Nothing Special: Living Zen Read online

  Only when our blind approach to life begins to fail do we begin to have a faint inkling that our pseudoproblem is a gloomy castle in which we are imprisoned. The first step in any practice is to know that we’re imprisoned. Most people have no inkling: “Oh, everything’s fine with me.” Only when we begin to recognize that we’re imprisoned can we begin to find a door and leave the prison. We have awakened enough that we know that we’re in a prison.

  It’s as if my problem is a dark, forbidding castle, surrounded by water. I find myself a little boat, and I begin to row away. As I row away, I look back at the castle. It’s becoming smaller in my sight as I get some distance from it. The moat is enormous, but finally I cross it to the other shore. Now when I look back at the castle, it looks very small. Because it has receded, it no longer has the interest it once had for me. So I begin to pay more attention to where I am right now. I look at the water, the trees, and the birds. Perhaps there are people out boating on the water, enjoying the fresh air. One day as I’m enjoying the scene, I look over to where the castle was, and it’s gone.

  Practice is like the process of rowing across the moat. First, we’re caught in our particular pseudoproblem. At some point, however, we realize that what seemed to be the problem is not the problem after all—that our problem is something much deeper. A light begins to dawn. We’re able to find a door to the outside and get some distance or perspective on our struggles. The problem may still overshadow us, like an enormous gloomy castle, but at least we’re outside it and looking up at it. As we begin to row away, the water may be choppy and rough, making our rowing difficult. A storm may even throw us back against the shore, so that we can’t get away for a while. Still, we keep trying, and at some point we put some distance between

  ourselves and the gloomy castle. We begin to enjoy life outside that castle a little bit. Eventually we may enjoy life enough that the castle itself now seems to be just another piece of debris floating in the water, no more important than anything else.

  What is your castle? What is your pseudoproblem? And what is the iceberg underneath, the deeper problem that runs your life? The castle and the iceberg are one and the same. What are they for you? The answer is different for each person. If we begin to see that the current problem that upsets us is not the real issue in our lives, but merely a symptom of a deeper pattern, then we’re beginning to know our castle. When we know it well enough, we’re beginning to find our way out.

  We might ask why we remain imprisoned in the castle. We remain imprisoned because we don’t recognize the castle or how to win our freedom. The first step in practice is always to see and acknowledge our castle or prison. People are imprisoned in many different ways. For example, one castle can be the constant pursuit of an exciting and vibrant life, full of new things and enjoyment. People who live in this way are stimulating but hard to be around. So living in a castle doesn’t necessarily mean a life of worry, anxiety, and depression. The more subtle prisons don’t look like this at all. The more successful we are in the outer world, the harder it may be to see the castle that imprisons us. Success is fine in itself; yet if we don’t know ourselves, it can be a prison. I’ve known people who were world famous in their fields, and who were nevertheless imprisoned in their own castle. Such persons come into practice only when something begins to break down in their life—though outward success often makes the disintegration harder to recognize and acknowledge. When real cracks appear in the castle wall, we may begin to investigate our lives. The first years of practice are coming to know the castle where we are imprisoned and beginning to find the rowboat. The journey across the moat may be tortuous, especially at the beginning. We may encounter storms and high seas as we separate ourselves from our dream of how we are and how we think our life should be.

  Only one thing accomplishes this journey for us: awareness of what’s going on. The ability to maintain awareness when pseudoproblems come up gradually grows through practice, though not effort. When events occur that we don’t like, we create pseudoproblems and get caught in them: “You insulted me! Of course, I’m angry!” “I’m so lonely. Nobody really cares about me.” “I’ve had a hard life. I’ve been abused.” Our journey isn’t finished (and perhaps in a human lifetime it is never completely finished) until we see there is no castle and no problem. The expanse of water we cross in our boat is always just as it is. How could there be a problem? My “problem” is that I don’t like it. I don’t like it, I don’t want it that way, life doesn’t suit me. So out of my opinions, reactions, and judgments I build a castle in which I imprison myself.

  Practice helps me to understand this process. Instead of losing myself in an upset, I notice my thoughts and the contraction in my body. I begin to see that the incident that upset me is not the real problem; instead, my upset arises out of my particular way of looking at life. I pick this apart and begin to demolish my dream. Bit by bit, I gain some perspective. My rowboat moves away from the castle I have built, and I am no longer so caught.

  The longer we practice, the more quickly we move through this process each time it arises. The work is slow and discouraging at first, but as our understanding and skill increase, it moves faster, and we come to see that there is no problem. We may develop ill health, we may lose what little money we have; yet there is no problem.

  But we don’t see life that way. The minute something is thrown up that we don’t like, from our point of view we have a problem. So Zen practice isn’t about adjusting to the problem. It is seeing that there isn’t any. It is a very different road than most of us are used to. Most of us simply try to fix up the castle, instead of seeing through it and finding the moat to separate us from it—which is what practice comes down to.

