Awareness of Body and Breath

Awareness of body and breath – insight, Prajna. The Heart Sutra, recited daily in Zen establishments, puts it in a nutshell. It begins: “When the Bodhisattva of Compassion was practicing deep awareness, she clearly saw that form, feeling, thought, choice and consciousness are all empty. Thus, transformng anguish and distress."

The 12^th Century Japanese teacher Dogen Zenji, in his Shobogenzo, wrote, “To study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barrier between self and other.” This is also the source of compassion.

I have been re-reading Robert Aitken’s book, Taking the Path of Zen. He and Anne Aitken founded the Diamond Sangha lineage of Zen.

I found it interesting in the Dokusan room if I got off-topic how he brought the conversation back to the point of the koan that I was working on at the time.

For example, I said that in zazen I had the sensation of being surrounded by golden light. He asked, “What is the age of Mu?” – that is the koan I was working on at the time. Sometimes he put in something like, “That must be encouraging” or “that resonates.”

I believe this came from his deep faith in koan, and an understanding that words can go on forever and be all over the place, as well as, of course, to retain some kind of order and focus for himself and for me.

To my eye, Aitken Roshi and Michael Kieran Roshi - the current master at the Honolulu temple - are the clearest manifestations of the Kensho experience I have seen. I mean, something that is visible even before they speak.

Robert Aitken Roshi

Using the Self  (1981)

In the Ts'ai-ken t'an, a seventeenth-century Chinese book of brief essays and fables, we find this passage:

The wind blows through the bamboo grove, and the trunks clatter together. When it has passed, the grove is silent once more. Geese crossing the sky are reflected in a cold, deep pool. When they are gone, no trace remains. For the sage, when something comes, it is reflected in the mind. When it goes, the mind returns to the void.

We can test our practice with these metaphors. "What is it that does not die down in our mind?" Ask yourself that. It will probably turn out to be something that centers on yourself.

-oOo-

If the bomb goes up at last

I vow with all beings

To relinquish even the Earth

To the unborn there all along

From, The Morning Star, by Robert Aitken. Pages 179, 228

I usually do about half an hour of tai chi each morning in my garden. It’s very private, surrounded by trees. I become completely relaxed there, and quite unselfconscious.

I usually begin with five minutes of standing yoga asanas and a short karate breathing kata I learnt 50 years ago called sanchin.

I find this tai chi time very good for the Zen experience of “The falling away of body and mind,” also translated as, “Functioning as body and mind, but being completely free from body and mind.”

The tai chi seems to help move this from being just conceptual or something academic into an actual experience. Perhaps like in our kinhin.

To see that even though we are born, mature, decline and die, we are at the same time unborn and undying.

Songs of the Soul in Rapture

John of the Cross

Upon a gloomy night,

With all my cares to loving ardours flushed,

(O venture of delight!)

With nobody in sight

I went abroad when all my house was hushed.

In safety, in disguise,

In darkness up the secret stair I crept,

(O happy enterprise)

Concealed from other eyes

When all my house at length in silence slept.

Upon that lucky night

In secrecy, inscrutable to sight,

I went without discerning

And with no other light

Except for that which in my heart was burning.

It lit and led me through

More certain than the light of noonday clear

To where One waited near

Whose presence well I knew,

There where no other presence might appear.

Oh night that was my guide!

Oh darkness dearer than the morning’s pride,

Oh night that joined the lover

To the beloved bride

Transfiguring them each into the other.

Within my flowering breast

Which only for himself entire I save

He sank into his rest

And all my gifts I gave

Lulled by the airs with which the cedars wave.

Over the ramparts fanned

While the fresh wind was fluttering his tresses,

With his serenest hand

My neck he wounded, and

Suspended every sense with its caresses.

Lost to myself I stayed

My face upon my lover having laid

From all endeavour ceasing:

And all my cares releasing

Threw them amongst the lilies there to fade.

Translated by Roy Campbell

Self-Realization as described by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj 

The ever-awaited first moment was the moment when

I was convinced that I was not an individual at all. The idea

of my individuality had set me burning so far. The scalding

pain was beyond my capacity to endure; but there is not

even a trace of it now, I am no more an individual. There is

nothing to limit my being now. The ever-present anxiety and

the gloom has vanished and now I am all beatitude, pure

knowledge, pure consciousness.

The tumors of innumerable desires and passion were

simply unbearable, but fortunately for me, I got hold of the

hymn “Hail, Preceptor”, and on its constant recitation, all

the tumors of passions withered away as with a magic spell!

I am ever free now. I am all bliss, sans spite, sans fear.

This beatific conscious form of mine now knows no bounds.

I belong to all, and everyone is mine. The “all” are but my own

individuations, and these together go to make up my beatific

being. There is nothing like good or bad, profit or loss, high

or low, mine or not mine for me. Nobody opposes me and I

oppose none for there is none other than myself. Bliss

reclines on the bed of bliss. The repose itself has turned into

bliss.

