Master

With respect to all,

We have a sort of fascination with Masters, those of us walking along a “spiritual path.”  I’ve noticed of late there are at least two categories of Masters. Those who master a Way and go more deeply within that Way and those who master and move on. It seems we seek Masters, become Masters, and start all over again… or we settle into our faith tradition, embracing it as fully as possible.  I, for one, feel when one achieves a level we might call Master, the Master ought go deeper while others, move on. Those who move on might move to a different teacher, a different lineage, or even a different faith tradition altogether. In both cases the Master is still seeking, never satisfied.

So, we read in Teacher bios, ”Master So and So was transmitted by Master X, then began study with Master Y, achieving the rank of Master, he then went on…”  and so on and so forth. Such Masters are, in my opinion, searching without receiving.  I can, for example, master a liturgy, ceremony, and all the little dots and dashes of a faith tradition, but am I a “Master”? Master means something far deeper and reveals itself in life’s little details.

Does one ever truly become a Master?  I doubt it. And if one is so deeply dedicated to a practice, it would seem to me one would have developed a faith in that practice and would've moved ever more deeply along the way of that practice. In such a way true mastery occurs. But it is the sort of mastery that arises without degree nor recognition because it is an internal transformation.

I’ve heard the mythic story that the origin of the Martial Arts “Black Belt” was that students wore a belt and trained in it so long that the white belt became black. Today these are bought and awarded after years of training. Yet, it seems to me they are decidedly not the same thing. Today, if we want to see a true Master we might search elsewhere. Perhaps seek out a violin maker, for example, who creates violins with his/her own hands slowly and with the greatest of care and love.   We might seek out a poet who truly struggles over words and images, crafting a poem that speaks volumes in few words. We might seek out an artist whose work is the artist inside and out. And in every case there will be humility.  It will not be the Master who wishes to be appreciated, but the Master will wish the work itself to be appreciated. He or she might care less about the accolades and hoopla around being awarded something for his or her work. A true Master, then, it seems to me, has transcended himself.  There would be no desire to be a Master as that desire dropped away in the long transformative process becoming selfless.

Is our world, our heart, and our practice one? Do we touch our coffee cup in the same way we might touch God? Master the everyday and true mastery will manifest itself on its own.  

Be well

Tradition

With respect to all,

Yesterday I was talking with two of my students over pizza. The subject of my teacher,  Rev. Ken Hogaku Shozen McGuire Dai Osho came up.  I miss him dearly even though we sometimes fought like cats and dogs. He was a strong, centered, mountain of a man. We were alike in many ways, we were also different in as many ways.  I found myself talking much like him. I can be both a strong-willed teacher and a softy. Mostly the latter, yet people tell me I’m somehow intimidating. Go figure. We rarely see ourselves in the same way others do.  

There seems to be a perennial discussion in the American Zen world regarding ritual  and ceremony. Ought we wear robes, shave our heads, offer Dharma names in Japanese?  Or ought we simply sit and devout ourselves to our various practices off the cushion? Some of us are fully one way or another.  Fortunately, I am from a lineage whose founder, Rev. Dr. Soyu Matsuoka Dai Osho, thought to leave Temple Zen as practiced in his homeland in his homeland in order to develop a Zen practice us Westerners might be able to both understand and practice.: a sort of middle way. For him, Zen was practice. And while he retained much of the Japanese Soto school’s practices, he streamlined them here in the United States beginning in 1939.

So, we might say he offered a hybrid sort of practice.  Decidedly not the high church style some are accustomed to seeing.  He wore robes, shaved his head, and practiced Zazen.  He also did engaged practice through his many, many talks in schools, dojos, and, well, any place that would have him.  My teacher, likewise. 

When my teacher authorized me to create my own Order he told me I had permission to change what I thought was necessary, but not to embarrass him. So, too, I have given those instructions to the priests I have ordained.  What is important here, I think, is authenticity in practice. If you will not do san pai (three prostrations) with your whole body and mind, don’t do them.

If you do not have your heart in the Great Heart of Wisdom Sutra as you chant it, don’t chant it. 

We have a saying in Zen, “When walking, walk; when sitting, sit.  Above all, don’t wobble.”  The choice regarding ceremony and ritual is intensely personal, but must be informed.  One ought not change a tradition just because one doesn’t like it. Once one is inside it, realizes it, then, maybe then, change may come.

Be a blessing today, listen to someone you do not agree with.

