"Guru" means venerable teacher.

by Ven Jinmyo Fleming, ino
jinmyo@trytel.com
http://www.wwzc.org

* Simple Minded
* Flowering Garbage
* Lineage
* What Does It Take To Become A Buddha?
* Is There A Problem?

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME A BUDDHA?
by Ven. Jinmyo Fleming ino
A Senior's Dharma Talk
Honzan Dainen-ji, April 10, 1998
http://www.wwzc.org 

What does it take to become Buddha? Absolutely nothing, absolutely everything….although having a good sense of humour doesn't hurt.

To be a Buddha we must use every moment of our experience, be willing to receive richness and release poverty. To be a Buddha requires that we stop our games and learn how to be playful. To be a Buddha means that we must wake up, again and again and again to what all the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors of the Lineage of Transmission have Awakened as.

To wake up we need to be able to sit when we are too tired or crabby to want to. To wake up we need to stand up and do kinhin just when we have stumbled on some state of peacefulness that we enjoy. Yunju Daoying daiosho said, "If you want to realize this thing of Suchness, you must be a person of Suchness."

Get it? Suchness is the Reality of who we are all are. A Buddha is one who has Awakened to who she really is, the Reality which presents itself everywhere as everyone. Although we are all people of Suchness, although Reality is what we truly are, unless we realize this, we are not a Buddha.

Dogen zenji said, "You can't fabricate a Buddha through sitting or lying down." Get it? He said this in the Fukanzazengi, an essay concerned with how to sit and how to live as Awareness. His point is that although we sit, sitting is not something that can fashion us into a Buddha. A Buddha is someone who has no strategies, is not conditioned, does not move attention towards or away from anything at all.

And so a Buddha is not fashionable, is not concerned with how he appears to be. A Buddha is without strategies yet lives her life as a seamless activity of skillful means, using situations to Awaken others. To wake up, we need a Teacher who can show us the nature of our experiencing through the process of Transmission.

Transmission can take place anywhere at any time. The 10,000 koan and Recorded Sayings and Doings of ancient Zen Masters all recount such moments. You will notice that most of my Dharma Talks involve stories about our own Teacher, Zen Master Anzan Hoshin. This is because these stories are not only of contemporary situations but the heart of them shows the core of every one of the old stories, alive here and now. And what is Transmitted is who we all are and what here and now is. Sometimes it occurs when seated in the presence of the Teacher; sometimes it occurs when one is doing the laundry. So, of course, I have a laundry story to share with you.

About eight years ago, Rev. Dozan anagarika was visiting from Great Britain and one afternoon, the Sensei, Dozan anagarika and I went shopping. I could write a Dharma Talk about shopping with the Sensei, but I'll save that for another time. This story is about a set of wind chimes we found in a shop that day. We didn't buy them, as they were quite expensive, but I remember that the Sensei was pleased with both the quality of craftsmanship and their tone.

During this time, I was not living in the monastery. I lived in a ground floor apartment not far from the Zen Centre and between sittings was making quite a project of making my living space as Zen-like as possible. I had stripped the walls bare, removed whatever I hadn't used, looked at, or thought about for six months and so on.

Over the next few days, I kept thinking about these chimes and although I was on a very limited budget, decided that I should buy them. And so I did, and hung them on my porch. Now, you'd think that would be the end of that, but it wasn't, because a very inconvenient question began to form and as much as I tried initially to ignore it, it just would not go away. You see, I could not ignore the fact that it was the Sensei who had discovered the chimes and it was he who recognized their quality and it was he who could not buy them for the monastery because finances were so tight, but it was I who was listening to them.

And so, the melodic tone of the chimes began to take on a sour note that just could not be ignored. I was pondering this one morning, while putting a load of laundry into the washing machine. I cranked the dial and the machine began its noisy labour. I remember leaning against the machine, listening to it chugging away. As I listened, there was a dawning of recognition that ultimately articulated itself as, "Well, I can always listen to the sound of the washing machine."

