Zen Candy

Sitting on a hillside
With a young oak
A leaf falls
On the sleeve of my robe

Incense does not
Become the smoke
Nor do I turn
Into a dragon

Surrounded by
The mountain sangha
I walk to the creek

And wash my face
With the stars

▪

Great poem, huh? It’s by Daiggo Zenji, 6th generation Soto monk after Dogen. Starts out with the usual paraphernalia of a Japanese Zen poem. A monk is sitting on a hillside. A leaf falls on his robe. Yeah, yeah. Then it switches to echoing Dogen’s firewood and ashes and dragons, and then the “mountain sangha.” Oh wow, what a great image, thinking of the mountains as sangha. And then the monk strolls down to the creek. He bends down where the stars lay reflected in the black water and he washes his face. Sweet.

David Chadwick quotes it in Thank you & Okay: An American Zen Failure in Japan. He and his fictional but autobiographical buddy Norman translated it for us.

Chadwick (b. 1965) is a few years younger than me. Lee’s age. Zensters in the U.S., especially of our generation, sometimes have a romantic and stylized notion about what Japanese Zen is. We fell in love with Zen minimalist aesthetics, the bells chiming and the beating of the wide-eyed fish, and the chants. Especially the thumping rhythm of men chanting the Heart Sutra in Sino-Japanese. I remember a documentary in the 70s, a sort of “round-the-world in 60 minutes” of “enlightenment.” Most of it was hokey, but what I remember most was seeing Suzuki lead a column of monks into the zendo to sit zazen. Bells were ringing, the wooden clappers announced the this and the that. High church razzmatazz. Very cool.

“This is the real thing”—that was my thought back then.

Like these guys were angels dressed in black robes. Fairytale stuff. Not ordinary folks. So it’s good to read books that put the kibosh on a lot of that shine. David Chadwick’s memoir Thank You and Okay, which has been my Zen candy for the last few weeks, understands how to shovel up sufficient kibosh. But it didn’t diminish my practice. In fact, it nourished it. Especially home practice.

Chadwick’s book chronicles his time as an itinerant Zen immigrant to Japan—sometimes illegal, other times in a grayish limbo between legality and illegality. For my money, the Chadwick book sits right next to Janwillem van de Wettering’s memoir trilogy (yep, that’s right, the Dutch writer of mysteries) about his journey to Japan in the 1950s to search for the meaning of life on the Zen boat. (1)

Before going to Japan, Chadwick had the advantage of studying with Suzuki, Katigiri and Dick Baker, even learning some Japanese, so he was no innocent. He also had contacts in Japanese Zen and his imaginary friend Norman was waiting for him in Japan at the Hoko-ji Monastery where he spent much of his early stay staring at walls and sweeping the floor.

Van de Wettering had the disadvantages—and advantage—of the purely innocent. He was a dissatisfied young man who had read a little bit about Zen. Enlightenment sounded like a good answer. He was continually troubled by the memory of his kindergarten class in the late 30s. He had seen his Jewish friends led off by the SS. Why didn’t the good men of his community—men like his father—stop such an evil event? As soon as he could, he began traveling the world in search of adventures and answers. Finally, he decided to go search out a real live Zen roshi. Somebody who could give him answers. He landed in Kyoto, the capital of Zen, and told the taxi driver to take him to the nearest Zen monastery. When he first knocked at the temple door, the monks had tried in vain to shoo him away. None of the monks or the Roshi spoke English, and Van de Wettering didn’t speak Japanese. They simply didn’t want him there. He was too much of a bother.

Chadwick’s book documents his several years in Japan. For the reader’s sake, he doesn’t follow a chronological path, but bounced back and forth between his time at the Hoko-ji Monastery and his time spent on the outskirts of another monastery where he sits daily in the mornings. At Hoko-ji the emphasis is of course on practice and his interactions with the other monks, his teacher Katagiri. It’s a beautiful place. He also tries to live in the Japanese culture. He teaches English, lives with his wife-to-be Ellin, studies the koan Mu with Roshi, mixes in with his neighbors and the bureaucracies, and tries to lives a regular life. Toward the end of the book Ellin gives birth to their child.

