Nothing Special: Living Zen Read online

  STUDENT : I read the other day that whatever our chief feature is, it is good to exaggerate it. For me, however, that would mean to be very angry and to attack others.

  JOKO: You may do it in private.

  STUDENT: But if I really exaggerate anger and attack to make it more conscious, won’t I hurt someone?

  JOKO : No. Please remember that the only way to exaggerate is to exaggerate the sensation that the cramp is. We shouldn’t exaggerate angry behavior. The system is totally unconscious, so as we consciously experience the cramp, it can dissolve itself.

  STUDENT : I find from my experience that I’m in this terrible cramp, and then all of a sudden it will change. Something will open up, and I’ll be in a space where I feel open and free, and then for no apparent reason I go back into my upset.

  JOKO: Evidently you return into your habitual self-centered thinking.

  STUDENT: Sometimes it seems like a muscle that was tight and is now relaxing.

  JOKO : Yes, but the real cause is not a matter of muscles. Our basic desire to survive lies behind all of our troubles. If there was some way of managing muscles, then all body workers would produce enlightened subjects.

  STUDENT : I find that the unpleasant sensation is not a static state. It’s constantly in flux, changing all the time. So I’m in and out, all over the place, because it’s pure energy, not static.

  JOKO : The only thing that interferes with the flow is the fact that we believe our thoughts again. And that’s almost habitual with us. We have to sit for many, many years before we don’t believe our thoughts. We really do.

  STUDENT : Until we wear out the project of trying to protect ourselves against life or fighting the way things are being presented to us at this moment, we will consistently return to the state of contraction, which is, “I don’t like this!” It happens all the time.

  STUDENT: Where is the cramp located?

  JOKO: Wherever you feel it. It could be the face, the shoulders, anywhere. Frequently it’s in the lower back.

  STUDENT : I’m becoming more aware that some of my thoughts seem simply givens, pictures I have of myself that don’t seem like thoughts, or that sound so good that I don’t label them. Then there are thoughts that don’t get labeled because they sound like good Zen practice.

  JOKO: Yes; it’s the thought we don’t catch that will be running the show.

  STUDENT : A lot of my conditioning seems unconscious or subconscious. So I may consciously feel very clear and light, and yet the conditioning is still there, and it does return me to the cramp or the hard bed, the spasm, even though I don’t see anything happening in my conscious mind.

  JOKO : Right. Remember that in a way there is no such thing as the unconscious, but what is revealed may be very subtle. A lot of what we’re talking about isn’t a major cramp like what is called a “charley horse.”

  STUDENT : You said that in good practice the companion to labeling thoughts is experiencing. Does that mean that the thought you’re not catching might reveal itself if you are truly experiencing the cramp?

  JOKO : Yes. The more we practice and make things conscious, the more the thought we’re not conscious of will begin to float up to the surface. All of a sudden it hits us, “Oh, I never realized that before.” It just floats up.

  STUDENT: What’s the repetitive spasm or bodily shaking that tends to come at times in this kind of practice?

  JOKO : If we stay with the spasm, quite often the body will shake, or tears may come, because if we really put our attention on the body and give it freedom to be itself, it will begin to

  open up and the energy that was blocked will begin to surface. It may take the form of crying, shaking, or other involuntary movements.

  STUDENT: Could you talk more about feelings?

  JOKO: Feelings are simply thoughts plus bodily sensations.

  STUDENT: And if a feeling comes up?

  JOKO: Break it down. Either see what the thoughts are, or go into the body.

  STUDENT: As we are experiencing, does the experiencing actually trigger memories or insights?

  JOKO : Yes, sometimes. If we keep experiencing, the cramp sometimes will crack open. We’ll see certain pictures from the past, but I wouldn’t worry about them. Just let them come and go. Practice is not about analyzing ourselves, because there is no self. However, in a practice based on experiencing, our life will more and more spring from no-self as a life of direct and effective functioning and—yes!—clear and valuable thinking. Experiencing is the key.

  Melting Ice Cubes

  It’s useful to understand the technical side of practice, the theoretical basis of sitting. But students often dislike technical explanations and want concrete analogies. Sometimes the best way to explain is through simple, even silly metaphors. So I’d like to talk about Zen practice as “the way of the ice cube.”

  Let’s imagine for a moment that humans are large ice cubes, about two feet along each edge, with little heads and spindly feet. This is our life as humans most of the time, running about like ice cubes, bumping into one another sharply. Often we hit each other hard enough to shatter our edges. To protect ourselves we freeze as hard as we can and hope that when we collide with others, they will shatter before we do. We freeze because we’re afraid. Our fear makes us rigid, fixed, and hard, and we create mayhem as we bump into others. Any obstacle or unexpected difficulty is likely to shatter us.

  Ice cubes hurt. Ice cubes have a hard time. When we’re hard and rigid, no matter how careful we are, we tend to slip and slide out of control. We have sharp edges that do damage, and we hurt not only others, but ourselves.

