SHONEN: True Presence

The meaning of the bottom character, NEN, embraces a very wide range of mental phenomena -- including not only countable ones such as ideas, worries, thoughts, wishes, desires, feelings, impulses, et cetera, but also uncountable ones such as attention, awareness, mindfulness, consciousness.

In the footnotes to the Shobogenzo translations published from 1994 onwards, a distinction was drawn between 1) NEN as an image in the mind, and 2) NEN as the image of reality. But now, as I go through Fukan-zazen-gi Shinpitsu-bon character by character (http://the-middle-way.org/subpage8.html) this choice of words doesn't strike me as hitting the target. It is an explanation that arose out of my struggle with the viewpoint of realism. The explanation which follows now, follows from the struggle to drop off the viewpoint of realism.

The countable NEN, the NEN which when they arise and are woken up to, cease to exist, at least as I understand them now, are ideas. In particular, I understand NEN as end-gaining ideas. I understand them as the ideas that cause me to fix my jaw unconsciously, in my grim determination to accomplish MY IMPORTANT MISSION.

The IMPORTANT MISSION in view might be to clarify the true meaning of Fukan-zazengi, or it might be to get a pupil out of a chair in an Alexander lesson, or it might be unblock a drain. In general, my most important mission every day is to get in MY VERY IMPORTANT four sessions of sitting-zen, without stopping to count how many eggs are getting cracked in the making of the omelette. Whatever the all-important mission of the hour may be, the idea of accomplishing it results in me unconsciously fixing my jaw, along with various other joints.

Marjory Barlow taught me a world-shatteringly simple method for investigating the effect of end-gaining NEN. She taught me to lie on my back with my knees bent and see it as MY VITALLY IMPORTANT MISSION to lift a leg and straighten it out, with minimal disturbance to the head, neck and back -- with minimal fixing, minimal misdirection of energy; with maximum freedom, maximum ease. Marjory caused me to understand that the key to success was to give up the idea of moving the leg, in particular to give up the idea of being right in moving the leg.... and yet to move the leg.

Sometimes Marjory would sit beside me on a chair and just watch me struggling with this task, returning to the idea, giving up the idea, returning to the idea, and so on. When I returned to the idea, invariably she would notice me fixing in some way that I didn't know I was doing -- holding my breath, tightening under the armpits, fixing the hip-joints, tightening the wrists, et cetera, et cetera.

As a result of this practice of not moving a leg, on one memorable occasion in particular, I came into the moment of the present. It was as if I were in a space, for the first time in my life, in which I could hear the birds singing.

We become conscious, Marjory taught, by inhibiting unconscious behaviour.

In other words, we realize the 2nd kind of NEN by giving up the first kind of NEN.

We realize true awareness, true mindfulness, true consciousness by giving up end-gaining ideas.

The Buddha with his dying breaths exhorted us to be vigilant. To be vigilant in regard to what? To be vigilant, for example, in regard to end-gaining ideas.
End-gaining ideas are NEN Mark I. And vigilance might be a bit of NEN Mark II, true NEN.

In Shinpitsu-bon, the original edition, Master Dogen writes that when true NEN emerges, dullness and distraction cannot intervene. In Rufu-bon, the revised edition, he replaces NEN with HO -- when the true Law spontaneously emerges, dullness and distraction vanish at a stroke.

From this, we can understand that what Master Dogen wanted to express with the characters SHONEN was not only a mental phenomenon. Certainly not only an idea. But not only mental awareness or mindfulness either.

Master Dogen's words, I believe, are pointing in the same direction that Marjory's teaching led me -- towards consciousness itself, not only something mental, but a kind of spontaneously flowing energy, a kind of presence.

We become conscious by inhibiting unconscious behaviour.

When Hissing Sids out there read this, you may be tempted to react by forming a view about being present and having a bright idea about being present. You, as I invariably do when I go off to do my little performance at the Alexander teacher training school, will probably fall into the trap of end-gaining to be present.

To end-gain to be present is to put the cart before the horse. It is totally wrong. But that is OK. There is nothing to fear in being wrong. The secret is to be fearlessly present to what is causing us to go wrong. To look, in the immortal words of Patrick Macdonald, the bugger in the eye. To be present to the end-gaining idea.

That is what Marjory taught me and that is what, as I read it now, I hear the young Master Dogen shouting from the rooftops in Fukan-zazengi Shinpitsu-bon.

Through the inhibition of (NEN mk I) end-gaining ideas, (NEN mk II) true presence emerges.