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.

Moving Forward

With respect,

Hello All,

This morning I went on a training hike for the Bataan Memorial Death March to be held on March 20th at the Army base at White Sands, NM. I’m doing the short version at 14.2 miles.  It is a trail run with sand, hills, and (did I say) sand?  Anyway, I am training on desert trails out behind my house.  This morning I did nearly 3 miles in 29 degree weather.  I stayed on pace at 20 minutes per mile. It was a good effort over rough terrain.  

What does this have to do with Zen?  Well, biking, running and walking have a cadence.  As we are out there on a course eventually our body settles into a “zone” where breath, footfall, and attention seem to integrate into a seamless pattern…almost oneness itself.  We are aware of the scenery, looking forward enough to check our path but, most of all, mindfully moving along.  I call this, “Stillness in motion” and have this phrase on the back of our “Team Zen” tee shirts.

The “zone” I am talking about is not a “zoned-out” thing, rather its a mindfulness in motion sort of thing. Contrary to conventional thought we have not separated ourselves from our bodies as we are aware and mindful of both our internal world and our external world: we float like a duck and don’t hold on to anything. It is this that is what I call Zen in motion.  Once we begin, the flow will take us there whether we like it or not because its the inevitable ‘practice realization’ that Master Dogen referred to in his work.

In ‘Zen in motion,’ we simply put one foot in front of another and let our thoughts and feelings do what they do.  What we do not do is allow them the power to take us away from what’s in front of us to do: finish the race. This is, of course, easier said than done. Yet, we have each other, don’t we?  None of us are alone on the trail: I’ve had my teacher, my coach, my family, my sangha, and my friends each run every race I have run be with me as I put each foot down on the ground.  So, in the end, its not me who runs the race, its all of us together.  In truth this is true of all of life: we are not alone.

Be well,

Daiho  

The Zen of Knowledge,Part two

With respect,

We left Part one with the question, “So what?” In that piece I talked about ways we “know.” I covered this in a superficial way: epistemology and ontology, like existentialism and phenomenology are complex and sit at the core of philosophy. Philosophers have debated them for centuries. Such debate, possibly useful, but likely not, is sort of like mental masturbation. It feels good in the moment, but leaves us wanting the real thing. So, what is the real thing?

In the world of Zen practice our aim, should we actually have one, is to let mind and body fall away and in this process live in what Master Dogen thought of as “practice realization.” To get to a better understanding of what this means, we must break it down piece by piece.

In Master Dogen’s Fukanzazengi He gives us a clear sense that we each ought practice zazen, that ancient contemplative form once referred to as “Serene Reflection Meditation” or “Silent Illumination.” He put forth the unheard of notion that when we sit in this way, when mind and body fall away, we are in a state of realization. Why? What on earth? Is enlightenment that easy? Right, were it so. But he knew that there was something more to it than that. The rascal.

Here’s the thing, allowing mind and body to fall away essentially means that we let go, yes, let go. Let go of our thoughts. Let go of our feelings, our bodily sensations, in fact, we are to “let go” of everything we think we know and if we are successful? Well, then the keyboard I am typing on has an opportunity not to be a keyboard per se, but can present itself, as my teacher used to say, “As it will.” Right. when is a keyboard not a keyboard? when we stop thinking of it as a keyboard. Its ontological reality is then free.

Practice deep enough and “keyboard” ceases to exist as keyboard. We learn thru our practice that “keyboard” is not a keyboard, it is simply and completely only what we call it. But calling something something does it a serious disservice. Because calling it something disallows it to be itself. Poor keyboard, but even more poor is ourselves because we never get to know it for its original nature. We only believe we know it.

So, then, how do we know? An epistemological question, yes? Some, the empiricists among us, say we “know” through our senses. Yes, and the Buddha counted the mind as one of the senses and, from a Kantian perspective this might be so, then, as Kant believed we establish categories, like little boxes, in our mind within which we put our sensory data encoded as data with names and properties: this is round and thus if goes to “roundness,” this is square, and so forth. It discriminates in order to do the sorting.Once in a box with a name we think we “know it.” Yet, do we really? Or is what we know simply what our brain is doing,sorting and naming, etc.? Our epistemological “knowledge” in the end, is only what our brain says it is. It is not the ontological reality of the thing itself: its actual being. But we think it is!

