by Kim Boykin
Compassion: The Manifestation of Enlightenment
The two basic attributes of an enlightened being are wisdom and compassion. So far in this chapter, we've been talking about wisdom-that is, about realization or awakening or enlightenment. But the Zen way of liberation is not only about realizing our buddha-nature but also about manifesting, or "actualizing," that realization in the world. It is not only about realizing our selflessness but also about living selflessly. The fulfillment of the way of Zen is a life of compassionate service in the world.
The ideal type in Zen is the bodhisattva. A bodhisattva is usually defined as one who seeks enlightenment but renounces his or her own attainment of complete enlightenment in favor of a compassionate effort to help all beings to enlightenment. Another understanding is that bodhisattvas seek their own complete enlightenment because this is the best way to achieve their primary goal of leading all beings to enlightenment. In either case, the primary concern of the bodhisattva is the liberation of others.
The Sixteen Precepts of Zen describe a life of wisdom and compassion. The first three precepts, called the Three Refuges, relate to the so-called Three Treasures, or Three Jewels, of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The Buddha refers both to the historical Buddha and also, more generally, to our inherent buddha-nature. The Dharma is the teachings of Buddhism. And the Sangha is the community of practitioners. We "take refuge" in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The next three precepts are general ethical guidelines: resolutions to avoid evil, to do good, and to liberate all sentient beings. And the remaining ten precepts are specific guidelines for how to go about avoiding evil, doing good, and liberating all sentient beings. Traditionally, these precepts were only expressed negatively-specifying how not to behave-but some contemporary Zen communities have added positive expressions of the precepts-specifying how to behave.
The precepts of Zen are a description of how an enlightened person would naturally live, and for those who are not yet fully enlightened-which probably means everyone-the precepts are a prescription for how to behave as if we were fully enlightened, how to live in a way that is conducive to our own and others' liberation from suffering. For a fully realized Buddha, wise and compassionate action would be natural and spontaneous. For the rest of us, wise and compassionate action may come naturally at times, but at other times it won't, so the tradition has handed down some guidelines to follow for living wisely and compassionately.
I find it interesting that two of the precepts are related to not saying bad things about other people. The twelfth precept is not to speak of others' faults, and the thirteenth is not to praise oneself and disparage others. One year for Lent, I gave up saying bad things about other people. It was distressing how challenging this was. I often found myself slapping my hand over my mouth when a judgmental statement about someone was already halfway out.
The Sixteen Precepts
The Three Refuges
1. I take refuge in Buddha.
2. I take refuge in Dharma.
3. I take refuge in Sangha.
The Three General Resolutions
4. I resolve to avoid evil.
5. I resolve to do good.
6. I resolve to liberate all sentient beings.
The Ten Cardinal Precepts
7. I resolve not to kill, but to cherish all life.
8. I resolve not to take what is not given, but to respect the things of others.
9. I resolve not to misuse sexuality, but to be caring and responsible.
10.1 resolve not to lie, but to speak the truth.
it. I resolve not to cause others to abuse alcohol or drugs, nor to do so myself, but to keep the mind clear.
12. I resolve not to speak of the faults of others, but to be understanding and sympathetic.
13. I resolve not to praise myself and disparage others, but to overcome my own shortcomings.
14. I resolve not to withhold spiritual or material aid, but to give them freely when needed.
15. I resolve not to indulge in anger, but to practice forbearance.
16. I resolve not to revile the Three Treasures (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha), but to cherish and uphold them.
Source: Rochester Zen Center, Ethical Guidelines: Part 1, "The Buddhist Precepts," available on-line at http://www.rzc.org/html/abc/ethical.pdf.
Like zazen, the precepts are a practice. We repeatedly notice when we are not following a precept and return to following the precept. We practice noticing not just our blatant departures from the precepts but also the small and subtle ways in which we wander away from fully living the precepts.
In Getting Saved from the Sixties, Steve Tipton, a sociologist of religion, argues that the main reason 1960s youth joined "alternative" religious movements like Zen was to try to make moral sense of their lives. They had been raised in a culture that combined a "biblical" ethic, characterized by obedience to authority and conforming to rules, with a "utilitarian individual" ethic, characterized by expediency and cost-benefit analysis, and they had reacted with the countercultural "expressive" ethic, characterized by intuitive response to situations. But none of these systems had quite worked for them, and in Zen, they found a satisfying synthesis of the cultural and countercultural ethics. Zen's ethic is "expressive" in understanding that an enlightened person will intuitively respond appropriately to situations, but it keeps this "expressiveness" from degenerating toward anarchy and egoism by prescribing a spiritual discipline to develop one's intuitive sensibilities and a set of rules to use as guidelines for one's behavior while one cannot yet count on intuition as a reliable guide.
