Dogen and writing

It’s easy for me to focus on Dogen’s philosophy, dharma and teaching, because it’s so compelling, fascinating and challenging.  So much so that it’s also easy to forget sometimes what drew me in so strongly in the first place…the guy’s an amazing writer.

Breaking Genjokoan down as we’re doing in studying , spending time with each section, allows me to see the depths that are there, but also lets me see the beauty and poetry in each each section.  And every so often I have to go back to read the whole thing again, to see the power of it in its entirety.  But here’s the section I’ve been studying this week:

When you first seek dharma, you imagine you are far away from its environs. At the moment when dharma is correctly transmitted, you are immediately your original self.

When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.

Dosho says, “There’s not too much to this one.”  And he’s right.  There’s not that much here.  Certainly not compared to some of the other denser passages.  I imagine few of us these days are unfamiliar with this idea , accustomed as we are to traveling in boats, in cars, in planes, to that disorienting feeling we’d have as a kid looking out the window of the car, wondering what’s moving and what is still.  Still it’s a not always easy for us to remember, and I think this is what he’s saying though he never makes it explicit: that in the same way that when we don’t concentrate on the boat, if we don’t concentrate on this body and mind, we believe all is change “out there” in the world, and forget body and mind too is impermanent.  We too are moving in the stream of time.

Sometimes metaphors are all we have to express what is beyond words.

All of which brings me back to what I began to say in my roundabout way: that what drew me in and still blows me away is the fact that Dogen writes amazingly.  Sitting with this section for a few weeks, and even setting aside this might be a more novel idea to readers of his time, I agree this is a bit of a “slow” section.  And when I thought of it that way, I saw it was like the slow movement in a Beethoven sonata or quartet.  A true artist knows that the work can’t be relentless.  There needs to be pacing, rhythm, we need time to catch our breath, to absorb what has been said or expressed.  And pause can help to prepare us for the final movement that ties it all together, that often is the thunder and lighting of the piece, as much as it is for Beethoven as it is with Dogen.

His skills as an essayist are as good as an writer I can think of, I see when reading the whole piece.  He circles around a subject, bringing in all sorts of seemingly extraneous thoughts or stories.  Then just when you think he’s lost control, tying it all together in a masterful move and boring back in to what he hinted at in the beginning.  Or when he can’t find a word to express what he wants to say, he’ll invent a new one.  Or use an old one in a new way.  Like the best poets.  Catullus would do that, stretching the limits of words.

He also tests the limits of syntax and grammar, like E. E. Cummings did.  The language is in the service of the teaching, never the opposite.  That’s why it is true dharma words and teaching.  But also why it’s damn good reading!  Fresh and exhilarating.  Never willing to settle, he will reveal new teachings in old words or stories.  He can also teach the deepest truths of Zen and Buddhism without ever having to rely on the words “Zen” or “Buddhism.”

And that’s why he remains an example for any practitioner to follow.  As well as for any who writes to shoot for.

Vow

Early in this practice period, I’m struck by the strangeness of vow.  How it can be clear in my heart that I want to do it, while at the same time resistance rises and is heavy in my chest.  I vow to write and yet feel that there is nothing to say.  Vow is intention but more.  A promise.  It is clear that I want to follow through.  To live in vow.

I remember the men’s group I was part of so many years ago.  None of us could handle commitment very well.  Finally one day, one man said he’d realized that a vow isn’t something you speak once and you’re done.  He said he’d come to see you have to repeat that vow daily, in every moment really.  Somehow that made it easier.  Like alcoholics who say they don’t have to stop drinking forever, just for one moment, one day.  And that is how they can do it for 50 years.  It’s easier in one way to conceive of in that way.  But though it is easier, it’s a bait and switch, because it actually makes it harder.  But in that group all those years ago, it made it easier for all of us.  He was married shortly after his realization, and the other 4 of were also married within the year.  All of us.

One utters vow, and everything changes.  it can feel like a cage, like a cell.  At the same time vow saves me, keeps me on the path, holds me accountable. 

And sometimes vow is silent, unknown, something silent I don’t even realize.  Jung said that people with addictions were looking for god or spirit in the bottle or the drug, and had to see what they were truly looking for.  Or as David Foster Wallace put it so well, you’re going to worship something or someone, so you might as well be aware who you’re choosing to worship.  And good old Bob Dylan comes to mind here too, with his “You’re going to have to serve somebody.”  So it occurs to me that we all serve make some vow, observe it.  I would like to be clear to myself what it is.  At times in my life it has been to get by with as little work, suffering, conflict or pain as possible.  Or to get as much money or sex or praise as possible.  Or to run from fear.  I have lived in those vows.  So I might as well choose what vow I will live in.

