The Bridgeless Bridge - Winter 2001
Practicing with Shohaku Okumura, Kyogen's Pebble
Table of Contents
Practicing with Shohaku Okumura
How To Do Zazen
What D'You Know?  Obscure Questions and Lively Discussion
Opening the Hand of Thought
Sesshin Without Toys
Kyogen's Pebble
Antaiji Schedule

Practicing with Shohaku Okumura

Hojun Welker compiled the following points from notes taken during sesshin lectures given by Shohaku Okumura at Southern Dharma Retreat Center near Hot Springs, North Carolina, from November 12 through 17, 1998. Using the chapters entitled “The Reality of Zazen” and “The Reality of Sesshin” from his teacher Kosho Uchiyama Roshi's book, Opening the Hand of Thought, Shohaku-san explained his method of practice. This past December 8, during Rohatsu sesshin, Shohaku-san celebrated the 30th anniversary of his priest ordination from Uchiyama Roshi and as a practitioner of this way. This article is intended to explain the practice style that Shohaku-san hopes to instill in the Sanshin Zen Community.

Hojun Welker, who lives in Asheville, NC, recently resigned as a City of Asheville employee to return to her looms and focus on her work as a healer.

“No human beings can be a true teacher. Zazen is the only true teacher.” Although Shohaku-san had started out to become a Buddhist scholar, he had discovered that being a scholar was like reading recipes. He had found out that he wanted to be a practitioner, to cook and taste and, eventually, serve as well. So, on December 8, 1970, he received priest ordination from Kosho Uchiyama Roshi and then discovered a great paradox. Uchiyama Roshi told Shohaku-san that he could not rely on him, rather only on zazen, as his real teacher. Shohaku-san has indeed relied on his teacher's teaching that zazen was the real teacher.

How to Do Zazen

Since many of the sesshin participants had had little formal instruction in how to correctly do zazen, Shohaku-san explained the techniques, which involve regulating the body (posture), mind, and breath. He stressed that the most important part of posture is to keep the upper part of the body stable. Historic instructions only include the full and half lotus yogic positions. For westerners unable to sit in these postures, other techniques are used, including kneeling with or without a meditation bench and using chairs. In order to sit for long periods of time, remember to keep the upper body straight; in other words, keep the spine in its most natural, and stable position.

Guidelines exist to help people find the upright posture. To straighten the back, lean forward slightly by pivoting at your hips, then move your upper torso back while keeping the lower back straight. [To move the upper torso back, take a breath while gently raising your chest and throat up, dropping your chin down and in, and relaxing your shoulders and arms. With the spine in its most stable position and your muscles as relaxed as possible, your breath will reach your abdomen and your center of gravity will drop to the base of your pelvic bone, where your sits bones rest on the front edge of the cushion, bench or chair.] If a chair is used, you should not lean back, but sit on the edge of the seat, using a cushion to slightly elevate the buttocks.

Before starting meditation, help relax the muscles critical to maintaining this upright position. [Having found the upright posture, you will be able to easily bend side to side, vertebrae by vertebrae.] Place your hands on your knees and sway to the right as far as possible, then to the left, then back and forth, gradually decreasing the distance until you are sitting again in the upright posture. [To sway side to side, let the weight of your head lead, dropping your ear sideways without letting your chin and neck drop forward.]

Begin zazen by exhaling completely through your mouth, expelling all the air in the body, then inhale through your nose. Repeat this exhalation and inhalation sequence a few times. Your breath should go to your abdomen. If it does not, readjust your posture so that your spine is in its most stable, upright or straight position.

Place the fingers of the left hand, facing upwards, on the fingers of the right hand, with the thumb tips touching. Place the tips of your thumbs in front of your navel. Place something in your lap, if necessary, to support your hands. Suspending your hands in the air will create muscular tension and stress. Finally, close your mouth and inhale and exhale through your nose. Your tongue should rest against the top of your mouth. Keep your eyes open, setting your gaze downward about 12 inches in front of you. To maintain the downward gaze, simply keep the eyes lowered while keeping your neck straight. Uchiyama Roshi said, “Zazen is neither being limp and lifeless nor being stiff; our posture must be full of life and energy.”

