Who is Keizan Zenji?

The Sotoshu - the institution of Soto Zen based in Japan - observe September 29th as Ryosoki, or Two Ancestors / Founders Memorial Day. To mark this, I am re-posting something that's fallen off the old StoneWater Zen site blog (but was fortunately preserved on the Zen Forum International boards).

Who is Keizan Zenji?

Each week, after chanting together the Identity of Relative and Absolute, we dedicate the merits of that chanting to our dharma ancestors. I'm not comfortable with just chanting the names mindlessly, so I thought I'd do some reading around and find out a little more... and then inflict it on you! I wanted to start with Keizan Jokin (1268-1325), because of all the figures we recall during the service, he seems to have been most unduly overlooked.

The dedication goes:

In reciting the Identity of Relative and Absolute, we dedicate its merits to:
The Great Master Shakyamuni Buddha
Bodhidharma
Daikan Eno
Tozan Ryokai
Eihei Dogen
Keizan Jokin
All successive ancestors through
Koun Taizan
And to all women lineage holders whose names have been lost or forgotten.
May we appreciate their benevolence and show our gratitude by accomplishing the Buddha Way together.

If I just chant these names without knowing who I'm talking about, the ceremony becomes ossified and meaningless for me -- and the form, the ritual, if you will the liturgical aspects of our practice are so important in allowing me to actualise my practice in a communal and active way.

So who was Keizan Jokin to merit a mention in this august list? Of course we owe a debt to each of these old Indian, Chinese and Japanese men (and the women who have been edited out), but Keizan's role in the establishment of Soto Zen in Japan in the thirteenth and fourteenth century stands alongside the greatness of Dogen Zenji's remarkable achievements and writings. The Soto Zen institution in Japan, the Sotoshu, actually have an official slogan to illustrate how important Keizan is: "One school, Two founders." Keizan's role is equal, in the Sotoshu's eyes at least, to that of Dogen, but our Western discourses on the history of Zen usually overlook Keizan to a certain extent.

Keizan Zenji (left), Dogen Zenji (right)

Life of Keizan (Refs 1,2,3)

Keizan (or Taiso Josai Daishi as he was otherwise known) was born to a seriously Buddhist mother who was devoted to Kannon Boddhisattva. The story goes that she dedicated her son to the Buddha before he was even born, and whether this is true or not, we do know that he started to practice Zen at eight years of age, and became a monk at thirteen.

Keizan lived a little after Dogen -- when he received dharma transmission from his master Gikai at the age of 32, he was in the fourth generation of successors to Dogen. Keizan was not really in the running to succeed as head of the Soto school, or even (which amounted to the same thing) to be considered for the abbacy of the chief Soto temple Eiheiji which had been founded by Dogen. However, there was a falling out at Eiheiji, with four monks claiming to be the true successor. One of Keizan's greatest achievement was the establishing of a second "main" temple, Sojiji, which for a long time overshadowed Eiheiji in importance, which changed the dynamics of the young Soto establishment forever.

Keizan's influence on the Soto sect seems always to be described as a counterpoint to Dogen: where Dogen was strict, Keizan was compassionate, Dogen's gaze was internal while Keizan's focus was external, and so on. This creative tension rings through the ages, echoing our own practice lives as clearly now as it must have then. Japanese scholar Prof. Masunaga Reiho wrote:

...Soto Zen was established by the stern, fatherly character of Dogen, and the compassionate motherly character of Keizan. The Soto Sect was founded by Dogen, but consolidated by Keizan. The profound philosophy of the Soto Zen Sect was built up by Dogen, and clearly explained by Keizan. Dogen educated few disciples, Keizan profited the multitude. In the Soto Sect the two patriarchs are compared to the two wheels of a cart for, if one is lacking, the other will be of no use in fulfilling its purpose. (Ref 4)

Some other fun facts about Keizan that may resonate: while Dogen was all about the monks, Keizan was very concerned with laypeople too, giving precepts to over 70 lay people just while abbot of Jomanji, prior to receiving dharma transmission from Gikai. This focus on lay people is perhaps why the Soto sect was always the largest of the Japanese Zen schools.

Keizan was also something of a champion of women's rights (in a Japanese medieval sort of a way), actively appointing women as priests and probably paving the way for the establishment of a monastic order for women in Soto Zen.

Last interesting fact: Keizan approved of the use of koans in meditation -- though not to the extent of the Rinzai school, more as an aid to concentration when things aren't going well in your shikantaza!

Prior to his time at Sojiji, Keizan had founded Yokoji temple (hearing some echoes here?!) and established a practice of memorialising Dogen which helped establish the idea of a Soto lineage (ref 5). These memorial ceremonies continue to this day each September 29th (called Ryosoki), but now both of the founders are remembered.

Keizan's writings

Most of us know -- at least by fearsome reputation! -- of Master Dogen's great work, the Shobogenzo, and some of us are fascinated by this incredible text. Dogen also left us the Fukanzazengi (Universal Recommendation of Zazen), a text for beginners, and Keizan added to this with his famous Zazen Yojinki (Points to Watch in Zazen -- two translations linked to in Ref 6). It starts:

Zazen clears up the human-being mind immediately and lets him dwell in his true essence. This is called showing one's natural face and expressing one's real self. It is freedom of body and mind and release from sitting and lying down.
So think neither of good nor on evil. Zazen transcends both the unenlightened and the sage, rises above the dualism of delusion and enlightenment, and crosses over the division of beings and Buddha. Through zazen we break free from all things, forsake myriad relations, do nothing, and stop the working of the six sense organs.