Chadwick was like a wise-cracking, sophisticated exchange student; Van de Wettering was like a pagan gate-crasher. Both writers make for excellent reading about the life of Zen in Japan. Both are laugh out loud funny in places, wise in other places, and simply interesting in other places, especially if you’ve been practicing for a while. They demystify the process and the people while paying deep homage to the practice. Underlying both memoirs is the sense that there is something deeply profound and immensely worthwhile in Zen practice, but it’s not what you think it is. Afterzen, published 20 years after the first of the trilogy, documents Van de Wettering’s disappointment of, and separation from, Zen practice. That book was like the bell ringing. It reminded me that it’s our own practice we have to deal with. Our own walls to stare at.

Like Daiggo Zenji’s poem says, we walk down to the creek—any creek will do, any stream, ocean, whatever¬—and wash our face in the water. We do this by ourselves.

Enjoy.

___________________________________

[1] Thanks to Brad Warner for mentioning van de Wettering in one of his blog posts. Otherwise I doubt I’d ever found him. Oddly, his books don’t come up in conversation. 

Happy New Year, Everybody

Happy New Year, Everybody! Our New Year at Both Sides / No Sides began with chanting from our newly modified sutra sheets and the Fusatsu Ceremony, a renewal of our Zen Buddhist vows. All of that was of course was punctuated by wall-staring and bell ringing and tea. During tea, I talked about "beginnings," using as texts a poem by Denise Levertov (thanks to Susan Feeney) and one of the Buddha's parables. These are below, with some found images to celebrate the imagination.
--Bobby Kankin Byrd

Doomed Star Eta Carinae 
Image Credit: J. Morse (Arizona State U.), K. Davidson (U. Minnesota) et al., WFPC2, HST, NASA

Beginners
By Denise Levertov

But we have only begun to love the earth. We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life.
How could we tire of hope!—so much is in the bud.

How can desire fail?—we have only begun to imagine justice and mercy,
Only begun to envision how it might be to live as siblings with beast and flower, not as oppressors.

Surely our river cannot already be hastening into the sea of nonbeing?
Surely it cannot drag, in the silt, all that is innocent!

Not yet, not yet—there is too much broken that must be mended,
Too much hurt that we have done to each other that cannot yet be forgiven.

We have only begun to know the power that is in us if we would join our solitudes in the communion of struggle.
So much is unfolding that must complete its gesture, so much is in the bud.

●

Strawberries by Ginny McComb 

A Parable
from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

Buddha told a parable in a sutra:

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

Cold, Snow and Zazen

When donning clothes [ordinary men] only understand that they are donning clothes; when eating they only understand that they are eating; in all activities they are deceived by appearances. Hence they use the sublime functioning of the mind every day but do not realize it; it’s right there before their eyes but they are not aware of it.

--Korean Zen teacher Chinule,via Stephen Batchelor’s Living with the Devil, page 104. 

Snow yesterday all day long. Maybe 4 inches at home. Cold and sunless. Last night it was supposed to go down to 24, and so we worried about freezing pipes and cold bodies. We remembered the terrible cold of a few years ago and so did our cold weather chores. This morning, waking up, I dreaded going out to the zendo to sit. It’s a stone building with only a wood stove (I didn't want to do that!) and a radiant heater, and it holds the cold. I decided to do my zazen inside. But as I got my zafu ready to sit inside, something in me pushed me outside to the zendo. It’s so beautiful and quiet out there with the snow blanketing the yard, the houses and the mountains. Seems the older I get and the more zazen I do, the more ready I am not to listen to the monkey mind which has so many excuses why I should take the easier way with my zazen. So I put on warm socks, warm pants and my hoodie and headed outside. I was glad I did. Although cold, the room felt comfortable and ready for me. I looked out the window to a beautiful sight of snow and light. I lit the candle and incense, rang the bells—so clear in the cold stone room, did my morning chants and sat 40 minutes of zazen. My little and very quiet radiant heater was just enough heat. As I chanted the Four Great Vows to end my little morning ceremony, I could feel the cold had entered my body. That was okay though. The birds were chattering outside, delighted to have some birdseed that I had poured into the feeder. Again I marveled at the morning light, filtered by the clouds as it lit up the snow on the trees and yard. Little bits of snow were still fluttering down from the sky. It was nothing without me. Simply nothing.

