Simple Zazen: What is the Hara?

Jon asks in a comment to my last post: "...The hara point always escaped me. They say it is about 3 inches below the navel, but HOW EXACTLY does on concentrate on it? How do you teach it? Is this something that one should try to feel for? What does it feel like?"

For zazen, especially for beginning students, I recommend first sitting upright. Here's how I put it in Keep Me in Your Heart Awhile: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri:

The legs, either in a full- or half-lotus position (or as close as you can reasonably get), are like the roots of water lily, grounded in the earth, settled in the muck of this life. The spine is relaxed and straight like the stem of the lotus, supported by the water and inclining upward toward the sun, leaning neither forward nor backward, neither left nor right. The head, the flower of the water lily, sits softly on the top of the spine, eyes gazing downward at a forty-five-degree angle. The mouth is gently closed and the tongue rests on the roof, just touching the upper front teeth. The left hand rests in the right palm, thumb-tips lightly touching, forming an elliptic-shaped zero, expressing boundless openness.

Then allow the breath to be natural, not forcing any particular type of breath.

Most Zen teachers recommend that beginners count the breath but I've found that for many people counting is quickly co-opted by their inner critic. Therefore, I've come to recommend becoming one with the breath at the hara point, about 3 finger-widths below the navel. It is our anatomical center and really helpful for thinking types to come out of the metaphorical head.

Of course, the mind wanders off. That is simply what the mind has been trained to do. Bringing the mind gently and directly back to the hara point is the practice, not attaining any particular state of mind.

One of the virtues of resting in the hara point is that it is a neutral sensation. Especially at first, there are no particular feelings there to reject or crave. Trying to feel it is like trying to ride a bike - the trying is extra and gets in the way. But without trying the wheels don't go round. What can you do? Simply, gently, directly, bring the mind back to the hara point. After a while, the energy of the hara point becomes palpable and it can become a burning sensation, like a little moxi just below the belly.

Katagiri Roshi told me to “just be one with the breath.” After I could follow the breath for longer periods, especially in sesshin, he told me that shikantaza wasn’t following the breath. “Don’t be attached to anything,” he admonished me.

You Just Don't Get It, Jean-Luc, What Moves? And the Social Message of Zen

Above I'm moving in the water with two of my favorite people - my son and my brother. Three Ports in a lake.

Somehow that might be connected to the Genjokoan theme of the week:

If a person riding in a boat watches the coast, the person mistakenly sees the coast as moving. If the person watches the boat, then the person notices that the boat is moving. Similarly, when we conceive our body and mind in a confused way and grasp all things with discriminating mind, we mistakenly think that the self-nature of our own mind is permanent. When we intimately practice and return right here, it is clear that all things have no self.

Dogen returns us to the illusion of the normal way humans perceive the world - upside down or inside out. That's why we have the logo for Wild Fox Zen that we do (see the right sidebar or this post from a while back - click here). Look at it one way, it's a fox, look at it another and it's what? Same lines and such a subtle turn of perception is required to see it differently.

The logo is just like the perceptual illusion of the person in the boat seeing the coast move. The normal way of seeing the world is to see ourselves as constant experiencing a fleeting world. In order for perception to shift, we must study the boat itself rather than distract ourselves with the scenery.

Earlier in the Genjokoan, Dogen implores us to study this self, the subject in our internal drama. It is this fascinating study that points to the social message of dharma practice.

The utter futility of directing our search for fulfillment at the coast, at the myriad distractions that we use to avoid studying the boat (drugs, sex, rocknroll, etc.), is certainly an important step in dharma practice. The next step is to intimately study the body/mind so that our perception can flip. That flip isn't something we control but something that flips through focussed, relaxed attention.

What about the social message? Well, the way that our society has taught us to be is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and might just go all the way there. But maybe we're close enough to collapse now so that we will realize more fully that there is another way to find fulfillment - through intimately coursing the way together.