After all, the point of an ikebana or sho or arrangement of stones created by the Sensei is to help us to see. Chanting practice helps us to speak. Incense helps us to smell. The sound of the Sensei's shakuhachi or of the chiming of wind bells helps us to hear. As we open more and more to the simplicity of our experience and stop trying to be the one who sees or hears, the richer all colours and sounds become.

Decision made, I took the chimes down, repacked them in their box and drove to the Zen Centre. When I arrived, the Sensei was seated in the garden with Dozan anagarika. Very nervously, I offered the box. I was so nervous, in fact, that my hands shook. And this was because, of course, neither the Sensei nor Dozan anagarika knew anything about this little drama I had gone through, let alone what was in the box. At the time, I thought they might think I was completely nuts if I attempted any sort of explanation. Perhaps the Sensei might think I was trying to curry favour or roll over like a dog to show my belly. I certainly felt exposed but it became immediately apparent that any idea we might have about the mind of a Zen Master is too simplistic and cartoon like to mean anything.

The Sensei saw my nervousness, lightly gestured for me to come closer and said "It's all right." He smiled brightly as he took the box from my hands, looked directly into and through my eyes and said, before opening it, "Well, you can always listen to the washing machine."

There is a word in the Japanese text of Uji or Being-Time by Dogen: Kappatsupachi -- it means the sound of a fish slapping its tail. Unmistakable, distinct, crisp. A moment of Transmission is like that - simple, direct, it is what it is. So I didn't say anything. The Sensei smiled and said, "Where should we hang them?" If any of this had been about me, I would have said "outside your window." But neither of us suggested that and so, for over seven years, the chimes hung over the front door of Zazen-ji, where they sang into the busy activity of Somerset Street West, for Anzan sensei, for all students as they arrived, and for passers-by who would take the time to notice.

Anzan sensei spends endless hours with students, listening to their stories, entering into their experience in order to show them what it takes to be a Buddha. I was recently thinking about one of these informal conversations between the Sensei and a student that I was also present for. The student was describing being very tired, coming home and wanting only to go to his room. But he was intercepted by someone in the hallway who wanted to talk….and talk…..and talk. The Sensei listened to this with his eyes lowered and then slowly brought his gaze up. And then he said "You should have said that you were going to sit in zazen." The student said "Yes, I only said I was going to sit".

This exchange was very quick, and may seem almost trivial, but what I saw of it was far from trivial. This is some of what I saw: Firstly, the Sensei had not been told by the student that his reason for wanting to escape this meaningless conversation was in order to sit. In fact, the way he told it implied only that he was tired and wanted to go to bed. The Sensei not only filled in the missing information, but told him what he had actually said and then told him what he should have said to make himself clear to the other person. And this was done so seamlessly and effortlessly that the student missed it altogether.

But there was something else that I noticed, something that I've seen many times before. Just a moment or so before the Sensei had asked me to straighten up and so I was more attentive then I would ordinarily have been. When the Sensei raised his head, he did so very slowly. I was seated just a few feet from him, watching attentively. As his eye gaze lifted, as closely as I can describe it, it was like seeing sunlight shining through water. And the light, as it shone right to the bottom, exposed everything, rocks, plants, small creatures, mud, all exposed in minute detail by the light.

Similarly, in that moment, all of the stances, states, hopes and fears experienced by both myself and the other student were exposed in minute detail. This is traditionally called Komyo, or Luminosity. Komyo means "bright brightness." Myo in particular has the meaning of the first light of morning spreading on the horizon. And this is the Radiance spoken of by all of the Awakened Ones, as taught by the Buddha.

Sounds great doesn't it? But wait, I'm not finished yet. You see, a true Teacher will teach by example, but then insists that the student take responsibility for what is shown. Get it? So, how do you take responsibility for having seen, having experienced a moment of komyo? Here is an example.

A few days later, I was feeling very sad. I don't really know why. Often when I feel sad, there really isn't a reason for it that I can find. But, as is the case for any other student, there is a strong tendency to try to find one. I was sitting alone, observing the fragments of thoughts and feeling tones trying to assemble themselves into some sort of coherent storyline and noticed that my eyegaze had lowered. I raised it slowly and looked out the window. Sunlight was streaming through the trees and the sky was brilliant blue. It was bright bright. And in this brightness I saw that I had a clear choice. I could be sad or I could open to the brightness and allow myself to be as transparent as water, the sadness no more than a detail, along with the mud, rocks, plants or other small creatures.

