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Bonus 1: To you, for whom something is still missing in Zazen
(by Uchiyama Kosho)

Dogen Zenji's practice of shikantaza is exactly what my late teacher Sawaki Kodo Roshi calls the "zazen of just sitting". So for me too, true zazen naturally means shikantaza - just sitting. That is to say that we do NOT practice zazen to have "kensho" experiences, "solve" a lot of koans or receive "inka-shomei". Zazen just means to sit.

On the other hand, it is a fact that even among the practioners of the Japanese Soto-school, which traces itself back to its founder Dogen Zenji, not a few have doubts about this kind of zazen. To make their point, they will quote passages like these:

"In the hall: 'I have not visited many Zen monasteries. Having met with my master Tendo, I quietly confirmed that the eyes are horizontal and the nose vertical. Nobody can fool me anymore. I have returned back home with empty hands.' "(Eihei Koroku, 1st chapter)

"I travelled to Sung China and visited Zen masters in all parts of the country, studying the Five Houses of Zen. Finally I met my master Nyojo on Taihaku peak, and the great matter of a whole life time of study came to an end." (Shobogenzo Bendowa)

Now people will say: "Hasn't Dogen Zenji himself said that he 'confirmed that the eyes are horizontal and the nose vertical, and that the great matter of a whole life time of study came to an end'? What use is there then when an ordinary person who has not the least glimpse of enlightenment 'just sits'? Isn't that kind of zazen just stupid?"

I remember all to well having had this kind of doubts myself, and of course not only I had these doubts: Many of those who practiced under the guidance of Sawaki Roshi eventually gave up just sitting and switched to "Kensho-Zen" or "Koan-Zen". Therefore I can understand these doubts very well.

First, we should know that Sawaki Roshi was a typical Zen master just as you would imagine one, and his charisma was so great that anyone who would listen to his talks for the first time felt attracted like a piece of iron towards a magnet. Therefore, when Roshi would say that "zazen is good for nothing" (that was Sawaki Roshi's expression for the zazen that is "beyond gain and beyond satori (mushotoku-mushogo)"), everyone thought that he was just saying it, but that in reality zazen would of course get them "somewhere somehow" over time. I am sure that many practiced like that with Sawaki Roshi.

Maybe those who lived outside and came to the temple just to participate in zazen or the sesshin did not have such strong doubts. But those serious enough to throw their physical existence into the Way, become monks and join our community that practiced under the Roshi - those who really lived their lives as zazen practice would sooner or later start to have doubts about shikantaza. Because however much you may sit, you will never get "your fill" - zazen won't satisfy you. It is just like even though you eat, the food does not seem to fill your stomach. So when I say that we never get "our fill" by zazen, I mean that we do not have the feeling of "satori" filling our stomach.

Many of the young people who had dedicated their physical existence to the practice of the Way started to think: "What use is there in wasting my youth on this practice of zazen which seems to have no lasting results?" And too many finally left, saying: "And what about those 'senior students' who have practiced for years? Aren't they all still the same ordinary deluded people? After all, what we really need is SATORI!"

I myself felt as if those doubts would make me burst. Still, I continued to practice zazen with Sawaki Roshi for 25 years - until his death. Therefore, I think that I understand the doubts pretty well, but I have also come to understand the meaning of shikantaza that Dogen Zenji and Sawaki Roshi are talking about. When I write the following, I will try to be something like an "interpreter" between the two sides.
When I say that an "interpreter" is needed, I do not only mean to say that the doubting practioners do not understand the words of Dogen Zenji or Sawaki Roshi (that is of course the case), but also that the words of Dogen Zenji and Sawaki Roshi often do not reach down to the root of the doubts and problems of us, who try to practice shikantaza. This is not because Dogen Zenji or Sawaki Roshi would not understand our doubts, but rather because they express themselves in a way that far transcends our ordinary common sense. I therefore want to try my best at offering my own "translation" of Dogen Zenji and Sawaki Roshi's words.

For example, let's take a look at the quote from the "Eihei Koroku":

"I quietly confirmed that the eyes are horizontal and the nose vertical. Nobody can fool me anymore. I have returned back home with empty hands."

