Norman Fischer

Norman Fischer

NORMAN FISCHER is a Zen teacher, poet, translator, and director of the Everyday Zen Foundation. A beloved figure in the Buddhist world, he is also well-known for his efforts at interreligious dialogue. His numerous books include The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path, What Is Zen?: Plain Talk for a Beginner’s Mind, and Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong.

Norman Fischer

NORMAN FISCHER is a Zen teacher, poet, translator, and director of the Everyday Zen Foundation. A beloved figure in the Buddhist world, he is also well-known for his efforts at interreligious dialogue. His numerous books include The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path, What Is Zen?: Plain Talk for a Beginner’s Mind, and Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong.

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GUIDES

Chan, Zen, and Mahayana Buddhism in 2021

See our other Year in Review Guides: Theravada/Pali/Insight | Chan, Zen, Mahayana | Tibetan Buddhism

Receive a 30% discount on these titles through January 2nd using code 2021YE at checkout

We are very happy to share with you a look back at our 2021 books for those who practice in the family of traditions including Chan, Zen, and Pure Land.

 

Jump to: Reader Guides | Books | Books for Kids | Forthcoming Books | Audiobooks

Reader Guides for Chan and Zen

2021 Books on Chan, Zen, and Pure Land

Ordinary Wonder

“As you embrace the suffering of life, the wonder shows up at the same time. They go together.”—Charlotte Joko Beck

In this collection of never-before published teachings by Charlotte Joko Beck, one of the most influential Western-born Zen teachers, she explores our “core beliefs”—the hidden, negative convictions we hold about ourselves that direct our thoughts and behavior and prevent us from experiencing life as it is. Wryly humorous and relatable, Beck uses powerfully clear language to show how our lives present us with daily opportunities to move from thinking to experiencing, from compulsivity to confidence, and from anguish to peace. Whether you are a Zen practitioner or a reader interested in exploring these teachings for the first time, Ordinary Wonder offers the depth and breadth of Beck’s remarkable experience in an accessible guide to practice amidst the struggles of daily life.

Record of Empty Hall

A fresh translation and commentary on a classic collection of 100 koans from thirteenth-century China.

The Record of Empty Hall was written by Xutang Zhiyu (1185–1269), an important figure in Chinese Rinzai Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism and in its transmission to Japan. Although previously little-known in the West, Xutang's work is on par with the other great koan collections of the era, such as The Blue Cliff Record and Book of Serenity.

Translated by Zen teacher Dosho Port from the original Chinese, The Record of Empty Hall opens new paths into the earthiness, humor, mystery, and multiplicity of meaning that are at the heart of koan inquiry. Inspired by the pithy, frank tone of Xutang's originals, Port also offers his own commentaries on the koans, helping readers to see the modern and relatable applications of these thirteenth-century encounter stories. Readers familiar with koans will recognize key figures, such as Bodhidharma, Nanquan, and Zhaozhou and will also be introduced to teaching icons not found in other koan collections. Through his commentaries, as well as a glossary of major figures and an appendix detailing the cases, Port not only opens up these remarkable koans but also illuminates their place in ancient Chinese, Japanese, and contemporary Zen practice.

Clear and clearer
with the moon the heart
swells widening
out toward
what distant end I know not

 

A fresh translation of the classical Buddhist poetry of Saigyō, whose aesthetics of nature, love, and sorrow came to epitomize the Japanese poetic tradition.

Saigyō, the Buddhist name of Fujiwara no Norikiyo (1118–1190), is one of Japan’s most famous and beloved poets. He was a recluse monk who spent much of his life wandering and seeking after the Buddhist way. Combining his love of poetry with his spiritual evolution, he produced beautiful, lyrical lines infused with a Buddhist perception of the world.

Gazing at the Moon presents over one hundred of Saigyō’s tanka—traditional 31-syllable poems—newly rendered into English by renowned translator Meredith McKinney. This selection of poems conveys Saigyō’s story of Buddhist awakening, reclusion, seeking, enlightenment, and death, embodying the Japanese aesthetic ideal of mono no aware—to be moved by sorrow in witnessing the ephemeral world.

From beloved Zen teacher Norman Fischer, a collection of essays spanning a life of inquiry into Zen practice, relationship, cultural encounter, and spiritual creativity.

"Looking backwards at a life lived, walking forward into more life to live built on all that, trying not to be too much influenced by what's already been said and done, not to be held to a point of view or an identity previously expressed, trying to be surprised and undone and maybe even dismayed by what lies ahead."—Norman Fischer

Norman Fischer is a Zen priest, poet, and translator whose writings, teachings, and commitment to interfaith dialogue have supported and inspired Buddhist, Jewish, and other spiritual practitioners for decades. When You Greet Me I Bow spans the entirety of Norman Fischer's career and is the first collection of his writings on Buddhist philosophy and practice. Broken into four sections—the joy and catastrophe of relationship; thinking, writing, and emptiness; cultural encounters; and social engagement—this book allows us to see the fascinating development of the mind and interests of a gifted writer and profoundly committed practitioner.