There is nothing that I ought or ought not to do, but

my activity goes on everywhere, every minute. Love and

anger are divided equally among all, as are work and

recreation. My characteristics of immensity and majesty, my

pure energy, and my all, having attained to the golden core,

repose in bliss as the atom of atoms. My pure consciousness

shines forth in majestic splendor.

Why and how the consciousness became self-conscious

is obvious now. The experience of the world is no

more of the world as such, but is the blossoming forth of the

selfsame conscious principle, God, and what is it? It is pure,

primal knowledge, conscious form, the primordial “I”

consciousness that is capable of assuming any form it

desires. It is designated as God. The world as the divine

expression is not for any profit or loss; it is the pure, simple,

natural flow of beatific consciousness. There are no

distinctions of God and devotee, nor Brahman and Maya. He

that meditated on the bliss and peace is himself the ocean of

peace and bliss. Glory to the eternal truth, Sad-Guru, the

Supreme Self.

 - From: Self Knowledge And Self Realization by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Edited by Jean Dunn

From Lao-Tzu"s Tao Te Ching 

 
Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice, 
this loftiness has roots that go deep.
‍
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patience with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.

― Lao-Tzu (from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry edited by Stephen Mitchell)

 

Zen provides us with three ways that make our journey home possible: First is zazen, silent meditation wherein we become still and quiet through and through and touch the clear, vast, empty tranquil Mind. Second is koan study, the study of the sayings and doings of our ancestral teachers that enable us to truly understand the nature of the self, that is, to know deep down that even as we are born, grow, mature, decline, die and perish we are at the same time unborn, undying, infinite and eternal. Finally, there is the practice of our daily lives, whereby what we have realized in our zazen and koan study may clarify, deepen, integrate and express itself as compassionate action towards all that breathes and does not breathe.

   -Danan Henry Roshi. Forward to Dogs, Trees, Beards and Other Wonders: Meditations on the Forty-eight Cases of the Wumenguan, by Ken Tetsuzan Morgareidge.

The light of 

the mind-moon

and colours 

of the eye-flower

are splendid;

shining forth 

beyond time,

who can 

appreciate them?

    -Keizan Zenji

AVATAMSAKA SUTRA
Pages 300-302
Translated by Thomas Cleary
 
This is the realm of the learned
Who delight in ultimate peace.
I will explain for you;
Now please listen clearly.
 
Analyze the body within:
Who herein is the “self’?
Who can understand this way
Will comprehend the existence or not of the self.
 
This body is a temporary set-up
And has no place of abode;
Who understands this body
Will have no attachment to it.
 
Considering the body carefully,
Everything will be clearly seen:
Knowing all the elements are unreal.
One will not create mental fabrications.
 
Based on whom does life arise,
And based on whom does it disappear?
Like a turning wheel of fire,
Its beginning and end can’t be known.
 
The wise can observe with insight
The impermanence of all existents;
All things are empty and selfless.
Forever apart from all signs.
 
All consequences are born from actions;
Like dreams, they’re not truly real.
From moment to moment they continually die away.
The same as before and after.
 
Of all things seen in the world
Only mind is the host;
By grasping forms according to interpretation
It becomes deluded, not true to reality.
 
All philosophies in the world
Are mental fabrications;
There has never been a single doctrine
By which one could enter the true essence of things.
 
By the power of perceiver and perceived
All kinds of things are born;
They soon pass away, not staying.
Dying out instant to instant.
 
Then Manjushri asked Chief of the Precious, “All sentient beings equally have four gross physical elements, with no self and nothing pertaining to self — how come there is the experience of pain and pleasure, beauty and ugliness, internal and external goodness, little sensation and much sensation? Why do some experience consequences in the present, and some in the future? And all this while there is no good or bad in the realm of reality.” Chief of the Precious answered in verse:
 
According to what deeds are done
Do their resulting consequences come to be;
Yet the doer has no existence:
This is the Buddha’s teaching.
 
Like a clear mirror.
According to what comes before it,
Reflecting forms, each different.
So is the nature of actions.
 
And like a skillful magician
Standing at a crossroads
Causing many forms to appear.
So is the nature of actions.
 
Like a mechanical robot
Able to utter various sounds,
Neither self nor not self:
So is the nature of actions.
 
And like different species of birds
All emerging from eggs.
Yet their voices not the same:
So is the nature of actions.
 
Just as in the womb
All organs are developed,
Their substance and features coming from nowhere:
So is the nature of actions.
 
Also like being in hell —
The various painful things
All come from nowhere:
So is the nature of actions.
 
Also like the sovereign king
With seven supreme treasures—
Their provenance cannot be found:
So is the nature of actions.
 
And as when the various worlds
Are burnt by a great conflagration.
This fire comes from nowhere:
So does the nature of actions.