--Bobby 

MILAREPA DOES HALLOWEEN

Tuesday nights we now sit @ 6:30pm. To change the pace, we're taking turns bringing Zen stories to talk about. Since one of our Tuesday regulars is my 14-year-old grandson Johnny Hollandbyrd, we make sure the stories and the discussion is not too intellectual and esoteric. That’s a good exercise all by itself. So next week is Polly's turn. But this last Tuesday night (the night before Halloween) Susan started us with a story about Milarepa--perfectly suited for Halloween!

Once upon a time, a long time ago, and very far from here, a great Tibetan poet named Milarepa studied and meditated for decades. He traveled the countryside, teaching the practice of compassion and mercy to the villagers he met. He faced many hardships, difficulties, and sorrows, and transformed them into the path of his awakening.
Finally, it was time to return to the small hut he called home. He had carried its memory in his heart through all the years of his journey. Much to his surprise, upon entering he found it filled with enemies of every kind. Terrifying, horrifying, monstrous demons that would make most people run. But Milarepa was not most people.

Inhaling and exhaling slowly three times, he turned towards the demons, fully present and aware. He looked deeply into the eyes of each, bowing in respect, and said, "You are here in my home now. I honor you and open myself to what you have to teach me."

As soon as he uttered these words, all of the enemies save five disappeared. The ones that remained were grisly, raw, huge monsters. Milarepa bowed once more and began to sing a song to them, a sweet melody resonant with caring for the ways these beasts had suffered, and curiosity about what they needed and how he could help them. As the last notes left his lips, four of the demons disappeared into thin air. 

Now only one nasty creature was left, fangs dripping evil, nostrils flaming, opened jaws revealing a dark, foul black throat. Milarepa stepped closer to this huge demon, breathed deeply into his own belly, and said with quiet compassion, "I must understand your pain and what it is you need in order to be healed." Then he put his head in the mouth of the enemy.

In that instant, the demon disappeared and Milarepa was home at last.

The Path Has Its Own Intelligence

I've been reading David Chadwick's Thank You and OK!, An American Zen Failure in Japan. Chadwick was a close student to Suzuki Roshi, and after his teacher's death, he wrote the wonderful biography Crooked Cucumber. Anyway, I came upon this wonderful quote which is for me a perfect description about what Zazen is about. An unusual description for sure, but one which ties together the history of our practice to the ongoing history of humanity. 

Hunter from the Lascaux Caves in Southern France

Sitting zazen for hours a day may seem like a lot of nothing when there’s so much to do, but it’s the Buddhist treasure hunt and the reason we still keep in this search is that the treasure is supposedly always right there waiting for us to find it. Suzuki, my old teacher, once said we find our treasure by watching and waiting. Gary Snyder, a teacher of the Buddhist hunters that prowl the Sierra Nevada in California, has suggested that hunting is one of the experiential origins of meditation. Indeed, throughout human history human hunters had to sit and wait motionless, even for days at a time. And Dutchananda, another sportsman on the track of this timeless snark, once pointed out that “marga” (aka “the Way,” “the Path”, in Sanskrit) is not a regular old trail or street, but is a word that originally meant the hunter’s path. The course is unknown is ahead of time to the hunter, who must sniff and look for signs and watch and wait. [Thank You and Okay, page 109-110]

