Living by Vow

by Shohaku Okumura

  The second reason is more existential. If we seriously practice the four noble truths and the twelve links of dependent origination, we are faced with a self-contradiction. We begin to study and practice Buddhism when we realize that a life spent pursuing our desires is meaningless. We set forth with an aspiration to find a better way of life and achieve emancipation from the suffering of samsara. This aspiration is called bodhi-mind. When we practice with this Way-seeking mind we are confronted with a terrible contradiction. The aspiration that motivates us to find a way of life free of suffering is merely another selfish desire. We substitute a desire for emancipation or enlightenment for the desire for fame and wealth. The object of desire is different but what is happening inside us is the same. We feel dissatisfaction and are driven to find something to remedy it. Spiritual ambition may be a more sophisticated form of desire, but it’s the same principle. When we seriously devote ourselves to practice this becomes a crucial question: Isn’t the desire to eliminate ignorance caused by ignorance? In the practice of zazen we have to ask ourselves, “Isn’t this practice like pulling the cushion on which we sit from under us?” We can’t quit practice and go back to our earlier life of chasing worldly desires because now we know it’s useless and hollow. We can go neither forward nor backward. We are at a dead end.

  I faced this problem when I returned to Japan in 1981 from the Valley Zendo in Massachusetts. I was thirty-three years old. I had been ordained by Uchiyama Roshi when I was a university student in 1970. After graduation I had practiced with Uchiyama Roshi at Antaiji until 1975 when he retired. There our practice was focused on sitting. We sat nine periods daily for more than a year. We had a five-day sesshin each month except February and August. During sesshin we sat fourteen periods a day for five days. We had no ceremony, no chanting, and no lecture. We just sat.

  In 1975 I went to Massachusetts. We bought about six acres of land to establish a small practice center in the woods of western Massachusetts. We built a house and zendo by ourselves. When I first went there the house was still incomplete. We survived the winter with a wood stove but had no electricity on the second floor. We sat and studied by the light of a kerosene lamp. For the first three years three Japanese monks from Antaiji lived there together. We sat four periods daily. We had a one-day sesshin every Sunday and a five-day sesshin each month. We cut trees, pulled out stumps, and made a green garden, all with hand tools. We dug a well with shovels. We used a huge amount of firewood for cooking and heating. Since we had no financial support from Japan, we harvested blueberries and potatoes for local farmers. Later we worked in a tofu factory to support our practice. After five years, I had pain in my neck, shoulders, elbows, and knees from the hard physical labor. I couldn’t work, and sitting sesshin was very difficult. I had no health insurance or money for medical treatment. I had to return to Japan.

  When I got back I was completely alone. My body was half broken. I had no money, no job, and no place to live or practice. I stayed at my brother’s apartment in Osaka for several months while he traveled in the United States. Then I moved to Seitai-an, a small temple in Kyoto, where I lived as a caretaker for three years. Seitai-an is near Antaiji’s original site. There I had a monthly five-day sesshin with one of my dharma brothers and cotranslator, Rev. Daitsu Tom Wright, and a few other people. I couldn’t practice as I had before because of my physical condition. This was the first time I had lived and practiced alone after ten years at Antaiji and Valley Zendo. I had to give up medical treatments. Initially I did takuhatsu (begging) to raise money for them. But during takuhatsu we hang a zudabukuro (a bag) from our necks. This aggravated my neck injury, and my chiropractor said it wouldn’t get better if I continued to do takuhatsu. It was a vicious circle. Finally I gave up both takuhatsu and the treatments. I did takuhatsu only a few times a month to survive. When I had extra income I spent it on books.

  I had a hard time for several months while I was staying at my brother’s apartment before moving to Seitai-an. I was bewildered and didn’t know what to do. My biggest problem was that I couldn’t practice as I had for the last ten years because of my physical condition. In my twenties I had committed my entire life-energy to practice. Nothing else had seemed important to me. I didn’t know how to live outside that way of practice.