While the Zazen Yojinki is definitely the more accessible text, Keizan's major work was undoubtedly the Denkoroku (Transmission of the Light). In it, he discusses the realisations of each of the fifty-one ancestors of the Soto lineage in turn, from the historical Buddha to Dogen's successor Ejo. Like the classic koan collections, each enlightenment story is accompanied by explanatory notes, a teisho by Keizan and a capping verse. For instance, of Bodhidharma's awakening, he writes:

If you have any penetration at all into this koan then you will see just how profound it all is and that it gets more and more so. Break up this "mind" and let go of this "body." Just deeply question into the Way and through the subtle transmission of the Awakened Ones you will directly meet for yourself what the Buddhas have realized. Don't think that your little understandings and insights are all that there is...
Nothing is located anywhere:
no boundary
and no outside.
Is there even
the slightest thing?

Hmmm some food for thought (or no-thought) there! The Denkoroku is one of the great classics of Zen literature and is probably a must-read at some point for the serious zazenka.

Reflections

When I first started to read about Keizan for this little project, I thought perhaps I'd find a bit of biography and an anecdote or two about some long-dead Asian monk. Instead, I've found a neat reflection of some of the great dichotomies that I feel as a Zen practitioner in our own modern world. The tensions between wisdom and compassion, between tradition and innovation, between lay and monastic lives, all have really hit home for me.

It occurs to me to ask why I didn't know more about this before? Why do we overlook Keizan the way we do? What does it say about us as Western practitioners? Or, as our own Keizan Scott Sensei keeps saying, make it personal: what does it say about me?

For me, Dogen more comfortably meets my projections of what a Zen ancestor should be like: his wisdom is layered and inscrutable, his meaning must be worked for, his practice is hard and unrelenting, his journeys far and unforgiving. Dōgen reminds me of what my fantasies of Zen are, he's an inspiration and a fascination, but also somehow unobtainable.

Keizan's concerns are more rooted in the daily life of a community of practitioners that he joined as a junior and grew up through. Somehow I can imagine Keizan picking his nose -- not so his co-founder! Having done a bit of research, the spirit of Keizan feels more embodied in our own group (that my own teacher shares a name with him would seem far-fetched and overly convenient if this were fiction!), in our trying to establish a way of manifesting a living Zen in our very real world with all of its concerns and distractions.

Closing comment from Keizan himself:

In perfect ease go, stay, sit and lie down. Seeing, hearing, understanding and knowing are all the natural display of the Actual Nature. From first to last, mind is mind, beyond any arguments about knowledge and ignorance. Just do zazen with all of who and what you are. Never stray from it or lose it. (Ref 7)

References

1. Wikipedia entry on Keizan Jokin - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keizan_Jokin
2. Soto Zen official website - http://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/eng/keizan_zenji.html
3. Heinrich Dumoulin et al. (2005). Zen Buddhism: A History. - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hfMkpD_Xr3sC
4. Zen in Daily Life (Zenki.com). - http://www.zenki.com/index.php?lang=en&page=aboutKeizan
5. Bodiford (2006). "Remembering Dogen." - http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/DogenStudies/Remembering_Dogen.html
6. http://www.zenki.com/index.php?lang=en&page=Keizan01 and http://www.wwzc.org/translations/zazenYojinki.htm
7. Sankon Zazen Setsu (Three Kinds of Zen Practitioners), translated by Yasuda Joshu Dainen Roshi and Anzan Hoshin Roshi. - http://www.wwzc.org/translations/sankonZazen.htm

September Saturday cancelled

The usual "2nd Saturday of the month" event is cancelled this month as I'll be away for the whole weekend. Will try to be extra awesome in October to make up for it!

Zazen

No texture in the carpet
No pain in the knees
No flickering candlelight
No scent of sandalwood

Empty cushion

Instructions for Shikantaza

It's hard to give concise, clear instructions for shikantaza. Part of this is because I think we all have to find our own way into shikantaza; to become familiar enough with our own internal worlds that we can arrive at our own understanding of what is meant by hishiryo (non-thinking, as opposed to not thinking).

Koun Franz

Dogen's instructions are found in the text called Fukanzazengi, which translates as something like, "A universal recommendation for the practice of zazen", and it's where the reference to hishiryo comes from. You can find a good translation at the Sotoshu's own website (the Sotoshu is the Soto Zen institution in Japan), another with commentary is at terebess.hu/zen/dogen/Fukanzazengi.pdf.

I've always liked the relative straightforwardness and this text, but the question of "What do you do with your mind during shikantaza" is no more clearly answered here than anywhere. This was all brought to mind today when I came across a set of instructions for shikantaza from Zen teacher Koun Franz which really struck me. They've got some of the straightforwardness of the Fukanzazengi, but also a poetry of the Absolute to them as well that I think highlights the futility of a paint-by-numbers approach to shikantaza.

It starts:

Choose this place.

Whenever you can, sit with others. When you can’t, sit with others. Let others sit with you.