●

This reminds me: In the 80s, I was just learning to sit and was reading, besides Zen books, all sorts of Native American books, especially about the Plains Indians. One day I was hiking in the Franklin Mountains along a creek bed. Even though the creek was dry, the rugged gash in the side of the mountain was lush with grasses, scrub oaks, all sorts of desert flowers and plants. It was easy to imagine a slow seep of water finding its way down through the cracked seams in the mountain. It was a perfect place to practice my new art of zazen. I found a nice place, bowed, straightened my back and began to sit. The breeze. The bird song. The crackle of twigs and leaves. My breath. I sat quiet for 20 minutes or so, and then I heard (or felt) a tweeting rustling in the leaves. I opened my eyes wider, and strutting quietly maybe five feet in front of me--almost close enough to touch--was a family of scaled quail The mother hen followed by six little ones. They marched right by me, paying me no nevermind. 

My best to you all.

Bobby Kankin Byrd

ROOTS OF CHANGE: A STUDY CIRCLE IN EL PASO

Sangha member Susan Feeny is starting the El Paso Roots of Change Study Group. As a steady Zen Buddhist practitioner, she's become inspired by the ideas and practical actions of the International Society for Ecology and Culture. ISEC is quite an organization. Just note its Advisory Board: Wendell Berry, Frijof Capra, Peter Matthiessen, Diana Rose, Jonathan Rose, Vandana Shiva, David Suzuki and Alice Waters. ISEC developed the outline for The Roots of Change Study Study Circles like the one Susan is developing. It's a program to help folks like Susan--like all of us--make change on the ground where we live. 

Susan, a retired high school art teacher and a long-time Zen practitioner. Her home zendo is Prajna Zendo outside Santa Fe. Just recently Susan took Jukai, taking the Buddhist Precepts and receiving her Buddhist name, Esho, Wisdom Flowering. It's an apt name, considering the project she has chosen for herself. Although Prajna Zendo is her home, she is a strong member of Both Sides / No Sides Zen Community, and a valued and steady presence in our zendo on Louisville Street.

Below is Susan's description of the El Paso Roots of Change Study Group, along with several clips from ISEC/Roots of Change films that Susan will be showing early on. You can follow the evolution of their group at their facebook page here.  

Join the El Paso Roots of Change Study Circle

Hardly a day goes by without news of accelerating ecological decline, increasing depression and anxiety, or the widening of inequality in tandem with concentration of corporate power. The present ecological, social, and economic crises are unprecedented. And yet, an equally unprecedented movement is surging from the grassroots. Across the world people are joining hands in the spirit of resistance & renewal. Millions are engaged in the urgent, though joyful and enriching process of renewing just & sustainable communities.

The process of building a better world starts by rethinking basic assumptions and exploring root causes. We’re started a Roots of Change Study Circle in the area. Please join us!



THE PROGRAM

Roots of Change is a ground-breaking study circle program. The curriculum includes voices of the world’s leading political, economic and ecological thinkers. The readings explore the origins and workings of today’s globalized economy and promote discussion of the impacts of corporate globalization on communities around the world. The emphasis is on education for action: helping participants see the big picture, unearth root causes and identify strategic positive actions.

JOIN US! 

In collaboration with the Internationals Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC), we are setting up a study circle in this area. Study circles usually meet once or twice a month to discuss readings and forge strategies for effective local action. The program promises to be enjoyable, educational and life-affirming. Why not join us?