  While in this situation I read a Japanese translation of Buddha-carita, a biography of the Buddha written by the famous Indian Buddhist poet Aśvaghoṣa. When describing the Buddha’s experience of seeing the old, sick, and dead outside the gates of his palace, the author refers to the “arrogance of youth and health.” This expression hit me. I realized that my belief that practice was the best and most meaningful way of life was nothing more than the “arrogance of youth and health.” That’s why I was at a loss when I could no longer practice that way because of my health. My previous practice had been an attempt to satisfy a need for status and benefit. I wanted to live a better life than ordinary people. Ever since I read Uchiyama Roshi’s book as a high school student and began practicing according to Dōgen Zenji’s teachings, I knew that I should not practice zazen for gain. Sawaki Roshi, Uchiyama Roshi’s teacher, said that zazen is good for nothing. Dōgen Zenji says that we should practice Buddha Dharma only for the sake of Buddha Dharma, with no expectations. That is shikantaza, or just sitting. I knew all of this and thought I had been practicing with the correct attitude.

  Now, when I found myself unable to continue that practice, I was perplexed and depressed. I didn’t know what to do. I discovered that I had relied on a practice that was possible only for the young and healthy. I used the teachings of the Buddha, Dōgen Zenji, Sawaki Roshi, and Uchiyama Roshi to fulfill my own desires. This discovery completely broke my “arrogance of youth and health.” I saw clearly that my practice had not been for the sake of Buddha Dharma but for my own self-satisfaction. I knew I couldn’t continue to practice with this attitude. Nor could I stop practicing and go back to an ordinary life. I was stuck in this situation for some time.

  One day something made me sit on a cushion. I had no desire, no reason, no need to sit, but found myself sitting at the apartment by myself. It was very peaceful. I didn’t sit because of the Buddha’s teaching. I didn’t need a reason to sit; I just sat. There was no need to compete with others or with myself. Thereafter I didn’t need to sit as often as I had before. I could sit just as much as my physical condition allowed. Finally I felt free of my understanding of the Buddha’s teachings and my desire to be a good monk. I felt free to be myself and nothing more. I was still a deluded, ordinary human being with ignorance and desires. But when I just sat and let go of thoughts, I was—or more precisely, my zazen was—free of ignorance and selfish desires.

  Even though we may understand all this intellectually, we cannot sit without hope for gain unless our “arrogance of youth and health” is completely broken. This is what Dōgen Zenji meant when he said in “Genjōkōan,” “Conveying oneself toward all things to carry out practice-enlightenment is delusion. All things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self is realization.”

  Was my previous practice meaningless? I don’t think so. In “Sesshinsesshō” (Expounding Mind, Expounding Nature), a chapter of Shōbōgenzō, Dōgen Zenji wrote:

  After we arouse bodhi-mind and wholeheartedly practice the difficult practice, even though we practice, we cannot hit the mark even once out of one hundred times. And yet, we can hit the mark while we practice with our teachers and with scriptures. Hitting the mark at this present moment is enabled by the strength of the one hundred attempts which were off the mark. One hundred practices which were off the mark enable us to become mature.91

  As we continue to practice wholeheartedly, even with a shallow understanding, we become mature enough to see our own shallowness and stupidity. As we see our shallowness, we go deeper into the dharma. To the extent that we struggle to eliminate our ignorance and desires, we are still within our karmic self based on ignorance and desire. We create an endless feu
d between two sides of ourselves. If we think we can become completely free from ignorance and desire as a result of an enlightenment experience, we have not yet thoroughly seen ourselves. As we awake to the reality of ourselves, we see more clearly that we are deeply deluded.

  “No ignorance and also no extinction of it, and so forth until no old age and death and also no extinction of them,” the Heart Sutra tells us. From the beginning, ignorance does not exist as a fixed entity, and yet it will never die out. This expression arises from a profound understanding of the reality of ourselves and the dharma.

