On Teachers

With palms together,

Good Evening Everyone,

This evening I would like to address a topic that is quite challenging, to wit: What is a Zen Teacher and what does a Zen Teacher actually teach?  Who is a Zen Teacher anyway? The simple and most direct answer historically is a person who has gained Dharma transmission from his Teacher and/or has been authorized by that teacher to teach. I might add, this person must have a strong drive to teach.   Now this was good enough throughout the world since the Buddha’s time, but has recently been challenged here in the United States.  

Here we have people challenging Dharma transmission itself, and indeed, the whole notion of a clergy and teacher cadre. These folks believe in a horizontal organizational structure or, simply, no structure at all.  They argue shaved heads and robes put people off, separate clergy from the ordinary guy, etc. My response to that argument is equally simple: so?

Then there is the American Zen Teacher’s Association which claims it is not a credentialing body, but by its very name suggests it is. This organization regards a Zen Teacher as one who has received transmission from a recognized lineage master, agrees to follow the AZTA’s ethical code, has had substantial time on the cushion prior to being authorized to teach, and has a position wherein the applicant is currently teaching. 

Sounds easy enough, but understand; for the time on the cushion aspect of these criteria it is suggested the minimum be a year’s worth of retreat time.  Now, let’s take a cold look at that…and understand what that means: prior to being granted transmission, the person must have sat a minimum of 365 days in retreat under the supervision of an authorized teacher.  Lets look a little closer. 

The typical sesshin is 7 days so if we were to use the standard sesshin as a measure, the person must have sat 52 weeks of sesshin. Now, if that person were to sit one sesshin per month (the typical Zen Center offers sesshin only quarterly, by the way), it would take 4.3 years of monthly seven day sessions in order to meet this basic requirement. The people who have achieved this miracle must either not work anywhere or have jobs that allow them a week’s vacation monthly. 

If we were to take the typical annual calendar of a Zen Center, which includes four sesshin per year, it would take 13 years of quarterly sesshin to obtain the minimum amount of retreat time. Right. 

Frankly, this is ridiculous.  We can see this ex post facto cushion requirement is either a pipe dream or those who are members of AZTA have been creative on their applications. in verifying these requirements I had a short conversation with an AZTA dignitary, I learned “many” of the AZTA members trained for “twenty years” before being granted teacher status.  This still doesn’t explain how it is possible to meet this minimal retreat requirement.  Perhaps they were grandfathered in.  Maybe there is still another alternative, such as the organization waives the time requirement for certain people?  I don’t know.

What I believe, however, is that time on the cushion is simply time on the cushion.  Without some sense of what that time has done it is a meaningless number.  To use an analogy:  Let’s suppose someone is studying the koan curriculum with a teacher.  It takes the person, say, ten years to resolve a handful of the 300 koans in the collection.  Another student, same teacher, completes the koan collection in a year.  In such a case, using time as the criteria, the person who took ten years to get a handful of koans would be accepted and the one who brilliantly completed the collection in a year would be denied. 

This leads me to the second aspect of this piece:  what actual Zen Teachers teach. Teachers, I acknowledge, teach didactically or experientially.  The latter, it seems to me is the most effective.   As to what teachers teach here’s a short list of categories of what we typically think of as content: 

We are to teach the Dharma; 

We teach the precepts, as we ourselves are precept holders and are responsible for manifesting them in our daily lives; and 

We teach the practices, contemplative, ceremonial and otherwise, to our students.  

We teach our history.

This is an impressive list, but is it what we actually teach?  And how is the list prioritized?  Priorities are usually established in accordance with what we value, a Zen axiology, if you will.  What’s first on our list if we were to prioritize it?  Given the questions on the AZTA’s application and what goes on in a typical Zen Center, my sense is most of us would place zazen at the top of the list. So sitting on our asses, staring at a wall is our highest value?

There is a problem with this and the problem is labeled “our Vows.”

At each level of ordination we are asked to take our vows, these are recited once again monthly, and each day we recite the Four Great Vows.  Now these vows are important.  They are an ethical statement in their own right and they point us to our task as precept holders or priests. 

