In the opening of Fukanzazengi, Dogen wrote:
Fundamentally speaking, the basis of the Way is perfectly pervasive . . .
Surely the whole being is far beyond defilement . . .
It is never apart from this very place . . . And yet, with just a hair’s breadth of distinction, the gap is like that between heaven and earth. Once the slightest like or dislike arises, all is confused and the mind is lost.
Do you feel a squirmy sense of discomfort these days, a sense that I have to do something and I don’t know what to do? Maybe we chose to attend this intensive retreat for that very reason. Attending the intensive may be either a move toward verifying buddhanature, or flight from experiencing discomfort. But still, “Surely the whole being is far beyond defilement.”
So, in this place, during this dedicated time together we practice being right here, right now.
If I’m honest, the thoughts that show up in response to that statement are: “Yeah, yeah, yeah—and where else would I be? Being right here, right now. Oh, that’s just such a cliché. Sure, you’re practicing being right here, right now, uh-huh.” In the background of my experience there is almost always rather abusive contrariness based on habits, memories and fears from the past. Being right here, right now does not mean cutting out those old memories. Being right here, right now in all honesty includes simply and impersonally noting this experience of internal conflict and discomfort. “Impersonally” here means refraining from trying to avoid, explain, understand, excuse, contradict, justify, fix, or otherwise engage with the stories of internal conflict. For me, it helps to remember Dōgen’s statement: “Surely the whole being is far beyond defilement.”
There’s so much abusive talk right inside this head. When I was a professional musician, my old mentor, Mitchell Lurie, used to say, “You fight yourself worse than anyone I know.” I didn’t know what he meant. But I thought, “Right! That’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it? And I’m pretty good at it.”
But just ignoring the thoughts criticizing my efforts, soldiering on and “fighting the good fight”? Carrying on calm and deliberate practices of zen sitting while keeping internal conflict out of conscious awareness? Well that does nothing but perpetuate conflict as a way of life.
And right there is the mind of war—a reflexive struggle against feeling bad. The mind of war identifies with thoughts—that is, it takes those criticisms seriously as an attack on “myself.” Addressing them is a mistake. Even saying, “No, I’m ignoring you now. Shut up and let me get back to sitting” . . . right there is the mind of war! We have a notion that if I feel bad, I am bad—that is, I’ll be rejected, cast out from the protection of other people. Not feeling bad is a powerful, instinctive, primary survival drive. And why? Creatures that have such reflexes tend to find safety in crowds or gatherings of their own kind, like the rafts of waterbirds floating on Lake Washington. Those that annoy the others too much may be shunned, making them more obvious targets for predators.
And yet, as Dogen says, “Surely the whole being is far beyond defilement.” Maybe it’s OK to just feel bad. Maybe there’s no need to struggle against it.
My father was of German Mennonite heritage although he preferred the silence of Quaker meetings. He was a conscientious objector during WWII. He stood against all things military, to the extent that for all the years I knew him, he would not sit next to a person in uniform on a bus or in a concert hall. He strongly objected to my involvement in aikido and my husband’s practice of kendo. He refused to read the Bhagavad Gita when I brought it home following my years as a monastic Vedantist, because the Gita is set on a battlefield. It would be fair to say he hated all things related to war.
And, as Dogen said: Once the slightest like or dislike arises, all is confused and the mind is lost.
I feel sad making an example of my dad in this way. I watched him suffer from trying with all his heart to be non-violent, following the teachings of his ancestors as he understood them. But even my childish mind saw that promoting peace by practicing conflict in this way does not make sense and cannot bring an end to war.
Again, acknowledging the presence of conflict and contradiction in our thoughts does not mean explaining, justifying, or arguing with those thoughts. What seems to help change the situation is simpler—just meeting it with raw honesty. This means “not judging, criticizing or even assessing what comes up in the mind.” Observe what is there, acknowledge its presence and let it be. No need to correct it, criticize it, figure it out, or act on it. This requires close attention to the fact that there are thoughts about X, Y, and Z. That’s all. No responding to, answering, explaining, regretting, attacking or defending. It is not a comfortable practice, and it is worthwhile.