  Because we’re frozen, we have no water to drink, and so we’re thirsty all of the time. At cocktail parties we soften up a bit and drink, but such drinking is not really satisfying because of our underlying fear, which keeps us frozen and parched. The softening is only temporary and superficial; underneath, we’re still thirsty and yearning for satisfaction.

  Some of the more intelligent ice cubes seek other ways out of their miserable lives. Noticing their sharp edges and their difficulties in meeting one another, they’ll try to be nice and cooperative. That helps somewhat; still, an ice cube is an ice cube, and the basic sharpness remains.

  A lucky few, however, may meet an ice cube that has actually melted and become a puddle. What happens if an ice cube meets a puddle? The warmer water in the puddle begins to melt the ice cube. Thirst is less and less of a problem. The ice cube begins to realize that it does not have to be hard, rigid, and cold; there is another way to be in the world. The ice cube learns how to create its own heat, by the simple process of observation. The fire of attention begins to melt its hardness. Observing how it bumps into others and causes hurt, seeing its own sharp edges, the ice cube begins to realize how cold and rigid it has been. A strange thing begins to happen. As ice cubes begin to notice their own activities, to observe their “ice cubeness,” they become softer and mushier, and their understanding grows, simply by observing what they are.

  The results are contagious. Suppose that two ice cubes are married. Each is protecting itself and trying to change the other. But neither can really change or “fix” the other, since they both are rigid and hard, with sharp edges. If one ice cube begins to melt, however, the other ice cube—if it gets close at all—has to begin to melt also. And it, too, begins to gain some wisdom and insight. Instead of seeing the other ice cube as the problem, it begins to be aware of its own ice cubeness. Both learn that the witness, the awareness of one’s own activity, is like a fire. The fire cannot be stoked by effort; one cannot try to melt oneself. The melting is the work of the witness, which in one sense is nothing at all and in another sense is everything—“Not I, but my Father in me,” as Christ said. The awareness, the witness within, is “the Father”—which is what we truly are. In order to allow the witness to do its work, however, we must not be caught up in stiffening and hardening ourselves, throwing our weight around, bumping into others and trying to change
them. If we do these things, we must be aware so that the witness can do its work.

  Some ice cubes begin to get the idea and do the necessary work. They may even get a little mushy. The first thing I notice about Zen students who are practicing is that their faces

  change. They’re softer. They laugh differently. They get a little mushy. But the work is difficult, and some ice cubes, even as they begin to soften, get sick of the process. They say, “I just want to go back to being a comfortable ice cube. True, it’s lonely and cold, but at least I didn’t feel so much distress. I just don’t want to be aware anymore.” The truth is, however, that once one softens and becomes a bit mushy, one can’t become hard again. You might say that that’s one of “the laws of ice cubes” (with apologies to physics). An ice cube that has become mushy can never forget its mushiness. That’s why I say to people, “Don’t practice unless you’re ready for the next stage.” We can’t go back. Once we start to practice, once we’re a little mushy, we’re a little mushy, and that’s that. We may think we can return to life as it was before, and we may even try to do it, but we can’t violate the process, the basic “law of ice cubes.” Once we’re a bit mushy, we’re forever a bit mushy.

  Some ice cubes, because they have only a sporadic practice, change only slightly over a lifetime, becoming just a little mushy. Those who truly understand the path and practice diligently, however, actually turn into a puddle. The funny thing about such puddles is that as other ice cubes walk through them, these ice cubes begin to melt and get a little mushy. Even if we only melt slightly, others around us soften, too. It’s a fascinating process.

  Many of my students are mushy. They often hate to go through the process. When we come down to it, however, the work of an ice cube is to melt. When we’re still frozen solid, we think that our work is to go around slamming other ice cubes or being slammed by them. In such a life, no one ever really meets another. Like bumper cars, we hit and bounce off of others, and then pass on. It’s a very lonely and cold life. In fact, what we really want is to melt. We want to be a puddle. Perhaps all that we can say about practice is that we’re learning how to melt. At intervals, we say, “Let me alone. Stay away; just let me be an ice cube.” Once we’ve started to melt at all, however, we can’t forget. Eventually what we are as ice cubes is destroyed. But if the ice cube has become a puddle, is it truly destroyed? We could say that it’s no longer an ice cube, but its essential self is realized.

  The comparison of human life to an ice cube is of course silly. I see people battering one another, however, hoping that by battering others, something will be gained. It never is. Someone has to stop battering and just sit with being an ice cube. We need to just sit and watch, and feel what it’s like to be what we are—really experience that. We can’t do much about the other ice cubes. In fact, it’s not our business to do so. The only thing we can do is more and more to summon that witness. When we turn to the witness, we begin to melt. If we melt, other ice cubes do, too, little by little. Once we’ve begun to melt, it’s perfectly natural to resist the melting, to want to go back to being frozen, trying to control and manipulate all the other frozen creatures we meet. I never worry about that, because for anyone who’s been practicing for a while, there’s too much knowing. We can’t become rigid again, because deep within us, we know something we didn’t know before. We can’t go back.

