Reality, anyone?

Bodai Shin, the Will to the Truth

2012-01-18T12:24:00.004+01:00

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In Gakudo Yojin Shu Master Dogen encourages those who want to study Buddhism to forget fame and profit and instead pursue the truth. He says that to pursue the truth we must forget fame and profit. When you look at most Buddhists in the West today, very few of them seem to be interested in fame and profit. They are usually spiritually oriented people, some kind of intellectuals who are interested in philosophy and understanding the meaning of life rather than becoming famous or having some profit from practicing Buddhism. Still, there is something lurking around and that is this kind of desire to become a better person, to attain a peaceful mind, to have better understanding of Buddhism than others and maybe become a successful Buddhist teacher that is better than other people. All those things may be a kind of personal, individual dream to achieve something special for myself rather than attain the truth and live the truth for the sake of the truth. Buddha Dharma means that an individual person never means more than the clouds, stars or the moon in the sky. This is what most people forget all the time, and I very often forget this and only when I practice zazen without trying to attain anything special, I can see that I don't matter more than anything that is in front of me. So master Dogen says that it is important to have something that is called Bodai Shin, the will to the truth, if we want to practice and study Buddhism. The will to the truth is the will to open myself to reality that is not limited by my self.

Bodai Shin is sometimes translated as the awakened mind, but master Nishijima translated that term as the will to the truth. In fact, our sincere effort to be here and now when we let go of our dreams and ideas and opinions and just do something simply, is not different from the will to the truth. And this very will to the truth that is based on our opening to reality is not different from awakening. To sincerely practice zazen is not different from becoming a buddha. To sincerely study Buddhism with a true teacher is not different from realizing what Buddhism is. To walk, step by step, to the toilet without seeking individual profit, is to become a buddha. To work in the office, moment after moment, dealing with all kinds of problems sincerely, is to become a buddha. But to say, hey, I am a buddha, you are not, is the same as being deluded. Reality is pure and independent on our opinions. Our words can only delude or wake up others, but they cannot replace one's own experience. Still we need a teacher, not a cocky individual who boasts a huge satori or a flawless life, but someone who can fix our naive ideas about ourselves, our problems and our understanding of Buddhism. A true teacher is someone who can fix our direction when we seek the truth. He or she is the one who says from time to time, here, here, this is enlightenment. Not that! So we definitely need a true teacher, someone who has found the truth in the midst of everyday life, everyday problems and everyday dreams. Someone who knows that the truth is more important than self, but also who has no naive ideas about some kind of perfect Buddhist life that is only a dream and can never be something real.

Of course, we are important and our individual life is important. We don't have to give up our ideas, feelings, dreams or ambitions. It is okay to love someone, it is okay to try to understand Buddhism better and it is okay to enjoy peace after an hour of zazen. We can clearly notice how peaceful we sometimes are after zazen. But if we stick to this aspect of our life, if we only stress the individual aspect of our life, only stress our own intellectual abilities, our feelings, our ambitions, which are all phenomena within a limited self, we will never understand and never attain the truth of someone who has gone beyond the individual, the intellectual, the dreams and the self. So we should realize that although we are important, especially that it is important how we act and how we treat others and do our job, when we let go of self and just do something sincerely, be it practicing zazen or studying Buddhist texts or driving or planning a lesson, just when the self is forgotten in the middle of our sincere actions, we are ready to accept what Buddha taught and even accepting what Buddha taught is not different from accepting the truth and our own enlightenment. So enlightenment is not something we should attain, rather something that is our original nature that we learn to accept. But to completely accept our own enlightenment is extremely difficult and may take hundreds of years and it is usually impossible to accept it completely without practicing zazen with a true teacher who already accepted the truth of all things, mainly the truth of real practice without seeking something out of this world.

So Bodai Shin is the willing to let go of self, and let a true teacher tell us what Buddha Dharma is. Bodai Shin means that we are willing to learn from the world around us, the pebbles, the fences, the walls that can clearly show what Buddha Dharma is. Bodai shin is the will to the truth that is already present here and now. It is the will to open oneself to the very reality in front of us, the will to let the reality completely penetrate our self so the self is not separate, individual at that moment. Like that we can study and practice Buddhism every day without worrying whether we are enlightened or not. It is something completely humble and at the same time it is something one can enjoy and find pleasure in it. How can we find pleasure in something that is not us? It is not not us, it is just what it is and it is pleasure when it is pleasure, it is branches, when it is branches, it is clouds when it is clouds and it is pain when it is pain. But the self is not the manager of the universe. The branches are not something produced by a self, they are just branches, but we cannot be branches unless we drop our self. We cannot experience pleasure beyond our self, unless we drop our self. Then it is pleasure beyond self, and it is just pleasure and it is experienced by the whole universe. So rather than worrying how enlightened or how true we are, we can carefully observe the shape of the branches of the trees in the park. When we just observe, it is not an individual watching branches outside, but it is just branches being branches. When we go back to such selfless experience many many times a day, that is a Buddhist life. Then it is not important how peaceful or enlightened one is, it is important to let the world express its own peace and enlightenment that is not limited by our narrow mind. When the universe is enlightened, we don't have to establish our own enligtenment in it. Nobody needs that. When the universe is the truth, we don't have to attain our own narrow truth in it. The true universe is enough. And it is as open and as big as you need it. Its truth is as unlimited and as free as you need it.

The State After Zazen

2011-12-30T01:40:00.000+01:00

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I practiced zazen only for a while in the morning. I don't mean it is something wrong. Anyway, later in the evening I didn't feel very balanced. So I tried to write something about Buddhism to encourage myself. But what I wrote felt kind of unnatural, artificial. Still, I at least encouraged myself to practice zazen and after zazen I can see what the problem was.

When we don't practice zazen or when we don't have some activity that makes us balanced, we feel someone should give us something, or entertain us. We are quite dependent on the outside world, but at the same time, although we are given thousand of great things, we cannot see or feel or hear them. So we feel frustrated or empty, not satisfied enough. Even if we eat something delicious, it not enough. But later I practiced zazen and right after that I went to the kitchen and washed some dishes. I saw the dishes were interesting and my feeling separate or lonely disappeared. Then I turned on the computer and noticed the desktop was blue. Usually I don't notice such things, but zazen wakes up these things, so you notice things and you realize htey are interesting. As you can freely and spontaneously observe things around you, there is no personal problem. The world is interesting and you are not so important. But before we practice zazen, we may feel separate and our lives seem very important while the outside world seems dull and not important enough. The dishes in the kitchen are not interesting, nothing is so great, just we want someone or something keep us entertained.

Of course, if you are a very busy person, you don't know what I am talking about. Especially if you are busy physically, you automatically wake up to the real world and may find it satisfying enough. But mostly we are busy forgetting what is important. We are busy doing things in our little personal world, which is different from being busy and open at the same time. To be busy in Buddhism doesn't mean there is not enough time, rather there are some activities going on at the present moment. So even if you act quickly, you are not in a hurry.

After zazen, nothing is boring, even the most ordinary things are interesting because you have never really seen them before. You see things as if for the first time. I can feel my fingers touching the keys of the keyboard.

The Most Boring Thing

2011-12-29T22:14:00.002+01:00

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People usually like to experience wonderful things and avoid terrible things. They like to be loved and eat delicious food and visit wonderful countries and have fun and no problems. But the essence of Buddhism, what Buddhism can offer, essentially, is none of these things. Most people will buy books about Buddhism and try some Buddhist practice, like tourists who go sightseeing. For them, it is something unusual, it is going to some exotic places of mind and body, spiritual adventure. I experienced that a lot in the past. Zen was the most exciting thing I had ever encountered. So I was excited and puzzled by the words in the Chinese Zen dialogues called koans. But when we find the right teacher, the right Buddhist practice, the most important thing is to practice zazen, help in the kitchen, go to the toilet... who is still interested? There is nothing special to find so who would care at all? Some people don't believe Buddhism could be this simple but it is this simple, after all. Anyway, that simplicity is not about being ignorant or cynical, it is the opposite. It is wisdom in action and caring in action. A simple action expresses Buddha's wisdom and Buddha's caring.

When we find the right practice with the right teacher, then maybe for the first time in our life we can discover the vividness of simple actions. Zazen is useless - as long as the limited self is trying to find something good for the limited self. But when we stop worrying about this narrow self, we can discover something beyond the self, something universal.

When we forget what we are and just do something sincerely, we become our true self and there is no problem with profit and loss, being a good or bad Buddhist, a Buddhist of lower or higher rank. There are no ranks when we just act sincerely here and now, buddhas are beyond ranks, beyond comparison, there is no competition, no winners and no losers. When we observe a sangha during a retreat, all the people are important, all of them are on the same level. Even if there is a teacher, she is only as important as the freshest newcomer. So it is not necessary to try to achieve some higher rank in Buddhism. Just where you sit in the zendo, no matter if it is in the corner or next to the door, that is the seat for Buddha Gautama. No matter if you are respected as a good Buddhist or not, when you become your true self, it doesn't matter what others say or what you think. It is just necessary to act and practice sincerely. Then it is possible to discover the most valuable within the most boring. When we let go of our personal categories, we are beyond comparison, just sitting, just washing dishes, which is not different from activities of a buddha. In such actions there is something genuine going on, the universe is realized, Dogen would say. Our experience is something unlimited by our body and mind. Neither the experience nor the universe is limited. The experience is the experience of the universe and the universe is the universe of the experience.
When we experience the universe like that or when we are experienced by the universe, it is because there is no more a limited self present, and we don't feel lonely or separate at all. The universe does the activity where the self is not something limited, but rather something not different from the universal experience. So when we just act, we cannot say what is the universe and what is the experience. They are one thing.

So when the experience is universal, not limited by a little self, our life's meaning is revealed. It is not something we can boast about - it is not just mine. It is mine and at the same time, it is not limited by myself. So it is like kissing - when two people kiss, both experience something that is not just theirs. So they cannot limit the experience of that one kiss to something individual. Both of them have their own, individual experience of something that is universal. We usually speak about our individual lives, but what is my life? It is not just mine, it is not just me experiencing myself, but also something universal experiencing me. People often wonder who is enlightened and who is not, but no matter if you are enlightened or not, that enlightenment or not enlightenment is not just yours. Whatever you experience is not just you. It is not just your body and mind, but also the universe, the intelligence and physical activities of the universe. So when you look at a Buddhist teacher and think hmm, she must be enlightened, you should realize that she is not just she, she is the universe expressing itself through her body and mind and she is expressing herself through the universe. That is what everyone does when he or she just acts sincerely in the present moment.

When we practice the way Dogen practiced Buddhism, we can be seamlessly active and seamlessly one with the universe. If you practice zazen, you will definitely experience the seamless existence in zazen, as soon as you are willing to let go of your limited self and limited body. If you just sit, you will lose what you called "I" naturally, sooner or later. But that doesn't mean that when you stand up after zazen, there will be some ghost without "I" walking around the house. We cannot deny we are individuals, but in simple actions that aspect of our existence vanishes for a while, only to appear again for a while and that is repeated over and over again. But when we don't practice zazen, we hardly ever forget that individual importance, rather we feel separate, special or different from others most of the time, unless we do some sports or similar activities, where we forget this "I" and become that universal experience.

Our experience - no matter how ordinary it seems now - is more important than those satori moments of all those Chinese masters we read about. Maybe we would like to be just like them. But their greatness was in just being their ordinary self, it was their ordinary life that they found priceless. That's all you have to do if you want to be able to fully appreciate your life. You have to go back to your ordinary actions to see what you are and how you are not separate from the universe. It is very direct in zazen - if you can practice zazen you can see what it's like to just be here and now. If that is boring or not enough, then you have to practice until you can let go of your limited views and limited physical awareness. So when we practice sincerely, we can eventually completely experience what it's like to be a true person, we can discover the universal meaning of our existence and no matter what we do, no matter how boring it may seem, it has the same meaning, the same greatness as anything you've read about in those books of koans and Zen stories. When we open or close the window, it is better than going to the Moon and walking on it. When we sit in zazen, Gautama is sitting in zazen, too, as nobody can say who is who, so you may be Gautama and Gautama may be you. And for Gautama, just sitting is not something boring. Yet, he cannot say what it is as he is busy just doing it. By just doing it, he has completely fulfilled the meaning of life.

Beyond Religion - edited

2011-12-29T17:01:00.001+01:00

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If you read the article Beyond Religion before Thursday afternoon, you read the version I had to rewrite later. I think the topic will need some more articles, it is something I write about all the time. Anyway, if you want to read the new version, go back to the article and you will find the edited version, wich should be a bit more clear.

Beyond Religion

2011-12-27T14:15:00.002+01:00

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Many people believe Buddhism is one of the most widespread religions. But the way we practice and understand Buddhism in Dogen Sangha, the way Dogen practiced and understood Buddhism is different from the way most people understand religion. Although we study philosophy and think about Buddhism and try to understand something, the most important thing is that we do not practice while sticking to some kind of intellectual or religious understanding of Buddhism. When we practice and study Buddhism according to master Dogen, our aim is to go back to our original state, to be like children. Like children before they start to talk or like cats and dogs who have no idea what religion is. So it doesn't matter what we believe. Once we practice here and now, according to Dogen's teaching, our religious or philosophical views do not matter any more.

Although it seems that Dogen was preoccupied with a lot of various philosophical concepts and mentioned all kinds of deities and supernatural figures in his writings, it was his way how to deal with the fact that people's minds are usually preoccupied with lots of various concepts and opinions and worries. But when we study Shobogenzo, we can find out that, after all, Dogen deconstructed all these concepts to let us directly experience and practice the truth. This is very important. Instead of sticking to the concepts and opinions, we let go of that mind that is full of them and instead become that intact child's experience. After all, as Buddhists we cannot say anything about reality that would mean more than just a kind of hint or encouragement for others to experience for themselves what reality is. Still, we do discuss and study Dogen's teaching and Buddhist philosophy. But to be able to thoroughly discuss Buddhism, learn it and teach it, it is necessary to first leave all concepts and let the truth reveal itself freely. when we let go of all our narrow views, we can later take one idea after another and take and use them like some tools that will help us and others practice and experience the truth.

If we cannot accept that essential philosophical and intellectual independence, i.e. if we cannot leave our thinking mind, but still have faith in Dogen's wisdom and experience, we have to let our practice, which has to be sincere, let it experience the truth for us, rather than use our own narrow mind to decide what the truth is and what it is not. If our life is full of complicated things and people and conflicting views and choices, we have to let our original state help us let go of something we seem to stick to and that situation, not being attached to something although the situation is difficult, is the best basis for our life to take the direction it should take. It is like a river that chooses its path according to the landscape. When the river has some personal opinions about which path is the best, it cannot flow freely. Rivers flow naturally as they have no problem with the nature of things and they can be just rivers. Even if you dump all kinds of things into the river, it will keep flowing without thinking "this is right, that is wrong".

People prefer their thinking minds to decide for them which way to go and which way is the best. Everyone has a different idea about what the right direction is, the best religion,the best philosophy etc. Dogen teaches and practices without making any compromises - the truth has to be experienced rather than understood intellectually, it has to be practiced rather than analysed. That truth is something where ideas and opinions and concepts don't matter any more. They actually matter very much within the study - but they don't matter at all within the experience itself. When we listen to the teacher, we shoudl be able to understand and his or her talk should be logical. But when we sit and practice zazen, we have to forget all concepts and thoughts.

Buddhism, according to Dogen, is not a group of people following a holy person and trying to be similar or obedient. Buddhism is your own experience being yourself, independent from concepts and religions and holy people, including Buddha. Buddhism means to practice and experience what we are before we start to think and judge. We have to think and judge, quite often in this civilized world, but to let our thinking mind judge all the time and neglect the wisdom of intellectually independent children means to miss the opportunity to experience and practice the truth that is beyond religious views.

Stupid Love

2011-12-24T01:13:00.001+01:00

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Just a few minutes ago I came across a lecture, a transcription, given by late Shunryu Suzuki. There were some sentences about how important it is to live without much information, without knowing much about everything. I'd like to point out that here we are dealing with something that has to be applied to our actual life and our Buddhist practice, if we really take it seriously, both our life and our practice.

I and my girlfriend broke up a few days ago and ever since I have been wondering what went wrong, how she felt about me, what kind of person she really is after all, where she is going now etc. Unfortunately I am not very well informed, I don't feel I know much about the whole thing. It seems so complicated and yet, I have been trying - to no avail - to understand the situation. I think, and this is not something new, but something I have been aware of for a longer time, that true love has to be based on something independent, clear, something invisible rather than visible things or tangible things like physical pleasure, intellectual understanding and other phenomena. But when I came across Shunryu Suzuki's talk on the importance of not knowing too much, it hit the nail on its head! There is no need to understand everything, talk about everything, analyse everything... it is more important to be quite stupid. That is true freedom, and that freedom is a great basis for a happy life. The more information we get the more troubled we seem to be. But now I realize I don't have to understand what went wrong or what my ex- girlfriend really feels. Essentially we are all fine when we don't know much. When we just live, moment after moment, stupidly. We don't need to understand Buddhism perfectly, or other people perfectly or our relationship perfectly or why our neighbors make that strange noise every night. We could just leave these things be unexplained, let them be, let them happen, just like we let birds fly across the sky without trying to figure out where they are flying. It is a famous koan. Where are those gees flying? Just when someone twists your nose, you understand / not intellectually, but essentially you know what's going on. We can be happily stupid and still live freely and wisely. So I want to let my ex-girlfriend fly West just like the geese. When you twist my nose, she can fly freely. When you ask me for analysis, she will be stuck here - right in my mind.

I have called this essay Stupid Love. I don't mean it negatively. There is love that is stupid, love that is not based on information. Do you love me? I don't want to know, twist my nose. I want to find love here and now, in this moment without any information. I want to find true Buddhist practice in this moment without knowing anything specific about Buddhist practice. But that is just one aspect, very important, but we cannot just delete our intellectual capabilities. We have to deal with thinking and information, we cannot avoid it. We want to know what Dogen taught and what Buddhist practice means. But in the process of learning about Dogen's teaching, learning about Buddhist practice, learning about true love, we learn to be stupid, to open the door of mind, to let our rigid ideas go, let them fly, we return to our original stupid nature, the nature of plants, clouds, the nature of love that doesn't know anything. Love that doesn't know anything is right here, it is realized here when we are doing something simply and the couples who rely on that simplicity and lack of information are happy, indeed. Just I don't know how long that happiness can last. But it can return over and over again, no matter if we break up or not. You cannot stop love from happening when you allow yourself to be stupid enough to be able to do things simply and sincerely. And whenever there is another person around when you are doing something simply and sincerely and she is doing something simply and sincerely, too, voilá, Love Stupid is realized!

To See Things As They Are

2011-11-02T11:52:00.000+01:00

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You could say easily, that I've tended to see things too subjectively lately. I practice zazen every day but I realize that if you just practice zazen formally without the right attitude, it could be just a formal routine that has nothing to do with Buddha Way. Even if you practice for five minutes it may be the Buddha Way. But if you practice sincerely for five minutes it is different from sitting while cherishing your personal feelings and ideas. It is important that we at least try to practice zazen with the thinking / not thinking attitude. It is just a simple physical activity and you don't have to achieve anything or feel something special, no enlightenment is necessary, but what's really important is that we try to practice sincerely, which is trying to sit really stupidly and not cherishing your personal feelings and ideas. To sit really stupidly means to just sit with your body and let go of your mental activities. To sit really stupidly, beyond myself and others, beyond the difference between myself and others, here and there, now and later... Then it is the zazen our ancestors practiced. Then in your everyday life you can notice that your self is not that heavy and you don't have to follow your feelings and ideas so stubbornly, rather you notice the things like plants, clouds, flowers, you notice when you walk, you notice when you eat, you notice when it gets dark, you notice when it is hot or when you feel sleepy. But when we are too active in our personal feelings and ideas, we tend to ignore what is going on in reality, which is beyond self and others, here and there. We cannot really find out what is objective - something that is outside our own experience. But we can feel clearly what is subjective. You know what you feel and you know what you think. But that is just one-sided. It is not necessary to try to get rid of subjective feelings and ideas, they are necessary too. But it is important to realize that they can never grasp the complete experience of reality, they can never be the truth itself. If you want to experience the truth itself, it is necessary to let go of myself, my feelings, my opinions... to open up physically and mentally and to accept the truth right now. Then, you can easily say what you feel. There is a huge difference between saying I think Buddhism is useless - based on your deluded thinking. And saying Buddhism is useless - based on letting go of your narrow opinions. When a buddha says I am tired, it may be a word of someone experiencing reality. When a deluded person says I am tired, it may be a word of someone who is too lazy to be active and learn about Buddha Way. But when a deluded person says: I am tired, it may be an expression of giving up personal feelings and opinions and letting things be as they are - so an ordinary person is becoming a buddha.

We realize that when we are too occupied by our own feelings, when there is some kind of knock, a sound or a piece of teaching. And when we notice that the world is just like this, we can notice that the world - reality - is not something based on our own ideas and feelings.

Master Dogen Stepped on a Dry Shit

2011-10-06T19:37:00.000+01:00

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In his Enlightenment Day jodo, a dharma talk on Buddha's awakening, master Dogen said:

Whether Buddha is present or not present, I trust he is right under our feet.Face after face is Buddha's face; fulfillment after fulfillment is Buddha'sfulfillment.

Last night, thismountain monk [Dogen] unintentionally stepped on a dried turd and it jumped upand covered heaven and earth. This mountain monk unintentionally stepped on itagain, and it introduced itself, saying, "My name is Shakyamuni."Then, this mountain monk unintentionally stepped on his chest, and immediatelyhe went and sat on the vajra seat, saw the morning star, bit through the trapsand snares of conditioned birth, and cast away his old nest from the past.Without waiting for anyone to peck at his shell from outside, he received thethirty-two characteristics common to all buddhas, and together with thismountain monk, composed the following four line verse:

Stumbling Istepped on his chest and his backbone snapped,
Mountains and rivers swirling around, the dawn wind blew.
Penetrating seven and accomplishing eight,
bones piercing the heavens,
His face attained a sheet of golden skin.

I'll try to explain this bizarre story.

Firstly, it is necessary to note that the connection between Buddha and the turd comes from the mouth of the Chinese Zen master Ummon, who, upon being asked "What is Buddha?" replied: "A dry shit on a stick". The stick he meant was a special toilet instrument for cleaning the remote parts of our body. Therefore, before we criticize master Dogen for his rather vulgar insults and comparisons, we should realize that he is making a link to master Ummon, whom he honored very much. To understand Dogen's bizarre story we must first understand the koan, a story in which the master Ummon says that Buddha is the same as a dry shit on a stick. Master Ummon simply says that Buddha is the same as reality before our eyes. If there is a dry shit on a stick right in front of our eyes, then reality is just a dry shit on a stick. Thus Buddha is a dry shit on a stick. If it still seems disrespectful, imagine how the historical Buddha taught somewhere: "I'm mountains, rivers, forests, skies, clouds, grass, all living and non-living beings, earthworms, sand, wind, rocks, but certainly I'm not a shit. And certainly not a shit on a stick, something you wipe your ass with." When Buddha attained enlightenment, he said that together with him all things and all beings attained it. Enlightenment means to wake up to reality and reality does not exclude anything, so even a dry turd on a stick is necessarily a part of the enlightened reality.

When master Dogen accidentally stepped on a dry turd, it jumped up and covered heaven and earth. This means that when in the present moment we do something, the fact just jumps up, no matter if you like it or not and becomes something unlimited. Most people are not interested in this vivid activity of reality. When master Dogen stepped on the turd again, the reality introduced itself as Buddha Shakyamuni. For Dogen, reality that jumps up is Buddha Shakyamuni. So Dogen heard the reality introduce itself: "Hello, I'm Buddha." If we understand Buddhism as teachings of one great enlightened sage that is far beyond the ordinary character of common people, we cannot grasp that essentially Buddha Shakymuni's awakening is reality that penetrates the person, which is the same as the state identical with reality. It is just reality, beyond subject and object. This means that to become a buddha means to become real. When the turd introduced itself as Buddha, it meant in other words: "Look, I am reality itself. I am that which Buddha realized and penetrated and was penetrated by thoroughly." And when Dogen stepped on the shit for the third time, the Buddha - reality opened the door to Buddha - reality, Buddha became Buddha, without having ever been far from being Buddha. By doing so, Buddha transcended the rigid understanding of the world and self and attained complete freedom at that moment. Without waiting for anything or anyone to confirm that experience, he became perfectly himself, he became Buddha, without having to change the reality of his original self and there was no need to add anything more to that complete state.

And why did that happen several hundred years after the historic Buddha actually attained his awakening? Why did Dogen claim that the shit jumped on the diamond seat and attained enlightenment during Dogen's lifetime and not a long, long time before Dogen was born? It is because Buddha's awakening doesn't depend on time and space, it is something that happens over and over again in each moment, right now, here, in your room, with all the things that you consider impure or unelightened. No matter where we go, no matter how strange we feel and no matter how dusty the surroundings, as long as reality jumps up in front of our eyes, it says: "Hello, My name is Buddha". The quality and nature of reality is beyond the limited understanding of traditional science which has such a strong effect on the way we perceive reality. We consider it something logically built, something that can be explained logically, but we - as long as we rely on words and logic - only make intellectual patterns in our own minds. Yet, we can use words and logic to explain how to transcend the limited world of words and logic. So it is necessary to study the explanations of Buddhist masters rationally and precisely.

This suddenly enlightened Buddha, together with Dogen, wrote a poem. Why did Buddha write it together with Dogen? We could say Dogen wrote the poem together with Buddha - reality, or in other words, Dogen, being one with reality, composed a poem.

Finally, in his poem, Dogen describes how one penetrates and is penetrated by reality where the person and reality here and now is one thing. Dogen considers such a state excellent. So he uses words like "golden". But the excellence of that state is not something out of this world. It is excellent because anyone can experience this without having to become a special person, without having to become a buddha, as we become a buddha whenever we just let reality be what it is, without discrimination. When a person goes beyond the dualistic understanding of the universe, just simply acting at the present moment, it is the same as Buddha appearing here and now, which is great, isn't it? To Dogen, such a person is excellent, no matter if the form of that person-experience is a noble face or a dry shit.

New articles coming

2011-09-21T17:06:00.002+01:00

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Hi everyone, I just want to let you know that I've been quite active recently writing about Buddhism, unfortunately, in Czech. If you know Czech, then switch to my Czech blog. Anyway, I am going to translate some of the texts you might find interesting within a few weeks. Thanks for your support and enjoy the practice and real life!

Roman

Teaching Buddhism

2011-04-03T10:59:00.005+01:00

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A few days ago we discussed the problem of teaching Buddhism with a friend of mine and at a certain point he said: "I think you want to be a Buddhist teacher."

It's a strange idea. It's like saying "I think you want to sleep with a sexy hot blonde you saw in the street". Or "I think you want to drive a 1965 Ferrari GTO". And other things. I wonder, actually, what does it mean to "want to be a Buddhist teacher"? And what does it mean to "teach Buddhism"? So the question might be "Do you want to teach Buddhism?"

Firstly, I do from time to time think, I admit, I do admit, that from time to time, maybe once a week, maybe once a day, it occurs to me that it might be great to sleep with a hot blonde I saw in the street. I think most men do have such fantasies. And I do admit that once a week I imagine myself driving a hot sexy 1965 ferrari. But do I want to be a Buddhist teacher? Is that something one could long for? I think it depends on whether you imagine being a Buddhist teacher is something good for your ego. Because sleeping with a hot blonde has not much value other than that it's good for one's ego. Driving a fancy ferrari has not much value itself other than making the guy behind the wheel feel good and proud. But have you ever heard about a Buddhist teacher who would selfishly feel good about being a Buddhist teacher? Can you imagine an actual Buddhist teacher feeling proud and important and better than others based on the status of a Buddhist teacher? I can't. Wait a minute. I guess I have heard of such people. So that means that the notion of wanting to be a Buddhist teacher is something like wanting to be an asshole. It's just like wanting to cheat on your wife with a hot sexy blonde is wanting to be an asshole. There is a difference between a fleeting idea in your head which is something we all have, and actually wanting to do something. So who would want to be a Buddhist teacher? If that's something your ego desires, what value does such desire have?

Although being a Buddhist teacher must be sometimes nice, I think it is often painful and frustrating for someone who is honest about the job and not selfishly proud of being Buddhist teacher. It is my imagination that being a Buddhist teacher will be similar to being an English teacher at high school. I sometimes love the job and feel absolutely happy in the middle of a classroom teaching teenagers. Other times I feel so frustrated!

Of course, as for actually wanting to be a Buddhist teacher, there is another situation, like when Dogen came from China and decided to teach Buddhism. That was not his fantasy or selfish desire, but his decision based on his previous experience and the situation in Japan at that time.

Now what does teaching Buddhism actually mean? At the last retreat in Zhor for a while there was a talk in the kitchen when someone said: How can we teach Buddhism without a Buddhist teacher? It was about the Days of zazen when Mike Luetchford is not there so there was a question about how to teach Buddhism during a day of zazen.

What does teaching Buddhism mean? Buddhism teaches the truth, primarily. The truth is available in abundance everywhere for everyone, it is just the real world in front of us, the real colors, shapes, tastes, feelings etc. So to learn Buddhism in terms of experiencing the truth, we can directly learn from the real world around us, even real feelings inside us. Whatever is real and not just our imagination is what Buddhism points to. No Buddhist teacher is necessary to learn from reality, unless we don't know what I am trying to say now. In other words, to be able to learn directly from reality, to be able to learn what the truth is, there is Buddhist philosophy that explains all kinds of things that help us directly learn what the truth is. But can we study Buddhist philosophy without a genuine Buddhist teacher and understand the philosophy without anyone's help? There are cases of Buddhist intellectuals who only rely on their great intellect and believe they can learn what Buddhism is without a teacher. But the results are pitiful. They reduce Buddhism into an intellectual show. They will tell you they studied Dogen and will correct your incomplete understanding without ever having met a real Buddhist teacher. That's not how they or you or I can learn what Buddhism is. To learn what Buddhism is it is necessary to study and practice with a real Buddhist teacher, someone who will practice zazen with you and explain Buddhist philosophy and will act realistically in the real world. On the other hand, I don't think we cannot practice zazen alone or read Buddhist texts alone or have days of zazen without the teacher, if we meet him or her a few times a year. In other words, when the teacher is not around, we can still directly experience the truth within our everyday life, we can still practice zazen alone at home, we can still read and try to understand Buddhist philosophy and we can still try to explain what Buddhism is to others, which is what I am trying to do in this blog.

So although the Buddhist teacher is not around at the moment, we can show others where the kitchen is, which is teaching Buddhism, we can show them how to practice zazen, which is teaching Buddhism, we can practice zazen with the others, which is teaching Buddhism, we can read a text by Dogen to others, which is teaching Buddhism and we can try to explain what "the balanced state of body and mind is" which is teaching Buddhism. And even if we make a mistake or cannot show something properly or explain something correctly, when we try sincerely and respect what our teacher has told us about Buddhism and life, just when we do our best, even making a mistake in explaining Buddhist philosophy, is teaching Buddhism.

Then, what is the difference between teaching others things like everyday life, zazen, Buddhist philosophy on one hand and being an actual, real Buddhist teacher on the other hand? The clear difference is that a real Buddhist teacher has a group of people who are interested in what he or she has to say and they respect him or her as someone who can show them the way to the truth.

That's what I wanted to say about the issue of teaching Buddhism.

A Buddhist Teacher

2011-01-10T21:28:00.000+01:00

Yet another thing I came across at a Buddhist forum - practicing without a teacher. So wrote this to comment that problem and made it a bit different / not whether with or without a teacher, but what kind of teacher, that is the problem.

I remember I practiced without a teacher only for two or three months, at home, alone reading books about Zen and then flew across the ocean - from Czechoslovakia to the US, a Zen center in Rhode Island, to practice with a teacher. So I have very little experience practicing without a teacher. But throughout my history of practice, I noticed huge differences as for what directions or ideals or goal my different teachers set for me. So even practicing with a teacher may be not enough, if we don't find the right one. This may evolve into an endless disussion about who is and is not a Zen teacher but I'd like to ask: If we are interested in Zen and learning from a teacher, what do we expect? Because different teachers will teach us different things. At least that is my experience. Of course, most people will say that a teacher has to tell us what to do and show us the way and we should not expect anything, as that would be some kind of silly delusion. But if we had no intuition and expectations from the very beginning, how could we pick this or that, Zen or not Zen , Dogen or not Dogen? We normally pick things that seem OK or inviting or we feel good about them. I remember the first time I opened a book about Dogen's teaching in that Providence Zen Center library, I fell in love with that Dogen logic of things and his explanation of Buddhism. So not only if it is necessary to practice with a teacher, but what kind of teacher, what kind of Buddhism. Even three teachers who are successors of one ancestor may teach very different things, so we have to be careful and patient and very sincere in search of the right teacher. I don't want to be picky and I do believe two or three or mor teachers from the same generation and lineage may be the kind you need and have what it takes to teach Buddhism, but finding that healthy group of Buddhist guys may be tough. It took me 15 years to find my teacher. The teacher I have found, as I feel it, points directly to the core of things, the core of Buddhism, but that is my personal feeling and experience. So what did I do for 15 years? I practiced zazen a lot and studied Buddhist books a lot and felt very very confused and frustrated about my relationships with my teachers. They just didn't click.

Oh, but one more thing, I do believe we can realize what the truth is without Buddhism, so we can realize what the truth is without a teacher, but I don't believe we can realize what Buddhism is without a teacher. Although it seems Buddhism and the truth is the same, I think Buddhism is a very specific way that points to the truth that is universal and open to everyone. Zazen is not just anything. Although zazen is essentially the most ordinary thing in the world, it is very specific and has to be done in a certain way. But lots of people seem to believe that Buddhism is a common, "anything goes" way that points to something special and hidden. It took me years and years to see this difference. For years I practiced zazen and studied Buddhism because I thought it was something very interesting, very deep, very special that would lead to a very interesting, very special life and made me a very deep, very special person who would show something deep and special to others. But I can see it only leads to very ordinary, to the most ordinary. But that ordinary is not different from miraculous. I cannot imagine finding this without a teacher.

Practice Is Enlightenment ?

2011-01-09T19:19:00.000+01:00

I came across a post at a Buddhist forum where one guy wonders what Dogen's famous teaching about the equality of practice and enlightenment should mean. Dogen says that practicing zazen is enlightenment but lots of people who imagine we could one day experience a big bang called satori and change our lives and character cannot just accept that satori would be right in the very practice of zazen. This is one of my favorite philosophical issues so I will try to comment.

From the moment we are born, everything is true. We are true. Then when we grow up, we learn to judge, criticize, see differences, compare ourselves and others. That is ok. But when we stick to our ideas, we have a problem. When we come across Buddhism, some of us like it, some of us don't. Some of us choose Dogen and then wonder. What is he talking about? How could I be perfectly enlightened just by sitting in zazen. There must be more to perfect wisdom. Right?