And that was what I needed to vow to do, as a monk, in order to take responsibility for myself and for others. And that this would mean to release every fear, every sadness, every sorrow, every apparent obstacle, both my own and other's into this Luminosity.

I hovered on the edge of a decision, just as I had with the wind chimes, but not for too long. I knew right from the start that this practice would cost me everything and I was right. You would not believe the number of well-intentioned, stupid stances, ridiculous states and petty nonsense I've had to give up.

Seven years ago, I signed a blank cheque and gave it to the Sensei. I mean an actual piece of paper made out like a cheque. When I handed it to him he laughed and handed me a contract that he had written up. This blank cheque is hidden somewhere here in Dainen-ji, but I don't think I should tell you where it is. Well, here's a hint: any monk here could figure out where it is in about three seconds. So what does it take to become a Buddha?  Absolutely everything, absolutely nothing. And a sense of humour doesn't hurt.

It is impossible to try to figure out how this wonderful practice works. Feeling the breath, hearing a note of a bird's song, coming alive to this moment, even if only for a moment, is wonderful, so amazing, that sometimes I cannot help but laugh. The Sensei tells a great joke. He says it is his favourite knock knock joke. Like this practice, it is subtle, easy, but a continuous challenge: Knock, knock Who's there?………………

Have a good morning. -- Gassho, Ven. Jinmyo Fleming, ino Dainen-ji (Zen Centre of Ottawa) WWZC jinmyo@trytel.com  http://www.wwzc.org

IS THERE A PROBLEM?
by Ven. Jinmyo Fleming, shuso
Senior’s Dharma Talk
March 30, 1996, Zazen-ji

