156: Design of Future Zen part 4

UnMind: Zen Moments With Great Cloud

In looking forward and anticipating the future of Zen in America, once again it may behoove us to take a look in the rearview mirror. According to research reported by one of my future lineage successors – in a years-long series of talks he gave on the history of the transmission of Zen – things did not always go swimmingly when the big cheese finally kicked the proverbial bucket, to mix a metaphor or two. The resultant chaos was not quite as bad as that brought on by the “To the strongest!” gambit attributed to Alexander the Great, settling the question through violence rather than voting, an approach that has gained fresh meaning in recent political campaigns.

In fact, one might reasonably question the validity of any aging, declining leader naming their own successor in the first place, in the face of diminishing mental acuity and physical vigor. What part of “declining” do we not understand? How many political leaders have we witnessed who hang onto power way beyond what the dictates of the natural process of aging-out would suggest?

Matsuoka -roshi was born in November of 1912 and died in November of 1997. He was and is my “root” teacher, in the common parlance of Zen. It is his legacy and lineage that we celebrate during Founder’s Month each November, and which I have done all in my power to preserve, protect, and to propagate. Kongo-roshi, or Richard Langlois as I knew him in the 1960s, was O-Sensei’s immediate successor at the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago (ZBTC). He was born in 1935, but died unexpectedly in 1999, only two years after O-Sensei’s parinirvana. This unfortunate turn of events brings to mind the oft-misquoted but always pertinent couplet:

The best-laid schemes ‘of mice and men’ gang aft a-gley,

and lea’e us naught but grief and pain, for promised joy

Thank you, Robert Bobby Burns, from his poem “To a Mouse.” This is not to suggest that planning, as such, is totally useless, or generally ineffective, but any succession planning is clearly a special case. In Zen’s historical record, the cohort left to pick up the pieces and carry on were comprised of more than one individual, in many cases.

It appears there is a common pattern of two or more Zen successors stepping in and divvying up the role previously played by the retiring guiding teacher. They were often of very different personality types, bringing different sets of skills and attitudes to the table, not necessarily the same as their mentor’s. This is also common in the business world, when the CEO is replaced by less-experienced executives.

It took me a few decades to realize that I am not Matsuoka-roshi, and that my students are certainly not me. I could not simply continue doing my best imitation of Sensei, oblivious to the fact that my students were approaching Zen practice very differently from my own early days. I had to have flexibility of mind to innovate, not just to imitate.

Nor can I compare myself to Okumura-roshi – who officiated my formal transmission –with his historical roots in traditional Zen training in Japan. His successor Hoko Karnegis was recently chosen – how and why, I have no idea, and do not need to know. But I do know that she, who generously wrote the foreword to my second book, “The Razorblade of Zen,” is definitely not a Shohaku clone. The character of the community changes with any change in leadership. But its mission and reason for being need not.

I recognize that as founder and guiding teacher of ASZC and STO, I am a “transitional figure.” As are we all – in the ultimate, biological sense – given the inevitability of “aging, sickness and death.” Matsuoka-roshi was certainly a transitional figure, becoming a living example of the “man without a country.” He was no longer fully Japanese, nor was he completely American.

It should be noted that all truly transitional figures necessarily appear as somewhat ridiculous, in the eyes of their contemporaries. It becomes necessary to embrace certain contradictions, many that are counter-intuitive and counter-cultural. If you don’t quite get the point, just picture myself, or yourself, fully enrobed, walking into a Starbuck’s.

These transitional aspects of grafting a living tradition onto a new host culture can be considered a necessary and temporary period of adjustment. It is going to entail, and even require, independent thinking, as well as Interdependent action. Perhaps more than anything, it will require focus and perseverance, keeping the eye on the prize, or at least on the ball, in light of the many diversions and apparent obstructions in the path. The Ch’an poem Sandokai–Harmony of Sameness and Difference puts it succinctly:

Not understanding the Way before your eyes

how do you know the path you walk?

Buddha himself is said to have recognized the many blind alleys and dead ends that can get in the way of the simple pursuit of the only truth that matters. In “The Teaching of Buddha,” chapter two, “The Way of Practical Attainment” we find the following:

1. in the search for truth there are certain questions that are unimportant. Of what material is the universe constructed? Is the universe eternal? Are there limits or not to the universe? In what way is this human society put together? What is the ideal form of organization for human society? If a man were to postpone his searching and practicing for Enlightenment until such questions were solved, he would die before he found the path.

