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Excerpt from Infinite Circle Introduction Think of not-thinking. How do you think of not-thinking? Non-thinking. This in itself is the essential art of zazen [Zen meditation]. Zazen is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma-gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon when he gains the water, like the tiger when he enters the mountain. For you must know that right there, in zazen, the right Dharma is manifesting itself and that, from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside.— Dogen Zenji
In this book I will attempt to clarify these words of Dogen Zenji, the founder of the Japanese Soto Zen sect, whose writings I first encountered in 1968 when I read his essay, "Being Time." At that time I was completing my studies for a doctorate in applied mathematics and was struck by Dogen's description of space and time. Here was a thirteenth-century thinker writing about concepts we were just starting to develop in modern physics and mathematics! Not long thereafter I was fortunate enough to begin my studies with my teacher, Taizan Maezumi Roshi, under whose guidance I began to explore the world that Dogen Zenji had described. Dogen Zenji says that zazen, or Zen meditation, is the actualization of the Enlightened Way. Zazen is not simply a technique to learn to become enlightened or to learn to calm the mind or to strengthen the body. Zazen is the Enlightened Way. The simplest form of zazen is sitting meditation. But it goes far beyond that. As Shakyamuni Buddha said, "Everything as it is, is the Enlightened Way!" Thus zazen is the thunder, the lightning, the rain. Zazen is the elimination of distance between subject and object. But what is zazen? What is enlightenment? What is actualization? I hope the following chapters will help clarify these terms for you. This book is based on a series of three workshops I offered at the Greyston Seminary of the Zen Community of New York in Riverdale, New York, on the Heart Sutra, The Identity of Relative and Absolute (the eighth-century poem by Ch'an Master Shih-t'ou Hsi-ch'ien), and the Bodhisattva Precepts. The three studies together parallel the structure of koan study, developed by eighteenth-century Zen teacher Hakuin Ekaku in Japan. Koan study is traditionally practiced in face-to-face encounters between student and teacher and requires an experiential, rather than an intellectual, grasp of the material. So please read this text as if we were talking to each other, as indeed we are. Using the Heart Sutra text, we will explore the intimacies of Zen practice and leap into the realm of not-thinking, or not-knowing. We will then penetrate into Dogen's world of practice-realization by discussing The Identity of Relative and Absolute. Finally, we will broaden our perspective by analyzing the Bodhisattva Precepts (or Kai, "aspects of our life") that constitute the Right Dharma. These workshops were given in the early years of the Zen Community of New York. We had developed a strong meditation practice and study program and were just beginning our social action ministry. Ahead of us was the move to southwest Yonkers and the development—over a period of some fifteen years—of the Greyston model for social change, informed by Buddhist values and vibrantly alive and thriving to this very day. Ahead of me was the founding of the Zen Peacemaker Order and the beginnings of the Peacemaker Community, open to peacemakers of all spiritual persuasions who wish to integrate their practice with social activism. So why do I now publish a book about the Heart Sutra, which talks of the emptiness of the elements that make up human nature, or about a poem describing in rigorous detail the complex relationship between the relative and absolute realms? Why is this compulsory study for members of the Zen Peacemaker Order alongside trainings in social ministry, liturgy, and nonviolence? In Zen, there are two ways of describing reality. Basically, one says that reality is all One, that everything is Buddha. The other describes the manyness of reality, its multitude of diverse phenomena and differences. What both sutras say is that these two ways of perceiving reality are not just valid, but essentially the same. Over the years, Zen masters have developed practices to help us see reality first from both sides separately and then from both as an equivalence. As I've become more and more involved in social action, I see the issue of oneness and diversity not only as a primary issue in Zen practice, but perhaps as the issue in the peacemaking world. I see this in the many places around the globe where systematic massacres and widespread ethnic cleansing are predicated on the notion that there's only one way to be, one way to behave, one God to believe in, and that all else is somehow invalid. There are always some things that we exclude from the One, that we can't possibly believe are enlightened as they are, that we can't believe are it. This points to the importance of prajna wisdom, to not seeing things in a dualistic, inside/outside way but rather experiencing the vibrancy of everything as it is, at this very moment. On the other hand, we are often tempted to sit and not do. For years I encountered Zen practitioners who felt that until they were fully enlightened, there was no use acting in the world; they would simply be acting out of delusion. I have argued forcefully that we have to act. We don't practice in order to attain enlightenment; because we are enlightened, we practice. In the same way, we don't act in the world in order to make everything One; because we are One, we act! Bodhisattvas don't vow to work forever simply to attain results or objectives that are exterior to themselves. Because they are prajnaparamita, because they embody the wisdom that everything is interconnected without exception, they strive to save all beings. The more clearly we see this, the more appropriately we act. In fact, we have no choice in the matter. For me, practice has always been about the One Body. Not just the One Body as a single entity, as One, but also as a million billion different components and pieces, each of which is the One Body. I would say that the great quest from time immemorial has not been the search for or even the realization of Oneness—that seems to have existed from early on—but rather the honoring of each particular, each individual aspect of the One Body as the One Body itself, without excluding something or someone, without mandating that all things be a particular way in order to be part of that One Body. As our leaders are fond of reminding us, we now live in a global community. It's interesting to me that in the political, economic, and scientific spheres, synonyms for the One Body are being developed every day: globalization, common markets, one world economy, the Internet. And immediately the same issue arises: Can this move toward globalization, towards recognizing that we're all One, allow for the equal importance of diverse cultures, economies, traditions, and needs? Can we honor each component as the One Body rather than honoring the One Body at the expense of its components? This has always been humanity's great challenge, and it's equally the great challenge facing peacemakers today. The third section of this book discusses the Bodhisattva Precepts according to the Japanese Soto Zen sect, focusing on the Three Treasures, the Three Pure Precepts, and the first Grave Precept, Nonkilling. I included this discussion because it asks the question, How do we know what is the appropriate action to take at any given moment? In the Zen Peacemaker Order, we've formulated the precepts in a somewhat different manner (in the Epilogue I describe some of these changes and the reasons behind them), but the question of what to do and how best to do it is a living question for all of us. By that I mean that there is no one answer. Whatever answer exists is situational, arising and disappearing with the circumstances. Ultimately there is nothing to do other than act out of non-separation and bear witness. There is nothing to rely on, only the rich unfolding of life and our fearless, spontaneous response to it, moment by moment. BERNIE GLASSMAN |