How about reading it like this:

"I confirmed that I am living my life by breathing the present breath in the present moment."

How can I make such an interpretation? The fact is that when I am reading the "Shobogenzo", I do not do it as a scholar of Buddhist studies who just tries to find some order in the labyrinth of Chinese characters. I am also not reading it as a sectarian who thinks that each single character is so holy that he wants to conserve it like canned food and then prostrate in front of it, without ever opening the can. When I read Dogen Zenji, I do it as a wayseeker: Living my completely new life, I am always looking for a brand new way to live this life. For me, this is the meaning of words like "reflecting on your own mind with the old teaching", or what is expressed as "to study the Buddha way means to study yourself".

Anyway, if we read it in the light of our completely new life, we should not interpret Dogen Zenji's words about the eyes being horizontal and the nose vertical in a flat and static manner. We should realize that "the eyes horizontal, the nose vertical" expresses the dynamic functioning of this "raw" (Japanese "nama", lit. "raw", that means "fresh and alive", unprocessed by our thoughts. The Japanese word for "life" or "birth" is written with the same Chinese character (but pronounced differently)) life we are living. It is the dynamic flow of living our life by breathing the present breath in the present moment. Read thus, we should see that Dogen Zenji isn't talking about some mystical state that one might experience during zazen once you get "satori": He is talking about the plain facts of life that everyone of us is living.

Therefore it is said at the beginning of the "Fukanzazengi": "The way is complete and all-pervading, why use practice as a means to verify it? The vehicle of truth wheels freely, why do you exhaust your efforts?"
And how about the following sentences? "If there is only the slightest discrimination, it will cause a separation like that between heaven and earth. If you follow or resist, your mind will be shattered and lost."
It is a basic fact that each one of us lives his completely new life, fresh and raw. But when we start to think about it in our heads, in that moment we get stuck in a static concept that we "grasp". Because what we think of as "raw, fresh and alive" isn't raw, fresh and alive anymore. "Raw, fresh and alive" means to open the hand of thought: Only what we let go can be raw, fresh and alive. Zazen means this opening of the hand of thought, it is the posture of letting go.

I want to add some words here about the actual practice of shikantaza - just sitting. When we sit in zazen, it is not that there are no thoughts at all appearing in our heads. Actually, a lot of thoughts appear. But if you start to chase those thoughts, then that can't be called zazen anymore. You are just thinking in the sitting posture. It is important for you to realize then that, "I am doing zazen right now, this is not the time for chasing thoughts!" Return to the correct posture, and open the hand of thought again. This is what is called "waking up from distraction and confusion".
Next we might become tired. Now it is time to remind ourselves, "I am doing zazen right now, this is not the time to sleep!" Let's then return to the correct posture, and wake up to zazen. This is what is called "waking up from dullness and fatigue".
Zazen means to wake up from distraction and confusion, dullness and fatigue for a billion times, and return to the wide awake posture of zazen. "Living the raw and fresh life called zazen" means to arouse the mind for a billion times in this fashion, practice and realize it for a billion times: This is what is called shikantaza - just sitting.

People say that Dogen Zenji got "satori" by dropping off body and mind, but what is this "dropping off body and mind (shinjin-datsuraku)" in the first place? Dogen Zenji writes in the "Hokyoki":

"The abbot pointed out: 'To practice Zen means to drop off body and mind. It has nothing to do with burning incense, doing prostrations, calling upon Buddha, confessing one's sins or studying the scriptures. It is just sitting.' I stepped forward and asked: 'What is dropping off body and mind?' The abbot answered: 'Dropping off body and mind is zazen. When you just sit, you are freed from the five desires and the five illusions disappear.'"

That means that the zazen in which you open the hand of thought and let go, let go a billion times, is in itself the dropping off of body and mind. Dropping off body and mind isn't some special kind of mystical experience either.
Only this kind of zazen can be called "the whole way of Buddha-Dharma, which isn't equalled by anything" (from the "Bendowa"). And it is also called the "true gate of Buddha-Dharma" (ibid).

