Non-reliance: connection without dependence
Relatively speaking, Sawaki Roshi was a good-natured old man at Antaiji. By relaxing his authority, he taught us that zazen is the “most honored one” and we could practice more spontaneously, from our own motivation rather than external pressure.
—Uchiyama Roshi [Homeless Kodo, p. 233]
If we were to sum up Sanshin style in one word, it would be non-reliance. Over and over again, Sawaki Roshi, Uchiyama Roshi and Okumura Roshi point us back to the need to give up our habit of relying on something other than our own awakening in every moment-by-moment activity of our lives. In the midst of all the instructions about zazen and sesshin, the translations and interpretations of Dogen’s writings and the discussions about form and emptiness, non-reliance turns out to be the single most important teaching they give us. If we come to understand one thing about their approach to practice, it must be that. What happens at Sanshin only makes sense in the context of non-reliance, which is an exploration of this question: what is it that drives our practice?
Over and over, we encounter our teachers’ admonishments not to rely on:
While this teaching is central to Sanshin style, it didn’t originate with our immediate dharma family. It goes all the way back to Dogen’s original question: if buddha nature is already present, why do we have to practice? Okumura Roshi says that the basis of our practice is emptiness and interconnectedness. Uchiyama Roshi said we study and practice the buddhadharma only for the sake of the buddhadharma. Sawaki Roshi told us that zazen is good for nothing. They’re all pointing us back to what Dogen discovered while practicing with his teacher, Tendo Nyojo, in China. “‘Just sit’ is Dogen’s final answer to his original question: why do we have to practice?” Okumura Roshi explains, “The only thing we can say is that we just sit, we just practice, not because we want to practice, not because we want to be better than who we are now, not for any purpose, but just for the sake of practice—nothing else.” [forthcoming precepts book]
Our activities arise from nothing other than our own awakening. However, even calling something “our own awakening” is a problem. We don’t awaken just because we decide as individuals that it would be a good idea. Awakening is what sits in the intersection of the personal self’s willingness to take refuge in the Three Treasures and start to practice, and the universal self’s response in accepting that small self as part of its complete living activity. Dogen called this zenki, or total function. It’s that interconnectedness to which we return for direction as we walk the path. “Our own awakening” doesn’t mean our own opinions and mental fabrications. We can’t say to someone else, “It doesn’t matter what the teacher or the sangha is asking of me because I’m relying only on my own awakening in deciding what to do. Therefore, whatever I do and decide is always right.” Returning to “our own” awakening really means letting go of the dominance of small self.
Not relying on others to drive our practice doesn’t make us oblivious to how well we’re upholding the harmony of the community. It’s just the opposite—we take responsibility for the health of the interconnected network because we and “our” awakening are integral to it. Rather than waiting for someone else to correct our forms, we ourselves wake up to the reality that we’ve got our hands in shashu while everyone else is in gassho, or that we’ve forgotten to turn our zafu so the white tag is facing away from the wall when we leave our sitting place. We don’t look to the teacher to monitor whether or not we’re doing “enough” zazen; we get onto the cushion because our own bodhicitta puts us there. Our ceremonies don’t happen just because it’s that time again on the calendar, or because another sangha somewhere else does them, but because they express something that arises directly in our own hearts and minds and reflects our own reality. Non-reliance makes our practice genuine and authentic.
This is a risky approach if you like your practice life to be neat and well-directed and consistent. Without direction and correction, people in the sangha are going to make mistakes. They’re going to misunderstand for awhile and get stuck in their own ideas. They’re going to wander around a bit and deviate from what you consider to be the norm. It may take some time before they understand what’s being communicated, with and without words. You’re going to be challenged to keep yourself from jumping into the “gaps” and trying to “fix” everything.
You’re also not going to be able to measure your own progress with praise, recognition, promotions or rewards because there’s no benchmark you can use. The zazen of a 30-year Zen veteran and the zazen of the person she’s just taught to sit are not different; it puts both of them into the same space and beyond comparing.
