This blog hosts articles contributed by members of the Chicago Zen Center. For news about events at the Center and in Chicago, please visit our Memorial Day Zen
Copyright 2005 Zoe Kaufman
Monday, May 30, 2005
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Doubt Essays: Introduction
When I confessed to Sensei recently that I was having real doubts about Zen practice he laughed heartily and suggested writing about it. I followed his advice, but also felt the urge to talk things through with others in the Sangha. The idea emerged of presenting several views on this same topic together as a piece in the newsletter. The essays that follow were written separately by three of us who attended the same Intro Workshop in early 2000. We have talked briefly to each other about this idea and previewed each other’s words, but there was no collaboration beyond that and each is a very personal essay. Sensei says that it is not uncommon for people to leave Zen practice at a time of crisis and then feel embarrassed about returning. Some people never return, he says. It might be easier for us all to work through our doubts if we accept them as part of the journey. These essays are offered in that spirit. LMR
(I) Doubts and a Crisis
by Laurel Ross
It has been just about five years since I threw in my lot with the Chicago Zen Center. The Center and Zen practice became an important part of my life almost instantly after I walked through the front door. Over the years I have been filled with gratitude for the great good fortune that brought me here. The sincerity, generosity and effort of the Sangha are both humbling and inspiring. This is hard work, but it pays off, sometimes in ways that can’t be imagined in advance. And yet grave doubts have permeated it all, manifesting themselves in various churning scripts.
Recently, upon returning exhausted and drained from a very difficult work trip, I suddenly pretty much decided to quit Zen practice. There was no specific last straw that inspired this decision, but it was not a fleeting impulse--it seemed final and frankly, a great relief. No more of that! My mind raced, thinking of the possibilities: I would have time for things like movies again. It wasn’t clear what to do to make it official so I just stayed away, stewing and rehearsing goodbyes. Three weeks passed without going to the Center or sitting at home. This was a very negative time. Scripts roiled in my head.
Anticlimax. I sat. I went to Dokusan. It was fine. Nothing major happened, bad or good, but the urge to quit lifted like a change in the weather.
Shortly after this crisis I attended a couple of days of a long sesshin and threw myself into the practice as sincerely I knew how. The old feeling of being in exactly the right place was there again.
So I am back. I never actually left except in my own mind’s experiment. But it was a real crisis and the reservations too are real—like crossing my fingers behind my back when making a promise. The doubts seem flimsy now compared to the reality of the experience of Zazen and for the moment they seem powerless. Who knows if I have it all figured out, but some of it is fear of commitment. All those scripts in my head are the mind plotting escape routes—barriers to commitment. Giving up on the scripts is making the commitment. Now I am in it for the rest of my life and I will just have to do it. Questioning is good.
It has been just about five years since I threw in my lot with the Chicago Zen Center. The Center and Zen practice became an important part of my life almost instantly after I walked through the front door. Over the years I have been filled with gratitude for the great good fortune that brought me here. The sincerity, generosity and effort of the Sangha are both humbling and inspiring. This is hard work, but it pays off, sometimes in ways that can’t be imagined in advance. And yet grave doubts have permeated it all, manifesting themselves in various churning scripts.
“I am a light weight and will never be able to work hard enough to do this. Some people have what it takes. Clearly, I do not.”And so on…endless mind pudding. These thoughts have been there sometimes at the very same time as I am supposedly putting forth great effort in the practice. Sometimes they seem to be part of the practice. Other times background chatter. Ignore the noise--it’s only noise. Become the noise. Mu.
“Zen practice takes so much time. I am busy. How can I justify all of this time spent?”
Recently, upon returning exhausted and drained from a very difficult work trip, I suddenly pretty much decided to quit Zen practice. There was no specific last straw that inspired this decision, but it was not a fleeting impulse--it seemed final and frankly, a great relief. No more of that! My mind raced, thinking of the possibilities: I would have time for things like movies again. It wasn’t clear what to do to make it official so I just stayed away, stewing and rehearsing goodbyes. Three weeks passed without going to the Center or sitting at home. This was a very negative time. Scripts roiled in my head.