Yours,

Daiho

Another Memorial Day, Another Donut

With palms together,

I often say Zen saved my life, but that is only partly true and now Memorial Day is nearly upon us. A time to reflect on and honor those who gave their lives in armed conflict with enemies of the United States. This year that day will follow the 50th anniversary of my being shot in the head by a North Vietnamese Army soldier (May 29, 1966). My life was radically changed by that event. In some ways for the worse, but in many, many ways for the better. While it is true that I limp and stumble and can only use my left hand to pull the clutch back on my Harley, it is also true that warfare opened my eyes to the suffering of mankind and kindled a deep desire to make this world a better place. When my lovely wife and I celebrate (if that's an appropriate word)and will honor the dead this day, we will also celebrate the many lives who survived combat and honor those who have made a difference in our society as a result of their combat experiences.

Sometimes, in the wake of brilliantly lit intrusive thoughts, I recall those people who assisted me on my trek back to "the world" from the jungles of Viet Nam. There were "Donut Dollies" on an airfield in Alabama on my way to Portsmouth Navel Hospital, there were the many medics and nurses who cared for me on that flight, and lets not forget the docs and nurses in Vietnam who saved my life on the operateng table in a combat zone. 

And then the there was Alan Watts who unknowingly introduced me to Zen in late 1966 as I read his "The Way of Zen" and began a practice that was destined also to save my life. My chess teacher, Bernie Schmidt, my Zen Teacher Hogaku Shozen McGuire, and the many, many others who sometimes, at great expense to themselves, supported me.  My life has been a world of hurt, but also of many, many blessings.  On Memorial Day it is good to recall both.

Drink Your Coffee

A student and teacher were drinking coffee. The students asks, “Zazen, what good is it?”  The Teacher responds, “Not much.”  “Then why practice it?“  the student continues.  “I don’t know,”  the teacher replies, “drink your coffee.” 

The student awakened.

Right.  We’ve read many of such little vignettes.  The gullible believe them.  The wise set them aside assigning no particular meaning to them.  Why?  Awakening is not the point of practice; it is the practice. Master Dogen suggests our practice, the practice of shikantaza, is itself practice realization. Are these the same or different?  

“(D)rink your coffee” is key.  The coffee was in front of you, just drink the coffee.  This is the essence of Zen.  

On the other hand, you take your seat, gather your robes, and address your mind by setting it free: the entire universe is its home.  You do what you do: breathe.  Its what’s in front of you to do. 

This also is the essence of Zen.

But neither matter much and if you come to it as if it mattered, you would be completely mistaken. 

Why?

The student adds milk and sugar to his coffee; the Master takes it black.

So, why ask why?  Is there any answer that would satisfy you?  Of course not. Just more milk and sugar… 

…and the coffee is no longer coffee.

Just so, Zen is not words. And life is not thinking about life; life is living life.

Mornings

With respect to all,

This morning I woke at 3:00 AM.  Not unusual, as I wake at this hour on nearly a daily basis. I find waking so early to be a blessing as it offers me time in the silence of the dawn.  I practice during this time, sitting quietly either in the Zendo or outside under the stars.  I often paint during this time and sometimes, like now, write.  

We human beings live in a world that seems to travel at breakneck speeds, communicating at the speed of light across the globe and while it is wonderful to have connections with others, sometimes those very connections keep us from ourselves and from the very important task of knowing ourselves as intimately as is possible.  Not knowing ourselves can lead to all sorts of issues: automatic thoughts and the feelings arising from them, choices being made from information skewed by our beliefs and assumptions, and a mind running amok without the ability to reign it in. 

Sometimes I get caught in this whirlwind and in such circumstances am not the person I wish to be.  I frustrate easily and let everyone know it.  I forget important tasks or deliberately reshuffle them in my list of “to dos.”  And worst of all, it seems to me, allow my thoughts and frustrations to rule myself in the moment.

Zen training is training to first recognize these common occurrences and second, respond differently to them.  When we respond with compassion, for example, recognizing our shared humanity and the frailties of being human, we can let go of the judgements we make about ourselves and others.  We are human, after all, not superman or woman.  And what is the skill so necessary to employ?  Easy, it is the ability to stop.

When we stop, sit down and shut up, all manner of things emerge.  Knowledge about ourselves, reflections on how we may have hurt others, and the practice of returning home. The home of (for me in this very moment) pre-dawn silence. I encourage all of us to do this practice as often as possible.  Micro Zazen at our desks, tables, or sofas.  A few moments to just breathe and relax gently into the moment itself. These are precious opportunities to be born again. Let’s not waste them.