“There’s so much to learn and so much to know. It’s good to keep moving forward. And yet whatever we have is, in a very profound way, absolutely complete and always enough.”—Kyogen Carlson

Kyogen Carlson (1948–2014) was a Soto Zen priest whose writings, teachings, and commitment to interfaith dialogue supported and inspired countless Buddhist, Christian, and other spiritual practitioners. Set to the rhythm of the seasons, You Are Still Here is the first published collection of Carlson’s dharma talks. It illuminates key elements of contemporary Zen practice, such as the experience of zazen meditation, the pitfalls and intimacies of the teacher-student relationship and of sangha life, the role of community in personal practice, and the importance of interfaith dialogue reaching across political lines. Carlson’s teachings also underscore his commitment to lay Buddhist practice and women’s lineages, both significant contributions to American Buddhism. The beautifully distilled talks have been carefully edited and introduced by Sallie Jiko Tisdale, a respected writer, teacher, and Dharma heir to Carlson. Her masterful presentation highlights the significance of these illuminating teachings, while preserving Carlson’s distinct style of authenticity, humor, and conviction on the Zen path.

Dogen

The founder of the Soto school of Zen in Japan, Eihei Dogen (1200–1253) is one of the most influential Buddhist teachers of all time. Although Dogen’s writings have reached wide prominence among contemporary Buddhists and philosophers, there is much that remains enigmatic about his life and writings. In Dogen: Japan’s Original Zen Teacher, respected Dogen scholar and translator Steven Heine offers a nuanced portrait of the master’s historical context, life, and work, paying special attention to issues such as:

  • The nature of the “great doubt” that motivated Dogen’s religious quest
  • The sociopolitical turmoil of Kamakura Japan that led to dynamic innovations in medieval Japanese Buddhism
  • The challenges and transformations Dogen experienced during his pivotal time in China
  • Key inflection points and unresolved questions regarding Dogen’s teaching career in Japan
  • Ongoing controversies in the scholarly interpretations of Dogen’s biography and teachings

Synthesizing a lifetime of research and reflection into an accessible narrative, this new addition to the Lives of the Masters series illuminates thought-provoking perspectives on Dogen’s character and teachings, as well as his relevance to contemporary practitioners.

Xuanzang

In the fall of 629, Xuanzang (600–662), a twenty-nine-year-old Buddhist monk, left the capital of China to begin an epic pilgrimage across the country, through the deserts of Central Asia, and into India. His goal was to locate and study authentic Buddhist doctrine and practice, then bring the true teachings back to his homeland. Over the course of nearly seventeen years, he walked thousands of miles and visited hundreds of Buddhist monasteries and monuments. He studied with the leading teachers of his day and compiled a written account of his travels that remains a priceless record of premodern Indian history, religion, and culture. When Xuanzang finally returned to China in 645, he brought with him a treasure trove of new texts, relics, and icons. This transmission of Indian Buddhist teachings to China, made possible by Xuanzang’s unparalleled vision and erudition, was a landmark moment in the history of East Asian Buddhism.

As with many great pre-modern religious figures, the legends surrounding Xuanzang’s life have taken on lives of their own. His story has been retold, reshaped, and repurposed by generations of monastics and laypeople. In this comprehensive and engaging account, Benjamin Brose charts a course between the earliest, most reliable accounts of Xuanzang’s biography and the fantastic legends that later developed, such as those in the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. Xuanzang remains one of the most consequential monks in the rich history of Buddhism in East Asia. This book is an indispensable introduction to his extraordinary life and enduring legacies.

With the release ofleading scholar Charls B. Jones' Pure Land: History, Tradition, and Practice we finally have an engaging, accessible, and surprising account of the traidtions or Pure Land Buddhism, which has more adherents than any other Buddhist tradition.

Until now, this these traditions have been poorly understood in the West. This is the case despite Pure Land teachings being well integrated throughout history with Chan and its Japanese counterpart Zen, as well as embedded in Tibetan Buddhist practice. Centered on faith, devotion, and prayer to Buddha Amitābha, Pure Land constitutes its own tradition that continues to grow in popularity throughout the world.

This concise introduction presents at last a complete and accessible guide to Pure Land thought and practice that will surprise and delight readers in its richness and scope. The author traces its history beginning from its development in India through China and Japan up to the present day. This overview goes on to cover the core principles of Pure Land centered on the belief that prayer and contemplation on Buddha Amitābha can lead to rebirth in a realm free from suffering that is ideal for progress on the path to enlightenment.