One way, the Zen path, offers a lot that seems fitting right now - simplicity, working our dynamic edge, vividly hopping along, directly facing birth and death. These are even edgier pursuits than driving a car at 110 mph or mastering the "Crossfire" video game (which my son is into right now).

Thich Nhat Han used to say that we needed to discover how the path of peace is really more interesting than the path of war. There have been several times in history when societies turned on a dime and made spiritual practice the central organizing principle. Tibet in about the 11th Century, for example (granted, it's been a while ... still ...).

Dharma practice undertaken with diligence, unfolds such a path.

It's just like the last episode of Star Trek: Next Generation," All Good Things...". The last conversation between Q (click here if you are unfamiliar with Q) and Captain Picard.

"You just don't get it, do you, Jean-Luc? The trial never ends. We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did."
"When I realized the paradox."
"Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae [or mastering Facebook and Twitter], but charting the unknown possibilities of existence."

Mindfulness in Zen: Like Trying to Cut Through Cottonwood Fuzz

There are a lot of cottonwood trees in my neighborhood and in this dry weather it is still snowing cottonwood fuzz. In the photo, my son is adapting to the circumstances to get the job done.

And that’s what we Western Buddhists are doing too – cutting through the the fuzz to find the straight-up Buddhadharma. Seems to me that’s a normal thing at this stage of our development and happened at least in China and Japan too. And maybe this is the healthiest period - inquiring mind is more easily open and cooking, especially important for practitioners who yearn for the real deal.

In that regard, in a comment to a recent post here, Harry brings up the issue of oneness and mindfulness. The question I hear in his comments is “What is correct practice, to focus on what we’re doing or maintain an open, oneness mind?”

The underlying issue lies in the nature of mindfulness to divide the world into two, the seen and the seer, for example. Even the great Theravadan master, Buddhagosa, recognized that mindfulness is the practice of suffering.

For those interested in the nondual dharma, freedom from the world of separation and alienation, this practice doesn’t taste so good, philosophically, at least.

The question is very close to the found koan that haunted me in the early years of my practice, “How do I go beyond self-consciousness,” and continues to unfold twenty-five years after initial resolution. See Keep Me in Your Heart Awhile: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri for more.

Harry cites an essay by Mike Eido Luetchford, a Nishijima successor, “One Moon or Two Moons – Oneness and Mindfulness in the Teaching of Zen Master Dogen.”

Now there is much in this essay that I appreciate and agree with. Luetchford’s parsing of what is often translated as mindfulness (smirti and the related, nen and shin) is especially good stuff. He also makes an important point about how mindfulness for Dogen and company was not a private mental experience but more about remembering the dharma in action, harmonizing body, speech, and thought.

Luetchford’s central point seems to be this: “It is clear that Dogen taught that the Buddhist state is a state in which there is no second person monitoring the actions of the body…. The Chinese masters and Dogen urge us to get rid of this second person.”

From my perspective, this does not resolve the issue of oneness and duality because it is also two – the second person (i.e., the witness consciousness or bystander in Zen language) is split off, gotten rid of. Where does the second person go?

After struggling for several years with how to go beyond self-consciousness, Katagiri Roshi said to me, “Already you are stuck.”

In my view, that points directly to another kind of resolution of the issue, one at peace with the witness consciousness too, a nondualism that warmly embraces dualism without any separation whatsoever. This is a warmhearted nondualism that is also very functional.

It echoes the Buddha saying repeatedly in The Four Foundations of Mindfulness, “the body in the body, the feeling in the feeling, the dharma in the dharma.”

Actualizing this is coincident with the insight. There is nothing to add or take away.

Dogens puts it this way:

Harmonizing and purifying yourself in this manner, do not lose either the one eye [of transcendent wisdom] or the two eyes [of discriminating consciousness]. Lifting a single piece of vegetable, make [yourself into] a six-foot body [i.e. a buddha] and ask that six-foot body to prepare a single piece of vegetable. (Tenzo Kyokun)

Continuously perform as such and you will be such a person. Your treasure-store will open of itself and you will joyfully use it at will. (Fukanzazengi)

Finally, like Luetchford writes, the dharma is more about how we act than our philosophy.