And this vow, this one I’m working on during this practice period, to get a daily writing practice going again.  Instead I hem and haw, avoid writing, or sit and my mind goes blank.  I come out of the tub overflowing with ideas and thoughts to put down, and simply don’t.  So perhaps I need to make this vow more visible, more public, like the public proclamation that was one meaning of a koan.  And sometimes the craziest ideas, the craziest vows are the best ones.  So I vow here and now to write daily, it may be one sentence or one haiku, or a long rant like this.  But I will write and post it, put it out in the world.  That may be just enough to overcome my inertia.  To put myself in a position of having to follow through.  Years ago when i was first starting out with zazen practice, I signed up to be a doan, one who opens the zendo, keeps time and leads the chanting.  Because it was a way to trick myself, to be sure I’d be there at least on that day to sit regardless.  I trick myself or rationalize things all the time to NOT have to do them.  Why not do it now as a way to do them.  And it takes fear, pride, avoidance, laziness–everything else out of the equation.  Just make the vow and do it.  Emotion is removed.  Or at least neutralized.  Vow is purified activity.

 

Reckless words

I am going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly.   Chuang Tzu

We’re in the fourth week of a 100-day practice period at Vine of Obstacles, the online support for practice created by my teacher Dosho Port (check here for more information.)  Each of us participating has set forth our intention and commitments to sitting zazen, to focus on one precept or similar work, to Dharma study and to “walking our talk” in engagement with the world.

One focus of my commitment was to work on a daily writing practice, informed by an accompanying focus on the precept of “not speaking falsehood” and right speech.  I’ve been feeling like I’m following through on all my commitments with the exception of starting up that regular writing practice again.  I kept finding a lot of difficulty in getting traction with that.

In thinking about the why and the what of my intention, a suggestion for how suddenly became clearer to me.  A voice (as a friend of mine often puts it, “the same one that told Noah it would be a good idea to build an ark”) said, “Posting these writings would help to keep you honest about it.”  Which sounded at first like a terrible idea to me.  But then it began to make some sense.

So…I will go ahead with that daily writing practice, and post the results here regularly.  It is not something I like doing, since I prefer to do lots of polishing to my writing, even what I put on here.   So I apologize in advance to anyone who finds this boring or raw or unpolished.  I can only ask that you read these words recklessly.   And hope there are a few words whose recklessness turn out to be an advantage.

Where the answers come from….

Funny how sometimes I write for others to read the words, but often it seems it’s a message to myself to read at some other time. Like Zuigan who called to himself, “Master!” and replied, “Yes?” to which he’d say, “Be wide awake!” those words can be calls to myself. There are still times when I find myself dealing with depression, where it’s helpful to pick up my own words on it, and take them like a message in a bottle to my struggling self.

And it doesn’t always take so long for the words to be helpful. Just after this last post on struggling with the idea of ambition, of wanting acknowledgement and gain in practice, the same question came up nearly immediately in my work life. My supervisor at the social service agency where I work is retiring, and a decision seems to have been made to replace her with someone from within. Coworkers encouraged me to apply, but for a variety of reasons I am hesitant.

There have been changes in the administration there, and I am not sure the way I might manage would be welcome. Not to mention in past experience I have found I don’t have a strong skill set as a supervisor, nor do I enjoy it very much. And I remind myself that I am quite happy doing what I do now, I do it well, feel good in being of use to others, and love the daily contact with the people I am helping.

And yet…there is still that voice that says, “But wouldn’t you like the feeling of importance, of acknowledgement of your skills that a promotion would bring?” Other times it is more blunt, and simply says, “This is what you ought to do.” I come from the tail end of a generation where for a man, one’s job is the most important aspect of who you are. So that pull is strong. A friend asks me, “Are you sure you’re not just using this ‘wanting to just be who you are’ to hide from who you should be?”–a valid question.

So I return to the last post, and the quote by Helen McInnes that “It is important that meditators feel that as they advance in Zen, they will not necessarily become great strong leaders. Perhaps they will, if they have the innate potential. But you will be who you were meant to be…”

And the other truth I am reminded of in all this is what can happen when I open myself honestly to ask the question. Driving downriver the other day I listened to a Dharma talk by my teacher Dosho Port. He quoted a poem about a woman sitting and asking aloud, “What is this human life worth?” She then “jumps up and shouts to God, ‘If you can be human, come into me NOW!’” The poem says, “This is the signal of a death yell. It splits her open and gold pours down.”

I am struck in this by how opening up, how asking the question seems to bring the answers tumbling in. That asking can take many forms. It can be a cry from the heart, even a demand, as it is for the woman in the poem. It can be a prayer. Or intoning “Mu.” It can even be sitting still and attentive to what may come. And the answer may come from the most unexpected places.

So a fellow I have worked with as his social worker, who is one of the most anti-social people I have ever met (and I can say that because he would proudly tell you the same thing) has gone to live on the west coast. Over the years he and I have established a connection. He sends me funny, angry, and half-inappropriate texts from his new home on the street in L.A. Today he sent a picture of a quote which stated part of his philosphy: “A job just for wealth is the easiest way to rob your self.”

When I open up and simply ask the question, who knows where the answer will come from?