Not So Long Ago

Zen. The word itself just smacks of the exotic. Since the 50’s it’s been embedding itself into the American psyche and now it’s part of our everyday lexicon. It still retains its mystery, though, unlike “karaoke” or “sushi.” Those terms have been used so much that they’re not even foreign anymore. “Zen” still conjures misty images of medieval Japan where samurai roam the countryside.

We have these notions of what Zen entails and the mention of it often sends us off into romantic visions. There’s a flood of nearly unconscious associations with it: graceful brushstrokes of calligraphy, dark, flowing robes, shaved heads, narrow, piercing eyes, fingers pointing at the moon, unsolvable riddles, monks sitting staring at walls or rumbling in huge kung fu brawls, crude wooden sticks prodding followers toward enlightenment. These and a hundred others can flash through our minds. Almost everyone has been exposed to an idea of Zen, whether from a Yoplait ad, a book by Suzuki Roshi, or even a movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which has nothing to do with Zen but reinforces our Americanized concepts of it. Zen is totally alien to us but we’re drawn to it. Its apparent opposition to our own culture intrigues us. It seems so formal and austere and centered compared to our hectic, over-stimulated Western lives. Maybe we believe if we could just integrate a bit of its Eastern wisdom into ourselves we could be happier and more peaceful.

Having been a Tibetan Buddhist for several years, my ideas of Zen were only slightly more informed than the average American’s. I’d read some books but was so enamored of Vajrayana’s Play-doh colors and crazy mysticism that I didn’t pay much attention to it. Plus, Zen seemed a lot like Buddhist boot camp. The masters I’d read of were more like drill sergeants than spiritual teachers. Physical violence, mental and emotional torture were standard tools. They were willing to use any means necessary to smash the delusion out of a student. If that happened to be cracking him in the face with a shoe, so be it. If he needed an arm cut off, well, that was the price of liberation sometimes. Bodhidharma, the Indian monk who brought Buddhism to China, reportedly sat down in a cave and hacked his eyelids off so strong was his commitment to awakening.

Fuck that, I say. I was perfectly comfy with my Vajra teachers. They were warm and fuzzy and so sedate that sometimes it was a struggle to stay awake when they gave a talk. I didn’t want to have to play some freaky game of Enlightenment Dodgeball when the wrenches and shoes and dishes started flying at my head.

Zen is strict, man. In all the Tibetan centers I’ve ever been to, when people meditate they shift position slightly when they get very uncomfortable and scratch their noses when they itch too bad. Zen requires sitting like a statue. Once you were settled into position you were done. Move only if you were willing to take the wrath of a terminally irascible master prowling the room like a panther.

But I was willing to give it a second look. Vajrayana had proved to be untenable and I needed something to give my practice structure. I needed a framework on which to hang my hang-ups.

I found out that there are two major branches of Japanese Zen. Since I practiced Japanese martial arts at the time that seemed like a good place to start. The Soto sect focuses almost solely on zazen, which is sitting meditation. There is little in the way of instruction, usually something along the lines of “Just sit, dummy.”

Rizai utilizes meditation as well but it also relies heavily on koans. Koans are those maddening, unanswerable questions we’ve all heard of, even if only in passing. The most famous is probably “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Practitioners are given a specific one to work with and aren’t allowed to move to the next one until they solve it. Despite the fact that it can’t be solved. Welcome to Zen, fucker!

The idea is that when you sit down in meditation you wrestle with this painful question. Your mind ceaselessly turns it over looking for any seam or flaw, any way in. There’s no way in, of course. There’s no way to solve a riddle with no answer. And that’s the catch. Koans are a way to trick your mind out of its usual state. When your brain gives up in exhaustion, actual insights can occur. Our normal dualistic mindset of subject/object can’t penetrate a koan. But when we’ve tried every angle and have no choice but to surrender, when we stop grappling so fiercely with it, sometimes we can SEE. We’ll realize that the question has tormented us straight through to the clear light of true awareness. The koan has essentially hounded us into a mini-awakening, a flash of real insight the Japanese call kensho.