“Zen practice is self-indulgent and narcissistic. Is it more valuable to the world and to myself to sit and stare at a wall when there is so much desperate need in the world to work towards peace and justice? My time and money are better spent on some practical, measurable good work—like a food pantry or a hospice.”These difficult few weeks held moments of longing for the smell and sound of the Zendo (was I addicted?) and moments of reveling in my perceived freedom. I confided my decision to a trusted old friend who asked, sensibly, “Why quit? Why not just slow down a bit and see how it goes?” Blam! That good advice deflated the manic energy that had built up around the idea of quitting that had almost taken on a life of its own. Now I was confused. I felt less negative, but apparently was still looking for an escape route.
“My friends think I have gone off the deep end and maybe they are right. This system may have some value in Japan but here it is foreign and pretentious. People who do it are either faking it or they are deceiving themselves. So what the heck am I doing here? I am a sensible and serious person.”
“I am just not getting this. I am trying my best, but having a dry spell. A break will help me to reenergize. I’ll be back some time when it feels right again.”More confusion and vacillation followed. My carpool buddy called to arrange a ride to a morning sitting. At the moment she asked I wanted to go, so I agreed. I reasoned that I would just go to the Center to see how it felt to be there. I promised myself that I didn’t have to go to Dokusan. It’s optional isn’t it? Nervewracking self-torment.
“Zen practice/koan practice is a very good way of life for some people, but after giving it a good try it is fair to say that this is not really the best fit for me. Besides I can achieve the same thing through making a deeper commitment to my music, or my writing or my work, or my garden. I have already gotten all that I can get out of this actually, and now it is time to turn my attention to something that suits me better.”
Anticlimax. I sat. I went to Dokusan. It was fine. Nothing major happened, bad or good, but the urge to quit lifted like a change in the weather.
Shortly after this crisis I attended a couple of days of a long sesshin and threw myself into the practice as sincerely I knew how. The old feeling of being in exactly the right place was there again.
So I am back. I never actually left except in my own mind’s experiment. But it was a real crisis and the reservations too are real—like crossing my fingers behind my back when making a promise. The doubts seem flimsy now compared to the reality of the experience of Zazen and for the moment they seem powerless. Who knows if I have it all figured out, but some of it is fear of commitment. All those scripts in my head are the mind plotting escape routes—barriers to commitment. Giving up on the scripts is making the commitment. Now I am in it for the rest of my life and I will just have to do it. Questioning is good.
(II) Doubt as Precursor to Insight
by Steve Cole
When I discovered the Zen path in 1999, I thought I’d finally arrived. I was living in Helsinki at the time and was utterly depressed by the winter darkness and by my sputtering academic career. When I walked into the Helsinki Zen Center, I immediately felt at home.
Unfortunately, I left Helsinki shortly thereafter to take up a joint research appointment at the University of Ghent and the University of Chicago, while my wife stayed behind in Helsinki, where she taught Egyptology at the university. I didn’t know about the Chicago Zen Center then, and therefore, because I needed a place to stay while in Chicago, I arranged with Samu Sunim to stay at his Zen Buddhist Temple near the intersection of Cornelia and Lincoln. I lived there for several months but eventually decided that Korean Zen wasn’t my cup of tea and moved out. A little while afterwards, I heard about the Chicago Zen Center in Evanston. I learned that it was affiliated with the Rochester Zen Center, just as the Helsinki center was, and so I contacted Sensei. He invited me to attend an introductory workshop the next week, in May 2000, which I did, along with Laurel Ross and Jonathan Laux, and I was ecstatic at my new discovery.
Over the next four years I remained content in my assumption that I had found the way. Then, quite suddenly, I plunged into a long period of doubting and questioning about my path, which began shortly after the six-day sesshin in March 2004. During that sesshin, I had an experience in which my heart began to beat rapidly and irregularly during one of the afternoon rounds, causing me to flee the zendo under the assumption that I was having a heart attack. Then, after I had returned home, I picked up a book by Jack Kornfield, called A Path with Heart, which I had purchased a few days before sesshin began. I began to thumb through it, and one of the first passages that my eyes fell upon concerned a physician who had had a very similar experience during a retreat. Kornfield told him that he had known many students who had experienced these symptoms, and that they were manifested when the heart chakra began to open. For some reason, this made sense to me, and reading this passage so soon after my own experience seemed more than a coincidence. I also remembered that Sensei had expressed remarks on more than one occasion that were dismissive of the notion of chakras and chi and the like, and therefore I began to question both him and the Zen path. The seed of doubt had been planted, and it took root.