Wear the kashaya [kesa / rakusu]. Just as Buddhas sit in zazen while zazen is the activity of Buddhas, Buddhas wear the kashaya -- the kashaya manifests the shape of a Buddha. Even if there is no robe, just wear it.

Do not put yourself into sitting -- come empty handed. Do not make zazen -- let sitting reveal itself. Do not use zazen for this or that -- sitting is neither means nor end.

...and it finishes:

Zazen is not non-doing; it is not non-thinking. Zazen is a deep, dreamless sleep on fire. It is clutching a boulder to your belly at the bottom of the cool ocean. Roots penetrate and plunge downward into the rough textures of the earth. A cloud dissolves into open sky.

Stirring stuff! Perhaps not ideal instruction for beginners, but for those who've had a sniff of the Way, who are struggling to pin down what this shikantaza thing is, a wonderful flavour of the mundane and the sublime which together make up both shikantaza and every moment.

You can find the whole text at nyoho.com/2013/04/07/an-attempt-at-instructions-for-zazen.

Friends along the Way

Last week, I received a wonderful email from Clive Lindley-Jones, who attended the one-day retreat last month. In it, he referred to some of the qualities of the StoneWater sangha that I have long treasured - warmth, openness and kindness.

Keizan Sensei insists on the basic goodness of human beings, and it's been wonderful over the years to see this basic goodness manifesting in the StoneWater group. I always worried slightly that perhaps it was a fluke - that just by chance the few Zen groups I've had any prolonged contact with have all been welcoming and warm: most especially StoneWater, where the sense of sangha, community, friendship is palpable. And as a consequence, I worried too that in starting the Northampton group, my own shortcomings might end up meaning that the group ends up lacking those things.

How self-centered of me! I've been so grateful to the Northampton group for continuing the fluke, for manifesting that basic goodness here, too.

Clive attached an article to his email from Lion's Roar. It's a piece called, "Friends along the Way" by Zoketsu Norman Fischer (a wonderful teacher whose talks and writings are always well worth taking time over), and I want to beg your indulgence and reproduce the opening paragraphs of that article here.

The Quakers with whom I have contact about renting space etc often end their emails, "In Friendship" - and that's how I offer this to you!

Friends along the Way
Zoketsu Norman Fischer
Lion's Roar - May 2016

Once the Buddha's disciple Ananda asked him about friendship. Ananda knew that having good and encouraging friends was very important for the path. He even wondered whether having good friends was half the path.

"No, Ananda," the Buddha told him, "having good friends is the whole of the Holy Life."
The Meghiya Sutta is my favourite Pali text about friendship. It tells the story of the eager young monk Meghiya, who wanted to practice meditation alone in an especially peaceful and beautiful mango grove. But Meghiya's meditation was anything but peaceful and beautiful. To his shock, he found his mind a snarl of malicious, lustful and confused thoughts – probably because his practice was too self-involved. When Meghiya rushed back to report his confusing experience, Buddha was not surprised. He took the opportunity t give Meghiya what his must have hoped was a relevant teaching.

"Five things induce release of hear and lasting peace," the Buddha told him. "First, a lovely intimacy with good friends. Second, virtuous conduct. Third, frequent conversation that inspires and encourages practice. Fourth, diligence, energy and enthusiasm for the good. And fifth, insight into impermanence."

Then, for Meghiya's further benefit, and to cement the point, the Buddha goes through the list again, this time preceding each of the other items with the first: "When there is a lovely intimacy between friends, then this is virtuous conduct," et cetera. In other words, friendship is the most important element in the spiritual path. Everything flows naturally from it.

I appreciate the truth and beauty of this teaching more and more as the years go by. To be able to practice with good friends for five, ten, twenty, thirty of forty years is a special joy.  So much comes of it. As you ripen and age, you appreciate the nobility and uniqueness of each friend, the twists and turns of each life, and the gift each day has given you. After a while you begin attending the funerals of your dearest friends, and each loss seems to increase the gravity and preciousness of your own life and makes the remaining friendship even more important.

When long friendships with good people along the path of spiritual practice is a central feature of your life, it is almost impossible – just as the Buddha says – for spiritual qualities conducive to awakening not to ripen. For those on the bodhisattva path, loving and appreciating your friends, even when they are difficult, as they sometimes are, is the path's fullness and completion. Friendship ripens and deepens our capacity for compassion.

Meetup.com group now closed

So that was an interesting experiment - we ran the meetup.com group for just over a year, and had quite a few people come through the door... but hardly anyone came for more than one visit, and in the end it was just costing too much money with seemingly little effect.

For anyone who did use the Meetup.com group to keep up-to-date with the Zen group, my apologies... I'll be maintaining this website of course, and I hope you'll find everything you need here.

I'm always curious about how best to promote the Zen group... how do you let people know it's there, that it's an option, and about what Zen is... but not come across as some sort of zealot or missionary?! My next plan is to try a Facebook group - the national StoneWater sangha has a Facebook presence at www.facebook.com/stonewaterzensangha, which has a few hundred 'followers'. For those of you who might be interested in the ongoing saga of promoting a Zen group in a town that doesn't seem too interested in Zen, I'll keep you updated :-)

Day of Zen - report back

Well, all done now - seems to have been a great success. Not that we had hordes of people attending (perhaps more notice from me might have helped!), but those who came were sincere and committed and we had a wonderful day of practice together.

