Novice to Master

by Soko Morinaga

  Rooted in this tradition, the rites of passage into Zen practice are, even today, some fifteen hundred years later, extremely rigorous. I knew from the beginning that I, too, would have to comply with the rules of the tradition. Thus I first crawled through the gate resigned to undergo the unavoidable ritual.

  Yet, even as rituals go, this one was a bit rough. Soon after my initial rejection, another monk emerged, wielding an oaken stick. “Despite the fact that you were just denied entry into this temple, you persist in making a nuisance of yourself by displaying your unsightly form before our entranceway,” he said. “I ask that you immediately leave the premises.”

  Up to this point, the language had been polite enough, but even with this new verbal onslaught, I did not withdraw. I maintained my position, not moving a muscle.

  “Hey, you! What’s the matter—are you deaf?”

  The monk followed up his tongue-lashing with jabs, kicks, thrusts, and all manner of blasphemy, and I soon found myself hurled bodily out the gate. When I peeked up and saw that the monk had disappeared inside and the coast was clear, I skulked back, like a cat out to filch, and resumed my cowering pose on the step. This whole scene was enacted repeatedly.

  My patience held out in the beginning because I knew this ritual was one that I had to weather somehow, but gradually, as it went on and on, I began to get irritated: “Weren’t they being unnecessarily rough considering they were dealing with someone who was not putting up the slightest resistance?” By evening, however, these sentiments, too, had vanished, and I was left feeling wretched and pitiful. Then I grew plaintively sorry for myself: “Why am I letting them treat me like a worn-out rag? Why must I hold this miserable posture in front of this blasted doorway? Maybe both of my parents are dead, but I could still go back to Toyama. I have a few relatives left there. I can live without this cruel treatment.”

  All of this and much more ran through my mind.

  When I was ordained, I had felt some measure of determination to carry on with a strong practice. Later, when Roshi told me, “This is nirvana money. It is for the disposal of your corpse,” I had made a resolution that sent a chill through my body. Then, when Roshi tied the strings on my straw sandals and urged, “Do not untie these strings thoughtlessly,” hadn’t I laid resolve upon resolve, hadn’t I again made up my mind to do it? And now here I was, less than a day later, my mind vacillating, wondering why I had to be in this place, in this pitiful state.

  I think that the human will is very weak indeed. Without having disciplined oneself, one cannot trust one’s own willpower. It is very easy to waver. When I saw my own wavering, I understood for the first time the significance of being made to keep crawling back into that entrance hall. This repeated crawling back is called “being kept standing in the garden.” Kept standing in the garden, the monk is forced to renew his original resolution, to strengthen that resolution, to resolve again, and to bolster that resolution still further. It is for this reason that he is kept at bay before the entrance hall.

  All of my teeth—not so strong to begin with!—felt loose, and the blood surged to my face. I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my skull, and having been bent so long in prostration, I thought my lower back would break loose at the sockets. It was still cold when I arrived at the meditation hall on the first of March, as winter was particularly bitter in Kyoto that year. The chill commenced at my toes, pierced my feet, which were wrapped in wet sandals, and stole its way above my knees so that all feeling in my legs was lost.

  To take the unsettled self in hand, under whatever conditions, and return to the mind with which one set out; to pick oneself up again, after the mind changes, weakens, and breaks down, and stiffen the determination; to carry through the oft-reconstructed original vow—isn’t this the true meaning of courage?

  what am i doing here?

  WAITING OUTSIDE that entrance, I was forced to Wrevise my definition of courage. When I was young, I would try to demonstrate my bravery by attacking others, but this is not courage. Such aggression is, rather, like that of a puny dog with a loud bark. True bravery is pulling together one’s weak mind and holding to one’s original purpose. In order to maintain that hold, one must question oneself, “What am I doing here?”

  While I was kept standing in the garden, a variety of thoughts drifted through my mind. I reflected that each person who finds his way into this training hall to practice is born different from the others. Each one comes into the world with different abilities, has different experiences and education, thinks different thoughts; no two are alike. If every one of the multifarious individuals who enter the training hall were to assert their own way, to insist that “This is what I think, how I do it,” how on earth could practice go on?

  As the saying goes, “Pour new wine into new wineskins.” If it is with an eye toward self-transformation through practice that one pours one’s body into the training hall, the new vessel, then it is necessary to first throw down all of one’s past experiences, knowledge, and social status. One must become completely empty and enter the training hall with a humble and meek heart. In the corner before the entrance hall, the novice monk is forced to think all of this through and prepare to act accordingly.

  On the evening of my third day to be held standing in the garden, a monk appeared to deliver a message, “It has been observed that since the day before yesterday, you have remained as you are before the entranceway, even while being subjected to verbal abuse and physical assault, and it has been determined that you do seem to harbor some measure of a desire to practice. For this reason, you are requested to step inside. However, as you have not been formally granted permission to train here, you are advised to remain on your guard.” These were the words with which I finally made it through the front door.