Uchiyama Roshi taught that zazen is really the only true teacher, and if so, then becoming enamored of a human teacher, trying to build a “teacher-student relationship,” approaching Zen solely as an academic study or entering into Buddhism as a “philosophy” or a “lifestyle” all miss the mark. We can’t rely on any of those things alone to motivate us.
At the same time, Okumura Roshi points out that thinking about what drives our practice raises a real conundrum. Relying on our zazen or awakening or bodhicitta still creates attachment. We need a motivation to practice, but we also need to be free from clinging to that motivation. “I practice because I want to be a better, non-selfish person, and that desire allows me to practice. We need to go through continuous hard practice, and yet, when we practice for a certain period of time, we find that our motivation to practice is still part of the self-centeredness that wants to make this person better. We find that even in our aspiration to practice there is a muddy part. Facing this problem brings us to the dead end. We can’t go further because the driving power to practice is itself a problem, and yet we can’t stop practicing and return to the mundane world. This is the final barrier, and that’s why Sawaki Roshi said that zazen is good for nothing. Until we go through that difficulty, we don’t really understand this teaching of Sawaki Roshi that our zazen does not need to be good for something.” [forthcoming precepts book]
—Uchiyama Roshi [Homeless Kodo, p. 233]
If we were to sum up Sanshin style in one word, it would be non-reliance. Over and over again, Sawaki Roshi, Uchiyama Roshi and Okumura Roshi point us back to the need to give up our habit of relying on something other than our own awakening in every moment-by-moment activity of our lives. In the midst of all the instructions about zazen and sesshin, the translations and interpretations of Dogen’s writings and the discussions about form and emptiness, non-reliance turns out to be the single most important teaching they give us. If we come to understand one thing about their approach to practice, it must be that. What happens at Sanshin only makes sense in the context of non-reliance, which is an exploration of this question: what is it that drives our practice?
Over and over, we encounter our teachers’ admonishments not to rely on:
- the calendar to tell us what ceremonies to do
- teachers or officers to push us to practice
- a system to manage our training
- our ideas about anything
- goals, objectives or rewards to motivate us
- creating separation to maintain our identity
- things to make us happy
- doctrines to tell us what to believe or how to think
While this teaching is central to Sanshin style, it didn’t originate with our immediate dharma family. It goes all the way back to Dogen’s original question: if buddha nature is already present, why do we have to practice? Okumura Roshi says that the basis of our practice is emptiness and interconnectedness. Uchiyama Roshi said we study and practice the buddhadharma only for the sake of the buddhadharma. Sawaki Roshi told us that zazen is good for nothing. They’re all pointing us back to what Dogen discovered while practicing with his teacher, Tendo Nyojo, in China. “‘Just sit’ is Dogen’s final answer to his original question: why do we have to practice?” Okumura Roshi explains, “The only thing we can say is that we just sit, we just practice, not because we want to practice, not because we want to be better than who we are now, not for any purpose, but just for the sake of practice—nothing else.” [forthcoming precepts book]
Our activities arise from nothing other than our own awakening. However, even calling something “our own awakening” is a problem. We don’t awaken just because we decide as individuals that it would be a good idea. Awakening is what sits in the intersection of the personal self’s willingness to take refuge in the Three Treasures and start to practice, and the universal self’s response in accepting that small self as part of its complete living activity. Dogen called this zenki, or total function. It’s that interconnectedness to which we return for direction as we walk the path. “Our own awakening” doesn’t mean our own opinions and mental fabrications. We can’t say to someone else, “It doesn’t matter what the teacher or the sangha is asking of me because I’m relying only on my own awakening in deciding what to do. Therefore, whatever I do and decide is always right.” Returning to “our own” awakening really means letting go of the dominance of small self.