Over the next eight months I explored alternatives to Zen and questioned everything. I explored Hinduism first. I registered for retreats with two different teachers. I didn’t go. Then I explored Vipassana Buddhism. I registered for retreats with two more teachers. I didn’t go. Finally, I explored another Zen teacher. I registered for a retreat with him. I didn’t go. I was totally confused. All this time I continued to sit though, going deeper and deeper inside, looking for an answer.
Finally, when I had become totally confused, totally uncertain, with absolutely nowhere to turn, I simply gave up trying to know which path to take. I told myself, “I JUST DON’T KNOW.” Almost immediately it occurred to me that I should just trust the memory of how I had felt in 1999 when I entered the little zendo in Helsinki for the first time and my eyes fell on the peaceful countenances of Roshi Kapleau and Bodhin Sensei in the photo that hung on the wall just inside the door there. It was faith in this experience that eventually led me back to the Chicago Zen Center. When I showed up for Rohatsu sesshin in December 2004, I had not been inside the Center since the previous June, when I had helped to paint the Buddha Hall.
In my first dokusan with Sensei during this Rohatsu sesshin (my first dokusan in eight months), I explained why I had been absent for so long and how I had been wondering if Zen was the correct path for me because it gave only cursory attention to the heart, and I regarded this as a flaw. What he said that day turned me around completely. He told me that love and compassion began with one’s self. He said “Have love and compassion for your self.” In the next dokusan, he added, “Relax and enjoy yourself in this sesshin.” Those two remarks had a remarkable effect on me. They seemed to lift a great load from my back. I carried a smile the rest of that day, and into the next. Everything seemed radiant and beautiful. My sitting was steady, and without the usual knee pain.
Then, on the second day of Rohatsu, we were chanting “Kanzeon.” The lovely burnt-orange and gold altar cloth behind the new Vairocana Buddha was irradiant. On the altar was an arrangement of lovely flowers – mums, as I recall. My eyes were fixed on these flowers as we chanted “This moment arises from mind” and I finally realized the meaning of the chant. All at once, I felt great peace of mind. Everything was perfect as it was. No effort was required to change anything. Gone were worry and fear. All was a single field of awareness, with no inside or outside, and no separation. All these Zen clichés were actually true. A few hours later I was in the dokusan line sitting before the bell. My heart pounded and my ears rang in nervous anticipation, as they usually do while waiting for the impending summons. Suddenly, I was calm. I realized that I had glimpsed something extraordinary that day. I realized that there was no right or wrong answer to mu. When Sensei rang his bell, I struck mine twice, and walked resolutely into the dokusan room.
I am so grateful now that I didn’t give up my practice during those dark days and weeks. As I look back now on my experience, I see that my great doubt was actually a precursor to insight. In my case, the darkest hour truly was just before the dawn.
When I discovered the Zen path in 1999, I thought I’d finally arrived. I was living in Helsinki at the time and was utterly depressed by the winter darkness and by my sputtering academic career. When I walked into the Helsinki Zen Center, I immediately felt at home.
Unfortunately, I left Helsinki shortly thereafter to take up a joint research appointment at the University of Ghent and the University of Chicago, while my wife stayed behind in Helsinki, where she taught Egyptology at the university. I didn’t know about the Chicago Zen Center then, and therefore, because I needed a place to stay while in Chicago, I arranged with Samu Sunim to stay at his Zen Buddhist Temple near the intersection of Cornelia and Lincoln. I lived there for several months but eventually decided that Korean Zen wasn’t my cup of tea and moved out. A little while afterwards, I heard about the Chicago Zen Center in Evanston. I learned that it was affiliated with the Rochester Zen Center, just as the Helsinki center was, and so I contacted Sensei. He invited me to attend an introductory workshop the next week, in May 2000, which I did, along with Laurel Ross and Jonathan Laux, and I was ecstatic at my new discovery.