  The room I was allowed to enter was composed of a wall on one side and paper doors, left wide open, on the other three sides. I placed the box that I had carried on my back before the wall, and, facing the wall, I began to do zazen. I had no way of knowing who might be looking in at me from the other three directions. I could not afford to be careless.

  I was served three meals a day and given bedding each night, but I was kept in this room for five more days; thus I was subjected to a total of eight days of intense self-interrogation. I asked myself over and over, “What am I doing here? What is it I am hoping to do?” Under the force of my own questioning, I was compelled to revert always to the starting point, to the heart with which I had set out.

  Again and again I returned to this take-off point; over and over I reiterated my original resolve. I believe that courage is upholding what you have once decided to do and enduring all troubles encountered along the way. To sustain and carry out that original intention—just this, in itself—is real courage.

  living out belief in infinite power

  THUS DID I ENTER Daitokuji Monastery, where I was to remain for the next fifteen years. During that period, I did zazen practice, and I eventually received the seal of Dharma transmission from my master—and I made countless blunders. It was due not to reasoning but to actual personal experience that I was able to persevere with this kind of practice even through all my failures. It was having to live out my belief that made me break through with desperate concentrated effort, without grumbling. Rather than collapse when I found myself up against a wall, however formidable, I reexamined and reassessed, and then pushed on. I think the courage to persist in this way was the result of those very first lessons I was taught when trying to gain admittance to the monastery.

  Hakuin Zenji, who is considered the highest peak in the world of Rinzai Zen Buddhism, asserted that three essential elements are necessary to the realization of practice, or, indeed, to any endeavor: the great roots of belief, great doubt, and great determination.

  “Belief” is belief in your own teacher and in the truth for which he or she stands. It is, in the final analysis, belief in the limitless power of buddha-nature, which is by nature within you yourself
.

  While the next ingredient, doubt, may appear to be the exact opposite of belief, it actually signifies the constant awareness of your own unripeness and the consciousness of a problem that you hold always within yourself. The innate force of humankind, buddha-nature, has given birth to a marvelous tradition of wisdom, and you believe firmly in this wisdom. But reflecting upon your own immaturity and being unable to accept it creates a contradiction that stays with you constantly, as a problem.

  You then must proceed with great determination, which means sticking to practice with true courage. In the Japanese language, determination is composed of two ideographs that carry the respective meanings “to be angry” and “aspiration.” Your anger is not directed toward someone else. Indignant with yourself over your own weakness and immaturity, you employ the strong whip of aspiration; this is determination.

  It was not through books and sermons that I learned about Hakuin Zenji’s three requirements for the fulfillment of any goal. I was, instead, made to actualize these essentials in my day-to-day life. For this I am very grateful. I had only halfheartedly existed for the first twenty years of my life, and had I not been forced to live out these essential components—belief, doubt, and determination—I could never have persevered through anything like Zen training.

  To believe in your teacher, in your seniors, in the tradition is, in other words, to believe in yourself. You must puzzle out your own unripeness. What’s more, you must continue, standing firm through any trials that crop up. Regardless of the time, regardless of the place, without these three components you cannot carry anything through to completion. I firmly believe that no matter what changes occur in the world, these are the three pillars that will support anything we hope to accomplish.

  Schoolteachers often see it as their sole duty to entice children to take an interest in studying. Many parents believe the ability to parent lies in rearing children who cry out as seldom as possible, who chafe as little as possible.

  I ask you all to consider this carefully, though. Is our society, into which these children will eventually enter, an understanding society? It is a world in which each individual’s mind is completely full of their own affairs; it is not a world in which everyone tries to empathize and treat others with care and concern. Quite the opposite, it is a society replete with people who relish the failures of others, who savor the poverty of the next-door neighbor as they savor a tender morsel of duck. Regrettably, our actual society is by no means our ideal society. When children are brought up by teachers who seek always to entertain, to sympathize, and to allow their students to have their own way, and by parents who try in any way they can to prevent their children from knowing pain and inconvenience, what happens to them when they are thrown out into the kind of world we have? Isn’t it the case that many sink into a more or less daily round of confusion and frustration and disappointment?

  I wonder why it is that parents, teachers, and other adults do not try to provide children earlier with the opportunity and the training to realize for themselves the power inherent within themselves, the power we all possess to stand up and work it out ourselves in times of trouble. Only when we taste frustration does the spirit of intrepidity, the resolution to rally and march on over every obstacle, arise from our innate force, from our inherent power.

  And this is exactly what the training of a Zen monk provides.

  part two:

  TRAINING

  a heart that does not move

  YEARS AGO, I was approached in London by a man who had been doing zazen for six or seven years with this question: “I am continuing with my zazen because I want to attain the heart that does not move, but I just can’t seem to attain it. Even today, when I was on my way to meet you, somebody stepped on my foot in the subway. That person didn’t even bother to say ‘Excuse me’ or ‘I’m sorry,’ but just went on as if nothing had happened. I tried hard to restrain myself, to keep my heart still, but I just couldn’t help getting peeved. Please show me just how to do zazen so that I can find the heart that does not move.”

