Meeting the ancestors face to face

A short poem written unexpectedly when replying to a post on the FB Soto Zen group

Eyebrows entangled with the ancients
Daruma's fetid breath in my face
Dogen's sweaty forehead on mine
We all stare at the wall

Bodhidharma (Daruma)
Painted by Hakuin (1686 to 1769)

An invitation to online zazen

 For many people, getting to a physical zendo is difficult or impossible on a regular basis. Nearly a decade ago, I posted on this site on the topic of "What to do when there's no group close to you" and it's still one of the most visited pages even after all this time. (Note to self: perhaps it's time to re-work this and post afresh!)

When I wrote that, though, there was no online practice available within StoneWater, something that has changed since the pandemic.

Nowadays, we have loads of online zazen periods each week, and I'd encourage you to join in to support your practice. The 'main' session is probably the Thursday evening session, which involves two periods of zazen followed by a talk from one of the teachers (or sometimes it's me!). Each Thursday, the teacher will also offer interviews (for koan practice or just to discuss your practice or whatever's on your mind), again, something that is near impossible for many people to ever have access to. 

The Saturday morning sessions are similar but without the interviews. There are sessions on Monday to Friday mornings, too (just zazen), and recently we've been joining a 'broadcast' from the mother ship - the Hope Street zendo in Liverpool.

If you want to join our online zazen, please check out the "Online Zendo" page on the main SWZ website. Note that you'll need to join the SWZ mailing list to receive the weekly code for the Zoom meeting space we use - see the bottom of any page on the site for the sign-up form. We also ask that you join an introductory session, usually on a Tuesday evening. If you're interested, please email Sarah Kokai (kokaistonewaterzen@gmail.com) to arrange to join one of the intros.

You might ask: Why sit with others at all? Surely that doesn't matter as long as we're engaging in our zazen practice? I could go on at length about this, but I'll limit myself to a few points here...

• Discipline & accountability: For some people, self-discipline isn't an issue, but most of us can benefit to some extent by willingly opting into some external structure to support our practice. I know this is vital to me, and I'm always very grateful to all those I sit with for this.
• Access to a teacher: There's a lot written in Zen literature - and modern commentary - about the important place that teachers hold in the Zen tradition. Certainly there are those who hold this isn't necessary, but my own experience with Keizan Roshi and the other StoneWater teachers has been invaluable, and really helped both bolster my practice, help my understanding, and importantly avoid some of the pitfalls along the Way. Both in dharma talks and in private interviews, our teachers walk with us and help clarify our experience and comprehension of this famously paradoxical tradition.
• Being part of a Sangha: The 'sangha' or community is one of the "three treasures" of Buddhism and has always been vital in the Zen context. Keizan Roshi wrote a post about this ages ago that is worth checking out. Indeed, the Buddha insisted to one of his closest disciples that, "Having admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues is actually the whole of the holy life" (Pali canon, SN 45:2). Sangha has never seemed to me an optional bolt-on feature of Zen practice. To me, sangha is the very heart of Zen.

If you've never joined an online sit before, why not give it a try? Whether for discipline, guidance, or community, sitting together can enrich your practice in ways that solo practice alone cannot.

And of course - join us in Northampton on Monday evenings for the real deal: sitting with others in a shared space, followed by tea and a talk. What more could you want on a Monday?!

Laptop at the ready!

Ritual in Zen practice

Although the ceremonies at Zen temples might look like the ones you see at houses of worship in other faiths, the approach we take is a little different. No one ever insists you must believe in any of the rituals and chants and suchlike in Zen. You’re not worshipping anyone. You’re not pledging your allegiance to the temple or to Buddha. You’re not heaping praise upon unseen entities.

The chanting is just chanting. The bowing is just bowing. The bells are just bells.The statues are just statues. The priests are just people. The combined activities engaged in at these ceremonies have a genuine effect that you can feel. But there is nothing supernatural about any of it. (Brad Warner - link)

We had a couple of new people for our ceremony last night. I'm always curious about what people's experiences are as they start attending a Zen group (perhaps because my own beginnings were so long ago that I hardly remember them!). What do people make of the ceremony? The bowing, the chanting, and so on. My first teacher, the late Taiho Kyogen Roshi (we just called her Onesan, or 'big sister') was at pains to not explain the ritual to us when we started. "Just do what I do," she said to me once, or words to that effect. I found it bewildering - but at the same time quite compelling.

I know that some people come to Zen, or to Buddhism more generally, as a refuge from the religion in which they grew up and perhaps have rejected or taken against. Some of the ritual elements - the 'form' as we say - can really rub them up the wrong way, and they can react quite strongly against being asked to bow, to walk in the zendo in a certain way, to chant, even to sit in straight lines in a pre-given posture. And while I understand this response, I can get frustrated that people mistake the form of our Zen practice for something other than it is.

I quote Brad Warner above, from an old post of his, because I think he puts it very well. Zen ritual is not about the supernatural, like it often is in other traditions, even Buddhist traditions. We're not invoking Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, not engaging in an act of worship or abasing ourselves before anything. And yet: we bow. We chant. We do offer "flowers, candlelight and incense." So the question naturally arises: to whom do we make this offering?

This question, of course, is based on a false premise. It's based on the premise that there's us, here, and something else, out there. That we can in some way influence or be influenced by an Other. But in Zen, this is a mistake. There is no Other. Once we learn to see clearly, once we develop the habit of not imposing a personal lens on our perceptions of the world, we see that it is all connected. So we are not offering incense to anyone or anything. We just offer incense. We offer. The grammar of our language breaks down at this point, verbs which should have objects stand seemingly alone, and yet this act of offering (to nothing, to no-one) is perfect just as it is enacted. Just do it. 

Now I'm not saying that there aren't aspects of traditional Zen ritual that aren't problematic. I'm not entirely sure we've cracked the role of our women ancestors in our ceremony (though we've started, and include the names of some of them in our service). And I'm still deeply suspicious of the notion of 'transfer of merit'. But still: I bow, I chant. I call out the eko, the merit transfer, and put myself into it entirely. And this is my practice. Just as my zazen is my practice, this form is not different from that.