing that keeps us from backsliding is our own bodhicitta, our own determination to practice and awaken. In Buddhist India, practitioners did not gather in a sodo to practice but did their sitting in their own huts or hermitages. Likewise, Sawaki Rōshi’s disciples, including Uchiyama Rōshi, carried on their sesshin practice when he wasn’t there to keep an eye on them. Uchiyama Rōshi felt that the quality of the practice changed and practitioners lost touch with their internal aspiration when they depended on someone or something else to force them to wake up. Okumura Rōshi says, “No one helps us to wake up, so we have to make effort, and we have to face ourselves. No one forces us to wake up or even to sit.” Once we begin seeing with the eyes of Buddha, we can’t really un-see reality. Once we know that this is really the way the universe works, it’s tough to ignore that and go back to living a chaotic life with an unstable foundation made up of the stuff we fabricate in our heads. The good news is that according to the teachings, once we start practicing we’re never going to be reborn in a lower realm than human. The not so good news is that it’s certainly still possible for us to get distracted by the seductions of the world, to put aside our practice for awhile, go along with the crowd, and stop doing something that can feel like swimming upstream. Is this really easier than practicing? Is it really easier to manage the resulting disconnection, disappointment and dis-ease? It’s important to remember that even if we fall off the path for awhile, there’s no obstacle to getting back on. There’s no need to feel apologetic, guilty, embarrassed or judged. Yeah, sometimes we let life take over. We can’t go back and decide to practice in the past. In this moment, however, we have every opportunity to recommit, start again, get back on the cushion, return to the temple, reintroduce ourselves to the sangha, and pick up where we left off. Some folks take zazen instruction a number of times before they organize themselves to begin practicing regularly. Some who frequently attend temple activities disappear for awhile, then start showing up again when they realize that there’s a Zen-shaped hole in their lives. Welcome back, everyone. No one is keeping score. Your place is still here waiting for you. Next time: Shedding lay clothing, I vow with all beings to cultivate roots of goodness and abandon the yoke of transgressions. [1] Translations are based upon Thomas Cleary’s translation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, and have been recast by Hoko in the form of standard Sōtōshū gāthās. [2] These three impediments are all forms of clinging, and if we want to extend ourselves a bit further, we can include the fourth kind of clinging recognized in Buddhism: attachment to what comes in through our senses. [3] Uchiyama, K. (2005). Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice. Somerville: Wisdom Publications, p. 165.  GOING TO TUTORS AND TEACHERS,
I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS, TO SKILLFULLY SERVE MY TEACHERS AND PRACTICE VIRTUOUS WAYS. [1] We’ve entered a section of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra where the gāthās describe the process of making a commitment to practice. In the context of the sutra that commitment is ordination, but in North America, the path of lay practice has many of the same elements. We encounter the dharma, find a community and a teacher, do some discernment, decide that Buddhism is the right path for us, establish our practice, and make a commitment to live in Buddha’s way. We realize there’s only so much we can do on our own by reading books and watching videos. At some point, it’s time to do sustained body-and-mind practice in person with a sangha and a human teacher who has been engaged with this thing for some time, one who has received the training and credentials necessary to carry the tradition in a mature way and pass it on to others. We can have a lot of romanticized ideas about what the “teacher-student relationship” should look like. Maybe our models are the classroom teachers of our school days, our therapists, people with whom we’ve apprenticed, our parents, or the mystical ancestors we read about in kōan collections. A good many of us are resistant to the very idea of having a teacher, fearing being absorbed into some kind of authoritarian system that will crush our individuality or turn us into members of a cult of personality. It can be tough to navigate the middle way between teachings about the centrality of authentic face-to-face transmission and the teaching that no one can practice for us and we must be lamps unto ourselves. Here at Sanshin, we don’t have a formal thing called a teacher-student relationship. At the center of our practice style is nonreliance, which is shorthand for realizing the self without relationship to others which includes everything. In developing our own practice, we’re not pushed or pulled along by teachers; they’re not responsible for us.