  I answered him, “You’ve already got a heart that does not move! Despite the fact that quite some time has elapsed since you had your foot stepped on, from then until now, your heart has not moved a step away from the place where you got angry. If you think that a still heart is one that does not move regardless of what you encounter, and if that is what you really want, there is no need for you to cultivate it anew.”

  “Then what is a mind that is truly still?” asked the man in surprise.

  “The truly still mind, with which you were born, is the mind that moves freely. Without ignoring anything, it reacts wholeheartedly to everything it encounters, to everything on which it reflects. And yet, for all that, it is the mind that is never seized by anything, but is always ready to react on the spot to whatever it encounters next. The mind that is still is the mind that never forfeits its freedom and is able to constantly keep rolling and rolling and rolling.”

  This fellow was quite convinced by my answer to his question, and, pledging to do zazen ever more diligently, he went off. I gather he still continues today in his devoted effort to awaken to the “heart that is still,” the mind that moves freely.

  This man’s case is only one example of the way in which, intent on single-heartedly pouring ourselves into something, we are apt to get hung up. No matter how enthusiastically we throw ourselves into this instant, if we cannot flow with the tide as it shifts, we are not in single-pointed concentration, not in samadhi.

  The word samadhi carries within itself two absolutely contrary meanings: “perfect reception” and “perfect nonreception.” In order to “perfectly receive” each instant as it occurs, it is necessary to “perfectly not-receive” the previous instant and the future instant. No matter how accurately and in what detail a mirror may reflect what is before it in one instant, should it be turned to face a new direction, the previous reflection will disappear without a trace and the mirror will faithfully reflect what is newly before it. Likewise, in its power to always perfectly receive what is at hand and to perfectly not-receive what is not at hand, the heart functions doubly. For this reason, from times of old, the heart has been likened to a mirror. The state in which this power functions to receive everything perfectly, just as it is—that is to say, the heart of perfect nonreception that does not get caught up—is called “the heart that is still,” or simply Zen.

  The mind that neither ignores anything nor attaches to anything is not something that is obtained through training. It is the natural “power” with which you entered this world. Those of us who are called Zen monks enter the monastery in order to awaken through practice to this power that we inherently possess, to freely demonstrate it, and to bring it to life.

  getting to know my own idiocy

  I HAVE HEARD it said, in critical observation of falling in love and getting married, that “Marriage is moving from beautiful misunderstanding into tragic understanding.” This phrase sums up certain stages in the process of Zen practice as well. Again I say that it would not be an exaggeration to characterize my own life up to now as simply a succession of realizations of my own misunderstanding (misunderstanding that was not even beautiful!) and a process of getting to know my own idiocy.

  For a person strong in his cravings, clinging to his narrow experience and knowledge as the Supreme Law, caught in a ravine between feelings of superiority and inferiority, between building and destroying an ideal self-image—to uncover one’s own misconceptions is a task much more easily described than accomplished!

  There was once a great Chinese man of Zen named Chao-chou. When Chao-chou was fifty years old, his master, Nan-ch’uan, died. After three years of mourning, Chao-chou, at age sixty, set out on a twenty-one-year-long pilgrimage that took him throughout China. At the age of eighty, the extraordinary Zen master Chao-chou settled in a temple called Kuan-yin-yuan, where he guided monks and lay persons in the Dharma until his death at one hundred and twenty ye
ars of age.

  One day a monk in training came to Chao-chou’s temple and inquired, “What is the most solid, most unbreakable thing in this world?”

  Chao-chou replied, “If you feel like insulting me, go right ahead and insult me as you please. If your initial insults do not suffice, pour on still more abuse. If you want to spit on me, go right ahead and spit to your heart’s content. If spitting isn’t enough, fill a pail muddy water and slosh that on me as well.”

  At first glance, the answer may not seem to fit the question. Chao-chou is saying, though, that no matter how much scorn you fling upon it, this unborn buddha-nature, which cannot be hurt or sullied, is the soundest thing of all. It may appear that the hearts of some people are easily hurt. In fact, it is merely the affectations, the impurities that have been heaped upon the heart, not the pure heart with which they are born, that are injured.

  Most people create sharp distinctions between good and bad, not realizing that these distinctions are meaningless artificialities. They labor under the mistaken view that practice consists of throwing out the bad and searching for the good. In so doing, they misplace their efforts and waste their energy. Holding their ideals dear, trying to become the ideal selves they picture in their minds, they fail to see the value of what is already within them. Indeed, it is not easy to take a collection of such people and lead them to awaken to the dignity that is the very root of humanity!