The idea is to put the body (posture), mind, and breath in harmony with all beings. (The Japanese term for this state of harmony is cho.) The late Shunryu Suzuki Roshi taught his students at the San Francisco Zen Center to count breaths. The late Katagiri Roshi had his students at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center watch their breath. Uchiyama Roshi taught his students to do nothing. He taught that all we can do is find the correct posture and try not to sleep. We can't judge what we do—just aim our effort in this direction without calculating a target or resisting the contradictions surrounding us. The breath comes so naturally that you forget about it. Uchiyama Roshi taught that in zazen there are no observers; not even the teacher can evaluate. In zazen, it is important to eliminate any separation between subject and object, including separation between “my breath and me.”

Shohaku-san also explained what zazen was not. “Thinking, sleeping, dealing with pain are not zazen.” He said that sometimes he is aware that he is sleeping or dreaming or chasing thinking and that the life force is gone. But, continually aiming his effort toward correct zazen, then life force wakes up and comes back to zazen. He described life force as a form of energy --- the same energy that the trees, clouds and flowers have. It is beyond individuality. The phrase “life force” was Uchiyama Roshi's translation of “Buddha Nature.” It is another paradox. It is beyond individuality and still has individuality. “We can call it God, or Buddha, or Nature — but it is beyond these names, as well. In Zen we call it "mu" or nothingness or thusness or a word with no meaning. We acknowledge it, but we don't or can't describe it.” Shohaku-san explained that Uchiyama Roshi also used life force to explain “mu.”

Shohaku-san noted that we cannot observe, judge or value our practice (or anyone else's practice). “In zazen, we not only let go of our thoughts, but also our individuality. The subject is no longer Shohaku. Zazen is doing zazen. The life force is sitting me, not that I awaken to the life force.” Shohaku-san stressed that just sitting zazen was enlightenment, but that a lot of what happens when you are sitting is not zazen — it is too often sleeping or dreaming or thinking or suffering and that is somethin g else, it's not zazen.

Zazen is not something you do to get something — calmness, peace of mind, or even enlightenment. He explained, “Zazen or “enlightenment” is seeing delusion as delusion — seeing our self-centeredness. It doesn't make a person great. It make's one humble.”

Opening the Hand of Thought

Shohaku-san noted that Dogen Zenji, the founder of Soto Zen, had only one koan about mind: “Think of not-thinking. How do you think of notthinking? Non-thinking. This in itself is the essential art of zazen.” Dogen wrote this in Fukanzazengi, the Universal Recommendation for Zazen. Uchiyama Roshi interpreted this koan as “opening the hand of thought.” He used the expression “opening the hand of thought” to describe how to regulate the mind to be in a state of harmony with all beings. He felt that trying not to think was just another type of thinking, but that when we let go or open the hand of thought we moved beyond both thinking and nonthinking. Uchiyama Roshi experienced opening the hand of “karmic thought” as the equivalent of surrendering to universal life or interdependent origination. Thoughts, emotions, and feelings arising from the three poisonous minds (greed, anger and self-delusion or ignorance) can make us grasp both the things we do and do not like. The three poisonous minds are like an astringent when digested through practice, cooked into something sweet, like one's vow to the three pure precepts. The three poisonous minds are not eliminated. Uchiyama Roshi taught that in doing zazen itself, each individual will find an answer to Dogen's koan.

This is where the Soto Zen tradition transmitted to Japan by Dogen differs from the Rinzai Zen tradition. For the Rinzai approach, a student concentrates on either counting breaths or a koan, like “mu,” during zazen. Whenever thoughts come up, the student is instructed to go back to “mu” or breath counting until the student can reach kensho or a state of mind without any thoughts arising.

Dogen saw it differently. He had a very unique approach. He felt it was not natural to sit zazen without thoughts of one's own. Shohaku explained how this had confused him. How could you think of not thinking? Shohaku-san explained this as the difference between “thought arising from consciousness” and “I thinking.” He gave an analogy. In driving a car we put the car in neutral. The engine keeps going, but the car does not move. In zazen, we put our thoughts in neutral — just idling — when we open the hand of thought. The thoughts just come, but we don't do anything about them — no grasping or holding on to them. Uchiyama Roshi's teacher, Kodo Sawaki Roshi, described zazen as “self doing itself by itself.” Letting go of all calculations, targets, selfcenteredness; just giving and receiving and feeling intellectually indefinite.