Shunryu SuzukiShunryu Suzuki Roshi

We published three works by or about Suzuki Roshi, all available as audiobooks.

Zen Is Right Now

The teachings of Shunryu Suzuki have served for innumerable people as the gateway to Zen practice and meditation. In Zen Is Right Now, devoted student and biographer David Chadwick sheds new light on Suzuki’s presence and teachings through selected quotes from his lectures and a variety of stories told by his students.

Complementary to another collection about Suzuki, Zen Is Right Here, this book offers a joyful bounty of anecdotes and insights, revealing a playful and deeply wise teacher who delighted in paradox and laughed often. Each of the stories and quotes presented here is an example of the versatile and timeless quality evident in Suzuki’s teaching, showing that the potential for attaining enlightenment exists right now, in this very moment.

Zen Is Right Here

Shunryu Suzuki’s extraordinary gift for presenting traditional Zen teachings using ordinary language is well known to the countless readers of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. In Zen Is Right Here, his teachings are brought to life through stories told by his students. These living encounters with Zen are poignant, direct, humorous, paradoxical, and enlightening—and their setting in real-life contexts makes them wonderfully accessible.

Like the Buddha himself, Shunryu Suzuki gave profound teachings that were skillfully expressed for each moment, person, and situation he encountered. He emphasized that while the essence of Buddhism is constant, the expression of that essence is always changing. Each of the stories presented here is an example of this versatile and timeless quality, showing that the potential for attaining enlightenment exists right here, at this very place.

Crooked Cucumber

Shunryu Suzuki, author of the perennial classic Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, is lovingly remembered as one of the greatest spiritual teachers of the twentieth century—whose legacy is felt in every facet of American Zen. This monumental biography of Suzuki, written and read by his student David Chadwick, weaves together a rich tapestry of stories and memories of Suzuki’s students, family, and friends. In this updated and revised audiobook edition, Chadwick also offers rare excerpts from archived recordings of Suzuki’s teachings in the great Zen master's own voice.

Our natural awakening—or buddha-nature—is inherent within all of us and waiting to be realized. Buddha-nature has the qualities of both silence and illumination, and by working with silent illumination meditation you can find your own awakening. Distinguished Chan Buddhist teacher Guo Gu introduces you to the significance and methods of this practice through in-depth explanations and guided instructions. To help establish a foundation for realizing silent illumination, he has translated twenty-five teachings from the influential master Hongzhi Zhengjue into English, accompanied by his personal commentary. This book will be an indispensable resource for meditators interested in beginning or deepening their silent illumination practice.

An Important Reissue

The writings of the twelfth-century Chinese Zen master Ta Hui (Dahui) are as immediately accessible as those of any contemporary teacher, and this book, which introduced them to the English-speaking world in the 1970s, has become a modern classic—a regular feature of recommended reading lists for Zen centers across America, even though the book has become difficult to find. We are happy to make the book available again after more than a decade of scarcity.

J. C. Cleary's translation is as noteworthy for its elegant simplicity as for its accuracy. He has culled from the voluminous writings of Ta Hui Tsung Kao in the Chi Yeuh Lu this selection of letters, sermons, and lectures, some running no longer than a page, which cover a variety of subjects ranging from concern over the illness of a friend's son to the tending of an ox. Ta Hui addresses his remarks mainly to people in lay life and not to his fellow monks. Thus the emphasis throughout is on ways in which those immersed in worldly occupations can nevertheless learn Zen and achieve the liberation promised by the Buddha. These texts, available in English only in this translation, come as a revelation for their lucid thinking and startling wisdom. The translator's essay on Chan (Chinese Zen) Buddhism and his short biography of Ta Hui place the texts in their proper historical perspective.

Secularizing Buddhism: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition is a very engaging and provocative essay collection that explores the opposing ideas that often define Buddhist communities—secular versus religious, modern versus traditional, Western versus Eastern—are unpacked and critically examined.  While many cover topics that span all the Buddhist traditions, the two of most interest to East Asian Buddhists are:

  • Charles Jones: Establishing the Pure Land in the Human Realm
  • Roger Jackson: Avoiding Rebirth: Modern Buddhist Views on Past and Future Lives

Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom includes several contributions from Zen and Nichiren teachers and practitioners like:

  • Gyozan Royce Andrew Johnson with Pamela Ayo Yetunde: From Butcher to Zen Priest - Radical Transformation through Bloodletting
  • Kamilah Majied: On Being Lailah's Daughter - Blessons from Umieversity on Actualizing Enlightenment

The Woman Who Raised the Buddha: The Extraordinary Life of Mahaprajapati is first full biography of Mahaprajapati.  Here, Wendy Garling presents her life story, with attention to her early years as sister, queen, matriarch, and mother, as well as her later years as a nun. Garling reveals just how exceptional Mahaprajapati’s role was as leader of the first generation of Buddhist women, helping the Buddha establish an equal community of lay and monastic women and men. Mother to the Buddha, mother to early Buddhist women, mother to the Buddhist faith, Mahaprajapati’s journey is finally presented as one interwoven with the founding of Buddhism.