The third pure precept suggests we are to create conditions within which all beings will be free.  I believe these precepts should be, as the Torah says, as frontlets between our eyes.  Our precepts are our everyday practice, indeed, our precepts are ourselves expressed in action. 

  Our Bodhisattva vows make it clear that we are to put ourselves last and all others are before us.  These vows, then teach us what tradition might say is our starting point and our priority.  Well, darn, looking at what is contained in the latest Buddhist magazines, or looking at the schedules of many, many Zen Centers, I see their focus to be on the practice of zazen. 

What I don’t see are opportunities to enact the precepts and the Bodhisattva vows. So, sitting down, facing a wall, and shutting up, is first on the list and stands as the highest value.  On some level I understand this: it is important, after all, to begin to glimpse our original face, see how all things come and go, and how, when looked at closely, appear deeply interconnected.  Yes, important, but not necessarily the most important, or the highest good.  Zazen is first a practice and in certain ways that practice becomes a complete way of life, but not right away and perhaps never.  The mind, as it arises on the cushion, is important to keep close.  

So instead of asking how many decades we have spent sitting on our ass, we might be asking how we have been of service to others.  We might take that third pure precept and use it to give us authority to stand up against these interminable wars, against discrimination and hate, and for reproductive rights.

It seems to me that just when our nation needs religious and spiritual leadership Zen teachers, with few exceptions, are no where to be found.  Well, not so, we can see them sitting in their Zendo facing a wall.  Meanwhile the terror of warfare continues, the culture of violence we Americans have created goes unchallenged by us, and students are able to clearly see what we most value: sitting on our asses.

When it comes time to do the talk, we talk, but when it comes time to the walk, we sit.

So it goes.

On Birth and Death

With palms together,

From Shushogi: The most important issue of all for Buddhists is the thorough clarification of the meaning of birth and death. If the buddha is within birth and death, there is no birth and death. Simply understand that birth and death are in themselves nirvana; there is no birth and death to be hated nor nirvana to be desired. Then, for the first time, we will be freed from birth and death. To master this problem is of supreme importance. (As translated and published in Soto School Scriptures for Daily Services and Practice.)

These are the precious words of Dogen Zenji.  They can be comforting or terrifying or both.  They are about as spiritual a koan as is possible; they are also a derivative from the Great Heart of Wisdom sutra.

To apply a teaching from another of Master Dogen's works, the Genjokoan, birth has its own Dharma reality and death has its own Dharma reality.  In birth there is just birth; in death there is just death.  We typically don't like thinking about death, whereas, birth is something we tend to celebrate.  Think about it or not, with what feels like the blink of an eye, there it is before us.

I know as a young wounded soldier I never thought I would live this long, but now that I'm here, I'd rather stay, thank you very much! Dogen says, "if the buddha is within birth and death, there is no birth and death.  One wonders just what this could possibly mean.  Much like the Heart sutra is spoken from deep samadhi, and therefore with "Big Mind," nothing is separate.

Grasping unification is key.  If we are separate from each other, all things, and our own nature, then we can die. If, on the other hand, we have unified, which is to say, discarded our separateness, and experience oneness, then there can be no birth or death as these require duality to exist. In one there is no two, indeed, in one, there is no one. There is just thusness.

Coming from this mind, birth ceases; death ceases, as both time and space collapse as separate experiences. We are a wave discovering it is water. The duality of the relative truth is what the Heart sutra suggests is what hinders the mind and thus allows us to fear.

The sutra says, "no hindrance in the mind, no hindrance therefore no fear."  What a wonderful mantra to hold close.

Be well.

Walking the Walk

With respect,

"There are lazy, self-important and -indulgent priests who do possess the "right" credentials, not because they have penetrated to the core of life-and-death, but because they are clever in a worldly sense." (Matsuoka-roshi, Moku-Rai, p.12.)  Here is the poison threatening Zen today. Reliance on credentials, robes, shaved heads, sutras, chants, deadly stares, or organizational imprimaturs will bring us nothing but the risk of inauthentic teaching. To find your way listen to that 'still, small voice" whispering in your ear as you sit zazen or witness your teacher. Listen, then let it go. 