To Shohaku-san there are many different conditions of our mind. The scenery is sometimes clouds, sometimes blue sky, sometimes rain, storms, or snow, sometimes even lightening. The aim is to keep our straight, upright posture no matter what the condition of mind is. We may want to make our mind like a blue sky, but it is not possible to keep out clouds any more than the sky can keep out clouds. Here we need faith that even though there are always clouds, above these clouds the sun is always shining.

Thought is always trying to grasp onto something, to think about things and put them into categories or drawers. One thing we can't categorize and put into a drawer is our self. We can't ever really see ourselves. We do define ourselves (what I've done, not done, etc. to create a self-image), but when we think of ourselves an object, it is not us, but a fabrication. We cannot be outside as objective observers of ourselves. We are not God — we are inside. In order to see anything, we have to establish a view or position. We have a very limited view. We can only see what is in front of us. We may think we know what is behind us from memory, but we can't see the entire reality at any time.

When asked what opens the hand of thought, Shohaku-san replied that there is a bigger energy — life force — that causes this. It is not your personal energy. All beings carry out the process of enlightenment through a given being, but the energy that opens the hand of thought is not “me,” but something bigger. The intention to do this comes from something bigger. This is also known as bodhi-mind or bodhi-citta, the way-seeking mind.

Shohaku-san went on to warn, “Do not negate the value of thinking.” Thinking is one part of our life force. Thinking is like a map. There are correct maps and incorrect maps. He encouraged studying the works and commentaries of the great Buddhist teachers like Dogen, Hui-Neng, and Nagarjuna and, of course, Shakyamuni Buddha. They have tried to map the way. We need to understand, however, that the map is not reality. Our map or atlas is only two dimensional. Life is multi-dimensional, so our view of reality using these maps is always distorted. Our likes and dislikes, greed and hatred, and our ignorance also influence our view. The world we live in is created by our karmic experiences. Our view is not reality. At best, it is only a very incomplete view of reality. We need to make as complete a view as possible and, to that end, good maps and thinking about them can be helpful. Zazen, however, is not about creating or correcting that map. Zazen is reality.

Sesshin Without Toys

At Antaiji, Kosho Uchiyama Roshi held monthly five day sesshins with the first Sunday of the month as the middle day. These sesshins consisted of a repetition, from four o'clock in the morning until nine in the evening, of fifty minutes of zazen and ten minutes of kinhin. There were three meals a day. Immediately following the meals, participants did kinhin, then took a thirty minute break during which everyone attended to their personal needs. The Antaiji sesshins had several other unique characteristics. There was absolutely no talking, no sutra chanting, no lectures and no use of the kyosaku, the wooden stick used to kindly slap the shoulder of a drowsy or sleeping sitter. Uchiyama Roshi also faced the wall like everyone else.

He believed that this style was the purest way of putting into practice the words of his teacher, Sawaki Roshi, “zazen is the self doing itself by itself.” Uchiyama Roshi also traveled and conducted sesshins outside of Antaiji where they would only sit for seven to eight hours a day and where he would give lectures and receive students who were not able to visit him at Antaiji.

Shohaku-san wants to encourage this style of practice. At the sesshin at Southern Dharma Retreat Center, he presented a modified form of the style of sesshin held at Antaiji. Unlike most Zen teachers, Shohaku-san sits facing the wall, like his teacher. He indicated he did so to eliminate the dichotomy of “self” and “other” and take away the relationship of watching and being watched. Shohaku also does not use the kyosaku, which he likens to a Zen toy. He quoted Uchiyama's analysis of how we pass our lives playing with toys. Uchiyama Roshi likens zazen to “the time prior to our death when all the toys have been taken away.” Shohaku-san indicated that even if you fall asleep while sitting, eventually you will wake up. To depend on the kyosaku is to have one more distraction.