We cannot intellectually grasp the truth. We can only try to point to it. Some people can accept that pointing and go Ah! Some people accept the teaching of Dogen and go experience the truth without doubts. Some people accept partly, partly cannot understand. But even if you disagree with everything Dogen wrote, you are still an enlightened person.

We think we should be "more enlightened". More than what? More than who? We are living in the midst of truth all the time. Despite that fact, we can produce hundreds of illusions every day. Even Dogen produced hundreds of illusions every day. That's how our minds work, they produce pictures, thoughts, all the time. But these illusions come and go. Practicing zazen is not stopping illusions, but letting them go and accepting the truth, over and over again. When we practice zazen we don't progress from illusions towards the truth, but it is like blinking, like a broken light. Truth, illusions, truth, forever. But can we accept the truth or not? Can we let go of opinions, ideas to accept the truth over and over again, every day? The difference between a beginner and a master is that a beginner has a problem accepting the truth (but often a beginner is open-minded and ready to learn and accept the truth and an experienced student is rigid and not willing to learn) and the master (hopefully) not only has no problem accepting the truth, he or she is able to show the direction to the truth for others. But that truth is right there, in the middle of the beginners' heart. In the middle of zazen, in the middle of tea drinking, in the middle of web Buddhist discussions -just not right in the words, it's beyond them.

So although we are all perfectly enlightened and wise, some of us act and talk as if they were some kind of inferior beings unable to live fully and experience the truth fully and some of us act as if they had some special ability to understand, realize and explain the truth, as if the truth was not everyone's. Buddhism should help Buddhist students realize the truth so they can enjoy the truth, experience the truth openly, being happy about the fact and living it every day. So of course, there is a potential for everyone to learn and learn and gradually accept what has been there from the beginning. But that learning and potential is as important as the fact that whoever practices zazen is a buddha, a fully awakened being. Anyway, the truth, to realize the truth should be in the center of Buddhist's efforts, not judging himself or herself how far from the truth he or she is or must be... as such imagination about one's distances from the truth are hopeless dreams.

Hierarchy of Wisdom

2011-01-07T12:35:00.002+01:00

My teacher Mike Luetchford gave a talk about the problem of hierarchically structured Buddhist groups in the world. That was about 2 years ago in the Czech Republic. He said that in such groups there was someone at the top, who knows everything, is enlightened, makes no mistakes, then there are some people close to that person, who are almost as good as the big guy or big woman, then there are some people somewhere in the middle and then beginners, who know nothing and are treated like people who have a long long way before they can reach the top. But Mike said that Dogen sangha is not like that and that Dogen was not like that and that everyone who practices zazen is a buddha, so every beginner is very important and everyone has wisdom, perfect wisdom right from the beginning.

Brad Warner wrote a post about being criticized by Muho, the abbot of Antaiji, a famous temple in Japan, for not being a proper Buddhist teacher or something like that, Muho saying that a proper Buddhist teacher should be at one place available for the students all the time and answering their questions and dealing with all kinds of problems a Buddhist temple may have. This recent Brad's post about Muho's criticism has about 250 comments. I was wondering how Brad would decide who is and is not an authentic Buddhist teacher. I thought if Muho insists that only monks and nuns living in a temple have access to the wisdom and experience of Buddhism, he must be awfully wrong and he cannot understand Buddhism. But I don't know. I listened to the talk Mike gave about the hierarchy of wisdom and realized that we cannot rely on others when it comes to experiencing wisdom and practicing Buddhism. We have to employ our own wisdom, our own practice and there is nobody wiser than us. But then, what would Buddhist teachers be good for?

A Buddhist teacher is someone that points to the truth that we have, not pointing to the truth he or she has. The truth of Buddhism must be something universal, general, everyone's experience, not Brad Warner's or Kodo Sawaki's or Muho's. So of course, some Buddhist teachers may be misguiding us claiming things that go against the essence of Dogen's teaching, but often they only suggest something to encourage our practice.

Paradoxically, Antaiji is not a kind of military training, but a place that gives its residents freedom to practice zazen a lot, freedom to experience everyday life connected with regular zazen, it should be a place of freedom to experience, practice and study Buddhism. Not a place where it is our duty to experience and practice and study Buddhism. We should have a chance to experience and practice and study Buddhism, if we want to. And we need a teacher who will guide us to the freedom to experience the truth, our own experience, our own wisdom.

Give Up or Don't Give Up

2010-12-06T11:39:00.004+01:00

A friend of mine called me yesterday and we talked about my brother. He said my brother "had given up". I said what do you mean and he said my brother just didn't care any more much about anything.

We sometimes suffer and sometimes later we struggle to deal with our problems and sometimes we give up and don't worry any more or give up and feel disappointed. I think my brother had some ideals about his life and he solved a couple of things and didn't solve some other things.

I think in Buddhism we can have some goals and try to achieve them and we should have some goals in Buddhism or some decisions about practicing with a group or with a teacher etc. We should decide what we want to do, get a job, start a family or live alone, it doesn't matter what exactly, but when we don't have any goals, we don't achieve anything and achieving something may be beneficial both for us and others. So in Buddhism we are tryting to find balance between having silly ideals and not caring about anything or not trying hard at all. As master Shunryu Suzuki said, we should keep going slowly and steadily, jusl like an elephant. Not staying somewhere for a long time and then jump out like a tiger.

We can learn to find satisfaction in having a kind of steady, slowly progressing life rather than making big jumps forwards or big jumps backwards. It is not necessary to expect great things happening based on our belief that we are great and we deserve great things. A lot of great people have to deal with awful problems and bad luck. The more we want to achieve the more difficulties we have to face so we have to realize how much efforts we are able to make and when we find out "that's too much, I can't do that", it is not necessary to give up completely, but rather slow down a bit or decrease our goals. We can just set the pace at which we are working on something so that we can manage the pace. Be it a career, a marriage, or Buddhist practice. If you cannot manage to practice zazen one hour each day, then try half an hour, or five minutes, just whatever you are able to maintain steadily.

If we feel bad about our life, ourselves, or if we have disappointed ourselves, we should realize that we might be of great value for others and ourselves, just when we don't give up completely and do something wholeheartedly and steadily. Life is not that unbearable or disappointing once we really find some balance between trying to achieve unachievable and achieving achievable.

In Buddhism, we may have fantastic goals like becoming perfectly enlightened and having a peaceful and loving mind nonstop. I don't think that's a good idea. But finding perfect enligtenment and love and peace in stirring your tea and smiling at your friend at the table may be something we should try to achieve. In other words, the best we can achieve is to find the greatest value in simple, everyday situations. That's much more valuable in Buddhism than achieving a great, enlightened and loving mind. When we calm down intellectually and emotionally and stop dreaming about crazy pseudobuddhist aims, we won't notice our enlightenment and we won't notice that in the most ordinary situations, when we just act simply, we express true love and wisdom.

Discussing Genjo Koan Part I.

2010-11-18T15:47:00.002+01:00

How can we transcend the dualism of subjective or objective understanding of things?

When we first encounter Buddhism, we think, ah, some people may be very special, enlightened and I have no idea what that enlightenment is. But it must be something amazing. Thats's the subjective or idealistic outlook. It is a kind of delusion. When you cut into a dead body of an ordinary person and then cut into a body of a buddha, an enligthened person, you will find no lack or enlightenment or presence of enligthenment. So that's the objective view. Or materialism. But you can hardly find a person who would be strictly materialistic and had no ideals. Maybe some kind of very primitive people close to animals, but even they have some very subjective feelings and emotions. When such people feel lonely, they want somebody close. Only the coldest of all cold people may be almost perfectly materialistic. Materialism means there are no feelings or you laugh at your own feelings. Like a computer or a robot. I am S A D. Only letters, nothing alive. Such people hardly exist, or do they? Even communists, who tried to be strictly materialistic and had their crazy ideas about a perfect society where all people would have the same things and all were equal. But that was just their utopia.

So although you say we have emotions and feelings, and as such cannot be strictly materialistic, you say it is naive to have ideals?

No, we should have ideals. But what kind of ideals? That's the problem. There are naive ideals like the one based on communism or realistic ideals. Someone could have an ideal and become a successful politician. That's quite realistic - for certain kind of people. Somebody else may decide to climb the Mount Everest. So there are a lot of realistic ideals.

So trying to attain enlightenment - is that a realistic ideal or naive?

If you put it that way - attain an enlightenment - then it is very naive because we are all enlightened. But if you say trying to attain the truth or realize what the truth is, then yes, it is a realistic ideal. You can realize what the truth is. That's possible.I am sure my teacher has realized what the truth is. But he never says he is enlightened. Which doesn't mean he isn't, but that term is just silly.

But to realize what the truth is we have to go beyond materialistic and idealistic. Do we have to go beyond the teaching of Buddhism?

Yes, we study and practice Buddhism only to use it as a tool, but the tool is not reality itself, not attaining the truth itself. When you practice zazen in order to attain the truth, you are looking at the tool but you cannot throw it away after the job has been done. But if you let go of zazen as a tool and just practice zazen, you enter the reality and attain the truth. When you study Buddhism to understand the truth, it's ok, but it is not understanding the truth. When in the kitchen, doing the dishes, you completely forget about Buddhism, then you have used the tool and now you are in the kitchen and the tool - Buddhism - is not necessary at all. In other ways, you are realizing what the goal of Buddhism is. Helping you to find the truth in the midst of your ordinary life. And that life is beyond subject and object, material and idealistic. It's just reality itself.

Are we then free from delusions and materialistic obstacles?

I think it's quite easy to be free from delusions when you are just doing something, but then delusions always come back. They are like flies always coming back to a piece of shit. But we can be as persevere as those flies and instead of sticking to our delusions always go back to the freedom based on acting in the present. But as for materialistic obstacles, no, we are always part of the material world and cannot escape it. Anyway, material world only becomes an obstacle when we make it and idea. For example if there i a concrete wall in front of you, it only becomes a problem if you have that wall in your head. The wall itself, objectively , is no problem. So that doesn't mean we don't have to eat or drink because once we don't imagine anything we don't need anything. We cannot escape the needs of our body. But just acting according to real needs of our body, those needs are no problem. But if you think: "Oh well, there is nothing to eat and I am too lazy to go shopping", then you have a problem. If you just go shoping, no problem.

Sometimes we cannot do anything. Sometimes there is some sexual desire and we cannot find a partner and we are frustrated. So is that a materialistic or idealistic problem?

Sometimes there is no food or drinking water and there is nothing you can do. Take some African countries. Sometimes we want to stay alive but a disease is killing us. So quite often although we have some physical needs, we have to be patient and respect the unfortunate situation. Sometimes we are lonely, or we'd like a partner but there is no such a person. So that is both a physical problem, our sexual or emotional desire and problem in our mind, our ideas about having a partner. We cannot solve this problem on the material level, but again, we can transcend the problem acting in the present moment. To be patient does not mean to be waiting and waiting, but to act no matter how bad the situation is. When I was a kid and had to practice the piano which I hated for some reason, I was told to practice for one hour. To me it meant I had to wait until that terrible one hour was over. Nobody told me that it would have been much easier for me if I had only focused on the playing itself forgetting the time. When you are with a doctor and they are operating on you and it is painful, you cannot wait, but only act now - even if it seems impossible to do anything, you can still breathe. When we concentrate on breathing, which may be the only thing we are able to do, then that will help us overcome the pain and overcome our ideas and mental frustration. So Buddhism doesn't teach that it is possible to feel calm and peaceful and happy no matter what. It teaches that we can accept reality and if we completely accept reality, no matter how unfortunate, we don't suffer as much as when we create our own terrible world. Master Dogen writes in Genjo Koan that no matter when we love flowers, they die and no matter if we hate weeds, they grow in abundance. That means that no matter what we want the world is just what it is and often it is anything but ideal. The world will never perfectly suit our personal needs. On the other hand, when we just act now, it is always perfectly satisfying.

So we cannot be happy all the time, but we can be happy in those moments when we don't even realize what we love and hate and just act.

Yes, just acting no matter what. When the conditions are ok, we are completely satisfied. And when you study and practice Buddhism, you can realize that that is complete satisfaction, a completely enlightened and enlightening state, but before you study Buddhism, it is hard to realize. It is just a kind of vague idea, some kind of idealism somewhere in the air. So we can be completely satisfied despite completely unsatisfying conditions. Living in a small apartment with a person, "whose figure is less than Greek and whose lips are a little weak and when she opens it and speaks...are you smart?" And your green tea is not the best kind from Japan and your TV screen is not as big as your neighbors. But you do something now and feel happy. So thats' what master Dogen means in the first paragraph of Genjo Koan.

I still struggle to understand how it is possible to practice zazen without an ideal. It's difficult to sit on the zafu and forget those ideas about what Buddhism can give to a person... like after twenty years on the zafu, it might be much better life, more peace, more happiness, more wisdom. How can you sit without having a goal?

It's a matter of faith. Although it is hard to undertand how one could be enlightened "just like this", what is the problem when you just sit? Can you appreciate the wisdom of silence, the wisdom of simple sitting or not? Even if you struggle to appreciate it, you will appreciate it sooner or later. The doubts and confusion will gradually fall off. And you will realize that you have always been just like this and your zazen satisfying and complete.

Master Dogen says: Some people are buddhas and some people are ordinary beings. So naturally, I wonder how one becomes a buddha.

That's the whole secret of Buddhism. How one becomes a buddha? Becoming a buddha is not becoming a buddha. When you just sit, you are a buddha. When you think I am not a buddha, you are not a buddha, but at the same time you are a buddha. You can look at this problem from the idealistic point of view - becoming a buddha, the objective point of view / not becoming a buddha or just act and enter the truth that is beyond becoming and not becoming buddha and ordinary beings. So practicing zazen is supported by a philosophy, but that practicing is more important than that philosophy. By acting we complete the task, by thinking we encourage ourselves to complete the task, but we cannot complete it on the level of thinking. So if you wonder how one becomes a buddha, you will never find out completely. If you just act now, you have solved the problem beyond intellectual understanding.

Yes, but Buddhism is not something illogical or beyond intellectual understanding, is it? Master Nishijima says that it is always possible to explain all kinds of Buddhist aspects and master Dogen criticized the opinions of some Buddhists who said that Buddhism was beyond reasoning.

I have said that the final solution is beyond intellect but even that is my explanation that, as I hope, makes sense. So we explain logically something that has to be solved beyond logic. But everything that happens can be explained. Including putting a shoe on your head. That is something we can explain but someone has to put a shoe on their head. That's the problem.

Stupid Sitting

2010-11-04T15:07:00.001+01:00

Most people believe that Buddhism's principal goal is to make a great person, someone with great values, great behavior, great character, someone detached and caring at the same time. But when we practice zazen thinking that zazen could help us achieve something like that, then we are not really practicing zazen or Buddhism. Instead we are trapped in some kind of idealistic philosophy. When we practice zazen, we just sit, it is a simple action. So a simple action, zazen, is the basis of all Buddhist philosophy. And besides zazen it is all what we do, simply, stupidly, in a way, like getting up in the morning, taking a shower, driving, all done simply and kind of stupidly, without thinking about great human values.

But that does not mean that Buddhism is not something great. Buddhism is great but not because it stresses great values, but because it stresses simple actions. The greatness of Buddhism lies in stressing the simplest, the actual experience that has to be done in the present moment. So there is something extremely stupid about Buddhism and at the same time this stupid character of Buddhism is wonderful. It is wonderful to just act, stupidly.

As we know, there are hundreds of theories in Buddhist philosophy. So we cannot say that there is nothing intellectual or nothing civilized about Buddhism. Those theories have their own values, they are tools, philosophical categories and help to understand the human life from the Buddhist point of view. Buddhism is a great part of human civilization, it is a kind of wonderful culture. But when we study it thoroughly, practice it every day in zazen, when we learn it from a real, honest person, we gradually begin to understand that the secret of Buddhism is the ultimate simplicity ot the present action. When we understand that the secret of Buddhism lies in the ultimate simplicity of the present action, we let go of urgent or mixed up intellectual ideas and go back to our simple, kind of stupid life and find complete satisfaction and the truth itself there.

So to sit zazen stupidly every day and do all kinds of everyday activities simply, without worrying about their intellectual or spiritual values, is the best way how to practice and study the secret of Buddhism.

Give Me More Advice, Please

2010-09-23T21:21:00.000+01:00

Michael Schumacher, a famous German race driver, resigned from Formula One Championship about 3 years ago and last year he decided to come back and race again. Now lots of people say that the seven times world champion "made a mistake" and that you cannot keep up with the young drivers at 41. Schumacher himself said as he was beginning to race this season that he'd been bored and wanted to come back to race and have fun. Racing for him in the past was about winning - most of the time he would either win the championship or come close second - but now he says it is fun. It is incredible how others judge someone else's life. It's nobody else's business if you decide to race or not, and if a team is willing to hire you, then you are free to race and the motivation is only your problem.

In Buddhism a lot of people would like their teachers to tell them exactly how to solve all kinds of problems or how to deal with this or that but true Buddhist teachers don't dictate other peoples' lives. We have some kind of moral directions, we are aware that living in a society includes being responsible and acting morally, but there are no other directions from Buddhist teachers. It's because one's life is basically a very intimate, very personal thing. Whether you are quiet or loud, competitive or detached, whether you enjoy cooking or watching silly soap operas is nobody's business, it's your life. If you are gay or straight, whether you decide to marry or stay single, whether you build a boat and sail around the world, being rich or poor, it's nobody business. Even the person deciding to sail around the world has no idea if it was a mistake or not. Even if you die in a thunderstorm at the sea, you still don't know whether it was a mistake to go.

A few years ago I told Mike, my teacher, that I had made mistakes when dealing with some students and their behavior and Mike said: "How do you know?" We think we can judge others and ourselves but usually we cannot even judge our own actions and decisions. Life is very complicated and unless you do something clearly stupid like lending 1000 dollars to an unknown person in the street intoxicated by heavy drugs, a guy or girl that you will never see again, or something brilliant about which everyone believes was brilliant, like saving a drowning child's life, we are usually clueless as for deciding what was a mistake and what was a good decision. Most of our actions have lots of tiny and some clear consequences but it is impossible to have a complete analysis of the action and assess the consequences. That's why we rely on the balance state of body and mind in Buddhism and believe that as long as the body and mind is in the balanced state, our actions are balanced and have OK consequences. When the state of our body and mind is disturbed, we are prone to take disturbing and disturbed actions and the consequences may be very bad. But people often judge actions that were not based on disturbing state of body and mind and say "It was a mistake." Yes, it was a mistake from their narrow point of view.

Living in a society is tricky. There are millions of opinions and rules and values, but after all only you have to take actions and you are responsible for what you do. Everyone's life is different and complicated. We can only give advice if someone is lost and looking for some directions and we feel confident about giving directions. Otherwise we can only respect the other people's sincere decisions and actions. Yes, sincerity. Maybe the only advice we can give ourselves and others is this: Try to be sincere and act sincerely. But where does sincerity come from? And we are there again - the balanced state of body and mind. What does a person in the balanced state of body and mind say if this person is clueless? Such a person says: "I don't know."

The Book is Reading Me

2010-09-14T12:10:00.011+01:00

I'd like to continue to discuss the theory of object and subject in Buddhism

I hear that master Dogen taught that reality is not only " I can see a chair" but also "the chair can see me." Can you explain that? Things don't have eyes, do they?

Buddhism explains that we usually perceive the world as something divided. But Buddha realized that true self is something undivided. Look at Christianity, a person is basically separate from God. God speaks to a person and a person speaks to God. If you believe only in matter, then take science. The scientists look at stars as objects, they take these objects and try to describe them, measure them. When we are kids, the parents say: "Look, that's a chair." Nobody says to a kid: "Look, that's you." And the parents say: "Sit on the chair". Nobody says to the chair: "Please, sit on the child". So the primary understanding of the world is like that. I am not saying it is wrong or that it should be reversed. Just it is not complete. I think modern science is beginning to have problems with that traditional understanding of the universe.

So what does Buddhism teach? The unity of self and the universe, self and God is known in other philosophies, but why claim that subjects are objects and vice versa?

Dogen didn't try to confuse people or impress somebody by analyzing the universe the way he did it. What he said seems extremely complicated and puzzling, but he only tried to analyze reality from all possible views and then point to the reality itself, which is beyond those viewpoints. I think he wanted to correct the one-sided, common understanding of the world people usually have. He told us that there are other views, not jut the usual subject/object understanding of the world, but ultimately, there is reality that is beyond views. That doesn't mean discussing those views is waste of time, just that they are only views. We need views, categories, opinions, words, in order to communicate and in case of Buddhism, communicate the truth. We we cannot just reduce the whole Buddhist philosophy to "beyond views" or "just this". That's only the summary.

I understand the viewpoint " I can see a chair". But how can a chair see me?

To see a chair is not just a physical function. It is a link between me and the chair. To see is not just one way direction. Because the eyes and brain are like a camera. The chair hits the lens and the image of the chair is pictured in my brain, in the camera. So obviously, the chair is doing something to me. Simply, we can say that the chair can see me. But Dogen also adds: I can see myself and the chair can see itself. So I am myself and the chair is itself. There is something independent about me, I am an object. And there is something independent about the chair, it is also an object. We usually think objects are passive, but they do all kinds of things to us. If they were passive, we could not see them. We understand other people, as objects, are also subjects and do things to other things. But not only people, also things are active and do something to people. When things reflect light, then that light can hit our lens and the lens can transmit something to our brain. If a tree was something passive, it would be impossible to take its picture using a camera. So a tree is also something subjective, a subject that does different things to the world and looks at the world from its own standpoint.

So Dogen analyzes the reality from those viewpoints and then says "reality is just like this"?

Yes. But we should not forget that there is something missing, we haven't mentioned something important and that is an action. We cannot analyze the reality into subject, object and then just say: "This is it". It would still be academic, a mere theory. In order to realize with our body-mind what reality is we have to do something, not just say what it is. We have to sit on the chair. The chair has to sit on us, something has to happen. Only in the action reality is what it is, beyond views, just here, but it happens within an action, it is dynamic.

Does a Buddhist have to act to realize what the truth is? It is not enough to understand what reality is?

No. That's exactly what thousands of Buddhist intellectuals do. They sit in zazen in order to understand the truth. When they think they understand the truth, they think sitting is not necessary anymore - they go from the stage of looking for the truth in their mind to the stage where they explain the truth in their mind. But they are misled before and after. Reality is in the sitting alone, in the simple activity of sitting, not in mental processes or understanding a theory. To express the truth we need body-mind, the self, which is neither the intellectual self-fragment, nor the physical self- fragment, but both, body-mind, a whole. So after all it doesn't matter whether I am reading the book or the book is reading me, but it is necessary to do something wholeheartedly. Then the Buddhist teaching about expressing reality as a whole-being becomes alive and is something brilliant. Buddhist teaching is only brilliant when it is expressed in our everyday life. That's why we need teachers who express it, not only someone clever or educated.

Subject and Object

2010-09-05T21:49:00.003+01:00

This time I'd like to speak about the problem of subject and object.

Subject and object, those are quite modern terms. But they seem important in Buddhism. Why?

The words are modern, but there must have been some similar words in pali or sanskrt, in India, I am sure. When we are born, there is just reality, we don't have an idea of myself. But later when we are about two years old, we realize that we are different from others, we have our own will and we show that very strongly. These little kids are sometimes very annoying or naughty and they scream: "I don't want to! I don't want to!" Later when people say that we shouldn't be selfish, we sometimes can't decide: Should we focus on our own needs and ignores the others or should we respect the needs of the others more? I once stole a little toy car from a schoolmate. But I felt so horrible after that so I gave it back to him, secretly. I was about 6 years old. I realized that to do something for myself doesn't work when it hurts somebody else. I couldn't stand the feeling - hurting someone. Of course, ever since I have hurt lots of people's feelings, but I didn't want to. Anyway, until I came across Zen, I had no idea that myself and the universe could somehow become one. I had no idea that essentially we are one with the universe and that we can never escape this unity, but we often feel clearly separate.

When do people who have no experience with Buddhism feel they are one with the universe?

I remember during a P.E. lesson I had to jump over this thing, those gymnastics furniture they jump on. When I threw my body over that thing, I felt that thing, my body, my mind, the whole gym, is something united that I cannot really control anymore. I was scared though. But when you enjoy skiing, when you learn to ski really well, you can feel that unity and it feels great, really liberating. But most people don't know what it is, they feel great but don't realize that the feeling comes from the balance of body and universe. The subject and object. When you play football and really try hard to score and you cannot, you feel frustrated, but when you just kick the ball now and then and follow what's going on on the pitch and run and kick and shoot, then you are free. The subject is not separate from the object. It's the same when we do some maual work. When we think "Oh, this is so boring, what time is it? Twenty minutes more, oh no!" then it is frustrating. But when we just throw ourselves into that activity, no problem, we are free.

Although we are free, I don't think it is exciting to wash the floors.

No, it isn't. It's more fun to swim or ski or cycle. But the meaning of our life is not something that should be exciting. To be truly free is not exciting, just peaceful, or active kind of peace.

What about love? What is love when there is nobody who wants the other person? How can we express our love for a person if we don't feel we are separate?

I've never said that we should completely abandon the feeling of self, feeling something subjective, feeling separate. That's natural. It's a way how to deal with lots of things in our lives. But we should also regularly return to the state when we abandon the self and become just this. Just acting beyond self and the world. But acting beyond self doesnt' mean we throw ourselves on the street and let a truck run over us. To abandon the self means to actively participate in this moment, being one with the activity, beyond myself, but acting naturally. When we bow, we are a person, a self, but acting beyond self. It is both. But when we bow and think: "I hate bowing. Look at those fools around how ridiculous they are." That's self being separate from the universe. In fact, we cannot be, never, but we feel and act and think as if we were. That's the problem.

So how does a woman love a man, or a man love a woman, according to Buddhism, ideally?

Life is never ideal. But of course, we should encourage ourselves to act in harmony with others, we should try and act peacefully and focus on whatever we are doing. We should be kind, but life is difficult and complex. It is impossible to completely satisfy the partner. And we hardly ever feel that everything our partner does is perfect. So we have to be patient and tolerant and appreciate all those great things that the partner does.

What about sex? Isn't sex based on one person, subject, wants another person, object? How Buddhist is that?

It's natural. Desire. Master Dogen taught: Have a few desires. Don't desire too much. If we want too many women, if we change partners too much, if we cheat on somebody we love, we make our life and other people's lives difficult. But we should also be able to forgive, to hold hands, to hug, to say sorry, to say I love you. We are only human, so trying to reduce the number of desires to a number that will not disturb our life too much, is a way how to deal with the problems related to desires.

When do we become one with the other person?

When we smile, when we hold their hands, when we say Hello. When we pass the sugar, when we respond to a question, when we don' t bump into them in the street.

Is having sex becoming one with the other person or is it two separate people doing something together?

Both, sometimes we forget oneself and become just that activity. And sometimes we think: Oh, not there!

When practicing zazen, should we try to be one with the universe? Should the subject and object become one thing?

It happens without our efforts, naturally. When we try hard to achieve a special state, we become frustrated. Or we do achieve a special state and that is not zazen, something special. Not a Buddhist practice. Zazen is only sitting, it is a simple activity and that simple activity is what matters most. Then body and mind, self and the universe, all things become natural, they are expressed just the way they are, by themselves. But we go back and forth, from feeling self, I am here, thinking, feeling, to forgetting oneself. When we forget oneself, we are confirmed by the whole universe, we are not separate from nothing in the world. That's what Dogen taught. But it makes little sense logically. It is a matter of experience, action, not analysis. Just like cooking, chopping wood or driving, zazen is something we simply do, nothing else. But this simple doing is wonderful, the most important thing. Yes, later we can appreciate how great zazen is and that body and mind are one with the whole universe, but during zazen, we don't need to find anything like that. Just sit. Later, yes, wonderful. Dogen realized how great zazen is, when he realized it was just sitting simply, without trying to achieve anything special, so he went to see his master and said: "Body and mind dropped away." What did he mean? Just that it is not necessary to cling to this body and mind as something separate or something we should do something special with. Because it is not something separate and nothing special. The state of simple sitting is wonderful, but nothing special. It is not a state that is different from other states like when we do something simple, without much thinking.

Are there any people who achieved a permanent state of unity with the universe?

Yes, those who have died. But some yogis in India or some Tibetan monks, I think they try hard to achieve a state of feeling nothing personal, no self, so they almost die, reduce their activity to almost nothing at all, don't encourage themselves to do or think or react to anything so they may be like vegetables. But that's not the Buddhist task. A Buddhist should keep living fully and dealing with their everyday problems. Just they should try to act in a way that is balanced, realize what the truth is, go beyond words, beyond limits, differences, but without going nuts. Without denying their own personal things. Our individual personality is something we can offer to others, it's also important.

It's OK that Nobody's Perfect

2010-08-31T13:54:00.007+01:00

Last time I decided to ask myself questions about happiness. I found out that asking myself helps me a lot to explain certain problems to myself or others. It is strange to write an article about happiness in terms of writing a single text as if I wanted to explain a problem nobody asked me about. But if there are questions, I feel more natural to answer them. As nobody asks me questions about Buddhism, or hardly ever, I think I will ask myself more and write these interviews down. My teacher Mike says it helps him to teach Buddhism to others. By teaching, he can encourage himself to practice Buddhism. I don't teach Buddhism formally, but I can encourage myself by writing about Buddhism and asking myself about it seems the best way.

Last time you said people can practice active peacefulness or peaceful activity when they don't disturb the original balance of body-mind. But do you know anyone who is always happy, who can live like that all the time?

All the time? No. I think we can live more or less happily every day, but all the time is a rather abstract concept. People tend to want things forever or for years but such ideas about time only disturb the balance of body-mind. You think a lot and neglect actual activities. I remember when I was at a Zen Buddhist temple for the first time and wanted to attain "enlightenment". I imagined that until I attain "enlightenment", my life wouldn't be complete and I couldn't be completely satisfied. I thought that after "enlightenment" I would be completely satisfied until the very end of my life. But the people who have realized what reality is, which is what that vague term "enlightenment" basically means, can only practice some kind of balancing, rather than being perfectly balanced all the time. No matter how good you are at riding a bicycle, you can only balance, wobble, rather than maintaining a perfectly balanced position of your bike. The whole universe is like that - it is something dynamic, not static. So there is no perfect balance anywhere in the universe. All the great people we have met and who seem strong and balanced are just balancing things, they are dynamically moving from left to right, wobbling around the center, sometimes a bit sad, sometimes a bit angry, sometimes a bit funny, but never perfect. The essence is perfect, the universe that we are part of, is basically perfect, but a person is never like that. Some people are disappointed when they find out that Brad Warner has some personal problems or shows some negative emotions. And some people who look for a perfect Zen master may be disappointed when they find out Mike is a real person who acts and speaks just like other people. But Mike or Brad know exactly what supports them and can make good use of that platform. So they return to the source of balance and can enjoy that state of peaceful activity in their lives, although they may have lots of different problems.

It seems that people interested in Buddhism tend to look for perfectly happy and peaceful masters, teachers and hope to achieve such a perfectly happy lives themselves. But Brad or Mike act just like others, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes peaceful, sometimes angry. How can they inspire others if they are not perfectly happy or peaceful? What can we learn from them, other than Buddhist philosophy?

I have never met Gautama Buddha so I don't know if he was perfectly happy. But I think the biggest misunderstanding of the role of a Buddhist teacher is that people tend to confuse someone's character with attaining some kind of quality, some kind of personality. There are lots of people in this world with a great character, or people who are naturally happy and peaceful. And there are lots of people who tend to be very emotional, their mood changes a lot, their character is very complex and they have a lot of personal problems. All these kinds of people may become involved in practicing Buddhism. We can notice that Buddhism doesn't change their character at all. The peaceful types may be a bit more peaceful, because zazen helps us settle, so if someone who is already peaceful sits in zazen, they are almost perfectly peaceful, but those very emotional or sensitive people who practice zazen are just a bit less emotional. So there is hardly any difference at all. This is what most Buddhists don't realize and keep their naive ideas about how Buddhism will change their personality completely. They think they will be like Dalailama or Gandhi. I don't think so.

So what is the point then, what does zazen give you other than feeling a tiny bit better?

Buddhist practice is not about changing ourselves but becoming ourselves, finding the reality of what we are and what we are not. So our true potential can be revealed. When I practice zazen I realize that I don't have to be what I am not and that is nice, it is like taking off some burden. You don't have to think about it, it just happens naturally. But if you have doubts about what reality is, then it is sometimes difficult to be what you are. I talked about happiness last time but the happiness I mean is really just being what we are where we are without trying to be somebody else and somewhere else. A frustrated, confused person wants to be enlightened, peaceful and happy. An enlightened, peaceful and happy person doesn't worry when he or she is frustrated or confused. So being frustrated or confused is no problem! Just let's ourselves be whatever we are just now. And when a frustrated and confused person just grabs a cup and drinks tea, instantly they are not frustrated anymore. For a second or two. Or five minutes. A wise person can feel lots of happy moments in between sadness, confusion and frustration. A silly person has lots of difficulties doing simple things and enjoying simple things. A silly person says: I am not enlightened. I am not good enough. I am not this. I am not that and I want to be that and not this. Thinking like this they forget to close the door. I am silly like that, too, but not so much as in the past, I hope.

It seems that Buddhism is not so special as most people imagine.

Exactly! It's just about our original state. But the civilization tends to ignore this treasure, this natural state of a human being that is the source of the greatest things that have actually happened in this civilization. The paradox is that the greatest artists, philosophers, teachers, politicians did their best things thanks to being natural, acting naturally, just being themselves completely. Like when Leonardo painted Mona Lisa or when John Fitzgerald Kennedy gave his best speech. That original state opens our utmost honesty and that honesty enables us to act the best we can and do the best things. A cook that is absolutely honest is the best cook and the bricklayer who is absolutely himself and sincere is the best bricklayer. So this civilization is paradoxically built upon the very natural state of a human being. And Buddhism points to that state and says: Look, that's worth noticing and worth practicing and doing! So to become a Buddhist means to aspire to get the best out of our personality, without changing its original nature, without becoming somebody we are not and never will be.

So what is the most inspiring or valuable thing that your teacher Mike gives you?

There are lots of things. He is interested only in real things. But that doesn't mean he is like a computer. He is very sensitive, he can be absolutely tender when he comes across certain things. Mike has taught me through his acting that how we feel is also very important and part of our real lives. We cannot ignore how we feel ourselves or how other people feel. So he is very sensitive and caring. On the other hand, he has no respect for lies or pretentious behavior or nonsense that some people consider great. He is interested in honest questions and honest answers that are based on someone's real experience and if you pretend something, he won't be happy and he can make terrible faces in such situations. He can be gentle and kind in one moment, but then he looks like a rock. What I really appreciate is that Mike doesn't hide his weak points, he always corrects people when they tend to see him as someone great. He says that he is awful or or even calls himself names.

