New Year's Day 2024 - Zazen as usual!

Just a quick note to say that we will be meeting on Monday 1st January 2024 for our usual zen meditation schedule. Let's start the New Year the same way we mean to go on! 

Genku-ji Temple Bell, Higashi-ueno, Tokyo

In the Japanese tradition, New Year is celebrated from 1-3 January and there can be various rites associated with it - a fire ceremony to symbolise the burning away of our old karma, the writing of New Year's resolutions in Japanese calligraphy, putting up new decorations around the entrance to the home, and many others. 

The one that has always struck me (sorry, terrible pun...) is the ringing of the temple bell 108 times to see the New Year in - starting at midnight. The number 108 comes up frequently in Zen and in Buddhism more broadly, and amongst other things is said to be the number of imperfections that we need to rid ourselves of. So, plenty of work to do then!

Clearly, in the New Year, we have a chance to set our intentions for the immediate future, and I encourage you to reflect on how you want to life your life over the coming year. 

Wishing you strong practice, peace and happiness for 2024!

Zazen is...

This is from the wonderful Zen Mind, Beginners' Mind, a collection of talks from Shunryu Suzuki that has absolutely become a modern classic of Zen literature. It's easy to read, but full of profundity, and I recommend it to anyone who's got the slightest interest in Zen. I think for many people this is the first book on Zen they get for themselves or are given, and it's a wonderful way into this oddity we call Zen!

Suzuki writes:

Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life.

What does he mean by this? Is this one of those "my thing is so much better than your thing" things? I don't think so, not for a moment. Our true nature isn't reserved for Zennies or for Buddhists or for people who've left their old faiths behind. It's not for male or female or any other gender or sexual identity. It's not bound by ethnicity or nationality... not even limited to humans. It is expressed in every passing moment of the world and is entirely unavoidable! We might not always recognise it, but we manifest it without the slightest effort.

In zazen, we carry on manifesting it - just perhaps for a moment we stop doing all the other things that we do in our lives and minds!

Research request...

 You may know that in my 'other life' I'm an academic psychologist... so with that hat on...

How do we shape our homes and lives as Zen practitioners? I’m a cultural psychologist and Zen practitioner, and I’m looking for people to share photos with me of your home practice spaces (and any other areas in your home that show a Zennie/Buddhist influence) to help understand how Zen is adapting to UK culture and how we as Brits are adapting to Zen.

To participate, please go to https://form.jotform.com/alasdairgordonfinlayson/10000-things-of-western-zen. To ask any questions, please email me at alasdair.gordon-finlayson@northampton.ac.uk.

Only fair I show you mine if I want you to show me yours!

 

Views of a Zendo

 Nothing world-shattering to post today... just thought I'd share some photos of the zendo on Abington Street. 

We've been here for a couple of months now - there have been some issues with access but hopefully that's now all sorted. The zendo is spacious and we've got access to a separate room for interviews which is a real help. 

Plenty of room - come & join us!

The "direct assault on the Citadel of Truth"

Some people seem driven to Zen practice. For others, like me, it was more like being drawn in*... and this was the quote that first grabbed my attention... 30 years later, I'm not blind to the shortcomings of CH's view of Zen... but these words still bounce around the inside of my head!

In fact, this is only a short part of a longer quote from his 1951 book Buddhism, which goes on:

Zen is the apotheosis of Buddhism. This direct assault upon the Citadel of Truth, without reliance upon concepts (of God or soul or salvation), or the use of Scripture, ritual or vow, is unique...

He also says in that book:

The purpose of Zen is to pass beyond the intellect. All that we know, we know but about. The expert, a wit has said, learns more and more about less and less; Zen wearies of learning about it and about, and strives to KNOW. For this a new faculty is needed, the power of immediate perception, the intuitive awareness which comes when the perceiver and the perceived are merged into one...

What is the goal of Zen? The answer is Satori, the Zen term for Enlightenment. As Satori lies beyond the intellect, which alone can define and describe, one cannot define Enlightenment. It is that condition of consciousness wherein the pendulum of the Opposites has come to rest, where both sides of the coin are equally valued and immediately seen. Silence alone can describe it, the silence of the mystic, of the saint, of the artist in the presence of great beauty; of the lover and the poet when the fetters of time and space have for the moment fallen away.

Christmas Humphreys was a hugely important figure in the development of Buddhism in the UK, but is far less well-known than other figures of the age - e.g. Alan Watts, who Humphreys introduced to the Buddhist Society. His conceptualisation of Buddhism at times is redolent of the trappings of the Theosophists with whom he was also involved. And his writing does seem like a relic from a bygone era - and indeed perhaps it is - but if you come across Buddhism or one of his many other books, don't overlook it or dismiss it as outdated or irrelevant. His words can still inspire, 40 years after his death, and still bring people to the Way.

* This driven/drawn thing was actually one of the topics I wrote about in my PhD thesis on how people in the West get into Buddhism. It's called Becoming Buddhist and for the curious is out there on the internet. You'd have to be pretty damn bored to read the whole thing though! 

Zen quote: Love!

 Wow been a while since I posted! Our practice carries on, we meet each Monday evening in the new place on the high street. Join us! Drop me a line if you're curious. Anyway, here's a quote I was just via a publisher's mailing list, it kind of struck me:

To love, in the context of Buddhism, is above all to be there. But being there is not an easy thing. Some training is necessary, some practice. If you are not there, how can you love? Being there is very much an art, the art of meditation, because meditating is bringing your true presence to the here and now. The question that arises is: Do you have time to love?

(Thich Nhat Hahn, True Love)

 

Beginningless

I talked online on Saturday about the Verse of Atonement, the gatha with which we start the online Saturdays and, of course, we chant first thing every morning on sesshin. 

All evil karma ever committed by me
On account of my beginningless greed, anger and ignorance
Born of my body, mouth and thought
Now I atone for it all. 

I won't say anything here about any of this except to share some exploration of the word 'beginningless'. I have always been struck by the idea that Buddhist cosmology is so utterly different from that of, say, the Abrahamic faiths, in that it does not posit a point at which the world comes into being, there is no creation myth in the canon. This is a topic for another day, perhaps. But for what it's worth, this is what came to me on the topic of 'beginninglessness':

There is something of the eternal about us – don't make too much of this, it is not personal! But under the layers of habit and personality and history, under our joys and sorrows, our guilts and our vindications, under our cherished notions of who we are and our loves and losses... under all that is timeless being. Our original face before our parents were born. Our primal conscious matrix, which is not individual, which is part of the warp and woof of the universe. Our fleeting glimpses of this are like the slightest touches a mayfly leaves, tapping the surface of the pond. And while we return to the light of our conscious lives, the dark depths of that eternal and unchangeable AMness is unmoved and undifferentiated by it. 

(This is what image creation tool ideogram.ai produced
when I gave it just the word 'beginningless' to work with.
Not sure what it was 'thinking', but it's pretty enough!)