Zen And Sore Knees
“Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.” — Bernard Baruch
Sufism claims to be the inner heart of Islam, Gnosticism the inner heart of Christianity, and Zen the inner heart of Buddhism. Ha!
The Wet Rice culture, as well as iron processing, came to Japan around 400 to 300 BC. By 600 CE Chinese visitors to Japan were sending home descriptions of an atavistic culture wherein Shintoism predominated. Eventually the Mahayana teachings (a school of Buddhism) arrived on the islands. These teachings however had a profound influence on Shinto, and visa versa. Later Confucianism and Taoism flowed from China to Japan, with considerable effect on Japanese philosophy, government, and culture. The Chinese influence was so strong that its formalism was adopted into many Buddhist rituals. Eventually Pure Land Buddhism, Nichiren Buddhism, and Zen developed, all with Chinese religious roots but incorporating uniquely Japanese cultural and Shinto traditions.
By the mid-790’s CE Kyoto became one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of almost half a million people. It became the centre of Buddhism in Japan. But as usually happens with religion, the priesthood soon grew to be extremely corrupt. It became a priest-ridden poor imitation of the Chinese schools. The corruption so bothered a young monk named Saicho, that he left Kyoto for the nearby forest mountains. Eventually Saico developed a 12-year course of study and Mount Hiei where he founded his school, became a centre for training in a less corrupt, meditation-filled, form of the religion. Over time various sects and schisms came about.
By the late 1100’s CE, the Chinese Rinzai school had been carried from China to Japan. A student at Mount Hiei, Eisai Dogen, became fed up with the ritual, constant ceremonies, corruption, and lack of depth that had by now crept into the Mount Hiei 12-year teaching. He travelled to China, only to find that Cha’an (Chinese Zen practice) had become as corrupt and ritualized as in his own country. The Buddhist monks and priesthood were as immersed in politics and financial greed as were the monks and priesthood in the Christian world of Europe. Dogen returned home despairing of ever finding a true teachers. But one did show up - someone at T’ien-t’ung monastery who taught a very severe and rigorous form of Zen practice. He studied at T’ien-t’ung for three years. At the end of that time he had found what he was looking for, and abandoned Zen practice, meditation, Buddhism, and all the rest in an instant. His writings have been venerated and taught in every Zen monastery ever since. But their central message is almost always ignored, in favour of the very things he grew to despise:
Zen as it is usually practiced in our own time is really a Japanese cultural system, influenced by this legacy of Chinese religious practice. As Zen developed it became intertwined with samurai, Shinto, Confucianism, and most of all perhaps, Taoist beliefs. It left its Cha’an origins in China and became a series ritualized discipline typical of monastic life in various cultures of the middle ages. While most modern Japanese view Zen as a lot of silliness, it has none the less spread throughout the world, particularly the west. There are Zen monasteries all over Europe, Canada, Australia, and especially the United States. In these white middle class Roshis lead students in monastic practices which are supposedly capable of helping a student reach first satori, and then “nirvana”. IMHO the Buddha would have been absolutely horrified - he spent much of his later years speaking out against such practices as being pointless. Oh well.
Zen practice incorporates lots of sitting on the knees (zazen - a Japanese style of sitting) for hours and days and weeks at a time, not a lot of food (rice mush anyone?), getting up at 4 AM and going to bed after midnight, lots (and I mean LOTS) of sweeping, dusting, chopping wood, kitchen duty, gardening duty, and interminable chanting of Buddhist sutras. Not to mention some silly koans to puzzle over.
In this later regard, I will now save you years of wasted effort in understanding a koan. Here is the correct answer to the most famous koan of them all: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” The answer is, obviously: “A slap in the face” - preferably a slap of the Zen master’s face, if you are fast enough, for putting you through all this hogwash
. Remember, satori is easy - real awakening is something entirely different.
The average Japanese thinks these people are crazy. They are probably correct
. Something which has been done from the middle ages until present day in Japan is for families who had a mentally challenged child (usually a male, the female children were killed in the good old days) to send said child to a Zen monastery. Why? Because no one else was willing to care for the child. Some well known Zen masters started out this way - as mentally challenged children who were sent to a Zen monastery to be raised by the brethren therein. Most of these however were put to work sweeping and helping out in the garden - they mainly died young.