In the Dharma,

Daiho

Guilt

With respect to all,

Yesterday I visited a Huey Medivac helicopter on display.  It will be mounted on a pole high above the ground at our Veteran’s park here in Las Cruces, NM.  I sat at the edge, as we often did in Vietnam with the door gunner next to us firing a rain of M-60 machine gun fire covering us as we would leap from the chopper to the ground.  The last time I flew in one on those birds was May 29, 1966 as I was “dusted off” at around 6:00 in the morning  to head to a field hospital after having been shot in the head and taking grenade shrapnel in my back.  I remember this quite well, as well as the events leading up to it.

There is a flier that came with a book on moral injury sitting on my coffee table.  The flier reads, “Don’t thank me for my service.”  This is a sentiment I so often feel that it may actually be the prevailing thought in my head when I am thanked, as I was repeatedly thanked at the display of the Huey. This thought mystifies many.  Why would I not want to be thanked for my service in Vietnam; thanked for putting my life in harm’s way, being wounded, and for ostensibly fighting for my country?

One major answer is guilt, plain and simple: guilt.  A guilt so deep and so toxic that it hurt me, my family, and many of those who were my friends.  A person riddled with guilt can do many things to put off those who may offer love.  While the Buddha argued love was the antidote for hate, it feels inauthentic to those suffering from guilt.  Love is difficult to accept when feeling unworthy. Unworthiness, an antiquated term not often used today in a world where worth is so easily and superficially bestowed, is a challenge to live with. 

Zen priests are no more prepared to deal with these feelings in a sangha member than any other clergy person of any other faith tradition.  Such experiences as those suffered in combat are outside the realm of ordinary experience. Survivors feel alienated from home, disillusioned, angry, and, of course, often guilty for what they have done in combat.  For those who have not experienced such things, imagining what warfare is like is rather like imagining walking on the moon: its really not possible because the experiences are so extraordinary and alien to our civilized sensibilities.   

We might say that pat answers like, “sit with it,”  are not particularly helpful and can, indeed, be harmful as the person sitting may be sitting in excruciating emotional, psychological, and spiritual pain, pain on a magnitude we rarely see in civilian life.  So, then, what are we to do?

As a holder of guilt we might consider offering some sort of penance after wrestling with the actual moral conflicts.  Social action, to be in-service to others, is an excellent tool.  Its not that the action is necessarily for ourselves (while it very well might be in the beginning) it is for those we serve, those who may be less further along the way, those suffering more deeply,  Being willing to help others is a key to being willing to receive love. Zazen is addressed a bit later in this essay.

As a priest, unconditional love  and an encouragement to talk can be quite helpful.  Listening to your own heart as the survivor speaks can tell you a ton of stuff, mostly about yourself.  How you respond is vital. Survivors may not wish to be thanked.  They may, instead, want to just do the work.  

Zazen, the art of just sitting, can teach discipline, the discipline to just be with what is there.  Yet, we must note that to say such a thing invites the potential for a wrathful answer.  Ask me to sit down and shut up? Right.  “You have no idea!”  Yet, in the act of zazen, we are taught to let go of what arises and it is this constant arising and letting go that can be useful in that it can teach us how we can change our relationship to traumatic memories.  

In the end, dear readers, there is nothing that will take away the feelings surrounding warfare.  The best we can do is offer support and attention to those we know are suffering.  

What we ought not do is patronize the suffering.

Yours in the Dharma,

A Review of "Zen in Your Pocket" by Ewan Magie

Permission to publish this review was granted by the Owner/editor of Sweepingzen.com who owns the copyright.

This book is available through amazon.com

Liberation at Hand:  Zen and Trauma — A Review of Daiho Harvey Hilbert’s Zen in your Pocket

by

Ewan Magie

Zen in Your Pocket (2016) is the new book from Harvey Daiho Hilbert-roshi.  Short, elegantly clear, and deeply moving, it is both a guidebook and a profound meditation on trauma, written by a Vietnam veteran, Zen priest, and PhD in psychotherapy.  This short book is subtitled “A Small Manual for a Large Challenge”; bluntly, that challenge is waking up to life as it is.  This includes waking up to all the little ways we deceive ourselves, deny what has or is really happening, or invent coping strategies to flee what we cannot face.  Like many teachers in North American Soto Zen, Roshi Hilbert fuses Zen teachings with Western psychotherapeutic insights in an effort to liberate all beings from suffering. This book is a guide to practicing that liberation in your everyday life.

Divided into three sections across just 132 pages, Part One focuses on “The Zen of Everyday Life.”  Daiho-roshi begins, “I will speak to you as if we were in a conversation.”  He tells us a story from everyday life, his life:

This morning, for example, I woke with the thought, ‘Every day is a good day.’ I am 68 years old and have lived a rich and full life; first as a professional soldier, then as a student, then as a psychotherapist, and finally as a Zen Buddhist monk. It took some doing to get from soldier to monk. There were a lot of challenges in between (Hilbert 5-6).

