The Blue Lotus Blooms in Fire
You return from abroad to hear that your best friend has been hospitalized with a suspected malignant tumour, and guess what: he has been going out with the woman you love.
Your Dharma-brothers who are publishing your book let you down, and you feel utterly betrayed.
A Johny-come-lately punk who is writing a commentary on a book you translated, writes a post about you on his blog, stating his amazement that someone with 25 years Zazen experience can be "such a total prick."
Your Buddhist master accuses you of being a non-Buddhist with an evil plan, and he asks you to leave his sangha.
What advice does Master Dogen have about coping in such situations? In Fukan-zazengi he writes, SEN-ITSU NI KUFU SEBA, MASANI KORE BENDO NARI: "If we single-mindedly work out, just this is wholehearted pursuit of the truth."
What did Master Dogen mean by work out? (The characters KUFU are as in the Chinese martial arts, kung-fu.) He meant just sit in lotus, and when something arises in the mind--it might be a passing philosophical reflection, it might be a suicidal thought, it might be blind rage; if one waits long enough it will probably be awareness of pain in the legs--just wake up.
"Just wake up" means let the blue lotus bloom. Let it bloom in fire.
There is nothing one can do to make the blue lotus bloom. It can only be allowed. But don't ask me how to allow, because I do not know.
What I can report, from my own experience, is that belief in the teaching of Fukan-zazengi has been, for me, absolutely indispensible.
The blue lotus flower is never mine to give, but I offer my translation and interpretation of Fukan-zazengi to any sincere person who wants it. I do so not with the intellectual confidence of a witty popularizer like Brad Warner, or the dubious legitimacy of a political operator like James Cohen (member of the American Zen Teacher's Association), but with the battlescars of one who has been through 25 years of fire.
Your Dharma-brothers who are publishing your book let you down, and you feel utterly betrayed.
A Johny-come-lately punk who is writing a commentary on a book you translated, writes a post about you on his blog, stating his amazement that someone with 25 years Zazen experience can be "such a total prick."
Your Buddhist master accuses you of being a non-Buddhist with an evil plan, and he asks you to leave his sangha.
What advice does Master Dogen have about coping in such situations? In Fukan-zazengi he writes, SEN-ITSU NI KUFU SEBA, MASANI KORE BENDO NARI: "If we single-mindedly work out, just this is wholehearted pursuit of the truth."
What did Master Dogen mean by work out? (The characters KUFU are as in the Chinese martial arts, kung-fu.) He meant just sit in lotus, and when something arises in the mind--it might be a passing philosophical reflection, it might be a suicidal thought, it might be blind rage; if one waits long enough it will probably be awareness of pain in the legs--just wake up.
"Just wake up" means let the blue lotus bloom. Let it bloom in fire.
There is nothing one can do to make the blue lotus bloom. It can only be allowed. But don't ask me how to allow, because I do not know.
What I can report, from my own experience, is that belief in the teaching of Fukan-zazengi has been, for me, absolutely indispensible.
The blue lotus flower is never mine to give, but I offer my translation and interpretation of Fukan-zazengi to any sincere person who wants it. I do so not with the intellectual confidence of a witty popularizer like Brad Warner, or the dubious legitimacy of a political operator like James Cohen (member of the American Zen Teacher's Association), but with the battlescars of one who has been through 25 years of fire.
posted by Mike Cross at 9:21 AM
14 Comments:
Sounds good, Mike. How about letting go of your ego and teaching us? What the heck is the Alexander technique anyway? From what I can find it involves the way we use our body. My problem is...bodies come in all shapes and capabilities, and the ability to sit in full lotus or even just to sit at all shouldn't be a prerequisite for awakening.
nickm, ken,
The Alexander Technique is about the use of the whole self by the whole self. It is something very general that does lend itself well to verbal description. But I am happy if what I have written has stimulated your interest in finding out about it, and I have posted onto the sister blog of this one (IT Is Not That), a long and very elegant description of the Technique by Marjory Barlow, FM Alexander's niece. Hope you find this interesting.
I first heard about the Alexander Technique when I visited the Zen Center San Francisco in 1984. I was struck by the easy uprightness of somebody I was sitting next to, a Danish man, and when I told him he modestly gave all the credit to the fact that he was an Alexander student. It took me 10 years to follow up this lead, but a seed had been planted for which I shall be eternally grateful to the Danish man whose name I do not even know.
nickm,
In Master Dogen's thoughts sitting is not a prerequisite for awakening. He called sitting in Zazen in the upright posture, "the authentic gate," but did not rule out the possibility of awakening via other gates.
In Fukan-zazengi Master Dogen wrote BANBETSU SENSA TO IU TO IEDOMO, SHIKAN NI SANZEN BENDO SUBESHI, "Even though there are ten thousand distinctions and a thousand differences, we should just solely pursue the truth by practicing [za]zen." Implicit in these words is the understanding that awakening can be pursued through, e.g. tea ceremony, martial arts, flower arranging, et cetera et cetera. But the way Master Dogen recommended as supreme was the way of sitting in the lotus posture. He never said it was the only way, just the best way.