The Merging of Enlightenment and Salvation

Here's another section of the talk by Katagiri Roshi that I posted recently. It brings together several themes that we've been working with here abouts - compassion as salvation, the significance of Soto forms, daily life practice, enlightenment, wholeheartedness, and the meaning of Genjo. He didn't leave much out!

Salvation is described by regulation of the monastery - how to wash your face, how to use the bathroom, how to cook up the kitchen, how you deal with toilet paper, and how you deal with your cloths, hair, etc. Then it seems to everyone that Dogen's teaching could suffocated us death.

Form of gassho is do this like this, and not like this, not like this. Always Dogen Zenji put you in some kind of form and then you don't like it because you like freedom. However, the freedom you like is not freedom. It is confusion. In terms of Buddha's eyes your freedom is missed. That's why Buddha is always expresses compassion and puts you in a certain frame, so called Buddha land. Salvation is there. Where is salvation? Right now right here. That's it.

How can you manifest salvation backed by wisdom? Salvation and enlightenment work together. But usually we love wisdom so much, understanding the teaching very deeply. Salvation we don't like. We love it emotionally, but we don' like it intellectually. Because you don't feel freedom. We are always try to live our way. Particularly when you get into spiritual life.

Intellectually you want to have freedom but when you get into you don't like it. When you don't do it how can you create productive life in the process of action, so called jumping into ocean? Spiritual life is touching the revelation of freedom directly.

The point that I want to tell is merging of enlightenment and salvation. Without everyday life religion is ridiculous. It is exactly the same as philosophy, psychology if you don't make it alive in every day life. When you do gassho there is spiritual life there. Otherwise, how can you express gratitude for your life to everything?

We need a path. That's what I want to tell you in Buddha's teaching. Two crucial points in Buddha's teaching. One is egolessness. Egolessness is being liberated, being liberated from the self. That is the meaning of Mu. It's not to destroy but to be liberated, be free from self or ego.

Second crucial point is the quality of Buddha's experience. Buddha's teaching is wisdom and compassion. Wisdom and compassion or enlightenment and salvation should work together from moment to moment. That is called spiritual life. You understand it and you should live it, live in it. This is our practice.

The problem is you have never experienced before. That's why I always tell you when you do Zen, do Zen with wholeheartedness. It is salvation backed by whole universe. You don’t believe it because it's too simple. Too simple to know. Something you directly have to touch is too close, too close to know. Very delicate.

Do you understand? Too close means when your stomach is functioning smoothly and you don't pay attention to it. When your stomach is growling, something is making trouble. At that time you pay attention to the existence of stomach. That stomach you pay attention to is something different from you. But before you understand or know stomach, stomach and your whole body and everything is working exactly in the same and one ground.

You are perfectly peaceful and harmonious - saved. That is not something to know. All you can do is just to manifest.

That is called Genjo. Gen is manifestation or present. Jo is becoming, or to become, or complete. Genjo means what has been completed and is completing and is being completed and will be completed.

From day to day, from moment to moment that is what? Reality. Reality is something more than you understand. That is called Genjo, present is as it truly is.

Responses to Comments about Dharma Transmission

A bunch of these wild fox calligraphies arrived yesterday from Lee at The Bird's Path. He suggested that they be used as "party favors" so I handed them out to the study group last night. Thanks!, Lee, for the wonderful treat.

Today I'd like to respond in a rolling fashion to some of the comments to yesterday's post.

IMHO, although it is important to learn from everyone and everything, that is not a replacement for the teacher-student relationship anymore than learning about love from everyone we meet can replace a commited relationship.

Another example, I learn from my teenaged children but I don't turn running the zendo over to them.

The robe and a piece of paper are necessary but not sufficient conditions to be a Zen teacher and are not something separate from the teaching/dharma. I think of Huangbo saying, "I don't say that there is no Zen, just that there are no teachers." This can be most thoroughly explored and appreciated within the teacher-student relationship, much more so than as a by-stander.