Thanks to you all - with special thanks to those who brought food for our lunch, or helped out beforehand with planning (especially Simon).

In the end we had to clear out of the venue in a bit of a rush, so I didn't manage to take a photo of the venue or of us... so here's a silly drawing of the space we sat in, in front of the hall's stage curtains!

Day of Zazen - Update

Just to add some further details about this weekend's zazenkai. As mentioned previously, we'll be at the Collingtree Village Hall, and we'll be running from 9.30am to 4.00pm. The dress is informal (rakusus if you have them, but not robes) - loose, comfortable clothes in dark / neutral (non-distracting) colours. If you have your own stools / cushions / mats, please bring those along, but we do have some equipment for those without their own kit.

Costs - we're asking for £20 for the day, or £15 for concessions (or whatever you can afford). Included is a vegetarian lunch - we don't have much flexibility in food options, if you have specific dietary/medical needs you may want to bring a packed lunch just in case.

To find the venue: point your satnav to NN4 0NE; the village hall is across from the pub (Wooden Walls of Old England - v quaint pub name!). Or... going up the A45 from the M1 junction, take the first exit off at the Hilton Hotel which is only about a quarter of a mile from the M1 roundabout. Pass the Hilton entrance, and about a third of a mile later you get to High Street, Collingtree. Turn right: the village hall is about 50m along on the left. Park anywhere on the street - might be more parking further down the High Street where it becomes Lodge Ave.

If you need help, call me on 07807 753 781... but remember I'll be turning my phone off shortly after 9.30am!

Collingtree Village Hall

Day of Zazen - 25 June

In addition to our new "Second Saturdays" (including this coming Saturday, 11 June), we'll be having our first zazenkai or day of Zen practice later this month: Saturday 25 June. More info on this on Facebook and on Meetup.com.

Our practice lives are usually built on daily (mostly!) Zen practice at home with weekly or monthly group practice if we're lucky enough to live close to a group that meets up regularly. This is as it should be - regular practice is our absolute bedrock. However it has always been that practitioners are encouraged to spend some more substantial periods of time in practice, removing ourselves from the busy-ness of our regular lives and purposefully making space for more intense practice.

The schedule of retreats that the StoneWater Zen Sangha run are, of course, ideal for this, especially the two annual retreats at Little Crosby where for 5 or 6 days we adopt a strict monastic timetable and live in community outside of our regular lives.

A half-way house to this commitment is a zazenkai or Zen practice day, a commitment to practice single-mindedly for a day, and I'm really pleased that we're able to offer this opportunity for the first time through SWZ Northampton - hopefully the first of many to come.

I'll say more about zazenkai and deepening our practice in a later post - in the meantime, check your diaries and cancel your trip to the in-laws on June 25!

Retreat: The Art of Dying

Zendo @ Lakes centre

Still a few places left for a retreat in the Lake District with Jez Lovekin on surrender to loss and dying. This will be a group-based retreat rather than a traditional sesshin. Jez writes:

“As I see it, we have both the material and the spiritual elements to our lives. The material is one of dualism / gain / form / achievement, and this is how we live our everyday lives. Perfectly normal and nothing wrong with this. The spiritual however, is one of holistic / non-dual / surrendering / emptiness / dying and loss. Nothing wrong with this either. Except we are out of balance and mostly fail to live with loss and dying in our minds.” 

This retreat is about examining surrender and letting go and how it affects us from moment to moment. The requirement is to leave all material behind for five days and this means working in silence (interviews and discussions aside) with no phones, laptops or books. This will be group based and plenty of opportunity to feed back. If this appeals to you sign up. It will be far from grim.

 Details on the StoneWater national site.

Repost - Who is Daikan Eno?

This was posted years ago (2010!) on the StoneWater Zen blog. I keep referring to it, though, so thought I'd re-post here and fix broken links & images etc. Please feel free to ignore this!

I posted this as part of a series of posts detailing the various Zen ancestors named in our regular liturgy. Now that we've updated that list to include some of our female ancestors, keep an eye out for similar posts on the SWZ site about some of them - I suspect they might be a bit short on detail given how little information about his marvellous women has survived.

OK, this one was a bit embarrassing. I decided to figure out who Daikan Eno was, as I had previously written that "Daikan Eno and Tozan Ryokai are the ones I know least about." It turns out, of course, that he is one of the most famous Ancestors of all, the revered Huineng, Sixth (and last) formal Ch’an / Zen ancestor! For some reason, though, we tend to remember him by his Chinese rather than his Japanese name, so I never made the connection.¹ In the words of that great ancestor, Homer Simpson, "Doh!"

I've heard the story of Huineng many times – you know it: the illiterate peasant who wrote the winning entry in the "Succeed the Fifth Ancestor" poetry competition? Yes, you probably do, but I'll rehash it in any case. I'll refer to the Sixth Ancestor as Huineng throughout, as that seems to be the common usage in English.

So then: Who is Daikan Eno? It's Huineng, of course!

