Beyond intention
Leland Shields, September 13, 2022
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can’t be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction,
bind grasses to build a hut, and don’t give up.
Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.
Open your hands and walk, innocent.
Thousands of words, myriad interpretations,
are only to free you from obstructions.
If you want to know the undying person in the hut,
don’t separate from this skin bag here and now.Attributed to Shih-T’ou Hsi-ch’ien [Shitou Xiqian], 700-790. Translation and copyright by Taigen Dan Leighton, Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi, 1987)
This is taken from the final paragraph of one of the chants from our daily sutra service, Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage, written by Shih-T’ou. In the third and fourth lines we are told:
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction,
bind grasses to build a hut, and don’t give up.
This is the invitation to bring intention to this breath as we follow the ancient way. Then in the next two lines, we are told:
Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.
Open your hands and walk, innocent.
For three days we have been familiarizing ourselves with the teaching of the ancestors, and returning to the dojo period after period to place left hand over right, softly gazing down at a 45-degree angle, and breathing one breath. Here in the 3rd day of our sesshin, there is no better time than now to relax completely, open hands, and to walk, innocent from the beginning.
These four lines are complete. We bring intention to let go, and let go completely, always innocent.
Through intention we sign up for a retreat, we block time on our calendars, plan our affairs, and set an alarm to sit in the morning. Through intention we bow to the altar, bow to the seat, bow to each other, and sit. Through intention we count, oooonne… Mind wanders, and we intentionally return to ooonnne….
Arriving at our seat is an expression of not giving up. Relinquishing all to the caw of a crow is completely relaxing. Not giving up and relaxing completely are closer than the front and back of your own hand. I say “closer than,” rather than “the same as,” because they seamlessly intertwine as we relinquish ourselves to setting the alarm.
In his recorded encouraging words for rohatsu sesshin, Hakuin told the story of a time he was visited by an esteemed high Buddhist priest named Bunmei Osho, who asked for Hakuin’s guidance. Hakuin told him that his fine robes would not be recognized at this training center; unless he had a clear eye, he would be received as a novice monk if he wanted guidance. As a novice monk at Hakuin’s center, he would be sternly encouraged, with word and the kyōsaku, (the encouragement stick). Bunmei said he’d been arranging his affairs for seven years for the chance to don the robes of a novice and sit in Hakuin’s dojo, and asked that Hakuin not spare his encouragements. After a 90-day training period, there was a ceremony accepting Bunmei as a disciple of Hakuin’s. Hakuin’s encouraging words at a later rohatsu cited Bunmei’s commitment, and invited all to be alert! Be alert!
I remember hearing this story for the first time at a rohatsu sesshin. Traditionally, rohatsu is the most intensive sesshin of the year, lasting seven days and seven nights, ending on the anniversary of Buddha’s enlightenment on the morning of the eighth day, December the 8th. As a novice myself at the time I was surprised by Bunmei’s seven years of preparation. Having read Ram Das’s Be Here Now and taking the title and message overly literally, I didn’t appreciate that dedication could be expressed as preparation too. And that such preparation was not separate from zazen now and in the world.
It’s as if inhalation is the preparation, and exhalation is letting go completely. Neither inhalation nor exhalation stand alone; they only exist as one motion. Both inhalation and exhalation are expressions of the Tao, taking work to restrict, rather than work to perform.
Though its foundation was in foreign monastic traditions, Bunmei’s is a story particularly well suited for lay practice here. Dedication continues with the evening closing ceremony, going home, and all that is entailed in those activities. Eating is preparation, just as it is zazen with the taste of the first bite. Each bite is the first bite. Sleep is preparation, just as it is zazen when lying down and breathing one breath, and one breath, without cease until sleep arrives on its own. If waking in the night, again one breath, and one breath, letting sleep occur on its own through fatigue – relaxing completely.
Dedication continues when waking in the morning, caring for our bodies, and finding our ways back to our seats.
As we sit on our cushions, hear Hakuin’s encouragement – be alert! During lunch and lunch break, be alert! To this breath, and this sound, be alert! Be alert by letting go of hundreds of years, and relaxing completely.
Returning home after closing ceremony, be alert! Open your hands and walk…innocent.
There are times each of us may object to being referred to as “innocent.” We’ve all made mistakes that come easily to mind. We can all fear sometimes that with acceptance we are letting ourselves off the hook. Just as we can see the tantrum of a hungry or exhausted child as innocent, what is lost if trusting that we did our best at a given time? With that trust, we can go forward utterly accepting that we were (and are) no more than that, and now have a chance to meet this moment freshly. Without denial, and with realistic expectations we walk…innocent, no more and no less.