Not relying on others to drive our practice doesn’t make us oblivious to how well we’re upholding the harmony of the community. It’s just the opposite—we take responsibility for the health of the interconnected network because we and “our” awakening are integral to it. Rather than waiting for someone else to correct our forms, we ourselves wake up to the reality that we’ve got our hands in shashu while everyone else is in gassho, or that we’ve forgotten to turn our zafu so the white tag is facing away from the wall when we leave our sitting place. We don’t look to the teacher to monitor whether or not we’re doing “enough” zazen; we get onto the cushion because our own bodhicitta puts us there. Our ceremonies don’t happen just because it’s that time again on the calendar, or because another sangha somewhere else does them, but because they express something that arises directly in our own hearts and minds and reflects our own reality. Non-reliance makes our practice genuine and authentic.
This is a risky approach if you like your practice life to be neat and well-directed and consistent. Without direction and correction, people in the sangha are going to make mistakes. They’re going to misunderstand for awhile and get stuck in their own ideas. They’re going to wander around a bit and deviate from what you consider to be the norm. It may take some time before they understand what’s being communicated, with and without words. You’re going to be challenged to keep yourself from jumping into the “gaps” and trying to “fix” everything.
You’re also not going to be able to measure your own progress with praise, recognition, promotions or rewards because there’s no benchmark you can use. The zazen of a 30-year Zen veteran and the zazen of the person she’s just taught to sit are not different; it puts both of them into the same space and beyond comparing.
Uchiyama Roshi taught that zazen is really the only true teacher, and if so, then becoming enamored of a human teacher, trying to build a “teacher-student relationship,” approaching Zen solely as an academic study or entering into Buddhism as a “philosophy” or a “lifestyle” all miss the mark. We can’t rely on any of those things alone to motivate us.
At the same time, Okumura Roshi points out that thinking about what drives our practice raises a real conundrum. Relying on our zazen or awakening or bodhicitta still creates attachment. We need a motivation to practice, but we also need to be free from clinging to that motivation. “I practice because I want to be a better, non-selfish person, and that desire allows me to practice. We need to go through continuous hard practice, and yet, when we practice for a certain period of time, we find that our motivation to practice is still part of the self-centeredness that wants to make this person better. We find that even in our aspiration to practice there is a muddy part. Facing this problem brings us to the dead end. We can’t go further because the driving power to practice is itself a problem, and yet we can’t stop practicing and return to the mundane world. This is the final barrier, and that’s why Sawaki Roshi said that zazen is good for nothing. Until we go through that difficulty, we don’t really understand this teaching of Sawaki Roshi that our zazen does not need to be good for something.” [forthcoming precepts book]
Okumura Roshi’s life of non-reliance
Sanshin’s founder realized at a young age that relying on systems was always going to be problematic. Three years before he was born in 1948, Japanese life changed drastically with the end of World War II. Long-held systems of values, power, authority, education and family dynamics were upended. “My generation had a problem, because our parents didn’t have confidence about how to teach their children morality or ethics,“ Okumura Roshi recalled. “Before the war, Japanese ethics were based on Confucianism and the family system was supported by the imperial system, but those were almost destroyed. Japan lost its ethical foundation, and the driving force of Japanese society became working hard and making money. That’s all.”
Raised without a fixed way of thinking, Okumura Roshi and others of his generation were free to question everything and take a broad view. “I have a tendency to return to the source because I can question anything about society. I don’t think there’s a set reason that things should be done this way or that way. It makes my life difficult because I can’t follow a ready-made value system. I always have to ask, ‘What is this?’”
For help in navigating this question, and in positively engaging in discernment and exploration without becoming skeptical and nihilistic, he turned to Dogen’s teachings. On this dharma ground, he found like-minded practitioners who were investigating the same things. “When I started to practice at Antaiji, there were many hippies coming to Kyōtō to practice with us. They had questions about the establishment that were similar to mine. I felt that I found friends, and that’s one of the reasons I continue to practice with American people. We can question what is written within Buddhist scriptures, but we need to awaken to the source—not a Japanese or American or even Buddhist source—within which all beings are living together.”