Life of Huineng

Even a bit of research reveals the trouble with a biography of Daijan Huineng (Jp. Daikan Eno, 638-713 CE): what we think we know is almost certainly not the truth. For those that haven't come across the term, this neatly illustrates the difference between hagiography and biography. A biography is the story of the life of a person – it can sometimes be quite critical and in many ways tries to evaluate that person's life. A hagiography, on the other hand, is the story of a saint or bodhisattva, and is often focused on their religious or spiritual importance, true or not. The term 'hagiography' actually comes from Christian studies of saints and their miracles. And in the case of Huineng, the biography and the hagiography seem to have very little in common!

Hagiography: Huineng and the ancestral succession

The story that I already knew of Huineng was the story that is recorded in the Platform Sutra, which is attributed to Huineng himself (but see the next section). It is one of the founding myths of the Zen school and can be found in many versions.² Anyone writing about how the Zen school was founded will recount this tale, but please excuse me while I do exactly the same even though I suspect you’ve heard this once or twice before...

Huineng was from Southern China, the illiterate son of a disgraced former government official who died when Huineng was very young. He grew up as, essentially, a peasant, and one day was on his way to sell firewood when he heard someone reciting the Diamond Sutra.  Immediately, he had a great kensho, and soon he set out for the monastery of Hongren (Jp: Daiman Konin, 601 – 674), the Fifth Ancestor of Zen, who was famous for his teachings on the Diamond Sutra. When he got there, Hongren recognised his wisdom, but set him to work at menial tasks for some months, in order not to get the monks riled.

Yuquan Shenxui (606?-706 CE)

In time, Hongren was approaching his end, and needed to secure the succession of the entire Zen patriarchy. Favourite to succeed was the head monk, Shenxiu (Jp: Jinshu, 606?-706). Hongren set a task: in order to be considered for the succession, candidates must present their understanding in a poem. Shenxiu wrote his poem on a corridor wall:

The body is a Bodhi tree,
the mind a standing mirror bright.
At all times polish it diligently,
and let no dust alight.

Huineng heard this poem (remember, he could not read), and immediately realised that the poet had not seen the fundamental nature. He asked another monk to write his response on the same wall:

Daman Hongren (601-674 CE)

Bodhi is fundamentally without any tree;
The bright mirror is also not a stand.
Since all is void,
Where can the dust alight?

Master Hongren saw this response and went to see Huineng while the latter was pounding rice. "Is the rice ready?" asked Hongren in his inscrutable way (and one that would not give the game away to other monks and servants around no doubt). "The rice has been ready for a long time: it only awaits sieving," replied Huineng.³ Hongren, in similarly coded fashion, told him to visit later that night. When Huineng went to see him a bit after midnight, Master Hongren expounded on the Diamond Sutra – the first actual teaching that Huineng received – and upon hearing one particular line ("Responding to the non-abiding, yet generating the mind," if you must know...!), Huineng had a profound enlightenment. Hongren passed to him the robe and the bowl that signified that Huineng was now the sixth generation ancestor of Zen in China (with Bodhidharma having been the first).

The very rice-pounding stone used by Huineng, apparently (source)

Huineng had to flee the monastery in fear of his life, because the other monks were consumed with jealousy. He left and went south, but eventually a monk by the name of Huiming, who had previously been a general before leaving home, caught up to him. Huineng set the robe and the bowl down on a rock and said, "Take them if you can." Huiming tried, but failed to lift them, and then realised just what he'd been trying to do – he’d intended killing the man his master had passed on the bowl and robe to. He fell to his knees and said, "I did not come for the bowl and the robe: I came for the Dharma." Huineng said, "You have come for the dharma: do not think of good or evil. At this time, what is your original face?" The monk was awakened, and recognised Huineng as the new ancestor and as his teacher, and helped him escape.

Huineng wandered China for fifteen years until he felt safe enough to announce himself. When he decided to share his teachings, he went to a certain monastery. As he walked up, he heard two monks arguing about a flag flapping in the wind. "The flag is moving," said one. "No, the wind is moving," insisted the other. Huineng addressed them, and said that neither flag nor wind was moving: it was their minds were moving. The head of the monastery recognised that this must be the inheritor of Hongren's robe and bowl, and after a short 'dharma combat', publically recognised him.

Mummy of Huineng (638 - 713 CE)

Huineng ended up establishing his own monastery, and later died at Nanhua Temple, where his mummified body still sits in zazen posture to this day.

Biography: The missing ancestor

So how much of this is true? Well, we have very little way of knowing! Translator and scholar John McRae, though, in the preface to his translation of thePlatform Sutra, writes that the life of Huineng:

...is almost totally unknown. He probably taught a style of meditation practice based on the idea of sudden enlightenment, but this was really nothing exceptional for his day. Although he lived in Shaozhou in the far south, where he probably came from a locally prominent family (meaning that he was almost certainly not illiterate), he seems to have had cordial relations with other meditation masters. There is no reliable evidence whatsoever that he was designated the sole successor of his teacher, Hongren of Huangmei, or that he received Bodhidharma’s robe and bowl from Hongren.

So where do we get this story from? It turns out that the Platform Sutra may actually have been written by someone else, not Huineng, as part of the efforts of a monk called Shenhui to promote the Southern (Sudden) school of Ch'an over the Northern (Gradual) school. One of the main thrusts of this was painting Shenxiu – the head monk in the Platform Sutra who writes the first verse – as the opponent to Huineng.