Over the next four years I remained content in my assumption that I had found the way. Then, quite suddenly, I plunged into a long period of doubting and questioning about my path, which began shortly after the six-day sesshin in March 2004. During that sesshin, I had an experience in which my heart began to beat rapidly and irregularly during one of the afternoon rounds, causing me to flee the zendo under the assumption that I was having a heart attack. Then, after I had returned home, I picked up a book by Jack Kornfield, called A Path with Heart, which I had purchased a few days before sesshin began. I began to thumb through it, and one of the first passages that my eyes fell upon concerned a physician who had had a very similar experience during a retreat. Kornfield told him that he had known many students who had experienced these symptoms, and that they were manifested when the heart chakra began to open. For some reason, this made sense to me, and reading this passage so soon after my own experience seemed more than a coincidence. I also remembered that Sensei had expressed remarks on more than one occasion that were dismissive of the notion of chakras and chi and the like, and therefore I began to question both him and the Zen path. The seed of doubt had been planted, and it took root.
Over the next eight months I explored alternatives to Zen and questioned everything. I explored Hinduism first. I registered for retreats with two different teachers. I didn’t go. Then I explored Vipassana Buddhism. I registered for retreats with two more teachers. I didn’t go. Finally, I explored another Zen teacher. I registered for a retreat with him. I didn’t go. I was totally confused. All this time I continued to sit though, going deeper and deeper inside, looking for an answer.
Finally, when I had become totally confused, totally uncertain, with absolutely nowhere to turn, I simply gave up trying to know which path to take. I told myself, “I JUST DON’T KNOW.” Almost immediately it occurred to me that I should just trust the memory of how I had felt in 1999 when I entered the little zendo in Helsinki for the first time and my eyes fell on the peaceful countenances of Roshi Kapleau and Bodhin Sensei in the photo that hung on the wall just inside the door there. It was faith in this experience that eventually led me back to the Chicago Zen Center. When I showed up for Rohatsu sesshin in December 2004, I had not been inside the Center since the previous June, when I had helped to paint the Buddha Hall.
In my first dokusan with Sensei during this Rohatsu sesshin (my first dokusan in eight months), I explained why I had been absent for so long and how I had been wondering if Zen was the correct path for me because it gave only cursory attention to the heart, and I regarded this as a flaw. What he said that day turned me around completely. He told me that love and compassion began with one’s self. He said “Have love and compassion for your self.” In the next dokusan, he added, “Relax and enjoy yourself in this sesshin.” Those two remarks had a remarkable effect on me. They seemed to lift a great load from my back. I carried a smile the rest of that day, and into the next. Everything seemed radiant and beautiful. My sitting was steady, and without the usual knee pain.
Then, on the second day of Rohatsu, we were chanting “Kanzeon.” The lovely burnt-orange and gold altar cloth behind the new Vairocana Buddha was irradiant. On the altar was an arrangement of lovely flowers – mums, as I recall. My eyes were fixed on these flowers as we chanted “This moment arises from mind” and I finally realized the meaning of the chant. All at once, I felt great peace of mind. Everything was perfect as it was. No effort was required to change anything. Gone were worry and fear. All was a single field of awareness, with no inside or outside, and no separation. All these Zen clichés were actually true. A few hours later I was in the dokusan line sitting before the bell. My heart pounded and my ears rang in nervous anticipation, as they usually do while waiting for the impending summons. Suddenly, I was calm. I realized that I had glimpsed something extraordinary that day. I realized that there was no right or wrong answer to mu. When Sensei rang his bell, I struck mine twice, and walked resolutely into the dokusan room.
I am so grateful now that I didn’t give up my practice during those dark days and weeks. As I look back now on my experience, I see that my great doubt was actually a precursor to insight. In my case, the darkest hour truly was just before the dawn.
(III) losing a voice, finding a voice
by Jonathan Laux
How do you say something with your own voice?
For a brief time in college - just before I began to practice Zen - I was a contributing writer for a monthly campus journal of conservative leanings. I wrote something about a rock album that had just been released and an article decrying what I saw as the basic flaws of Plato's Republic. I still regret writing this latter article. My magnum opus, to follow these 2 preliminary efforts, was to be a piece on Taoism. I had recently found a certain resonance with the Tao Te Ching and had begun practicing Tai Chi, so I felt it important to distill the sophomoric wisdom from these experiences for others who would naturally be eager to hear it.
Then things began to get thorny. After struggling through several drafts of the article, I realized that (a) I lacked any of the experience that would qualify me to write a thoughtful, provocative article on a topic as vast as Taoism, and that (b) even if I could write that article, the exercise would be futile. What would the finished article have accomplished? To whom would I have proven my point? Not even to myself, for I had little sense concerning the truth of my assertions.