For Kids

In 2021 we published three wonderful books parents who want to expose their kids to the ideas, culture, and figures of Mahayana traditions.  We hope these delight them!

Forthcoming in 2022

And we have even more from the Chan and Zen traditions coming out next year from the likes of Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Joan Sutherland, Joan Halifax, Christian Dillo, Peter Haskell, Rebecca Li, Thomas Cleary, Nancy Baker, Susan Moon, and many more.  So make sure you sign up for our emails so you do not miss them!  Here is a sneak peek at January's release which you can pre-order now and take advantage of the discount.

In The Shamanic Bones of Zen, celebrated author and Buddhist teacher Zenju Earthlyn Manuel undertakes a rich exploration of the connections between contemporary Zen practice and shamanic, or indigenous, spirituality. Drawing on her personal journey with the black church, with African, Caribbean, and Native American ceremonial practices, and with Nichiren and Zen Buddhism, she builds a compelling case for cultivating the shamanic, or magical, elements in Buddhism—many of which have been marginalized by colonialist and modernist forces in the religion. The book conveys guidance for readers interested in Zen practice including ritual, preparing sanctuaries, engaging in chanting practices, and deepening embodiment with ceremony.

Buddhist Audiobooks

Shunryu Suzuki Audiobooks on and by Suzuki Roshi

Crooked Cucumber
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The Perfection of Patience

Practicing Patience During Times of Difficulty

World Could Be Otherwise

An Excerpt from The World Could Be Otherwise

THE PERFECTION OF PATIENCE is kshanti paramita in Sanskrit. Kshanti can be translated as “patience,” “forbearance,” or “tolerance,” but these words don’t capture the fullness of what kshanti connotes because they all imply a kind of quietism or passivity. To be patient can be understood to mean to suffer silently, like a patient in a hospital who can’t affect her own cure and so must wait for the ministrations of others. Forbearance has an even greater sense of quietly enduring. Tolerance implies a kind of benign neglect—not correcting, fixing, or complaining but being tolerant. On the other hand, tolerance also implies broad-mindedness: a tolerant person is open to the views and actions of others, neither condemning nor dismissing.

Though all these words reflect in part what is meant by kshanti, kshanti paramita exceeds them. To practice kshanti paramita is to patiently, tolerantly forbear hardships and difficulties—but not passively. The perfection of patience is transformative. It transforms difficult circumstances from misfortunes or disasters into spiritual benefit. For this reason it is a particularly powerful practice, a prized and essential one. A person who develops it has strength of character, vision, courage, dignity, and depth. She or he understands something profound about human beings and how to love them. I’m using perfection of patience to denote kshanti paramita because we are so profoundly impatient about everything these days. We can use a dose of old-fashioned patience. But understand that I’m using the word patience in this special, fuller sense.

Patience is the most important of all the bodhisattva practices because without it all the others will eventually fail. It is easy enough to practice meditation, generosity, ethical conduct, and other wonderful practices when things are going smoothly. But when things fall apart—as they inevitably do from time to time—we revert to old patterns. Over the years many people have told me they regret that they haven’t been tending to their spiritual practice lately, but they can’t right now; they’re having some personal setbacks and will get back to their practice as soon as things clear up. What they haven’t understood is that difficult times are the most fruitful time for spiritual practice because they are exactly when the practice of patience comes most into play. When things get tough you should intensify rather than set aside your practice.

It’s natural to turn away in the face of difficulty. We come by this powerful habit honestly. No one wants to go toward pain. We want to go elsewhere, take a break, think of something else, get rid of it if we can. We distract, deny, blame, or rush around in generally futile attempts to fix it somehow. With the practice of patience we train ourselves to do the opposite: to turn toward the difficulty and embrace it as an ally.

BEING WITH DIFFICULTY

We all understand that life will at times be difficult. We are aware of the various drastic forms of suffering like illness, death, loss, disgrace, financial ruin, broken relationships, addiction, or despair. In all too many communities there are, in addition to all these, socially determined forms of suffering like war, violence, sexism, racism, homophobia, severe political repression, and crushing poverty. Our lives are subject to these sad, long lists of pain.

The usual approach to a bad experience is to bemoan it.

So, yes, our lives are rife with suffering. I hope none of the readers of this book are victims of the crushing forms of social and economic suffering that so many human beings endure. But even the most fortunate among us is touched by suffering. No one avoids death, illness, and loss. Nearly everyone is close to someone who suffers from addiction, serious health problems, disgrace, financial ruin, divorce, mental illness, or other serious troubles. Basic suffering has no respect for social class.