Shenxiu we know quite a lot about, as he was one of the major figures of Ch'an Buddhism of the day, and certainly known in the Imperial Court.  For instance we know when he was at the monastery with Hongren – in fact, we know enough to say with confidence that Shenxiu and Huineng were not there at the same time, so the poetry competition could not really have happened as it is portrayed in the Platform Sutra!

Huineng did exist, but almost all we know of him is propaganda. And it worked: the Northern School of Shenxiu died out, and all the extant Zen, Ch'an, Son (Korean) and Thien (Vietnamese) lineages today descend from the Southern School of Huineng. [Or the Southern School of Shenhui, more accurately!]

Is the truth important?

What a strange question. Of course it is. And yet, of course it isn't. The story goes that there is an unbroken mind-to-mind transmission from teacher to student that leads down from the Buddha through the Indian masters, the Chinese Ancestors, the Japanese lineage, down to Maezumi, Tenshin Roshi, Keizan Sensei and to us. However, the more we examine this, the more we see that this cannot be literally true.

How important is this? How much faith can we have in a lineage that we now know to be fictitious? If Huineng was not really the sixth ancestor (OK, that might be overstating things a bit!), and if Bodhidharma didn't really exist at all (more on that in a future post!), then whose lineage are we in? Should we all just give up and join the Theravadins, who have far stronger claims to an unbroken lineage back to the Buddha?

(Obviously I don’t think so or I wouldn't be writing this on a Zen blog!)

Much of this for me comes back to how we as Westerners inherit the Zen tradition, and what we bring to it. One of the ways in which we are changing Zen as we engage with it is by bringing a far more critical eye to the history and legacy of our transmission. I'm grateful that we are not expected to unquestioningly swallow the myths of old, that we are allowed and encouraged to critique our heritage. Additionally, I stand in wonder as I see us continually not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which goes against all my pessimistic expectations of humanity!  The message I hear again and again is: question everything, be critical, but get your arse on the zafu and practice. I think the Buddha himself would have been happy with this message.

Reflections

The story of Huineng is a myth, and it serves some good old mythic purposes – for one, it's a Hero myth, with the young man setting out on an adventure against the odds, receiving help from various teachers along the way including an archetypal Wise Old Man who sees past the external trappings into the Hero's true nature and passes on the secret knowledge. There's even a mythic tale in which Huineng encounters an actual dragon who he tricks and defeats! Eventually after much wandering and conflict, the Hero makes his place in the world and we all live happily ever after.

I'm screeching up on forty and am starting to think of myself as middle-aged (gasp!), so perhaps I'm past that time when hero myths really excite me. For me, there's another lesson here, and it's still about stories, but from a more analytic aspect perhaps.

"The Sixth Founding Teacher Tearing up a Sutra"
by Liangki - Ink on paper, early C13

Narratives are interesting – they are way of stating an identity, telling stories about who we are and how we relate to the world. In my practice and life I've started to become aware of a whole bunch of narratives I employ to build up this creature called ‘Alasdair’. And hopefully through my practice, I'm able to wear away at some of that. Reflecting on the story of Huineng, I discovered that even the ancient institutions of Zen have their own narratives, and if I'm not careful about how I receive and maintain these narratives and teachings, I end up with another layer of stories between me and 'reality', another layer of stuff to grind away at, to wear down until I don’t have anywhere to hang this personal identity on. What has fascinated me is the idea of our founding narratives, and how we hear them, receive and maintain them.  The critical eye of western thought (perhaps our culture's most precious addition to the traditions that we inherit from The Mysterious East) mean that we don't mindlessly accept these stories as 'what really happened', but can address their truth claims a little more lightly. This lighter grasp lets us reflect more on how we think about these matters. For instance, there's a level to this narrative about mistrusting institutions. Master Hongren himself did not trust his own monks not to hunt down the illiterate peasant. How odd, that the founding myth of our institutions should be telling us not to trust institutions. Perhaps our ancestors are more critically aware than I give them credit for.

And there’s a warning in the story about what happens when we fail to hold on lightly to these myths – we might end up like Huiming, the general who ended up chasing Huineng south after the passing over of the bowl & robe, whose aim was to kill Huineng and presumably pass the robe and bowl to Shenxiu.

It wasn't Shenxiu who instigated the mob chasing after Huineng. In the Platform Sutra, he's portrayed as full of doubt and not willing to press the case of the succession, even though the rest of the monastery feels it's a foregone conclusion. No, Shenxiu is beset by worries about his own motivation and achievement, fretting and "unable to rest either sitting or lying down." He actually admits to Hongren that he is unable to be a patriarch, so in a sense this is a compassionate portrayal of a man in crisis (the agenda of the writer is clearly all about dissing the Gradual School here, but we're dealing with the mythic now). No, it's Huiming with his fixed views about who should and shouldn't be Hongren’s successor that cause the problem.

I'm afraid I don't see much of myself in Huineng, often I feel like more like Shenxiu, fretting and vacillating, not sure of my understanding. Sometimes, though, I worry that I'm more Huiming, with a set of fixed opinions that I can't or won't let go of, occasionally end up pursuing some course or another, only to regret it later when Sensei (or my wife, a friend, or even my son!) brings my motivation into question with a carefully-placed word or question. Then I'm unable to pick up the robe when I find it, I can't honestly continue with my mission whatever it might be, I have to come face-to-face with myself and reappraise.

Often it's nothing major, but sometimes perhaps it's my original face I have to come face-to-face with and really delve deep into who I am to see through the bullshit that I'm producing. Otherwise, I'm not able to see past the stories about who I am and even about what Zen is, and I can’t see the ground beneath my feet.

So for me, the interesting point of the story is in some of the supporting figures, not the protagonist (who's drawn in pretty idealised, black-and-white terms), that provide the richness for the tale. Again, I've gone of seeking the ancestors and ending up somewhere unexpected. I sought Huineng, and ended up identifying with Shenxiu and Huiming, the antagonists!

---

Notes, references, etc

Just for clarity, here’s a list of the names (and alternate versions) used in the post above:

JAPANESE	CHINESE		DATES	NOTES
	(WADE GILES SYSTEM)4	(PINYIN SYSTEM)4
DAIMAN KONIN (GUNIN)	TA-MAN HUNG-JEN	DAMANHONGREN	602-675	FIFTH PATRIARCH
DAIKAN ENO	TA-CHIEN HUI-NENG	DAJIANHUINENG	683-713	SIXTH PATRIARCH
DATSU JINSHU	DA-TONG SHEN-HSIU	DATONGSHENXUI	605?-706	HEAD MONK UNDER HONGREN, ANCESTOR OF THE NORTHERN SCHOOL
?	?	HUIMING	?	GENERAL-TURNED-MONK WHO BECOMES HUINENG’S DISCIPLE
KATAKU JINNE	HO-TSE SHEN-HUI	HEZE SHENHUI	670-762	POSSIBLE AUTHOR OF PLATFORM SUTRA, SOUTHERN SCHOOL PROMOTER

1. Considering he was Chinese, this is of course entirely appropriate – it’s just not entirely consistent as there are many other ancestors from China who we remember by their Japanese equivalent names. Tozan Ryokai, also in our dedication list, is one such… not sure why he’s not remembered so much as Dongshan Liangjie, but there you go.
2. See some translations of The Platform Sutra at the following links:
   • Translation by John McRae at The Zen Site (PDF)
   • Translation by Master Hua at http://www.terebess.hu/english/platform.html
   • Translation by A.F. Price and Wong Mou-Lam at http://zen.thetao.info/read/platform.htm
3. Keizan Zenji’s Transmission of the Lamp has this as the moment of enlightenment (Case 33), but that’s not how it’s portrayed in the Platform Sutra.
4. The reason that you often see two versions of Chinese names is that there’s been a change in the way that we write these in Roman script. The older system is the Wade-Giles system developed in the late nineteenth century, but favoured today is the Pinyin system developed by the Chinese government in the 1950s.

I’ve used all sorts of sources for this, including good ole Wikipedia of course, but have relied quite heavily on the following articles:

Hu Shih. (1953). Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its history and method. Philosophy East and West, 3 (1), pp. 3-24. Available athttp://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/HistoricalZen/Chan_in_China.html.

Thompson, John M.  (2006).  “Huineng”, on the Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy.  Available at http://www.iep.utm.edu/huineng/.

A trip to Leicester

Logo of the Theosophical Society

Many people went to Leicester on Saturday last week. Most of them were headed for the football grounds, of course, as the local team's surprise win  of an historic upset season in the Premier League climaxed with the presentation of the League trophy after their 3-1 victory over Everton (sorry, Blues!).

To be honest, the folk I was visiting weren't really that into the football! I had the great pleasure of spending the afternoon with the Leicester Theosophical Society, having been invited by their Chairman, John Holden. The Theosophists hold that no one religion holds all the answers, and my experience of them both this weekend and before has been that they're an open-minded and warm bunch.

I was invited to do an afternoon exploration of Zen - a three-hour session! Fortunately of course I didn't have to come up with a three-hour talk or anything, just do an orientation and dive in with some zazen, kin-hin and a chanting of the Heart Sutra and the Identity of Relative and Absolute. Those attending got absolutely stuck in and gave it a whole-hearted effort. I finished with a talk around two Japanese words that for me truly embody the spirit of zazen: hishiryo (non-thinking) and mushotoku (no gain). The universe provided a third word - during the talk, Odin loudly accompanied me (as John Holden put it!) in the sound of rolling thunder. Perhaps I should have just shut up and let the thunder have its say...

One of the members in particular should be singled out - Joe Moore (who I think may have been instrumental in my invitation). Joe previously lived in Liverpool and sat with the then Liverpool Zen Group for some years... some of the 'older' members will remember him, and he asked me to send along his best wishes.

Thanks to John and the members and guests of the Leicester Theosophical Society who made me feel very welcome indeed.

New - monthly Saturday morning meeting

Starting this month, we'll be trying out an extra date on the calendar for those who've been struggling to make the Wednesday evenings because of either diary conflicts or difficulties with travel especially late at night.

The first of these sessions will be on Saturday 14th May, and we'll continue with them on the 2nd Saturday of each month - for a few months at least to see if this is something that people will be interested in.

The Saturday sessions will run from 9.30am to 12.00 noon, and will be pretty beginner-friendly (though don't stay away just because you know what you're doing!). There will be zazen of course - zen meditation is the heart of Zen Buddhism! - but also instruction in meditation, a talk on Zen practice, private interviews, tea and discussion.

Please email me or call if you've any questions - hope to see some new faces and perhaps some old ones too.