Moving on: The Chinese version of Zen - Cha’an - is a little less feudal. In Cha’an a master such as Rinzai, Hung Ne, or Hakuin, (but not Dogen) take on a handful of worthy students and beat them to death. Ha ha - until the idea that that they think they are what they think, dies. So not an actual physical death. Usually. The masters in this branch are more inclined than in Zen tradition to use anything that works. They do not spend as much time on techniques, lots of sitting in a zendo, or other middle ages religious rites of passage. They are more inclined to go the direct transmission route ... if the student is capable and pays attention.
Of course very few people are really awake, although lots and lots are good at pretending to be awake. So we have legions of Zen masters and Cha’an masters clutching their little “robe and bowl” certificates (traditional thingies given when a supposed master certifies that a student has “got it”), and setting up shop for themselves. Every city, town, and village in the West has as I said above, its little Zen monastery, garden, or Roshi (master).
Here’s a typical day at a traditional Zen Monastery, which in the main rigorously adhere to Japanese cultural tradition: Up at 4:00 AM for sitting in the Zendo. A senior student walks quietly through the zendo with white socked feet, black clad robes, and a large heavy stick. He (in the west, sometimes she) happily hits anyone who appears to him to be slacking off: “sit with a straight back, eyes open and downcast, legs under the torso, on the floor or a cushion”. The hitee then bows his thanks for being a masocist, and sits up straighter trying even harder not to fall asleep or think of sex, food, fun, or actually having a life. Remember - an ordinary life is an exceptional life - no need to try to be something other than what you already are. But hey ho, many students want to be special, so they learn after a while to become really good at faking attention.
After a couple of hours of zazen, it is time for drone chanting of something or other from some Buddhist sutra. That the sutras would likely have made Buddha gag (he preferred singing and dancing and wild parties - read the Pali Canon and other historical documents) is for some reason not mentioned.
Nor is it mentioned that Buddha was no slouch in the having-fun department. Or enjoying the company of fair maidens.
But I digress: After this boring chanting, off you go to do some cleaning or work for an hour or so. No talking of course. Then into the dining area for a stale piece of something the dog refused to eat. No talking of course. Then some work assignment. No talking of course. Then some more sitting and chanting for a few hours. A hearty dinner of left overs from the cat’s dinner, and some more sitting and chanting and various chores. Did I say chores? Ha - hard physical labour to make the monastery pretty or the garden grow or the latrines less odorous. No talking of course.
Then - oh the excitement - a chance to listen to the interminable blathering of the so-called Roshi as he (usually a he) gives a Dharma talk on some topic that occurred to him while he snuck into town for a pizza when no one was looking. Then maybe you are allowed to ask a question or two. Followed by (oh joy!) some more sitting in zazen in an attempt to unhinge the knees permanently from the body. Then some more chanting, and hey ho it is now after midnight so off to bed with you (no talking of course) for a few hours of happy rest on a traditional Japanese wooden pillow. And you joyfully contemplate doing it all again the next day. And the one after that. And the one after that. Well, you get the idea.
As with any boot camp experience, the choices are to leave, or to grow to enjoy being a masochist. As any good psychologist will tell you, once fully acculturated to a boot camp regime where individual initiative and freedoms are removed, the probability of hallucination grows rapidly. The phony Zen masters call some of these hallucinations “enlightenment” or “satori” if the poor decending-into-psychosis student recounts his experiences with the right phrasing and terminology. Sigh.
Ma-Tzu developed rigorous Zen practise in the early 8th century. He was fully awake and filled with light and joy. But to use his method in his absence, or in the absence of an inner understanding as deep as his own, results only in confusion. To teach his method is therefore I feel, a mistake. Why? Like Shih-t’ou - the great inheritor of the 6th Patriarch’s understanding, Ma-Tzu eschewed zazen as pointless. Perhaps those who proselytise Zen as methodology might for the fun of it, check this viewpoint from a truly awake master?
IMHO it is almost impossible to awaken by following what anyone else says. Or by following some tradition such as a medieval Japanese one. Buddha only awoke when he eschewed everything he had been taught and left behind everyone else’s opinion. He went alone and with courage where no one else was willing to go. Rather than follow the crowd wasting time learning to sit on his knees.