[2] It’s up to us to get ourselves onto the cushion every day, watch and listen to teachers, notice where we’ve gone off the rails, ask questions and clarify our understanding. We’re relying on our own bodhicitta, not on someone else’s requirements, curricula, or evaluations. Teachers are doing their own practice, and everyone else is welcome to join them if they wish. If they don’t wish, that’s fine too. No one is going to go out and drag practitioners into the zendo by the scruff of the neck. If they’re waiting for someone to validate them and attend to their individual desires and expectations, they’re going to be waiting a long time. For practitioners who want to be cared for in a personal way, this approach may seem cold or unwelcoming. They may yearn for a close personal relationship like the ones they read about in the old Chinese texts, where a magical teacher has a student attendant with whom he seems to communicate by intuition, knowing precisely when to say a wise and compassionate turning word that cracks open the student’s awareness. Sometimes practitioners fall in love with a teacher’s karmic attributes; apparently it used to happen to Kōdō Sawaki, and I’ve certainly seen it happen in modern North America. Overawed practitioners can become obsequious and insinuating, whether or not the teacher is actually encouraging this behavior. This is not skillfully serving teachers. This sort of thing is why dharma teachers need to be well versed in power dynamics and able to recognize and head off unhelpful attachments. Skillfully serving teachers starts with understanding what teachers are there to do. Ideally, the focus is on neither the teacher nor the student, but on the dharma. Uchiyama Rōshi used to tell practitioners that he was not there to take care of them; he was simply walking toward Buddha on his own legs, and that they needed to do the same. At minimum, our job as students is to join that parade in a way that doesn’t disrupt the activity for the teacher or other participants. At best, we can play a meaningful part in supporting and upholding it so that everyone has the opportunity to practice and grow. Dōgen says that a teacher is someone who you see and who sees you. In other words, real transmission of the dharma can only happen face to face, and not through books or over a distance. This is why we go to teachers, as the dharma gate says. We have to practice in a room together, pay close attention and experience the world of total dynamic functioning (jijuyu zammai) to really get what teachers are embodying and transmitting and to enter into a dialogue about the dharma. Dōgen was clear that while our tradition includes teachings about mind to mind transmission and “transmission outside of words and letters,” if we don’t explain the dharma to people, whether verbally or nonverbally, they can’t understand it. We need to know what we’re looking for from teachers. While it’s good to be able to give skillful dharma talks and write meaningful essays, whether or not a teacher embodies and models practice every day in a way that encourages and inspires others to practice is more important. Rather than looking for guidance and inspiration from a magazine or website, watch how the teacher bows to Buddha, drinks a cup of coffee, folds a zagu, or handles a phone. It’s not that those activities are magical, and we need to guard against becoming precious about them, which is just another trap for our egos. It’s that we have in front of us at that moment someone who has vowed to live concretely smack dab in the middle of Buddha’s way and demonstrate for us how we can do it too. We may find it very helpful to read academic texts as part of our dharma study, but we would not look to those very accomplished scholars as models of practice. Sōtō Zen is not a philosophy or a belief system, it’s something we do. It’s not uncommon that folks write to Sanshin wanting to become Okumura Rōshi’s students based on having read his books and maybe watched some videos. Maybe they attended a talk in person somewhere during the years when he was traveling to teach. They see a person who’s humble, soft-spoken, agreeable and able to do exegesis of Dōgen’s sometimes difficult writing, and they fall in love with his karmic attributes, wanting to receive personal mentoring and care. They know nothing about the firm adherence to the legacy of nonreliance that he inherited from our twentieth century ancestors and that underlies his actual practice. This is one reason we talk a lot about the practice vision and the real intention behind our style of practice. There’s a difference between being a fan and being a student. Okumura Rōshi connected with his own teacher first by reading his book Jiko and then by actually going to Antaiji to practice with him as a young layperson. It was on the basis of his meeting and spending time with Uchiyama Rōshi that he knew he wanted to practice like this teacher, and he has spent the rest of his life transmitting his teacher’s practice. For him, serving his teacher and practicing virtuous ways meant leaving his home country and his teacher behind, coming to North America and serving as an example of wholehearted zazen, work, study and ritual for people who had never seen such a thing before. He explained, “In the beginning, the teacher asks the student to study everything that the teacher teaches, and the student follows the teacher’s method of practice. However, good teachers will expect students to go beyond them. While at first the teacher and his teaching are a protection, when the student becomes mature this protection becomes a hindrance, an obstruction to grow further. The student needs to break that protection or hindrance to become better than the teacher, to go beyond the teacher. At a certain time, the teacher kicks his student out. In my case, Uchiyama Rōshi kicked me out of Japan, and I came to this country when I was twenty-seven. It’s a tough teaching.”