\nTranslated from Japanese by Jesse Haasch and Muh\u014d as part of the book “To you”.<\/em><\/p>\n
![\"Muho\"](\"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/slider_\u00a9Huebner_2013aug_1530bc1-669x272.jpg\")
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D\u014dgen Zenji\u2019s practice of shikantaza<\/i> is exactly what my late teacher Sawaki K\u014dd\u014d R\u014dshi called the zazen of just sitting. So for me too, true zazen naturally means shikantaza<\/i> \u2013 just sitting. That is to say that we do not practice zazen to have satori experiences, to solve a lot of koans or receive a transmission certificate. Zazen just means to sit.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, it is a fact that even among the practitioners of the Japanese S\u014dt\u014d School, which goes back to its founder D\u014dgen Zenji, many have had doubts about this zazen. To make their point, they quote passages like these:<\/p>\n
I have not visited many Zen monasteries. I simply, with my master Tendo, quietly verified that the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical. I cannot be misled by anyone anymore. I have returned home empty-handed. [Eihei K\u014droku] <\/i><\/p>\n
I travelled in 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 lifelong practice became clear. The great task of a lifetime of practice came to an end. [Sh\u014db\u014dgenz\u014d Bend\u014dwa]<\/i><\/p>\n
So that\u2019s why they say, \u201cDidn\u2019t even D\u014dgen Zenji say that he realized that the eyes are horizontal and the nose vertical, and that the great matter of lifelong practice became clear? What sense could there be when an ordinary person without a trace of satori just sits?\u201d<\/p>\n
I remember well carrying around such doubts myself. And I wasn\u2019t the only one, a significant number of the Zen practitioners who flocked around Sawaki R\u014dshi abandoned the zazen of just-sitting in order to try out kensh\u014d Zen or k\u014dan Zen. So I understand this doubt well.<\/p>\n
We must know that Sawaki R\u014dshi had a Zen master\u2019s character \u2013 just as you might imagine it. He was also so charismatic that many, as soon as they first met him, were attracted to him like iron shavings to a magnet. So when R\u014dshi said, \u201cZazen is good for absolutely nothing\u201d (this was Sawaki R\u014dshi\u2019s expression for the zazen which is \u201cbeyond gain and beyond satori\u201d [mushotoku-mushogo<\/i>], then they thought he was just saying that. They thought that their zazen practice would at some point actually be good for something or another. I think that goes for many who practiced with Sawaki R\u014dshi.<\/p>\n
Perhaps those who lived outside and who just came to the temple for zazen or for a sesshin from time to time might not have had these doubts. But those who resolved to give up their former life to become monks and practice the day-to-day, intensive zazen life in the sangha around Sawaki R\u014dshi, these people sooner or later began to doubt shikantaza<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The reason for this is that no matter how much you sit, you are never fully satisfied with your zazen. \u201cNot fully satisfied\u201d means that it does not feel the way your stomach does after a big meal. So many young people who had dedicated themselves, body and soul, to the practice of zazen began at some point to wonder if they weren\u2019t wasting their youth with this zazen that does not fill them up at all. And many finally left, saying: \u201cAren\u2019t even the older disciples, who have already been practicing this zazen for years, at bottom just ordinary people? I need satori!\u201d<\/p>\n
This is why many people gave up practicing. This doubt brought me almost to the breaking point as well, yet in the end I followed Sawaki R\u014dshi for twenty-four years until his death. So I do understand those who entertain this doubt, but I have also finally understood the meaning of the shikantaza<\/i> of which D\u014dgen Zenji and Sawaki R\u014dshi speak. That is why I would now like to try to play the role of a sort of interpreter between the two standpoints.<\/p>\n
When I say \u201cinterpreter\u201d, that doesn\u2019t mean only that many Zen practitioners don\u2019t understand the words of D\u014dgen Zenji or Sawaki R\u014dshi. I also mean that although D\u014dgen Zenji and Sawaki R\u014dshi do understand the deep doubts and problems of those who try to practice shikantaza<\/i>, their words don\u2019t always reach far enough to truly soothe the root of our doubts and problems. That is why I permit myself to attempt here to present and comment on the following\u3000words of D\u014dgen Zenji and Sawaki R\u014dshi in my own way.<\/p>\n
What does that mean in practice? Let\u2019s take for example the passage from D\u014dgen Zenji\u2019s Eihei K\u014droku:<\/p>\n
I simply, with my master Tend\u014d Nyoj\u014d, quietly verified that the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical. From now on, I cannot be misled by anyone. I have returned home empty-handed.<\/i><\/p>\n
