Letter From the Abbot: KEN TO ZEN by Sayama Daian Roshi
Ken To Zen: Teisho at Winter Sesshin by Sayama Daian Roshi
The crowd from December’s Dai-sesshin.
This past sesshin, I gave teisho from Omori Roshi’s book Ken to Zen (The Sword and Zen) using a draft Teshima Sensei, our Kendo teacher, and I have been working on for several years.
At the opening tea which formally starts sesshin, I suggested that we consider sesshin not only as one long period of zazen but also as one long Kendo shiai, a 6-day continuous match which requires full concentration moment by moment. In sesshin, we are doing shiai with the forms, with pain and sleepiness, with each other, and with ourselves for 6 days. Beginners can feel like they’re being attacked by ten men, particularly at meals. At sesshin, we are collecting the mind to transcend self-imposed limitations. By definition, people feel that they can’t do it and want to quit, but when they persevere, they develop spiritual strength. This time, all 21 participants made it through to the closing tea.
In Ken To Zen, Omori Roshi begins by defining both Kendo and Zen as ways of life/death determination. In the past, swordsmen fought with real swords to the death. Transcending life and death is the goal of both Kendo and Zen. The swordsmen he highlights in Ken To Zen all trained with an intensity and unwavering commitment that is hard for us to even imagine. In Yamaoka Tesshu’s Dojo the best students took the vow to train unto death by undertaking the Tachikiri, which at its highest level consisted of 200 shiai a day for seven days.
Throughout Ken To Zen, Omori Roshi describes several sword masters. The first is Itto Ittosai, whose ultimate teaching was Muso Ken, The Dream Sword. Ittosai lived in the 16th century and after 21 days of meditation at the Hachimangu Shrine in Kamakura, he did not experience any divine inspiration. As he was descending the steps of the shrine, he sensed a slight movement of a dark shadow. “Immediately, as if to scratch an itch in his sleep, his hands moved without thought, drew the sword, and cut down the shadow.” It occurred “in a heart/mind-hand unity speed that did not allow a hair’s breadth of a gap between them.” Ittosai systematized this experience and named it Muso Ken.
Omori Roshi compares this to his teacher Yamada Jirokichi’s action when walking with his own teacher Sakakibara Kenkichi one day up a hill in heavy snow. Sakakibara Sensei’s geta (wooden clog) strap suddenly snapped and, as he was about to fall backwards, Yamada Jirokichi extended an arm to support his teacher’s huge body and with his other hand put his own geta on Sakakibara’s foot. This was recognized as the ultimate of Ken, and Yamada Sensei was allowed to succeed as the 15th generation master of Jikishin Kage Ryu.
Tanouye Roshi once told me that he once thought of creating a school of Kendo with the saying “Ki ga Kan o ataeba Myo no oto ga deru.” (When Ki strikes Intuition, a Wondrous sound emerges.) This saying is Tanouye’s Roshi’s way of “explaining” Ittosai’s and Yamada’s experiences. Ki can refer to the subtlest manifestation of the Tao or more simply as a psychophysical energy which can be cultivated by refining breath, posture, and concentration in zazen and developing the hara. Kan senses Ki and is a perceptive intuition which transcends both the physical senses and the dualistic processing of the intellect. Myo is mysterious wonder, the synchronous action of the Universe.
In our Canon Omori Roshi used the expressions of Miyamoto Musashi and Yagyu Munenori describing the ultimate of Ken to describe the ultimate of Zen:
Miyamoto Musashi called it Iwo no mi (body of a huge boulder – going through life rolling and turning like a huge boulder); Yagyu Sekishusai named it Marobashi no michi (a bridge round like a ball – being in accord with the myriad changes of life). Besides this actual realization, there is nothing else.
Comparing the realizations of all of these great masters, Omori Roshi describes how Ittosai, Jirokichi, Musashi, Yagyu, and Tanouye Roshi all experienced the ultimate in Ken and Zen. Whatever the description, Omori Roshi says it is the same moon over the mountain, but our perceptions and descriptions are not necessarily the same. Omori Roshi uses Zen Master Takuan’s teaching of the Immovable Mind to reconcile Musashi’s body of a huge boulder and Yagyu’s bridge round like a ball. Takuan taught that the Mind is immovable because it does not stop with whatever object it encounters; moment by moment it is fully present. It flows like a ball in a swiftly moving stream. When there are attachments, however, it stops, and ignorance and affective disturbance results.
Takuan uses the example of “ten men, ten successive and successful encounters” to illustrate the working of the immovable, non-stopping heart/mind. Each opponent represents situations which challenge us in daily life. Sesshin creates situations which force moment by moment concentration. We may handle the first one well but if we attach to it or get stuck on subsequent ones, eventually we will lose it. If, however, we remain immovable and fully present, each encounter is the only encounter, and we can have ten successive and successful encounters. Tanouye Roshi said, “Here’s the secret of life.” Sesshin helps participants collect the heart/mind and forge a sword of samadhi that can cut through the attachments and spaciness of daily life.
Happy New Year,
Sayama Daian Roshi
Abbot, Daihonzan Chozen-ji