It is Shohaku-san's dream that the Sanshin Zen Community will have a place for continuous, residential practice. This would be a place where the Sanshin Zen Community practitioners can stay for extended periods of time and others can come as they are able. The style of practice at the practice center will be based on the example of Antaiji. At first, the practice center will offer a place where we can practice zazen and study the teachings of Dogen Zenji and other teachers, especially through participating in Shohakusan's translation projects. Ideally, the practice center will eventually provide opportunities for gardening and cottage industry with the intention of being selfsupporting. In this way, practice there will closely resemble traditional Zen community practice. The practice center would always be open for practitioners to come at any time -- during the regular sesshins or at other times. Shohaku-san would continue to share his teaching at other locations where Sanshin Zen Community practitioners and friends can convene for regional sesshins.

Epilogue: Reverend Shohaku Okumura anticipates completing his full-time commitment as Director of the Soto Zen Education Center (SZEC) in March 2003. At that time he wants to devote himself fully to the development of Sanshin Zen Community, in particular the practice center activities. In the meantime, as part of or in addition to his responsibilities at SZEC, he continues to conduct translation work, to contribute to efforts aimed at locating and purchasing property suitable to establishing a practice center, and to teach at various locations where Sanshin Zen Community practitioners and friends join him for sesshins and other activities. Your generosity towards his vision for Sanshin Zen Community would be received with gratitude. Sanshin Zen Community is funded totally by donations. Hesitant to detract from the main purpose of Sanshin Zen Community, we are making a simple plea for support through regular dana. Your donation may be sent to Sanshin Zen Community, P.O. Box 16884, Asheville, NC, 28816-6884. Sanshin Zen Community is a non-profit (501(c)(3)) organization, so your donations are tax-deductible.

Kyogen's Pebble

Dave Ellison wrote the following essay about a thought that took hold of him during a sesshin with Shohaku Okumura at Hokyoji in southeastern Minnesota. Hokyoji is set in the beautiful bluff country of the upper Mississippi River. Dainin Katagiri Roshi and his students built a zendo, summer kitchen and teacher's cabin there in the 1980s. Many of us have been able to attend retreats and sesshins there ever since --- grateful for Katagiri Roshi's and others' generous hard work. Dave and his wife live near Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. His two daughters study in St Pa ul and Salt Lake City. Physiological references in this essay may be a result of Dave's emergency physician mind.

Kyogen Osho was a student of Isan (771-853). Although he was a great Buddhist scholar he had not realized enlightenment. One day, Isan asked Kyogen, “Your are clever enough to give ten answers to one question and a hundred answers to ten questions, but forget what you have learned. Show me your real self, the self that existed before you came out of your mother's womb, before you knew east from west.”

Kyogen was stupefied, but offered many answers, all of which Isan brushed aside. Finally Kyogen begged him to explain, but Isan refused. Kyogen poured over his books and notes attempting to find an answer. Eventually, he gave up, saying, “You cannot fill an empty stomach with paintings of rice cakes.” He burned his books, left Isan and devoted himself to tending the grave of Echu. One day, a pebble thrown up by his broom as he swept stuck a bamboo. The sound of the pebble striking bamboo echoed through his mind. He was struck speechless and then burst out laughing, enlightened.

One million years ago hydrogen nuclei in the core of our sun smashed into each other in a repetitive frenzy. In the unimaginable heat and pressure, some of the hydrogen fused into helium nuclei, releasing energy in the form of light. These photons, bits of light, bounced at random through the interior of the sun until, twelve hundred years ago, some of them reached its surface and leaped into the cold black void of space. Eight minutes later, a few photons that were headed by chance in exactly the right direction, passed through the atmosphere over southern China to reach the surface of the earth. Some were reflected from the earth's surface back into interstellar space, but the ripening leaves of rice plants absorbed a few of the photons.

Elaborate enzymatic machinery converted the light energy into chemical energy and stored it in the form of starch molecules in the seed heads. These were harvested, dried, stored, and some time in the following year, eaten by an ex-Buddhist scholar named Kyogen. Another intricate series of molecular machines digested the starch molecules in the lining of his intestines and stored the energy in its chemical form within the muscles of his arms. When he contracted his muscles, the energy was released, converted into the mechanical energy of the movement of his arm and a broom. Some of the energy propelled a small pebble through the air until it collided with the stem of a bamboo plant. The resulting brief vibration of the bamboo changed some of the kinetic energy of the pebble into acoustic energy, which was transmitted back through the damp air to Kyogen's ear.