For me, I often say I learned more about living Zen from noticing my own response to my teacher than anything he ever taught me directly. So, if we don't like to put our palms together and bow? We might ask ourselves, 'what is the resistance and where does it come from?  Don't like chanting, or reciting the Maka Hanya Haramita Shin Gyo?  We ask ourselves, 'what's up with that? 

Zen is a disciplines spiritual practice and one thing I know is we Americans are always willing and able to find ways to be or remain undisciplined. We love to talk the talk, but walk the walk?

Place

With respect to each of you,

This evening I sat out under the stars, or what stars I could see since it is a cloudy evening here in Southern New Mexico.  Seeing the stars is unnecessary, we know they are there and, if we had studied them, we know what they look like.  Still, the act of sitting quietly out of doors is an act of mindful attention and love.

We should love our home, this tiny speck of a planet in an infinite universe.  It allows us to live, provides for us, and offers us a place in the vastness of space itself.  Having a place is very important and is something we in the United States rarely consider, as we are Americans and don't necessarily see ourselves as needing (or having) a "place."

Yet a "place" is one of the things in life we each seem to seek.  We want to know who and what we are, as well as, where we fit in.  We resist because we don't want to be "defined" by our sociological standing.  We want to define ourselves and do so in a liquid way.  Good for us, as that liquidity takes back to Zen where everything is understood to be liquid.  Every being and everything is in a state of constant change.

Personally, I am comfortable with my place, a place I have settled into and feel incredibly warm in.  Sitting outside this evening I drew myself near to the edge of the universe.  An edge that is just one breath away for each of us.  To get there, just let go what what you think you know and open yourself to your greatest teacher, the universe itself.

Be well,

Frustration's End

With palms together,

Good Evening All,

It’s a little after 9:00 PM and outside I see clouds moving in over the mountains with an occasional lightening flash.  At rest now, my heart is taking in the day, a day with frustrations, joy, intimacy, and business.  It seemed as though at every turn there were issues with hanging the ink brush pictures.  In the morning I will once again make an effort to complete the task.  

I am a typical man: as things get in the way, frustration rises and swearing begins.  Shukke Shin doesn’t approve of this, but then, neither do I.  Still, there is frustration and there is swearing. It’s so, so automatic.  Today, though, something changed.  We had a session with our therapist and the frustrations came rolling out.  What a relief it is to just let things come out. As we talked, laughter arose, another good thing.  

When I discovered that the title cards to the paintings were not sticking and that I had gotten the wrong type of wire for the pictures, and that I had also forgotten the drill so I could not make starter holes on the frames…when I discovered all that, I decided in calmness to pack things up, get the right sort of wire and some material that will work to stick the tittle cards to the walls, and come back fresh in the morning.  This friends, is actual progress.  There was a time when I would simply go on auto pilot and fly around not resting till everything was addressed, fixed, or well on the way to being taken care of.

Practice is a good thing.  Sitting quietly with my mind, holding it close, and letting it be what it is, can help immensely.  What happens is this: through mindful practice we begin to see things as they happen and respond quickly making the necessary adjustments in mood, behavior, and demeanor in the process.  It’s not that we are not frustrated, angry, or sad; its that we recognize these feelings and are able to create a space between them and our actions. I will be the first to admit I am not always able to do this, but I am able to recover from a bout of negative thoughts and feelings much more quickly than most.  

You know, Zen asks nothing of us.  The practice accepts us as we are.  We are not going to hell in a hand basket for being human beings.  The hell we fear is that which we create ourselves.  Recognize this and you are almost home free.  

May you be a blessing in the universe.