Okumura Roshi realized that even the precepts are not a fixed set of rules and guidelines. “It’s easier just to accept our fixed system of morality without question. We don’t need to think; we just follow. That’s not what Buddha taught, but even within the Buddhist tradition people have practiced that way for thousands of years because certain societies had a fixed structure. Now those structures have been transformed, and we can be creative.” Within that wise and compassionate flexibility, we can appreciate our social conventions, faith traditions and cultural backgrounds without clinging to them.
Sanshin’s founder realized at a young age that relying on systems was always going to be problematic. Three years before he was born in 1948, Japanese life changed drastically with the end of World War II. Long-held systems of values, power, authority, education and family dynamics were upended. “My generation had a problem, because our parents didn’t have confidence about how to teach their children morality or ethics,“ Okumura Roshi recalled. “Before the war, Japanese ethics were based on Confucianism and the family system was supported by the imperial system, but those were almost destroyed. Japan lost its ethical foundation, and the driving force of Japanese society became working hard and making money. That’s all.”
Raised without a fixed way of thinking, Okumura Roshi and others of his generation were free to question everything and take a broad view. “I have a tendency to return to the source because I can question anything about society. I don’t think there’s a set reason that things should be done this way or that way. It makes my life difficult because I can’t follow a ready-made value system. I always have to ask, ‘What is this?’”
For help in navigating this question, and in positively engaging in discernment and exploration without becoming skeptical and nihilistic, he turned to Dogen’s teachings. On this dharma ground, he found like-minded practitioners who were investigating the same things. “When I started to practice at Antaiji, there were many hippies coming to Kyōtō to practice with us. They had questions about the establishment that were similar to mine. I felt that I found friends, and that’s one of the reasons I continue to practice with American people. We can question what is written within Buddhist scriptures, but we need to awaken to the source—not a Japanese or American or even Buddhist source—within which all beings are living together.”
Okumura Roshi realized that even the precepts are not a fixed set of rules and guidelines. “It’s easier just to accept our fixed system of morality without question. We don’t need to think; we just follow. That’s not what Buddha taught, but even within the Buddhist tradition people have practiced that way for thousands of years because certain societies had a fixed structure. Now those structures have been transformed, and we can be creative.” Within that wise and compassionate flexibility, we can appreciate our social conventions, faith traditions and cultural backgrounds without clinging to them.
What about community?
But wait—if the whole point of Sanshin is to enable the deep investigation of interconnectedness as it manifests in community, how can non-reliance be at the center of this thing? Surely non-reliance means we’re cut off from the things around us and functioning independently, standing on our own two feet, doing for ourselves and making our own decisions. Sangha is supposed to be one of the three treasures, but that doesn’t sound like communal practice!
In America, with our tendency toward rugged individualism, teachings about non-reliance might seem like a license to use our own likes and dislikes as the ultimate yardstick. We smile and nod appreciatively when we read Sawaki Roshi’s remarks about the dangers of guruppu boku, or group stupidity:
We live in group stupidity and confuse this insanity with true experience. It is essential that you become transparent to yourself and wake up from this madness. Zazen means taking leave of the group and walking on your own two feet. One at a time people are still bearable, but when they form cliques, they start to get stupid. They fall into group stupidity. They’re so determined to become stupid as a group that they found clubs and pay membership dues. Zazen means taking leave of group stupidity. [To You, Chapter 2]
It’s all too easy to take this to mean that we should rely only on our own opinions. “Of course,” we tell ourselves, “it’s ridiculous to get caught up in the mob psychology of all those silly groups out there with which I disagree. He’s so right. We ought to be thinking for ourselves. In my case, my own awakening is telling me that my way is the One True Way and my interpretation of things is always right. Who’s to say that someone else’s version of reality is better or more wholesome than mine?”
If we’re not relying on the teacher to step in and manage our practice, how does this dynamic get resolved? How do we not just run roughshod over other sangha members and vice versa in the name of Sanshin style? Is there a way to reconcile not being reliant on sangha with being completely interconnected with sangha?