Years of experience, cultural conditioning, and diligent study had choreographed the intricate electrochemical dance of the 10 billion neurons housed in Kyogen's skull. When the acoustic energy produced by the pebble hitting the bamboo interacted with Kyogen's ear drum, a complex wave of fluctuating electrical fields and ionic gradients spread towards the surface of his temporal lobes. The energy of this wave merged with the ongoing neuronal dance and changed it forever.

Kyogen expressed this change in words and deeds that have been recorded, repeated, translated, interpreted and finally, after 1500 years, described on this page. They have been scanned by your eyes, filtered through your memories, and have altered irreversibly the flickering web of associations that resides in your cerebral cortex.

Who heard what?

What D'You Know?
Obscure Questions and Lively Discussion

Many of you will recognize this reference to the popular radio show, Michael Feldman's “WHAD'YA KNOW?” In a sometimes humorous, sometimes annoying process, Michael selects contestants from a live and listening audience to play a game by telephone that reveals their wit, canny, and knowledge of trivia and current events. This “What D'You Know” column is intended to reveal information about the Sanshin Zen Community's nascent and geographically scattered Sangha itself and Shohaku Okumura's efforts to locate a center for residential practice. Like the radio show, this column is an attempt to involve people in an exchange. Instead of the airwaves, we'll use the printed page. An enhanced sense of identity or purpose of Sanshin Zen Community may result.

Please keep in mind that the process of establishing a practice center and promoting practice in the style of Shohaku-san's lineage involves a fair amount of uncertainty. Information provided at one point cannot necessarily be guaranteed. Under the circumstances, communicating information with any certainty to Sanshin Zen Community practitioners and friends is a challenge, so continuous questions and feedback are welcomed. No question or comment is too basic. Shohaku Okumura will answer questions and respond to feedback with as much consistency and transparency as possible.

The following excerpts, which are from a fall 2000 interview with Shohaku Okumura, shed some light on Sanshin Zen Community as an entity and as a way of practice.

My ultimate vision for Sanshin Zen Community practice center involves a residential practice center which accepts visiting practitioners on a larger property where people live and practice daily, continuously. This is still my goal, but I have scaled back my idea about how to initiate the establishment of the practice center to include a smaller property. I envision Dharma study, zazen practice and Zen community work as the three pillars of the practice at this center. With a smaller property planned at the beginning, traditional Zen community work at the practice center would not be required. With only a zendo and small dormitory, at most, we would be limited to several students or residential practitioners.

The practice center at this point will be the place to focus on study and sitting practice. This is the beginning. My original vision, including this 3-part practice at a self-sustaining practice center, remains for the long-term. Probably after 10 years or so, after having practiced in this way, if people want to have a bigger practice center, we can go in that direction So, the short-term goals are to establish a practice center, a residence for my family and the practitioners and to continue to build relationships with different groups and individuals in different locations. As a long-term goal, I would still like to have a country practice center where I can practice with resident and other practitioners.

In my mind, Sanshin Zen Community is not meant to be one more local Sangha. Rather, it can be a connecting point or bridge for different groups and individuals practicing in different places. A local Sangha has its own function focused on providing a particular teaching and practice necessary for the local people. I'd like to keep the Sanshin Zen Community practice center as the place where we practice and study Dogen's teaching and conduct sesshin in the style I was taught by Uchiyama Roshi. The place will not respond primarily to the needs of local people, rather to people who want to study more intensively and to deeply focus on practice in a given span of time. I think this function is different from that of a local Sangha.

I wrote about the spirit of takuhatsu (begging) and Dogen's vow to establish a monastery in the Spring 1999 issue of The Bridgeless Bridge, the newsletter of Sanshin Zen Community. I mentioned that we should do fundraising for Sanshin Zen Community and its practice center with an attitude of having few desires and knowing satisfaction (knowing how much is enough). The act of making a donation can be one expression of nonattachment to one's own position. People who receive the donations and work on fundraising can adopt the same attitude. We are collecting and donating funds and in-kind help not for an individual self and not even for the practice center or the Sangha. The Sangha should also be empty. We shouldn't attach to the Sangha either. This is “just practice.” We use “this” for Dharma.