A talk on the Zen of Trauma in Kansas City

The Zen of Trauma: a talk with Roshi Daiho Hilbert, PhD

Thursday, June 25
at 6:30pm                               

3405 Highland Ave, Kansas City, MO

On Thursday evening, at a nearby Buddhist Temple the Rev. Dr. Harvey Daiho Hilbert Roshi, a Zen Master in the Soto lineage will offer a talk on “The Zen of Trauma.”  The Rev. Dr. Hilbert began studying Zen in 1966 after being shot in the head during combat in Vietnam.

Educated as a psychotherapist, Roshi spent many years in private practice, and in service to in-need communities in the southwest United States. Daiho was ordained as a Priest in 2000, and received transmission of the Dharma in 2005 as the sole successor of Rev. Ken Hogaku Shozen McGuire-roshi, a Chief Disciple of Zen Master Rev. Dr. Soyu Matsuoka-roshi. 

Zen Master Daiho will facilitate a discussion around the practice of Zen, through the experience of trauma. Ven. Sunyananda of Dharmakaya Buddhist Association highly recommends this event as a rare opportunity to engage a clear-eyed Buddhist master. 

Donations for the teacher will be kindly accepted, and a few copies of his chap book "The Zen of Trauma: A Practice for Life" will be available to interested participants.

Tolerance?

With respect to all,

The other day in a conversation with a biker veteran who, I might add, is just completing his Masters degree,  I was reminded of the difference between tolerance and acceptance.  When I worked in the T or C school system I recall receiving teaching materials related to tolerance.  At the time I didn't give it much thought, though I believe I thought it was a good idea.  I think now, I was wrong.  Teaching tolerance is about teaching us to use forbearance in order not to rock the boat.  We stifle ourselves when we come across something that really bothers us.  I ask a simple question, then, how does a stifling of meaningful difference help us get along?  It doesn't.  What it teaches us to do is "tolerate" each other, in spite of our differences.  While this approach allows each faith tradition to practice, it does nothing to bring us together since we are simply tolerating each other.  The problem then is this: how can we come to accept difference between faith traditions?

One way, I've learned, is to seek commonalities.  When we can see that we have things in common, compassion, for example, we may have something to build on.  Finding commonalities is easy, actually, I've done it many times in mediation sessions with clients.  What is not so easy is finding ways to live with the differences  An example:  I lived for years in the deep[ south where fundamentalist Christians are in the majority.  These are caring people, though (IMHO) misguided.  Blue laws prevailed there.  These were laws based on Christian understanding of their bible.  So, stores, by law, had to be closed on Sunday.  Nothing really wrong with that, right?  Wrong.  From my religious POV, the Sabbath is on a Saturday, and this, folks, is what that very same bible actually says.  If a Jew wanted to shop on Sunday he was out of luck.  Conversely, the fact that stores were allowed to be open on Saturday desecrated the sabbath from a Jewish point of view.  We could say, "so what" there aren't that many Jews, besides we're a Christian country aren't we?  Not really, but we can avoid the facts and stick to the myth...

Which brings us to this, should Jews in our example simply tolerate the desecration of the sabbath?  Or should Christians understand there are differences between faith traditions within the same Abrahamic line (in this case)  and be willing to see and understand difference.  Tolerate?  Respect?

For me the key is to learn, deeply learn, about each faith tradition.  Once we actually know something about a tradition we are in a place where mutual respect can arise.  Even if we differ on issues it is possible to respect those differences and, at times, even learn to appreciate them.  As an aside, I disliked Shakespeare a great deal in college, though the fact was, I had not read much of his work.  Then, an English class helped me understand what I was reading.  I became a fan of the Bard and even taught a college class in Shakespearean tragedies. Teaching something almost always deepens our understanding and appreciation of that which we are teaching.  The thing is, many of us are convinced that we...or our faith tradition, is the one and only truth.  So convinced are we that we cannot or will not learn.  Tolerance, in such circumstances may be a good thing because it can be a beginning step on a path that leads to true respect and love of each other regardless of our beliefs.

When Blue laws were repealed, the sky did not fall down on our heads, but something did happen:  People had to look at their own conscience when it came to shopping on a Sunday. And, I believe introspection is always a good thing...

May we each build bridges toward a deeper understanding and appreciation of each other.

Be well