But wait—if the whole point of Sanshin is to enable the deep investigation of interconnectedness as it manifests in community, how can non-reliance be at the center of this thing? Surely non-reliance means we’re cut off from the things around us and functioning independently, standing on our own two feet, doing for ourselves and making our own decisions. Sangha is supposed to be one of the three treasures, but that doesn’t sound like communal practice!
In America, with our tendency toward rugged individualism, teachings about non-reliance might seem like a license to use our own likes and dislikes as the ultimate yardstick. We smile and nod appreciatively when we read Sawaki Roshi’s remarks about the dangers of guruppu boku, or group stupidity:
We live in group stupidity and confuse this insanity with true experience. It is essential that you become transparent to yourself and wake up from this madness. Zazen means taking leave of the group and walking on your own two feet. One at a time people are still bearable, but when they form cliques, they start to get stupid. They fall into group stupidity. They’re so determined to become stupid as a group that they found clubs and pay membership dues. Zazen means taking leave of group stupidity. [To You, Chapter 2]
It’s all too easy to take this to mean that we should rely only on our own opinions. “Of course,” we tell ourselves, “it’s ridiculous to get caught up in the mob psychology of all those silly groups out there with which I disagree. He’s so right. We ought to be thinking for ourselves. In my case, my own awakening is telling me that my way is the One True Way and my interpretation of things is always right. Who’s to say that someone else’s version of reality is better or more wholesome than mine?”
If we’re not relying on the teacher to step in and manage our practice, how does this dynamic get resolved? How do we not just run roughshod over other sangha members and vice versa in the name of Sanshin style? Is there a way to reconcile not being reliant on sangha with being completely interconnected with sangha?
Non-reliance doesn’t mean disconnection
One of the challenges of Sanshin style is that it’s really subtle and open to misinterpretation. It’s easy to assume that we don’t do complex rituals because we don’t like them, that teachers are non-directive because they don’t care what we do, or that we don’t have a training system because it’s not important for clergy to develop core competencies. We could also assume that not being reliant on something to give us an identity or on someone to drive our practice is the same as not being connected to that thing or person. When you and I meet in the space of awakening, we both see with the eyes of Buddha and we don’t need to tell each other what to do or cling to ideas to create an identity for these five skandhas. We recognize that we are and always have been completely interconnected with everything else, but we’re not reliant on any of it to determine our actions or understanding for us. We see the same reality the way Buddha sees it, and what we need to do in order to create and maintain a wholesome community right in the midst of both non-reliance and interconnectedness becomes clear. We’re able to see one reality from two sides and express two sides in one action.
We might think of non-reliance as the concrete manifestation of emptiness—what we do based on how things are. Approaching our lives on the basis of non-reliance is a practical gateway to the study of the larger and more abstract aspects of community. We can ask ourselves about the basis for our relationship with all the dharmas we encounter. What do I expect from this relationship with my shoes, my roommate, my breakfast or my memories? Am I relying on them to build my identity or motivate me to practice?
Not relying on things doesn’t negate their existence or our relationship to them The true existence of things is not the product of our relationships with them, just like the true self is not the self we fabricate out of our ideas. The problem is our habit of clinging. Clinging to anything creates suffering, so when we realize we’re suffering we can ask ourselves: on what am I relying for my comfort or happiness or peace of mind? What’ s really driving my practice?
We might rephrase Sanshin’s practical investigation of interconnectedness as it manifests in community as an investigation of what it means not to be dependent on sangha while being completely interconnected with sangha. As Okumura Roshi has said, “Independence is important, but isolation is not necessary.”