CONTACT US TODAY AT:
smfeeny@elp.rr.com

GOOD COFFEE. BAD COFFEE.

an essay by Bobby Byrd

Cup of Coffee (Ink on Paper) by Harvey Daiho Hilbert, Roshi

I confess. For the last several years I've become Stephen Batchelor fan (the Buddhist writer, not the field hockey player). In Living with the Devil: A Buddhist Take on Good and Evil, he says this early on:

What is striking about the Buddhist approach is that rather than positing an immortal or transcendent self that is immune to the vicissitudes of the world, Buddha insisted that salvation lies in discarding such consoling fantasies and embracing instead the very stuff of life that will destroy you. (Page 10) 

I agree totally with that. But I can also listen to, and agree, with differing points of view. When I read the Batchelor quote, I remembered at the same time this wonderful little story in the 2nd volume of Soyu Matsuoka Roshi collection of teachings Moku-Rai:

Zen Master and Catholic Priest

An American Catholic priest, who had founded a Zen Center in Japan, visited the abbot of a large Zen Monastery. The priest had studied Zen in Japan for a number of years and was known for his diligence.

The abbot asked over tea: “Even though you are a Catholic priest you practice zazen. What do you feel, when you practice?” The priest replied: “I feel God all around me. I am guided by him and I am in his power.”

Without hesitation, the abbot said: “If you continually practice zazen, God will disappear.” The abbot’s statement perplexed the priest. He was concerned over the possible loss of his supervision. The priest in response said: “God won’t disappear. I will disappear.” The abbot replied: “Whether God or you disappear, it makes no difference.” (Page 70)

The stories seem to contradict each other. But zazen is a big tent with different ways to resolve the questions before you. Each of us is different, and so we sit zazen together in our zendo (so many “z’s” we have). We don’t ask for membership cards and affiliations when a person walks into our little zendo on Louisville Street. Atheists and agnostics, Catholics and Jews, Baptists and Republicans and Democrats—they’ve all walked through the door one time or another. Some stick around, others disappear, saying they will be back soon, smiles on their faces. Most times, they don’t. That’s okay. We keep sitting and staring at the wall.

Strange how Zen gets so many different people coming through the door. Why does that happen?

We use much of the paraphernalia of religion. We have an altar with flowers, a stick of incense is usually burning, a bronze statue of the Buddha is perched atop the altar like a god, we have our prayers and chants, and we do our dance steps. But we don’t worship a God. Our practice is dharma practice, the study of the dharma, the study of the self. In other words, What is this? Why must we suffer? It’s a good question. Buddha asked the same question. And then Dogen says, when you sit, the self disappears. Poof. Because it’s contingent, second to second, it’s constantly arising as something new and different.

If you believe in God, that’s cool. We want you to come and sit with us. Sitting zazen will be your study of God and God’s relation to you. God. No God. All this is only words. We have faith in the practice of zazen—shikantaza, just sitting—and the study of ourselves through zazen.

If God is your koan, go for it.
Sit down and shut up.
Like the rest of us.

The other night I had dinner with a friend at Kiki’s Mexican Food on Piedras. My friend is a nice guy. He has a temper. He knows it. He’s troubled, but, without trouble, there’s no story. I like stories. I tell him he needs to sit zazen more, but he doesn’t have time to sit more zazen. He has more important things to do. Important things always get in the way. That’s how we are.

We were splitting a small pitcher of beer, but we talked about coffee. Good coffee. Bad coffee. He told me a story about having breakfast at an I-HOP with his girlfriend and getting pissed at the waitress. She was serving bad coffee. It was stale and burnt. He told her so. He could feel the anger in his voice and in his throat. The waitress didn’t understand why he was angry with her. It wasn’t her fault. She only worked there. He seethed for a while, his girlfriend was embarrassed and sad, he realized he had made a fool of himself, and later he apologized to the waitress. But it still pissed him off. I laughed at my friend. After a while, he laughed at himself too. He had the chicken tacos. I had a black bean burrito. We shared some guacamole and finished our beer.

The next morning Lee and I were walking up the hill on Elm, our Tuesday morning walk (other days Lee walks with her good friend Martha). October mornings in El Paso are cool and beautiful, the sun rising up out of the distant east. Tuesdays is garbage day, and the trucks rumble up the streets like ravenous animals. Their job is to pick up the useless bits and pieces of our lives. They also carry away stories and daydreams. They stop in front of the houses and, with a huge mechanical hand, grab the garbage cans and empty them head over heels into their bellies. They make a huge racket. I like that noise. It keeps me awake. I try to pay attention to my walking, sometimes counting my breaths. My mind comes and goes. Thoughts arise.