It that thinking that robs the thing of its truth. I know you. I know you are So and so, you are this old, are this sort of person doing thst sort of job, wearing certain clothes with so much money in the back and so on. So, when I sctually meet you, this “knowledge” acts as a filter and it is through this filter that I interpret you in your presence before me. But is this interpretation that actual you?

The “so what” of Zen, then, is the fact that our practice exposes our filters. What’s left is pure perception. It’s in the “clear mind” that you may be seen for who and what you actually are.I believe it is this that is “practice realization.”

The Zen of Knowledge, Part one

From Outside the Margins

The Zen of Knowledge, Part One

by Daiho Hilbert

With respect,

We do not get to the truth of anything by believing it to be true. We get to the truth by questioning it to be true. Therein arises faith.

There is an observation common amongst Jews: Jews tend to answer questions with questions.  It is always interesting when a question is answered with a question. The person asking the question may feel threatened so answers the returning question with defensiveness or the questioner understands the nature of the discussion is one of seeking the truth in which case he/she considers the response and allows feelings of defensiveness to flow away thus allowing further exploration. 

When we are convinced of the truth of something the larger truth eludes us as our conviction becomes an untested declaration. 

Someone in the various threads of my Facebook page asked the question, "how do we know?" In philosophy, especially the philosophy of science, this query takes us to a branch of philosophy called epistemology. It is a necessary question in the area of theory building.  How do we know anything?  

Another, sometimes counter philosophical area, is ontology which is about "being."  We might say somethings are known through our direct experience of them. Existentialists and phenomenologists may fall into this category.

Theological issues often include epistemological questions related to a person's ontological or phenomenological knowledge.  How do we know God?  Is it even possible to know a proposed being who is believed to exist on an entirely different plane of existence as our own? I believe the Buddha argued it was both impossible to answer that question and that the question itself had no value because it did nothing to awaken us.

Contemporary Zen Masters have suggested that one of the ways we may discover the truth is to abide in a "don't know" mind. Masters like Seung Sahn and Bernie Glassman are proponents of this, as is the Order of Clear Mind Zen. To abide in a "Don't Know Mind" is to deliberately set aside what we think we know so that what is in front of us has an opportunity to be seen as it is, directly, and without the filter of presumption.  We develop such a mind through the practice of seated meditation and in the Rinzai school, koan work. 

At this point, we might be asking ourselves, “So what?”  In Part Two we will address that most important question of application. Be well Y’all

Our Snow in southern New Mexico

Real Practice

From the Margins: Real Zen Practice

by Harvey Daiho Hilbert

One day I was sitting on the street in front of the Federal Building in downtown Las Cruces.  It was fairly early in our war with Iraq.  I sat in robes on a zafu with a small block lettered sign.  The sign read, “PEACE.”   As I sat there a man approached.  He was quite angry and told me his son was fighting in Iraq.  I listened as he talked to me about his concerns for his son.  I barely said a word.  As he talked, he came closer and closer to questioning why his son was there. Even then, many of us did not believe there were WMDs in Iraq and that the invasion was some sort of Bush payback. At some point, he was silent and sat down beside me.  We sat there together quietly.  

On another occasion, I sat in front of the same building as a group gathered to protest the Supreme Court’s decision that ruled corporations were people.  The gathering grew and security, as well as police with K-9s, approached the large group.  I was sitting between the group and the building on the public sidewalk.  The group, also on the sidewalk, was asked to remove themselves.  The authorities argued that the group was impeding pedestrians.  After a lot of discussion and threats of detainment, the large group moved off the sidewalk.  I did not. at some point in my zazen I heard officers standing near me considering what to do with me as I continued to sit.  a K-9 dog approached and sniffed around me.  I just sat there. In the end, the authorities retreated to the Federal Building and I remained on my cushion.  I had not spoken a word nor shared a glance.

These events stick out in my mind.  At the time a number of thoughts came and went.  In the first case I wondered what the man was going to do, whether he would escalate and if the need arose to defend myself, what I might do.  In the second case, I was prepared to not respond, but to continue my practice on the public sidewalk. I imagined being dragged away.  Thankfully that did not happen.