In order to be able to practice patience with these serious forms of suffering, we have to start small. The perfection of patience proceeds by familiarity—we start with something manageable, get used to that, then go on to something more daunting, understanding that we won’t need to produce some stronger suffering for our practice; it will eventually come.

Of course, life is also full of happy experiences, and neutral ones too. Depending on your current circumstances, you could have mostly happy or neutral experiences and not that many mildly difficult or terrible ones—or the reverse. But no matter your circumstances, you are going to have some degree of suffering every day because suffering is a built-in feature of body and mind: the body will experience discomfort and pain; the mind will know stress and strain. Every day we all experience lesser forms of suffering. Aches, pains, annoyance, anger, frustration, situational depression, feeling disrespected or out of sorts—these experiences pervade our days.

The usual approach to a bad experience is to bemoan it. We say, “I can’t believe this is happening!” and act as if it weren’t, even as it is. We refuse to accept it. Having gotten in an argument with reality, we look for someone to blame so as to have an explanation. Usually it’s not so hard to find a blameworthy person, persons, category of persons, or maybe an institution. Or we can blame ourselves—or reality.

Sometimes assigning blame helps fix the situation, reverse the bad experience, or at least prevent it from happening again. If someone steals my identity and drains my bank account, I can take steps to stop it. If I’m miserable because a coworker is disrespecting me, I can speak up with strength and let her or him know this treatment is not all right. Maybe my coworker will stop. If I’m the victim of racial or gender discrimination, understanding the social dynamic will empower me and point a way forward. So, yes, when assigning blame for the purpose of taking action is possible, we do it.

Disasters are disasters. When bad things happen, we suffer. Through turning toward the suffering with patience, bodhisattvas transform it into something meaningful.

But much of the time—maybe most of the time—blaming doesn’t help. The offending person isn’t going to change, the court’s verdict won’t be overturned, the medical diagnosis is what it is, the divorce is final. When in times like that you insist on blame, dismay, and obsession with the injustice of what happened, you are adding injury to injury, making a bad situation worse, shooting a second arrow into the arrow-punctured wound, as the Buddha once put it. Going on like this—even if you have good reason—will erode your point of view and put you in danger of becoming a bitter person. So when what’s happened can’t be changed, there’s no choice but to turn toward the difficult experience, whatever it is, and take it on. As Santideva succinctly puts it, “If you can find a solution, what’s the point of being upset? And if you can’t find a solution, what’s the point of being upset?”

Too true! If you can fix the problem, why groan, moan, and jump up and down wearing yourself and your friends out? Fix it. If you can’t fix it, what good will it do to groan, moan, and jump up and down? Instead, why not recognize that the state of life you previously enjoyed has ended and you are in a new state? Why not make something out of that state? This is the practice of patience.

What they haven’t understood is that difficult times are the most fruitful time for spiritual practice because they are exactly when the practice of patience comes most into play.

Disasters are disasters. When bad things happen, we suffer. Through turning toward the suffering with patience, bodhisattvas transform it into something meaningful. One of the chief ways they do this is by expanding the nature of the suffering through acts of the imagination.

Let’s say I am suffering because someone has treated me disrespectfully, even scornfully. In the biggest picture of things, why would I care about this? When I was a child, my parents, to protect me against schoolyard taunts, taught me the old saw, “Sticks and stones will break your bones, but names can never hurt you.” Makes sense, and, of course, it’s literally true. Santideva says exactly the same thing: A word has no substance. It’s just a vibration in the air that disappears as soon as it’s uttered. How can it hurt you? Besides, the “you” that it could hurt is a chimera. There’s no “you,” just a floating ongoing rush of impressions, gestures, actions, memories, and so on. How could a word hurt that?

Still, it does. Even if it doesn’t make sense, you feel upset when someone diminishes and disrespects you. Despite Santideva’s wise perspective, you can’t talk yourself out of it. So bodhisattvas recognize the feeling of suffering, and they expand it. They know that the pain of disrespect is not just theirs; it’s a basic human pain. They reflect like this: “The pain I’m feeling now is the same pain others feel when they are disrespected. No doubt in this very moment, as I am feeling this pain, thousands or even millions of others are feeling it. So this pain isn’t mine. It belongs to all of us. Being a person entails this pain. So as I feel and suffer it, I feel and suffer in solidarity and sympathy with others.”

When I practice such reflections, I transform my personal suffering into connection and love. I expand the word suffering from its narrowest meaning, “to feel anguish and pain,” to its related, wider meaning, “to allow”—to allow more and more love and connection.

The practice of patience calls for tolerance, understanding, forgiveness, compassion, and loving-kindness toward others.

