Sixty-six times have these eyes
beheld the changing scene of autumn.
I have said enough about moonlight,
Ask no more.
Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars
when no wind stirs.
Nobody wants to do Zen practice.
Well, that is not exactly true. Maybe out of every 10,000,000 people there is one that really wants to do Zen practice, that won’t let anything get in the way of their doing Zen practice.
The Buddhist nun Ryonen (born 1797) was one such person. Her life was a great example of someone who really turned away, and turned towards practice. I don’t want to get into the story of her life here though; I just want to quote a poem that she wrote. Ryonen wrote this poem near the time of her death (this poem came from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, compiled by Paul Rep):
Sixty-six times have these eyes
beheld the changing scene of autumn.
I have said enough about moonlight,
Ask no more.
Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars
when no wind stirs.
We have been talking a lot lately about story mind, and turning away from story mind; the practice of turning away from story mind. But doesn’t this beg the question: what am I turning towards? What in my ordinary life can I turn towards, hold on to, that would not be a part of the story?
We’ve been talking about abiding in the Unborn. Can’t we find some trace or sense of the Unborn in ordinary story-mind life, and abide with that?
For the remainder of this talk, I want to use the term Reality to refer to the Unborn. Our question then becomes: Can’t we find some trace or sense of Reality in ordinary story-mind life, and abide with that?
Unfortunately, the answer is almost no. When we see ourselves as characters in a story, everything we interact with is a part of that story. Body, thinking mind, world: all story.
Fortunately, the answer is almost no. It is not completely no. There do appear to be some threads of Reality in the story. Different teachers point to different threads. Here are the threads I am aware of:
Listening. Really this is better described as listening without trying. Awareness of sounds in the environment. Bankei talked about this in a quote I read during the last sesshin.
Bodily tension. This is a personal favorite, and it comes directly from my practice with Joko.
Holding on to a personal self, a personal self in opposition to the flow of life, is always reflected as tension in the body. This tension is most likely in the solar plexus, or jaw.
I find it easy to fool myself in my story world, but I cannot fool my body. Bodily tension is a measure of my separation from Reality. To maintain awareness of this bodily tension is to abide in a connection to Reality.
A disadvantage of this practice is that it can easily turn into an attempt to fix myself. To avoid this, I try to stick with my job of maintaining awareness, and let changes evolve out of this awareness.
This practice seems to work well for most people.
Sense of "I am". This practice comes from Nisargadatta. He says that the one bridge from this world to Reality is the sense "I am", the sense of beingness. Abide in this sense of beingness.
Looking at oneself. This practice comes from Douglas Harding. It is essentially a "Who am I?" practice.
When looking outward, I also look inward (backward) at who is doing the looking. To get started with this practice, I pointed my finger at my face and asked "Who is this pointing to?"
What I see when I look inward is nobody, nothing, void, emptiness. I abide in that sense of emptiness.
This practice works well with thoughts. While maintaining that view of emptiness, thoughts can just go on and I don’t get caught up in them.
Not many people seem to connect with this practice, but for those who do, it is very powerful.
The point here is to find a practice that works for you and is unobtrusive enough to do during daily life activities, a way to maintain a connection with Reality throughout the day.
We have been talking about finding your real source, Reality, and making your headquarters there. This has to start with a beachhead in Reality, on that other shore, and it takes more than sitting 30 minutes-a-day to do that. It takes constant attention, all day.
Why not give it a try? What do you have to lose, other than story things, superficial things? What you have to gain is Reality.
Sam Gabriel, San Diego, CA
http://home.roadrunner.com/~clothespin
sam_gabriel@yahoo.com