Is that character the result of his Buddhist practice? Or was he like that even before practicing Buddhism?

I asked him about it and what I understand is that practicing Buddhism has made him just more clear, more himself. Just like what I said about the effects of zazen. So it is a big mistake to conclude that a Buddhist teacher should be just like Mike. A Buddhist teacher should be just like himself or herself, not somebody else. That's the point. We should learn from people who have only made themselves real, not from someone who is always happy or peaceful, because if they teach us to be always happy and peaceful, they will only make us frustrated. I have met several teachers like that and it never worked. Plus most of them only pretended they were special. So that has nothing to do with Buddhism. It doesn't matter if a teacher is always kind or always firm, but they must be honest and realistic and sincerely caring, not just talking about caring. Brad is very different from Mike, they have different characters, very different, but both are absolutely honest. I don't know Brad so well, I only met him once, but I believe he is like that. And both can encourage others to lead a balanced life and they both do their best to lead their lives in a balanced way. If they fail today or tomorrow or sometimes, that's not important, but they know the value of the balanced state and the value of realistic, honest life and they live like that and that's important. They are great people and beautifully and sincerely imperfect.

Why Aren't We Happy?

2010-08-29T22:56:00.003+01:00

I'd like to write something about unnecessary depressed mental states, but I'd like to ask myself questions rather than write a traditional text. A friend of mine has suffered from some kind of depressions for ages and although they may be somehow inherited or well-rooted within his psyche and hard to cure, I think they may be unnecessary. They remind me of my own states of mild depressions and I think I know where those states of mine come from and what to do about them. Of course, I am not offering some kind of instant, smooth transition from a depressed life to a positive life full of energy and happiness. But I'd like to suggest some points that may explain the situation and offer what we can do about those states.

Why do people feel happy in general? What makes people happy?

There are well-known and common outbursts of happiness that are very shallow and last only for a limited time related to the cause. For example we pass an exam at university or get a beautiful present or make a lot of money without working hard or fall in love and feel happy that the one we want wants us, too. We can notice that in all these situations we get something material. Even if we get "a love", it is something we feel has added something material and great to our lives. On the other hand, we suffer when we lose something, materially, or emotionally, when we lose somebody, somebody leaves us or dies. These are well-known things. People who are seriously mentally sick don't feel any difference or little difference when these things happen to them. They don't care if they lose something or get something - they are severely depressed. But lots of people are rather lazy than depressed. They call their laziness depression, but it is just laziness preventing one from being active and doing something positive.

So what is that happiness that is not based on gain that Buddhism offers?

I don't want to explain happiness based on Buddhism. I am a practicing Buddhist and Buddhism has helped me to understand the problem of laziness and lack of interest in things, but the happiness that I want to offer or explain doesn't depend on Buddhist practice or philosophy. I am talking about happiness that all people all around the world experience every day quite often, very often. Except those who are seriously mentally sick.

What kind of happiness is deep, genuine and independent on religions?

To make things clear, I am not talking against or for religion. Religions may or may not help us to feel happy, in a genuine way, but I don't want to discuss that. Later maybe I can explain how Buddhist practice helps. But the happiness I mean is some kind of active peace or peaceful activity that is part of our everyday life and that active peace or peaceful activity doesn't depend on religions. It doesn't depend on Buddhism. But Buddha discovered the wonder, the gift, the splendor of this kind of mental state and taught about it in detail.

How do we achieve the state of peaceful activity and how can we achieve it without practicing Buddhism or other religions?

We don't have to achieve it. It is a natural part of every person's body-mind. It is something we all have and employ naturally, but hardly call it happiness or hardly try to cultivate it. Maybe not cultivate, maybe work on it, or let it be expressed through our daily activities. It is so natural and perfect within each being that it really doesn't need to be cultivated. But when we lose it, we may notice why we lost it and how we can have it back.

You said '"every person's body-mind". What do you mean by body-mind?

This is something master Dogen, who was a Japanese Buddhist monk living in the 13th century, explained. Dogen explained that body and mind are not two things, they can never be split, but most people think that a person is divided into a body and mind, or body and soul. It is true that we think and want something that seems spiritual, but our body does something else. But it is not really based on body and mind as two different things. It only seems so. In fact the mind just does what the body does and the body does what the mind does, there is no border between them. They are one thing, not two.

Wait a minute, isn't it quite common and true that we have certain ideals that we carry in our minds and often our body does something very different? Isn't it the case of some religious leaders or teachers who have failed to prove their ideals in their own lives and were involved in some scandals?

This is a very important question and something that will help us clarify the problem of happiness. Indeed, we have some education, some ideals, some dreams and we imagine they are somewhere here (points to his head). Then we imagine we have some physical needs like food or sex and we imagine they are somewhere here or here (points to the relevant body parts). But they are also here or here, in my head or in my feet. My feet are hungry, my brain is hungry and my ideals are not only in my head, but also in my stomach, in my fingers, in my buttocks.

I see that your brain is hungry or that your feet are hungry, but I don't understand how ideals may be somewhere in our fingers.

It is a long history and tradition to see body as something different from mind and vice versa. It is the Christian tradition, typically. The soul may be liberated, the body is a place that may burn in hell. The soul is eternal, but the body is just temporary. Of course, some Eastern philosophies teach this, too. But Buddha found out that those are just naive illusions. He found the complete and final solution to all human problems in realizing that there is no difference between body and mind and that realizing this unity and acting based on this discovery we can realize complete happiness.

I still don't understand how ideals may be in our toes. Were Buddha's ideals, dreams, in his toes?

Certainly. Before he made his discovery about the essence of human happiness, he had ideals. And we cannot say those ideals, thoughts, were only in his brain. We simply say that if I eat an apple, it goes to my stomach and we may find it there. But before the apple comes to the stomach, it has been partly digested in other parts of the body. Body-mind is a complex and open system. Food somehow becomes what we imagine, or think, or do. And ideas we read may help us feel good or bad, it is all interdependent. When Buddha did not eat anything for a long time as he'd been taught so by his fellow Yogi practitioners, his body-mind was different from that after he discovered the great original unity of body and mind. When Buddha was physically weak, he was mentally weak and could not reach his goal. But when he drank some milk, he felt different, his thinking changed. He decided to eat and drink and practice zazen within a moderate lifestyle. This moderate, active life style, which was supported by accepting food and drinks, made Buddha the kind of Buddha we celebrate or want to learn from these days. In fact, Buddha just accepted the genuine essence of complete life and satisfaction. He decided to live actively and moderately to maintain and enjoy the original state of happiness. But it is a very quiet, very subtle kind of happiness, it is rather a kind of balance, a state of balance of body and mind. It is not as if two separate things - body on one hand and mind on the other hand - were somehow on the same level. Balance basically means not disturbing the original system that is just one. There are not two systems. People cannot separate body from mind or vice versa, but they can very seriously disturb the whole system. When the system works undisturbed, thanks to our efforts in our everyday life, we feel that we are living in the state of peaceful activity and quiet, subtle happiness.

How can people maintain this state that Buddha discovered, without practicing Buddhism?

I am not trying to discourage people from practicing Buddhism. I am only saying that the state of peaceful activity we are discussing here is not something that Buddhism invented or Buddhism grows or Buddhism activates. It is the original state of all living beings. Buddha Gautama discovered the importance of it, its key role in terms of finding satisfaction in our lives, but he didn't invent it. He didn't attain anything special, let alone mysterious. So even when people do not practice or study Buddhism, they can realize what that state is and experience it in their everyday life. The problem is that whoever will read this, if they have no faith in Buddha's wisdom, they might have doubts and ideas that will lead them away from realizing the brilliance of that original state. For example if you tell a tennis player that they enjoy the Buddha's perfect state when hitting a ball, they will smile and say, yes, I enjoy playing tennis, but that must be far away from those spiritual achievements of historic philosophers from India. A person taking a shower will smile but will go to a big spiritual camp to look for "the real satisfaction." Such people are excited spiritually for a while, imagine they are making some progress on their spiritual path, only to fall down to hell when they come home and deal with everyday problems. This is what happens to a friend of mine all the time. And to a certain degree, it happens to me, too.

How does it happen to you? You have practiced zazen for 18 years?

I'm not sure how many years, the counting is not so important. Although I have been practicing Buddhism for almost 20 years, only my current teacher Mike Luetchford succeeded in explaining to me how we can be complete and satisfied beings and how Buddha came to that discovery. So I am learning to appreciate that state in my everyday life. But I am lazy, too, so often I forget what I have.

Where does that laziness come from if we already know the greatness of Buddha's state and the importance of moderate, regular life?

The answer is already in the question. You said "if we know". Knowing is hardly enough. Knowing means the system is disturbed. Knowing is important, too, but if that knowing is separate from actual actions, then it is useless. The ideas are OK, but the activity is not. We like Buddha's teaching and practice but we also want to eat six bananas instead of two, or go to sleep at two instead of twelve. Understanding the problem is one thing, acting in a balanced way is another thing. Lots of people are acting Buddhas without understanding Buddhism at all. They are doing Buddhism, without intellectual understanding. There are lots of Buddhists who cannot do or realize Buddhism. So they are not genuinely happy or satisfied. They feel something is missing. And ofthen they are proud and act as if they had achieved their ideals in their real life. But that's only what they say.

So how can a Buddhist realize what Buddhism is, how can they practice not only zazen, but that balanced life?

They have to practice balanced life. They have to practice zazen every day and eat and drink moderately and sleep moderately and work enough - not only mentally but physically, too - every day. Over and over again.

Then one day they will realize what Buddhism is and will become acting Buddhas? Zen masters?

No! Everyone is a buddha in the moment of balanced activity. Make tea or clean your room or shave or walk - we are always in the midst of complete universe, complete reality. But we often act like we are not. We want something extra, although there is nothing extra, ever. There is only losing balance. We are disturbing the original balance by eating more than necessary or sleeping more than necessary or talking more than necessary. So the only way how to keep - more or less, as we cannot maintain a perfect state all the time - the balance is to practice balance. It's up to you or me. Practice it, do it or don't do it. The difference is clear immediately.

How can people outside Buddhism, or those who are not so sure if they want to practice Buddhism, practice that peaceful activity?

They are already practicing it. But of course, if you mean some kind of encouragement, or learning the wisdom of peaceful activity, it is up to them. I can only encourage myself to live moderately and peacefully, I cannot encourage the others. I can encourage my fellow Buddhists to drink tea with me and practice zazen and study Dogen with me, but I cannot encourage my friend, who is a banker, to practice balance. He is practicing abundance of balance, abundance of peaceful activity, in his life, he is not more distant from Buddha than myself, but how much or how deeply he realizes where his happiness lies, I have no idea. It's up to him to realize that. Some people look for high states and fall down. Some people cannot get up from the hell they are living in. And some people are active and hardworking and live in the midst of balance. Those are living Buddhas and role models for the rest of us, who are struggling to live like that. I have always admired that friend of mine, his energy and stamina. But I should not underestimate myself. I can encourage myself by being active, too, and then being active. Activity encourages more activity. A lazy person has a problem to get up in the morning. So we have to decide what we are - lazy or active?

So to sum up, what advice would you give to those people who are often too lazy or tired or sad or depressed and want to experience more happiness and peace in their life?

I'd like to advise something to myself. We have to stand on our own feet. I cannot push an apple down somebody else's throat. So I can only advise myself to stop writing now and go to bed.

A Certain Moment in Our Life

2010-08-22T22:57:00.004+01:00

Last time I wrote that kensho, satori, are not so important, tried to explain what Brad Warner meant and why it is not about whether there is such a thing as enlightenment, rather about whether we know what that enlightenment is, in other words, whether we have experience of reality or not.

Nishijima Roshi wrote in his blog recently: "Human Beings, are just living in Reality, but sometimes it is impossible for us to recognize the simple fact that we are just living in Reality. Therefore it is important for us to recognize that we are just living in Reality, and to do so we are practicing Zazen everyday to recognize the simple fact that we, Human Beings,are just living in Reality." That recognition of of reality, or direct experience of reality, is necessary in Buddhism but that does not mean it is something we are waiting for for years and then say "I am enlightened at last". Simple everyday actions and zazen give us that recognition of reality.

But people think - enlightenment is that recognizing reality and it is the crucial moment in one's Buddhist life. The problem is that although recognizing reality is important in Buddhism, and that one moment in our life may be a kind of new experience of reality, reality is not something we remember or something we imagine. And it has nothing to do with new or old, bright or dark, it is always independent on our ability to see it. So when we do not try to see it clearly, we can see it, and when we open our eyes wide to see it, we miss it.

So once we want to study and practice Buddhism wholeheartedly, we have to realize that Buddhism is practicing reality and studying reality in our life, it is not other people's direct experience that we can study, we can only study our own direct experience, day after day, moment after moment. Each moment is a chance to directly recognize, experience reality. Some people have recognized reality and then realized that it is impossible to recognize it through intellect, thought, description, words, but only through acting at the present moment and that each moment when we act in the present is not different from recognizing reality just like Buddha recognized reality and there is no better way how to recognize reality than acting in the present without intellectual analysis. That's why it is not important in Buddhism whether we have already had enlightenment or not. Instead it is necessary to try to leave our narrow views, listen to teachers and experience our every day life beyond words and categories. Experience the truth in our real lives in our everyday situations and open our hearts to this wonderful opportunity that experiencing reality, experiencing the truth is.

No Kensho, No Satori.

2010-08-20T20:45:00.006+01:00

Recently as you can notice, I have been losing interest in writing here anything, but I knew I would write something sooner or later. I am getting more and more interested and absorbed in photography which makes me feel good as it is the first kind of art where I don't feel frustrated. Anyway, back to Buddhism.

Every summer is a kind of breakthrough for me. Every summer I travel, think a lot, exercise a lot and just spend more time working on my own things rather than being somewhere at work where I usually have to serve others and forget myself, which is ok, but to make progress in photography, philosophy, Buddhism (beware, there is none), you need some extra time and that's what summer provides in my case.

And ever since I met Mike Luetchford, every summer we have a retreat and there I always adjust my relationship with him, my attitude to him a bit and that has something to do with my whole life - something I learn about Mike means learning something about myself and my life and the whole world. I introduced Mike to my new girlfriend who doesn't speak much , but thinks a lot and observes a lot and maybe she knows too much already. She told me: Whenever you say something to Mike, you make sure it is no bullshit, you respect him a lot. And of course, I tried to defend myself: Well, you know, Mike is a teacher of the truth to me, a teacher of no bullshit so I feel my role or task is to try to reduce that bullshit in my head to possible minimum, so when I talk to him, I try to practice the realism he is teaching me." She said: "But it's nice you respect him, it's good, you should." Yes, but later I thought maybe it's high time I started to act more casually with him. But I have always acted like that with all teachers I respected. Although we are friends and Mike doesn't act like he is more important than I, he is still a guy from a certain generation and shows and acts out certain values that I just cannot ignore and act like he is a pal I used to go to school with.

But something has changed, probably not about my attitude to Mike, but I feel less careful about the whole world, I think people in general don't deserve that much caring from me, and I should act and speak more like myself and not pay attention to whoever might not like what I do or say. When you look at all those zillions of opinions and views and you realize most of them are some kind of smart-ass production of narrow self, then where is your effort to fit in that? You know, there's no need to be a wuss, on the other hand, I love this world and people in general and have absolutely no reason to treat others without caring. But there should be some balance between being a wuss and a cynical hooligan. I feel less respect for the world of people after this summer, but at the same time I feel less respect for myself, I am no better.

And if you wonder how this fits into Buddhism or if I have altered my Buddhist philosophy, the whole thing is about trying to be closer to reality, closer to the truth as such. Less fuss about nonsense and more reality, that's all.

And Brad has posted something about kensho and satori and how these things shouldn't bother people so much in Buddhism and he got thousands of reactions, mostly people criticizing him that he ignores the real meaning of Buddhist teaching that stresses the insight into true self and such things etc. But Brad is not denying the true meaning of Buddhism. The problem is that the people who criticize him and correct his Buddhist understanding have no idea what Brad is talking about. He is only teaching that reality is more important than ideas about enlightenment or who got enlightenment and how kensho has several stages and stuff like that which is all useless in Buddhism. Even when Brad contradicts himself or says something that Dogen didn't teach or something opposed to Dogen's teaching, in fact, Dogen's words about englightenment are all just some medicine, some kind of encouragement and Brad's words are also just some kind of medicine. Where the hell is englightenment in R E A L I T Y? Not in people's mouths, it is everywhere, everywhere but your mouth or my blog. You can say both that nobody has ever experienced it and that everybody has experienced it. You can say almost anything about enlightenment and it will be all true, but at the same time, it will be all wrong. So it is necessary to accept Buddhist teaching, be it Brad's or Dogen's or Nishijima's or Mike's or anybody, if they understand Buddhism, only as encouragement, not final facts. When you encounter so called false Buddhist teachers, of which Brad often warns, they simply lie to you, either because they think they understand Buddhism, although they don't, or because they don't care what the true Buddhism is and only need followers and their respect and money.

It is not about whether enlightenment is something real or not, but about your own experience of reality. Do you want words or reality itself? If you want reality, the truth, be careful with words, as they may take control of you easily and prevent you from seeing what is here and real.

One Hell Is Enough for All of Us

2010-06-07T13:48:00.004+01:00

Do you know the song by the Police One World Is Enough for All of Us? This morning I experienced something I'd rather call One Hell Is Enough For All of Us.

It all started yesterday morning, after our regular Sunday sitting with my English friend Dave. We always sit on Sunday at his small place in Prague and then we read an article by Dogen, Mike Luetchford or something similar and discuss it. Yesterday we listened to Mike's talks on Nagarjuna and discussed the problem of analysing reality and dividing it into several pieces. Nagarjuna taught that although we think there is something like ( and let me use Mike's own example) chocolate, taste, tongue, good, in fact there is only one experience that cannot be broken into pieces. When we drive a car (and this is my favorire Buddhist example, I use it all the time as I like driving) we usually think car, wheels, steering wheel, accelerator, brakes, feet, engine, hands, eyes, mind, sound, etc. but in fact, according to Nagarjuna, it is just one thing, one experience here and now. Whatever you call it - or impossible to call it something. Some people might say it could be called "driving". But calling it "driving' suggest that I drive a car. That is not complete, Dogen would say: "Or a car drives you". So you could call it "driving or being driven", but that is still not complete.

Anyway, today I experienced something I wish was impossible to analyze, but I could say it involved one doctor, one nurse, one rubber or plastic something (I didn't dare to look at it) put into my stomach through my mouth, one plastic something put in my mouth to keep it opened, and a computer I guess. Altogether it is called gastrofibroscopy, but I'd call it Hell. When this thing was happening, I couldn't forget about Nagarjuna and his teaching so I tried to apply his wisdom to help me survive that thing rather than running away screaming. Instead of being horrified that something very unlike food or drink is put into my stomach and that it pushes the stomach walls quite hard as if I had big rocks inside it that were rolling there back and forth (like the wolf in the fairy tale that was punished by having to carry rocks in his stomach after all the people he'd eaten jumped out of it) I noticed the whole procedure is just one thing and although it could be called hell, at least it was not stomach, rubber objects inside it, a doctor and a nurse and myself feeling something on the verge of unbearable. So I just thought One Hell and I even forgot that label and just let go and whatever was happening was just happening. Whatever it was, it was not so complicated as it seemed. Thanks, Nagarjuna. And thanks to impermanence, I am here, my stomach kind of confused still, but I am typing and feeling ok.

Buddhism doesn't work as a theory without life, but it works when it is applied - when you let reality be just what it is without analysing it or calling it things when there is no reason to analyse or calling it names. Anyway, hell is still hell.

Mindfulness - to Hell with It.

2010-05-19T19:05:00.003+01:00

From time to time I come across the concept of mindfulness in some Zen circles and it is still a popular concept or a "practice".

I remember how great I felt after reading Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen. After years of frustration as I didn't seem to be "Buddhist" enough from the point of view of various teachers, now after finishing that book I felt like : Great, I don't have to be "a Buddhist". I could walk again, talk again, enjoy driving my car and meet friends without worrying whether I was Buddhist enough or not. The frustration might have something to do with the idea of mindfulness in Buddhism. The idea that we should have a special way, mindful way of doing things, otherwise we cannot be called Buddhists or at least we should try hard to be mindful all the time. Like when you pour some tea, you should do it mindfully, without being distracted. The problem is that this concept may pollute your mind so much for years that after all you will end up doing things rather strangely than naturally and sincerely.

The problem with the concept or practice of mindfulness is that it seems that an ordinary person's mind is not mindful enough and has to be helped or spiritually improved. When those outside Buddhist training do something sincerely, no matter if it's cooking, cleaning, watching a football game or riding a bicycle, they don't need any special religious or spiritual training to improve their mindfulness. They already are fully buddhas, enlightened without any necessity to be educated in this field. It seems when a religion or tradition fills one's mind with so many categories and koans and crap that we don't even know how to wash our hands any more, then we need special training like mindfulness training and practice. But this is awfully against the original meaning of buddha-dharma. I learned to walk when I was one or so and I didn't need to learn it again until this Zen teacher told me that I don't walk properly and that I should walk more mindfully. Then I really had to worry and try to walk and pay attention. This has nothing to do with Buddhism. Only when people are awfully distracted for some reason they need to be helped to go back to their everyday balanced state. But instead of being mindful, they should just do things properly, that's all.

When my students asked me what it means to me to be a Buddhist, what is different about being a Buddhist, I told them I just try not to crash into something when I drive, or bump into things when I walk. They laughed and said, so everyone is a Buddhist. I said: Yes.

Of course, as Buddhists we do have our philosophy and practice and feel that something is wrong with this civilized world and people's minds and we do have something to do in Buddhism that seems special, but it is only special because so few people are interested in that which is completely ordinary - our everyday life activities and our everyday life experience.

After the Retreat

2010-02-16T22:12:00.005+01:00

By the way, I rewrote the article called Buddhism and Photography. After a retreat, my mind is usually less complicated and better focused and a bit more clear so the article is now probably a bit more clear and less complicated.

I have just come back from a pro dark room where I saw my photographs come out on the paper as enlargements or prints from my negative. I am hooked even more. There may be millions of arguments why digital is at least as good as film, but the analog process is just a different kind of game. You spend more time doing something real rather than sitting in front of your computer screen and moving your mouse around. That's the main point. There is something scary about that computer world that wants to suck you in and do things in your fantasy than doing them in real life. I spend too much time doing something with the computer so escaping from the digital photography to film is for me a great change and great return to the real world. But for people who hardly ever work at the computer and just go there to write an email and organize their shots and edit them a bit, I would never discourage them from shooting digital. And most pro photographers these days have little choice. Which one - go figure.

Anyway, I will write something about this past retreat soon.

Buddhism and Photography - Ambitions without Traces

2010-02-10T21:39:00.005+01:00

As you encouraged me to write something, I'd like to comment on the relationship between Buddhism and photography. I don't even use the term Zen anymore. And my teacher Mike Luetchford said recently that he didn't want to use the term Buddhism. It's all because these words are quite misleading, but anyway.

As for photography... I remember before I started to practice Buddhism with some teachers, I was a very excitable guy. And very moody. I would feel totally happy for one day and then feel absolutely depressed for three days or vice versa. When I started to study painting and paint things myself, I was really excited. When I first encountered Buddhism - but that was really called "Zen" by most people and the books I read about it - I was also very excited. I think these feelings of excitement had something to do with expectations and pleasing results. I expected Zen to give me some enlightenment later, so that was exciting. And seeing some results of my painting efforts was also exciting. It just seemed to me that whatever is not exciting is not worth any efforts. But when I came across Dogen's teaching and his way of zazen, that was the first time I felt something which is not really exciting is probably the deepest thing there is. I felt zazen is the source of deepest satisfaction. That experience told me that maybe my excitement about painting and Zen and other thing is a bit silly adn that I should lead my efforts in a different direction. So the first time I really felt as if I could finally rest and see that zazen itself is the essence of Buddhism and that there is no goal and that zazen itself is the goal and realization of the Buddhist state or satori or whatever you call it, it was a new direction in my life and I thought, naively, that I would never be excited about making music, painting or any kind of art form.

But the point is that although we can feel deep satisfaction, both mental and physical in zazen, that doesn't mean we should not have emotions, feel excited about exciting things or lose ambitions. It is just that thanks to zazen we dont' have to overreact, feel frustrated or do crazy things to achieve something.

Master Shunryu Suzuki taught that we should not leave traces as we act every day. But when you have some artistic goals, you want to leave traces. You want to create abook, that has a value for some people, an album that leaves traces in people's hearts, etc. So how does that Buddhist philoosophy of not leaving traces go along with leaving traces as artists do. Shunryu Suzuki taught that when we do something, we later don't need to look back. We have just done it and now it's time to do something else. It is the idea that the present moment is the only real time we can do something so we should grab the opportunity and do it. A pitiful Buddhist would always mention his past achievements, satori experiences, without paying attention to what is important now. Or such a pitiful Buddhist would always dream about their prospects to attain enlightenment or become a successful person in the future without paying attention to what is happening now. But Shunryu Suzuki advises his students to burn the past and forget the future, just act now. That is the best. It is okay to remember things, discuss the future and discuss the past if it is necessary for all kinds of reasons. It is natural to remember things and it is natural to miss someone we love or look forward to someone we love. But no matter how natural it is, the best thing is to pay attention to whatever we are doing now. By best I don't mean doing differently is wrong. The present moment is always the best as there is nothing else. Nothing wrong. You can't even compare the present with the past or future as these are not compatible. So although we have ambitions or make efforst to create some art, paint something or make music or make a beautiful photograph that people will enjoy looking at and coming back to, although it is about leaving traces, an artist who is also a Buddhist doesn't have to feel too attached to the past or the furure and just enjoy working on something now. Very often the situation is that going back to the present is the only way how to overcome some awful problems or feelings or too much excitement.

For some reason I am beginning to enjoy the state of the things just as they are now without feeling I should be somebody really different or more successful - being a writer or photographer or a high school teacher. Its' fun and great and satisfactory to gradually learn to make photographs without worrying too much about results or success. And it is also nicer to write about Buddhism here in this blog when I don't feel I should achieve some kind of reputation. In photography I am having fun and I can experience a lot of balanced moments thanks to it. Just doing it, just holding my camera and focusing, just developing the film at home and looking around me and feeling - hmm, that would be a nice shot - all these things make me feel balanced and settled.

Write on Write on

2010-02-09T18:28:00.003+01:00

Somebody wrote to me: Write on, write on, where have you been?

I have been busy learning photography and making photographs
see www.romanvalekphotography.com
but that doesn't mean I am not practicing or studying Buddhism, we sit every Saturday with a friend in Prague and study Shobogenzo together /come and join us / this week there is a retreat with Mike Luetchford in the Czech Republic and I will definitely write here something from time to time. Anyway, I believe Mike's modern interpretations of Shobogenzo and his talks you can download from the British Dogen sangha web and Brad's books cover all I would like to say. Except that I don't agree with absolutely everything Brad writes but that doesn't make him a false Buddhist teacher. He is definitely genuine. It's funny how he doesn't want any fake copies of himself so he is not going to give anyone a dharma transmission. I hope he will find at least one student who can be himself or herself without imitating Brad. So there is still hope for you guys who hope to get the transmission from Brad - if you are completely yourself and definitely different from Brad, he might change his mind. But I am also kidding, of course, we are not practicing and studying Buddhism in order to get something.

But I'll be back, thanks for the interest.

Rubbish Fine Theory

2009-10-08T08:57:00.005+01:00

The F.I.N.E. diagnosis I wrote about in my last post is complete Rubbish. I have no intention to delete that post as something important is true about it - Buddhism doesn't mean becoming a perfectly happy, always calm, always energetic, optimistic, detached person. But let's have a closer look at the "FINE theory" in Buddhism.

First off, what does "fucked up" mean? Somebody who can't handle basic life problems, someone who is mentally and physically torn into pieces. Someone who is addicted to drugs, who beats up his partner, whose house is a complete mess, who attacks people in public places for no sensible reason. I don't think that Brad Warner, the original guy who was labeled FINE by Stephanie is "fucked up" at all. I think he can deal with his problems very decently and honestly. And me too, I feel I am beginning to deal with my problems decently and honestly, but it could be better.

Insecure. I think I am insecure about twice a week or so, it depends on a situation. I feel insecure in situations I am not familiar with. I am not insecure among people in general, I am not insecure among my students etc. But there are situations where I feel insecure. Big deal. And having met Brad, I don't think he has problems with insecurity, at worst he will be insecure in some particular situations.

Neurotic. That's a serious diagnosis. Let's check wikipedia. "Neurosis (from the Greek νεύρωσις) refers to a class of functional mental disorder involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, where behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms.[1] It is also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder, and thus those suffering from it are said to be neurotic.

There are many different specific forms of neurosis: pyromania, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety neurosis, hysteria (in which anxiety may be discharged through a physical symptom), and an endless variety of phobias. "

Yeah, sure, Brad is all of that, pyromaniac, he suffers from obsessive/compulsive disorder, anxiety and is hysterical and is afraid of everything. And so am I.

Emotional. That's the last FINE symptom. I actually believe that if you are not emotional, you are really fucked up. Emotions are a necessary part of a human life. If you are not emotional, what kind or person are you?

I think Stephanie declared Brad as "FINE" after having read about his conflicts with Jundo Cohen. If having conflicts with somebody qualifies as FINE and means we cannot be considered true Buddhists, then we are in trouble and all Buddhism is. But Buddhism is not finding an agreement with anyone, finding a peaceful solution with anyone, never using a gun or never raising your voice. That's the pacifist idealistic branch of Buddhism that is so popular with people who hardly understand what Buddhism really is. We should always try to be kind and peaceful, but we should not stick to this and we should be flexible and realistic.

Anyway, if we practice zazen, the zazen itself puts our body and mind into a balanced state. An angry person usually calms down, a bored person sometimes wakes up, it doesn't work like a watch and you cannot expect zazen to make you feel balanced no matter what. But if practiced regularly and correctly, it shows in our everyday life. And under normal conditions, you do feel balanced and calm during zazen and after zazen.

F.I.N.E.

2009-10-05T16:47:00.003+01:00

F.I.N.E. stands for fucked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional.

Stephanie commented on last Brad's post and wrote an interesting thing about Brad's sincere sharing his problems, feelings, pain etc. She wrote:

"However, the paradox for me is, if Zen teachers can remain so blatantly self-unaware on so many levels, what does that say about the value of the practice? If people who go through therapy successfully seem to become more self-aware than Zen students, why practice? If whatever one can come to know on the cushion leaves one as F.I.N.E. (Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional) as Brad and Jundo, might one be hard pressed to say what exactly makes it worth doing? How can we know if the "truth" we think we find is anything more than another delusion?"

To put it briefly, before I started to practice zazen about 16 years ago, I felt fucked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional. And I couldn't put up with it. I felt awfully for these two reasons / one that I was like that and two I didn't want to be like that. Now, after 16 years of practicing zazen I am fucked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional. The huge difference is that I am not bothered by this very much, very often I don't care at all and can just enjoy my life. Although I am aware of all kinds of weaknesses and problems with my personality, it is like looking at a picture. Ah, here I am, a bit fucked up, I see.

Buddhist practice does not make us better people, that's what psychotherapy should do - help one solve a problem, become more relaxed or open about something etc. But practicing Buddhism means to see directly what we are - not just as an image, looking at our life as a whole and admit our problems, but also looking who we are just right now. Just looking what we are just now is already solution to all our psychosomatic problems. Just now everyone can forget about zillions of mental problems they ever had and just become one with reality, which is neutral, not bad, not good. That's the enormous, incredible liberation that Buddhist practice offers. Someone who says, after 20 years of practice, I am still full of doubts, questions, problems, is just saying, after 20 years of practice, I am still a human being. That's what we are supposed to be. The question is can we realize the rock bottom of our existence? Can we appreciate it despite all our mental problems? Can we stop now and see it?

Whenever I can sit down and practice zazen, I feel my problems have been completely solved. Sometimes I only feel it vaguely, sometimes clearly, but always it happens. And whenever I can study a bit of authentic Buddhist philosophy or a share a bit of my own Buddhist experience with others, it liberates me and encourages me.

Until recently, I still expected somekind of big change in my life, becoming a teacher of Buddhism or starting a family or becoming this or that. I don't expect anything to happen or any kind of essential change about myself or my life anymore. Of course, changes, even huge changes can happen, but that's not the point for me anymore. Already, this imperfect, insecure guy, is ok just like this. The question is: Can he always appreciate this? And the answer is: No. Not always. But that's ok too.

If there is a goal in Buddhism, it should be always go back to reality, no matter what, go back to the truth itself. It is rather "back" than "forward". Because all of us have already been there, many times today, many times yesterday, zillions of times during our life. Zazen means going back, not forward. Kodo Sawaki said "Zazen is like returning to your mother's womb, so it is not a task."

Do you want me to make it all pretty confusing? OK. Zazen does have some psychosomatic effects. You can calm down or regain energy through zazen. But please, don't expect zazen to do this or you will make it something that it isn't. Don't wait for results after 5 minutes, one hour or even 100 years. If you understand Buddhism, you will see there are no results essentially. Which is just what should happen. Calming down or waking up are just side effects. If you only want to become a better person, forget about Buddhism and really attend some psychoterapeutical sessions or practice yoga - those are intended to help you in that sense. Seeking help and doing something about our mental problems is sometimes necessary. But Buddhism is just about becoming what we have always been originally.

A Whale Will Eat You

2009-10-01T13:10:00.004+01:00

In the last post I wrote something about a whale and then I realized that it may sound quite puzzling to most people - zazen is a whale that will eat you?

I wrote: "Only when you stop looking for specials in practicing zazen, you will be fully digested by zazen, zazen will be a whale that will eat you completely and digest you completely and there will be nowhere to go."

I meant something concrete but used a poetic language so I will try to explain what I meant.

When we stop looking for something special in zazen, which for a lot of people is probably a bit difficult, as they expect something special happening in zazen, we realize we are just here and now and here and now is fine. When here and now is fine we can calm down and just sit here and now. When we just sit here and now, we open the door of our body and mind and they can accept the whole of the universe, in other words through body and mind we can accept the whole of the universe. I don't mean we can let other galaxies fly into our mind or into our lungs. I just mean that we can let the incredible power of universe that cannot be described in words flood our body and mind. Although we can never disconnect from this incredible power of universe, when we calm down in zazen we can accept this power as our own. In other words, when we sit peacefully in zazen, we realize that the truth is just here and now and we are kind of victims of the truth, we are prisoners of the truth, we cannot do anything about it, cannot escape it, it is the ultimate power of the universe, the ultimate reality of the universe, and it acts like flood or a huge whale that opens its mouth and gulps down the person sitting in zazen. When I wrote that it eats us and digests us, I mean that there is not a tiny little piece of us, not a bit of leftover, that could say "but, I..." or "maybe" or "well, I think..." We are completely digested by the truth and cannot do anything. Only accept it.