In giving, receiving, or anything else, we should not attach ourselves to certain conditions of an institution. I think that is very important point and the attitude, the awakening to the reality of impermanence and egolessness, can keep our Sangha and activity healthy. If we attach certain aspects or certain conditions or qualities of Sangha to the practice center, then problems arise. I would like to emphasize that point: our practice, including our fundraising activity, should be the practice of prajna paramita (wisdom). Prajna paramita is the basis of the other 5 paramitas (generosity, ethical conduct, patience, effort, meditation). Even the paramita of giving or donation should be based on the prajna or wisdom of impermanence and egolessness. Otherwise we may create something poisonous, mistakenly thinking we are working for the Dharma.

The phrase “sanshin” is the expression for the three mental attitudes, joyful mind, parental mind and magnanimous mind. These three concrete attitudes are most essential for community practice with the bodhisattva spirit, helping us to work together with other people. In a sense, the three minds are a variation on the function of three poisonous minds, greed, anger and ignorance. The chant Jijuyu Zanmai expresses this as our practice --- redirecting the three poisonous minds. In our practice we use three poisonous minds as an energy to carry out the threefold pure precepts: To refrain from evil and to do good things and to embrace all living beings. Knowing what it s to be greedy, we practice good things. Unsatisfied limiting our efforts to do good, we continue to do good things as much as possible. In order to refrain from doing evil, bad or offensive things, we need to know anger or hatred. In order to embrace all beings and see no separation or no discrimination, we need to know ignorance. We need the three poisonous minds to practice the three-fold pure precepts. The same energy, the same life force can function in a different directions.

In order to allow our life energy into work in the direction of the three pure precepts, we have to do some action. I hope activity to establish a Sanshin practice center can be an expression of the way people use their life force in the direction of the three fold precepts. In this way, many people who are interested in this particular area of practice can work together to create something new in order to develop our awakening to impermanence and egolessness.

I think in this country, Buddhism or Zen, including Dogen's tradition, is in a period of being transplanted. Zen is still very young here. I grew up in Japan and studied and practiced in Japan and now I am in this country. When I think about the best thing I can contribute to this stage in the history of American Zen or Buddhism, it looks different from what American teachers can offer. For instance, making the Dharma accessible to large numbers of people can be important for American teachers. To make Dharma available to American society, in a sense, requires this Americanized aspect of Zen. I think what I can do is to transmit what I studied from my teacher or the tradition of Dogen to people in this country. That is what I want to do and in order to do so, I need a place and a way to help support my family. That is all I need. I really appreciate what people can do to help me.

Antaiji Schedule

You may have noticed that some of the sesshins listed in the enclosed practice schedule are labeled “Antaiji Schedule.” That is a reference to a schedule focusing squarely on zazen that Uchiyama Roshi designed for sesshins at his monastery, Antaiji. The object of the schedule is to eliminate as many “distractions” as possible. No chanting, no dokusan (scheduled meetings with the teacher), no lectures, just enough sleep. The resulting experience, which verges on pure shikantaza, is unique and beneficial in many ways.

For some westerners (and perhaps even some Japanese?), the schedule has been perceived or experienced as too rigorous, so for practical purposes it is modified during our sesshins. As you can see below, in the traditional schedule, each hour begins with either a meal period or with a 10-minute walking meditation (kinhin) followed by a 50-minute zazen period. Very simple. Traditionally, strikes on a bell or the wooden han mark wake-up and the meditation periods that follow meal breaks, eliminating the need for practitioners to monitor their watches or clocks.

This same schedule is used today during some Sanshin Zen Community sesshins, however, practitioners are given the option to take a 10-minute break after kinhin, joining the in-progress zazen period 10 minutes later. Also, the zazen periods following breakfast and lunch breaks are optional; referred to as zuiza or “free sitting.”

Traditional Antaiji Schedule:

The accompanying text describes modifications to this traditional schedule during Sanshin Zen: