Copyright 1994 by Bristol Chan Group, UK, 
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NEW

CH'AN

FORUM

No.10

Autumn 1994


Dharma Adviser

The Venerable
Chan Master
Dr. Sheng-Yen


Teacher

Dr. John Crook
(Ch'uan-Teng Chien -Ti)


Editors

Hilary Richards 
Peter Howard


Drawings

Ann Brown
Ros Cuthbert
Barry Price

Price œ2:OO 


BACK AGAIN

It's been a long time since the last issue and we thank all those 
people who expressed concern for our welfare. Unfortunately, the 
compilation of the articles and the conversion of those into word-
processed documents has had to take second place to other events in 
our lives. On top of that, we have also converted from Macintosh to 
PC publishing, which has been far more traumatic than could ever be 
imagined, making a hitherto long but relatively painless task into a 
very Zen activity! Hopefully, our next edition will be somewhat 
easier.       

This issue contains several important pieces in addition to the usual 
selection of retreat reports, poems, etc. The first is from Shi-Fu and 
brings a new perspective to the understanding of Chan in everyday 
life. The second is the first article to be drawn from John's collection 
of Lay Zen commentaries and is a study on Zen in North America.

As usual, the back pages contain information on group meetings, 
weekend and week-long retreats. We have managed to find a centre 
capable of providing excellent facilities and on-sits accommodation 
for week-end retreats at a reasonable cost. As usual, John has 
excelled himself in creating a wide-ranging series of retreats. In 
addition to the WZR, there is a Chan retreat with Shi-Fu and a 
Tantric retreat with James Low, plus a programme of Dharma 
training for those of you who, like your editors, find that 
understanding the background and the philosophy of Buddhism helps 
to deepen the insight gained by just "doing". (Even if this is counter 
to the second paragraph of Shi-Fu's lecture!)

On a more immediate note, this is the final edition for people who's 
subscription runs out at No.10. To you and those who have forgotten 
to subscribe against earlier reminders, we enclose a renewal form. 
The cost remains at œ2 per copy. if you no longer wish to receive this 
journal, please return the subscription form suitably ticked and I will 
take your name off our mailing list.

Finally, we wish everyone health and happiness in 1995 and promise 
to make a resolution not to be so long in producing and delivering 
No.11!


WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT TO DISCIPLES

Believe in the Buddha, learn the Dharma, respect the Sangha;
Triple gem is the bright lamp of ten thousand generations.
Uplift the quality of mankind;
Establish the pure land in the human world.
First, understand grace and the repayment of grace;
To benefit others is to benefit oneself.
To make one's best effort is the highest virtue;
Don't create difference between one another or argue for more or less.
Compassion has no enemy;
Wisdom induces no defilements.
The busy man has the most time;
The diligent man has the best health.
For tilling widely the field of merits,
We have no complaint despite hardships and criticism.
Those who can give are blessed;
Those who can do goodness are happy.
Have Dharma joy in mind from time to time;
Do not depart from Chan pleasure from moment to moment.
Everywhere is Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva;
Every sound is the Amithaba Buddha.

Ven. Dr. Sheng-yen


THUS COME, THUS GONE

A special lecture given by Master Sheng-yen at the Chan Center, 
New York, on 4th November 1990. First published in Chan Newsletter No.98,
July 93 and reprinted here, slightly edited, with permission.

Chan is "thus come, thus gone." Everything is Chan; this is "thus 
come." Nothing is Chan; this is "thus gone." Today I want to 
investigate these words. I think they will give you new insights into 
using Chan in your daily life.

The Chan sect does not believe in establishing set words, 
descriptions or theories. In fact, Chan cannot be expressed in words 
or phrases. Anything said about Chan cannot be true Chan. 
Nonetheless, Chan literature in both China and Japan far exceeds 
that of other Buddhist traditions. It includes discourses of the 
masters, discussions with disciples, as well as other writings. D T 
Suzuki first introduced Zen (Chinese: Chan) to the West. In English 
alone he wrote over twenty books about Zen. Some of my students 
have compiled my lectures and made them into books. We have 
published six in English. Even though Chan cannot be expressed in 
words, books keep appearing.

Chan can be described from three perspectives: a way of life, a way 
of dealing with situations and an orientation toward the external 
world. Even an intellectual understanding of Chan practice is of 
some use. But when you go a step further and base your life upon the 
practice, the characteristics of Chan manifest in whatever you do. 
You find peace, stability and joy.

Chan is open, broad and all-encompassing. There is no rejection of 
what does not fit your way of thinking. Once you have developed an 
understanding of Chan or perhaps have had a true experience of 
Chan, wisdom manifests in whatever you. do. You become aware of 
a new attitude in yourself that is broad, open and non-discriminating. 
Others will see it, too. You reach a point where your understanding 
of Chan accords with what you feel, your sense of justice, and the 
mores of society. Such harmony is not easy to attain. Your feelings 
may collide with your sense of justice and propriety. And your sense 
of justice may clash with what is prescribed by law. But Chan is an 
all-encompassing attitude.