One of the challenges of Sanshin style is that it’s really subtle and open to misinterpretation. It’s easy to assume that we don’t do complex rituals because we don’t like them, that teachers are non-directive because they don’t care what we do, or that we don’t have a training system because it’s not important for clergy to develop core competencies. We could also assume that not being reliant on something to give us an identity or on someone to drive our practice is the same as not being connected to that thing or person. When you and I meet in the space of awakening, we both see with the eyes of Buddha and we don’t need to tell each other what to do or cling to ideas to create an identity for these five skandhas. We recognize that we are and always have been completely interconnected with everything else, but we’re not reliant on any of it to determine our actions or understanding for us. We see the same reality the way Buddha sees it, and what we need to do in order to create and maintain a wholesome community right in the midst of both non-reliance and interconnectedness becomes clear. We’re able to see one reality from two sides and express two sides in one action.
We might think of non-reliance as the concrete manifestation of emptiness—what we do based on how things are. Approaching our lives on the basis of non-reliance is a practical gateway to the study of the larger and more abstract aspects of community. We can ask ourselves about the basis for our relationship with all the dharmas we encounter. What do I expect from this relationship with my shoes, my roommate, my breakfast or my memories? Am I relying on them to build my identity or motivate me to practice?
Not relying on things doesn’t negate their existence or our relationship to them The true existence of things is not the product of our relationships with them, just like the true self is not the self we fabricate out of our ideas. The problem is our habit of clinging. Clinging to anything creates suffering, so when we realize we’re suffering we can ask ourselves: on what am I relying for my comfort or happiness or peace of mind? What’ s really driving my practice?
We might rephrase Sanshin’s practical investigation of interconnectedness as it manifests in community as an investigation of what it means not to be dependent on sangha while being completely interconnected with sangha. As Okumura Roshi has said, “Independence is important, but isolation is not necessary.”
Welcoming newcomers
It might sound like the Sanshin style of practice is an unorganized free-for-all in which practitioners are left on their own to stumble and bumble and thrash about until they can create some method for themselves. After all, most other community organizations have clear and thoughtful intake processes for newcomers that give them all the information they need to ensure that they get a foothold, stay around, and keep providing financial support and volunteer time. Maybe there’s a series of training sessions and a handbook with directions for all the group’s activities so that newbies can complete steps properly and consistently without having to understand how they fit together. Everyone is comfortable and happy and things go along like clockwork.
Hoko recalls, "Time after time I saw Westerners arrive at the temple in Japan where I trained, look around them at all the various tasks and service positions being carried out, receive an assignment after being briefly shown what to do, and then volunteer to make instructional handouts for all the jobs so everyone would have all the necessary directions. This is the way Westerners typically learn, and it’s an approach aimed at efficiency. It also puts the responsibility for successful learning on the materials and the system rather than the learner. We had to explain to newcomers that it wasn’t that no one had ever thought of making handouts, or that we didn’t have the equipment or skills to do it, but that this is not how we learn in the training temple and efficiency is not the goal. It was our responsibility to observe what practitioners around us were doing even if we were not next in line for that particular job. The expectation was that if we saw something done once, we should be able to do it perfectly ourselves thereafter. We learned with body and mind by watching and imitating and by folding ourselves seamlessly into what was happening in this moment, not by relying on checklists. Our success in learning a job was our own responsibility."
Because Sanshin style has many subtleties and the reasons for things aren’t always obvious, unless new arrivals to the sangha get a preview, they can feel challenged and perhaps either in the way or disregarded. It’s not obvious what they should be doing and there may be no one running up to help them and make them feel OK. They may expect efficient Western training methods designed to build self-confidence and self-esteem. If so, then the lack of direction and correction and the emphasis on non-reliance can be disconcerting, especially for those who are timid, proud or self-conscious and fearful of making embarrassing mistakes. They may be anxious to join as quickly as possible the in-crowd of those in the know who function confidently in the zendo or freely discuss dharma teachings, but there’s no designated minder or guidebook. They’re told that while we offer a free 90-minute session called Getting Started in Zen Practice, after that they must pay attention to what’s going on around them, ask relevant questions and further investigate for themselves what they don’t understand. We’re glad they’re here and wish them well, but there’s no curriculum and no one will be pushing or pulling them along in their practice. They have to have enough diligence to stick with it based on their own bodhicitta, because nothing will be handed to them.