C. S. Lewis suggests a similar way of understanding Christian morality. He says that the moral realm exists to be transcended. To be used as practical guidelines, he says, Christianity's two great commandments have to be understood as commanding us to act as if we loved God and neighbor. We can't love on command, but we can act as if we love. We can act in a loving way. But there's a problem here. On the one hand, if we only act as if we love, we are not obeying the command, and on the other hand, if we truly loved God and neighbor, there would be no issue of needing to obey a command. So, Lewis says, the command to love God and neighbor really tells us, "Ye must be born again." Until we are reborn, we act as if we loved-that is, we act morally. Lewis says, "There is no morality in Heaven. The angels never knew (from within) the meaning of the word ought, and the blessed dead have long since gladly forgotten it."
In Zen, we resolve to be bodhisattvas. From the absolute perspective, the bodhisattva sees that all beings are already Buddhas and that our freedom is found right here in the midst of the big mess of life. This is wisdom. From the relative perspective, the bodhisattva sees all the pain and suffering in the world and is moved to do everything possible to clean up the mess and to help others realize their freedom within the mess. This is compassion. Rather than dwelling on the mountaintop of the absolute, the bodhisattva returns to the valley of the relative to liberate all beings.
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Practice
Practicing with Everything
Any activity can be used for Zen practice. In counting the breath and following the breath, you notice thoughts and return to the breathing. In walking meditation, you notice thoughts and return to the walking. Anything can be practiced this way: repeatedly notice your wandering thoughts and return your attention to the activity at hand.
In the setting of a Zen monastery or retreat, everything is practiced this way, or at least one is encouraged to practice everything this way: sitting practice, walking practice, chanting practice, eating oatmeal practice, lawn mowing practice, carrot chopping practice, telephone answering practice, video editing practice, driving to the post office practice, jogging practice, even rest practice.
The more complicated the activity is and the more conceptual thought it requires, the more challenging it is to notice wandering thoughts and return one's attention to the activity. This is one reason that the tasks assigned during the
work period at a Zen retreat tend to be simple, repetitive, physical tasks like weeding the garden, washing windows, peeling potatoes, or stuffing envelopes.
Toward the end of a Christian contemplative prayer retreat, the retreat leaders were saying a bit about the transition from silence to ordinary daily life. One of the participants, a Korean Baptist seminary professor, said slowly and in very broken English, "Here, I have been observing silence. Afterward, I will observe noise." Zen practitioners return regularly to the silence of zazen. Then the awareness being uncovered in zazen is gradually expanded to include all the activities of our noisy lives.
Anything Practice
To practice with any activity, just fill in the blank:
• Attend to _______.
• When you realize that your attention has wandered off, notice the thought and gently return your attention to
Notice the thought,
return to _______.
notice the thought,
return to _______.
notice the thought,
return to _______. ....
Following are some examples of "anything practice." The list of resources at the back of the book includes a section on practicing with certain aspects of life that can be especially challenging: stress, pain, illness, depression, fear, anxiety, ambition, death, and dying.
Eating Practice
Pay attention to the food and to all the physical sensations involved in eating. What does the food look like? How does it smell? How does the utensil or the food feel in your hand? How do your hand and arm feel as you move your hand toward your mouth? How does the food feel in your mouth? What does it taste like? How does your tongue move as you chew? What does it sound like when you chew? What does it feel like when you swallow? When do you get the impulse to reach for another bite of food? What does that impulse feel like? How does your hand move?
When you realize you are no longer attending to your eating but are caught up in thoughts-and this includes thoughts about eating, like "This could've used more garlic," "Home-grown tomatoes are so much better than store-bought," "Why does he always overcook the eggs?"-notice the thought and gently return your attention to the physical sensations of eating.
• Attend to the physical sensations of eating.
• When you realize that your attention has wandered off, notice the thought and gently return your attention to the physical sensations of eating.
Notice the thought,
return to eating,
notice the thought,
return to eating,
notice the thought,
return to eating, .. .
Listening Practice
In some of the meditation groups I've led, we share observations and thoughts about our practice with other members of the group. During these conversations, we do "listening practice":
• Look at the person who is speaking, and listen to what he or she is saying.
• When you realize that your attention has wandered off, notice the thought and gently return your attention to listening.
Notice the thought,
return to listening,
notice the thought,
return to listening,
notice the thought,
return to listening, .. .
Try this with your family, friends, coworkers-anyone. (My husband would be grateful if I did this practice more often with him!)
Practicing with Pain
Practicing with pain is, I think, one of the first ways in which many Zen practitioners get a taste of what no-self really means. When we let go of a self-centered view of reality, there is no longer me suffering from pain; there is simply pain. The separation of "me" from "not me" is what gives rise to suffering our own suffering and the suffering we cause others.
When pain arises-when, for instance, your knees begin to hurt as you do zazen-instead of squirming and fidgeting and trying to escape the pain, try sitting still with the pain, both physically and mentally. Open your compassionate awareness to the pain. Let the pain in instead of trying to keep it out. Sink into the pain as you would sink into a hot bath. Experience the pain fully. Where exactly do you feel it? Does it feel sharp, dull, throbbing, tight, achy, tingly, warm? Does the sensation remain constant, or does it change? Let the whole universe be the pain. Become only the experience of pain. Be the pain.
