Letter from the Abbot: A New Spring at Chozen-ji, by Sayama Daian Roshi
We just finished the summer sesshin last week. 19 people trained, many of them young and local. It was great to see that. Not that we do not welcome students from anywhere, of any age, but as a temple and Dojo in Kalihi Valley, Chozen-ji cannot be sustained without a new generation of local teachers and students. Twice as I walked over to the Dojo for the evening inspection of the sitting, there was a full rainbow over Chozen-ji. “Wondrous,” I thought.
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For teisho I spoke on Hui-neng’s, the Sixth Patriarch’s Platform Sutra, one of Chozen-ji’s three basic texts, the other two being Takuan’s Fudochi Shimmyo Roku (The Records of the Wondrous Mind of Immovable Wisdom) and Omori Sogen’s Zen and Budo (Zen and the Martial Way). Compared to the other two, the Platform Sutra is much longer, much more inaccessible because of its philosophical complexity, and harder to speak from, particularly at a sesshin when everyone is already tired and sleepy.
Hui-neng revolutionized Zen with his teachings that “From the first not a thing is,” and that “Seeing your Original Nature” was the essence of practice, not dust-wiping meditation. Hui-neng also taught that training is enlightenment and enlightenment is training with his teaching that the “Straightforward mind is the Dojo.” And the Dojo is daily life.
The Platform Sutra is introduced as “including the Giving of the Discipline that Frees One from the Attachment to Differentiated Characters” (tr. Wing-tsit Chan, 1963, p. 26). Tanouye Roshi said this was the essence of the book. Differentiated characters refers to “any sphere of objects” external to one’s original nature. The original nature is the undifferentiated Void, and “to meditate means to realize the imperturbability of one’s original nature.” (p. 55) When there are attachments, contact between one’s nature and external objects lead to thoughts and emotional disturbance. Thoughts and emotional disturbance, however, are also external to the original nature which remains calm and unperturbed.
Instead of imperturbability, Tanouye Roshi used the term “immovability.” The original nature remains undisturbed despite encountering all manner of external objects. Because there are no attachments, the Mind does not stop. Being immovable, the body can move in any direction. Hui-Neng described it this way:
If you cultivate the practice of inactivity,
You will be as inactive as an insentient object.
If you want to see true inactivity,
You must be inactive in your activity….
“One who skillfully differentiates the various dharma-characters,
Abides immovably in the First Principle.” (tr. Wing-tsit Chan, 1963, p. 131)
Tanouye Roshi said, “Fudo is the First Principle.” Fudo is immovability; fudoshin is the immovable mind that does not move because it does not stop. It does not move because there are no attachments in the midst of differentiated objects. Tanouye Roshi explained this using the metaphor of a fan: the whirling blades are like your thoughts and feelings. If you have attachments, you are stuck on the blade and are getting spun around. Through the practice of zazen you get off the blade, first to become aware of the activity of your consciousness and then to develop the ability to see through the thoughts and emotions spinning around from a perspective outside your ego.
In our Canon this actual realization is described as Iwo no Mi (body of a huge boulder- going through life like a huge boulder) by Miyamoto Musashi and Marobashi no Michi (round bridge – to accord the myriad changes of life) by Yagyu Sekishusai.
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The rainbows over the Dojo at sesshin are as wondrous as the residences materializing across the street. They will enable us to hold more short-term programs teaching the psychophysical discipline practiced at Chozen-ji. Participants will be able to stay at Chozen-ji for days or weeks to collect the mind in programs such as Zen and Tea, Kendo, or any art, Zen and Politics, Zen and Trauma, or Zen and Executive Development. Such programs will make “the discipline that frees one from attachment to differentiated characters” accessible to many more people.
I deeply thank all the people who contributed to this very important project. Like the growing sakura trees, it signals a new spring for us.
Gassho,
Sayama Daian
Abbot, Daihonzan Chozen-ji