I began to see clearly a discomfort that I had long noticed peripherally - the poison of opinions. None of us who were writing had anything to say that hadn't already been said more eloquently and to a larger audience. Perhaps there had been a time when I had taken comfort in this repetition, defined myself by it... but no more. When we become fixed in our beliefs and worldview, we die to the moment. Yet I was no longer fixed; I was fundamentally uncertain. I had beliefs and assumptions, but the closer I looked at them the more I saw what a disordered jumble they were.
When I wrote papers as a student, everything was simply an exercise: you would do the best work you could, you submitted it, you got a grade, then it went away. Neither you nor anyone else ever read it again. You weren't responsible for what you'd produced. This article was different. At that stage of life I was noticing "the world" for the first time - what we initially see as being "out there" - and was taking a stab at discussing something that mattered. To do that, I had to know something, be able to defend it. And I didn't know anything. Everything that had brought me to that point was simply conditioning; there was no internal order, no integrity to the collection of preferences, instincts and memories that was "me." I bailed on the article, on the journal. I resolved not to speak until I found something worth saying, something I knew was true because I had seen it for myself.
I have struggled with this question throughout the last 5 years: Who am I, really? What matters? What needs to be done, what should be done? How does one live a life?
The major goal of my youth was to excel in school. Since school came easily for me, I grew up without ever really struggling with anything. It seemed like if you thought hard enough about any problem that crossed you, you could eventually solve it. I was like a boxer who is undefeated but has never been knocked down, and thus has not learned how to stand up again and fight through exhaustion and the prospect of failure.
Since I first encountered Zen, the boxer has hit the floor many many times. Sesshin has a ferocious ability to knock the wind out of you; time and again, the aspiration that I thought I brought to practice has evaporated, leaving me lost and stupefied. I’ve spent a lot of time banging my head (mostly metaphorically) against the wall trying to figure out how to practice, or rather, how my old habits and thought patterns could bail me out. Just question? It can’t be that simple. There must be something I’m missing. But I’m pretty convinced now that there’s no magic technique that can save me. This has been disheartening, but has also helped me reach a point of resolution: There’s nowhere else I can go, no escape from this question. I can only keep working.
Sensei has often said that we have to just allow things to happen without resisting them. I find this advice helpful; often I try to grasp at life, control it, chase after easy answers. Even while preparing this article, I’ve written countless things that sounded good but upon later reflection seemed too easy and too polished to be true. For a long time I suffered from the (mis)conception that Zen would somehow make “my” life better. In school, life was largely a matter of convenience. I only had a limited ability and willingness to commit to people, make plans, mature, grow. The world is broader now. How much am I willing to change?
Slowly, I’ve begun to engage life – and question it – on a deeper, more fundamental level. More is at stake. It’s not only for myself that I do this work. Gradually, the habits and behavior that formerly occupied me have lost appeal. They are still being played, but at a softer volume. I am fascinated by the first several hours after a sesshin, when the intense hours of concentrated effort encounter everyday life again. The habits don't rush in quite as quickly. You start over. Birds chirp. You make tea, sip it slowly, savor the fragrance. You check your e-mail. It's like learning to walk again.
And yet… I mourn these habits as they fade. Much that I once valued now seems to have only marginal significance. I used to love reading books – I still do – but somehow they feel less enriching and more like entertainment. I enjoy music, but my guitar has languished in its case for most of this year. I have devoted much of my life to martial arts, only now to reach a kind of plateau: I can quit, recommit myself, or settle for an uncomfortable half-heartedness, neither committed nor neglected.
Life has changed. The sociologist Max Weber wrote that the world became “disenchanted” when our sense of the holy and mysterious was replaced by rational, scientific explanations of phenomena. Similarly, Zen seems to have disenchanted much that I once valued by stripping it of its apparent importance. I sense that I could spend my time in more constructive and compassionate ways, but those ways remain hidden from me. What now? Who am I, really? What matters? What needs to be done, what should be done? How does one live a life?