What I have just described is something that may sound special or strange, but it is just what everyone experiences when sitting in zazen peacefully. It is not something we are necessarily aware of. When our body and mind is in the balanced state, we are completely digested by the truth - we just often have no idea it is so. When we start to think "hmm, digested, not digested, true, not true..." then these leftovers are threw up from the whale's stomach, but when we just calm down and let go of our thoughts, the stomach of the whale is working well and we are completely digested after all. This is not something that happens after five minutes or after five hours or after five years of sitting. Being digested after all is something that happens in an instant, when we are balanced and we let go of our thoughts and accept what is here and now.

This doesn't mean our self disappears. Our self is just another aspect of the whole universal power and there is no reason to try to kill it or get rid of it. When I say we are eaten and digested, it is not the self that is eaten and digested, just our narrow opinions, ideas, and points of view that prevent us from experiencing the balanced state of body and mind in which the truth can be fully accepted.

When the truth is fully accepted, without having to say"I have accepted the truth", without words, then there is nowhere to go to look for the truth. When we sit in zazen, there is no reason to look for another place, a better place, a better state, a better person. We cannot go anywhere that would offer a better zazen, or a better truth.

It Has Nothing to Do With It

2009-09-30T09:31:00.003+01:00

A student asked Suzuki roshi whether such activities like arts, tea ceremony and others may be an alternative to sitting zazen. He wanted to know whether through calligraphy or other Japanese disciplines and arts we could find the same thing we find in zazen. Is zazen not just one of many ways how to attain something deep?

Suzuki roshi answered:"Sitting (zazen) has nothing to do with arts, tea ceremony or sumi-e."

The thing is zazen is not a means, not some kind of arts or a field of human world. Sitting in zazen is just being here and now, not making something or working on something. There are no expectations, goals, achievements in zazen. It's just that people bring goals and expectations to zazen and then want zazen to take them somewhere. But there is nothing to find in zazen, just here and now. Even when we sit for the first time, it is authentic zazen and buddhahood is realized at once.

As there is no goal in zazen, it is ridiculous to do it for some time, several weeks or years and then stop - I have found what I've been looking for so now I can give up zazen. Zazen helped me to see the truth and now I can stop. In that case it was not authentic zazen you practiced, rather something that helped you see something. But the essence in Buddhism is being here and now without tryting to be somewhere else and accept what is now without trying to make the truth something else. So true zazen will never change, it will never reveal what cannot be already experienced. Zazen will never do anything for someone who is looking for something special. Only when you stop looking for specials in practicing zazen, you will be fully digested by zazen, zazen will be a whale that will eat you completely and digest you completely and there will be nowhere to go. So try to stop trying to achieve something through zazen and you will be able to accept what is there here and now, accept your buddhahood. It is there even if you don't believe in it, but in zazen you can learn to accept it. Not by having goals, but just sitting over and over again and over and over again dropping expectations and goals.

Take Care of Yourself

2009-09-30T09:12:00.003+01:00

About helping others, Suzuki roshi said: "It's alright to take care of others, but first you have to take care of yourself!"

It is great when some people are really helpful and do things for others. But sometimes they forget to help themselves and eventually may be quite exhausted or frustrated. Sometimes it is easier to go and help someone rather than go and help oneself. But helping oneself is not necessarily something self-centered.

To help oneself means to do something in order to be able to see the reality here and now and to be able to act realistically and properly. To help oneself means to do something that opens our eyes so we can see what is necessary to do and what is not. To help oneself means to go back to the balance of body and mind and feel peaceful. When we put our body and mind in balance, we know what to do, where to go and how to help this world and do it without being exhausted, frustrated or just escaping from our own personal problems.

We should never forget to make sure that we help ourselves enough - we should not neglect ourselves, our substantial needs and our need to rest and feel balanced after a hard day or before a hard day or sometimes in the middle of a hard day. And even if our life becomes awfully difficult from time to time, we should find a way how to rest and feel good to gain energy to deal with our problems in a way that is honest, brave and doesn't end up in doing something crazy. We should not forget we deserve to be kind to ourselves, even in the most difficult times of our lives. When we continue our lives in the midst of difficulties with our heads up, acting bravely and sincerely, we can encourage and help others a lot. But the beginning is here, where we are, not where others are. Our basis is here, where our body and mind are, so we should treat our body and mind properly. We should take care of ourselves, do our best in this field.

Brad in the Meadow with Flowers and Butterflies

2009-09-15T11:51:00.005+01:00

I went to a sesshin led by Brad Warner in Frankuft last month and I can only say Brad does exist and comes across as even more relaxed than in his books and videos. His "fuck you" actually sounds something like "beautiful flowers in the meadow full of butterflies". I have never heard the words "fuck you" sound more gently. All the people who worry that Brad shows no compassion and speaks badly should listen to him - his "fuck you" definitely contains more compassion that all the fake love words of all the fake insincere people of the fake world of fake compassion.

And the way he is relaxed is not like someone who doesn't care about others and things, rather in terms of absolutely not trying to look like anybody else, just being himself. When he is tired, he looks tired. When he is confused, he looks confused. When he is having fun, he looks as if he was having fun. It is so encouraging to see someone who doesn't try to look better and who doesn't pretend a Buddhist teacher is a super special being. Mike is just like that but Mike is a very experienced guy in his sixties so I kind of expect such behavior from him, while Brad is basically my generation and speaks the way our generation speaks and acts the way our generation acts so that shows to me that being a Buddhist teacher is just being sincere and true, no matter what generation you are, no matter what clothes you like, no matter what music you listen to and no matter how tired you are.

Hansel and Gretel - a Buddhist version

2009-08-01T20:58:00.005+01:00

I wrote this after Mike Luetchford's talk a few days ago in Brno on the law of cause and effect. After the talk, suddenly I decided to rewrite this famous fairy tale. It may be totally off the mark, totally useless, crazy, boring and whatever. But I just did it. It was fun to write it. It is based on a version I found on the internet, but I only left very few words intact, otherwise used my own language and added different things and changed the plot a bit.

Here it is

Simply Gretel

A woodcutter lived in a tiny cottage in the forest with his two children, Hansel and Gretel. Although he was quite poor, he often felt calm and happy. He enjoyed chopping wood or playing with his kids. But his second wife yelled at the children and bitched about this and that and nagged the woodcutter.
"There isn’t enough food. It’s high time we got rid of the two brats," she said. Then she told her husband to leave the children in the forest. Despite his love for them, he was unable to resist. He felt weak when he heard his wife’s commanding voice.
"Take them miles away from here so they never find their way back home!"
Hansel had overheard his parents' talk.
"If they do leave us in the forest, we'll find the way home," he said to his sister.
“Maybe”, she said. “But is this still our home? Dad loves us, for sure, but this lady will always give us a hard time and chase us away.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. Let’s see how things unfold.”

The next morning the woodcutter took Hansel and Gretel away into the forest. He didn’t think much, just kept walking. “This must be a strange dream. Only a dream,” he thought. After walking several miles he had to stop. He almost fainted.
Soon the kids realized they were lost and without their father. But Gretel did not panic.
"I know we’re lost and hungry and it is pitch-dark now. Anyway, this can’t last forever. We’ll find out what to do!"
Gretel tried to encourage her brother, but she too shivered when she saw shadows and strange shapes around them in the darkness. All night the two children sat at the foot of a large tree. They couldn’t fall asleep.
At dawn they started to wander around the forest, seeking a path, a path to a friendly world. At last they came upon a cottage in the middle of a glade.
"This is chocolate!" said Hansel and broke a bit of chocolate from the wall.
"And this is icing!" said Gretel, putting another piece of wall in her mouth.
It seemed the friendly world was found. But then Gretel said:
“Wait a minute. We can’t just eat something that isn’t ours.”
“So what,” said Hansel. ”I’m hungry.”
“Nobody should eat other people’s houses. Maybe someone will come out and offer real food.”
"I haven’t eaten the house anyway, just a bit of wall," Hansel said, munching on another piece of something delicious. Then the door quietly opened.
"Well, well!" said a strange, old woman. "And haven't you children a sweet tooth?"
They looked at her but said nothing.
"Come in!” said the old woman. “You’ve got nothing to fear!”

The candy cottage belonged to a witch.

After a few more friendly and kind words, she said:
"You kids are nothing but skin and bones!"
All of a sudden, she grabbed Hansel and locked him into an old, rotten cage.
“I shall fatten you up and eat you!"
“Strange English”, thought Gretel.
Hansel was frightened but his sister just shook her head. It seemed they were dreaming. Was this a fairy tale? Was this reality? Gretel wasn’t sure. She loved fairy tales. But not in real life.
“Not now,” she sighed. “We don’t want fairy tales now. Sometimes fairy tales are horrible, just like reality.”

"You can do the housework," the woman told Gretel, "then I'll make a meal of you too!"
“I was right, “Gretel thought. “This is real life. Real life and a horror. Both. ”

The witch checked Hansel’s finger every day to see if he had gained weight.
"You're still much too thin!" she said after a month.
One day she had enough of waiting.
"Light the oven," she told the girl. "We're going to roast him!"
Gretel didn’t move. She was thinking about something, paying little attention to the old woman.
The witch screamed at the little girl: "Useless child! All right, I'll do it myself."
Later the witch wanted to see if the oven was hot enough.
“Now I could just push her inside,” Gretel thought. “Push her and slam the door. But that…” the girl shook her head, “that would be too much.”
She looked at her brother who was trembling. As the woman was about to stick her head into the door, Gretel said:
“Hold on. I know you’re starving. But let me ask you something before you roast my poor brother.”
The witch was shocked.
“How dare you… you…” she gasped.
“We both know that if you roast Hansel, you can eat him.”
“What,” said the witch and felt as if she was falling asleep.
“This is the law of cause and effect. When you push me hard, I fall down.”
“What,” sighed the witch. ”I must be dreaming,” she thought and then said: “What on earth…heaven…”
“Let me explain. If you roast Hansel, you eat. If you don’t roast Hansel, you don’t eat.”
Suddenly the witch could see shadows coming out from the darkness. It was more and more clear that she was facing something she had already experienced in the past. In the past she would try to find the meaning of life and death but found nothing, only frustration and anger. This girl was talking about philosophy.
“Philosophy,” the witch whispered.
“Madam,” said Gretel. “What is the situation where there is no room for a process of cause and effect?”
“I don’t know,” puffed the witch.
Gretel grabbed a shovel and hit her. The witch shivered a bit but stayed quiet.
“This is the real situation where there is no room for a process of cause and effect,” said Gretel.
The woman said in a calm voice:
“Now I see that you have found the meaning of life and death. I had been looking for it almost all my life but recently I gave up and became a child-eater. I am a criminal. Nobody likes me. I like nobody. I just eat poor little kids. I would like to ask you to teach me to see what the meaning of life and death is.”
“For now,” said the girl, “we’ve had enough theories. I hit you, which was an action, not a theory, not something you only imagine in your fairy tales. Now let me and Hansel get some food in the nearest village so we can all have dinner. Then we can discuss philosophy again.”

The witch couldn’t wait to listen to Gretel’s teaching. She didn’t want to eat, just discuss philosophy. She felt as if only talking to the girl would fill her stomach. But Gretel grabbed her brother and left the cottage.

On the way to the nearest village Hansel asked:
“How can I become as wise as you?”
“I’m not very wise. I just asked the old woman a question. She got stuck in her thoughts about this and that so I hit her. Anyway, we were lucky. If it hadn’t been for her interest in philosophy, she would’ve killed us. There are plenty of mad people, not just fairy tales characters. Some adults don’t believe in witches but I do.”
"I still don’t know what you said to her about effects and meanings. Could you explain it to me?”
“We came across that candy house, so we got into trouble. But as we ate the sweet chocolate, we were free. We didn’t know about our past or future problems. So I wanted to show her that beside her life that’s full of causes and effects, there’s also freedom within a simple action here and now. This simple action here and now provides a point where we can overcome the burden of our past actions and stop worrying about the future. Although we have to count on the law of cause and effect and can never escape it, not even in our dreams, not even in fairy tales, we can also enjoy freedom of the present. I wanted to show her that her life can become more balanced if she appreciates what she simply does here and now, be it washing clothes or just looking out of the window.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about. But I’ll try to… I’ll study…”
“Yes. As you wish. But now don’t worry. Let’s just do the shopping.”

As they were walking down the forest path, they ran into their father who was desperately looking for them. They were all overjoyed.
“Your stepmother has died. It was a virus. Come home with me now, my beloved children!"
“Dad!” said Gretel. “Let’s first do some shopping. We’ve met this lady and we promised we would bring her some food from the nearest village. She’s starving! She almost ate Hansel. Really. Just like in the fairy tale. We did survive. Now let’s just buy some food, eat dinner with the lady and then go home.”
"Let’s do that!" said the father. “By the way, is the lady attractive?”
“Arrgh,” said Hansel, “she looks like a big old witch, Dad!”
"I hope,” Hansel said when they came to the village at last. “I hope that sometime we’ll find gold in the woods and become rich and there’ll be no more work for us. Just fun. “
“Just fun,” the father shook his head and smiled. “I quite like chopping wood.”

No Profit for You or Me

2009-05-10T22:05:00.008+01:00

Kodo Sawaki, a Japanese Buddhist teacher who lived in the 20th century and taught Nishijima Roshi, often stressed that there is nothing to gain in practicing zazen or studying Buddhism. He taught that someone who tries to achieve something in Buddhism, be it through zazen or studying the Buddhist philosophy or discussing it or burning incense, makes a mistake if they believe Buddhism gives one a personal profit. According to Sawaki, satori or peaceful mind has nothing to do with Buddhism, if it limited to one person only. In other words, if you believe you can boast a satori or boast peaceful mind, you have misunderstood what Buddhism is.

Most people expect Buddhist practice to give them something they could personally profit from. If they don't believe they can attain enlightenment, they at least believe they can achieve some kind of peaceful mind. As soon as I came across books about Zen, I wanted to attain satori and become a fantastic person without any problems. And a lot of Buddhist teachers are considered enlightened and having a peaceful mind and no problems in their lives and people look up to them and follow them as if they were some kind of Gods. But according to Sawaki, it is ridiculous to brag and say, hey I am enlightened and I have no problems and am detached from the world. For Sawaki, satori is something you don't even realize happening - as you are practicing zazen without trying to attain anything special, satori comes in abundance, over and over again. Kodo Sawaki said: "It’s satori that pulls our practice. We practice, being dragged all over by satori." So there is no reason to make a difference between enlightened and unenlightened people. The only thing that matters is whether you practice zazen or not. Everyone is enlightened, but in Buddhism we learn to realize what we are ( what this enlightenment is ) as we practice zazen over and over again, never coming to an end of this practice.

But is it humanly possible to practice zazen without expecting at least a little bit of difference? Don't we realize we are more balanced, more content after zazen? Yes, I have almost always felt more balanced and more content after zazen, but only because I just practiced without looking for a personal benefit. I remember times when I practiced zazen in order to attain something special and it was almost unbearably difficult to continue like that. Such practice is like nurturing one's personal frustration. YOu practice only to find out that you have not made any progress. But when you give up and only practice in order to practice, immediately you can calm down and sit peacefully. But it is not your personal peace, it is the universal peace that has captured you completely. So to me, zazen itself, practicing zazen here and now is enough, satisfying enough. Also in everyday life, if we hope to feel excellent all the time, energetic all the time, our mind clear all the time and if we compare our ideals about some kind of Buddhist life with our actual life, we will be very frustrated. It is much better to give up these ideals and just act here and now. When there is a gap between me and the present moment, this place, then we can never be satisfied.

What most Buddhists hope for is some kind of great feeling or great mind after practicing for some time, but they can only attain - and it's wonderful to attain it - this place and this moment beyond the duality of myself and the world. So no matter how long you have practiced or how many times you have experienced something you may call satori, you can only be here and now and be the person you have always been - just yourself, content doing something concrete here and now. So what kind of personal profit is it? Once you call it personal profit, my satori, my peace, you already break the whole thing into peaces and become the same ordinary person who only sees the world as something outer.

There is something one can achieve in Buddhism, but that something is not limited to one person only, but is spread throughout the universe. "The universe" sounds too abstract maybe, but I just mean something that is immeasurable and limitless. Something we experience now and cannot see its limits and cannot call it any names. So the thing you realize in Buddhism through practice and philosophy is not something you can measure and say this is mine, not yours. What you realize practicing zazen and studying Buddhist teaching is something that has come from all beings, all things, it is something that has come from you, too. When you wash the dishes and feel balanced, it is not you only, the whole world is balanced. And when you look at a countryside and the countryside looks beautiful, it is not something separate from you, it is beauty that is yours. So whatever we do, whatever we see, it is always originally something complete. And this completeness is satisfying, but once you say I am satisfied by this completeness, you make the completness something incomplete, something objective. It is the same with satori, once you say I have "satori", what kind of satori is it that you can point to and say you have it? Of course, to attain the truth is possible in Buddhism, but the truth is beyond something objective that one can possess while the others cannot. So a person of the truth, someone who has realized the truth has no special qualities or something to show off.

A person of the truth may talk about feeling balanced and peaceful but he or she does not keep that state for himself or herself, but freely gives it up for the others. He or she shares his satori or Buddhist state with others, not "Here, this is my Buddhist state", but "Here, look, this is your Buddhist state. " Everyone experiences the Buddhist state many times a day, but most of us don't realize this. Buddhism teaches us to realize what Buddhist state is and enjoy it when it happens. But whenever it happens, you give it up freely, share it with the whole world. If you don't give it up, it is not a Buddhist state. If you give it up, there is no profit. No profit for me, no profit for you, just the whole world benefits from the state that is beyond personal limits.

Is Philosophy More Than Art?

2009-04-23T18:44:00.008+01:00

This nice Yogi guy wrote me a message on a photography forum saying that philosophy is higher than art. I think I know where he is coming from.

Art - especially the Western kind - when we regard it based on some Eastern philosophy, is often considered a mere expression of suffering or desire, while philosophy (at least the Eastern branch) is the field that shows us the way out of suffering or desire. Now I am not saying I agree, just trying to sum up what the yogi probably meant. When we look at the Western art as a whole, we can notice that there are basically two kinds of artists. Of course there are zillions of categories and streams. But the bottom line, as I see it, is that one kind is the happy, confident and sociable artist who enjoys good food, good drinks and good sex. He or she (although I doubt women belong to this particular category very much, as this category seems to be about machos - the alpha masculine dominating heros that so many women adore and want to marry) usually has or had a joyful and successful life and achieved fame and profit quite early in his life. Pablo Picasso, whose art I really adore, is such an example. Or Stravinsky. Their work celebrates barbarian passions, beautiful naked women, dance, tasty, juicy fruit, the bright, shining sea... In Buddhism we call this materialism. It is a kind of one-sided understanding of life and its meaning.
As we can see, being one-sided may lead to wonderful paintins or music, but it is not simple as that, as I will try to explain later on. There is nothing wrong with Picasso's or Stravinsky art and there is no reason why it should be different. I am just trying to explain how a certain understanding of the world leads to different works of art. The other category of artists would be those suffering, deprived, frustrated, anxious guys (or women ) whose life was rather hell than anything else. They found little solace in their art, no matter how wonderful their art was. Take Van Gogh, Franz Kafka, Edward Munch, in Czech literature Bozena Nemcova, a victim of hopelessly dull, insensitive and possessive husband who had little understanding for his wife's impractical, artistic soul. Shostakovich - not only was he crushed by the Soviet regime, he was also crushed by his own depressed mind. Although these artists suffered so much, they gave the world such splendid works, something that shows how one feels when he or she is a thoroughly sincere and sensitive genius in the middle of a cynical, absurd world. In Buddhism, we call this idealism. This has nothing to do with being naive or stupid. On the contrary, it is usually a problem of an excellent mind. Idealism means that the world is perceived as something too dark, too cold, too absurd to cope with. An idealist typically believes there is something or someone high up there that is the source of light, source of love. Some people misunderstand Buddhism and believe there is something in Buddhism that is out of this world that we could achieve. But Buddhism is neither materialistic, nor idealistic.

If we could influence those splendid European or American artists and tell them about Buddhism - not the idealistic kind, of course, we could advise Picasso to bring less women to his bedrooms and drink less wine. I think he would happily ignore us. How about Kafka, Munch and other frustrated artists? I would recommend that they see something meaningful, something beautiful in everyday life activities. I would tell them to see how happy one can be in a single moment of a single day. How much solace and peace we can find in sipping tea. I would ask them to reduce their ideals and soften the criticism with which they see the world around. Should I have been successful, there would be no Kafka, no Munch, no Van Gogh as we know them today. There would have been some pretty normal guys whose work would be either absent or quite mediocre. Right? Would it have been so? The thing is we cannot go back and talk to Franz Kafka. Now if there is a genius living frustrated and unhappy working on a great novel, the thing is not about whether we should make her happy and prevent her from writing that fantastic book. The thing is it is up to me, up to you, up to her, how we deal with our own lives and how we deal with other people's lives. In other words, we can try to help someone, but we cannot make sure everything and everybody will be satisfied. The question I am interested in is not whether philosophy could remove the excellent art as we know it from the current world. The question is whether philosophy can help us be happy and still produce excellent art.

Buddhism teaches that we can find happiness and wisdom when we go beyond the opposites of materialism and idealism. It teaches that if we eat and drink and sleep just enough and lead a sensible life, day after day, we can find some balance and satisfaction despite the crazy things going on in the world. I still believe that although we may find a lot of balance thanks to such an ordinary life, we can still be great artists. Why? Because no matter how much balance we find, it will never be perfect. And no matter how content we may become, we will still want some sex. Unless we are 99 years old! And sex is not always such an easy thing to find. So here - if there is no sex around, we can go and create something instead. Or read Dostoyevsky. Because sooner or later you will be fed up with Dogen... I am kidding. But I mean we Buddhists don't want to lose you, real people in the real world doing real things like writing great novels or shooting films about tigers! I am very optimistic - Buddhism leads to sincere interest in humanity in general. I know some great Buddhists who have practiced Buddhism for decades and who have understood Buddhism thoroughly and they still have to face extremely difficult situations in their lives and they still have plenty of room for love and art and beauty and all kinds of passions in their hearts. Buddhism does not solve suffering by offering a ticket to some kind of mental heaven, a trip to eternal peace. It only - and I don't think it is too little, but actually it is quite a lot - gives us a chance to see our problems from the point where we are completely involved in some kind of activity, being physically as busy as mentally, which means not busy mentally too much, just acting here and now.

Now what about the Eastern art? When it comes to Chinese or Japanese poetry that is based on Buddhist practice and philosophy, it is just another form of Buddhist teaching. This kind of art is neither a mirror of dark, frustrated idealistic mind, nor is it a mirror of hedonistic experience. A Chinese poet - or a Japanese poet, a Buddhist monk, writes about simple everyday experiences. Such a poet writes about the sound of crickets, the empty bowl when he is hungry, his straw hut, walking stick... he or she may write about sadness or loneliness or even about falling in love - but this time not as something that should be thoroughly analyzed, instead the feeling, be it joy or sadness, is accepted and recorded as it is. Here philosophy and art are one thing.

A Chinese guy wrote some time in the 9th century:

How wondrous this, how mysterious!

I carry fuel, I draw water.

Such poetry is far away from the meticulous analysis of the mental world as described by Franz Kafka or composed by Shostakovich. What could be so mysterious about carrying wood or water? Buddhism helps us reveal that what had always seemed ordinary is actually wonderful. Everyday life deserves our thorough attention as it is the only thing we actually experience. Of course, we experience a lot of mental things all the time, but Buddhism reveals that while we are free to imagine and work on anything conceivable within our minds, we are standing in the middle of reality beyond our thinking, beyond our ability to put this or that into categories, and that reality offers at least as much beauty and happiness as we may try to generate through thinking and imagination. It is like bringing our own coffee to a great coffee house and complaining that our coffee is awful. It is like bringing water to the ocean saying there is not enough water in it. Does this mean all the wonderful art that was created within the modern history of Europe and America is just useless crazy crap? No, it is beauty that was created based on some kind of misunderstanding. It is a sincere expression of a sincere mind, trying to reveal what is beautiful, what is meaningful. It is the sincere effort that is valuable and that produces the authentic art, no matter how naive the philosophy is at the beginning of such art. It is a message about real people and their real passions and suffering. It is highly valuable and deserves to be studied and observed. It is an important message about what it is like to be human.

I used to study modern painting a lot and painted a lot. I could not stop thinking about it, dreaming about it and doing it. Then I met Susie, an English teacher from California and found a book about Zen in her apartment in Prague. The book triggered a completely new approach to my life. From then on, for about 10 years or so I was only interested in Zen, no matter what it was or no matter how much I misunderstood what it was. I went to a Zen center in the USA and never painted again. Actually, I once or twice tried to paint, but it was like trying to start an engine without any fuel. There was no real motivation. I had to force myself to paint, so it didn't work. Instead I found myself writing a kind of Chinese style poetry. I had realized that the most important thing is one's everyday life, all those little everyday experiences. To me, painting used to be a way how to create beauty in a world that is not beautiful enough. This time I found the world beautiful enough and there was nothing I could add to its beauty. So I could only describe what I saw in front of me, writing poems about clouds, trees, fields, ponds, and girls. Just like the Chinese guys or maybe just imitating what those monks wrote:

sitting under an apple tree
I watch it
dance in the wind...

Here, no matter how egoistic, how selfish and annoying I actually am in my real life, I would like to reduce myself to a mere tool through which the real beautiful world is expressed. There is no need to explain the beauty, no need to say why I am lonely, why I want to hug someone. You just say it. Just say what is happening.

On the other hand, Brad Warner, a Buddhist teacher who used to be a punk rock bass guitar player is still a punk rock bass guitar player. I doubt he ever wrote a single "Chinese" or "Zen" poem. To him, Zen is also just a real, everyday life. Just like to me. But to him, punk rock is his everyday life, so now as a Buddhist, punk rock is still his everyday life! I can't imagine Brad writing a poem. Actually, yes, I can imagine Brad's poetry about hairy punk drummers and their puke at the toilet. But that's just Brad. I like that he is just what he is. To hell with pretension. It is only worth writing about apple trees in the wind if you have really experienced apple trees dancing in the wind. There is a difference between writing about something that sounds like Chinese poetry and writing about something that has penetrated your heart completely. So we have punk rock as one example of Buddhist art and Chinese kind of poetry as another example.
So we can see that Buddhism shows the beauty of ordinary things like grass, a cup of tea, a cold shower, but also the ordinary things that belong to the real modern world that those Chinese monks 1200 years ago had no idea about. Including the sound of electric guitars. So what seemed ordinary before practicing Buddhism may seem wonderful after it.

What is the role of "I" in Buddhism? How can "I" help me create something valuable? Should I try to get rid of "self"? Would it make me a genius? But it is my self, it is me, it is "I" that makes me cry, that makes me laugh, that makes me try to write this essay. There is no need to get rid of me, myself, self or I or whatever you call that. It is just that Buddhist practice helps "me" or "you" see what has been long ignored because "I" or "you" have been too busy dealing with "you" or "me" forgetting just what is real. We need some "I" or some of "you" or some of "her". Without these distinctions we could simply all commit suicide, or stop eating, drinking, urinating. Why deny "myself"? I have to sleep, no matter what. I have to eat. I love. I hate. The problem is that the modern world or civilization as such or whatever you call it is almost all about myself against you. I am better than you. You are sexier than her. So I go crazy. So I shoot him. Instead of these dramatic distinctions or extreme loneliness or extreme selfishness we could just focus on everyday actions and notice how wonderful some people are and notice that the best we can do for those who are not so wonderful is to be at least a little bit wonderful ourselves.

How much ego did Picasso need to become such a brilliant painter? How about Kafka? Stravinsky? I don't know how much ego Van Gogh or Kafka needed, but they were telling the truth. They both precisely recorded what was going on in their heart, mind, imagination. They were so great because they didn't lie at all. There are tons of books full of lies and pretension. There are infinite miles of canvas that is covered in paint. But there is not a single thing that would be true about them. You can paint anything on a piece of canvas so what makes a painting true? What makes a symphony true? What makes a photograph true? As for photography, that is a tough one. Really tough. Because we could say that whatever you photograph, it is something real in front of you so you cannot go wrong. When you write a poem or paint something, you can easily pretend you feel something that you actually don't feel at all. But in the end, it is the same for photography. There are people who just take photographs having fun. Good for them. There are people who paint flowers and have fun. Good for them. There is Madonna and Like a Virgin. Good for both of them. But when it comes to art, there is something more. Pablo Picasso, no matter how awful or great he was as a real person, used his ego completely in order to create something so natural, so fluent, so bright that it seems it has been created by the universe itself. I don't think Leonardo painted Mona Lisa. If I believed in God, I would claim that only God could paint something so absolutely brilliant. But I don't believe in God so I think it was the universe itself that created Mona Lisa. Leonardo just served as a tool. A genius to me is someone who is not in the way when the universe feels like doing something interesting in art. In other words, an artist has to respect the universal laws completely. Johann Sebastian Bach or Pablo Picasso didn't imitate God or the universe. Although Bach said he wanted to compose something similar to what you may hear in heaven when you get there. But what Bach composed is heavenly - it is heavenly, or say ideally complete, just like the universe itself. Is there a speck of dust lacking in the universe? No. Is there a note missing in Bach's music? No. So there. There is nothing artificial about Bach or Picasso or Leonardo or Beethoven. That's why I would call their art "true" even if it is not verbal. You make a film about a couple who are about to divorce but from the beginning to the end you don't believe it is true. You look at a painting in a gallery and you have no idea why the heck someone cared to paint it at all. You want to say: No, this is not true! People who are interested in the truth, no matter how harsh it sounds, will call it a kitch. A true piece of art is really valuable for a Buddhist because it is something honest, sincere, a true story. A true story is more valuable in Buddhism than thousands of complex Buddhist sutras. So Kafka may be a source of truth for you, but it will probably not give you a hint how to make your life less unbearable. That's the job of Buddhist philosophy. Both is important. To notice what people really go through and study how one may overcome his or her difficulties.

Is the Truth Complete?

2008-12-15T22:52:00.006+01:00

Here is a bit of GENJO KOAN, a chapter from master Dogen's Shobogenzo, in Mike Luetchford's modern interpretation:

When we feel confident that we understand reality, in fact we are far from it.
When we are actually one with reality, we often feel that something is missing.

I came across some discussions on the net about what these ideas of master Dogen might mean and here is my take on what they probably mean:

When we think we understand the truth, we are only on the intellectual level, and there, in the midst of our ideas, we miss the target.

When we are one with the truth, we can't see the whole of it. Ideally, the truth is something complete, nothing is missing, but we can never find a point of view that would provide this complete view of things. So instead of trying to find the perfect point of view, we just let it be and in this moment, just acting, we are one with reality, but beyond the ideal of completeness. The finality or definition of the truth is again something intellectual, it is something we only imagine. The truth, actually, is something we don't imagine, it is just here and now, and here and now, it doesn't seem complete to a person being one with it. So a person who is one with the truth cannot find something complete, cannot show something complete to the others.

In Buddhism we sometimes naively expect that one day we will see things completely and finally. At last everything will be clear and we will be enlightened. But people of the truth cannot experience something this rigid. Instead they experience something that is impossible to stop or grasp or limit with words.

We could also give an example of a person working in the garden, someone who has never heard of Buddhism. To a naive Buddhist, this person, focusing on trimming some bushes, is far from buddhahood, far from awakening. But such a person, just simply cutting the twigs is one with the truth. There is no celebration of the person's awakening. No gods are coming to greet the person and bow in front of him or her. There is just trimming, cutting here and now. The gardener cannot notice anything special or grand or worth mentioning. What did you do in the afternoon? I just trimmed some bushes. And now I am going to the pub to drink some beer. My husband is already waiting there for me.

When we look at a statue of Buddha, we see something splendid, someone splendid, noble sitting in a beautiful posture. But to Buddha, it is just sitting, nothing else. Just a simple action in the present. No celebration is necessary. Yet in Buddhist literature, awakening or sitting in Buddha's posture is often celebrated. However, it is rather the celebration that seems splendid and complete. The thing being celebrated is usually forgotten in all the marvelous display of colors and lights.

Hello again!

2008-11-17T21:26:00.001+01:00

Hello again! I haven't posted anything for a while and now it's time to write something again. First off, I haven't written anything recently as I was busy - besides other things - studying different Buddhist texts. So I just wanted to let all potential readers know that I am still practicing and studying Buddhism, just I focus more on studying than writing and also try to focus on everyday life rather than theories, but this has always been my weak point. One of few activities I can do without spacing out is driving. Or teaching English - there is no room for spacing out when there is eighteen kids sitting in front of you waiting for your instructions or orders.

Anyway, why worry. Why worry too much, it is going to be my next post.

Real Mike

2008-08-11T22:38:00.005+01:00

After a long break, I am back trying to post something. As usual, I am very active in summer, when it comes to studying Buddhism and writing about it. I have a lot of time in summer, two months of vacation. So I can go cycling, hiking, swimming and the relaxed mind I achieve by these activities helps me fully concentrate on studying Buddhist philosophy. Mike Luetchford was in the Czech Republic for several weeks in July and as always, it was very fruitful experience for me, and hopefully, for others, too. I had the chance to spend a few days with him privately at a weekend house in the country and learn about him informally and casually. This experience - spending private time with Mike - opened my eyes to what Mike is in fact - a human being. Of course, I had known even before he is not superhuman but still, the idea that he is a Buddhist master, had been too overwhelming for me. It had been difficult to see him as an ordinary person, although theoretically I knew he was. But it was only a theory because I'd often not felt quite relaxed in his presence until I experienced some personal and private things with him at the weekend house and there was nowhere to escape. So gradually, at the weekend house, as we ate, drank (tea or coffee or juice), told stories, watched movies, played piano and trumpet, sat in front of the fireplace, visited a museum, went cycling etc., only gradually my strange feeling that I am there with a very special person gave way to something better - being just myself spending time with someone who was somehow becoming my friend, things just got more and more relaxed and friendly, that's all.

I think I noticed and learned one important thing, or this is one of those things I learned, but for me it was a nice discovery. Before the holidays I somehow thought Mike - the way he is and speaks and acts - represents Buddhism. Maybe that's what made me nervous before. You know, all of Buddhism right in front of you may be scary! But at the weekend house I gradually realised that Mike does not represent Buddhism. He represents just himself. But representing just himself represents Buddhism. Different, isn't it?

So everyone who is just himself or herself at this moment, represents Buddhism. Scary, isn't it? No, this is the least scary thing about Buddhism, but still, very difficult to believe for most people. Just being myself is enough? No special qualities are necessary? Anyway, I will post more tomorrow or some other time. I have written a lot of texts lately, but almost all of them are in Czech. But at least I will post sometime what those articles in Czech are about. Just brief versions.