The father of a boy I taught was confined to a wheelchair, and I discussed my Zen practice with him. I wondered to myself how I would attempt to teach him if he asked to become my Zen student. He never did ask, but my thoughts about it were that we would have to find an activity -- for example, using the voice to chant -- which appealed to him and which called upon him to put in as much as he could of his whole self.
The central prerequisite for Buddhist awakening, as I see it, is the willingness to open oneself to a new, non-habitual experience of the samadhi of accepting and using the self. Zazen is the traditional and authentic gate. But, for a person who is, say, confined to a wheelchair, it is not necessary to deny the possibility of awakening through other gates.
Ken,
It is for sure that the reality of who I am does not fit the mental picture you have built up by reading my blog.
A few days ago James Cohen circulated an email among Dogen Sanga members recommending, with evident compassion and selfless concern, that I shoud seek psychiatric help for my paranoid condition. But he and I have never met face-to-face even once. He expresses himself on the basis of the mental picture of me that he has formed over the internet, but that view is false, as all views, ultimately are false. Probably my view of him as a two-faced malicious self-promoting troublemaker is also a very partial representation of his true reality.
From your comment, I can tell that you have actually bothered to read and understand what I am trying to say on my blog -- in contrasting "bracing yourself" and allowing, you are touching on the nub of the whole matter. I am encouraged by that.
But, no, I am sorry, it is totally impossible for me to tell you anything real about it. Alexander work is not for everybody, and the more years people are in it the less evangelical they seem to be.
Now you're talking Mike! The Marjory Barlow essay was very informative. It sounds like the old "habit engine" rearing up it's ugly head in physical form. I can see now why you would blend zen and AM. Now you are fighting the engine from both fronts! This is inspiring. Good job, and Thankyou! and thanks for clearing up your views on zazen.
Ken,
Follow the link on the opening page of the blog.
Nickm,
Thank you! Yes, Marjory's thinking is wonderfully clear. She is over 90 now and I haven't seen her for about 18 months. But I can report that she was practicing exactly what she preached in 1965 right up until my last lesson with her in 2004:
"Let the neck be free, to let the head go forward and up, to let the back lengthen and widen."
Awakening is right there in those words. The difficulty is what does it mean "to let"? I do not know. But to practice Zazen is to ask the question.
Ken,
Even sitting in an office chair, you can ask the question: "What does it mean to let the neck be free, to let the head go forward and up, to let the back lengthen and widen?" In short, what does it mean to allow?
In your office chair, you can ask the question in words. When you sit in Zazen, try asking the question without words.
Dan,
Past mistakes are all in the past. As I said before, you are welcome to come up from London and visit me -- as long as you demonstrate your sincerity by shaving your head first. That's what I said and I shall stick to my decision.
"to allow" sounds kind of like "don't do...just be"...don't put your head where your habit engine thinks it should be, rather just allow it to go where it knows it should be. Something like that?
"The excitation is seized upon and re-organised to make it resemble the perception which it is about to cause."
This surrealistic Merleau-Ponty quote in the memorial lecture by Marjory Barlow is amazing.
She referenced it, then claimed to have no understanding of what he meant.
When I find myself in times of trouble,
My friend Marjory comes to me,
Speaking words of wisdom:
Let it be.
Nickm, Oxeye, I am happy to have sparked some interest in Marjory's words. She deserves to be much better known than she presently is.
As far as I know, the lyrics to Let It Be pre-date Paul McCartney's coming to Marjory Barlow for Alexander lessons, but the connection is nonetheless interesting. Walking up the stairs to Marjory's teaching room one would pass some photographic artwork featuring Marjory sitting in a chair; it was signed by Linda McCartney.
Yes, nickm, I would agree with you. Truly to allow is to come to stillness, to allow everything to be as it is. Let it be.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Mike,
Do you think that one can sit in balance in the half lotus?
Do you think during Zazen?
Thanks for your comments about James Cohen, he is a terrible bloke.
Thanks
Yes, absolutely one can sit in samadhi in the half lotus. But the full lotus is king of samadhis.
Yes, I think in Zazen. I don't know of any teacher who denies the existence of unintentional thoughts in Zazen. The issue is whether or not one should think intentionally. I say yes. Thinking can be a bridge to that which is beyond thinking: samadhi itself.
To put it another way, I intentionally remember myself, by doing and by thinking, with a view to forgetting myself -- with a view to losing myself in spontaneous undoing.
I have never met James Cohen personally. But from his writing I clearly notice the existence of what Master Dogen called a gap. He says what he says, and he shows the photo that he shows, in the effort to manifest himself as an authentic successor of Nishijima Roshi. But the principle on which he is operating is not the principle that Nishijma Roshi taught me -- which is to pursue the balanced state in which the will to fame and profit does not arise.
It is late at night now, and this clearing by the forest is uttterly peaceful. I have been practicing Zazen all afternoon and evening. I feel that this state that I am enjoying now, this simple life, is just to authentically succeed to the samadhi of the ancestors. How to share it with others I do not know. Blogging is a very poor way.
Post a Comment
<< Home