Dogen considered both the experience of transmission and the seal of recognition from an authentic teacher as essential. Dogen went so far as encouraging people to stop practicing if they could not find a true teacher. It seems to me that those of us in his line and students interested in the path of inquiry called Soto Zen should be very careful to deal with this point through and through.

Zen is, afterall, an ancestral tradition, handed on from generation to generation, not what any one individual wants it to be or thinks that it is.

What to do?

We can all encourage each other to only transmit the dharma in the most authentic circumstances. Students have an important role. The Shuso (lead practitioner) Ceremony, for example, usually follows some years after priest ordination (tokudo - leaving home) and involves the community testing the lead practitioner in public. That testing and feedback cycle ought not be reserved for a single ceremony and is essential for healthy transmission.

We can also recommit to our own thoroughgoing practice and do our utmost to transmit this wonderous way to the next generation.

More on the Genjokoan soon.

What is Dharma Transmission?

Tetsugan, Bodhi, P and I went to Omaha to visit Nonin and Elizabeth (and dogs Buddy and Sammy) for the 4th. I think we all had a lovely time. Bodhi had a playfest with Buddy and Sammy, so much so that his feet hardly touched the ground as in the picture above. Hanging out with Nonin, a true dharma friend for many years, is wonderful for me, especially when we push back and forth about the dharma. Late into the night we exchanged some of our concerns about the transmission of the dharma.

And tonight at Transforming Through Play Temple, we'll be picking up some of the same themes while studying the following lines from the Genjokoan that deal with transmission:

When a person first seeks after the dharma, the person becomes far from the boundary of the dharma. When the dharma is correctly transmitted to the self, [you are] immediately the original person.

Recently I wrote about the necessary heightening of alienation that marks the beginning of real practice when the Way Seeking Mind is first aroused (click here for that post). Today I'll introduce the second sentence - the transmission of dharma - and then write again tomorrow following our study session.

The first thing that I'm struck by today is how quickly Dogen moves from beginning practice to transmission, from alienation to fulfillment, as quickly as the movement from inhalation to exhalation.

Bokusan has this:

Only when you forget yourself and forget buddhadharma, is dharma transmitted to you.... You understand that even before taking one step there was already the original face and eye, the complete buddhadharma, abiding where Way Seeking Mind first arose. This cannot be understood without twenty or thirty years of endeavor in the face of extreme hardship.

Next to the part about extreme hardship (which I'll come back to tomorrow), what strikes me here is how in Bokusan's commentary (as well as in Sen'ne and Kyogo's Notes), no mention is made of the Dharma Transmission ceremony but only the experience of confirmation.

IMHO, these two are often conflated in contemporary Soto Zen where Dharma Transmission is sometimes given simply to recognize a person's long practice, sometimes as an organizational expedient, sometimes simply as full priest ordination so that a person can perform priestly functions. It is as if the ritual is the experience.

A few years ago I dug into the Soto Zen Buddhist Association database and found a stunning range of training time between priest ordination and Dharma Transmission (less than one year to over 35 years with and average of eleven years). I also found the birth year for those with Dharma Transmission was 1945 (64 years old this year) and 1952 for priests-in-training (57 years old this year). The concern for me is that on average, transmission in American Soto is occuring within generations rather than to the next generation.

Another type of survey was conducted by a friend at a teachers' meeting also several years ago. He asked the group of about 40 Zen teachers from various lineages how many considered enlightenment as they understood it necessary for Dharma Transmission. Less than half raised their hands.

The main point here: although there is an ancient standard where the experiential cycle and the ritual cycle roll together, it is unclear (at best) if that ancient standard is being consistently upheld these days.

Dharma Transmission in American Soto Zen does not appear to mean the same thing from lineage to lineage or even from single transmission to single transmission.

Practitioners beware.

Transforming Through Play in The Wild

Polar bear and husky playing - unbelievable! Click.