How would it be to read it like this: \u201cTaking this breath at this moment, I verify that I am alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reason why I can interpret it like this is because I don\u2019t read the Sh\u014db\u014dgenz\u014d<\/i> as a Buddhist scholar who is only concerned with bringing order to the labyrinth of Chinese characters. Nor do I read it as a sectarian to whom every single word is so holy that he puts it on a pedestal, like a tin of canned food that will never be opened, and throw himself to the ground before it. Instead, I read it with the eyes of a person who seeks the Way, who is concerned with getting to the bottom of an entirely new way of life. And I believe that is exactly what is meant by \u201cseeing the mind in light of the ancient teachings\u201d or \u201cstudying the Buddha Way means studying the self.\u201d<\/p>\n
If we read this passage from D\u014dgen Zenji as an expression of our own, entirely new life, we will not get stuck in a flat and static interpretation. Instead we will realize that \u201cthe eyes are horizontal, the nose is vertical\u201d is an expession of this fresh life we are living, breathing this breath in this moment. When we read like this, we see that D\u014dgen Zenji isn\u2019t talking about some mystical state you might experience during zazen once you get \u201csatori\u201d. He is talking about the most obvious fact \u2013 this life right here.<\/p>\n
That is why it is also written at the beginning of D\u014dgen\u2019s Fukanzazengi<\/i>, \u201cThe Way is omnipresent and complete. How can we distinguish practice from certification? The truth reveals itself by itself in every place, why make a special effort to grasp it?\u201d<\/p>\n
In the same spirit, what does the following passage mean? \u201cA difference, even the breadth of a hair, separates heaven from Earth. If you make a distinction between favorable and unfavorable conditions, your mind will be lost in confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Life is this moment is fresh, raw and new. But when we think about this essential fact as an idea in our heads, we get stuck, wondering about what we can understand and what we can force into our categories. When we think about \u201cthe freshness of life\u201d, it isn\u2019t fresh anymore, it isn\u2019t alive. Freshness of life means opening the hand of thought. Only when we do so can life be fresh. Zazen is this \u201copening this hand of thought\u201d. It is the posture of letting go.<\/p>\n
Now I have to say a word about the actual practice of shikantaza<\/i>. Sitting in zazen does not mean that we do not have any thoughts. All kinds of arise. Yet when you follow these thoughts, it can\u2019t be called zazen anymore. You are simply thinking in the posture of zazen. So you have to realize that right now you are practicing zazen and it is not the time for thinking. This is correcting your attitude, correcting your posture, letting the thoughts go and returning to zazen. This is called \u201cawakening from distraction and confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another time you might be tired. Then you have to remind yourself that you are practicing zazen right now, and it is not the time for sleeping. This is correcting your attitude, correcting your posture, really opening the eyes and returning to zazen. This is called \u201cAwakening from dullness and fatigue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zazen means awakening from distraction and confusion and from dullness and fatigue, awakening to zazen billions of times. The zazen of living out this fresh and raw life means awakening the mind, certifying through practice billions of times. This is shikantaza<\/i>.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s said that D\u014dgen Zenji achieved satori through dropping off body and mind [shin jin datsu raku<\/i>], but what is this dropping off body and mind really? In his H\u014dky\u014dki<\/i> we read,<\/p>\n
The abbot said: \u201cThe practice of zazen means dropping off body and mind. That means shikantaza \u2013 not burning incense, doing prostrations, nembutsu, repentance or sutra reading.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
I bowed and asked, \u201cWhat is dropping off body and mind?\u201d The abbot answered, \u201cDropping off body and mind is zazen. If you simply practice zazen, at that moment you are freed from the five desires and the five obstructions disappear.\u201d (Footnote: the five desires are the desires for the objects of the five sense objects, the five obstructions are greed, anger, indolence, agitation and doubt)<\/i><\/p>\n
So dropping off body and mind means opening the hand of thought and returning to zazen a billion times. Dropping off body and mind is not some sort of special mysterious experience.<\/p>\n
Only this sort of zazen actualizes \u201cthe entire, unsurpassable buddha-dharma\u201d. It is also called the \u201cmain gate to the buddha-dharma\u201d [both expressions are from Bend\u014dwa<\/i>].<\/p>\n
I would like to compare our life to sitting behind the wheel of an automobile. When we drive, it is dangerous to fall sleep at the wheel or to drive drunk. It is also risky to think about other things while driving or to be nervous and tense. That goes as well for sitting behind the wheel of our life. The fundamental approach to driving our life has to consist in waking up from the haze of sleepiness and drunkenness and from the distractions of thinking and nervousness.<\/p>\n