Wisdom versus Knowledge

2008-05-21T19:31:00.004+01:00

This is an essay I have written for my students at the school where I teach. I am trying to explain to them that wisdom is important and that we often misunderstand what true wisdom is. Here it is:

There are three things whose meaning people usually confuse. Knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. These three things are not the same. As civilized people we need all of them. We are born with some potential for knowledge, potential for intelligence and potential for wisdom.

There are all kinds of people – people of high intelligence and little knowledge, people of high knowledge and low intelligence, people who have plenty of both. There are people who are very wise and people who are little wise. But I believe that true wisdom is usually misunderstood or underestimated. Wisdom does not depend on knowledge or intelligence very much. But thanks to intelligence and knowledge, we can explain or argue what wisdom is. Here I will try to explain what wisdom is based on my studies and practice in recent years:

Wisdom is something you express before you think. Wisdom is something you express when you stop talking because you feel there is nothing to say any more. Wisdom is to say something when you feel the one you love is waiting for a word – you don’t know what to say, but you say it anyway and you say the right word. Wisdom is when you give something even when you know you’ll lose. Wisdom is when you lose and it is okay with you. Wisdom is when you let someone weaker win a fight. Wisdom is when you let go of something you want very much but it is trying to escape. Wisdom is when you don’t try to run away from a very difficult situation. Wisdom is when you do what you feel is good, although you have no idea how to explain it. Wisdom is to stop an argument even if you think you are right. Wisdom is when you don’t pretend you know something you actually don’t know. Wisdom is when you grab a hammer and use it properly. Wisdom is to try hard and give up when it is too much for you. Wisdom is to be what you are and not what you think or others think you are. Wisdom is to give up the idea “I am wise”.

School is a place where we use our intelligence to learn things – collect knowledge. But we also learn to act sincerely when people we like act sincerely. We naturally do what the ones we like do. When your best friends are brave, you try to be brave, too. When your best friends smoke cigarettes, you also want to smoke. But when your best friends show some wisdom, you naturally do the same thing. We all learn from each other – both good and bad things. But we can also choose who our role model will be and who will not.

There is a lot of pretence among people. There are a lot of arrogant people who act as if they were the only important people in the world, but when you end up in a ditch asking for help, they will pretend they can’t see you. We cannot rely on people who only pretend things. We are lucky when we can meet and learn from sincere people. But even if everyone around us is just great, none of these people can do what only we can do and be what we should be and do what we should do. People can help us a lot, but it is up to us how we use our life. If you can get something from others and use it positively, then great. If you don’t get what you need and what you need is necessary, if you feel it is absolutely necessary, keep looking for it until you find it. If you think someone cheats or is not good enough, imagine how lousy life such a person has. It must be hard to be a liar or a mad person or someone who abuses others. It is not necessary to run from such people. You can learn from them, too, because they provide something that is true part of the world and it is something we should study and try to learn what causes such unfortunate lives. We should observe how others act and try to understand why they act like that. Not only does such observation calm our anger, it also helps us understand others and the world. If you think someone is wise, learn from them how to do the same thing – how to act wisely. Try to find out what is the most important thing in the world. Don’t get satisfaction from cheap phrases or clichés. Don’t believe these words unless you feel they are based on someone’s real experience – not fantasy or hatred. For example Hitler’s words were always based on his fantasy about the perfect world led by the perfect nation. And also based on his hatred towards Jews. Words can lead to wars and pain, some words can lead to peace and happiness. But our actions are even more important. Most people cannot speak to nations – but we can speak to the ones we work or live with. Anyway, our words are not as important as our behavior. The most important things are beyond words.

Look around – most problems in the world are caused by people who lack wisdom, people full of hatred, people who cheat, people who pretend and people who are greedy. They are everywhere around and their actions cause a lot of suffering. They are in us, too. There is potential in each of us, you, me, her, to go mad, hate, be greedy, kill, replace wisdom with stupidity.

The most important thing is to learn how to live a life that is based on purity. Our life will never be completely pure, there will always be mistakes and problems. But to give our life some meaning, wisdom, love, we have to go back to this original purity in our hearts and make use of it over and over again. I can see the original, essential purity of my students in their eyes every day. Some students are subtly aware of their own purity and it makes them happy. They don’t call it “purity”, but they feel something pure inside and outside and smile. Some people have lost this purity somewhere in distant corners of their hearts. They seem unhappy or depressed or full of hatred, but it is just that they don’t know where the purity is or they don’t believe there is any. All people in the world, no matter how evil or stupid, are originally good. There may be just a tiny little drop of goodness in their heart, but there is some. No matter if we are religious or not, scientists or artists, factory workers or politicians, when we cultivate this original purity, it brings to others and us a lot of peace and joy.

What happens in an English lesson or history lesson – academically - is secondary. The primary thing is that something important, something beyond knowledge and intelligence is going on all the time. You may like or dislike a lesson, a teacher, a classmate… but the most important thing is how you make best use of such a situation, how much wisdom you express when something is not the way you would like it to be. Sometimes it is necessary to be very critical. If we are never critical, although we firmly believe something is wrong, we may lose an opportunity to help the world. But it is easy to criticize, there is inflation of criticism in the world. We should be careful and consider things carefully and wisely, sincerely, before we criticize others. We should make a lot of observation and learn a lot before we seriously criticize something or someone.

Our life is precious and can mean a lot to others and we usually mean a lot to others. We should be aware of this all the time. Every single gesture, every word, every smile means something. Everything we do shows what we are and how we relate to the world. Sooner or later your true character will be revealed – there will be hard moments in your life when your character will undergo a test - so work on your character before it is too late!

These are things I have been studying and thinking about for several years. And teaching my students – although it is English what I teach – gives me the opportunity to test these things.

What use is a philosophy if it does not work in real life? I don’t have to ask my students if it works or not – your actions, your behavior, your attitude, your silence or smile, your words, your decisions and your feelings have proved that this philosophy is based on something very real.

Uchiyama Roshi's Explanation of Enlightenment

2008-04-07T17:43:00.003+01:00

Uchiyama Roshi was a student of Kodo Sawaki, who was a no-nonsense, strict, homeless, poor monk who spent his life practicing zazen, studying Buddhism and teaching Buddhism. Uchiyama Roshi was a bit different from his master. On the other day Uchiyama Roshi asked Kodo Sawaki how long it would take him to be as strong as his master. Kodo Sawaki replied that zazen didn't make him this strong. He had always been strong, ever since his childhood years. So he didn't expect Uchiyama to become like him; instead he taught that everyone has to find his or her own nature. I would like to share master Uchiyama's explanation of zazen and enlightenment with my readers. What follows is an excerpt from the book The Wholehearted Way written by Uchiyama Roshi.

"In the true zazen enlightenment is not good. Delusion is not bad. We should look equally at both enlightenment and delusion. Our sitting should be like this. This zazen has no comparison with zazen based on the desire to get satori and feel good, a kind of personal, psychological condition.

Dogen Zenji said that to sit in such a way is the true way of enlightenment; such zazen itself is enlightenment. Zazen is not a means to gradually attain enlightenment. We sit zazen, which is dropping off body and mind right now, right here. Practice and enlightenment are not something different. We should not separate practice and enlightenment into two. Since zazen is itself enligtenment, there is no way to think that I become enlightened as a result of zazen practice. To sit zazen is to be in the profound sleep of enlightenment. Therefore, to think that I am enlightened is the same as to think that I sleep well within sound sleep. This is sham sleep. When we sleep really well, we cannot think that we sleep well. In the same way, in zazen, we cannot see if we are are enlightened or not. Sometimes we feel clear in zazen, sometimes not; certainly we don't feel clear more often than not. In either condition, zazen is zazen. We sit right in that place where we can look at both enlightenment and delusion equally."

What can I add? To me, I have no desire to change my zazen into something else. The way I feel when I practice zazen, no matter what I feel like, clear or not, is still zazen and that is what matters most to me. As long as I can practice zazen in the present moment, I am completely satisfied with my delusion-enlightenment situation.

Buddha's and our's Middle Way

2008-04-03T23:14:00.005+01:00

Today I was teaching about Buddhism as part of my teaching about world main religions. After the lecture I gave about Buddha's life one student said that it is too extreme to live like a Buddha - in a forest, sleep outdoors, have nothing... A good way how to inspire me to write now!

I told her that comparing the modern life to Buddha's life, it seems Buddha's life was too extreme. But in his time, his simple life was much more comfortable and milder way than what some Indian yogis or ascetics did in those days. So I told the student that a Buddhist today does not try to imitate Buddha's life in terms of lifestyle. Instead a Buddhist these days does what is for them a middle way. And these days the middle way is living an ordinary life - neither trying to achieve a spiritual perfection, nor trying to achieve material perfection. So living in a house or flat, going to work, looking after children, driving a car to visit friends etc. is nothing extreme. It is our middle way these days.

But the most important thing is that we have to find what is our true way. If it is true for us to work as a manager and work hard and make a lot of money, then it is our true way. It is our original way. By original I mean what has roots in the workings of the universe. One extreme is too much food, too much alcohol, too much sex, too much talk, too many problems... Another extreme is lack of food, lack of drinks, lack of sleep, lack of energy, lack of ideas. Even a king or president has a chance to live a Buddhist life. Doing his or her job properly, looking after himself or herself, being kind to others, going to bed early enough, drink moderately, speak realistically and having a realistic attitude toward the issues of the world is a true way for anyone, be it a queen or a factory worker.

Each one of us has to find his or her original, true way, without imitating somebody we are not. When we practice zazen every day, when we do our job properly and behave properly and don't give up our pursuit of the truth, then this way is no different from Buddha's way.

There Must Be Something

2008-03-23T23:07:00.005+01:00

In my last post I suggested that there is no difference between a master and a student when it comes to their quality of experience. There is no sudden enlightenement or something that makes you enlightened ever since you "get it". I wrote that the thing is about understanding or experiencing the essence of enlightenment. And Robert argued that then understanding or experiencing the essence is "it" and that must be something to get one day or attain one day or something that must be found sooner or later.

Well, the essence of enlightenment, no matter if you find it or not, is reality right here and now in front of us. So clearly, it is not something to be found in terms of finding something new, right? Is there a way how to find the taste of green tea as something new, one day, sooner or later? The only way how to find the taste of green tea is to drink it. It seems that so called enlightened people taste the taste of green tea differently or more deeply or more intense. If something about people who practice zazen is any different, it is that they are less distracted by millions of ideas and feelings and desire. So when you practice zazen in the morning for half an hour, you have a good chance to experience for yourself what the real taste of green tea is. But there is basically no chance to taste the real green tea in the midst of political discussion. You will miss the tea and a lot of other real things around you. The only thing you will find real will be a couple of political arguments. But there is no reason why someone who practices zazen in the morning as his or her real zazen practiced by his or her real self should be cut off from reality. We can call reality "the truth". When we call reality the truth, it seems we change the spiritual gears and get up to a higher level. Reality is just tea, while the truth is something secret that only few people with special spiritual experience have access to? In fact it is the same thing, you just have to decide if you like the word "reality" or the word "truth". The truth is a word I use when I want to stress the final quality, the supreme, the thing that is beyond all ideas and opinions. I use the word "reality" when I want to stress the aspect of real life, the way we experience it every day, something that is simply part of and cannot be cut off from anyone or anything. Reality is something you cannot deny or cannot "not experience" or "not know". While the truth is something we should aim to practice and realize. So yes, there is an aspect of "something over there that I should aim to practice or realize". But that something must be found here and now. So when we practice Buddhism, we learn to practice here and now, attain here and now, be ourselves here and now and discover the truth here and now. So of course, there is this paradox of "pursuing something or seeking something" which sounds like it must be somewhere else and some other time, but pursuing the truth is just studying and observing and practicing the present moment as something that itself is ultimate and true.

I can only be myself and nobody else. My experience here and now is beyond ideas or categories and so is everyone else's experience. So we could say we are living in the midst of enlightenment or the truth all the time. But we like to play with ideas that have no connection to reality, we love to dream and compare and imagine that "this can't be it" while "that surely must be it". As we are fantasizing about enlightenment like this, we are deep soaked in the pouring rain of the truth.

We might say that something will be discovered sooner or later, but it will be just discovering the present, that is not different from the present we can experience now already. It won't make us any better than others and it won't make us any more enlightened than a guy selling train tickets at the station who has never heard of Dogen. Now we should realize that there is definitely lots of things we can learn in Buddhism, learn about ourselves and others. We can learn very valuable things from a real Buddhist teacher. We can learn to understand Buddhism and learn to live a realistic life. These are extremely difficult tasks and not many people are able to finish these tasks. It would be just very silly to reduce Buddhism to a fantasy about one's enlightenment. It is about something else, something absolutely real, it is about our own experience and our real life. There is no reason to underestimate our own potential to be true people. But to practice and live the truth is something very concrete, something very everyday, something very real and has little to do with imagination. We may talk about enlightenment of others and our own for decades but our stomach will need food anyway and work will not be finished unless we go and finish it.

More Than a Picture

2008-03-16T23:20:00.017+01:00

In Buddhism we come across the problem of images. We may read about images of mountains, images of flowers, images of buddhas etc. We could say that even Buddhism itself is just an image that appears in our head.

What is Buddhism really? Isn't it just a big load of thoughts after all? I remember having a depression a few years ago and being frustrated as a Buddhist student. I got stuck in the middle of nowhere, I wasn't happy with the way my former teacher communicated with me and almost gave up Buddhism completely. I thought: Buddhism is just an idea, that's all. I thought: The truth itself does not care about Buddhism or any ism anyway.

An image is a picture or reflection, something we cannot touch. We cannot eat images of bread or vegetables. And when we eat real vegetables, although our brain makes images so we can see what is food and what is not, we eat something real after all. We could say that Buddhism is just something we imagine, but when we really sit down and practice zazen, no matter what we imagine, no matter what we see in front of ourselves as images, we do something substantial. When we fall in love and we cannot see our partner, we may play with images of her face or body, we may imagine her smile and laugh and movements. But only when we meet her can we experience something substantial. But the whole of reality is not just substantial, but also imaginary. It is both.

People sometimes tend to be lost in the world of images. They lose touch with reality and only dream. They imagine something they lost or imagine something they want. When they study Buddhism they imagine enlightenment and sometimes imagine they are this or that. But substantially their life usually seems very ordinary to them and they cannot find satisfaction in it. The less satisfaction they find, the more they tend to find something in their imagination.

But life is not only something substantial, but also our abstract thoughts and our images. We have to count on both aspects as they make the whole of reality. When we stop thinking and working with abstract concepts, we will lose the opportunity to understand something real, something that really happens here and now. But when we ignore the substantial aspect of life, we tend to stop caring about everyday life, we neglect the needs of our body and neglect the practical aspects of life. So when I met Mike Luetchford, I soon began to learn that Buddhism is neither a world of abstract thoughts only, nor everyday life without any thoughts. It is neither playing with images and ideas only, nor living like a primitive animal. It is both - but not something split. Some people are both, but split. For a while they dream about something crazy and then they actually do something crazy. In Buddhism we study concepts that are helpful and positive for human beings in general and then try to act as noble human beings, not as wild animals. When we harmonize these two aspects - noble philosophy and noble actions, we can find a new kind of satisfaction in our lives. This is not something that satisfies only ourselves, but also others, as they can benefit from our realism and proper actions. Of course, this is something that one has to study and learn for decades, but even today, when a beginner does something completely and properly, a lot of people benefit from such an action. We can start anytime, right now, we can learn this everyday and feel the satisfaction of such a life really right at the beginning of our Buddhist studies and practice. We can feel satisfaction when we observe people who are sincere and act properly and care about others and we can join them already today. We can do our best today. And it does not matter whether we are young or old, healthy or sick, big or small, bold or shy.

When we taste a strawberry, it is reality beyond the opposite of image and original existence, it is both. When we practice zazen, it is both an image and something substantial. Although these are just some words that appear as pictures in your head, I am trying to explain something real, something only a real person can experience. When we stop reading, writing and speaking, Buddhism will disappear. The truth will be there all the same, but Buddhism will not. To preserve Buddhism, it is necessary to study words and speak and act according to Buddhism.

Who Won the Game of Enlightenment?

2008-03-08T00:05:00.002+01:00

Not a long time ago someone brought up the issue of "enlightenment competition", or the game of "who is more enlightened than who". I agree that it is silly to compare people's enlightenment levels, it is totally off the mark.

I have read some comments on the problem by master Uchiyama, who was Kodo Sawaki's disciple and I wrote the following comments, trying to explain how I understand the problem, according to master Dogen's teaching and my own belief and experience.

There is no success or failure when it comes to the truth. The truth is beyond success or failure. We sometimes believe that we have failed to attain enlightenment or sometimes we believe we have succeeded and attained it. But when we just sit in zazen, there is no success or failure. When we just do something here and now, doing our best, being ourselves, there is no success or failure involved. A wise person does not consider himself or herself successful as opposed to those who lack wisdom. Actually, a wise person does not hinder himself or herself with wisdom, let alone with his or her own success in becoming wise. It is the truth itself that has to be expressed without being obstructed by ones' own ideas about himself or herself or others as higher or lower on the stepladder of wisdom.

We only speak of wisdom and stupidity, satori and delusion to point the direction of reality. And although we often speak about wisdom and stupidity as two different things, we actually realize in Buddhism that they are the same thing, essentially, as well as satori and delusion are the same thing, essentially. This Dogen's Buddhist teaching inspires us to be bold and transcend the duality of delusion and wisdom and be just ourselves completely over and over again, every day. In zazen there is no need to become somebody else. No need to attain satori. We needn't worry that our zazen is not successful. After all, it is our own zazen, so naturally, it is the best. To sit in zazen, beyond success or failure is the truth, the realization of Buddha's stepping into the real world beyond categories and levels of attainment.

Gaku Do Yo Jin Shu

2008-03-05T22:18:00.005+01:00

I actually completely forgot to ask the authors of Gakudo Yo Jin Shu translation for permission to publish the text. It was a text that was translated and edited by master Nishijima, Mike Luetchford and Mike Cross, not sure exactly who did what. So if you are interested in the text, we will find a way how to get it with their permission, okay? So I have deleted the text.

Gaku Do Yo Jin Shu / part one

2008-02-24T09:54:00.003+01:00

I decided to delete this part of Gakudo Yo Jin Shu, and the explanation is in the next post.

you can still read my comments, though

She said: Do something.

2008-02-23T11:44:00.004+01:00

My girfriend survived a terrible collision when skiing in Austria. We were on our sunny, blue sky, crispy snow skiing holidays near Salzburg when this thing happened. I learned a lot from it and feel very happy the consequences are basically nothing compared to the horror of the sight. We were practicing some carving turns with Jitka, my girlfriend on a piste where we were almost alone. I was watching Jitka from the other side of the piste. Before she started her turn somewhere in the middle of the slope's length she checked there was nobody coming from above and set off. When she was about half way through the turn, I spotted this dark rocket of a girl running at about 50 kph straight into Jitka's turning area. It took about two seconds before the two girls collided, body hitting body and screaming flew about 15 meters before falling down. Within the two seconds between I spotted the fast running girl and the crash, it occured to me: This can't be true, they are not going to collide, there is so much room for the girl to avoid Jitka. But before I could really think, maybe I yelled something but then the crash happened. It happened much quicker than a snap of fingers. I got to Jitka who was lying on her belly not moving and asked in a terrified voice: What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you? And she said: I don't know. DO something. DO something.

I had never before felt so useless. I knew I could not undone what had happened. And I knew I could not make Jitka healthy right there. I knew we could only wait and that she should not move. I said: I am not going to do anything. We are waiting for the paramedics. Don't move, don't move. Don't worry, the help is on their way.

And Jitka said and I thought she was going nuts, but later it turned out she was thinking clearly, she said: "We should have gone to lunch instead." About 5 minutes before the accident I suggested going for a lunch in a restaurant at the piste but Jitka wanted to ski some more. So that is what she meant.

The other girl was sitting there above Jitka bleeding from her nose and sobbing a bit. Paramedics arrived in 5 minutes or so, carefully checked both girls, carefully put Jitka on a stretcher and we skied with the stretcher to the road that was next to the piste and waited for the ambulance. I talked to Jitka a bit, she had problems breathing and felt pain all over her body, legs, arms, shoulders, chest, back... We thought some of her bones were broken and she - as it turned out later - suffered a mild concussion. She was wearing a helmet, but the ten year old girl hit her into her goggles rather than the helmet. We drove in the ambulance to the nearest town where a doctor could not say much without x rays and other stuff and sent Jitka to the nearest hospital that collects all kinds of ski accident patients from the area. So it took about 4 hours between the accident and the final x ray pictures and other checks before at last we found out to my huge relief that Jitka got away with bruises and mild concussion. This result compared to the picture of the crash that was replaying in my head for another day or so over and over again seemed fantastic. The other girl's mother took her daughter to Salzburg where they lived. Later she called and asked about Jitka and said her daughter only had bruised chest. She was hurt mentally though, crying all the time as she felt bad having skied so fast and hit Jitka so hard.

Jitka stayed in the hospital for two days to make sure nothing worse happens. I spent one day driving around the local towns and police stations and Red Cross to arrange formalities. It was a day of intense German practice for me. I only speak simple German but when things are necessary to be done, grammatical mistakes don't matter.
Jitka is back at home and slowly recovering.

How does the whole thing relates to Buddhism. It is all Buddhism. In Buddhism, actual, real life is what matters much more than opinions. Actions are more important than opinions or how clever you are. When Jitka said to me: Do something, it was the greatest Buddhist teaching you can ever get. She was not interested in my ideas or feelings at that critical moment. Do something was all that was necessary to do. And ironically, the best thing to do was to do nothing but be there, making sure Jitka does not do something either, waiting for the professional help. But the rest of the day, all people involved, the skiing paramedics, the ambulance driver, the local doctor, the hospital staff, the x ray staff, the janitors in the hospital, the administration, it was all DO SOMETHING, it was all pure Buddhism.

That was an accident that looked terrible and might have ended up as a tragedy. That was an accident that provided loads of Buddhist lessons in one day. That was an accident that made me a simpleton without much interest in intellectual matters for a day or so. It made me cry as I couldn't help but recollect the picture of the two girls crashing and flying through the air. It could have been much worse. If I believed in personal God, I would say God gave us a wonderful gift - a gift of life, love, caring, fun, sun, blue skies, laughter. As a Buddhist, I feel there is an immense gift in the present so positive as it is now for me and Jitka, so much luck. But it applies to everyone, everyone in the world, when things are going more or less okay, is given this immense gift of joy.

I bow to all people who DO something beyond their limited opinions, who work hard to help those who need help, who provide what is necessary to survive in the modern world. Beyond our opinions and feelings, there is immense love. We cannot see it or touch it as it is everywhere. We can do something for others and help them, not because we love them, although we often do, but because we are, essentially, love itself and our sincere actions express this original love.

Going Beyond Intellect

2008-02-14T09:15:00.005+01:00

In my last post I was critical of Becky's attitude to Buddhism and called it "intellectual".

Jules said: "Having an intellectual attitude does not mean she's unaware of those things beyond intellectual understanding. Humans are intellectual beings. Abandoning intellectual attitudes would be pointless, and impossible anyway."

That's right, even if we have an intellectual attitude, we can still appreciate things beyond intellectual understanding. In Buddhism we study philosophy and think about it, that is no problem. But we should also let go of opinions - without letting go of them the path to the truth is closed. Every day through acting in the present moment we can experience the balanced state of letting go and experiencing what is beyond ideas.

But some people have doubts about teachers who say bold things like "this is the truth" or "zazen is the true gate to Buddha Dharma". Anyway, such people are halfway through the door of Buddhist life. Once we enter the Buddhist life, we leave our common ideas about what is right and wrong behind and let our teacher guide us to the truth without relying on our limited views or limited views of others. When we let our teacher guide us, we sooner or later understand that their words are not about "yes" or "not", but about something that is beyond "yes" or "not" and that something is reality, the truth itself.

As we cannot fully evaluate zazen intellectually, we cannot intellectually reach the meaning of zazen. We can only fully grasp - beyond thinking - the meaning of zazen when we do it. But some people still limit zazen as if it was one of many different methods or activities. According to Master Dogen that is clearly a mistake. When we study Buddhist philosophy and then sit in zazen abandoning our ideas about Buddhism, when we just sit without deciding whether zazen is necessary or not, without trying to be more or less enlightened, without comparing our level of wisdom with the level of wisdom of others, without deciding whether we understand or not, when we just sit, that is shin jin datsu raku, let go of body and mind, which is entering the realm of the truth. Entering the realm of the truth is not something you know or don't know, it is not something you are aware or unaware of, it is something ungraspable, something beyond words, beyond one's limited ideas about the limits of body and mind.

This zazen that is beyond words and beyond limited ideas about body and mind is what cannot be argued about or evaluated or compared to other things. It is zazen of the whole universe, not just mine or yours. It is zazen whose meaning is universal for all things and beings everywhere, no matter whether they practice it or not. When we practice zazen ourselves, there is no need for others to practice it, as our zazen covers the whole universe. When another person practices zazen, there is no need for us to practice it, as their zazen already covers the whole universe. But as we cannot experience the other person, it is up to us to do what Buddha did without putting his experience above experience of other beings and things.

Becky, at Last!

2008-02-12T20:16:00.001+01:00

I am glad Becky reacted to my post. At least I can try to explain some delicate issues of Buddhism to myself and others.

Here is what Becky posted in the comments section at my blog:

Becky: ................. "there is nothing wrong with Becky, but her attitude is still intellectual" - written by myself

"Thanks for telling me.I feel certain tendencies among Buddhists that criticism or even just asking question is considered intellectual, unenlightened, etc. The good old end of discussion:SIT MORE, FOOL!

Roman: The funny thing is that - again I am saying - there is nothing wrong with intellectual discussion. Ever since I began to study Buddhism my head has been busy thinking about Buddhism. But at a certain point I realized that there is something beyond intellectual arguments. We need intellectual arguments and at the same time we - in Buddhism - go beyond them. Even if we don't want to leave them, we leave them over and over again when we just act. People are buddhas - sometimes against their will or belief.

I don't think Becky is "unenlightened" or less true than someone who tells her to go beyond intellect. To say "your understanding is still intellectual" does not mean you are a bad person or stupid or whatever less than others. It just means what it is - your understanding is still intellectual - not willing to give up your opinions completely, which is your choice. Again, that does not make you a bad person or anything. That just makes you a person who is not willing to give up opinions. Nothing good or wrong with that.

To say zazen is Buddhism itself can be understood as an opinion. But such a statement is beyond opinions. If you consider such a statement opinion, if people think that Buddhist teaching is set of opinions, then they misunderstand Buddhism. The teaching points to somewhere where opinions are put aside, in the realm of reality that is beyond thinking.

Becky: While I totally see their point and I actually agree to a certain degree, I cannot see a fundamental difference when people post/utter something in the first place.See, I did not ASK whether *I* have to be like that.

Roman: Sure, you don't have to do anything and don't have to agree or believe in anything. But if you come to a club, blog, Zen center, temple or whatever place of Buddhists who believe in the truth that is beyond thinking, they will assume you are interested in Buddhism and will let you know if you push the wrong button. Then you may argue that you came to such a Buddhist club just to look around or enjoy peace or relax. But you must count on that a few people will give you directions as they assume you are interested. Now it seems I am telling you what you should do or think or be like. No, I am just trying to explain what Buddhism is. And I am explaining it to you, myself and everyone else. I am grateful for your arguments as they help me understand Buddhism myself. See, I said "understand Buddhism". We try to understand what Buddhism is and at the same time we try to go beyond that understanding. Both is necessary.

If you come to a place where Buddhists gather and they react to your ideas critically, it is just part of communicating. It does not mean you are being labeled or pushed out or pushed in. It is up to you what you do with such critical comments

Becky: I am just curious how someone can condemn one thing (and use arguments from scriptures) and say the other issues do not exist. Indeed he/she can do that as long as he/she likes it. But I didn't start posting stuff like that. I just respond to that. Wasn't that the point of comments?

Roman: Because we have to choose. Tomorrow I have to choose whether I will take a tram or go by car to work. There is only one way - not two. I choose Buddhism and Buddhism chooses zazen. You may disagree and say, what about standing still or walking reciting mantras. I choose Buddhism of zazen, that is all. You can choose Buddhism of mantras or walking or whatever. The problem is that a lot of people think tolerance is the basic rule and that rule means that we should not insist on one thing. But in real life we have to insist on one way all the time - even if you never go to work hte same way, you still go to work some way and that way is one. THat is the point of no choice in Buddhism. There is no choice. Just one thing. We always sit zazen the same way. We repeat something the same way over and over again and find freedom in this "not choosing". The people who argue that freedom or flexibility is necessary will have tremendous problems to reach the truth, most of them don't reach the truth at all. THere is infinite room for freedom and flexibility within one second of one's life. THere is so much freedom in our simple acts every day that no amount of choice can supersede such freedom. Even if I try to make tea exactly how I made it yesterday, it will be quite different today. Every single moment is something fresh and new so Buddhists usually don't feel obstructed by repeating the same thing over and over again in the same way. When we insist on a lot of options, a lot of ideas, a lot of styles, we cannot find out what we actually are. When we stop moving and stop arguing in zazen, the cloudy, unsatisfying realm of invidivual thinking and feelings and ideas clears up and we can see what we actually are. We can see through ourselves. We meet ourselves in this non-flexible silence. When we practice zazen, we don't move. But that does not mean we don't move at all. We move a bit all the time. But the point is that we accept silence and not moving as standard. That silent, non moving sitting is the essence, the gate to "what we are". We know what we are as long as we think - men, women, rich, poor, happy, sad, active, passive, educated, confused... But when we just sit and let go of thinking, what are we then? To sit down and stop moving is the simplest way how to touch the truth and be touched by the truth. This is my choice, this Dogen Buddhist style is my choice. It is not everyone's choice. Even if we practice zazen all life, it does not mean we have accepted what is beyond thinking. I believe that every single person who sits in zazen is a living Buddha. But at the same time I don't believe that every single person who sits in zazen is willing to give up himself or herself and be "just self ". Some people sit in zazen waiting for satori and some people sit in zazen thinking there is no need to give up and open to the truth. Some people sit in zazen and believe they have attained enlightenment. Some people sit in zazen and believe in their opinions. There are all kinds of cases. Sincere Buddhists give up and let the truth speak the sermon of "just that".

Becky: You have another classic dogma in your post: The teacher dogma, which I also personally reject."you have to find a teacher you can trust."So I have to? What if not? Are you sure? Why? Can you compare both approaches? Really?Your whole concept of teacher is not the only possible concept.

Roman: Again, it is not the only concept there is, but it is the concept I have accepted. To me , my teacher is not someone who offers a plate of fruit and I pick an apple and leave the pears. To me, my teacher is a living Buddha whom I accept completely, I accept him with all his colors and shades. I accept him as I accept the blue sky and clouds. I accept him as I accept earth beneath my feet and cold in winter. I accept him as I accept spring and summer. I accept him as I accept growing and deconstruction, pleasure and pain. Life and death. I accept him as a real person that I can learn from. The funny thing is that my teacher never makes me do anything, but he inspires me to choose reality. I don't have to, but I can. And he helps me to connect with reality.

Becky: I don't care whether my teacher eats meat or not. If he smokes. It's not about attributes. It's not about techniques. For me at least. Before you think I don't have a teacher, no, I DO have one. But I know people who don't like to have one and still "develop". I would never say they HAVE TO.Tell me how that assumption is not intellectual and dogmatic, I am curious.

Roman: Even if you say you have a teacher, it does not necessarily mean you have accepted the teacher completely. He or she may be a kind of friend, or an advisor, a company, an instructor, a philosopher or a bit of everything. But a Buddhist teacher and a Buddhist student make a connection that is beyond human affairs. The truth sparks between them all the time. No matter if they clash or sit together in peace, the truth emerges in that relationship all the time. It is beyond personal affairs, yet it is still growing out of personal problems, dreams, ideas, ambitions, feelings. The relationship of a student and a teacher is a personal relationship that goes beyond personal. Even if they just sip tea together, everything happens in that moment. To accept a teacher, first we have to wash our mouth, brain, feet, heart, hands. We have to give up completely. We have to become a bowl so clean that it can accept pure water without adding any flavor or color to it. After all, we are that pure water. In the teacher we accept ourselves. When we come to the teacher, he or she says: Go back. Go back to yourself. Be yourself. Find the truth yourself.

Becky: Best "Zazen" for me is avoiding "formal" Zazen. I focus on practicing in everyday life only.The reason is that I tend to give Zazen too much importance. It's easier for me in a different way. My approach, not yours.Please consider to stop assuming that other people don't know what "true Buddhism" is. It's not an enlightenment competition. Yes, I know what you are talking about. No, I prefer to not focus on that too much.

Roman: A lot of Buddhists are afraid of the form of zazen as if it was a cage or prison. They believe the form of zazen is something that prevents them from being themselves. I think I have never had a problem with the form as I am one of the laziest people in the world. When I was loaded with homework of koans in Rinzai Zen, I was annoyed. When I had to chant, I was annoyed. When I had to bow 108 times, I was extremely annoyed. So when I found out Dogen Zen of just sitting in zazen, I was excited. At last no work for me! At last I can be what I am just here and now without having to solve koans, no need to bow 108 times, no need to travel to exotic monasteries, no need to do anything special. For me zazen is liberation of a lazy person I am. Plus you don't have to worry about enlightenment. So for me no problem, but for others, zazen every day is a big problem. They need a formal variety or formal freedom. I still believe you can find your true self just when you sit down and stop moving. It is very stupid, but very real. No ideas can beat the simple truth of zazen. Zazen is the stupidest of all ideas as it is no idea at all. To practice zazen means to be ultimately stupid. But this kind of stupidity is also the ultimate wisdom. It is the wisdom of trees, grass, beetles, flowers, clouds, stars and cosmic dust.

Becky: You educate people about TRUE BUDDHISM which is just the same as "being a REAL BUDDHIST".I found it unhealthy to educate people how much different/special my alleged knowledge/insight/whatever is. Is it okay for you?I left the Zen establishment for many of these reasons. And I feel much better to not even consider myself a Buddhist.Becky

Roman: I used to want to leave the Zen establishment for the same reasons. The teachers I met - most of them - didn't seem to be true, although they kept saying "truth, truth, truth" . There are people who keep saying " I know the truth" and they stink like something. And there are people who are silent and you like them because modesty is a nice thing. And there are people who talk or write about truth and you put them into the same category with the pretencious ones. But in the middle of these fake Buddhists you might find someone who is sincere and actually not bragging at all. Even if they sound arrogant at times, they just point to IT. When they feel a sincere person can accept their loud voice, they are loud. When they feel others are sleepy, they are loud. Or sometimes they are loud just for the sake of it. I have never claimed that "I am a Buddhist teacher", right? I myself have a teacher. But you don't devide your life into two different periods like a "student" and then all of a sudden "a teacher". in real life, you study at university and you are not a teacher. Then you get a job as a teacher and become a teacher right there. It does not work like that in Buddhism. Just as you sit down for the first time in your life, your first zazen ever is teaching others. And whatever you utter about Buddhism as a beginner or a senior student is teaching. Soem of our words may reflect what true Buddhism is, some of our words may show we don't understand. And some of our Buddhist teacher's words don't hit the target and some of them do. So Buddhists always learn to teach and always learn to learn and always teach others to learn and teach others to teach. A Buddhist teacher never stops learning from others. A Buddhist student never stops teaching others by acting no matter what he or she do. Above all, we are real human beings and that is the most important thing.