Much of the rest of Part One introduces readers to the practice of Soto Zen, leading us through how to sit zazen (sitting meditation), how to do walking meditation (kinhin), work practice (samu), how to eat, how to cook, how to start your own sitting group at home.  Hilbert’s voice is direct and uncomplicated, a plain and simple American voice, yet one seasoned by a fully lived life, one filled equally with trauma and luck.

Hilbert’s opening pages establish this direct presence and assert a fundamental point:  “Trauma taught me something about the appreciation of everyday life.”  This voice and this poignant assertion hold us through the basic instructions in Soto Zen practice that fill most of Part One.  But it is in “Part Two: The Zen of Trauma” that Daiho-roshi’s teachings grip the reader. He admits that a discussion of trauma, Zen, and spiritual life “seems at first a stretch.”  But this deeply experienced psychotherapist and Zen teacher notes how “life is revealed more deeply by the challenges we face.”  His words on trauma reveal how, fundamentally, the sudden and unpredictable event “outside the realm of ordinary experience” can jar us so profoundly that we may open to “the willingness to experience our essential nature and to recognize our ability to actively engage in transforming our lives.”

First, Roshi Hilbert begins Part Two by critiquing the label PTSD, showing how “‘disorder’ [is] an offensive term bearing no use-value whatever to understanding or living with post-traumatic stress. It is a label and little else. I use it only because it is part of the common clinical community’s language.” Next he proceeds to show how “Zen” itself is a slippery term, one “not easily defined and, like the Dao, as soon as we think we have it, we have lost it.”  Spirit, writes Daiho-roshi, “especially the human spirit, is something like Zen or Dao. It is elusive, untouchable, non-concrete, and ever-changing: like breath, it flows through its host and has no independent reality. To see the Dao, the human spirit, we must look indirectly.”  Ultimately, this humble little book presents a quiet convincing case for contemplative living in general, and Zen in particular.  “In order to live our life directly,” Daiho-roshi writes at the outset, “we must be willing to practice.”

This little book, then, is about a practice you can carry “in your pocket,” in your everyday life. Zen is this practice, “a way of perceiving which teaches us to let things present themselves as they are and in so doing, allows them to be what they are.” But Daiho-roshi goes further in Part Two, elucidating how in Western societies like the U.S., we perceive time as linear, as having a beginning and an end.  By contrast, Eastern cultures (and Native American cultures) perceive time as cyclical or circular, much like cycles of recovery from trauma are circular. By sitting meditation routinely, as a practice, we can begin to inhabit the present more fully, to become quieter and less busy.  Ultimately, Daiho-roshi shows us how, in relation to any traumatic event disabling our lives, we can learn to see how we form habits of denial and coping.  Finally, he writes how we can let go of these and face the presence of trauma within us: “we can enter into it, embrace it, work our way through it, and finally integrate it.”

Towards the end of Part Two, Daiho-roshi connects his themes to the central idea of Soto Zen’s founder, Eihei Dogen, who asserted how “practice is enlightenment.”  Daiho explains, “In Zen practice, it is crucial to continue the practices. We do not just sit, get enlightenment, and move on.  We sit some more. We sit with others. We engage a Teacher. We structure in supports for our practice through these tools and many others.”  The book’s final section, “Part Three: The Zen of Diasability,” is about “asking for help.” As a disabled veteran, Daiho has had to request aid many times, but his book acknowledges how frequently we assume expectations of independence, ones that, in essence, deny our interconnectedness and interrelatedness. Zen, he shows us, “challenges my deeply held view of myself as independent and capable of overcoming hardship.” 

Reading and writing about this wonderful little book over MLK weekend has helped drive home how traumatized this nation is.  It confronts me with our individual and collective habits of denial, of coping, of avoiding practices that would truly help us see and compassionately heal by  accepting and integrating our wounds.  The histories of slavery, colonial oppression and cultural destruction, systematic racism and discrimination, as well as the wounds of wars waged in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan are still palpably present within the social fabric of this “United States.”  This book shows us a way to be quiet yet fully present, grounded enough to actually begin to see, and feel our wounds, then move beyond ineffective and harmful strategies of denial and coping, and ultimately open to the surrender of self that can accept how “none of us exists without the help of others.” Daiho-roshi shows us how this contemplative practice of Zen can help us help ourselves, and therefore, quietly help each other.