is life meaningful?

With palms together,

The question arises what really matters? Does our life really matter or is it something about our life? Life itself is just a metabolic process:all living things do it, nothing special. Yet, we cling to it as if “our life depended on it!”

Freud talked about two drives, Thanatos and Eros, death and love (perhaps more directly life itself). All living things strive to continue to live, but with us, with a self-awareness that asks why, why do we hold on to living so tightly? We are set apart from other life.

We strive always to take that next breath, discover that next image taste or smell. And in the struggle we question.  Questions give rise to meaning—- or at least they send us down the path to discover meaning. Our journey however doesn’t end: it’s a perpetual journey where one step never suffices and one breath rarely stands alone. We continue to ask and we continue to breathe.

Perhaps one way to address the question is to simply assume there is no ultimate answer save the process of questioning. Or should we consider it living where it seems to me living is apart from life. Life is just life,  but living is doing something with that life and for us that something is to question, is to assign meaning to that which we perceive or think about.

Somethings just come and go, don’t they? Nothing but the passing of thought on the breath. Some other things stop us dead. What’s this? We ask. What’s this indeed.

It’s not the object of the question that’s actually meaningful, it seems to me, it’s the fact that it stops us in our tracks.

It turns out, ours is to reason why!

A Disciple visits Eiheiji...

From Sensei Shukke’s  Disciple Derek:


This past June, Oscar and I traveled to Japan where I was fortunate enough to participate in an International Zen Workshop Sesshin at Daihonzan Eiheiji. While these workshops are usually comprised of either all Japanese or non-Japanese participants, the monks decided to experiment with a mixed group of both during this particular sesshin.  There were eighteen participants total with nine women and nine men with a little more than half of the participants being Japanese.  The non-Japanese participants came from Chile, France, Singapore, Israel, Bulgaria, and the U.S.

Coming by train and then bus from Kanazawa, Oscar and I got to Eiheiji around noon.  After dropping me off at the monastery Oscar had the next three days to explore Kanazawa on his own.  Once all the participants checked in, we were divided into two lines by gender and shown our rooms on the fourth floor of the Kichijokaku (Guest Hall).  Each group shared a large tatami room complete with futons and storage for our belongings.  After dropping off our things we were ushered into an adjacent classroom that functioned as our general meeting space for orientation, dharma talks/lectures, instruction, and stretching.  Two rows of long tables were placed along each side of the room facing one another (women on one side, men on the other).  At each place setting was a name tag, large envelope, two small pieces of paper, and pens.  Once Rev. Yokoyama and Rev. Kojima finished introductions we were told to place all of our belonging into the envelope and mark the outside with our name and country of origin. These were going to be kept in a secure location to limit



ays or so I was excited to be at Eiheiji but was also extremely self-conscious about my every move.  I wanted to make sure I was "doing it right."  Luckily the majority of the forms and etiquette we were asked to follow were the same ones we practice in our sangha and in other sanghas in the U.S.  Zazen with the group was very strong.  All but one participant were dedicated Soto practitioners with much sitting experience.  Our collective focus was really quite harmonizing.  That is except for when we were trying to eat!  Oryoki is such a difficult practice even for Japanese practitioners.  During the first meal, after we had been served and began to eat, I tried eating as mindfully as possible.  Take a bite, put the chopsticks diagonally across the middle bowl to chew a large bit, sit with cosmic mudra, take another bit, chew, repeat.  Nearly halfway through my meal I looked around and notice the teachers were finished, all of the women were finished, and all the men except for me and the guy to my left (who had about two bites left) were finished.  My god. Sweat started pouring from everywhere and my chopsticks were shaking as I tried to finish eating as quickly and elegantly as possible.  Mindful eating is a bit different at Eiheiji than what I was used to.  From that meal on I was very strategic about how much food I took to make sure I wasn't last again.  Soup is easy to eat quickly–just gulp it down.  Rice and the pickled daikon radish they served with every meal takes awhile so only take a bit of that.  Eat the most difficult things first and take very large bites.  Be mindful of how fast others are eating to try and finish together as a group.  By the second day of eating all of our meals in the zendo I finally experience how oryoki really is a continuation of our zazen.  As soon as we moved from the classroom to the zendo and began eating after sitting the energy was so different.  Everyone, while still fumbling a bit and needing some gentle procedural reminders from the monks seemed much more grounded in the practice of oryoki.  Although I still don't enjoy oryoki I have a much deeper appreciation for it.  We should more consciously incorporate into our regular practice.

Dogen Zenji wrote in Fukanzazengi, "The way is originally perfect and all-pervading...It is never apart from this very place; what is the use of traveling around to practice?"  This line stood out to me during discussion.  Why was I here at Eiheiji?  Is there something that different that required me to travel so far?  Is Eiheiji, or even Japan for that matter, the only place to experience "authentic" zen practice?  Not really.  The impeccable robes, centuries old buildings, beautiful scenery, and history of Eiheiji is really something and if you can go then make sure to go.  But if you never make it, don't worry.  Dogen's teaching really have taken root in the West.  Sure, the packaging might look a little different in American zen centers or monasteries and we might not have all the fancy choreography or the same number of monks but the core teachings of the Way are here, they're everywhere.  As Dogen said, "The way is originally perfect and all-pervading."  The truth is beyond Japan or America.  It's beyond Buddhism or some other religion.  I'm so grateful to have had this experience at Eiheiji.  Again, seeing and doing things how they're practiced at Eiheiji was something else and make sure to go if you can.  Just be careful about getting caught up in the accoutrement of Japanese monasticism, you might miss something a bit deeper.