[3] Dharma teachers’ vow is to uphold and transmit the dharma in some way.[4] We’ve taken some time, as part of our discernment, to formulate our individual intention for this, how we’re going to use our individual karmic circumstances both to develop our own understanding and to make that available to others with an aspiration to practice. It may be that serving teachers means materially helping them to carry out that individual vow. My own aspiration is to pick up the practice vision that my teacher has carried onto the bridge from Japan to North America and make sure it gets safely to the other side in a sustainable, tangible way. I’d like to make it possible for him to see his own aspiration come to fruition in a healthy, thriving, stable community of practitioners who both understand our practice and practice our understanding. My job is to keep our twentieth century ancestors’ teachings and practice accurately alive and available into the 21st century. Anyone who’s interested in helping with that is welcome to join me. However, practicing virtuous ways is in itself serving teachers. Nothing makes me happier than seeing someone establish a zazen practice, hear some teachings, come to his/her/their own understanding, and then use that to act skillfully in the world with body, speech, and mind. While providing material support to teachers is a wonderful practice and much appreciated, the gift of a zendo full of sincere and engaged practitioners and seeing that we’re making a difference in a world on fire is tremendously encouraging and enables us to continue to lead. Giving and receiving the precepts is an acknowledgment that the sangha has seen the value of living an ethical and virtuous life according to Buddha’s teaching and are willing to make a long-term commitment to practice. Simply showing up regularly and wholeheartedly to practice, and doing our best to live by vow rather than by karma, is itself serving our teachers. Next time: Seeking initiation, I vow with all beings to reach the non-regressing state, our minds without impediment. [1] Translations are based upon Thomas Cleary’s translation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, and have been recast by Hoko in the form of standard Sōtōshū gāthās. [2] The relationship between a teacher and an ordained novice does come with some responsibility for overseeing that novice’s development into a mature and capable teacher recognized and authorized by the denomination, with the appropriate skills and abilities for leading practice, running a temple, and carrying and passing on the Sōtō Zen tradition. However, this is not the situation of most practitioners in the dharma center. For more on ordaining as a novice, see this page. [3] From page 16 of Facing the Wall, Facing Ourselves by Shohaku Okumura, forthcoming from the Dōgen Institute. [4] For more on individual vows, see Okumura Rōshi’s essay “Original Vow and Personal Vow” in Boundless Vows, Endless Practice: Bodhisattva Vows in the 21st Century.  ENTERING THE TRAINING TEMPLE
I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS TO EXPOUND VARIOUS PRINCIPLES OF NON-CONTENTION.[1] Maybe you’ve seen the Peanuts cartoon panel in which Linus explains that he loves mankind; it’s people he can’t stand. Nowhere do we more immediately and directly come face to face with human foibles, those of ourselves and others, than in a communal living situation. Whether it’s a college dorm, a summer camp, a family home, or residential practice, living closely together with other people requires real effort, whether or not our roommates are people we liked or loved before we moved in together. Practicing in a community has been likened to putting potatoes into a bucket of water and agitating them together to knock off the dirt, or putting rocks into a rock polisher to chip off the rough edges and make them smooth. It’s is a real exercise in patience, because if we don’t set some intention to get along, contention is the inevitable result. Even small things can become preoccupations. Does he not realize that three other people need to get showers this morning? Will she ever stop leaving her dirty dishes on the counter? What do you mean someone used up the laundry soap? Turn down the music—I’m trying to sleep! I’m always amused at North American perceptions of training temples in Japan as places of unending peace and harmony, where practitioners never disagree and spend all day in blissful zazen when they’re not drinking tea in centuries-old moss gardens or absorbing profound dharma teachings at the feet of an Old Buddha. Real life in the training temple is nothing like this. Given that it’s a community of human beings, and that human beings bring all of their delusions and opinions with them when they arrive, such a paradise on earth isn’t possible, at least not there. The concentrated activity of the training temple or any sort of communal living turns up the heat under our practice, exposing our weak points to ourselves (and sometimes to others) in ways that are hard to ignore. That’s one of the reasons that residential practice is so valuable to us as baby bodhisattvas. Communal living can quickly show us that loving mankind is easy, while loving individual people may not be. We have plenty of teachings about benevolence and compassion, and those sound like great ideas, but just try applying them to your interactions