Such imaginative deepening and ripening of suffering goes to the heart of what’s most valuable about the practice of patience. When we’re patient with our suffering rather than bemoaning it, we see that suffering is expansive, connecting us warmly to the world and to others. When suffering is “ours” instead of “mine,” it’s not suffering. My sorrow, grief, or fear is painful, yet it’s also sweet, because I share it with everyone. This is how bodhisattvas understand the third noble truth of the Buddha: “the end of suffering.” To them, the end of suffering doesn’t mean the end of physical pain, failure, loss, alienation, fear, and other forms of suffering but rather the transformation of suffering into solidarity and love.

In traditional discussions of the practice of patience, three arenas for the practice are distinguished: first, patience with personal pain and hardship; second, patience with suffering caused by our interactions with others; and third, patience with the painful truths about our human life.

PATIENCE WITH PERSONAL HARDSHIP

The first arena for practicing patience is personal hardships such as physical pain, failed arrangements, not getting what you want or feel you need, and so on.

As usual, meditation practice helps. People take up meditation as stress reduction, but meditation isn’t always so peaceful. Sometimes it’s full of agitation, mental and emotional jumble, even physical pain. New meditators think that if these things occur they must be doing something wrong. But no, they’re normal, and they’re opportunities to practice patience.

In the simple format of meditation, just sitting there by yourself with no one to negotiate with and no task to perform, you have the perfect conditions for practicing patience. Take the issue of physical pain, an experience we naturally view as problematic. Working with pain in meditation can be a way to develop patience. Here’s a way to go about it: When physical pain arises in meditation, stay with the breath and the sensations of physical pain. Don’t move, don’t adjust, even though you want to. Doing this will quickly show you how the mind runs away when it doesn’t like what’s going on. Gradually train your mind to stay close to the unpleasant sensations and the thoughts that inevitably go with them. When you do this, you will be surprised to discover within yourself a larger person, someone more forbearing, more dignified, and more courageous than you thought you were. It may seem masochistic to practice like this, but developing patience with unpleasant physical sensations is perhaps the most valuable thing you can learn from meditation practice. To be able to endure physical discomfort and pain with grace and composure is a valuable skill you will come to appreciate as time goes on.

This practice with physical discomfort extends to emotional pain. Once you get the point—in your body, and all the way to your heart and soul—that avoiding pain, adjusting, blaming, and perseverating about it makes the pain worse, you see that facing pain with tolerance and dignity is much better.

PATIENCE WITH SUFFERING IN RELATION TO OTHERS: ANGER

The second arena for the practice of patience is in relation to others. Despite the fact that relationships are potentially the source of our greatest joy, and love the fullest and most positive human experience, relationships are, as they say, complicated. Meditation shines a light on our own complications. It shows us how stubborn, deceptive, and hard to deal with we are. So it comes as no surprise to find that others are the same. Inevitably, human interaction gives rise to sticky, painful, and sometimes tragic problems. Practicing patience with the painful feelings that arise in relationship to others is a key practice for bodhisattvas, whose primary commitment is to love and be of service to others.

To them, the end of suffering doesn’t mean the end of physical pain, failure, loss, alienation, fear, and other forms of suffering but rather the transformation of suffering into solidarity and love.

Imagine what life would be like if we loved everyone, treated everyone with unwavering positive regard, and were never in conflict with anyone. We would be happy people. Most of the unhappy- making factors in our lives would be removed. Even if we got sick and had to undergo hardship, the loving support of others would make that difficult experience better. Even if we were poor and in a bad social situation, the love, support, and respect of others would make it endurable. Our friends would help us out and make sure we always had the necessities of life.

Of course, this isn’t how it is. We have plenty of trouble with people in our lives. People will behave badly, and we will get upset. The practice of patience calls for tolerance, understanding, forgiveness, compassion, and loving-kindness toward others. It also takes into account that anger and resentment will arise and we will have to learn to live skillfully with such emotions.

A great deal of the traditional discussion of the practice of patience focuses on anger. This makes sense. Anger poisons relationships. According to the traditional teachings, anger is never justified. Santideva begins his chapter on patience by saying that a moment of anger can destroy lifetimes of positive spiritual effort. If that were literally the case, we would all be in plenty of trouble! But perhaps Santideva is only trying to scare us into recognizing that we had better turn toward our anger and learn to understand it. Facing our anger is an important acupressure point in our practice.