"Thus come" means the attainment of Buddhahood. This is where 
the practice of Chan leads. An experience of "thus come" is an 
indication that Buddhahood is not far off. "Thus come" is the 
generally accepted translation of the Sanskrit, "Tathagata". However, 
"thus come" is not exactly correct. Tathagata actually means "as if 
has come but has not really come". Further, Tathagata has the 
meaning of "originally it is like this". Originally like what? The 
original state of every sentient being, namely "as if come".

Are we truly in this world? if we are really here, how does it happen 
that we leave? Are we really in the Chan Center? Is this all there is? 
In regard to any place, we can say, "it's only as if we have come".

When he attained Buddhahood, the Buddha saw that it was as if he 
had come - Tathagata. And when he looks at us, he sees that we, too, 
are "thus come" and "originally like this". We lack this 
understanding. We are filled with vexation. We attach to what WE 
see, and we are endlessly conflicted. We are at war with one another 
and within ourselves. This is really quite strange.

We lack the confidence to say that we, also, are "thus come". Aware 
of the endless vexation in our lives, we find it impossible to affirm 
that we are the same as Buddha - that we are "thus come". Only 
those who have attained Buddhahood recognise that "thus come" is 
common to all.

How are we to understand what is meant by the term: "thus"?  There 
are foor perspectives, which correspond to different levels of 
understanding.

The first perspective is that of ordinary sentient beings. They see the 
Buddha as the saviour of the world, the one who solved the problems 
of birth, ageing, sickness, and death. Yet someone once asked me 
why it was that Sakyamuni himself succumbed to all of these 
vexations: "How can he help us when he couldn't solve his own 
problems? It seems that the Buddha has brought us nothing."

Is there really inconsistency here?

The Buddha helped sentient beings overcome suffering through his 
teachings and through the methods of practice he prescribed. We can 
practice so that, like the Buddha, we car abandon our self-centred 
attachment and find our own innate wisdom. No longer will we look 
upon the process of birth, ageing, sickness and death as suffering. 
We will see that they are the consequences of our own actions. One 
who has attained liberation still experiences ageing, sickness and 
death, but his attitude is that he is merely repaying a debt. Once the 
debts are paid, nothing is owed. There is no resentment or resistance.

This is liberation from suffering. After liberation, one does age, 
sicken, and die, but there is no fear of the process.

The second perspective is that of the sages and saints of Buddhism, 
those who have practised Buddhadharma and have achieved 
significant attainment, such as bodhisattvas and arhats. From their 
point of view, the Buddha personifies great compassion, wisdom, 
and liberation. Ordinary sentient beings believe that the Buddha is a 
great being, but they have no real comprehension of his greatness. 
Only the saints and sages truly understand how great the Buddha is. 
They see that not only is he a great being compared to ordinary 
sentient beings, but that he is a great being compared to all other 
saints and sages.

Compassion is a measure of greatness. Ordinary sentient beings 
usually care for their own family, but they often lack compassion for 
those outside the family. Great political leaders may love their 
country as much as their families. They feel about the citizens of 
their country and the sanctity of the state as much as they do about 
their own parents and children. They do not necessarily put their 
family first. Such compassion is much greater than that of ordinary 
people.

Great philosophers and religious leaders not only love their own 
country, but they extend their love to all of humanity. They not only 
love those who love them, but they love even their enemies. Their 
love does not discriminate. Buddhists understand the importance of 
compassion, not only for humankind, but for all living beings, 
human and non-human alike. Not all Buddhists attain this level, but 
it is a fundamental tenet.

A household practitioner I know always speaks of compassion. One 
day I saw him with a banana and said, "I'm hungry, let me have the 
banana.

"I have only one banana."

"But you must have compassion for me, too."

He retorted, "Let me first have compassion for myself. A Bodhisattva 
must look after all sentient beings. I'm a sentient being. Let me be 
compassionate to myself".

This is the compassion of an ordinary sentient being. It is an 
intellectual concept, not Buddhism. Compassion is not just a concept 
to Buddhist saints and sages; it is what they practice. Of course, the 
compassion of ordinary bodhisattvas and accomplished arhats 
reveals the level of their attainment.

A story that illustrates this concerns an arhat who professed a 
willingness to do anything for other sentient beings. A Dharma-
protecting deity who wanted to test him appeared, disguised as an 
ordinary person with a severe ailment. "My physician said that only 
the eye of an arhat will cure me". The arhat knew this would be 
painful, but he decided to sacrifice his eye for the other's benefit. He 
tore out his left eye and gave it to the deity.