Thank you very much for pointing out these important issues, Becky. Without doubts and ideals, we will never get anywhere. I hope you can be yourself - the best of your self and enjoy the best of your self. Buddhism does not matter much. You do.

What Makes a Real Buddhist?

2008-02-12T13:10:00.000+01:00

Buddhists don't eat meat, Buddhists don't watch naked pictures, Buddhists don't believe in God, etc. These are all some kind of ideas about Buddhists. Not necessarily very good ideas. Sometimes you hear: If you don't practice zazen, you are not a Buddhist. Some people think this is a dogma.

The problem is that once you are interested in Buddhism sincerely, you have to find a teacher you can trust. Then when the teacher says: Don't believe in me, believe in the truth, then you have to believe in the truth. If the teacher eats meat and you still believe the teacher is a real Buddhist, then you can see a real Buddhist may eat meat. If the teacher practices zazen every day and says that Buddhism is based on the practice of zazen everyday, then you also naturally want to practice zazen every day. Instead of intellectual speculations, you follow the teacher's teaching and learn. If you believe that the teacher's aim is something better than filling your mind with fixed dogmas, if you believe the teacher wants to show you the way to the truth, then you follow the shown path and discover the truth step by step. No matter if you eat meat or watch naked pictures.

If you don't believe that a Buddhist may look at naked pictures or eat meat, find a teacher who fits your own ideas about Buddhism. But don't expect to find true Buddhism in your own box of intellectual ideas about Buddhism. True Buddhism is the truth itself, beyond religions and philosophy. To say that zazen is not necessary is an intellectuals' dream. To say that eating meat is wrong is an intellectual's dream. What I am writing now is a direction, not the truth itself. To practice zazen is to sit right in the middle of the truth.

Extending Inwards and Outwards

2008-02-07T21:40:00.000+01:00

A few days ago I was reading Not Always So by Shunryu Suzuki and came across his expression “extend your practice”. I have always imagined Shunryu Suzuki as someone who perfectly extended his practice from zazen to everyday life. That may be so, but I have never met him. The point is that “extending” may be easily misunderstood. I have misunderstood this term a lot ever since I came across it.

To extend is something like to stretch, to continue – I guess every native English speaker knows, but as a foreigner, I am just making sure I understand the word – so we may imagine a process when the peaceful mind and energy of zazen continues throughout the day. That is okay and that usually happens to a certain degree. But there is a danger of idealism when we imagine how we should extend our practice. In the past whenever I looked at the book by Suzuki roshi and saw his face on the cover, I thought – surely I haven’t extended my practice into everyday life like him. Far from it! And for some reason, whenever I picked that book and read a couple of pages, I felt some guilt and failure – I am not as true and wise as Suzuki roshi was. And then I wondered: What do I do wrong? A few days ago as I was reading something from the book and came across the word “extend your practice”, I had to put down the book. I don’t want to nurture some feelings of failure as a Buddhist. Why is it that whenever I read something by Brad, I never feel guilt? I feel ok and peaceful and happy with the things around me and inside me. But Suzuki roshi is another case, although I am sure he teaches the same thing. For one thing, we should realize that Suzuki roshi came from Japan and had loads of experience as a Buddhist teacher and had had to endure very strict practice at traditional Buddhist temples. In the US he was teaching a group of very – I assume – idealistic and romantic people from California – in the sixties. Those people were into poetry, arts, freedom and pacifism. Suzuki roshi’s lectures recorded in that book show how much he tried to correct their false views of Buddhism and themselves. I think his strict teaching causes my mind to imagine a perfect Buddhist who had no problem to “extend his practice”. But when we look at the expression “extend your practice”, we may discover an “error”. There is nothing wrong with roshi’s expression, but our mind may misinterpret the expression so much that it actually does not mean what roshi meant. So there is an error between the message and the recipient. The message failed to be delivered!

To extend one’s practice – in my imagination – was a picture of time that is spent in perfect Buddhist wisdom and peace. I would imagine something like this: practice zazen, stand up, go to the kitchen, put the rakusu back into its envelope, change clothes… so far so good. Then about twenty minutes later some first confusion or anger appears, some kind of laziness, impatience, arguments… End of the extension. Back to the “wrong life” and look at the photograph of Suzuki roshi with a sigh: Oh well, of course, I am a failure compared to him.”

Today I had a different idea. I sat down to the kitchen table, began to eat some blue cheese with bread and what follows is what I figured out about extended practice. Thank you, blue cheese.

Firstly, it has nothing to do with imagination. True Buddhism, a Buddhist state or satori have nothing to do with imagination. That is why you cannot find true Buddhism in books, although books may help you a lot to find true Buddhism in your own life or find a true teacher, etc. Secondly, to extend one’s practice has nothing to do with the idea of time as a line. Usually we imagine that we might stay calm for five minutes, then get angry and then struggle to find our inner peace again. To extend one’s practice is not about time. You don’t extend your practice into hours or days or years. That would not be practice but extending your fantasy. We cannot live tomorrow or yesterday so we cannot actually extend anything. It is only an idea. So what does Suzuki roshi mean? As I was eating the blue cheese, I got it: You extend your practice into your everyday life not as something that stretches forward, but something that stretches inward and outward at the same time. You don’t try to eat peacefully for five minutes. You just eat now. That is all that matters. You eat now, now, now, now, now and now again. It is easier than it seems when I write about it, but at the same time it is extremely difficult if we don’t understand the value of the present moment.

Look, let’s forget how good or bad we are at Buddhism. That is not a good direction for us. Let’s not judge ourselves. Judging ourselves will only fill our minds with labels and categories that are useless. It is not necessary to be wise, peaceful, patient, kind… just do something now as if you were totally stupid. A totally stupid person is not trying to become this or that and does not care if he or she has extended anything. But a totally stupid person has full access to reality here and now. The problem in Buddhism is that totally stupid people are not interested in Buddhism, let alone be able to explain what Buddhism is. So here is one of the most difficult challenges of Buddhism – become stupid without giving up our ability to understand things intellectually. We have to be some kind of stupid intellectuals or intellectual idiots. We have to be stupid when we eat, drink, walk and intelligent when we communicate or read or write. We have to learn to make use of our intellectual capacity whenever we need it and let go of it as soon as it is not used any more. Some people are very clever when they eat and very stupid when they talk. I am definitely one of them quite often.

So why does Suzuki roshi stresses the importance of “expanding our practice into everyday life”. First off, he does not stress that point. He does not stress or insist on anything. He encourages his students to forget his talks. So it is our Western mind that wants to take notes and remember: “Extend your practice, don’t forget to extend your practice! “ But how can we actually extend our practice when we keep such categories in our minds? We only extend our intellectual knowledge like that. We extend our fantasies about Buddhist failures and lack of enlightenment.

So let’s extend our practice inward and outward, integrating with the universe here and now, direct your practice to the present moment, not future or past. And to direct our practice inward and outward, we have to forget about “inward, outward, direct, moment, extend”. We just do something. Then we are completely involved in the universe. That sounds big but you cannot expect the universe to do small things. The universe does to us only what the universe is able to do – do something complete, perfect, total. When we are totally stupid acting just now, the universe looks after us completely. When we interfere with the universal ability, when we disturb the universal ability with our ideas, categories, labels, we are still completely there, in the universe, in the present moment, but we cannot appreciate it, express it and move freely – we feel separated, cut off from the truth. We don’t feel complete and we look for something. So it is necessary to give up ourselves and just do something. Then there is no need to look for a special state or compare ourselves to others. Everyone is perfectly realized in the present moment. When we forget these theories for now, we can shake hands with the truth.

OK, but when you look back and read a biography of a famous Zen master, you pick up loads of images of a great master, a great life, a wise person, maybe an enlightened being. That is what we usually do – collect pictures of great minds, great teachers, great thinkers… but we should forget these pictures and dig into the treasure that is hidden in the lives and teachings of these people – the greatness is not the picture, the greatness does not lie in the stretch of 70 years of zazen or 30 years of enlightened teaching – the greatness lies in the very ordinary body and mind that is just a very ordinary body and mind and is able to be a very ordinary body and mind in the present moment. No labels, no separation, no judging, no greatness, no rank, no achievement, just this. Although I say “no achievement”, it is necessary to study and practice with a teacher who, although having achieved the way of every day practice beyond ranks, has gone beyond such an achievement. Only such a teacher can lead us toward the truth of here and now.

This. This is the point of all great teachers’ lives and teaching. Just this. If you don’t believe that THIS is right where you are, dig in the present moment (not your future or past) over and over again until you find it shining at you brighter than a diamond.

Or Do Psychoanalyze Me

2008-02-05T12:56:00.001+01:00

Maybe my last post sounded like it is strictly forbidden to psychoanalyze. That is not what I meant. You or I or anyone can psychoanalyze anyone as much as they want to. The question is how does that help anyone? How does it help your practice or lives of others? We cannot stop our mind from producing random thoughts. But we should not let our mind (separated from body) control our lives. When we take our random thoughts seriously, they will change the course of our lives and we may get entangled in some kind of intellectual psycho trap. To psychoanalyze is a distraction - no big deal - it is the same as not paying attention when someone is talking to us. It is not crime. It is just a kind of losing time. It is losing an opportunity to wake up and be ourselves. On the other hand, why not talk about behavior of others? I think real behavior is something we can study and think about. Why is she rude? Why is he kind? Why is she so sad? Why is he so angry? Without labeling others, we can try to understand the behavior of others in the context of their real lives. That does not lead to frustration or hatred. It is a kind of realistic approach - we want to find out what the real situation of a person, a friend, a teacher, a parent, a partner, a student, is.

For most people interested in psychology, a human being is a mind accompanied with a body. The body is something extra. Our dreams, fears, feelings, frustration and anger is all that matters. In Buddhism dealing with this kind of psychological approach is a waste of time. In Buddhism our fears, dreams, frustration, anger and feelings only accompany our true self. They are like clouds that cannot deny the power of sun. So we learn to discover the power of sun, the true self and let go of the clouds that come and go. To discover the power of true self, we have to discover how body and mind are basically one thing. When body and mind become one, all fears and dreams and frustration are gone. I know they are not gone forever. But the most important thing is that it is possible to open up and let go of thoughts, opinions, complexes, frustration, anger, etc. whenever we just do something wholeheartedly. That is where our efforts should aim - instead of psychological analysis we should aim to act realistically in the present. Those fears and dreams and frustration will eventually give up. At least for a few hours. For a few days. That is enough. Then we can start again. We can wake up over and over again. Buddhist life is like a bottomless cola. No reason to stop coming for more. Unlike cola, you will not get sick when coming back for more and more reality.

Don't Psychoanalyze Me

2008-02-04T11:16:00.000+01:00

There is a film in which a couple has an argument and the woman says to her boyfriend: Don't psychoanalyze me!

Of course, we all have some karma and some subconscious and these things show in our daily behavior. In Buddhism, we have a tool to find out who we are - we study Buddhist philosophy, practice zazen and try to put things into practice in our everyday life. Although there is no doubt Western psychology is a valuable area for people, Buddhism goes beyond the area of Western psychology. Anyway, Buddhism has something we might call psychological tools. We do not psychoanalyze a person, but we do analyze how a person interacts with the world, we analyze how a person is divided into body and mind and how these two components become one. We do not worry about what is going on in our subconscious. We let go of it in zazen and everyday activities. So a Buddhist is someone who transcends his or her psychology when active in a Buddhist state. For example when you just eat, you go beyond your mental problems – as you eat, your body and mind become one and you achieve a Buddhist state, a balanced state of doing something in the present.

To psychoanalyze a Buddhist teacher is way off the mark for a Buddhist student. A Buddhist student's task is to study himself or herself in zazen and everyday life. Once we choose a teacher, we study and practice with him or her, without psychoanalyzing the teacher. But we can learn that a teacher is still an ordinary being with all kinds of difficulties in his or her life. That is a Buddhist lesson. But this lesson does not encourage us to psychoanalyze anyone. If we tend to psychoanalyze anyway, we should just go back to the present moment and interact with the world realistically. That will benefit everyone. In case we are professional psychologists, it is our job to psychoanalyze - at work. Such a job is also Buddhist practice and we can psychoanalyze in a Buddhist state - that means we can work as professional psychologists and maintain a Buddhist state while working.

So there is no reason to analyze Jundo Cohen's ego or Brad Warner's ego and their possible complexes. For example I also have some mental problems. I get nervous when I have to speak in front of people I don’t know well or when I have to play an instrument in front of a group for the first time. So what – I may choose to seek a psychologist’s help or not. But I know that in my everyday life zazen cuts off the extremes of my karma and helps me act realistically and eventually sort out things. Life is sometimes difficult, some situations are difficult, which is our valuable experience of a human being. Buddhism does not erase a person's karma. But it helps us find what is real in the present moment and it helps us find this reality over and over again. This reality is something that has no limits and no psychology can reach its depth. The depth of the present moment equals the depth of a real person. There is infinite freedom in this and all karma disappears in that very moment. We should not forget that such a moment of complete freedom is extremely short. On the other hand, we can enjoy such moments as often as we want to - when we are willing to let go of our delusions about ourselves and others in the present moment.

Intimacy of Everyday Life

2008-01-29T20:31:00.000+01:00

When I discovered the possibility to blog, I was excited. You write something and actually, someone far away, on a different continent, can read it. It is public. Anyone can read it. That was the first exciting moment. Anyway, anyone can blog, so what. It has become ordinary. But then the next step was that I sent some essays of mine to Nishijima roshi and he wrote something positive and linked my blog to his own blog. My teacher Mike warned me that I should see the difference between reality and blogs. I opened my eyes wide. I mean I tried to see what was going on. Ever since I have tried to see my blogging realistically. And I have been checking what effect it has had on others and myself. Another think Mike told me once was that you never know what effects such writing or speaking somewhere about Buddhism may have. Even if it seems it is useless or to no avail, there may be someone somewhere who is realistically affected by your efforts. I think we guys at Dogen sangha ( I mean all of us, students, teachers...) have faith in reality. At least this is my impression. Having posted this or that, having established a blog, I haven't become better than others. But my writing has some effect on others. What effect exactly, it is not clearly known. At least not yet. But I have already seen a real effect once. I have been publishing some articles about Buddhism at this Czech web site for a few years. No matter how good or bad those articles are, last summer, at the Czech retreat with Mike, there was this guy and he told me he came to the retreat on the grounds of having read my essays at the Czech website. He came to meet Mike and learn from Mike and practice zazen with us based on my articles. Now this is not bragging, this is a fact. And the fact is more important than my personal smallness or greatness. In that moment I realized there is nothing to be proud about when a Buddhist teacher links your blog to his own. It is just a link, a chain, a hand given so we can all help each other practice and study the truth. I have become a little, a tiny little link. And anyone who comes to practice with us, in England, Scotland or with Brad in Santa Monica, becomes a link. We all become a real thing when we do something real in the real world. And when we do something real in the world of Buddhism, we become real Buddhists. Beyond good and bad, beyond great and small. You can cook, or you can make a kesa, or you can look after a website or you can find a place for a retreat. I am a horrible cook, a clumsy person with few manual skills. But that is no excuse. I also have to help others manually, help the cooks, clean the rooms, etc. Those are real things.

Anyway, lately I have been more active here at this blog and at my new Czech blog. And the Czech blog is pretty much ignored, but what does it mean? There are still three or four people or who knows how many people who somewhere practice Buddhism in the Czech Republic and come and visit my blog and may learn something about Dogen's Buddhism. At least there are links to real Buddhist texts.

There are people who do something - buy a brand new Ferrari or win the World Cup or marry someone gorgeous and then they are proud. Maybe it is childish. Children want such things - they want to be praised, they want a fancy toy, a sweet candybar. Then they stop crying - this is one of my favorite Kodo Sawaki's ideas about children and adults. Now we can notice how long such a feeling lasts when we are adults. And even children are not happy just because they got something fancy yesterday. So these things are very impermanent.

There is something more important than feeling proud or winning or getting a crowd of admirers. It is being faithful to the truth. I cannot divide my life into a world of internet and a world of my real behavior in the real world. This blog should not be a mask of what I am in in real life. I used to write here or rather post here my essays that I'd carefully edited and checked before posting. I didn't have enough courage to write spontaneously like I am doing it now. ( This has been edited a bit anyway). Now I am risking that I might end up writing something silly. But I want to express something. When I was at work today after spending a week at home having lots of time to read and post about Buddhism, at work I realised clearly that my real life is THAT, not my intellectual love for Buddhism. My real life is my everyday life, not my ideas about what I am or not. An actual, everyday life is what makes a Buddhist. All those theories only help us go back to the kitchen and do the dishes.

We cannot be happy or satisfied based on some status in the air, or a social status or having published a few books or having won a Nobel Prize. We have to find the real self in our real life and find satisfaction there. Then our blogs or books or whatever we do publicly will be like letters we send and don't worry about. You plant a seed and sometime it will become a tree. Now it does not matter if it will be a tree or not. And when it will be a tree, it won't matter who planted it. We stress master Dogen's wonderful legacy, but to master Dogen this is nothing. He does not care. He did his job in the 13th century. In Buddhism, we can only find satisfaction of being completely true and real in the present moment. We cannot find such satisfaction in the past or future. So even master Dogen could only live a Buddhist life as a person of the present moment.

When we send a letter and don't worry about it, it does not mean we don't care about others and the world. Compassion lies in our activity, not in our feelings. You do things not because you love someone or hate someone but because to do something is our nature. In our everyday behavior we help both those who we like and those who we don't like. And even if we act without judging others, we do have emotions and feelings. We do care about others but that is not the point. When I say "I love you" it may be true, but it is just a shadow of reality. When I actually do something, it doesn't matter if I love you. When we do something true, something realistic, it will help everyone. When doing something, we express our love. When we say "love", it is like tears rolling down our cheeks. It is natural to cry at times, but that is not the point. We don't express our love by tears or words about love. They don't show if you really love or not. Your actions show it.

There is a koan about a student who returns to a master after a long, long time, but the teacher is very cold to him, so the student asks: "Why are you so cold to me, didn't we have a deep intimate relationship?" And the teacher says: "There is deep intimacy in our everyday conduct." So that is the teacher's expression of love and care. Everyday conduct.

So there is similarity between pride and tears and saying "I love you". Those are extra things. People usually try to base their lives on extra things and then they are shocked when the whole life collapses. You cannot base your marriage on words, and you cannot find a true Buddhist teacher who based his or her Buddhism on some kind of personal success or fame or status. A true husband carries out his marriage through actions and also true Buddhists find the most intimate part of their lives in simple, everyday actions. Then such people may feel free to cry whenever they feel like it. And true husbands say "I love you" whenever they feel like it. And I say "Good luck" to all of you.

Brad's Disgusting Great Best Ever Article

2008-01-29T12:58:00.000+01:00

As if Brad needed my defence. He does not need my defence but let me accompany his latest take on Buddhism and zazen with some reflection of my own. Firstly, his latest SG article is a Bull's Eye, no matter how far from the target his arrow may have landed. Maybe he has hit the target, who knows, but the problem is that most people only see it from their own point of view.

Anyway, people in general hate it when you push something down their throats. I used to date a very intelligent woman - about 15 years ago? And at that time I was all about zazen. Zazen this, zazen that. More, much more than these days, mind you. I would talk about zazen all the time and to everybody. And my girlfriend was really patient until one day she said to me: "Could you replace the word zazen with something else? I'm fed up with the word."

All we guys who try to somehow explain what Buddhism is to others, no matter how qualified or underqualified we are to do this, all we do is somehow push a bit by bit, a little by little, something we have learned or mislearned about Buddhism. Sometimes we are obnoxious, sometimes we push really hard, sometimes we let go. An experienced teacher will sooner or later get a kind of feeling for the right amount of pushing in different situations and different people. But if you don't push at all, you have no chance to tell people what Buddhism is. Anything you say about Buddhism is a kind of pushing, be it pushing towards or away from Buddhism. Some people think Brad pushed too hard in his article. But all he actually did was that he just did what he could do in that situation. He did something, probably really sincerely. And that pushing might -no matter how disliked the article is in general - save someone from a lot of suffering. And that is the main point. He aimed and shot, now it is up to us to make good use of the shot. We should not wait where Brad's arrows end up - we should follow his example and do something wholeheartedly, too. Now, this is pushing, right?

If you, Brad, read this, sorry for being such a parasite of your own efforts recently. I hope this is only a temporary tendency. But anyway, Buddhism is learned and taught in all kinds of versions and different examples of the same thing. Different teachers and different students repeat - or at least try to repeat - the same thing, over and over again. So I hope Brad has no problem with my comments on his own work.

Bull's Eye - My Take

2008-01-27T16:00:00.000+01:00

Brad Warner has posted a new thing called Bulls' Eye at his blog. Please go and read it so that I don't have to repeat the story. If you have already read it, then let me comment on the situation a bit.

Firstly, I am grateful to Brad that he has written the article. It is a very important principle of Buddhism. Brad has written things that I cannot rewrite or write better or add anything. But this article about Bull's Eye is something I have decided to explain in my own way, without trying to disagree with Brad. I agree with Brad. I just have a few words, my own take on the problem. So here we go.

It seems that the main task in Buddhism lies in learning to live precisely, perfectly, wisely and concentrating all the time. Especially zen is popular as something about perfect shooting, perfect cooking, perfect eating, perfect talking, perfect sleeping... There are loads of books about masters who were supposed to live like that. Such masters have had crowds of followers and admirers. But Buddhism is not exactly about that kind of perfect life.

When you drop a bowl at a Buddhist retreat, you may feel ashamed of your insufficient concentration. When you spill some soup, you may see the evidence you are still thousands miles away from "Zen". When the master spills soup, it is just an evidence that he or she - in all their perfectness - must show something a bit ordinary from time to time to encourage their students. But this notion about imperfect students and perfect masters who only make mistakes to entertain their students, is not Buddhism.

Of course, we have some Buddhists ideals and they are important. Without these ideals, we would have no idea where to go, what to do as Buddhists. WIthout ideals, we would keep walking around in circles or follow some devils. We need some ideals. But we should not stick to them. Kodo Sawaki taught: "Do yo want satori? Wake up? Just put the bowl on the table properly." So we can see he stressed the way we do things, we should do things carefully, wholeheartedly. We should act kindly towards others and towards things, too. There is no reason to smash things, drop everything on the floor, yell at others. At times it is necessary to yell - but that is a specific situation. In general, there is no reason to yell and there is no reason to throw things around. So how can we explain that a master of archery missed a target and exclaimed: Bull's Eye?

The thing is our effort in every moment is more important that results of this effort. Effort in this moment is something real, it is our life, while results are future or past, they are images in our head. We imagine results such as "enlightenment" or "complete understanding" or "master". We cannot totally deny such results. My teacher Mike Luetchford's understanding of and living Buddhism is a result of his long term efforts to study and practice Buddhism. There is no reason to deny that. But to achieve something in the past or future is not exactly the point of Buddhism - we notice the results, acknowledge the results and we carry on. Mike has no reason to stick to his results and we have no reason to stick to his results and I have no reason to stick to my results or failures.

When we practice zazen, it is already satori, because in this moment we are doing something wholeheartedly the same way Buddha did it. We realize something that is realized only in this moment. So that is why it doesn't matter whether there are some effects of zazen or not, although we cannot completely deny the effects of zazen. Zazen is not something that is an effort of a beginner at the beginning, then skills of an advanced student in the middle and at the end enlightenment of a master. In fact, zazen at the beginning is enlightenment of a master and at the end it, after fifty years of zazen, it is an effort of a beginner. It is always a beginner's efforts and at the same time Buddha's enlightenment. So when we grab a bowl, we try to do it properly as a beginner and at the same time we actually act like a wise, mature master. When the bowl drops, it is a mistake, but it is a mistake of someone who in this moment - acting wholeheartedly in this moment - is not different from Buddha.

So there is no reason to turn back and lament over past mistakes. When we drop a bowl or miss the target, it is not only a mistake, but also a victory. We have to try, make efforts, treat people properly and treat things properly and when we aim, we should do our best. That is our nature. But when the arrow has flown over the target, it is a great moment of our life. It is a moment worth celebrations, as if we hit the bull's eye. Every moment of our life is hitting the bull's eye.

This blog is far less popular than Brad's blog. I don't know how many people read this but that is not the point. My fellow Zen student Pavel Fencl and I organize days of zazen in the Czech Republic. Almost nobody shows up. Mostly nobody else shows up. It all looks like a lot of failure. But that is not the point. At least not the point in Buddhism. In Buddhism we don't do things to achieve something. We just do things. We appreciate success or abilities of others, but that is not our business. We appreciate wisdom of others, we are grateful for authentic Buddhist teachers, but that is not our business. We have to be ourselves, not them. This unsuccessful Sunday afternoon is all that matters. It is the best thing that could ever happen to you or me. Let's do something wholeheartedly today and let's not worry about what kind of results it may lead to. Let's do something wholeheartedly over and over again no matter what will happen in the future. When we are completely ourselves in this moment, we have won the game of life.

Love No Matter What You Believe In

2007-12-13T19:46:00.000+01:00

I sometimes wonder why we Buddhists love someone who is not a Buddhist. Isn't there something wrong with a person who does not believe in Buddhism, or something wrong with a person who does not understand Buddhism? Or, for that matter, something wrong with someone who believes - naively - that he or she does understand Buddhism? There is something wrong with all of us. And something absolutely amazing about every single human being in the world. But it is also natural to love someone more than someone else. And hate someone for a while when we get hurt or something.

I have a practicing Christian student in one of my classes. The world is not only labels and words and differences between religions, the world is also a single person at a time. And there are times when we feel love for someone, at a single moment. And at that single moment, it does not matter what someone believes in. In other words, I don't care who is a Buddhist and who is a Christian - there are times when the differences should be pointed out clearly but mostly it is one single moment after another. And some of these moments are beautiful.

There is something I cannot express in words. Sometimes I only feel gratitude that I can be part of the wonder called the universe and meet all those great beings I meet. Something beyond words and religions is going on and that is also worth our attention.

Brad Warner's Compassion and German Soldiers

2007-12-13T13:03:00.000+01:00

I promised I would translate my Czech essay on compassion but the latest article by Brad Warner at the evil almost porn site Death Girls and Tatoos, no, seriously, Suicide Girls, is much better so I suggest that you read Brad's article instead of my version. But I will tell you about
the last paragraph of my essay. My grandmother lived in a small Moravian village when the WW 2 was about to end and while defeated German soldiers were exhaustedly walking through the village after their desperate mission in Russia. Although most people were looking forward to Russian liberators, my grandmother realised that these German boys were just human beings who probably had absolutely no idea why it was necessary to conquer Russia. They were interested in their ordinary lives in Germany, where they had to leave their girlfriends, they were into music, philosophy, not into nazism. My grandmother could see their frustration, misery and fear in their eyes and invited two of them to her house. They chatted as my grandma had worked in a German family as an au pair and spoke fluent German. The boys played the piano and did not believe they would make it back home. Now most people would think that my grandma was a compassionate person as she invited these kids to her house and were kind to them. But according to Buddhism, it is not exactly about what my grandmother thought or felt. In Buddhism compassion means to act in harmony with circumstances. She talked to them, offered tea, and said some warm words and goodbye. No matter what army they belonged to, no matter what language they spoke. No matter what their role in the second world war was. She did something real in the real world and so did the soldiers. They all did their best in the given situation, beyond their ideas. That is Buddhist compassion.

Edit it now!

2007-11-26T20:46:00.001+01:00

I had to edit the last post about time. There were a few paragraphs that didn't fit exactly into that essay. So I deleted them. That's all. Now I am going to try to arrange the links so at last people can find the real Buddhist teachers!

The Present Moment as Reality

2007-10-13T21:26:00.000+01:00

The problem of time is one of the most discussed topics in Buddhism. Master Dogen wrote about what time means in the chapter Uji, which is a part of Shobogenzo. My teacher Mike Luetchford gave a talk at the last retreat in England on Uji and I, being inspired by his talk and master Dogen’s philosophy of time, wrote the following text.

When we draw a line on which we mark the zero and some other values, for example plus three and plus five, we have a picture that shows how most people see and understand time. This picture will help us introduce one of the most important theories Buddhism has, which is the theory about the present moment.

We usually take it for granted that five or three are real entities. What time is it? Five. When we check the watch and find out it is five o’clock, we recognize that fact as something real. It really is five o’clock, we believe. As we believe that 5 o’clock is something real, we act accordingly. For example we call a friend to whom we said that we would call at five. But when we go back to that line which we drew a while ago and actually look at the point we called 5 as the starting point, then 5 becomes 12 and 12 becomes 5. So from one viewpoint 5 o'clock is 5 o'clock and 12 o'clock is 12 o'clock. But from another viewpoint, 5 o'clock is 12 o'clock and 12 o'clock is 5 o'clock. The values change according to our viewpoint, but the difference remains the same. Then what is 5 o'clock really? To get over the opposing views about whether 5 is 12 or 5, we have to do something. When we do something at 5 o'clock, reality is revealed and we become what 5 o'clock is in reality. It is the present moment beyond numbers and words.

We say “let’s meet in front of the theater at five.” Modern physics claims something that was studied and affirmed by Buddhist teachers a long time ago. Old Buddhist philosophers and teachers who lived several hundreds years ago or more found out that time and space are inseparable. We usually think about time as something and space as something. We imagine “five o’clock” and then we imagine “in front of the theater”. But in fact “five” and “in front of the theater” is one thing. So we could say I will meet you “at theater o’clock” or “the movie starts at the movie” instead of at 6. We could say: “What time will we eat dinner?” “Restaurant”. Or “Where were you in the morning?” “I was seven am.” This sounds crazy. Obviously, we cannot communicate like that. The reason it usually does not work is that we communicate based on some references we have agreed on. For example we decide what 12 o’clock is and then derive all other times from 12 o’clock. We also decide what we will call different places, so when I say “at the theater Galaxie” you know I mean the one in Prague 4. And we usually see a place as something separate from time. But we must admit that time and space are the same thing, as there is never a place that is cut off from time and there is never a time that is cut off from space. And one example that explains that time and space are basically the same thing is when we say: How far is the theater from here? It is a five-minute walk. We can see that although somebody asks about distance, which is the difference between two points in space, we answer using time, not space. Another example is that we don’t say how many miles a star is away. We say the number of light years. So Einstein found out that our common understanding of time and space is quite limited, one sided, not complete. To communicate we have to use a language that makes sense to us.

When I say “yesterday”, what am I talking about? Am I talking about reality? Is reality something we imagine or is it something we experience? Can we experience something in the past or in the future? Of course, we say, on Sunday I was in Bristol. It makes sense. I experienced Bristol on Sunday. But the actual experience of Bristol cannot be something in the past or in the future. The actual experience of Bristol must be something in the present. So Buddhism and partly modern physics, too, explains that the actual world, the real world is something that happens now. Only now. Everything else is our imagination. Of course, we remember something clearly, for example I remember what my bedroom looks like, even if I am not in it now, but that is not what my bedroom actually is. It is just a picture in my mind.

Something we imagine becomes what it is and something what is becomes our imagination. I imagine the canteen and then really find myself eating in the canteen. I imagine a piece of chalk and then I can really touch a piece of chalk. So our brain works with images and our language is based on images. We communicate using these pictures and symbols and based on these symbols we can get somewhere and sometime where we actually experience something real. We say “let’s go to the movies tonight” which is pure fantasy. But then later we actually meet at the movies. So reality in which we are living is a mixture of illusions and phenomena. But illusions and phenomena are only possible at this present moment. I can only dream about lying on the beach in France now. I cannot dream about something yesterday or tomorrow. What Buddhism teaches about time is that not only we live in time as something that continues from past to present and from present to future, but also as something that happens only now. O n l y now.

When we understand time as something that continues from past to future, we can notice that our past actions lead to consequences in future. For example yesterday I drank too much, so today I am hung over. Or yesterday I killed a person so next month I will go to prison and be there for ten years. We cannot deny the law of cause and effect. We have to act responsibly. In other words, don’t drink too much, be polite, study hard and help those who need help. Everyone understands that but it is difficult to do it for most of us. Most of us try to somehow escape from the law of cause and effect and find a gap in it – for example, I will not do housework and hopefully the house will not become stinky. But even if the house does not become stinky, your failure to do housework will become something somewhere and sometime that you or others might not like at all.

Anyway, Buddhism suggests that there is another aspect of reality and that is the independence of the present moment. So although we have done something wrong in the past and now our situation is terrible, when we forget about past and future and only do what we do in the present moment, we become free. You can notice that even if you think your situation is very difficult and even if you think that your life is awful, when you experience fully what you do at the present moment, you forget all about past and future and feel free. But as soon as you think: “I am free! I am happy!“ you realize that your life is actually awful and you lose your freedom. You return to your picture of life as something awful. For example when an ex-girlfriend left me a couple of years ago, I felt awfully lonely. Anyway, I noticed that whenever I completely forgot about her and just did something, for example played the trumpet, I was free. There was no problem. The only problem was that I kept thinking about her over and over again. But this moment is always not only something that is linked to the past and future but also something independent on past and future.

Independence of the present moment is one aspect of reality. Freedom in the present moment is one aspect. We cannot deny that we are totally free exactly in this moment. When I clap my hands now without warning you, at the moment of my hands clapping you will become one with the sound of my hands and that will be reality, completely free here and now. So whenever we do something completely here and now, we are free. But a second later we are not free and we have to be responsible and see we are part of a world where things are interdependent. It is a mistake and naïve to deny the interdependence of all things. If we deny our responsibility, we will cause a lot of problems to both ourselves and others. But if we deny that we are free in this moment, we will lose the opportunity to lead a life that is full of happy, wholeheartedly experienced moments. If we do not enjoy the instantaneous nature of life, or the instantaneous aspect of our personality, we will be like old rigid people who cannot leave the dark world of serious matters and serious books. And when it comes to the truth, the only way how to experience the truth is to do now something beyond thinking about past and future. Even if we have thought about Buddhism for years and even if we have tried to experience the truth for years, this present moment is the only moment we can actually experience what the truth is. Only when we forget about all our problems and our dreams, only when we forget all our ideas about what we are and what we are not, only then we can fully experience the truth. I am not saying that only the present moment is important and nothing else matters. I am only saying that everything happens now.