Santideva argues that it makes no sense to get angry at another person. His argument is, as usual, imaginative and unexpected. Even when a person does terrible things, it isn’t that person who is at fault. It’s the passion inside them that has them in its clutches. They themselves are innocent victims of this passion. They really can’t help it. So it’s irrational to be angry with them. We should be angry at the passion. But what’s the use of getting angry at a passion? Santideva uses the analogy of a man beating a dog with a stick. Stung by the stick, the dog immediately gets angry and vigorously attacks the stick, not understanding that it is the man wielding the stick, not the stick itself, that is the agent. In the analogy, the stick stands for the aggressive person who attacks you, and the person wielding the stick stands for the passion that grips the aggressive person. When you attack the aggressive person for what he is doing to you, you are like the dog foolishly going after the stick. What a waste of energy!

Practicing patience with the painful feelings that arise in relationship to others is a key practice for bodhisattvas, whose primary commitment is to love and be of service to others.

He goes on with his argument: The actions of others, no matter how heinous, are not what make us angry. The real cause of our anger is our own unwise reaction to the action. If you hit me and I don’t mind, there’s no anger. If you wave a stick through the air and I am not there to receive the blow, there’s no anger. “You made me angry!” is never accurate. No other person is responsible for my anger, no matter how terrible their behavior may have been. Anger is mine and mine alone. When I seize my anger, train it on you, and act, I am going to cause a lot of harm. Acting in anger is like trying to throw a handful of shit at your enemy. You may or may not hit her or him, but you will certainly soil yourself.

In our culture, anger is often viewed positively. When someone says or does something wrong, especially to you, someone you care about, or an institution or a symbol you identify with, you should get angry. You shouldn’t just sit back and acquiesce. Justice, as well as your dignity and self-respect, is served by your anger. By extension, a society is best served when it is made up of individuals who take this attitude, whose anger won’t let them sit idly by as bad guys do bad things, and who will collectively pursue such bad guys anywhere in the world with state power and might.

But our culture also has the opposite idea. Jesus’s radical teaching is to love our enemy and practice mercy, regardless of the circumstances. So it is not only Buddhists who preach universal love, compassion, and care for the other. If anything, Christianity and the Judaism out of which Christianity arose have even more radical teachings on love than Buddhism does. It would be hard to find a more thoroughgoing expression of universal love and care for others than that which is everywhere in the Sufi poetry of Rumi. “If you don’t want to be dead, never be without love. / Die in love if you want to be truly alive,” he writes.

It seems to me that however much justifying anger makes sense in theory, it doesn’t actually work in practice, because retaliation—seeking what we call “justice”—breeds further retaliation. In my anger I decide that your conduct is evil. I do not consult with you about this; I decide for myself. Then I engage in a battle with you that goes on and on, possibly for generations. We have seen this happen in personal as well as world affairs—in families, religious groups, nations. Insult leads to insult, incident to incident, war to war. Even if the warring parties are happy to go on with their aggression, innocent people always end up being hurt. In the end someone will have to help the warring parties heal. Or bury them.

If peace and concern for others is the bodhisattva path, it’s clear that anger must be dissolved.

Trying to practice love and compassion, and letting go of anger, doesn’t mean acquiescing when harm is done, especially when others are being hurt. A bodhisattva could never stand by and let that happen. A bodhisattva practices radical acts of protection, which might sometimes be forceful. But force is avoided if at all possible in favor of any gentler method that stands even a slight chance of working. Even where forceful methods seem necessary, they are applied without anger or hatred but rather with sadness, strength, and an eye to eventual healing as soon as the conflict abates.

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Norman FischerNorman Fischer is a Zen priest, poet, translator, and director of the Everyday Zen Foundation. His numerous books include What Is Zen? Plain Talk for a Beginner’s MindTraining in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong, and Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms. Learn More.

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Drive All Blames into One

It is quite counter-intuitive, quite upside down.

What it is saying is: whatever happens, don't ever blame anyone or anything else, always blame only yourself. Eat the blame and it will make you strong.

There's another Zen story about this one. In Zen there's a formal eating ritual called oryoki. In Zen monasteries this is the way the monks eat all of their meals: in robes, seated on meditation cushions on raised platforms, with formal serving and chanting, eating in a dignified prescribed style, even washing out the bowls with water and wiping and putting them away as part of the ritual.

When I was a monastic, I ate this way every day, and even now at some of our retreats we practice oryoki. At first the practice seems intimidating and overly complicated, but when you do it for a while, it becomes second nature and you see its beauty. You realize that actually it is the simplest, most elegant, and most efficient way that a group of people could eat together.

In a way, it is a bit like mind training itself: it seems at first impossible and complicated, but when you get used to it, you see how beautiful and even how simple and natural it is.

In any case, once in ancient China an abbot was eating oryoki style with the monks in the meditation hall. He discovered a snake head in his soup. This was not snake soup; Zen monasteries are vegetarian. It was definitely a mistake. Probably a farmer monk out in the fields hadn't noticed that he'd cut off the head of a snake while cutting the greens, and the snake's head had found its way into the soup pot because the soup-cook monk also hadn't noticed it.

