View From a Moving Train
By Jakusho Kwong Roshi
Whenever I give a talk, the listeners and I may find ourselves in a paradoxical situation: as words and phrases can often become abstractions, I try to explain something that can”t be explained, and the listeners try to hear something that can”t be heard. Since by necessity this is the situation, we can sympathize with each other—me with you for that which you can”t hear, and you with me for that which I can”t say. At the same time I can always strike my stick on the floor, Bam!, so at least this is possible. Maybe I can”t explain it, but I can demonstrate it, and then the rest is up to you.
This can cause a certain amount of frustration on your side and loneliness on mine. But the bigger question is, How can we come together
And how can we realize ourselves
When we chant phrases like, “for all sentient beings,” it”s pretty abstract. But it becomes less abstract when we begin to find out what this sentient being is, and that includes discovering that things go into making up this sentient being. All of our dualistic thoughts and deluded feelings, whether they”re good or bad, whether we like them or not, constitute a sentient being. Our meditation practice is not about trying to deny these aspects of ourselves. Many people have this misunderstanding, but the truth is quite the opposite.
In Poland, where I have some students, I met with a woman who is in her early sixties. Since the end of World War II all of her memories of the war have been suppressed. For some reason, however, at this time of her life all of her memories are returning and surfacing. What is she to do with them
What are any of us to do with the content of our mind
How can each of us work with our own situation
This is the practice of meditation.
Each one of us holds the very same wish and aspiration: to be able to work with the difficulties that life brings us, based on the awareness we cultivate through our practice. As you continue your journey and your practice grows, you will see that there”s a beginning and a middle and an end that, in reality, are all the same. For convenience, or because we are speaking about it, we separate this One, this Same, into three parts, but actually it is just One. In time you will discover this for yourselves, unless you become scared and run off—which believe it or not, happens frequently. But what comes up in our meditation is not new. It”s old stuff, and you can only run off so many times before you realize that there”s no need to run anymore. For many people that”s the moment when their practice begins to engage.
The late Uchiyama Roshi explained that there is a seed or cause that has auspiciously brought you in contact with the path. This alone points you in the direction of dharma. This is one interpretation of dharma: looking for something that seems to be missing. Maybe some truth is what is lacking in life, and at a certain point we are actually able to experience this. Either through our grief, or our experience of sickness, or loss, or a change in a relationship, or just a feeling of impermanence that is no longer tolerable, we begin to look and to quest, and we begin to practice zazen as part of that quest.
What zazen really is has been explained in many different ways. Suzuki Roshi used to say shikantaza is our zazen, but as I”ve mentioned, the words and phrases used to express Zen practice can sound pretty abstract, and almost any explanation is conceptual. It can”t really touch the experience itself. Suzuki Roshi put it very simply: “Just to be ourselves.” Four words, but what they express is so deep and so subtle that we miss it until we begin slowing down. He said our practice is following our breath. But the true meaning of this, the deep meaning, is…
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