Like “good coffee / bad coffee.”

Oh, yeah. That was fun, listening to my friend talking about the waitress and her bad coffee. Then I remembered something else—“There’s no place to spit.” It’s an old Soto Zen adage. I love it. It means that everything is sacred. You spit anywhere, you’re spitting on sacred ground. Ground made sacred by our attention to it.

But sometimes I need to spit.
Where am I going to spit if there’s nowhere to spit?
Zen is littered with paradox.
Like God and No God. Like self and no self.

That’s what I like about Zen. There’s always something to do. And there’s always something to pay attention to. That’s why there’s no place to spit. Because we are asked each moment to pay attention to what we are doing—internally and externally. Driving the car. Turning on the computer. Answering the phone. Watering the yard. Making love. Spitting and shitting. The same ball of wax. It’s the dharma. We are studying the self. Every day we teach ourselves this lesson—through the practice of zazen, through taking this understanding off the zafu and lugging it happily, like old Hotei , out into the world. We want to live a balanced life—avoiding evil, doing good and bringing about abundant good for all beings. Some days we do better than other days. Some days we tip the waitress. Some days we get pissed at the waitress, but we remember to leave a tip anyway. The bad coffee really wasn’t her fault. It takes a while to understand. And we always come home to sit on our zafus. That's how we practice our faith--with effort and doubt. We sit zazen in the big tent.

Here’s a poem/story I wrote last year. It’s about good coffee and bad coffee.

McDonald’s™

"The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences."

—Seng-T’san, the 3rd Chinese Patriarch  

I got a Zen friend eats a vegetarian breakfast at MacDonald’s sometimes. He likes the cheap coffee. He says, “Don’t be a snob, Bobby. What difference does it make?” And he gives me a wise Buddhist smile.

I tell my friend if I’m going to eat fast food, then I’m going to eat at some local place. Like the H&H Carwash over on Yandell. The Haddads own the place, Kenny and Maynard. 4th generation Lebanese Christian immigrants. Both right wingers, but they leave me alone.

I tell my friend that the 3rd Patriarch eats there too. He likes the spinning stools at the counter. He’s a vegetarian so he orders the chili relleno plate. Two rellenos, rice and beans. It’s way too much food of course. He wants just enough, so he takes his leftovers to the bum in the alley.

The bum’s name is Chuy, short for Jesus. Kenny doesn’t like the Chinaman feeding Chuy. It’s like attracting flies. Seng-T’san smiles at Kenny’s rant but he will do as he pleases. Chuy needs to eat. “Yeah, yeah,” Kenny says and walks away.

The rellenos are delicious as always. Likewise the refried beans and rice. A couple of tortillas de maiz. On the side a glass of water and a cup of coffee.

Seng-T’san is no dummy of course. Gloria the cook fries the rellenos and everything else in a little bit of lard. Oh well. He eats what’s set before him. Gloria is a tiny woman, a juarense and every morning she walks across the border to cook rellenos at the H&H. Sent-T’san smiles at Gloria, his hands in gassho.

Then he gives thanks to all the other many beings who have brought this food to his table. Even the pig who provided the lard. In his thanksgiving, he saves Artemisa the waitress for last. She’s his favorite and he knows he’s not supposed to have favorites. Artemisa has such a beautiful big smile.

She says “De nada” and “Quieres más?” She always pours extra coffee to keep his cup warm and makes sure everything is perfect. Then she leaves him alone while he eats. She likes gringos okay and a Chinaman is just another kind of gringo. He eats everything and always leaves a big tip.

The coffee was lousy but that’s okay.

—in memory of Artemisa Salinas (1932-2011)