The world is pure and instantaneous, but also complicated, dark and full of pain. As intelligent beings we have a chance to discover the complete nature of reality that includes both purity and darkness, both joy and pain. To discover the complete nature of reality is something that is done within the most ordinary actions of our everyday life. So although these words may sound very abstract and philosophical, what I am trying to say is that every moment we live is an opportunity to express ourselves as true people and enjoy ourselves as true people. Just to do something wholeheartedly in the present moment is an important step on the way to a happy and true life. And a happy and true life consists of thousands and thousands of tiny little steps.

Koans and Stories

2007-10-04T22:06:00.000+01:00

I'd like to share something I hope is worth considering, which is the meaning and role of koans in Zen. There may be people here who might find a new approach to koans useful and maybe they will have a new perspective of Zen as such.

Most people associate Zen with koans. The first books on Zen we all read were probably books that included absurd dialogs and puzzles - something that we learned is called a koan and serves as a tool in Zen training. Sometimes we were taught in these books on Zen that "solving a koan" is a step on the way to englightenment and sometimes we were even given a koan by our first Zen teacher to see how close to englightenment we are or sometimes to check if we are englightened or not. I am not joking, there are real Zen teachers who use koans as a way how to tell if a person is enlightened.

A typical example is What is the sound of one hand clapping? We read that koans are not logical as a life essentially is not logical and to solve a koan we have to break through the wall of logical thinking and become IT, or become one with the koan etc. Sometimes, for example master Soeng Sahn said that koans are a kind of traps and we have to prove that we do not get caught in the trap. I personally started my Zen training in Providence Zen Center, which is a part of Kwan Um school of Zen, about 15 years ago, and was given koans, of course. I "worked" on them all the summer I spent there. My solutions were sometimes rejected, sometimes approved. Anyway, although I must admit that I did learn something valuable within Kwan Um and I will never forget how caring and strong and wonderful people most of the teachers I met there were, I decided to "convert" to Dogen Zen. A category I prefer (no Soto, if you don t mind).

Dogen Zen is based on a philosophy, that seems - at first sight - as something quite different from Rinzai (or Koan style tradition, including Kwan Um). Some of the basic principles seem quite different, for example, you are not trying to attain englightenment (in Kwan Um, we were often encouraged to attain enlightenment and save all beings), rather learn that zazen itself is a complete and finished state of true self, or enlightenment, if you like the word so much. So of course, what about those damn koans. When we read and study Shobogenzo, the pillar of Dogen Zen literature, we come across koans all the time. They are mentioned and quoted over and over again. But there is a huge difference in the way Dogen uses them from the way they are used in Rinzai Zen.

First off, Dogen does not call them koans, he calls them kosoku (ancestral criteria) or innen (a result or story). Dogen uses the word "koan" to mean the Universe or Dharma.

Anyway, we can stick to the word koan to mean those strange stories. Dogen does mention stories of koans to explain main principles of Buddhism rather than puzzle or check the reader's ability to overcome his or her logical thinking.

I always thought that koans are simply too strange, too exotic or funny to mean anything clear. I remember one of my last Rinzai style dokusans with my beloved teacher Dorota Krzyzanowska when she gave me a koan again and I told her something like "Give me a break with that!" And she laughed and I remember we had a moment of something very warm and friendly. After all those awfully cold, strange, robotic mind-breaking dialogs with these Kwan Um teachers, it was the first time when it was her who gave up. I don't mean I beat her or something. She just gave up giving me koans as tasks and instead smiled and we had a nice talk. That is why I respect her so much even these days and I would like to avoid criticizing Rinzai teachers if they are this sincere and this caring and true as Dorota was to me. But I think she would approve if I now do my best and do what I find necessary and criticize the way Rinzai school uses koans. Sorry Dorota.

Koans are not puzzles to be solved. They are originally authentic recordings of students and teachers talking about life! The reason we find them so puzzling is mostly because 1. we don't understand the symbols of Chinese language they usually use (for example who knows what "one moon" or "two moons" really means, what does it symbolize?) 2. we don't understand the basic principles of Buddhist philosophy - the aspect of idealism, aspect of materialism, aspect of action and aspect of reality, which is the philosophy that is the bottom line of these stories and dialogs. As a result a koan, when read by someone who does not know much about teh main principles of Buddhist philosophy and Chinese language, makes absolutely no sense. But they do make sense.

Example:

A student asks master Unmon: What is the state of many molecules?
Unmon says: Rice in a bowl. Water in a bucket.

Now if you were a Rinzai student, you would be given this story as something to "solve". If you start thinking abou a koan in a Rinzai school, you fail. But in Zen of Dogen, we can learn from this story how Buddhism teaches about what is real. What the truth is. What we are. So we study these koans, discuss their meaning, using our IQ no problem, using logic, and like that gradually learn what Buddhist philosophy is. But in the end it is not enough to understand and explain these koans, we also have to do what these koans suggest, do and realize the truth of these koans in our real life.

If you are one of those Rinzai style students and get awful headaches trying to solve your koan, how about if you take a break, drink some tea and instead of trying to beat your logic, use your logic and think about the koan in a relaxed way. What does the koan really mean? What is your koan about? You may end up finding out that it is just some nonsense somebody invented to deceive you. Sound of one hand, anyone?

Telling the World about How Ordinary We Are

2007-09-20T19:38:00.000+01:00

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When you come across writing that is labeled as Buddhism, you might wonder if such writing has any authenticity to it. Claiming that I write about Buddhism may sound a bit arrogant. Does is imply that I understand what Buddhism is? Does it imply that I live a Buddhist life? I can answer these two questions: The first question – it is up to the reader to decide whether my writing seems to be based on understanding or not. The second question – you can hardly evaluate someone’s life, you cannot see what others do and how they act, unless you spend time with them. So of course, people who don’t know me will not be able to decide whether I really lead a Buddhist life. But I can assure you that the people who do know me will tell you that what I lead is everything but a Buddhist life! OK, seriously. Of course, there are moments when my acting does not resemble Buddhist ideals, and there are moments when my acting does resemble something Buddhist. The point is that once you really want to find out if someone is an authentic Buddhist teacher you can trust and learn from, you have to spend time with them! Books will never substitute meeting the person.

Anyway, we are living in the world of the Internet pages and online communication, TV, documentaries and of course, still, even these days, libraries and bookstores. Most people who are interested in Buddhism, but haven’t found their personal teacher yet, rely too much on what they read on the internet or in books. For example, Brad Warner is a certified Buddhist teacher who has published two books about Buddhism and who is very popular at a few websites where a lot of people follow his posts and comment a lot. Most of these people have never met Brad – yet they often come to very clear conclusions (be it positive or negative) about Brad’s qualities as a person and a Buddhist teacher. Myself, I believe that Brad is a good Buddhist teacher and does not mislead people. (As much as it is possible to NOT mislead anyone once we start writing something). But this belief is only a belief, nothing else. I have no real experience with Brad.

Brad, however, has been writing and posting about Buddhism a lot. And he often sounds like he is the only person in the world who knows what the heck is going on in the world. Him and his teacher, of course, whom he apparently loves and respects very much. There is something you begin to feel sooner or later after you begin to practice and study Buddhism. You start to feel this urgent need to tell others about something you find extremely valuable, something priceless. And some people want to tell the others about the truth! But it seems Brad’s claims are accepted quite often. Why? Because some of those people simply believe that Brad’s experience is valuable and that he has something interesting and helpful to say about Buddhism. And what’s more, a handful of people might want to become Brad’s students for real. So the deal here is not someone yelling about the truth and a few poor mislead simpletons following that voice. The deal is that someone is trying to explain what Buddhism is based on his experience, studies and practice and writing about it the way that is in accord with his particular personal experience, studies and practice. So after all, if someone is writing sincerely about Buddhism and it is not only sincere but also based on some understanding of Buddhism, then you have come across a bit of written Buddhism. But that’s not so much. You haven’t met the person yet.

Whenever we come across some Buddhist writing, no matter if it sounds loud and clear or gentle, humble or quiet and vague, no matter if it is written by a famous teacher or a very unknown person, we have come across some kind of directions, nothing else. It seems that a person writing and inspiring others to do something about their lives or, on the contrary, inspiring others to stop trying to do something about their lives (which may be a Buddhist teacher’s instruction, too), must be someone who is almost perfect and who understands everything clearly and explains everything clearly all the time. In fact, such a person is still only a human being making mistakes over and over again. Just because someone’s words may sound bold does not change the fact that the person is only trying to explain something and may fail to explain something. Anyway, the point is to do your best at this moment, so for example now I am trying to explain something, that is all. But what is also important is that I have to get up early tomorrow and then I have to rush to the toilet and then (after a half an hour of zazen in a dim bedroom) shave and make tea and get dressed. I have to run down the stairs in the building and get on a tram full of people. This essay will not help me jump up on the tram. But it will help me – and hopefully a few other people, too - continue my or their efforts to practice and study Buddhism. And practicing and studying Buddhism will help me to get up in the morning and plunge into yet another gray, chilly day. And still, it is not all about future but rather about this moment. A moment after moment, you and I and everyone has to do what has to be done. Buddhist philosophy may help us understand the value of everyday life and the value of zazen. Zazen may become our everyday practice, our everyday habit and then we may need to tell others about what it is like to be – not a perfectly enlightened person - but a very ordinary person. Who would be interested in something like that? I have always been. And I still want to learn what it is like to be an ordinary person. Only an ordinary person – who is interested in everyday life affairs rather than dreams - can experience things wholeheartedly.

When Practicing Zazen, Zazen Is Enough

2007-09-20T19:33:00.000+01:00

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When you study and practice Buddhism seriously, it doesn’t seem that zazen alone is enough – shouldn’t you read books, practice with a group of students and follow a teacher? Of course, in a certain way, zazen is not enough, but at the moment when we are just sitting and practicing zazen, that is enough! The point is that zazen alone – not in our mind, but in reality, when we experience it, is everything you can hope for in Buddhism. It is enlightenment, it is sutras, it is wisdom, it is teaching the truth and it is studying the truth.

Today I had a group of new students and as they hadn’t bought their textbooks yet, I thought I would teach some grammar to them. But at the very latest moment I decided to tell them about my Buddhist experience. I said: By the way, I am a Buddhist and I thought you might want to hear something about what it is like to be a Buddhist.

I told them that it was not my intention to try to persuade them that Buddhism is the best religion. I said: “It is your and nobody else’s business what religion or philosophy you choose. But there is nothing wrong with telling others about our actual experience. Most people will try to find arguments to decide which religion is right. But Buddhism is not something to beat others with in a debate. It is about what actually happens.” There are no arguments about Buddhism. Buddhism cannot be argued about because Buddhism is interested in the truth. As long as you provide some kind of facts, it is okay with Buddhism. For example, if you feel sad, it is true and there is no argument. So feeling sad is in accord with the teaching of Buddhism.

I told them what I had gone through when looking for Buddhism as a young man and later practicing and studying Buddhism. I didn’t get very far; my story was quite short and simple so their questions followed quite soon. I noticed at one point that I was a bit concerned about my ability to answer their difficult questions without misleading them or telling them some nonsense. I thought: Oh, you are answering questions about Buddhism, answering questions of sixteen-year-old intelligent people. Can you handle this? But I was too busy answering so I didn’t continue in more doubts. The only thing I tried to stick to was – let’s not get into some entanglement. Let’s lead this to a point. I wanted to gradually lead the discussion to the point where I said: See, we have mentioned all kinds of opposing views. I exist, or don’t exist. Tomas is I or not I. I am this tea or I am not this tea. What I see is you or what I see is myself. I told them that Buddhism has a solution to these contradicting views. The solution is experiencing reality itself. No matter what we believe or what ideas occur, we experience something real, be it me or you, here or there, full or empty. What we experience is real, no matter if you like that experience or not. Buddhism is trying to help people get a full grasp of reality and deal with reality the way reality deserves to be dealt with – wholeheartedly and sincerely.

The funny thing is that although I basically gave a talk on Buddhism, there was something I almost didn’t mention, although it is the very essence of Buddhism. Zazen. I only told them that meditation is not exactly what Buddhist practice is about. Zazen is just sitting here and now not trying to get something or somewhere. Unfortunately, or rather luckily for those poor students, I had to end the talk, as it was time for a break.

So I would like to continue here. I would like to say what I didn’t say to them – that zazen is enough. Not enough when we think about it driving a car, but when we actually sit and practice zazen here and now. Zazen – and it should be repeated over and over – is a goal itself, fulfillment itself, enlightenment itself. Zazen is the essence of all Buddhist teachings.

Zazen really does not need any anything added. Once we practice it, not when we discuss it, it is beyond words and arguments. We can discuss zazen and argue about it for ages, but once we do it, all words fail to hit the target. They do occur to us, but cannot reach the pure quality of zazen. Although we still think a bit during zazen, all that thinking is overcome by the repeated knocking of reality, over and over again, we come back to reality that is knocking on our skull. At that moment, when we stop listening to our funny thoughts, and open ourselves to reality, using our body and mind, the truth pervades the world and there is nothing lacking at all.

Dear students

2007-09-03T17:53:00.000+01:00

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This is a short version of a letter I wrote to and read out to my students at high school during last school term.I came across the letter checking my documents and I think the letter is, in a very subtle way, trying to teach students something I learned as a practicing Buddhist. But it would be terrible to be a Buddhist "shoolvangelist" so I dodge the term "Buddhism" throughout the letter. If the students want to really find out what I am talking about, then it is up to them. The letter is also heavily influenced and inspired by different things I have learned from Mike Luetchford so far. So don't call me an imitator or something, I just can't avoid repeating ideas that make sense to me and seems to work in real life, even if the ideas were originally someone else's.

So let's skip the beginning because that is more about the situation at school which is not interesting for readers here and start where the letter begins with some life philosophy:

Now I am writing a letter to you, because I am still pretty excited about you. Still quite naïve. I am happy I can teach English to such great young people you are. Even if you are one of those silent girls in the corner, I do like you. I do, really. It doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter how good your English is, I still like you. Why? Because I still believe that there is something wonderful about you and also I am grateful for your willingness to share a little bit of your time with this imperfect teacher that I am. I will discipline a student when they go wild because it is part of my job. But at the same time, criticizing you or praising you, I never look down on my students, they are all equal to me as human beings and they are not less than I am or less than anyone else in the world. Some teachers say: Study harder. Some teachers say: Be better people. I would say: Try to do the best within what you really are. No matter what you are – silent or loud, gentle or rough, more or less talented, tiny or big, shy or bold, always try to be the best of what you really are. Because what you really are is your greatest asset, it is a well of the purest water, it is a flight of an eagle above the valley.

This world is very, very technological, right? A lot of information about computers, cars, software, digital television, the web etc. But as much as I am into technology, because it is fun, I do realize that a human being is a very sensitive creature, a human being is a creature, like dogs or cats, that needs to be taken care of and to be addressed, talked to, touched… Almost all people in the world need some affection from others. I don’t know how I would feel if nobody cared about me. I would probably feel terrible. But when we learn about the crazy world around us, we always care about others and show love and express love to others. So we need both. To be loved by others and love others. Love is such an overused word. Love, love, love. But in the end, this love is nothing but everyday patience with ourselves and others. It is saying Hello and answering the phone. It is waiting for the tram or buying bread. It is washing our body and going to sleep. Love – as I understand it – is nothing but caring about others and ourselves as one world that can never be split. No matter how hard we may try, no matter if we send millions of soldiers to war, this world will never be split. Never. We will always, as long as we live, have to put up with one another. Like me or hate me, you have to deal with me, sorry.

I think religion is something that should give you some kind of direction in your life, values, things to do and thing not to do. All religions – unless they are twisted by crazy psychopats - try to find a way how to live a life based on wisdom. But what is wisdom? It is not cleverness. It is being able to live an everyday life in a stable, sensible way. To put up with others in a way that is not shameful. Even if you don’t like a teacher, if you greet them, that means you are willing to put up with them. And that is wonderful.

There is too much information, too many books, dictionaries, directions, too many teachers, too many religions, too many exams, grades, right? I remember I was disappointed when I began to realize that most of you were not interested in complex intellectual matters. Some of you like to say things like “Who cares?” Or you parody things. Well, as teenagers, you are already very clever, but the world outside doesn’t make much sense, does it? So better to do something funny. Boycott things. But when I read your essays, it is clear you are very sensitive and serious beings, looking for values and directions. Most of you really care what kind of beings you are developing into and how you can become good people living a meaningful life. I know that you really do care about these things. Maybe some of you will later give up and become cynical. But I guess most of you now do care about the quality of your life, the real quality of your life, not just toys and grades and success.

I have no idea how you feel now being 16 or 17 or whatever age you are, but when I was 16 my life was basically a huge, often painful dream I was dreaming. I made up most things in my mind. I could learn subjects, take exams and learn things, but the world was to me some kind of dramatic, incredibly complex theater. I was pretty lost. But at the same time I was very real and had real experience. Mainly in sports activities. But at that time I took my physical experience for granted. I had no idea how valuable it is to experience things like swimming or running or cycling. I did enjoy these things. But it took me 20 years to see the depth of such experiences.

Some of you have watched the documentary about the junk food from McDonald’s. I think none of you are really struggling with overweight. I hear some of you say: You should lose weight, you should not eat that much fat, etc. But the point is something else, I guess. Maybe I am 5 kg underweight, maybe some of you are 10 kg overweight. Why are we trying to have perfect bodies? The whole thing about health food is not about looking perfect. I think we should eat just enough and not eat or drink too much because we should care about our health, that’s all. The shape of our body doesn’t matter. Some of us have big ears and some of us have small ears. So what. You can have some fun with both. If you really like yourself, if you really care about the quality of your life, then don’t underestimate the importance of your regime, eating, drinking, sleeping. Because these things, no matter what we look like, probably have huge effect on the thing we call “happiness”. This is something we could have a long philosophical discussion about, but let’s not get into that now. Young people want to have fun. Sometimes it seems that the best way how to have fun is party all night long. I guess it is necessary for youngsters to party and explore the world. But if you go too far, take nasty drugs or sleep with too many people, you will suffer too much, you will waste this wonderful opportunity to be young and healthy – both physically and mentally. Some of you will overdose and possibly die. Others will start hating themselves for all the wrong things they have done. Some of you will try to commit suicide. Some of you already have. Sometimes life is pain in the ass. Sometimes things are unbearably painful. But we should not forget that the spring always comes over and over again. God knows what he (or she?) is doing. The universe is never wrong. It always offers loads of peace and tranquility. But people usually prefer something crazy. And they have to pay for this madness sooner or later. I think religion, any kind of religion, points to the truth present in every moment of our lives, and that truth is always saying to us: Don’t worry. You can make it. You are strong enough to persevere.

Biology of Zazen

2007-09-03T17:47:00.000+01:00

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I found a text in Time where it is explained what happens when we practice zazen. It is a scientific study. Although it seems that through zazen we can experience unusual things and science suggests that it really may happen - in fact, what this study shows is that what we usually experience is not quite balanced or healthy or normal, while when we practice zazen, our brain in close connection with the rest of the body begins to work the way it actually should work under normal circumstances. So we do experience the unusual in zazen, because it is very unusual to go back to the default state of body and mind these days. This study explains how our brain is tightly connected with the whole body as one system, which suggests that practicing zazen is not only healthy but also a very sensible and realistic activity.

FRONTAL CORTEX – This is the most highly evolved part of the brain, responsible for reasoning, planning, emotions and self-conscious awareness. During meditation the frontal cortex tends to go off.

My comment - when we are sitting without moving in zazen, it is not necessary to reason why we are sitting, not necessary to plan how to get money, not necessary to be angry with somebody and not necessary to cling to the ideas what we are or what we are not. So when we practice zazen, frontal cortex tends to go off and we can be fully present and happy without being overly emotional.

PARIETAL LOBE – This part of the brain processes sensory information orienting you in time and space. During meditation activity in parietal lobe slows down.

My comment - During zazen, it is natural to forget where we are, how far the wall is, how many people are in the room, etc. We come back to the present and the present is beyond measuring, so time and space can be measured but there is no time and space to measure time and space when we are here and now practicing zazen.

THALAMUS – The gatekeeper for the senses, this organ focuses your attention on by funneling some sensory data deeper in the brain and stopping other signals in their tracks. Meditation reduces the flow of incoming information to a trickle.

My comment - This is something we can notice after zazen. Usually, ordinary life is boring and only exciting things are exciting. But after zazen when we do something ordinary, we can notice how wonderful it is. So we discover how wonderful it is to be an ordinary person in the ordinary world. We touch things as if for the first time, we hear things as if for the first time and we taste food as if for the first time. This is when thalamus functions properly, as described in the study. But it is not necessary to practice zazen in order to enjoy things. When we practice zazen, we can also enjoy every little moment of zazen as a brilliant activity itself. Isn’t it great to actually exist at all? Only when we practice zazen our existence is stripped to itself alone. No matter what else we do other than zazen, in such moments our bare existence is covered with something.

RETICULAR FORMATION – As the brain’s sentry, this structure receives incoming stimuli and puts the brain on alert, ready to respond. Meditating dials back the arousal signal.

My comment - When we tend to overreact, it means the reticular formation does not work properly. So when we practice zazen properly, it shows in our every day life - we don't overreact so often and we can handle all kinds of things in a way that is mostly balanced or more or less balanced.

To sum up, we see that science can explain what is going on in our brains during zazen. But this explanation is only that – explanation. Let’s see if it works! Practice zazen correctly every day for twenty years keeping in touch with a true teacher and let me know in twenty years from now how it has worked out. If it hasn’t worked out the way it is described above, then we will go back to those scientists, they will check your brain during zazen and we will see where the mistake is, ok? But I don’t want to scare away anyone saying it takes twenty years. What is described above works, to a certain degree, even after your first zazen ever! I remember my first zazen sessions about fifteen years ago and what I felt or how I felt, but mainly what I was during zazen – as a person - was basically the same thing that I am these days.

The only difference is that after several years you will see the effects of zazen being expressed as part of your everyday life, not only a little moment now and then. There is nothing wrong with us essentially, so we don’t practice zazen to become somebody special or better than others or better than what we were ten years ago. But the thing that takes so long is to develop some ability to appreciate the true essence of all things and people, everyone, you and me, and everything around, and make this awareness of the true essence, which is reality itself, part of our everyday life.

But no matter how long we have practiced zazen, be it a week or 50 years, we keep practicing zazen. And in a way, we all, teachers or students, have to start from scratch every single morning. So no matter how far we have gone, we have to keep looking at things realistically, which is just being what we are now – beyond unnecessary concepts and imagination - and doing whatever we have to do now. It is wonderful that we are always where we should be, isn’t it? I don’t mean being drunk in a bar at 4 am. I mean being what we are at this stage of our life. Being a human being itself – no matter if we are a teenager all hyped or confused about the world or an old Buddhist master walking around a garden peacefully – both is wonderful! Now what matters is how we deal with this incredible luck having been born as a human being. An old Buddhist master waking up in the morning does not think: “It is great to be an old Buddhist master! I know everything, they know nothing, those stupid fools!” I guess, no matter how difficult it is to guess what old Buddhist masters feel in the morning, that a Buddhist master in the morning wakes up and goes: “Oh well, my old painful body, at least the flowers in the garden are healthy and fine. Let’s have a cup of tea and see how they are doing.” So based on some poetry of great Japanese monks we can see a bit how these Buddhist teachers felt in both nice and difficult moments of their lives. We can notice that they were always somehow amazed at the very fact that they had the opportunity to witness all kinds of things happening, and they were grateful for having the opportunity to actually be themselves, no matter how painful or happy. They were grateful for being a real part of the universe. So what matters is how we treat ourselves as a gift we have been given. Do we just throw ourselves away like some junk or do we ask what is really inside this box we call “me”? Those old Buddhist monks actually wanted to open the box of self every morning, every zazen, every dinner, every moment of their lives, be it sadness or joy. Do you want to open the box of self and see what is inside for yourself? Zazen is opening the box of self and experiencing the gift of bare existence without shiny paper around.

So no matter how advanced we may think we are, I can recommend that we practice like a heavy farmer’s horse, steadily, slowly, without expectations, wholeheartedly, without being overly excited for no reason, for years and years…not seeing a specific goal ahead or a specific “Buddhist” result behind. After all, zazen is not so much about results or aims. It is about being here and now as whatever we are without being what we are not no matter how much we think that we are what we are not.

Ikkyu's poems

2007-08-22T23:10:00.000+01:00

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First, I’d like to introduce Ikkyu, my favorite poet, using some information found at wikipedia. Then I will present some of his poems and comment on them.

Ikkyu was born in 1394 in a small suburb of Kyoto. He was the illegitimate son of Emperor Go-Komatsu. His mother was forced to flee to Saga, Japan, where Ikkyu was raised by servants. At age five Ikkyu was separated from his mother and enrolled as a monk at the Rinzai Zen temple, Ankokuji. He was given the name Shuken, and learned about Chinese poetry, art and literature. In 1420 Ikkyu was meditating in a boat on Lake Biwa when the sound of a crow sparked his understanding of the truth. His teacher confirmed this and granted Ikkyu dharma transmission. *

Ikkyu could sometimes be a troublemaker. Known to drink in excess, he would often upset others with provoking remarks. After the death of his teacher, he was unable to tolerate the pretentious head of the temple, and left the place to live many years as a wandering monk. Around this time, he established a relationship with a blind singer Mori who became the love of his later life.

Ikkyu lived his Buddhist life outside of formal religious institutions. However, a war had reduced Daitokuji to ashes, and Ikkyu was elected abbot late in life, a role he reluctantly took on. In 1481, Ikkyu died at the age of eighty-eight.

I think Ikkyu was interested in a real life, not a life of holy people. Maybe I would never begin to study and practice Zen if it wasn’t for Ikkyu’s punk, unorthodox Zen poetry. Before I really started to practice Buddhism, I was afraid that I would be mislead by some religious fanatics. But when I read that “stone Buddha deserves birdshit” among other things, paradoxically written by a Buddhist teacher, I decided to find out what Buddhism really is about. Thanks to Ikkyu’s sincere, penetrating, disturbing verses, I had already been hooked anyway. So I am very grateful to Ikkyu’s efforts as a monk, lover, teacher and poet.

* Ikkyu was a monk in Rinzai tradition, where some breakthrough experience seems to be the most important thing, but Ikkyu himself was critical of such exaggeration – he burned his “enlightenment confirmation paper” to stress that there is something more important than papers and memories – our real life in the present moment.

only a kind deadly sincere man
can show you the way here in the other world

Ikkyu stresses the importance of an authentic teacher in Buddhism. We could explain the poem like this: If you are really interested in Buddhism, in the real world that most people don’t know, if you are interested in “the other shore”, which is the truth here and now completely experienced by a human being, then you need someone who is familiar with the truth and who will lovingly and carefully let you know whenever you lose your way in silly ideas about what the truth is. Only such a person can guide you on your way to a realistic, complete life.

I am in it everywhere
what a miracle trees lakes clouds even dust

I am in “it” everywhere. Ikkyu talks about the truth that is everywhere, yet most people look for it in very exotic places or very special experiences. Ikkyu enjoys living in the truth and marvels at trees, lakes and clouds, which are all examples of the truth, of something that master Dogen called “the non-emotional that preaches the Dharma”. What’s more, Ikkyu realizes that even something so ordinary as dust is also “the non-emotional that preaches the Dharma”, in other words, even dust teaches us what the truth is.

I’d love to give you something
but what would help?

Ikkyu expresses his caring about other human beings, but when it comes to Buddhism, what can we give to others? Teaching Buddhism is tricky. It is like selling water to a person who lives next to a well. Although we are in the midst of the truth, we are searching for it. We desperately want to find something special, we want to attain enlightenment. Ikkyu is standing in front of us, knowing that we don’t need anything, except maybe one thing – directions to the truth. Although we are basically there, without sincere practice of zazen and an honest teacher, we will hardly ever understand what treasure we have already got.

nobody told the flowers to come up nobody
will ask them to leave when spring’s gone

People tend to replace reality with words. This is a table. This is not a table. We like to talk, talk and talk. And some people would like to replace Buddhism with words. But the most amazing things in the universe happen without having to be explained or described by words. The most intimate experience of a human being, life here and now, is beyond words. That is why we don’t talk when we practice zazen and that is why Buddha only turned a flower in his hand instead of talking on Vulture Peak and that is why Mahakasyapa only smiled.

that stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it gets
I wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind

Stone Buddha is nothing but a symbol. Some people confuse Buddhism with idolatry.
Although there is no need to put down Buddha statues like Taliban did in Afghanistan, which was an act of hatred and discrimination and fear, Ikkyu expresses his concern about true, living Buddhism that some people want to wrap up in golden paper and put into a museum. Buddha statues are ok and when they are standing outdoors, they deal with birdshit. True Buddhism is more than statues and idolatry. It is waving our arms playfully finding Buddha’s teaching right here in this simple moment when we are enjoying ourselves.

hear the cruel no-answer until blood drips down
beat your head against the wall of it

Some people believe everything, including reality, can be explained, so they look for answers in books. As soon as they read all interesting books on Buddhism, they believe they know all about Buddhism. Although everything can be explained about Buddhism, there is something that has to be experienced. Explanation is not enough. That is why a teacher’s experience cannot replace the student’s experience. Although a teacher may answer all the student’s question, there is still something remaining that we feel has not been answered. It is not something mysterious or secret. The truth is something very clear. It is actually the clearest thing we can ever encounter. But this clearest thing cannot be replaced by words. The truth of Buddhism lies in life itself, our experience here and now itself. If you want to hear the ultimate answer expressed in words, you will have to bang your head against the wall for ages and still will never get the answer. Ikkyu is not disappointed. But he also warns himself and others that ultimate knowing is not knowing something intellectually. It is acting in the present and experiencing things as they are.

even before trees rocks I was nothing
when I’m dead nowhere I’ll be nothing

Like Dogen, Ikkyu does not believe in reincarnation. To him, life before this one is nothing and life after his death is nothing at all, too. To him, only things happening now are real.

all the bad things I do will go up in smoke
and so will I

Buddhist life consists of many mistakes. There is some desire, some anger, and although hardly anyone will consider it a mistake, sadness is part of a Buddhist’ life, too. That is all true life. Buddhists cannot escape their own innate imperfectness and so make a lot of mistakes. But Ikkyu is aware of the vast space that digests all bad things and purifies itself all the time. The universe itself is neither good nor bad. Living a Buddhist life we naturally try to live appropriately and in harmony with the society. But sometimes we simply fail. Sometimes we are criticized by others. Anyway, everything changes and one day we will have to die. One day, maybe in millions of years from now, all the mistakes we made will not matter any more.

if there’s nowhere to rest at the end
how can I get lost on the way?

Ikkyu does not believe in an ultimate goal in Buddhism - something we are trying to attain and once we get there, we can rest forever and nothing will bother us any more. He does not believe in a kind of enlightenment that is the end of a Buddhist’s efforts. He believes in the truth that is encountered in this moment. If there is no goal or somewhere to go, how could we get lost? Ultimately, we cannot lose the realm of the truth. But while we are right where we should be, we may believe that we are somewhere else. A teacher can help us see where we really are.

fuck flattery success money
all I do is lie back suck my thumb

People make a lot of fuss about sex, success, money and power. They are often completely lost in the fantastic world of sex, success and money. Instead of drinking tea, they drink money. Instead of seeing trees, they see numbers. Instead of walking, they think they are great or special. They are happy when somebody tells them: Congratulations! Ikkyu prefers doing something simple and true, being himself, naked and present completely: lying back and sucking his thumb.

so many words about it
the only language is you don’t open your lips

There are tons of books about Buddhism. Some of them are great and it is very helpful to study them. Shobogenzo by master Dogen is such a great book. It explains the whole of Buddhism. But studying and understanding is only 50%. Sitting down and practicing zazen without talking is the only way how to experience fully – with both body and mind - what Buddhism is.

If you want to read other poems by Ikkyu, maybe the nicest book - and the one I fell in love with when I began to think about becoming a Buddhist - is Crow with no Mouth - a collection translated by Stephen Berg, who did a fantastic job, I think. The poems above are just from that book.

This Moment Is Enough

2007-07-26T16:29:00.000+01:00

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I have been dating my girlfriend for about 4 years. So far I have made zillions of mistakes in the relationship. And today I can say the relationship seems very healthy, very calm and stable. It is because my girlfriend is not around... No, seriously, it is true she is not around, but last couple of months the relationship has worked very well.

I cannot say that about my situation at work. I think I am only at the beginning of a long process maturing as a high school teacher. Maybe one day I will be able to say that my situation at work is very healthy, calm and stable. Now it isn’t. In the past I would dream about becoming a really mature, stable, peaceful Buddhist. Now this is a huge issue, a big topic. This – becoming a mature, stable, peaceful Buddhist is such a complex issue that I cannot compare it to being a high school teacher or being a boyfriend. I believe it is really possible to establish a healthy relationship or becoming a good high school teacher. Maybe not for everyone, but at least for someone it is possible. But becoming a mature Buddhist is something pretty vague – something you cannot clearly point to – this is a mature Buddhist. OK, we can say that some Buddhist teachers could be called mature Buddhists, but there is something wrong with the ambition to become a mature Buddhist. Actually there is something a little bit wrong about trying to become a good husband or a good high school teacher, too.