The opposites appear in our throwing up of reflexive defenses; in our automatic mustering of “No!”; and in their contradicting of everything that appears on the surface. This is the mind of war. Fight! Fight for your life! When we hear that fighting is a problem, the mind automatically says “OK, then fix it: resist fighting at all costs!” If we buy that, the fight is pushed into hiding, at a considerable cost in energy: don’t even let that thought rise to the surface—don’t have that thought! How impossible is that? Those of us who practice not having violent or argumentative thoughts spend huge effort in trying to keep them down, to keep them out of awareness. But to fight fighting like this is still fighting.
Now, what if all of that has nothing to do with “me,” really? When a suggestion such as, “Why don’t you try turning north on 15th avenue instead of 5th?” calls up a silent response, “Because I don’t want to, dammit!” Or, when “It’ll be easier if you let the butter soften up a bit first before you try spreading it” evokes an internal, “Oh shut up and mind your own business, do you think I’ve never spread butter before?” What if those responses are simply automatic resistance to perceived threat? What if a snarky response is just the human equivalent of the fur rising along a cat’s spine, fluffing out the tail? We tend to blame the person for “being touchy”—but such responses are trained into us through experience. We most often have no idea of what another person has been through. It’s likely that his/her “touchy” responses (as well as our own) are just the automatic functioning of the body-mind.
All we have to work with here is the awareness of what happens in the body, what happens in the head. I notice that there is pervasive dishonesty in my thoughts, and that a certain bodily discomfort calls it forth. All my life I’ve kept these thoughts and attitudinal shortcomings of mine out of public discourse. I was just trying to be a good person, to fit in with everyone else. Nobody talked about the secret meanness and contrariness that dwells out of awareness. It was our duty to the world at large to not speak from or even admit to those stifled impulses. Well, I’m speaking about them now.
Oddly enough, the parts of my experience about which I want to say, “That’s not me,” are very much a true aspect of my experience. The story about them is “Oh no! I make every effort to not show those mean, contrary behaviors, because I want to be seen as a good person.” The story itself implies that I am not really a good person, because I hide a significant part of myself as much as I can. So, I am really a lying reject masquerading as a good person. You can see how much effort it takes to hold this stance! This simple, everyday move, based on the is/is-not duality of language reveals something about the creation and maintenance of ego. It grows from an assumption, buying into the story that each of us is separate, independent, and disconnected from all other beings—and that this separate identity needs to be carefully, constantly curated. This is the story of separation—but what if it were true that there really is no separate self?
What if all experiences happen, come and go like the eddies on the surface of a body of water? We cannot know ourselves in the absence of a world of experiences—each experience is an awareness of ourselves—being awake to, aware of, some thing is exactly who/what we are: emptiness is no other than form and form is exactly emptiness) . . .
But since, as Dogen said, “Surely the whole being is far beyond defilement,” I dare admit to the presence of petty responses and self-centered resistance as features of my experience.
Encouragement to bring ourselves fully and impartially into this moment is the constant endeavor of the old masters. Notice, they say, notice! It is never apart from this very place.
Fundamentally speaking, the basis of the Way is perfectly pervasive . . .
Surely the whole being is far beyond defilement . . .
It is never apart from this very place . . . And yet, with just a hair’s breadth of distinction, the gap is like that between heaven and earth. Once the slightest like or dislike arises, all is confused and the mind is lost.
And still, the basis of the Way is perfectly pervasive.
If we can practice observing like and dislike in ourselves, we may get a taste of the place before like and dislike, the clarity and pervasiveness of the Way. We may notice that there is no I that we can point to, really. There is this thing called “a body” that we call “I”—more of a marker of relative spatial location than an independent three-dimensional entity.
What is the place before like and dislike? A partly cloudy day, old moss on the sidewalk, crowds of daffodils amidst the barking of unseen dogs. Some hawk dropped its lunch on the roof of the back shed: a limp, half-eaten squirrel skin now stinking in the sun. The old daphne bush is browned and tired after late snow, its energies barely maintaining the semblance of blossoms. Before like and dislike there is still attraction and repulsion, light and dark, painful and pleasant. Before like and dislike is just experiencing with both hands open.
Fundamentally speaking, the basis of the Way is perfectly pervasive . . .
Surely the whole being is far beyond defilement . . .
It is never apart from this very place . . .
Please settle comfortably into the whole being . . . It is never apart from this very place. Be open to what is really right here, rather than the story the mind has composed about it. And explore the notion that surely the whole being is far beyond defilement.
Thank you.