Is there a problem? We live suspended in thin air. All around us everything looms. Colours, forms, sounds. People. Buildings. Trees. Cats. Everything is so full and rich and bright. Standing in the midst of the radiance of our lives, we squint. Squinting is a reaction to bright light. If we didn’t squint, if we kept our eyes open, they would adjust. And in fact, we need light to see at all. All of the things that we see: colours, forms—are all light. To adjust to this brightness is really just allowing our lives to be as they are. But we don’t allow ourselves to do that. Squinting, we view the world with narrowed vision, missing a lot of the details of what we are actually experiencing. Our vision becomes thin and small and uncertain and we know we ’re not seeing clearly. To feel a little certainty, we turn things around. We interpret what we see with narrowed vision to be the reality of our world. The fullness becomes thin and flat. To make this sustainable, we make the world a story, a set of descriptions, thoughts and feelings. Within the tradition of practice this is called dukkha. Dukkha could be translated as unsatisfactoriness, pettiness, suffering, the experience of the unmanageability of reality through approaching experiences as if there could possibly be a self. The Venerable Anzan Hoshin sensei, our teacher, has explained that the roots of the Sanskrit term dukkha are “jur” which means “bad” and “kha” which means “space.” So dukkha is “bad space.” The primary metaphor is of a carriage that does not work because the axle cannot pass through the wheel. So the Sensei tells us that the dukkha that arises from grasping at entities and objects is an experience of “obstructed space.” In order to make our experiencing of reality manageable, we create a self. The sense of a self is already a problem because, as the Sensei points out again and again and as should be obvious to us all by now, “whatever presents itself as a self cannot be the self. It cannot be the knower because it is just another thing that is known. ”So the sense of self already creates a sense of problem. Naturally, like tends towards like. The self tends towards problems because it reinforces its own function of existing as that which cannot exist and so must exist in such a way that it cannot come into question. It does this by distracting itself from itself and focuses on experiences in such a way that they seem to be dense. So, the more dense the sense of problem, the stronger the sense of self. A sense of problem begins with what seems to us to be very subtle movements of attention. We may recognise that there is something very familiar, very repetitive about our thoughts and feelings, but beyond reacting to the content, we seldom question into what is actually going on. Everything that we perceive is made up of a myriad of details, of colours of forms, of causes and effects unfolding in a rich, chaotic, playful display. Our perception of what appears does not come from or take place in anything that is solid. Our ability to perceive is made up of a myriad of processes. In Buddha Dharma, one way of detecting the details of these processes is the five skandhas. The word “skandha” means “heap” or “accumulation.” The Ven. Anzan Hoshin sensei explains that the five skandhas are a way of describing how we experience what we are. The activity of these processes creates the illusion of an accumulation or localisation of experiencing. and describe the basis of self-image, the illusion that there is a self doing the experiencing, a single entity in the midst of what is being experienced. Why don’t we see this process take place? Because we can’t see it if we squint. Our eyes must be open in order to see it, because this activity takes place very, very quickly. In the space of a second there is said to be 60 mind moments, 60 movements of mind. That’s the bad news. Nonetheless, the experience of our Ancestors in this practice has been that even these subtle structures of attention can be attended to and so attention need not be bound by them. That’s the good news. The five skandhas are: form, basic reactivity, symbolisation, habitual patterning and consciousness. In the Development of Buddhist Psychology series of classes, specifically, in classes 15 through 18, the Venerable Anzan Hoshin sensei gave a thorough presentation of these Teachings. I would like to draw on these for the following explanation. However, what I am going to say is by no means complete and I recommend that you study the classes yourself. The Sensei says that the first of these piles is form skanda, which means “THAT.“ It means that there is a perception of something, that experience experiences itself as a particular experience but objectifies this event. This is the development of the basic mechanism of self-image, or of how we become confused about who we really are, so that our experience occurs in terms of self and other, this and that. In order to have a subject or self or “this“, obviously you must have a “that.” The next skandha, basic reactivity, adds weight to the “that“ so that the “this“ can be held in place by it. An attitude about the object forms: liking, disliking, or ignoring. The third skandha categorises it through “symbolisation”, trying to figure out what it resembles, if something like it has been experienced before. With the fourth skandha of “habitual patterning”, we decide what to do, how to act, based on what we did before with something that was like what this thing is like. Then the fifth skandha of consciousness comes into play. This is the area of experience we are primarily aware of, our thoughts and feelings about our experiences. The five skandhas tell us something about how our experience arises as a piling up of different mental events to create the illusion of certainty and the sense, the image, that there is a self doing the experiencing. So is there a problem, can there be a problem, when there is no such thing as a single, solid entity who is experiencing the problem? Where could a problem exist? Then what about all the problems we seem to have to make decisions about? If we are not a something in which a problem can exist, do they exist, perhaps separately from us? What are these things that we call problems? What do we actually mean when we use that word? As is the case with so many words we use, the word problem is used as a symbol to represent many different things, most of which are not a problem. There are circumstances and conditions about which we can’t do anything and that is just the way things are. That is not the same as a problem, but that doesn’t stop us from entertaining ourselves with the project of self-image by making it look like one. By focussing on something we can in reality do nothing about, which has nothing to do with us, we can make it appear to have everything to do with us. By nature, self-image