Such things happen, even when you are practicing mindfulness and doing good organic farming and trying not to kill anything. But a mistake is a mistake, and a mistake that ends up in the abbot's bowl is a mistake compounded.

The abbot called the tenzo, the head cook. "Look!" He held up the snake's head. And the tenzo, without saying a word, snatched the snake's head and swallowed it.

He didn't blame the farmer, he didn't blame the soup cook. He didn't make excuses. He didn't feel guilty or ashamed. He ate the blame. It was probably very nourishing.

From Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong by Norman Fischer, pages 50-51.

Norman Fischer

Norman Fischer is a Zen priest, poet, translator, and director of the Everyday Zen Foundation. His numerous books include What Is Zen? Plain Talk for a Beginner’s MindTraining in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong, and Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms.

 

 

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A New Perspective on an Ancient Practice: An Interview with Zoketsu Norman Fischer

Photo from EverydayZen.comShambhala: How did you first encounter Zen, and what was your introduction to practice like?

Norman Fischer: I got involved at first through reading-reading and thinking about my life. This was in the very early days, when there were no Zen centers or practice centers of any kind (at least that I was aware of) and the idea that Buddhism could be practiced in the West was not even thinkable. What a difference from today! So, as a young man searching for religious and philosophical meaning, reading literature and philosophy and religion looking for answers to what were, for me, highly personal, existential-not at all abstract!-dilemmas, I found D. T. Suzuki's writings and immediately took to them. It was some years later that I discovered that there was a practice of Zen (D.T. Suzuki did not make this clear in his writings) and resolved to do the practice, and moved to San Francisco for that reason (that and the fact that it never got hot there in the summer; I hated the summer heat). I learned how to do zazen and then mostly practiced on my own for a while. Eventually I saw the need to practice with others and did that.

S: You're known for taking Zen teaching and practice outside the zendo to people who don't necessarily identify as Buddhists-or who very definitely don't identify as Buddhists-like committed Christians and Jews. How does that work? What sorts of teachings do you bring them?

NF: I am not so self-conscious about taking something-Buddhist teachings-and adapting it. More or less what I have always done is just to respond to what people are concerned with and to the way they see the world. I have always been convinced that the practice and teachings are completely relevant always, and that it is just a matter of approaching each situation on its own terms, and the way to practice within those terms will be clear. As Zen indicates, the Dharma is a knack, a sense about life, not limited to a particular set of concepts. So it has been very interesting and not at all difficult to adapt-if this is what I am doing-the teachings and the practice to a variety of settings, religious and secular.

S: Does it go both ways? Do teachings from these other paths have an effect on you-either ostensibly or subtlely?

NF: Oh yes it does go both ways. If not you couldn't be effective I think-you'd be imposing something on a situation, not creatively responding. So yes, each thing I have gotten involved with has changed my understanding-every day changes my understanding.

Book coverS: Your new book, Training in Compassion, might be seen as a kind of cross-pollination of Buddhist traditions, in that it's your Zen-influenced view of a Tibetan Buddhist practice. Can you describe it?

NF: The book comes out of many many talks, workshops, retreats, seminars and so on that I did on the lojong text. I have long felt that as a Mahayana school Zen is all about compassion-but since the Chinese monks who developed the tradition's style assumed compassion teachings and didn't feel they had to emphasize them, Zen literature contains only a few explicit teachings on compassion. So Western Zen practitioners need a remedial course, and lojong brilliantly fills the bill. Of course when I comment on these or any other texts-or anything at all-I can't escape seeing it the way I would see it, through my own personal experience and way of looking at things-which at this point is inevitably influenced by my long life in Zen practice. Tibetan Buddhism is a different approach, different flavor, different set of feelings, ideas. I thought it would be useful to look at the same text from a new perspective. Usually that has the effect of bringing out new angles and aspects. People I practiced the lojong teachings with were so enthusiastic they made transcripts and recordings so I had lots of material to work with. They really wanted me to publish the material and that's why I decided to do it.

S: What special perspectives does Zen offer for lojong practice?

NF: Zen is so simple and direct and iconoclastic: "kill the Buddha" and all that. Tibetan Buddhism is more elaborate and more literal in its fealty to tradition.  Probably a Zen approach to lojong is refreshing. Not that I have any problem with the many Tibetan-style commentaries to these teachings: most of them are very good and can't be improved on. But to bring the teachings across to Zen students and other people I encountered in other venues I had no choice but to do it in my own way, and this book is the result.

S: And how is Zen practice affected by lojong?

NF: It brings out the compassion side more. Zen could be too severe, too stripped down, too focused on meditation experiences if you forget the compassion side.

 S: Is any of the lojong slogans a particular favorite of yours?

NF: Don't expect applause.

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