Indeed, it’s not a setup guaranteed to maximize organizational growth, but fortunately that’s not the point. The number of practitioners in residence or in the zendo isn’t a meaningful measurement of “success,” because Sanshin style practice is not for everyone. It’s fairly intensive and doesn’t offer the broader range of topics and supportive activities found in many American dharma centers today. It doesn’t require superior intelligence, perfect physical capacity, an encyclopedic knowledge of the sutras or the ability to perform ceremonies or liturgy, but it does require us to be self-sufficient, flexible, courageous, dedicated and free from self-involvement and the need for constant validation. We simply follow our teachers’ example, joining with them in practice but doing our own work.
It might sound like the Sanshin style of practice is an unorganized free-for-all in which practitioners are left on their own to stumble and bumble and thrash about until they can create some method for themselves. After all, most other community organizations have clear and thoughtful intake processes for newcomers that give them all the information they need to ensure that they get a foothold, stay around, and keep providing financial support and volunteer time. Maybe there’s a series of training sessions and a handbook with directions for all the group’s activities so that newbies can complete steps properly and consistently without having to understand how they fit together. Everyone is comfortable and happy and things go along like clockwork.
Hoko recalls, "Time after time I saw Westerners arrive at the temple in Japan where I trained, look around them at all the various tasks and service positions being carried out, receive an assignment after being briefly shown what to do, and then volunteer to make instructional handouts for all the jobs so everyone would have all the necessary directions. This is the way Westerners typically learn, and it’s an approach aimed at efficiency. It also puts the responsibility for successful learning on the materials and the system rather than the learner. We had to explain to newcomers that it wasn’t that no one had ever thought of making handouts, or that we didn’t have the equipment or skills to do it, but that this is not how we learn in the training temple and efficiency is not the goal. It was our responsibility to observe what practitioners around us were doing even if we were not next in line for that particular job. The expectation was that if we saw something done once, we should be able to do it perfectly ourselves thereafter. We learned with body and mind by watching and imitating and by folding ourselves seamlessly into what was happening in this moment, not by relying on checklists. Our success in learning a job was our own responsibility."
Because Sanshin style has many subtleties and the reasons for things aren’t always obvious, unless new arrivals to the sangha get a preview, they can feel challenged and perhaps either in the way or disregarded. It’s not obvious what they should be doing and there may be no one running up to help them and make them feel OK. They may expect efficient Western training methods designed to build self-confidence and self-esteem. If so, then the lack of direction and correction and the emphasis on non-reliance can be disconcerting, especially for those who are timid, proud or self-conscious and fearful of making embarrassing mistakes. They may be anxious to join as quickly as possible the in-crowd of those in the know who function confidently in the zendo or freely discuss dharma teachings, but there’s no designated minder or guidebook. They’re told that while we offer a free 90-minute session called Getting Started in Zen Practice, after that they must pay attention to what’s going on around them, ask relevant questions and further investigate for themselves what they don’t understand. We’re glad they’re here and wish them well, but there’s no curriculum and no one will be pushing or pulling them along in their practice. They have to have enough diligence to stick with it based on their own bodhicitta, because nothing will be handed to them.
Indeed, it’s not a setup guaranteed to maximize organizational growth, but fortunately that’s not the point. The number of practitioners in residence or in the zendo isn’t a meaningful measurement of “success,” because Sanshin style practice is not for everyone. It’s fairly intensive and doesn’t offer the broader range of topics and supportive activities found in many American dharma centers today. It doesn’t require superior intelligence, perfect physical capacity, an encyclopedic knowledge of the sutras or the ability to perform ceremonies or liturgy, but it does require us to be self-sufficient, flexible, courageous, dedicated and free from self-involvement and the need for constant validation. We simply follow our teachers’ example, joining with them in practice but doing our own work.