Or so I’ve read. I certainly wasn’t about to try Rinzai Zen. Soto sounded much more manageable. “Just sit” versus “Just sit and wage mental war with this indefatigable psychic monster that will haunt your dreams and shadow your every move until you conquer it with the perfect light of non-dual awareness, can I get a Hallelujah.” Zen already struck me as the Marine Corps of Buddhism. I didn’t need to try for Special Forces while I was at it.

So I started studying Soto Zen. The book that really sold me on it was Harcore Zen, by Brad Warner. Brad is a punk-rock bassist who lived in Japan for more than a decade. He was practicing Zen here in the States but when he moved he really dug in deep. Eventually, against his own better judgment, he allowed his Japanese teacher to ordain him as a real, live Zen master. His book was a totally irreverent, blasphemous, uncompromising explanation of what Zen really is (and isn't) and why it doesn’t care about me. It tore down all the walls protecting my naive little image of what I thought it was all about. I was thrilled because the book spoke deeply to my rebellious nature. It showed me that Zen was indeed some crazy shit, but it was MY KIND of crazy shit.

The more I practiced Zen the more of an asshole I became. I found out that my inner nature is quite close to those masters I had read about that delighted in abusing their students in the name of enlightenment. I meditated, but because liberation is (usually) the only important thing is Zen, everything else about my practice suffered. I wasn’t kind because the Truth was more vital than kindness. Obstacles were flattened in true Zen combat-style. I wasn’t open-minded because Zen was THE WAY. Anything else was pale imitation. I didn’t study because Zen can’t be learned from books, it can only be mastered by doing. And, by the way, it can’t be mastered either. Enlightenment isn’t possible to attain because you already have it. How can you struggle for what you already possess? The only way to achieve is to forget about achievement.

Soon I was completely bogged down in the double-talk. None of this was Zen's fault. I just wasn't prepared, nor did I have a teacher. I couldn’t tell if I was progressing or regressing. Zen is highly technical but you have to watch it out of the corner of your eye. If you look directly at it you’ll never see its true form. I began to realize that Zen was opaque to me. I wasn’t getting it and I was becoming a terrible Buddhist. I understand why it’s great for some people but it was just tearing me down.

A big part of it was all the cultural baggage that came with it. The Buddha himself didn’t actually teach Zen. The argument is that at a lecture one day the Buddha didn’t say a word, he just held up a flower. One of his disciples, Mahakashyapa, smiled. Everyone else just looked on dumbly. The Buddha supposedly decreed that he had just passed a special teaching to Mahakashyapa, one that didn’t rely on words. The smile as the flower was held up represents the sudden awakening that Zen champions, and Mahakasyapa become its first patriarch.

From there it went to China, where it took a healthy roll in Taoism and Confucianism. Eventually it ended up in Japan where it soaked in Shintoism for a bit. At this point I’m inclined to believe it didn’t much resemble what the Buddha originally taught. The Chinese and Japanese cultural influences that tag along with Zen are easily noticeable. When it arrived, Buddhism was spiced with the constituents that already existed in these countries. The result was a very particular version of the Dharma, one that was easily distinguished from its cousins. Through practice, I realized that these versions of Buddhism didn't appeal to me. I was American (still am) and the mainly Japanese approach that I was involved in was too alien. My own cultural experiences didn't jibe with it.

And so it came to pass that Zen faded from the spotlight of my love. It was banished to the wings alongside Vajrayana. The Buddha had exhorted me to investigate all spiritual avenues for truth and never to accept something at face value. Thus far I had investigated two branches of Buddhism and found that neither one of them satisfied my requirements. I had prowled through both systems and my personal experience was telling me that they were wrong for me. The Buddha told me to trust my experience. I was going to trust him.

Back at my bookshelf I pulled out a book that was very special to me. One of the few books I consider sacred. After my initial discovery of Buddhism, this book was the thing that moved me the most. The Buddha’s teachings made me a radical, but Noah Levine’s book Dharma Punx made me a spiritual revolutionary.


To Be Continued in “These Days”