ANRAKU NO HOMON
IWAYURU ZAZEN WA SHUZEN NIWA ARAZU, TADA KORE ANRAKU NO HOMON NARI
IWAYURU what is called
ZA sitting
ZEN dhyana, thinking, zen, meditation
WA [subject particle]
SHU learning
ZEN dhyana, thinking, zen, meditation
NIWA ARAZU is not
TADA just
KORE [emphatic] this, just is
AN ease
RAKU ease
NO [particle] of
HO Dharma
MON gate
NARI is
“What is called sitting-zen is not learning Zen; it is just a Dharma-gate of being at ease.”
Being at ease is our birthright. Why do we lose it? Why do I feel un-ease, dis-ease?
According to the teaching of FM Alexander, as I understand it, the cause is twofold.
Firstly there is the universal human defect which FM Alexander identified as faulty sensory appreciation, and which he correctly associated with unduly excited fear reflexes and emotions. Secondly there is the desire to gain some end, there is the will to do something. These two in combination with each other, faulty sensory appreciation and end-gaining, cause un-ease.
If I lie in bed all morning snoozing, it doesn’t really matter that my sense is faulty of where my head and pelvis are in relation to each other. Both head and pelvis are safely supported by the bed. But if I get up and enthusiastically endeavor, in my usual grimly determined way, to sit upright and still in the lotus posture, then it does matter -- then my faulty vestibular sense becomes a cause of un-ease.
This summer I had some swimming lessons in the sea from my wife Chie (www.swimmingwithoutstress.co.uk). I experienced with renewed clarity how wonderful it can be to be liberated from old end-gaining habits. Experience of stillness and movement in water brings into stark contrast the difference between the two approaches that Alexander called end-gaining vs the means-whereby approach.
My wife told me that it can be easier for someone like me, whose ego has never been particularly bound up with being a good swimmer, than for someone like her or my brother whose thing swimming has always been, to drop off old habits and experience a new sense of ease in moving through the water.
I see two implications for anybody wishing to learn Master Dogen’s teaching, that is, for anybody wishing to learn the backward step of turning light around.
(1) The less emotional investment you have in the learning process the better. For God’s sake, don’t follow my example.
(2) A hell of a lot depends on the teacher. Every individual is responsible for himself or herself. The teacher can’t be responsible for the student. Still, a hell of a lot depends on the teacher. Without a good teacher, you are liable to spend a lot of time and energy just practicing your bad habits.
Master Dogen said that the teacher is like a carpenter and the student is like a piece of wood. When you find yourself, under the guidance of a swimming teacher who understands the process, giving up the fearful way of swimming front crawl you have been practicing for 30 or 40 years, and experiencing in its place a new way in which you are much more at ease in the water, the meaning of Master Dogen’s words is refreshed.
Any questions?
IWAYURU what is called
ZA sitting
ZEN dhyana, thinking, zen, meditation
WA [subject particle]
SHU learning
ZEN dhyana, thinking, zen, meditation
NIWA ARAZU is not
TADA just
KORE [emphatic] this, just is
AN ease
RAKU ease
NO [particle] of
HO Dharma
MON gate
NARI is
“What is called sitting-zen is not learning Zen; it is just a Dharma-gate of being at ease.”
Being at ease is our birthright. Why do we lose it? Why do I feel un-ease, dis-ease?
According to the teaching of FM Alexander, as I understand it, the cause is twofold.
Firstly there is the universal human defect which FM Alexander identified as faulty sensory appreciation, and which he correctly associated with unduly excited fear reflexes and emotions. Secondly there is the desire to gain some end, there is the will to do something. These two in combination with each other, faulty sensory appreciation and end-gaining, cause un-ease.
If I lie in bed all morning snoozing, it doesn’t really matter that my sense is faulty of where my head and pelvis are in relation to each other. Both head and pelvis are safely supported by the bed. But if I get up and enthusiastically endeavor, in my usual grimly determined way, to sit upright and still in the lotus posture, then it does matter -- then my faulty vestibular sense becomes a cause of un-ease.
This summer I had some swimming lessons in the sea from my wife Chie (www.swimmingwithoutstress.co.uk). I experienced with renewed clarity how wonderful it can be to be liberated from old end-gaining habits. Experience of stillness and movement in water brings into stark contrast the difference between the two approaches that Alexander called end-gaining vs the means-whereby approach.
My wife told me that it can be easier for someone like me, whose ego has never been particularly bound up with being a good swimmer, than for someone like her or my brother whose thing swimming has always been, to drop off old habits and experience a new sense of ease in moving through the water.
I see two implications for anybody wishing to learn Master Dogen’s teaching, that is, for anybody wishing to learn the backward step of turning light around.
(1) The less emotional investment you have in the learning process the better. For God’s sake, don’t follow my example.
(2) A hell of a lot depends on the teacher. Every individual is responsible for himself or herself. The teacher can’t be responsible for the student. Still, a hell of a lot depends on the teacher. Without a good teacher, you are liable to spend a lot of time and energy just practicing your bad habits.
Master Dogen said that the teacher is like a carpenter and the student is like a piece of wood. When you find yourself, under the guidance of a swimming teacher who understands the process, giving up the fearful way of swimming front crawl you have been practicing for 30 or 40 years, and experiencing in its place a new way in which you are much more at ease in the water, the meaning of Master Dogen’s words is refreshed.
Any questions?
posted by Mike Cross at 4:23 PM
2 Comments:
"There is no middle way between Hardcore Zen, end-gaining Zen, and Master Dogen’s Dharma-gate of being at ease. One is false. The other is true."
This statement has a strong feeling of absolutism.
Won't the practitioner of Hardcore Zen, or even end-gaining Zen also vector towards what is true?
Could the practice of Hardcore Zen, or even endgaining Zen be a pre-courser to Master Dogen’s Dharma-gate of being at ease?
Can a real person, devoted to what is true, even practice Hardcore Zen or end-gaining zen?
How would you know a real person?
Take care,
Jordan
Hi Jordan,
I agree with you entirely that the statement you quote has a strong stink of absolutism, and I am frankly shocked that you would sink so low as to taint this blog by quoting such a self-righteous, fundamentalist pontificator. Whoever it was who said that, he is just the kind of person of fixed views that I have been talking about. The world of Zen is full of people like that, with stiff necks and narrow backs, who never seem to have heard Master Dogen’s instruction ZE-HI KANSURU KOTO NAKARE, “Don’t care about true and false.”
However, everybody makes mistakes, and so I’ll let you off this time. Let’s carry on as if it never happened.
Seriously, I think that the dichotomy between end-gaining and means-whereby, or trying to make a mirror and being content to polish a tile, is an important one to understand. But in actual practice, as you seem to suggest, things are not so black and white.
Even in learning a new way to swim front crawl, for example, there came a point where my wife recommended me just to get on with it, to forget about the new means-whereby and just swim, so as to get into a rhythm.
There comes a point, in other words, where to forget about the means-whereby is the true means-whereby. But first we should have some idea what the new means-whereby is, and, conversely, what end-gaining is.
All the best,
Mike
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