There’s no easy solution. I’m reminded of a passage from Nietzsche that evokes this sense of personal insignificance:
Perhaps only the Way can show the Way. “Be lamps unto yourselves,” the Buddha taught. I miss the structure of my old life, but if I grasp for such a structure in Zen then practice will become selfish and blind. Instead, I need to trust my gut, risk something and be willing to stumble. To take refuge in uncertainty may be the most honest way to live. In contrast with the above passage from Nietzsche, the following passage from Dogen shows a very different relationship between self and world:
Recently, I’ve discovered that I have unresolved business with my “free of opinions” collegiate self. Many times in practice I’ve told myself, “I know I’m not supposed to know anything.” But do I? There’s another word that we use for not knowing: ignorance. While it was helpful at one time to acknowledge what I did not know, I easily became complacent in a dichotomy between knowing and not-knowing: effectively, I wanted to give Emptiness a reality and hide there, neglecting the world of Form. But as we chant in the Sutra: Form is Emptiness, is no other than Emptiness, and Emptiness is no other than Form. If I am to practice Zen I must not hide from life but engage it directly. Only then will the practice find its voice.
How do you say something with your own voice?
For a brief time in college - just before I began to practice Zen - I was a contributing writer for a monthly campus journal of conservative leanings. I wrote something about a rock album that had just been released and an article decrying what I saw as the basic flaws of Plato's Republic. I still regret writing this latter article. My magnum opus, to follow these 2 preliminary efforts, was to be a piece on Taoism. I had recently found a certain resonance with the Tao Te Ching and had begun practicing Tai Chi, so I felt it important to distill the sophomoric wisdom from these experiences for others who would naturally be eager to hear it.
Then things began to get thorny. After struggling through several drafts of the article, I realized that (a) I lacked any of the experience that would qualify me to write a thoughtful, provocative article on a topic as vast as Taoism, and that (b) even if I could write that article, the exercise would be futile. What would the finished article have accomplished? To whom would I have proven my point? Not even to myself, for I had little sense concerning the truth of my assertions.
I began to see clearly a discomfort that I had long noticed peripherally - the poison of opinions. None of us who were writing had anything to say that hadn't already been said more eloquently and to a larger audience. Perhaps there had been a time when I had taken comfort in this repetition, defined myself by it... but no more. When we become fixed in our beliefs and worldview, we die to the moment. Yet I was no longer fixed; I was fundamentally uncertain. I had beliefs and assumptions, but the closer I looked at them the more I saw what a disordered jumble they were.
When I wrote papers as a student, everything was simply an exercise: you would do the best work you could, you submitted it, you got a grade, then it went away. Neither you nor anyone else ever read it again. You weren't responsible for what you'd produced. This article was different. At that stage of life I was noticing "the world" for the first time - what we initially see as being "out there" - and was taking a stab at discussing something that mattered. To do that, I had to know something, be able to defend it. And I didn't know anything. Everything that had brought me to that point was simply conditioning; there was no internal order, no integrity to the collection of preferences, instincts and memories that was "me." I bailed on the article, on the journal. I resolved not to speak until I found something worth saying, something I knew was true because I had seen it for myself.
I have struggled with this question throughout the last 5 years: Who am I, really? What matters? What needs to be done, what should be done? How does one live a life?
The major goal of my youth was to excel in school. Since school came easily for me, I grew up without ever really struggling with anything. It seemed like if you thought hard enough about any problem that crossed you, you could eventually solve it. I was like a boxer who is undefeated but has never been knocked down, and thus has not learned how to stand up again and fight through exhaustion and the prospect of failure.
Since I first encountered Zen, the boxer has hit the floor many many times. Sesshin has a ferocious ability to knock the wind out of you; time and again, the aspiration that I thought I brought to practice has evaporated, leaving me lost and stupefied. I’ve spent a lot of time banging my head (mostly metaphorically) against the wall trying to figure out how to practice, or rather, how my old habits and thought patterns could bail me out. Just question? It can’t be that simple. There must be something I’m missing. But I’m pretty convinced now that there’s no magic technique that can save me. This has been disheartening, but has also helped me reach a point of resolution: There’s nowhere else I can go, no escape from this question. I can only keep working.
Sensei has often said that we have to just allow things to happen without resisting them. I find this advice helpful; often I try to grasp at life, control it, chase after easy answers. Even while preparing this article, I’ve written countless things that sounded good but upon later reflection seemed too easy and too polished to be true. For a long time I suffered from the (mis)conception that Zen would somehow make “my” life better. In school, life was largely a matter of convenience. I only had a limited ability and willingness to commit to people, make plans, mature, grow. The world is broader now. How much am I willing to change?