Zazen means actually putting these basics of life into practice. That is why it can be called \u201cseeing the whole of the buddha-dharma\u201d or \u201cthe main gate of the buddha-dharma\u201d. That is also the reason why D\u014dgen Zenji wrote \u201cA Universal Recommendation for Zazen\u201d [Fukanzazengi<\/i>], in which he clarifies the practice of zazen.<\/p>\n
The body and mind of the Buddha way is grasses and trees, stones and tiles, wind and rain, fire and water. Observing this and recognizing everything as the Buddha way is what is meant by awakening bodhi-mind. Take hold of emptiness and use it to build pagodas and buddhas. Scoop out the water of the valley and use it to build buddhas and pagodas. That is what it means to arouse the awakened mind of unsurpassable, complete wisdom, and what it means to repeat this one single awakening billions of times. This is practicing realization. [Sh\u014db\u014dgenz\u014d Hotsumuj\u014dshin]. <\/i><\/p>\n
It would be a big mistake to interpret this as a mere warning for all not-yet-awakened Zen practitioners to not neglect their practice. The billion-fold awakening of awakened mind does not mean anything more than the living breath of vigorous life.<\/p>\n
Some people begin with the practice of shikantaza<\/i> and then give it up quickly because it does not give them that feeling of fullness or because it bores them. They do so because they only understand this awakening a billion times in their heads. That\u2019s why they think, \u201cOh no! I have to awaken the mind a billion times? What I need is satori! If I hurry up and get one big satori, I can wrap up this billion-times business in a single stroke!\u201d<\/p>\n
It is exactly as if we were told as babies, \u201cFrom now on you will have to breathe, your whole life long, this very breath, again and again, every single moment. You will breathe in and breathe out billions of times.\u201d What baby would say, \u201cOh no! I\u2019ve got to find some way to take care of these billion breaths once and for all, with one really big breath…”?<\/p>\n
Even if we tried, we would not succeed.<\/p>\n
That is why it continues in Hotsumuj\u014dshin<\/i> further: \u201cSome people believe that practice is indeed endless but awakening happens only once and that afterwards there is no awakening of the mind. Such a person does not hear the buddha-dharma, does not know the buddha-dharma and has never met the buddha-dharma.\u201d<\/p>\n
People who try to get one big satori do not accept that they must live their life with all of its freshness and vigor. Even in strictly biological terms, we can only live by taking this breath in this moment. Living means breathing this breath right now. When it is a matter of living this fresh life, it is of course not enough to simply think about your life in your head. Instead we have got to accept it as the vigorous life that it is. Only like this will we discover an attitude and posture which is fresh and vigorous.<\/p>\n
That is what is meant by, \u201cThe great matter of lifelong practice has now come to an end.\u201d And at the same time this is where the real practice of shikantaza<\/i> begins. This is called \u201cthe unity of practice and realization\u201d or \u201cpractice on the basis of realization\u201d.<\/p>\n
That is why Sawaki R\u014dshi always repeated, \u201cSatori has no beginning. Practice has no end!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To you who are still dissatisfied with your zazen by Uchiyama K\u014dsh\u014d R\u014dshi Translated from Japanese by Jesse Haasch and Muh\u014d as part of the book “To you”. D\u014dgen Zenji\u2019s practice of shikantaza is exactly what my late teacher Sawaki K\u014dd\u014d R\u014dshi called the zazen of just sitting. So for me too, true zazen naturally means shikantaza \u2013 just sitting. That is to say that we do not practice zazen to have satori experiences, to solve a lot of koans or receive a transmission certificate. Zazen just means to sit. On the other hand, it is a fact that even among the practitioners of the Japanese S\u014dt\u014d School, which goes back to its founder D\u014dgen Zenji, many have had doubts about this zazen. To make their point, they quote passages like these: I have not visited many Zen monasteries. I simply, with my master Tendo, quietly verified that the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical. I cannot be misled by anyone anymore. I have returned home empty-handed. [Eihei K\u014droku] I travelled in 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 lifelong practice became clear. The great task of a lifetime of practice came to an end. [Sh\u014db\u014dgenz\u014d Bend\u014dwa] So that\u2019s why they say, \u201cDidn\u2019t even D\u014dgen Zenji say that he realized that the eyes are horizontal and the nose vertical, and that the great matter of lifelong practice became clear? What sense could there be when an ordinary person without a trace of satori just sits?\u201d I remember well carrying around such doubts myself. And I wasn\u2019t the only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":72,"menu_order":26,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"side-navigation.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4112","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4112"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13637,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4112\/revisions\/13637"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/antaiji.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}