So what is the role of ambition or success – such as succeeding in being a good father or succeeding in being a good businesswoman – in Buddhism? Should we give up our goals completely? Should we just live in the present moment no matter what? Should we give up our dreams? I once came across Brad Warner’s article where he stated that he actually looked forward to a day when he and his wife go for lunch in a park or something like that. It was so great to find out that a Buddhist teacher actually still looks forward to something! Isn’t it natural, quite human to imagine something in the future, something nice and look forward to it? Isn’t it natural and human to remember something beautiful we saw or heard in the past? Buddhism definitely doesn’t encourage people to stop looking forward to things or remembering things. And what is also interesting is that Buddhism doesn’t even discourage us to give up our goals. The only thing that may differ from the common views of people about goals and memories is that Buddhism encourages us to start here and now, or in other words, consider here and now as the only time and place we can actually achieve anything!How can we achieve something here and now when we haven’t achieved it yet? For example, if I want to become the president of the United States how can I achieve it now? We can only achieve something like that now because there is actually no real tomorrow or no real over there. Tomorrow or over there are only ideas in our heads. So if you want to become the president of the United States, you have to do it now. It doesn’t matter if somebody calls you the president now. If you want to be a good husband, you have to be a good husband now. Even if you are sitting in a pub drinking beer in the pub, your wife bitching about it back at home, you are already a great husband, the best one. If you want to be a Buddhist teacher and you are somewhere in a Buddhist camp and feeling all confused about Buddhism and yourself, you can still become a great Buddhist teacher now. Just doing what you are doing now you are teaching the whole world about Buddhism. So now and here, or here and now, is the starting point, but at the same time, it is the final point. It includes both. That’s why I claim that if somebody wants to be the president of the United States, they already are the president now. Anyway, we cannot deny some kind of progress or taking steps to achieve something. If you want to build a house, you cannot do it only now. You also have to do it later today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and so on. Until one day the house is finished. Still, these steps or the progress we make only happens in the moment of now and it happens here and nowhere else. What most people do is that they keep thinking about something out of here and now. Like that they are usually trapped in the concepts they create in their heads. The house is not finished yet, oh my, it will take forever, and who knows if we will still have enough money to finish it. They cannot appreciate the moment and the place now because they imagine what here and now should be like. If you sit in a pub sipping beer, thinking you are a bad husband, you actually are a bad husband. Why? Because a good husband is sipping beer in a pub, not worrying about being a good or bad husband. When you are what you are where you are, beyond good or bad, beyond yesterday and tomorrow, you already are what you want to be. Because you want to be a complete, realistic person living in the present. That is the ideal of Buddhism. But the ideal is not enough. Instead of thinking “Now I am a complete, realistic person living in the present” we should give up this ideal in the sake of its meaning. So the ideal is actually something we have to do, not something we have to consider. It is necessary to mention or explain ideas or goals in Buddhism, but then it is necessary to get over the ideas and actually do something now – no matter if it is perfect or not. Even if we don’t look like perfect Buddhists, we often are perfect Buddhists. And when somebody says: Now, I am a perfect Buddhist, then he is definitely not. Because what matters most in Buddhism is what is happening now, in reality, not in our heads. How do we become good husbands or good partners or good teachers based on practicing and studying Buddhism? Buddhism teaches that essentially, there is nothing we can improve about ourselves. The way we are, what we really are, is enough and it is the only thing we can ever achieve. So essentially, we can never become better people. But on the relative level, in the world of common thinking, which is often necessary so that we can somehow meaningfully communicate with the world, we do improve as people. We don’t improve essentially, but we can improve in a tiny field we are interested in. We can become better drivers, we can become better chemistry teachers, we can improve our German or Spanish. At the same time, we are not making any progress as human beings. Buddhism is not interested in some kind of idea that a person can become perfect or holy or better than others. Buddhism is trying to awake our true self, something that is beyond good and bad, high and low. So when a bad husband becomes his true self, is he still a bad husband? Are you a bad husband in the moment you are cleaning your room?

What is so valuable and priceless about Shobogenzo by master Dogen is not Shobogenzo itself, it is not the words of Shobogenzo that makes it such a wonderful Buddhist teaching. What makes it so brilliant is that it points to practice and reality rather than celebrating abstract ideas. So we create something brilliant, in this moment. It takes time to achieve this or that, but this moment is always when we plant the seed of tomorrow. If we do something really really bad now, later the results will appear. But if we want good results, then we should first forget about good and bad and discover something great about this moment and this place. There is something brilliant about this moment and this place, no matter what it seems like. Here and now is where and when Buddha appears. Buddha is not Buddha only based on his past experience. Buddha is not Buddha because he or she is going to do only wonderful things from now on. Buddha is Buddha because he or she has appeared here based on the past, but has transcended the past and future and is acting in the present moment. Such a Buddha achieves the most important thing – being a real person - whenever he or she is like this. So in other words, a real, complete person is not a real, complete person only based on his or her experience. At the same time, a real, complete person is not a real, complete person because he or she will never make a mistake from now on. A real, complete person is a real, complete person, because he or she has appeared based on the past and transcended the past and the future and is acting in the present moment. We cannot deny the importance of our past experience, but we should be always able to forget about the past in the sake of here and now. Because we can only do things and express ourselves fully in the present. If we are hungry now, it doesn’t help that we ate something yesterday.

We can work on things we want to achieve but the best way how to work on them is to do what is necessary to do now or what is suitable to do now. So it is better to let go of the past and future when there is no reason to worry about such things. Let go of ideas like “good partner” and “bad partner” when there is something real happening now. Because Buddha, the complete person, the person who creates brilliant things, is somebody who is living beyond concepts. This moment is enough. But to say “ this moment is enough” is not enough. It is necessary to jump off the 100-foot pole made of words into the real world. When we do that, this moment is always enough!

O work!

2007-07-13T13:53:00.001+01:00

Sorry I haven't published anything for a long time. One reason is that I have been extremely busy at work as I am trying to become a good English teacher at a high school which takes a lot of efforts and energy, so almost none was left for writing about Buddhism. But now it is holiday time, I am resting and have more energy to study and write about Buddhism again.

Another reason I haven't published anything for a while is that I am somehow "busy" being Mike Luetchford's student - although I only see him a few times a year, every ocassion to spend time with him is for me very important and valuable experience and this experience is something that you cannot just gulp down - you have to digest slowly. And while digesting I feel I should be quiet for a while . But now I am back and I will try to reflect on Buddism a bit again.

Bowing to Buddha

2006-12-09T15:01:00.001+01:00

Somebody said that instead of bowing in front of Buddha, we could also bow in front of a garbage can or an old pair of shoes. Roshi Nishijima criticized this view saying that it is rude to put aside a statue of Buddha and bow in front of old shoes or garbage.

In Buddhism we sometimes hear the teaching that everything is pure. Everything is perfect, everything is wonderful. So if everything is pure, even terrorists are pure, garbage is pure, sickness is pure, pain is pure, polluted rivers are pure, dead fish are pure. How can polluted rivers with dead fish be pure? Another time when we study Buddhism we hear that life is suffering. There is suffering everywhere in the world. The whole world looks like a mess. These are two opposing views. Reality is not somewhere in between. It encompasses both views.

Of course, there is something wrong with the way most people think and live. But originally there is nothing wrong with the way we live or think. But how many people out of a thousand understand and live what that “originally” means? It is possible to find out what is real, true, so in Buddhism we focus on studying and practicing the truth.

On one hand, we can realize that there is no substance in anything in the world. Everything exists just in this moment. In the next moment, it is different, even if just a tiny little bit. We cannot find something substantial about a human being, an animal, a plant, or a rock. Everything changes and is composed of millions of particles that are also changing all the time, even if we cannot see the changes. Sometimes this absence of substance is called emptiness. So we can understand that emptiness in the Buddhist sense is not negative, rather it is an important aspect of all existence. On the other hand, we deal with some forms that are present all the time. Even if we understand emptiness and are detached from things, we cannot deny formal presence of things. Some people are attached to emptiness and like to dwell in emptiness. We call them ascetics. Some people like to dwell in the world of forms and act as if everything that they can see, touch, smell, taste etc was something permanent. So as these people don’t see the empty or impermanent aspect of everything, they cannot find freedom from the formal world. They suffer too much when they lose something and feel excited when they get something forgetting that one day they will lose it anyway. It is natural to cry and laugh when circumstances are sad or funny, but it is not necessary to cry all day or laugh all day like crazy people who cannot see things realistically. A Buddhist is somebody who studies and practices the balance between the emptiness of things and formal existence of things. So a person studying and practicing Buddhism is somebody who always finds reality in their everyday lives. Not denying the empty aspect of things, not denying the formal aspect of things. It is possible to live in balance of these two sides when we just lead our ordinary lives without worrying too much about the past and future. Without denying the real effects of formal world that we live in, we are not totally enslaved by forms – in fact, in this moment we are free – but this moment means we actually do something real, be it eating, speaking, sitting in zazen or watching TV.

How is it possible to be totally free in the present moment? When we just plunge into the form of the thing we are doing, we go beyond the form. So in this moment, when we act wholeheartedly, we are free from the form without fighting the form. In this moment, we are acting beyond the contradiction of emptiness and form. This is freedom from samsara and realizing the truth beyond thinking.

Specifically, it is not necessary to fight against the formal state of the world today intellectually, but it is possible to contribute to the good aspects of the formal state of the world through our proper acting. We should practice our personal responsibility in the real life. We have a job or children or look after an old person or write books or govern a country. Everyone has different responsibilities so if everyone did their best doing their jobs, we would live in a world where most people would be content. They would be content working every day without complaining too much and desiring too much and they would be content with the state of things in the world as there wouldn’t be so many problems and conflicts as these days when most people are only interested in personal profits and pleasure. So we can see that when a single person starts to lead an ordinary life responsibly, the world is a better place immediately. When we don’t know what is adequate or proper, as everything seems wonderful from a certain Buddhist point of view, we might end up lying in bed all day doing nothing. But although we understand that the world is originally in a pure state, we should respect the fact that the world is based on real laws. So for example if we lie down in bed all day, never going shopping, we will soon be hungry. Then we might find out that the shop is closed because the staff also thought it was better to lie in bed and do nothing. We can see that although we may find freedom in Buddhism, it is not a freedom of “Nothing matters, so what”. The freedom Buddha found under the Bodhi tree and that we can find in zazen and in everyday activities is based on plunging into the present moment without thinking about the difference between freedom and a duty.

Traditions are important. When we practice zazen with a group of people, we need a room that will always look about the same, with an altar, a Buddha statue and some incense. We need to wear dark clothes in the zendo and walk quietly so that we don’t disturb others. We need to sit still with others and end sitting when everyone ends. Although this seems like being attached to form, it is not. Rather than being attached to forms like sitting, walking, bowing, it is really like going through the gate of form and entering the realm of “freedom beyond form and emptiness”. So as we are not attached to forms, we can stand up immediately when it is necessary to go to the kitchen and start preparing a meal or when we are sick we can stand up any moment and quietly go to the restroom. We can bow in front of anything in the world when we feel like it. But a zendo is a place that is traditionally and perfectly organized so people don’t bump into each other and things are not knocked over. When we see a statue of Buddha sitting in zazen, it inspires our efforts to pursue the truth and also suggests that the practice we are doing in the zendo is something that has been practiced by buddhas and patriarchs for many centuries with the same result – finding the truth beyond form and emptiness. When we practice Buddhism and bow in front of Buddha, we act realistically in the present moment and respect the real state of the world. From the formal point of view, shoes are different from a Buddha statue. Originally, they are the same. But in Buddhism, we are not one-sided, so we embrace the original state of things and formal state of things at the same time. Then we can lead an ordinary life without disturbing others and ourselves with one-sided acts or thoughts. In the morning, we get up, at night we go to sleep and in the zendo we bow in front of Buddha.

Imagine No Religion

2006-11-20T23:50:00.001+01:00

John Lennon sings: “Imagine all the people living in peace… no religion, no countries”. When I was listening to the song some time ago, I thought: Is the kind of Buddhist theory and practice I write about and which is taught by master Dogen something that causes violence in the world? Is Buddhism a religion that causes hatred or suspicion?

Buddhism is something that we experience through our actual life, not something we experience through thinking. Although we think about Buddhism, Buddhist teachers encourage us to both study Buddhist philosophy and, after having read a Buddhist text, go beyond thinking – enjoy apple trees in bloom or drink an apple juice. It is in these very simple moments that we experience something beyond a religion. So Buddhism points to certain experience where there are no more religions and no countries. A religion is an idea. A country is also an idea. A true religion is something we experience now. A true country is something we experience now. The Heart Sutra says there is “no eye, no ear” etc. And John Lennon says: Imagine no religion. Buddha had already confirmed that there is nothing substantial that we can call a religion or a country. But Buddha also confirmed that there is always something real. Although it seems Lennon talked about the end of religions, I think he was looking for true peace beyond religious limits. And this is exactly what Buddha found sitting under the Bodhi tree in zazen. He found something beyond philosophies and religions. That’s why it was strange for him to start teaching it. Teaching what? Teaching that grass is green and the sky is blue? Teach that sitting cross-legged is the truth itself? But as we know, Buddha found a great way how to teach the truth.

To practice zazen – sit quietly beyond differences between religions means to realize the ideals John Lennon sang about. But this true peace beyond religions is something that has to be done, it is not enough to discuss what peace is or is not. It is necessary to make peace happen through our real actions as human beings. It is, despite all odds, possible to experience something universally liberating and universally peaceful here and now, when we sit quietly on a cushion or when we act wholeheartedly, for example drinking juice or doing the dishes. I mean universally liberating and peaceful. When we drink juice wholeheartedly in this moment, everyone is in peace, the whole world is in peace.

We don’t have to insist on differences between religions when we do something now. When we do something now, there is actually no Buddhism, no Christianity, no philosophy or religion. Now is only now. Now is something that is not worse than tomorrow or yesterday. And when we are living today, at this place, now, nobody is right or wrong. Nobody has the right religion or the wrong religion.

When we join others who pursue the truth, when we listen to a teacher and practice zazen like buddhas, it is nothing like a craze or people blindly following ideas. To practice zazen and study Buddhism means to join the efforts of those who personally practice the truth beyond colored lenses of karma. When we practice with others and learn from a teacher in the real life, we don’t imitate. On the contrary, we learn to be exactly ourselves. I cannot imitate other people’s samadhi, a balanced, peaceful state. I have to experience it myself. I cannot imitate other people’s zazen. I experience zazen myself.

All people are essentially true, so everyone can learn from an authentic teacher to reveal the truth for themselves and experience true peace beyond words and religions. It is useless to worry about levels of peacefulness, because the kind of peace that really matters is beyond levels. Peace has no form of its own. But it penetrates all forms. It is trees, clouds, rivers, children, married couples, old people and even big shopping malls and airports. It is not necessary to try to attain the peaceful state, as it is not different from us. We are made of peace. When we practice zazen, it is there. There is no need to look for it.

Buddhism is not yet another religion. It is our true life, here and now, when we are not attached to our opinions, not stuck in a certain feeling or situation, rather living dynamically moment after moment. No matter if we call ourselves Buddhists or not, in this moment, when we are awake here and now, John Lennon’s dream comes true. It is a beautiful dream but when it comes true, its beauty is something crisp.

The Truth Is Generous

2006-11-20T23:44:00.001+01:00

Reality is essentially peaceful. It is pure. It has no horns or legs. People often talk about peace, but they keep adding horns to dogs and legs to snakes, which leads to the mess in the world. We can feel free to call reality God. Or call it Mind. Or call it awakening. But no matter what we call it, we lose something precious when we look at it through our own colored lenses. When we look at reality through our own colored lenses, we see a picture that was drawn by our personal karma. When a hungry person sees a steak, he or she sees something beautiful, maybe a diamond ring. When a lover who was left by her partner sees the diamond ring he’d given her, she can’t see anything – through her big tears. Most people see things through colored lenses. Blue, red, green, yellow. I also see things through my own colored lenses and often lose the true picture. But after zazen I sometimes wonder how clear a thing is. I don’t mean that after zazen I understand something intellectually. I just see things clear. Things without labels. This is not something great about me, it is something great about reality! There is a difference between seeing something clearly and seeing something clear. To see something clearly requires a personal quality. There is still a difference between the thing and me. The thing depends on clarity of my view. But to practice zazen doesn’t mean to develop a certain spiritual or mental quality of seeing things. In zazen we just come back to the default state of things. To see something clear requires nothing other than regular practice of zazen in which we just sit and do not try to see anything clear or unclear. After zazen we can just let a thing be what it is. Without trying to see it clearly. So when I see a thing clear, such a thing needs no comments or explanation. It is just plain true and the truth of it is wonderful. For example when I tie my shoelaces after zazen, I only tie my shoelaces. And I marvel at the clarity and true nature of something so ordinary as shoelaces.

Sometimes people are afraid to let go of their personal opinions and views, as they don’t want to lose their “personality”. There is no need to worry about losing our personality. When we practice zazen and take off our colored glasses, we don’t have to act like monkeys anymore and imitate others. So we are just ourselves, rather than somebody else. Although it seems it is human to imitate others or try to win competitions, I think this kind of “victory” attitude toward life is a very low, pitiful form of human culture. There is nothing wrong with winning a competition. What is somehow pitiful is the opinion that to lose is something bad. When a wise person wins a competition, they may feel uneasy about it. They don’t feel they are the best. How about the efforts of others? They really respect the sincere efforts of the other contestants.

I once saw a top woman tennis player give up a match. She gave up because she was exhausted. She was sitting there on the bench, her head covered in a towel, crying. The other woman won the whole tournament. But despite her success, she didn’t seem to enjoy her situation very much. She walked around the court as if being lost and cried a little bit. She felt sorry about her opponent. So who actually won? That situation shows that it doesn’t matter who wins. It only matters how sincere we are in this moment when we do something. Who cares about winning or losing? Isn’t it wonderful to have a chance to do something wholeheartedly? Isn’t it wonderful to lose a tennis match although we did our best? Isn’t it wonderful to find some balance in our life no matter if we lose or win? I have tried to succeed in something all my life – be it music, literature or writing essays about Buddhism. But when I practice zazen, I give up. And I see it is great to give up my dreams about being somebody whose skills are admired by others. After zazen I can see this text is just a toilet paper – do you need this, do you want to read this? OK. Do you still need it after you have finished reading it? No. So flush it. Flush me, flush everything and just do the next thing in the row. There are things in everyone’s life that matter more than creating images based on images. How good am I? How good is she? How good are they? Flush. Where is the spoon? Let’s eat the soup now. I think my teacher Mike Luetchford will not become a famous Buddhist teacher very soon. Before you open your mouth to say something how great he is, he will stick a spoon in your mouth: “Eat your soup!” He doesn’t accept admiration, he doesn’t accept any kind of nonsense. He tells people to follow what is real. So only a few people can realize that Mike is a true Buddhist teacher. Mike is teaching Buddhism, not Mikeism. But most people interested in Buddhism seem to look for “oh, look at that wonderful Buddhist teacher, how gracious he is, look at the fantastic halo!” Mike is the fellow next door. That’s why I chose him. The truth is the garbage next door. It sounds negative, but it is not negative. It is what it is.

We will always be somehow foolish, no matter how well we understand what Buddhism is and we will always be somehow foolish no matter how well we do things in our real life. It is impossible to grasp the truth and then wave with it as if it was a flag. “I got it! I got it!” Impossible. But Buddha said to Mahakasyapa: “You've got my dharma. You understand!” What did Mahakasyapa get? What did he understand? Was it something that I or you are away from? I don't think so. The truth is generous, it is openly epressed just now and giving itself to me or you, anyone. Every person in the world gets something true in every instant of their lives.

Just to Live Now Is All That Matters

2006-11-01T22:32:00.001+01:00

This title is quite dangerous. Some people could use it as an excuse to live like a dog that runs after a bone saying: “I am running after the bone now and it is all that matters. A Buddhist text said so.” To live now is something precise and it has to be studied and practiced every day, otherwise it becomes an empty phrase. But because so many people tend to look for the truth everywhere but in this moment and this place, old masters used to point to the ordinary things of here and now over and over again. I would like to stress the importance of this moment and this place, too.

Although it is kind of naïve to look for enlightenment, it is definitely not silly to pursue the truth. The question is: How should we pursue the truth? To live moment after moment without seeking something outside or inside, we live an ordinary life and practice zazen. Even if zazen has plenty of benefits for someone who is looking for benefits, it has nothing that adds to purity of truth. So for a person who relies on reality, zazen affirms reality and adds no benefits. Then why practice it? When we rely on reality, we don’t look for something that would confirm reality. But zazen is experience that is beyond these explanations. Once we transcend our intellectual understanding, we stop asking questions if we should or should not practice zazen. As soon as we go beyond intellectual reasoning and decide to practice Buddhism, we just sit down and practice zazen. The moment when we sit down is the moment when our reasoning is stopped. Then of course, after zazen we can go back to Buddhist philosophy and theories and reasoning. But the most important thing is to act and do things in our real life.

In real life we sometimes are deluded. For example we believe we are fantastic or lousy and stick to such a belief. Another time we have direct experience of reality. When you throw a thirteen-year old girl into a pool, she certainly has her own direct experience of cool water splashing against her body. We all have such experiences every day - walking, eating, drinking, listening…but most people don’t know how precious these experiences are. Most people prefer daydreaming or looking for exciting mystical experiences. We cannot jump out of the world of delusion, there is no way how to jump out. But at the same time, we cannot jump out of the world of enlightenment. They are not separate and they are always here - right here no matter where that here is. We can enjoy the truth beyond delusion and enlightenment only if we plunge into our everyday activities. We will never be able to praise the value of this moment enough. There will never be a chance to say “thank you for the opportunity to be alive in this moment” to anyone, never. But one day we might regret that we missed the opportunity to live now. Buddha Gautama found out that it is possible to fully appreciate the present moment. When we fully appreciate the present moment, it is as if we said thank you louder than a thunderstorm. Who is there we thank to for this moment? There is nobody but the moment itself that we praise. The best way how to praise the moment now is to live it just now the way it is. So although it seems that a person is different from the moment, there is no difference, just one moment, beyond subject and object. When lovers make love, they don’t say thank you. They only make love - they are one. Making love is not different from thank you. This moment is thank you. But we don’t know if somebody or something is grateful talking to us or if we are talking to somebody or something expressing our gratitude. So instead of looking for the line between the object and subject, we can just be here and now. If we could watch a film about our whole life - moment after moment – while lying in our coffin, I think we would notice there was something wonderful about the most ordinary moments of our life and we would probably feel some regret that we were not able to notice the depth and purity of ordinary life while we were alive.

But Buddhists are lucky that they can learn to see the inexpressible profundity of everyday life already today, already now. Buddhists are lucky and I think they feel a lot of gratitude for their everyday opportunities to live fully and wholeheartedly to Buddha Gautama and all teachers and patriarchs. I think a true Buddhist student must feel some kind of gratitude for their chances to study and practice Buddhism to their teachers. I sometimes want to say thank you to my teacher. But although I say thank you, I don’t think it is enough. I think the moment now is a gift from my teacher and from Buddha and all patriarchs. But if I think about my teacher all the time and feel grateful, I will lose what I am grateful for. It is like swimming. Although my body and mind feel happy when I swim, I cannot stop swimming and say thank you – when you stop swimming you are about to drown – so it is necessary to continue moment after moment. This is the best way how to say thank you to Buddha, patriarchs, teachers, and the truth. Just to live here and now – it is all that matters.

Precision and Freedom in Buddhism

2006-06-14T12:45:00.001+01:00

It is great that someone has studied Buddhism for twenty or thirty years and has practiced zazen for all this time every day. But it is also necessary to learn to be flexible and free during the Buddhist studies and practice. Some people develop a kind of intellectual paralysis and sometimes their zazen is a kind of special exercise, but such excercise is not zazen, actually. Of course, it is necessary to study Buddhism precisely and practice zazen every day in the correct posture. But it is also necessary to be free from Buddhist theories every day and practice zazen without being paralysed or haunted by zazen. Some people keep certain Buddhist theories in their mind all the time and when they practice zazen, they try to develop a special mental state. But zazen is just sitting cross-legged here and now without any intentions and Buddhism is our every day life beyond theories.

A lot of people try hard to understand the theory of Buddhism and there is nothing wrong with that. A lot of people try hard to practice zazen correctly and that is also good. But very few people can forget the theory in this moment and live naturally every day and very few people practice zazen without intentions in the present.

We really need this freedom to become free. And we also need this freedom to precisely understand what Buddhism and zazen is. Buddhism is precision and freedom at the same time. It is not a prison of thoughts and posture. Shobogenzo was not written to imprison us intellectually.

After all, we can see that freedom is not different from caring and doing things appropriately. Listen to the birds - they sing freely, but precisely as birds. Their singing is neither intellectual nor reckless. They sing just like birds and have no problem doing so. They are naturally free and precise. But we humans have yet to learn that to be free and precise are not two different things. We can be free when we practice zazen in the correct posture, we can be free when we wash dishes precisely and we can be free when we study Buddhism precisely.

If nothing other helps and we can't get rid of annoying thoughts and feelings, sometimes an ice cold shower helps. Because its sharp coldness wakes up the true self in us. The present moment. And during the day, it is focus on what we are just doing now that helps and that actually wakes up the true person. What are people looking for? Everyone is already free and a great person. So it is not necessary to be imprisoned in the fishnet of words and feelings. If we don't let go of this fishnet, we will never know what to do and we will not be able to study Buddhism and practice zazen freely and adequately. If we can't experience this freedom in Buddhism, we will not understand the freedom of our teacher and the freedom of birds and trees. And it would be a shame to waste the opportunity to share this universe with trees and birds as freely and precisely as they do.

David Bohm Was Not Naive and Neither Was Buddha

2006-06-13T23:21:00.000+01:00

When we find out that even modern physicists like David Bohm, who was Albert Einstein’s close colleague, figured out that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we think, then we see that there must be something wrong with the modern people who believe in the ultimate power of thinking as if it was some kind of religion.

David Bohm realized that human thinking is infected with the belief that each thought is something real, while in fact each thought is only a symbol of something real. Actually, a thought is something real. But it is real as a thought, something going on in the brain. A thought is a thought, it helps us communicate and survive in the world. But it is not what it symbolizes. A picture of a house is something real, but the picture is not a real house. Most people forget this. And only few people notice this pitfall. We can see that both Buddha Shakyamuni and one of the greatest modern physicists of the 20^th century realized that human mind milsleads even extremely educated people, be it scientists or philosophers.

When we look at the statue of Buddha sitting cross-legged, we go – Oh, something mystical… Or: Oh, something stupid. Or: Oh, some kind of bliss, but nothing for the rush hours of modern life. Something that does not fit in here, in the modern life, something that is naïve compared with the modern science. But when we look at David Bohm’s efforts to explain that the universe is far more complex and less tangible than what our splendid thoughts, including those scientific and philosophical, can describe and evaluate correctly, we see that maybe there is something important about Buddha’s sitting peacefully even from the scientific point of view. I don’t mean just some kind of psychotherapy, like sit peacefully and calm down. That is only a tiny bit of the whole thing that we call Buddhist practice, and what is actually reality beyond words and logical description. I mean there is something solid, something essential for the whole human culture in Buddha’s sitting.

When we look at all those people trying to attain some kind of eternal bliss or enlightenment or solve the mystery of the universe through thinking or some kind of faith that is based on yet another idea, we must ask ourselves – isn’t all this effort aimed in the wrong direction? Isn’t it completely silly to try to attain something in the realm of thinking or imagination, which is basically the same, instead of something real in this moment? And isn’t JUST this moment something real? So isn’t the goal of all human culture finding the ultimate value of reality just as it is expressed in this moment? Isn’t it necessary to discover that this very moment, no matter how ordinary or fleeting it may seem, is the greatest source and at the same time the greatest goal of all human efforts, be it scientific, religious or intimate?

Of course, there is no reason to deny the importance of thinking - education and learning intellectually. But it should be part of our education, that thinking as such is limited and even false, when it pretends to be reality itself. There is no reason to stop scientific research; there is no reason to look at Buddhist philosophy as something false just because it is somehow represented by words. It is necessary to work with ideas precisely and sincerely, but also take into account that they are not reality itself. They are just a kind of bridge, a link from thought to reality.

Last, but not least, on the personal, maybe even emotional level, people would be much more satisfied and could find ultimate happiness many times a day, in the midst of every day actions, if they learned that a thought is just not what it stands for. If they learned that what we do in this moment is real and that only such actual experience can really satisfy the human hunger for knowing and vivid, fully appreciated life. And many of those anxious, nervous, eager or naive Buddhists would relax and find satisfaction in the understanding that this moment is enough. But such understanding – as it is only understanding, not experience itself - must be abandoned immediately. Before we jump into the ocean, we may have a couple of thoughts, but these thoughts won’t jump anywhere. We have to stop thinking for a moment and act. And once we act, we have no time to speak or think. At least not in the tiny little bit of this very moment. There are no fixed intellectual conclusions that could be called life, but there is plenty of life itself to grab now. Over and over again.

The Moon in the Sky

2006-05-31T22:14:00.000+01:00

this is a newly edited version of my older essay Let's Check What is Real

There are two opposite aspects of reality. And people tend to see them as two separate facts.
We either worry about the suffering of the world - wars, politics, terror, or we worry about our own personal situation as individuals. Most people try to be socially active and do something about what is going on in the world. But some spiritually oriented people believe that the best thing to do is to leave the world and lead an ascetic life far away in the mountains. When master Dogen became a monk and lived in the mountains and later became a teacher who looked after a monastery and his disciples, he did not actually leave the reality of the world. In Shobogenzo he often mentions various lay people who realized the truth. So Dogen taught that it was not necessary to leave the world and get isolated somewhere in order to pursue the truth. He knew and taught that the truth is not something one-sided. Neither only external, nor only internal.

I used to get very calm and peaceful during retreats but when I got back to the city, I was shocked by the amount of ignorance and noise. I would quickly lose my balance because the noise and ignorance of the external world would very much disturb me. But such results of practice only show that there is something wrong with this kind of practice. It is not necessary to go to a retreat only to find out that the external world is unbearable or that the suffering of the world is overwhelming. It is better to go to a retreat to study the real nature of the world, the interdependence of our inner experience and the world as something external.

Sometimes we completely lose interest in the world outdoors and only plunge into all kinds of mental states and sometimes we completely lose interest in our mental state and jump into the streets only to be carried away by the anger or excitement of the crowd. Psychoanalysts say that some people tend to go inward and some tend to go outward, but in the normal state of body and mind, that we experience when we practice zazen, we naturally integrate our inward tendencies with our outward tendencies. When we practice Buddhism, we don’t need to get closed somewhere and ignore the world, but at the same time we don’t have to follow a crowd to ignore our own individual experience, either.

When I participated in retreats and practiced zazen in the past, I hoped to find some internal security that would prevent the chaos of the external world from disturbing my mind. I hoped to find a state in which nothing would shake me, nothing would make me angry or depressed. But such an attitude is very egocentric. In such a case we practice zazen only to feel good and peaceful and secure and attain some kind of armor that would protect us from the madness of the world. That is not true Buddhism, actually. There is no reason why somebody who works in a factory or is a police officer, a journalist, a politician or even a psychologist could not pursue the truth. The truth does not choose jobs or places. You can find it in factories, in the streets, at night bars, in the clouds, even in battlefields. We just cannot expect reality to attend only some peaceful places and avoid noisy or dirty places. This does not mean that it is a good idea to support madness of the world. But there is nothing mad about having a job, is there? Living in a housing project or having a noisy job does not exclude authentic Buddhist experience, as authentic Buddhist experience is something that is realized within our everyday life - beyond the opposites of inside and outside.

As we realize that our internal experience is not isolated from the external experience of the world, our egocentric tendencies are much weaker. Realizing that we are not beings isolated from the universe does not mean that we don’t act as individuals. Although rocks and trees are not isolated in the universe, they act as individual entities. We can carry a rock or plant a tree. We don’t say we have carried the universe or planted the universe. So as individuals we have different jobs, but these jobs can be in harmony with the whole universe. When the job or activity of an individual is based on egocentric views, suffering appears sooner or later, here or somewhere else.

We must notice the suffering of the world, but we should also notice how we suffer as individuals. We can notice that we sometimes can’t stop some kind of inner mental arguments and sometimes we notice that the world cannot stop its wars and battles. Then we find out that there is basically no difference between the way we suffer as individuals and how the world suffers as an objective reality. When we study and practice Buddhism, we should try to keep balance between the focus on our own experience and on the experience of the world. This means we should act in harmony with the real state of the world.

People sometimes believe that there is a difference between the hatred or fear they feel and the hatred and fear that causes so much suffering in the world. These two are just one and the same hatred and fear. When we study and practice Buddhism, we learn that we cannot deal with ourselves as some isolated beings that are cut off the world, and at the same time we cannot consider the world as something that is cut off from our own experience.

When we practice zazen, we realize that we, as individuals, blend with the universe. That does not mean we really disappear or become a cloud or a shadow. I am not talking about milkshake, but to blend is the best word I know for the experience I mean. It means that we cannot clearly define the border between “I” and “the universe”. Sometimes we hear that when one person practices zazen, the whole universe practices zazen. That is hardly imaginable for a materialist. Until recently I could not grasp this, either. I believed that when I practiced zazen, it had nothing to do with the wars going on in the world. How could one stop a war just by sitting in a lotus posture? To me there were clearly two different realities – me practicing zazen and the world outside that is going crazy. But again, to practice zazen as an individual is not something completely material, physical or logical. To practice zazen as an individual, who blends with the universe, is beyond counting how many people practice zazen in this moment and beyond how many different worlds exist in the universe.

When we look at the history of the mankind, we can notice that philosophers have always struggled with the problem of the world being cut into halves - subjective and objective. Scientists usually don’t worry about this and continue to study the world as something objective, no matter what. I believe it is the job of science to work with objective facts but this attitude cannot solve our existential problems. Mathematics, physics, chemistry and others are all interesting fields and help us to cope with all kinds of problems of civilization, but they cannot explain the experience of an individual as something beyond the opposites of subjective or internal and objective or external experience.

When we practice zazen as individuals we usually believe that we are cut off from the universe as we usually consider the shape of our body as something that proves our limited existence in the universe and the shape of our mind as something that proves our limited existence in the universe. But when we practice zazen, we can notice that the external world and the internal world are only two aspects of one reality. In fact, how could a wall, that seems to be in front of me, exist as something that cannot be experienced by an individual? And how could I, as an individual, exist without being able to experience the wall? So as the wall is experienced by me, it is realized by me - in other words, it can be hardly qualified as something that is definitely outside me. Furthermore, we could say that the wall experiences me, as there is no reason to claim that the experience is activated by something different from the wall. To say “I experience the wall” is one side of the complete reality and to say that the “wall experiences me” is another side of the complete reality. So there is a wall, beyond subject and object.

Now we see that subjective as opposed to objective or internal as opposed to external can hardly exist as autonomous realities. Nobody has ever found a single thing in the universe that could exist as something strictly objective and nobody has ever found anything in the universe that could exist as something strictly subjective. We can admit that the subjective world is something artificial but we usually cannot imagine that the wall in our house could not exist without anybody experiencing it. In other words, we imagine, that a wall exists no matter if there are any people recognizing it or defining it as a wall. But what kind of wall would it be that could be called a wall without anyone calling it a wall? So obviously, there are no walls as objective entities. But we cannot deny that something must exist no matter if intelligent beings recognize it or not. We believe that even if all intelligent beings disappeared from the universe, there must be something real that will remain here. And something real that exists no matter if anyone recognizes it or not, is clearly something objective, right? No. There is no question that there is something real beyond intelligence. But that reality that is independent on intelligence cannot be called objective, as there is no subject that would complement its objectivity. What is objective when nobody is observing it from the outside?

How does this help us to solve the problem of suffering? We see that suffering is obviously something that exists as our individual experience but it is also something that exists as experience of the world. But when we act in this moment, our suffering is hardly something that we have to bear on our own. When we act in this moment, our suffering is immediately tackled by the whole universe. And when the whole universe suffers in this moment, our immediate action in this moment tackles the suffering of the whole universe. Like this we can co-operate with the universe as individuals.

How can we go beyond words, beyond ideas and act as real individuals who realize the truth? Although we understand that our individual experience is not completely different from experience of the whole universe, we cannot keep hiding in words. So instead of hiding in words, we can check if the moon is in the sky or have a cup of tea.