We in the West compartmentalize everything.  Zen is done either at home or in Zendos. We meditate to open our eyes and, theoretically, free all beings.  The classical understanding of this is that by opening our eye, so too, all eyes, since you and I are one. However, eyes open or not, there is great suffering in this world.  The Buddha did not awaken to sit in temples or under trees.  He stood up and taught, wandered and healed, pacified criminals, and Kings.  He was selfless and lived for the sake of others. Unfortunately, we in the West, with our proclivity for self absorption, have either forgotten, never learned, or purposefully ignored the Buddha’s teaching in this regard.  

Zen practice is not only about Zen practice in the relative safety of a Zendo, it is also about manifesting our practice through the precepts in the real world.  True practitioners of the Buddha Way have an obligation to engage the world around them just as the Buddha did.  This obligation arises from the Three Pure Precepts: cease doing evil, do good, and bring about abundant good for all beings. Notice the attention is on “doing” not on “being.” 

So, the next time you ask yourself or your teacher if you have freed yourself while on the cushion, know that in the question is your answer. Like that old Zen story, we don’t make a mirror by polishing tiles and we don’t gain enlightenment by practicing Zazen.  Why? Unless we take our open mind up from the cushion and into the world we have not become practice-realization.  What we are instead is smug Teachers and Students sitting safely and invisibly in a Zendo.

Christmas et al

With Palms Together, Good Morning Everyone,
Some of us in the United States dislike using the phrase “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays.” They believe we should use the phrase “Merry Christmas” instead as they see that Jesus is the “reason for the season.” Some, then, see this as part of a so-called “War on Christmas.”
Let’s see, to put this politely, I might say, “If there is a war on Christmas its hard to tell when surrounded by Christmas carols, lights, displays, sales, parking problems, and traffic jams.” Yet, we might look at it a different way and suggest that all of these things are, in fact, the war on Christmas itself. Yes, these have little to nothing to do with “the reason for the season.” What does a Christmas sale, for example, have to do with the birth of the founder of a major religion, a person held up to be the son of God, if not God himself? To me, as an outsider (I am not a Christian), I view the commercialization of Christmas as a direct attack on the meaning of the day itself.
Christmas does not stand alone during this time of year, the time of the waning sun. Hanukkah (Festival of Lights), Rohatsu (Enlightenment of the Buddha), the High Holy Days (Days of Repentance), and in Islam, Mawlid (birth of the prophet Mohammed). We might note that each of these seasonal “holy”days involve birth and death and the hope that abides in between. These holy days did not just pop up, they evolved over time and matched our emotional and psychological needs as they symbolize a basic and common human need and, as such, have become a deeply held part of us.
As winter approaches, we witness a transformation of our environment, leaves falling from trees, plants withering, things move more slowly as temperatures drop and water freezes. Our sun is with us less and less and for those who pay attention to such things, appears to fall further and further down the horizon. In ancient times these events were closely watched and greatly feared. We were reminded of our mortality, our pain and suffering. The ancients crafted belief systems and ceremonies around such seasonal changes in the hope of staving off death and bringing forth birth. These holidays, then, were crucial to our sense of well-being and safety.
Today however, we have lost touch with our enchanted and natural world. We have light and heat at the touch of a button. Our food is not scarce and comes neatly packaged and often our children have no sense as to where these packages come from or how they were produced. Its as if we left nature behind as we pursued (almost as a stampede) the near magical possibilities at the dawn of the age of enlightenment.
Losing touch with the natural world enables us to view it as just matter, life without spirit. Our children’s eyes are drawn to video games, devices, websites, movies, videos,and so forth. As adults and parents we, too, have lost touch with the natural cycles of the earth. We prize our technological progress which, in itself is not a bad thing, but when paired with a marginalizing of the natural world, becomes very dangerous.

These days, these cold winter days, ought remind us of this spiritual rendering. They were designed to bring us back in touch with the world as it is. Let’s say, a re- enchantment of our lives and our relationship to the universe. When we light incense and offer it, as we buy or make a gift for others during these holidays, and as we sit facing a wall in Zazen, let us consider the real meaning of the seasonal cycles, let us bear witness to our species destruction of the environment. And on a personal, individual level, let us be aware of our lack of care and compassion for our own space and its conditioned relationship to the “larger” world.
If there is a “War on Christmas” that war is fed by our greed and enabled by our lack of understanding of our core reality. The Buddha woke up. He touched the ground with his finger tips and gave witness to the Earth itself. In this he saw the essential truth of each moment as gateways to liberation from life and death. May we each learn ways to re- enchant our world, bringing forth spirit and hope thru our practice.
Yours, Daiho