with the guy down the hall that habitually ignores the rules and you can see what a challenge it is to exercise selfless goodwill. Before sesshin, Okumura Rōshi used to remind us not to distract others and not to be distracted by others. There’s non-contentious communal practice in a nutshell. Pay attention to how your actions affect others. At the same time, when someone does something that irks you, don’t let that storyline take over all of your psychic space. When there’s nothing else to play with during sesshin, the temptation to spend time renovating and expanding a grievance can be very strong indeed. Sesshin gives even non-residents a brief and intensive taste of residential practice and reminds us quite directly that our practice is not for ourselves alone. We don’t attend sesshin with the idea of solving our personal problems; it’s not a spiritual technology or self-help exercise. It’s a crash course in interdependence as the nature of community, and the closest some practitioners will come to the experience of entering the training temple. Okumura Rōshi said in a recent talk: “During sesshin each one of us is relying on others, and other people are supporting us…. We can do sesshin only because there is support is from other people. However, when we see this sangha as one thing, then there’s no reliance, although within no reliance, there are many desires. That is the compassion of our sangha. Dōgen said, don’t practice alone, practice within the sangha. He didn’t recommend being a pratyekabuddha, a practitioner who lives and practices alone in the deep mountains. Non-reliance, without reliance, and within reliance are always interpenetrated.”[2] Likewise, early Sanshin documents point out that “Uchiyama Rōshi emphasized that people must live and work together every day in order to truly practice the Buddhadharma.” Fully functioning with our karmic circumstances as individual bodhisattvas within the emptiness that is the sangha or community or universe is the challenge of our practice. The root meaning of “contention” is competition, striving against others to get something. Striving against others and living together with others is an exhausting combination that inevitably results in suffering. Resolving this tension depends on our understanding of the true nature of the karmic self and the universal Self, and our ability to go beyond that distinction. Figuring out what community really is means studying what selflessness really is. Our zazen, work, study, and ritual are all ultimately connected to this investigation of interconnectedness. Living in the intersection between non-reliance and the structures of communal practice is an opportunity for deep investigation. On one hand, we’re told not to rely on roles, teachers, calendars, or other things to drive our practice, and instead to simply arouse bodhicitta. On the other, we give up a lot of personal choice when we enter into a training temple or practice community and agree to go along with what’s being done. Antaiji’s website reminds potential arrivals, “Life at Antaiji is based on shared practice where it is not possible for individuals to make their own schedules. You will be expected to work together with everybody else and perform shared tasks at set times.” Thus, it may not be the person on the next cushion who’s irking you. It may be the practice container itself and the regulated activities of the day. Even though we’ve all agreed as a community to abide by certain expectations, guidelines, and instructions, somehow our egos still rebel against the conformity. Nonetheless, shared practice life points us back to interconnectedness moment after moment. As Uchiyama Rōshi has written, “Since all monks in the assembly do the same things in the same way, we have to always work together in harmony with others even if we don’t like the work or the people. Somehow we can do it. This is the so-called divine power of the assembly.”[3] It might seem that the project of studying community requires the complete elimination of conflict and contention. Certainly, no one wants to live in a situation where practitioners are always arguing and creating suffering for each other, but humans being what they are, it’s impossible to avoid conflict completely. Sometimes in order to resign ourselves to the discomfort that interpersonal conflict creates, we decide that this discomfort is good for us because it teaches us to be patient and compassionate with these shallow, deluded people around us that know so much less than we do. But what is that attitude other than a continuing attachment to self? Instead, we need to see the inevitable human conflict as a means of studying the self and selflessness. “Conflict is how we become more clear and study how to be together with others,” Okumura Rōshi told me. “We all have self-centeredness, but until we have close relations with others, we don’t really see our own self-centeredness or think it’s a bad or harmful thing.” That means that putting ourselves into a communal living and practice situation is an exercise in bumping into others and then doing some inquiry into where and how we went off the rails, not only with regard to our actions but to our understanding of how the universe works. Conflict is necessary as a mirror, reflecting our own practice back to us; without it we would be like the beings in the heavenly realm who don’t practice because they don’t understand that they’re suffering. When