  The next time we speak sharply or complain or try to fix others or analyze them, we’re playing a futile ice cube game. Such efforts just don’t work. What works is to cultivate the witness, which is always there, though we can’t see it if we’re busy banging other ice cubes. Even though we may not allow space in our lives for the witness, it’s always there. It’s who we are. Though we all often try to avoid it, we can’t.

  As we become softer, we find that to be a puddle attracts a lot of other ice cubes. Sometimes even the puddle would rather be an ice cube. The more like a puddle we become, the more work there is to be done. A puddle acts as a magnet for the ice cubes that want to melt. So as we begin to drip more, we attract more work to ourselves—and that’s fine.

  STUDENT : I like the analogy because when the puddle is clear it contains the whole in the reflection. Could you talk more about how the witness is born?

  JOKO : The witness is always there. But as long as an ice cube can’t see anything to do except to bump other ice cubes, or to avoid them, it’s as though the witness can’t function. There has to be a change in the ice cube to allow it to become aware of its own activity. As long as our total awareness is turned to what the other ice cubes are doing, the witness can’t appear, even though it’s always present. When we begin to see, “Oh, the problem isn’t with the other ice cubes. I guess I have to look at myself,” the witness automatically appears. We begin to realize that the problem is not “out there”; it’s always here.

  STUDENT : In the ice cube state, I can entertain the delusion that nothing can get in or out, so I’m protected. When the mushiness starts, however, then it dawns on me that everything interpenetrates—including pollution, war, hopelessness, and so forth. The insight into this interpenetration can be frightening and discouraging. Could you talk about the fear and the other emotional states that arise when one is between being an ice cube and a puddle?

  JOKO : It’s true, the intermediary stage of being mushy involves a lot of fear and resistance. In a way, being an ice cube works, or seems to work. It’s just that the ice cube is lonely and thirsty. When we’re mushy, we’re more vulnerable to others. If we don’t see what’s happening, we experience more fear. So that mushy stage, which is the beginning of the melting, is always accompanied by resistance, by fear of having the world rush in on us. We want to stiffen ourselves up again, because we’re beginning to have demands put upon us that we don’t know how to handle. The demands may be unwelcome. Our resistance will attempt to solidify itself. Still, the resistance can’t last.

  People sometimes tell me, “I’ve been practicing six months, and everything in my life is worse.” Before practice, they had the illusion of knowing who they were. Now, they are confused and that doesn’t feel good—it may feel terrible. But it’s absolutely necessary. Unless we realize this fact, we may become totally discouraged. Practice is sometimes most unpleasant. The idea that everything feels steadily better, onward and upward, is quite untrue.

  STUDENT: When I first started sitting, it was like being dead from the neck down. I felt just like the ice cube you described: a head on top, feet on the bottom, and a walking, dead computer in between. Practice has released a lot of feeling in me; for example, I have done a great deal of crying, which feels like melting down into a puddle.

  JOKO : Good. In most of my students, I observe melting going on. It’s often not pleasant, but in a way it’s wonderful, too. We sense that we’re becoming more truly who we really are. There’s always resistance, too. The two go hand in hand. People think resistance is something terrible. It’s the very nature of practice to resist. It’s not something extra.

  STUDENT : Does being a mother tend to make one mushy? I would think that mothers have to open up to their children and that would tend to melt the ice cube.

  JOKO : Being a mother can be excellent training. Still, I’ve known mothers who were pretty good ice cubes, including myself at one time.

  The Castle and the Moat

  As long as I’ve been teaching, I’ve met very few people who weren’t in some degree immersed in what they regarded as a problem. It’s as though our lives are buried under a deep, thick cloud, or as though we are in a dark room, wrestling with our nemesis. When we’re caught up in this struggle, we shut out the world. Frankly, we don’t have any time for it, because we’re busy with our worries. Our only concern is to solve our problem. We don’t see through the illusion, which is that the problem we are preoccupied with is not the real problem. I hear any number of variations: “I’m so lonely,” “Life is empty and meaningless,” “I have everything, but still…,” and many more. W
e don’t see that our surface problem is merely the tip of the iceberg. In fact, what we think of as our problem is really a pseudoproblem.

  It doesn’t feel that way to us, of course. For example, if I’m married and my husband suddenly walks out on me, I certainly don’t think that’s a pseudoproblem. It will take a long time for me to see that what I am calling my problem isn’t the real one. Yet the real problem is not the part we can easily see, sticking up in the air; it is the part of the iceberg under the water. For one person, the iceberg could be a pervasive belief that “I have to control everything”; for another, it may be “I have to do things perfectly.” But in truth I can’t control the world by being very helpful, I can’t control it by being helpless, I can’t control it with my charm or success or aggressiveness; I can’t control it with my blandness or my sweetness or my drama of being the victim. Underneath the presenting problem is a more fundamental pattern that we must become acquainted with. That underlying problem is a chronic, pervasive attitude toward life, an ancient decision arising from our childish fears. If we fail to see it, and instead stay lost in trying to handle the pseudoproblem that presents itself, we remain blind to people and events.