We all know what to do, even without the first two lines of the passage from Shih-T’ou.
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can’t be faced or turned away from.
Both intertwined sides of a hand appear in these two lines as well. We are advised to “turn around,” in the first of these, and that the source can’t be faced or turned away from in the second.
When hungry in the morning, I turn toward kitchen counter to see the ripe banana, with flecks of black, just as I like them. With a knife I slit the skin to make it easy to peel, pulling down one, then another, and another part of the skin. Now I can bite the sweet fruit. Skin and fruit are one source, though one can hide the other.
Zazen is no more complicated than this, requiring no admonitions or complex strategies. When seeing distractions in the distance of time and space, just return to the vast source that can’t be faced or turned away from. Recognition of distraction is already returning, no different than recognizing a banana.
In the final four lines of the sutra, Shih-T’ou writes:
Thousands of words, myriad interpretations,
are only to free you from obstructions.
If you want to know the undying person in the hut,
don’t separate from this skin bag here and now.
Here he warns us about getting lost in the sutras themselves, and points us back to this moment, in this body. There is importance in the specific words used in the advice about our words and thoughts. Exhaust, empty, cut off. When I first began sitting with Three Treasures we had a translation of the Great Vows for All from Aitken Roshi that rendered the second vow as:
Greed, hatred, and ignorance rise endlessly; I vow to extinguish them.
Soon after I joined, Aitken changed the passage to be:
Greed, hatred, and ignorance rise endlessly; I vow to abandon them.
I find this to be an elegant shift – no need to martial forces against our thoughts and delusions. I’ll just breathe instead! My thoughts can do whatever they want, but that doesn’t mean I have to follow along, I can just take my focus over here to the page in my hand. This fits like a hand in a glove with a practice that starts where we are, already home. And from here, without struggle against thoughts or anything else, just listen. Nothing more is asked by practice right now than you listening to the sound of my voice.
Shih-T’ou and Aitken’s message is amplified in these lines are from Dai-O Kokushi: On Zen
Oh my good worthy friends gathered here,
If you desire to listen to the thunderous voice of the Dharma,
Exhaust your words, empty your thoughts,
For then you may come to recognize this one essence.
We can fill our minds with fine words, consider questions of one and many, form and emptiness, but again, can we gain simplicity by taking the words of our ancestors at face value? Here is another passage from “Verse of the Faith-Mind”, written by Jianzhi Sengcan:
The more words and thoughts,
the less they fit the reality.
Cut off words, cut off thoughts,
and there is no place it does not penetrate.
Return to the root and you gain the truth,
follow appearances and you lose the essence.
We are told by Dai-O Kokushi to exhaust our words and empty our thoughts. We are told by Jianzhi Sengcan to cut off words, cut off thoughts. Our venerable teachers are reminding us that sometimes there is no thought that is better than no thought. That is, sometimes there is not a thought that is more helpful to us than releasing all thought. Even thoughts from those same venerable teachers can separate us from the simple and direct experience of just this.
Returning to Shih-T’ou, I’ll repeat the section we started with so you have the greater context:
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can’t be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction,
bind grasses to build a hut, and don’t give up.
Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.
Open your hands and walk, innocent.
Thousands of words, myriad interpretations,
are only to free you from obstructions.
If you want to know the undying person in the hut,
don’t separate from this skin bag here and now.Attributed to Shih-T’ou Hsi-ch’ien [Shitou Xiqian], 700-790. Translation and copyright by Taigen Dan Leighton, Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi, 1987)
Shih-T’ou closed a larger circle in his verse, taking us from, “Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction,” to four lines later, “Thousands of words, myriad interpretations, are only to free you from obstructions.” I am grateful for the guidance of our many teachers, and that I have access to them in 2022, and in Seattle. Through that guidance we join together in the ancient way, in formal retreat. And the instruction of our ancestral teachers is to abandon even their words. By releasing their words, and our own, we are no longer separate from this utterly human person right here now.
You know the teachings of our tradition, and know what to do. For days, we have all been cutting off words, cutting off thoughts. The cutting is not born of struggle with or against anything, it is manifest by turning towards the sound bathing you now, and the soreness in your skin bag as the period nears its end. Sound, soreness, breath, mu, all available for you without mediation of the idea or name. Just this.