  And then: “No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.” This denial of the fundamental beliefs of Buddhism is the expression of a truth that can be seen only by those who actually practice these teachings, instead of merely understanding them intellectually.

  NO ATTAINMENT

  “No ignorance and also no extinction of it, and so forth until no old age and death and also no extinction of them;

  No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path;

  No cognition, no attainment.”

  After listing the twelve links of dependent origination and the four noble truths, the Heart Sutra negates each of them. It then concludes, “No cognition, no attainment.” No cognition means no person. No attainment means there is nothing to attain. There is no one to realize or understand the dharma. There is no dharma or enlightenment we can attain. This is the meaning of “No cognition and no attainment.”

  When we start to practice we almost always have a problem. Something is bothering us. We want to find a better way of life. We feel something is lacking or not quite right. That’s why Shakyamuni Buddha left his home. He was a crown prince, and yet he left his palace and became a beggar to search for the truth of life. When we start to practice or study we have the same problem. We are looking for the truth. This is good. This is called bodhi-mind or Way-seeking mind. We are seeking after the truth or reality of our life. We are trying to find the best way of living. Without this bodhi-mind, the mind that seeks the Way, we cannot practice.

  Shakyamuni Buddha found that the cause of suffering, of the trouble we have in our worldly lives, is clinging or thirst. He found that thirst, clinging, greed, and hatred resulted from ignorance of the reality of our lives. This is what the Buddha discovered and what he taught. He showed us the way to become free from clinging, greed, hatred, and ignorance. He showed us the four noble truths. The Buddha’s students devote themselves to this very difficult practice.

  We have to see deeply inside of ourselves, both the positive and negative sides of our psyches. We have to control our desires and delusions. This is the Buddha’s practice. It is called nirvana. We practice to become free of self-delusion and ego. For many hundreds of years the first Buddhists practiced in this way. But Mahāyāna Buddhists felt there was a problem with this type of practice. Our usual way of life based on delusion, likes and dislikes, is samsara. We transmigrate in the six realms from hell to heaven, always moving up and down, up and down. This is our usual way of life. We want to find a more peaceful, stable way of life. The four noble truths are the way to transform our life in samsara to a life of nirvana. And yet if we really practice in this way we discover a deep, basic contradiction. Without bodhi-mind or a desire to practice, we cannot practice. But this desire is itself a cause of suffering.

  The desire for truth and the desire for fame or profit are not so different. We feel something is lacking, so we try to get it. When we are poor we want more money. We want to become famous, and we want to become free from desire. These are different goals but the inner thirst is the same. We feel emptiness and we try to fill it with something. Life in samsara is characterized by the first two noble truths: suffering and desire (the cause of suffering). The Buddha taught the third and fourth noble truths: transformation is possible through practice. We try to transform our lives from samsara to nirvana, a life based on the Buddha’s teaching. This is our practice. Yet if we separate samsara and nirvana, we miss the path. If we imagine that we are here in samsara and desire to get over there to the path or the Buddha’s Way, this desire or aspiration itself creates another type of samsara. It is almost impossible to become completely free from our desires, so we have to put our whole energy into practice. We have to pay attention to each of our activities. We have to examine our motives. Even when we help other people, we have some egocentricity. If we really practice hard and sincerely, we cannot ignore this egocentricity. Even in our practice, even in our good deeds, we have some delusion and self-clinging.

  To the extent that we try to negate life in samsara and live in nirvana we create a deep separation. We perceive a chasm between samsara and nirvana, and no way to cross it. Mahāyāna Buddhists felt that because of emptiness, the division between samsara and nirvana is a dream. The five skandhas have no self-nature. Suffering is caused by the five skandhas, so suffering, ignorance, clinging, greed, and hatred are all delusions. They don’t exist as substance. Mahāyāna Buddhists found that egocentricity itself is illusion.