conflict becomes really unwholesome or even turns dangerous, then of course something must be done. However, a certain amount of mature or insightful conflict in a community is not toxic and may in fact be helpful. The arising of conflict doesn’t always make a community unwholesome, though it may be uncomfortable for a while. Growth is often uncomfortable, and when people undertake residential practice they need to understand that they are not signing up for an environment of perfect peace and harmony day after day, or a means to escape from the reality of human life. The investigation into the arising and experiencing of conflict is the real practice. “In order to have a community there has to be something that unifies,” Okumura Rōshi once commented. “Sangha members are unified by dharma, and sesshin is the unifying practice of the sangha. Preferences of individuals are natural, but if we don’t do sesshin those preferences become more serious and larger. When we can be quiet within ourselves, the differences melt away.” Uchiyama Rōshi told the same thing to his own students: Even in a community of practitioners, troubles arise somehow without any particular reason when we don’t sit, for example for a month during summer vacation. Since the monastery is a community of people with the same bodhi mind, there should not be any conflict. Yet as soon as the bodhi mind becomes even a little bit weak, the world of individual strangers appears. When we uphold bodhi mind and devote ourselves to practice and cooperate together, practitioners become even more intimate with each other than parents or brothers and sisters. When bodhi mind weakens, the world of conflict arises. When we start sesshin and daily zazen schedule again, the disputatious mind melts away.[4] In North America, we need to understand these messages about the role of zazen and sesshin in managing conflict as one part of a larger teaching. Sitting regularly keeps us flexible and open-minded so we don’t become permanently locked in our own worldviews, unable to understand and appreciate what’s happening when we encounter perspectives that differ from our own. However, conflict is inevitable and we still need the ability to take skillful action when it arises. Telling roommates having an argument over their lifestyles to go sit zazen is not a satisfying response, and it doesn’t deal with the immediate, strong feelings that are coming up in this moment. If they have an established zazen practice, their arguments might not escalate as quickly or become violent, but they still need the skills to communicate effectively and manage their own anger. In the absolute world, zazen merges us all back into the collective. In the human world of form, being able to take beneficial action when fire breaks out is critical. Otherwise, we’re likely to fall prey to spiritual bypassing, ignoring the concrete unfolding of real conflict in an effort to avoid unpleasantness. Both stillness and action are necessary. It might not seem like our individual practice of zazen within a sangha is much use in dealing with a world on fire. Aren’t we fiddling while Rome burns? However, Okumura Rōshi reminds us, “Unless each one of us is healthy, harmonious, and peaceful, it’s not possible to create a harmonious society. We start by making peace within ourselves and within our community, and then enlarge the circle. That’s the way to change the entire world, but the starting point is always our effort to be healthy, harmonious, and peaceful people ourselves.”[5] Thus it’s not that entering the training temple or signing up for sesshin is an opportunity to escape from the conflict around us into some blissful state but that it allows us to hit the reset button on our habitual clinging to preferences. Practice within our own community is the training ground for dealing with conflict outside the temple. Understanding non-reliance and the interconnectedness between practitioners is critical to doing beneficial action in the larger world. Okumura Rōshi says, “If there is some unhealthy part within the sangha or community, we don’t accuse, criticize, or blame people. We consider the situation a difficult or challenging problem facing our community, and we think about how we can improve the health of the community as a whole.” Next time: Going to tutors and teachers, I vow with all beings to skillfully serve my teachers and practice virtuous ways. [1] Translations are based upon Thomas Cleary’s translation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, and have been recast by Hoko in the form of standard Sōtōshū gāthās. [2] For more on understanding non-reliance as a central part of our practice at Sanshin, have a look at the page “To stop being in relationship with others” on Sanshin Source.) [3] The Wholehearted Way: A Translation of Eihei Dōgen’s Bendōwa, with Commentary by Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi. (2011). United States: Tuttle Publishing, p.194. [4] The Wholehearted Way p. 111. [5] This and the following quote are from Okumura Rōshi’s forthcoming book on the precepts.  GIVING UP HOME LIFE,