is a problem because it does not exist, and so the sense of problem is something which is free-floating and can attach itself to anything, anywhere. Squinting at a situation which we can do nothing about, we narrow the view further and further. The circumstances and conditions, which are themselves formed from the details of many truths, are reduced to a cartoon-like representation. If we then respond to the situation from that understanding of it, then that version of reality is what we contribute to the situation as a whole. Our actions can literally serve to turn it into the very thing we accuse it of being and think we are struggling to remedy. A problem is a situation in which we actually need to do something and can do something and we must respond appropriately. But what is this thing that we have to respond to, what is it made of? Everything that happens is part of many processes, becomes a part of many processes. It is the result of a vast number of details of small truths, none of them in themselves the truth. The most effective way to respond to a problem is to respond clearly, directly and most importantly, honestly to what is actually going on, to do what you can and do it as soon as possible. Because a sense of problem is free-floating, it can attach itself to the simplest of issues. What we will tend to do is think about the problem, turn it over and over, focus and fixate on it. Our attention becomes arranged in such a way that there is a perception of things being unmanageable. We grasp at our sense of problem, at our suffering and so we suffer. Then we have a new sense of problem because we want to get rid of the suffering. But we can’t just get rid of it. If we try to eliminate it, we are just fragmenting our attention further and we can make things very difficult for ourselves. Recognising that our judgement is impaired by the sense of problem, we may be tempted to just try to cut through it, to act with ruthless determination, mistaking this for mindfulness. We may hang on to the sense of problem and choose to do nothing. Through this, we can fold down into inertia and render ourselves unable to respond. Our view becomes so narrowed and the sense of problem so broad that we feel incapable of seeing anything clearly. We hesitate and become obsessed with caution, mistaking this for mindfulness. We may grasp at the sense of problem as being a threat to our life and resolve to do great and heroic things, apply all of our energy to overcoming it, mistaking this for mindfulness. But this is not mindfulness. This is the activity of the three kleshas of passion, aggression and stupidity, the properties that dull the mind and are the basis for all unwholesome action. Countless options, solutions, theories can arise and they can all seem valid to some extent, even though they can often simultaneously be recognised to be completely insane. So if delusion is so pervasive, how then can we really recognise what is true, what is the most sane option? Dogen zenji’s Fukanzazengi, which is chanted every evening during sesshin, says “Understand that right here is the display of Vast Reality and then dullness and mental wandering have no place to arise.” We must ground our experiencing in the display of reality right here. If our perception of things does not include information about what is taking place in this moment, we cannot respond accurately to what is actually going on. The more information there is about what is taking place in this moment, the more accurate our assessment of ourselves, of our abilities, of our relationship to anything that is perceived to be arising. If you think about something, are you doing that in isolation, removed from the reality of what is actually taking place right now? This can be a very uncomfortable question, because when we focus, when we concentrate on something, we want to be isolated so that we can enlarge upon the sense of problem, blow it up so we can see all the minute details of it, like pixels on a computer screen. We want to be left uninterrupted because we usually approach a problem with a strategy and in order to examine everything about it from that strategy, we cannot be interrupted. The strategy only exists in our own imaginations and any interruption would shatter its existence, our existence as that strategy. A sense of problem is recognisable because it comes from an angle. It has a central point, a self who is experiencing the dullness and mental wandering. Can we just do nothing with it? Can we just let it be as it actually is? Can we stay with the sense of problem, the sense of discomfort, of uncertainty, without turning away from it? Can we then open around it and see and hear and feel the fact of the rest of our life, which is the rest of what is available as this moment of experience? Even if we understand all kinds of things, do we understand what anything actually is? Being willing to live with our misunderstandings and bringing them face to face with our life as it actually is, beyond what we believe that we understand is an amazing prospect. I think that this is some of what our teacher, the Venerable Anzan Hoshin sensei, has described as shila paramita: “the discipline of living with not knowing.” We don’t like that idea much. We want to be certain, we want to feel that we know. So we interpret our experiencing as though we were a central point in the midst of a kind of chaos. In the midst of all this chaos, this not knowing, we would like to think that we know. So we think about the chaos because in our thoughts, we can convince ourselves that we know something. The most sane and probably the only reasonable response to chaos would be to simply be as tidy as possible in the midst of it. Shoelaces work really well if we take the time to tie them properly. Everything works quite well if we take the time to work with what’s going on. In Dogen zenji’s Genjokoan: The Question of Our Lives it says: “No matter how far a fish swims, it doesn’t come to the end of the ocean. No matter how far a bird flies, it doesn’t come to the end of the sky. Since the beginning, fish and birds have always been one with their elements. When there is a great need, a great use appears. When there is a small need, a small use appears. Thus, the full use of things is always as it is. Wherever something is, it covers its own ground. If a bird cut itself off from the sky it would die. If a fish cut itself off from water it would die. Also, the life of the sky is the bird itself, the life of the water is the fish. The bird is life, the fish is life. We can expand on these examples if we’d like. Practice, enlightenment, short and long life.” What we need to do can come from our experience of what is. No problem. Have a good morning. -- Gassho, Ven. Jinmyo Fleming, ino Dainen-ji (Zen Centre of Ottawa) WWZC jinmyo@trytel.com  http://www.wwzc.org