At least for a moment, you may get a taste of being in pain without suffering from the pain. It's not that the pain goes away or that the pain is no longer painful but that the pain is OK. The pain just is.
When you notice that you are separating yourself from the pain and are caught up in thoughts-and this includes thoughts about the pain, like "I hate pain," "I don't know how much longer I can take this," "I'll never be able to walk again," "`Be the pain'? What's that supposed to mean?"-notice the thought and gently return your attention to the physical sensations of the pain.
• Attend to the physical sensations of the pain. Open your compassionate awareness to the pain. Be the pain.
• When you realize that you are thinking about the painseparating from the pain-or are caught up in some other thought, notice the thought and gently return your attention to the physical sensations of the pain.
Notice the thought,
return to the physical sensations of the pain,
notice the thought,
return to the physical sensations of the pain,
notice the thought,
return to the physical sensations of the pain, .. .
Practicing with pain does not mean being masochistic, fatalistic, passive, or stupid about pain. If you get appendicitis, you go straight to the hospital for an appendectomy and you practice with the pain while you're waiting for surgery and while you're healing. If you're suffering from depression, you get it treated and you practice with whatever depression is still present-opening compassionate awareness to it instead of separating from it. If you always have knee pain when you do zazen, you do what you can to alleviate the pain-you get some advice on your sitting posture, maybe learn some stretching exercises, maybe choose to sit in a chair instead of on the floor and you practice with whatever knee pain you do experience. Practicing with pain in no way precludes trying to prevent or alleviate pain. It isn't necessarily easy to get the knack of simultaneously trying to change a situation and opening compassionate awareness to it exactly as it is. It can feel like there's a tension there or even a contradiction, but there doesn't have to be.
Pain can be a useful thing to practice with, but this doesn't mean that you should go out of your way to experience pain or that you shouldn't try to relieve pain. As my husband likes to point out, this life has no shortage of pain, so you needn't worry that you'll run short and have none left to practice with. Please do all you can to free yourself and others from pain. This is a vital part of the practice of compassion.
Daydreaming Practice?
My friend Jennifer asked me if there is such a thing as daydreaming practice. Can you daydream mindfully? I found this an entertaining question to ponder, and here's what I came up with.
I considered whether mindful daydreaming is exactly what Zen practice is. That is, we're usually busy daydreaming, but in Zen we repeatedly notice that we're daydreaming and return our attention to the present moment. But that's probably understanding daydreaming too broadly.
Daydreaming might be better understood as one among many species of things our minds do other than attending to the present moment-distinguishing daydreaming from, say, obsessing about a relationship, planning the meeting you're leading on Tuesday, or rehashing that horrible scene with your brother. I'm imagining daydreaming as the kind of thing you might do while sitting on a porch swing on a lazy summer afternoon-letting your mind drift idly and pleasantly.
So if you want to daydream mindfully, you let your mind drift idly and pleasantly, and when you notice that you've wandered from idle, pleasant thoughts to worrying thoughts or vengeful thoughts, mentally creating to-do lists
, or anything else that's too unpleasant or project-oriented, notice those thoughts, let them go, and return to the idle, pleasant drifting. Maybe that's what "daydreaming practice" is.
* * *
5
Making Zen Practice Part of Your Life
Developing a Regular Zen Practice
If you want to have a regular Zen practice, I would encourage you to make zazen a habit, a part of your daily routine, like brushing your teeth. It would be a bother if every time you brushed your teeth, you had to psych yourself up for it, remind yourself of the value of toothbrushing for the health of your teeth and gums, and decide what would be the best time for it that day. It's just not that big a deal, and neither is zazen. And your daily sitting need not take more time than making and drinking your cup of coffee or taking your morning shower. Just sit down at about the same time every day for five or ten minutes and count your breath-every morning before you have your cereal or every afternoon before the kids get home from school or every evening at your desk just after you've shut down your computer for the day or every night after you're in your pajamas or whatever works for you.
If you have a regular prayer time each day, you can add your meditation time onto that. You might find that doing zazen before you pray can be a way to let go of the mental chatter a bit so that you can be more attentive in your prayer time. Or you might find that you prefer to start with verbal prayer and then, when you've turned the particular issues of the day over to God, you can settle down to simply being there.
To encourage your meditation habit, you might want to set aside a corner of a room especially for this: a small space that is clean and attractive, with your meditation cushion or bench or chair, perhaps a candle, some incense, some flowers.
When I sit alone, I decide ahead of time how long I'm going to sit and always sit for that full length of time, or longer if I'm so inclined, but I don't quit before the end of the time I've decided on. Having made this commitment to myself spares me from spending any of my sitting time deciding when to stop or considering whether to cut the period short. I just sit for however long I've decided to sit, and that's that. And knowing that I'm committed to sitting for the full period I've decided on encourages me to choose reasonable lengths of time instead of getting overly ambitious about it and then feeling disappointed with myself for quitting early.