SWZ Digest - Zen Beginnings

For those on the SWZ mailing list, you'll have already seen the recent "SWZ Digest", an occasional email newsletter we've been trialling.

If you've not seen this, then: (1) Do sign up for the SWZ mailing list - go to www.stonewaterzen.org and use the form at the bottom of the page; and (2) Try this link - I think it will work! - for a copy of this issue.

April intro event & some news

Just a quick reminder of the introductory evening being held this Wednesday (see "When & Where" for map etc). Please do feel free to come along even if you've been before - arrival is 7.00ish for a 7.15 start. We'll have about an hour's introductory session before joining the others for one period of zazen (seated meditation) followed tea & a talk on Zen practice that I'll be giving. Hope to see you there.

In other news - I've recently come back from a week's meditation retreat with my teacher, Keizan Scott Sensei, during which he asked me to start taking on more responsibilities to supervise others' Zen practice. So, starting this week, I'll be offering one-on-one interviews during zazen in which we can discuss your individual practice. Interviews will be at least monthly, and there'll be no additional charge for them (donations to the group always welcome in the Big Brown Box of course!). Note: I will not be offering koan instruction.

If you'd like to take advantage of these interviews, please come along on to zazen on the third Wednesday of each month (interviews won't be offered to folk on their very first visit) and put you name on the list that will be out before zazen.

Zen for Beginners - Introductory evening 20 April

We'll be holding an introductory evening for those who have little or no experience of Zen practice and who'd like to find out a bit more and have a taste of what it's like to sit formal zazen (seated Zen meditation). No commitment to join the group on an ongoing basis (though of course you're welcome to).

Please arrive at around 7.00 for a 7.15 start, in the Marten Room upstairs at the Quaker Meeting House.  The evening will consist of an hour's introduction and discussion, after which we'll join the regular weekly meeting for a 30-minute period of zazen.

We'll conclude with tea and a formal talk on Zen practice by group convenor & Zen monk Alasdair Taisen Gordon-Finlayson.

For repeat offenders, the regular schedule of 7.30 zazen continues of course...!

No zazen 6 April

Hi all - just a quick note that there will be no meeting on Weds 6 April - I'll be away at the Crosby sesshin for the week. We'll pick up again on Weds 13th.

A visit to the UoN's Meditation Society

A big thank you to the organisers of the University of Northampton's Meditation Society who invited me to visit yesterday. There was a great turnout - 20 if you include the photographer (and as he also sat with us, you can definitely include him!), and the session seemed appreciated.

The members of Meditation Society are probably not Buddhist (though some are), and definitely not Zennistas, so I used the forms of Zen as an example of how meditation can be practised in a ritualised context. We bowed, we sat in straight lines with straight postures (and a good strong sitting it was too), and then afterwards we chanted the Identity of Relative and Absolute, then ended with a few more bows!

Chatting afterwards it seems the chanting was considered the 'oddest' element, but that the ritual context helped people get into a good frame of mind for meditation. I asked people to consider what rituals they already use or might develop in their own practice and left them to chew on that for a while.

Thanks especially to Chetack Nangare and Charmaine Sonnex, Pres & Sec of Meditation Society, for the invitation and help setting up & breaking down... as well as permission to share these photos...

A very appropriate fundraiser...!

My friend and sangha sister Miranda Forward is taking tokudo this spring - becoming a monk. As you know, part of the ritual is the shaving of the head, and Miranda is using this opportunity to raise funds for the charity Alopecia UK.

If you'd like to contribute, please go to her JustGiving.com page (remember GiftAid if you're a UK taxpayer).

Zen at UoN

The chair of the UoN Meditation Society, Chetak Nangare (and it must be said in the interests of full disclosure, one of my PhD students!) has put a flyer and Facebook event up for this week's session at the uni:

Event link: www.facebook.com/events/767647123379579/

Upcoming visits

Just to keep everyone posted (and show that I'm keeping busy!), thought I'd drop a note here to say that I'll be doing two visits in the next couple of weeks.

First I'll be attending Eastfield Academy to run a full-school assembly there. I'll be trying to remember not to embarrass my son too much, who's in Year 4 at Eastfield! I've done a few primary school visits before, and always enjoy the kids' curiosity and occasionally odd questions.

The following week I'll also be visiting the University of Northampton's Meditation Society to give them a bit of a taste of formal zazen practice - curious to find what they make of it.

Should anyone else happen to need a visit from a Zen monk, drop me a line!

Fiiiilll me!

Come & warm the zafus!

Upcoming retreats

StoneWater Zen UK have announced two upcoming retreats. From 20-23 January will be a "Retreat to the City", involving a stay at the Liverpool zendo using the normal Retreat to the City schedule. Full cost £90*, contact John Suigen Kenworthy at suigen@blueyonder.co.uk for more information or to book.

Also, the Spring Sesshin dates have been finalised and announced: the sesshin will run from 3 to 9 April at Crosby Hall, just north of Liverpool. This is one of the two main retreats held each year, lead by Keizan Sensei, and follows a traditional sesshin schedule. A flyer can be downloaded, please feel free to distribute this to anyone who may be interested. Full cost £250*, contact Jez Lovekin at jezlovekin@btinternet.com for more information or to book.

* Concessionary rates available at both events.