Slowly, I’ve begun to engage life – and question it – on a deeper, more fundamental level. More is at stake. It’s not only for myself that I do this work. Gradually, the habits and behavior that formerly occupied me have lost appeal. They are still being played, but at a softer volume. I am fascinated by the first several hours after a sesshin, when the intense hours of concentrated effort encounter everyday life again. The habits don't rush in quite as quickly. You start over. Birds chirp. You make tea, sip it slowly, savor the fragrance. You check your e-mail. It's like learning to walk again.
And yet… I mourn these habits as they fade. Much that I once valued now seems to have only marginal significance. I used to love reading books – I still do – but somehow they feel less enriching and more like entertainment. I enjoy music, but my guitar has languished in its case for most of this year. I have devoted much of my life to martial arts, only now to reach a kind of plateau: I can quit, recommit myself, or settle for an uncomfortable half-heartedness, neither committed nor neglected.
Life has changed. The sociologist Max Weber wrote that the world became “disenchanted” when our sense of the holy and mysterious was replaced by rational, scientific explanations of phenomena. Similarly, Zen seems to have disenchanted much that I once valued by stripping it of its apparent importance. I sense that I could spend my time in more constructive and compassionate ways, but those ways remain hidden from me. What now? Who am I, really? What matters? What needs to be done, what should be done? How does one live a life?
There’s no easy solution. I’m reminded of a passage from Nietzsche that evokes this sense of personal insignificance:
We have left the land and have embarked. We have burned our bridges behind us---indeed, we have gone further and destroyed the land behind us. Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean: to be sure, it does not always roar, and at times it lies spread out like silk and gold and reveries of graciousness. But hours will come when you will realize that it is infinite and that there is nothing more awesome than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt free and now strikes the walls of this cage! Woe, when you feel homesick for the land as if it offered more freedom---and there is no longer any “land.” (The Gay Science 124)There’s a clear sense of “I” in the little ship and the poor bird; they are bound by their smallness and apparent isolation, still seeing the world as an “other.” While it’s natural to feel this way sometimes, I realize that it’s only more delusion that causes me to see my old life as better or more interesting than life now. All these habits and hobbies are at best secondary concerns. But as Nietzsche forces us to ask, when we leave the familiar and safe havens behind us, how do we navigate? What star can illuminate the Way?
Perhaps only the Way can show the Way. “Be lamps unto yourselves,” the Buddha taught. I miss the structure of my old life, but if I grasp for such a structure in Zen then practice will become selfish and blind. Instead, I need to trust my gut, risk something and be willing to stumble. To take refuge in uncertainty may be the most honest way to live. In contrast with the above passage from Nietzsche, the following passage from Dogen shows a very different relationship between self and world:
Fish swim the water and however much they swim, there is no end to the water. Birds fly the skies, and however much they fly, there is no end to the skies. Yet fish never once leave the water, birds never forsake the sky… If a bird leaves the sky, it will soon die. If a fish leaves the water, it at once perishes. We should grasp that water means life for the fish, and the sky means life for the bird. It must be that the bird means life for the sky, and the fish means life for the water; that life is the bird, life is the fish. (from Genjokoan)Fish and water, bird and sky depend on one another, find life in one another, become one another. They are at home in their boundlessness. Similarly, when we practice the Dharma we are life for the Dharma, and the Dharma is life for us. At the times when I am unsure what to do, I must remember that all activities are simply different voices for practice. Enchanted or disenchanted, I can only keep digging.
Recently, I’ve discovered that I have unresolved business with my “free of opinions” collegiate self. Many times in practice I’ve told myself, “I know I’m not supposed to know anything.” But do I? There’s another word that we use for not knowing: ignorance. While it was helpful at one time to acknowledge what I did not know, I easily became complacent in a dichotomy between knowing and not-knowing: effectively, I wanted to give Emptiness a reality and hide there, neglecting the world of Form. But as we chant in the Sutra: Form is Emptiness, is no other than Emptiness, and Emptiness is no other than Form. If I am to practice Zen I must not hide from life but engage it directly. Only then will the practice find its voice.