  The truth is, most of us don’t want to leave the castle. We may not realize it, but we love our problems. We want to stay imprisoned in our constructions, to spin and twist and be the victim, to feel sorry for ourselves. Eventually we may come to see that such a life does not work very well. That’s when we may begin looking for the moat. Even then, we continue to fool ourselves, seeking solutions that leave the castle intact and keep us imprisoned. For example, if a relationship seems to be the problem, we may jump into another relationship rather than discovering the underlying issue, which is our fundamental decision about life, the castle we have constructed.

  “I’ve got a broken leg.” “I’m upset with my girlfriend.” “My parents don’t understand me.” “My son is into drugs.” And so on. What is it right now that separates us from life and prevents us from seeing things as just being as they are? Only when life is appreciated in all its moments can we say that we know something about the religious life.

  Understanding is the key. Still, it takes lots of practice to begin to understand what I am describing, and it takes courage to venture out across the moat and move away from the castle. So long as we stay in the castle, we can feel important. It takes endless training and skill to cross that moat quickly and efficiently. We’re not very willing to leave the castle. If we’re terribly depressed, depression is nevertheless what we know; heaven forbid that we should abandon our depression. It’s frightening to get out in our little boat and leave behind all the things we have called our life. Imprisoned in the castle, we’re caught in a constricted, small space. Our life is dark and gloomy, whether we realize it or not. Luckily, freedom (our true self) never ceases to call us.

  STUDENT : It seems to me that there is no way to get into that boat and begin crossing the moat until the magic of practice has been taking place for months, or maybe a year.

  JOKO: Some people come into practice when their lives are falling apart and their personal dream is failing. Such people are often ready to begin demolishing the castle. For others, the process happens more slowly. The process of sitting brings our personal castle under attack; before long, we begin to see cracks in it, even if before it seemed solid. We become aware—perhaps with shock—of that first rift.

  STUDENT: If a problem fee
ls like a problem, isn’t it a real problem? What makes it a false problem?

  JOKO : Suppose someone I love has been assigned to work in Europe for two years, but my responsibilities keep me here. That looks like a problem to me. My life has been entwined with this person, and I’m very unhappy with the separation. From my personal point of view, that’s a real problem; yet from the point of view of life itself, my lover is simply in Europe, and I’m simply here. Period. The only “problem” is my opinion about it.

  STUDENT: Are you saying not to do something about it, to just passively accept whatever happens?

  JOKO : No, not at all; that’s not the point. If I have an option to move to Europe to be with my lover, and if that’s okay for all concerned, fine. But often we find ourselves in situations that we can’t do anything about. We can’t always remake the world to fit our preferences. Practice helps us to deal with things as they are, and not add anything onto that.

  STUDENT: How do we discover what our castle is? What is the strategy?

  JOKO : The key is to notice what makes us upset. The castle is constructed from personally centered emotion. What are some examples of being upset?

  STUDENT: Anger; somebody says something I don’t like.

  STUDENT: Depression.

  JOKO: Depression is usually a sign that life is not going the way we want.

  STUDENT: Jealousy. I don’t like the way he’s looking at her.

  STUDENT: Resentment, because I did everything and they didn’t appreciate me.

  JOKO: That’s a common one in parents: “I did everything for you, and what thanks do I get? I gave you the best years of my life!”

  Every castle involves a personal agenda. The castle may be built on what seems a noble intention, yet conceal self-centered thoughts. For example, working for the homeless may be the way we prove to ourselves and others that we are good people, that we are caring. (The question is not whether we should help the homeless, but why we do it.)

  STUDENT : Can something that brings us happiness be part of the castle? For example, if we listen to beautiful music as a way of coping with upset?

  JOKO: Yes, if the music is used as an escape, it’s part of the castle.

  STUDENT: To the persons who live in them, castles always look as if they’re based in reality, right?

  JOKO : Yes, but they’re not. Our deep decision that this is the way life is creates the castle. Whenever that decision is questioned in any way, our castle will shake.

  STUDENT: The decision we have made stems from some experience we’ve had in the past, right?

  JOKO: Yes, though we may not remember that experience.

  STUDENT: Can we have more than one castle? Or does each person live in one general castle?

  JOKO : Most people live in just one castle, but with a lot of rooms. For most people, the castle arises from one basic deci sion about life, though that decision can show up in many different ways. We have to discover the various ways we play out our decision; we have to know our castle well.

  STUDENT: Knowing our castle means becoming aware of tension in our body?

  JOKO : Yes—and seeing and labeling our thoughts. As we do this, we slowly unlock the door to the castle and find our way to the boat that takes us across the moat. It’s a gradual process: there’s no sharp dividing line. And we don’t leave our castle once and for all. Sometimes it will seem very distant—and then something comes up that we haven’t seen through—and we’re right back in the castle. Nobody fully knows every room in the castle.

  STUDENT : The analogy of the castle and the moat is helpful, but I know that the minute I stop sitting and go back to the rest of my life, I’ll lose my clarity.