  There’s no separation between samsara and nirvana, or between delusion and enlightenment. “No ignorance and no extinction of it” means that ignorance and extinction are both without substance. Ignorance is always there, but it’s an illusion. This means there is no separation between samsara and nirvana. It’s a contradiction, and yet that is our life. We have to practice life within samsara. Samsara and nirvana are one. There are no steps, no separation between our usual, ordinary, deluded, material life and an enlightened, Buddhist, sacred, holy life. We are living in a single reality, and within this one reality, many things are happening. The continuous interaction between the self and the conditions surrounding the self creates our life and our karma.

  Our practice is not to escape from delusion or samsara but to practice right in the middle of them. We try to manifest nirvana within samsara. Ignorance, greed, hatred, all negative emotions, intellection, and misunderstanding exist. We want to be free of all this. But to become free of something and to eliminate it are two different things. Our bodhisattva practice is not to eliminate delusion or the three poisons of ignorance, greed, and hatred. We shouldn’t negate anything. We should accept everything and try to work with it. This is how to make our world nirvana.

  Our world always has the potential for both samsara and nirvana. We are responsible for what we create. It all depends on our attitude toward life. There’s no objective samsara and no objective nirvana. We create our own world. Delusion never disappears. Delusion is delusion; it never exists as substance, and it never disappears. Delusion is like a movie. Different scenes appear on the screen, but they are not reality. Seeing the scenes as a movie is reality. Delusion remains delusion, and yet the fact that we are deluded, that we are living in delusion, is reality. Our brain is always producing something, perhaps a totally deluded projection or maybe a very pure, lofty, peaceful illusion of the Buddha land or enlightenment. These are all delusions or illusions. We don’t need to destroy them. What we have to do is see them as illusions. This is the meaning of letting go of thought. Thought is delusion, but it is a necessary part of the reality of our lives.

  When we sit we let go of all illusions, good and bad, all emotions, and all philosophical understanding. We just let them go. We just open our hands. This is the way we accept reality without separating it into negative or undesirable parts and positive or desirable parts. When we stop this escaping and seeking, reality is right there. We are living in reality. We never left. This is what we do in our zazen. This is the basis upon which we have to create our way of life. We must be free from the illusions that arise from both sides, samsara and nirvana, and just work right here and now.

  In bodhisattva practice we try to see the reality before separation. When we see the reality of our life, we find that we are not living as an individual substance but are more like a phantom, a bubble, or a flash of lightning, as the Diamond Sutra says. We are phenomena caused by many different elements and factor
s. We live with the support of all beings. This dynamic interpenetration works constantly. Nothing exists independently. We live together in this universal movement. Our existence is movement. We have to accept this ever-changing reality as our self.

  When we see this reality it’s very natural to try to be kind, friendly, and helpful to others. This is the bodhisattva vow. It’s not something special. This way of life arises spontaneously from a realization of the reality of our life. It’s not an order from the Buddha or God. When we see this reality we cannot avoid taking the bodhisattva vow.

  Mahāyāna Buddhism identifies three kinds of nirvana. In Japanese, the first is uyo-nehan. An example of uyo-nehan is Shakyamuni Buddha. After he became enlightened and attained nirvana he lived forty years. He still had his physical body and mind and could suffer. The second type of nirvana is muyo-nehan. Muyo means “without anything extra,” specifically, without body or mind. Muyo-nehan means that at the moment of his death, Shakyamuni became free of his physical body. This is called parinirvana, or perfect nirvana.

  Lastly, Mahāyāna Buddhism names a nirvana called mujūsho-nehan for bodhisattvas. Mu, again, means “no.” Jūsho means “place to live or stay.” Mujūsho thus means “no dwelling” or “no place to stay” and refers to nirvana. This means that a bodhisattva doesn’t stay in samsara because of wisdom and doesn’t remain in nirvana because of compassion for others. A bodhisattva always practices in this world of desires and helps others but never dwells on either side. It is said there is a river between this shore of samsara and the other shore of nirvana, and a bodhisattva operates the ferry, traveling freely between shores but not abiding on either.