I VOW WITH ALL BEINGS, TO HAVE NO HINDRANCE IN LEAVING HOME AND LIBERATING THE MIND. In the early Buddhist sangha there were four kinds of practitioners: monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. The monks and nuns were considered “homeleavers,” people whose live were no longer centered on taking care of families, running businesses, growing crops or carrying out responsibilities in society. The fetters of home life were considered hindrances or distractions from one’s singleminded pursuit of awakening. Shakyamuni himself left behind his wife and son, as well as the responsibilities that go with being a prince, when he went over the palace wall in the middle of the night to search for the meaning of suffering. Dogen wrote strongly in favor of sincere practitioners leaving home. In Shukke Kudoku (The Merit of Homeleaving), he said, “Those who are clear inevitably leave family life. Those who are dull end their lives at home, which are the causes and conditions of bad karma.” Initially, he wanted to practice in the city in order to encounter a variety of people. Later, his opinion changed and he preferred to practice in the mountains, away from worldly life. It may be that his experience with bringing practice to the leaders of society was disappointing, and that they were not entirely sincere in their practice. Thus in the end he aspired to create a quiet place away from urban centers where a small number of monks could practice with him and laypeople could participate as they were able. Using words like “monk” or “nun” in North America today to describe members of the ordained sangha is often problematic, because while they function as clergy, they likely don’t live in a temple and may well have families, outside jobs and various obligations in the world. Since the Meiji Restoration in 1868, our counterparts in Japan have often openly married and started families, and in an effort to support those families, have sometimes taken on outside work. Literally giving up home life isn’t necessarily what we do when we take on dharma leadership today—and yet, there are teachings in this gatha that all practitioners can fruitfully consider. To give up home life is to shift one’s focus and to put a priority on approaching the world through the lens of practice. For the clergy, while we may hold jobs outside of the temple, our aspiration is now not to do whatever it takes to climb the corporate ladder, but to bring wisdom and compassion to our work and leadership, whatever form that may take. Being in the temple and engaging with the sangha is not a weekend hobby, and serving as a guest speaker or sesshin leader isn’t a side hustle. The job in the world might be necessary to enable a stable and relatively comfortable life for ourselves and our families, but our voices are always the voices of the dharma, and we see our work as just another bodhisattva practice. As we say in our discernment materials for novices, “Whatever your aspiration, taking novice vows is a career change that puts your practice and training at the center of your life. While you may still hold a job in the world, you will no longer be putting a priority on career advancement. Rather than being a worker who happens to practice, you’ll have become a clergy member who happens to work in the world.” Of course, this attitude can be the same for laypeople, especially if they’ve taken the precepts and committed to a life of practice in the world. In this case, the commitment is not to give up home life but to completely embody the Buddha way while remaining within the structures of the family, the workplace, the community and the larger society. While there’s no expectation that laypeople take on dharma leadership (though they may indeed do so), there is a commitment to managing themselves with wisdom and compassion and quietly setting a positive example in the world. In the broadest sense, giving up home life means giving up the delusions and attachments that constitute living by karma (gosshō no bonpu 業生の凡夫) and to live by vow instead as a bodhisattva (ganshō no bosatsu). “Karma means habit, preferences, or a ready-made system of values,” explains Okumura Roshi. “As we grow up, we learn a system of values from the culture around us, which we use to evaluate the world and choose actions. This is karma, and living by karma. In contrast, a bodhisattva lives by vow. Vow is like a magnet or compass that shows us the direction toward Buddha.” (1) Gossho no bonpu literally means the karmic life of an ordinary person. We can imagine ourselves before we began to practice, caught up in the daily struggles and annoyances that go with misunderstanding the nature of the self and the universe. When we’re only aware of our own ego fabrications and not the reality that five skandhas are simply clinging to five skandhas, that world of fleeting pleasures and endless exasperations seems to be all there is. We transmigrate around and around through samsara, with no hope of breaking the cycle. One day, however, somehow a bit of bodhicitta arises, and we ask ourselves, Isn’t there some other way to live? In that moment, we’re on the bodhisattva path, living by vow on behalf of all beings. We’ve left behind the murky world of delusion and separation that focuses only on the short term gratification of the needs of the small self and stepped out into the brightness of the Buddha way. We see this pattern over and over in our practice. As soon as we sit down in zazen, we stop creating karma and awakening is there. As soon as we cut or tear fabric into chos and tans, that pile of fabric is already a robe. As soon as we make repentance, we also make vows. When we make a sincere and active choice to leave unwholesomeness behind, we’ve given up home life no matter our actual living circumstances. Uchiyama