Let's compare living our lifes with driving a car: You shouldn't sleep behind the wheel, and you shouldn't drink and drive. Also, when you are driving a car, you shouldn't be tense and you shouldn't think too much - it's dangerous. The same is true when we sit behind the wheel of our own lifes. The basics for driving our own life consist in waking up from dullness and fatigue, so that we don't fall asleep behind the wheel. Also, we have to wake up from distraction and confusion, that means we must not be tense or think too much while driving. Zazen means to put these basics of "driving your life" into actual practice. Thus it can be called the "whole way" and "true gate" of the Buddha-Dharma, and it is "universally recommened" by Dogen Zenji in his "Fukanzazengi".

"The body and mind of the buddha way are grasses and trees, stones and tiles, wind and rain, fire and water. To discover these things around you and realize the buddha way inside them is the meaning of arousing bodhi mind. When you grasp emptiness, you should build pagodas and Buddhas with it. Use the water from the valley to manifest Buddhas and pagodas. To do this means to arouse the mind of uncomparable, complete bodhi-wisdom, it means to repeat the one arousal of mind for a billion times. Thus, you are practicing realization." (Shobogenzo Hotsumujoshin)

It would be a great mistake to interpret this "to repeat the one arousal of mind for a billion times" as a mere reminder for those who haven't yet experienced satori to not neglect their practice. To arouse the mind for a billion times means that the raw and fresh life breaths as fresh and raw life.
Those people who give up the practice of shikantaza because it doesn't give them a feeling of satisfaction, and they thus start to get bored by their practice, do so because they intellectualize these "billion times of arousing the mind" in their heads. They think: "Oh gosh! How could I possibly do this for a billion times? What I need is SATORI! If I could have only one big satori, that would take care of those billion times once and for all!"
That is just as if we were told when born as babies: "From now on you will have to breathe for your whole lifetime, each single breath, each single moment - you will breathe in, breathe out a billion times." Would we reply: "Oh gosh! I have to try somehow to take care of that breath of my life for once and all, and take only one single big breath!"

Even if we tried to do that, we would hardly succeed. That is why the "Shobogenzo Hotsumujoshin" (quoted above) continues:

"A person who thinks that we arouse the mind once and for all, without ever arousing it again, and who says that practice is endless, but the fruit of realization only one - such a person has never heard the Buddha-Dharma, doesn't know the Buddha-Dharma, and doesn't meet the Buddha-Dharma."

Who tries to have "satori" once and for all doesn't accept the fact that we have to live our fresh and raw life just as fresh and raw as it is.
Even in the biological sense we can only live by breathing the breath of our whole life, each single breath, each single moment. To live means to breathe this breath right now, and therefore to live your "raw/fresh" life naturally doesn't mean to think about it in your head. It means to accept life as life - as "raw, fresh and alive" - and to develope an attitude of living. When you do this, that is exactly "the great matter of a life time of study coming to the end". It is also the start of true practice of shikantaza - just sitting. This is what Dogen Zenji calls "unity of practice-realization" and "practice on the ground of realization".
And that is why Sawaki Roshi always said:

"There is no beginning to satori, nor an end to practice!"


(Note by the translator: This and the next chapter are translated from a different book by Uchiyama Roshi, "Zen Advices". Edited - just like "To you" - by his disciple Kushiya Shusoku, it is fashioned in a quite similar way like the collection of Sawaki Roshi's sayings. Just like "To you", all the chapters are entitled "To you, ...". Unlike "To you" though, which is a collection of sayings made by Sawaki at different places and different times, sometimes quite out of context, Uchiyama addresses in each of the chapters one single question that was posed to him by Kushiya. I included these two bonus chapters in the present book, as they address common problems that even advanced practioners who study the works of Sawaki or Dogen have, i.e. the problem that those teachings do not necessarily "satisfy" our expectations, and the problem how to find and relate to a true master. It seems that Uchiyama himself considered this chapter as something like his "spiritual testament", and - originally published in the magazine "Shunju" in 1988 - it was included in the recent Japanese re-edition of the book known in English as "Opening the hand of thought" (Penguin Books).)
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