Like his successors in India, as well as those in China, Japan, and the Far East, the clarity of focus comes through loud and clear, in the context of the seductions of the universal, natural and social spheres. The ancestors of Zen are all speaking with one voice, as far as to where we are to direct our personal attention is concerned. Perhaps this singular emphasis – on avoiding the pitfalls and temptations of following cultural memes and tropes as to what is truly important in life – is even more critical in modern times.

When we finally join a fully functioning Zen community, we naturally become possessive and protective of it. We worry about its stability, from both fiscal and psychological perspectives. If its leadership appears unstable, we hesitate to invest too much time and effort into participating in it, both from personal practice and social administrative perspectives. These are natural impulses, and rational as well. We have all witnessed too many betrayals of our trust and confidence by misguided leaders of supposed religious and educational institutions, in America and elsewhere. This is why harmony is the main watchword for the Zen community. And the main reason its members are encouraged to be circumspect in discussing the supposed faults of others.

But I want to impress upon you a deeper confidence in Zen. Not to worry — Zen will survive. It was here before you were, and it will be here after we are all long gone. Zen has survived, and even thrived, for over two and a half millennia, and that is only the recorded history of it. It surely began long before Buddha’s life, and will survive as far into the future as the human species, which, admittedly, is looking a little iffy just now.

Zen will survive because it is not “Zen.” Zen is just a name, a label that we throw at something that has no name. This discovery of Buddha, even in our times, is primordial. It is nothing more than “waking up,” in the most universal, deepest and broadest sense of the word. It is awakening to reality. That simple fact may need our protection, from the vicissitudes of current cultural ignorance. But it comes with the territory of being a fully conscious human being. It will not go away with time, as long as humans survive.

This is why the definitive dimension of sangha is “harmony.” Fostering disharmony in the Zen community is a cardinal sin. As Master Elvis reminds us, “We can’t go on together, with suspicious minds.” The sangha itself is like a cloud – after my dharma name, “Great Cloud” – constantly evaporating and recondensing. If you do not think so, stick around for a while. We have had literally thousands of people come and go over the decades, and sometimes return after decades. That they come and go is no fault of our own, or of theirs. It is merely the manifestation of their life stories, the cloud endlessly evaporating and recondensing.

In Matsuoka Roshi’s collected talks, “The Kyoksaku” and “Mokurai,” he shares his perspective on the future of Zen, including the meaning of a Zen temple. We are carrying forward his mission of propagating Zen in America, on the premise that he expressed, that Zen is relatively “dead” in Japan; and would find its rebirth in America:

A Zen temple is not a debating place — especially about Zen. Zen was never meant to be debated. It was meant to come into your lives to quiet them and for you to live as a Buddha. If you know Zen, your voice will be quiet and your words will be few. Great wisdom does not need many words to express itself. “Those who speak do not necessarily know.”

Master Dogen also mentioned of the tendency of individuals to want to express their understanding of Zen to all who will listen, including the local guiding teacher. It is a known issue in history, and one of many such attitudes that have persisted down to today. But if we see it for what it is – the natural desire of a person to have their own understanding of Zen recognized, and their efforts in support of the temple appreciated – this, too, can be accommodated in our ongoing program of propagation, as a teaching or learning moment.

Buddha himself was said to have been assailed by an earnest young seeker, who prevailed upon him to answer the “Ten Cosmic Questions” from what passed for the philosophy of the times: how it all began, how it will all end, et cetera. Which Buddha considered hopelessly speculative, somewhat specious, and not at all to the point of addressing the real problem at hand, that of dukkha. The young man insisted that unless Buddha answered, he, the young man, could not accept him as his teacher. Shakyamuni is said to have pointed out to this sincere but presumptive aspirant that he – Buddha, was under no obligation to be his – the young man’s, teacher. And he – the young man, was under no obligation to be his – Buddha’s, student.

We have adopted a similar motto for our practice centers, which was initiated by an early Rinzai pioneer to America, Sokeian-roshi: “Those who come here are welcome; those who leave are not pursued.” We have a similar middle-way approach to donations, first expressed by our initial practice leader of Southwind Sangha, our Wichita affiliate: “No donation required; no donation refused.”

All of the above represent variations on the theme of thinking independently and acting interdependently. Sitting in zazen with the Zen community, we are still sitting alone. Any time we sit alone in zazen, we are joining the larger community of Zen practitioners. Somewhere in the world – at any time, day or night – someone is sitting in Zen meditation. We need flexibility of mind to approach Zen practice in this nondual sense, outside of time and space.

In the first UnMind segment in June, we will return briefly to our exploration of “election year Zen,” with whatever challenges appear in the campaign in the interim. Until then... just keep sitting.

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Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”

UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to [e-mail]. Gassho.

Producer: Shinjin Larry Little