Roshi says that “a bodhisattva is an ordinary person who has found her life direction in buddha, in practicing the way of life of a buddha. . . . Even as ordinary human beings, when we live by vow the meaning of our lives totally changes.” (2) So how do we give up home life and still live at home? The reality is that we are both karmic beings and vowed beings. When an ordinary being takes bodhisattva vows, there are two opposite things within the same circumstance. We have to use our karma—who we are, our skills, our background, and so forth—to engage in our bodhisattva practice. It’s not that karma is bad and vows are good; we need both vow and repentance. In other words, we live by vow using our karma. If so, then we need to clearly understand the context in which we operate, including the forces that shape our practice. Our vow, energy or life force is the seed, and that seed needs the support of conditions in order to come to fruition. Working within the conditions we encounter, we must make choices, but we don’t base them on personal preferences or the need to control things for the sake of gratifying the small self. Within our zazen, for instance, we can’t choose or control which part of our minds arises; we must simply accept it all. Our thoughts come up as the residue of our karma, but we’re not being pulled around by them amd thus not creating more karma. An ordinary being is sitting zazen, but experiencing it as a bodhisattva. The middle way is two things completely co-existing where they would usually negate each other or cancel each other out: being and non-being, individual and universal, giving up home life and living at home. According to Uchiyama Roshi, it’s the motivation for living that distinguishes the ordinary person from the bodhisattva. “Most people live by their desires or karma. They go through their lives dragged around by desires and hindered by the consequences of previous harmful actions. . . . Our actions are dictated by our karma: we are born into this world with our desires and may live our whole lives just reacting or responding to them.” That all changes when we become aware of interconnectedness across space and time. “The life that flows through each of us and through everything around us is actually all connected. To say that, of course, means that who I really am cannot be separated from all the things that surround me. Or, to put it another way, all sentient beings have their existence and live within my life. This includes even the fate of all humankind—that, too, lies within me. Therefore, my direction becomes just how humanity might truly live out its life.” Because of awakening, our motivation for living is no longer the assuaging of our personal dissatisfaction but our gratitude for our universal life with all beings. Our actions today set the direction for human destiny. “Ordinary people live thinking only about their own personal, narrow circumstances connected with their desires. In contrast to that a bodhisattva, though undeniably still an ordinary human being like everyone else, lives aiming at the well-being of everyone, as the direction of his or her own life.” Thus we need to ask ourselves whether we’re ready and willing to live this way, to give up our previous attachments while not abrogating our responsibilities. Okumura Roshi faced the same questions, and his teacher did nothing to downplay the challenges. “Uchiyama Roshi clearly said that to be a true monk is really a difficult thing. And yet, at that time, to practice zazen and become his disciple was the only thing I wanted to do. I had no desire to do anything else. I had to make up my own mind to become a monk, which means to be a daily practitioner of zazen. . . . I really appreciate that Uchiyama Roshi didn’t encourage me. If he had recommended the wonderful life of a monk and I didn’t have that wonderful life, then I’d have had an excuse to quit. But because he said that to be a monk is a really difficult thing but that if I wanted it he would accept me, I had to say 'Yes, I want to do it.'” Next time: Entering the training temple, I vow with all beings to expound various principles of non-contention. Notes: (1) Okumura, S. (2012). Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts. United Kingdom: Wisdom Publications, p. 15. (2) This and all following quotes from Uchiyama Roshi are from Uchiyama, K. (2005). Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice. Ukraine: Wisdom Publications, p. 117-118. |
In the training temple, there are four-line verses (Skt. gathas, Jp. ge) to be chanted for a variety of daily activities. Everything from waking up in the morning to brushing the teeth to eating a meal is an opportunity to remember to practice what Buddha taught. These gathas are based on teachings from Volume 14 (Purifying Practice) of the Avatamsaka Sutra. Hoko takes a look at these sutra verses to investigate what they’re pointing to and how we can include them in our own daily practice.. GathasPracticing with gathas
When I'm at home Serving my parents Being with my spouse and children Attaining my desires On festive occasions In palace rooms Putting on adornments Climbing up in balconies Giving something In gatherings or crowds In danger and difficulty Giving up home life Entering the training temple Going to teachers Seeking initiation Shedding lay clothing Shaving off hair Putting on robes Formally leaving home |
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