  JOKO : The point of sitting and the point of a talk like this is to clarify the problems we meet when we return to the rest of our lives and help us to deal with them. With good practice, that ability does increase over time. It’s true that we can easily get sucked back into our old patterns. In itself, a talk like this can do nothing; the only thing that counts is what people do with it. Can we look frankly at our areas of upset and watch ourselves being upset? Can we get some perspective? That’s the point of the moat: to look back to the castle and see it more clearly. Though it sounds easy, it’s monumentally difficult, especially in the beginning. The difficulty is not a bad thing; that’s just the way it is.

  STUDENT: Would you say that the castle is one’s whole personality? Or just one’s particular opinions and personal agenda?

  JOKO : Personality suggests a rigid or permanent inner structure. Our personality is the strategy we have devised to cope with life. In this sense, the castle is our personality. As we sit

  over time, dominant features of our personality fade. In those who have been sitting well for a long time, personality tends to disappear and leave openness. In a sense, the more we sit, the less personality we have.

  STUDENT: I’ve known you for many years, and you seem to have more personality now than you’ve ever had.

  JOKO : Over time, good practice does make us more responsive to what’s going on. Instead of an unvarying response, however, we respond more freely in a way that fits the situation. Practice enhances our ability to respond appropriately. Personality no longer gets in the way.

  V

  AWARENESS

  The Paradox of Awareness

  When we’re sitting, it’s important to maintain absolute stillness as much as possible: to be aware of the tongue in its space, the eyeballs, the fidgeting of the fingers. When they do move, it’s important to be aware of the movement. When we want to think, our eyeballs will move. We have very subtle ways of escaping from ourselves. Absolute stillness is for us a restrictive and unpleasant directive. It is for me. When I have been sitting for a number of periods, I want to do something, adjust something, take care of something. We should not be stiff or tight, but simply maintain stillness as much as we can. To be simply what we are is the last thing we want to do.

  We all have great desires: for comfort, for success, for love, for enlightenment, for buddhahood. As the desires come up, we strain, trying to shift life into something other than what it is. So the last thing we want to do is to be still. In absolute stillness, we become aware of our unwillingness to be what we are, this very second. And that’s extremely annoying; we simply don’t want to do it. Master Rinzai said, “Do not spend even one thought in chasing after buddhahood.” That means to be ourselves as we are, in each moment, moment by moment. It’s all we ever need to do, but the human desire is to chase something. What are some of the things we chase after as we sit?

  STUDENT: Comfort.

  STUDENT: Trying to stop thinking.

  JOKO: We’re trying to stop thinking instead of being aware of our thinking.

  STUDENT: Having some sort of intense body experience, an altered state of consciousness.

  STUDENT: Peace.

  STUDENT: To be more awake, less sleepy. Or to get rid of anger: “As soon as I get rid of this anger, I’ll be closer to buddhahood.”

  JOKO : Or we may remember some stretch of time when things felt good, and we’re trying to regain that feeling. If we don’t have one thought of chasing after buddhahood, what would we be doing?

  STUDENT: Not clinging.

  JOKO: Not clinging, and being willing to be…

  STUDENT: Who we are and where we are.

  JOKO : Yes—who we are and where we are, right here and right now. When we sit, we’re willing to do that for about three seconds; then almost immediately the desire to move, to fidget, to think, to do something is there.

  In simplest terms, there are two kinds of practices. One is to try to steadily improve ourselves. We raise our energy. We eat better. We purify ourselves in some way. We force ourselves to have a clear mind. People think that enlightenment is the result of such efforts, but it’s not. Of course, it’s good to eat rightly, to exercise, to do what will make us healthier. And this effort to improve our lives, to follow a path that will lead us somewhere, can pro
duce people who seem to be very saintly, very calm, very impressive.

  From the point of view of the second kind of practice, however, this notion of making ourselves into something different and better is nonsense. Why? Because being just as we are, we’re fine. Since how we are doesn’t feel fine, however, we are confused, upset, angry. The statement that we’re fine just as we are doesn’t make any sense to us.

  We can make the point in another way. If we’re aware of our thoughts, they tend to disappear. We can’t be aware of thinking without thinking beginning to shut down, to fade away. A thought is simply a little blip of energy, but we add to the thought our conditioned beliefs, and we try to hold on to them. When we look at our thoughts with impersonal awareness, they disappear. When we look at a person, however, does she disappear? No, she remains. And that’s the difference between reality and the illusory view of reality that we have when we live in our thoughts: when truly looked at, one remains, and one vanishes. The personal version of life just dissolves. What we want is simply to be a life that’s real. That’s different from a life that is saintly.

  All of us are drawn by the first kind of practice: we want to become other than we are. We think that when we sit sesshin, we’re making ourselves over into something that is improved. Even when we know better, the desire is deep in us to want something other than just what’s here. We don’t have to get rid of our thoughts; we just need to keep looking at them, looking at them, looking at them. If we do, they fade into nothing. Anything that fades into nothing isn’t very real. But reality doesn’t disappear just by being looked at.