But the deity exclaimed, "Wait a minute, you acted too fast. My 
doctor assured me that only your right eye will do". The arhat 
plucked out his second eye, but the deity just sniffed at it and said it 
stank. He then threw both eyeballs on the ground and crushed them 
with his foot. The arhat found to his dismay that compassion is not 
so simple. Not only had he failed to help the deity, but he lost both 
his eyes and received insults instead of thanks.

But the deity knew the limits of an arhat. "You cannot be expected to 
have a genuine Bodhi mind, so let me return your eyes to you." Even 
an arhat lacks the capacity for infinite compassion. The deity said, 
"You should know that for innumerable lifetimes the Buddha has 
withstood what is impossible to withstand, suffered what is 
impossible to suffer, and given up what is impossible to give up".

We should learn to be compassionate. if we find genuine compassion 
difficult, we must remember that we are only ordinary sentient 
beings. At the very least we can practice not telling others to be 
compassionate, when we are not compassionate ourselves.

The third perspective is that of the Buddha. He perceives that all 
ordinary sentient beings are his equal; that is, that sentient beings are 
really the same as the Tathagata. They are "thus come". In the Chan 
sect we say "Every day we get up with the Buddha; at night, we sleep 
holding the Buddha". But since we do not have true wisdom, we 
remain ignorant that we arise and fall asleep with the Buddha.

The fourth perspective concerns the Buddha's teachings.  Sentient 
beings vary according to background, situation and disposition, so 
the Buddha varies his teachings accordingly. The Dharma is not and 
cannot be a fixed teaching; it is only genuine when it is flexible. 
When he expounded the Dharma, the Buddha taught what was 
appropriate to his audience. This is the true understanding of "reality 
is like this".

There is a story of a Buddhist householder who was a high official in 
the government. Someone told him of the Buddhadharma principle of
"no-self, no other, no sentient beings", which is really a quote from
the Diamond Sutra. He perceived great truth in this.

One day he visited a nearby monastery in the mountains and 
questioned the master:

"I've heard that Buddhadharma says there's nothing; no-self, no 
others, no sentient beings. What do you think of that?"

"You're wrong, there is a self; there are others; there are sentient 
beings." The householder wasn't convinced: "Those are the words of 
the Diamond Sutra. How can what you said be true? Haven't you 
ever read the Diamond Sutra?"

"I read the Diamond Sutra many years before you. It does speak of 
no-self, no others, no sentient beings, but that doesn't mean you can 
say that."

The official asked, "Why?"

"Do you have a wife and children?"

"Yes."

Then the master said, "Ask me if I have children".

The official replied, "You're a monk. Of course, you don't have a 
wife or children".

"So for me it's correct to say no-self, no others, no sentient beings. 
As a householder, you have to say there is self; there are others; 
there are sentient beings."

The master adapted the teaching to the householder. Whether the 
teaching is of non-existence or existence does not matter, so long as 
it is appropriate to the particular sentient being. This is true teaching.

Now I will discuss the term, "thus gone", which actually has the 
same meaning as "thus come". The Diamond Sutra states that the 
Tathagata comes from nowhere and goes nowhere.

When the Buddha attained Buddhahood, nothing increased. When he 
was a sentient being, he was nothing less than he was at 
Buddhahood. Buddha Nature did not suddenly appear. Nor will it 
suddenly depart to leave "only" an ordinary sentient being. In 
essence, the Tathagata does not increase or decrease.

There was a well-known master in Taiwan who recently passed 
away. He was in his 90's when he died. His final words were, "Not 
coming, not going".

After he died, many Buddhists began repeating what he had said. It 
is true that repeating the words of a great master is useful, but since 
his words were directly quoted from the Diamond Sutra, I couldn't 
be sure If they were simply a quote or really the product of great 
attainment. Some people were unhappy with this observation. "On 
the contrary," I said, "you should be quite pleased". After so many 
years of practice, this master ended his life quoting the Diamond 
Sutra. He understood the words; not everybody is capable of that. 
Many repeat the Diamond Sutra daily, but few appreciate the 
importance of what it says. Most people would not even think of the 
Diamond Sutra when they are about to die. Their foremost concerns 
would be: "What is going to happen to my child? What is going to 
happen to my family?" It is a rare person who dies with the words of 
the Diamond Sutra in his mind as this old master did.

The Madhyamika Shastra, the discourse on the middle view, states:

No entrance and no exit.

Entrance can have the meaning of arising or producing.  Exit means 
departure, disappearance. Most Buddhists are bent upon the 
termination of all vexations, the acquisition of wisdom, departure 
from existence and, ultimately, nirvana. These ideas are all 
connected to an entrance and an exit; they do not accord with the 
perception of Tathagata.

Chan practitioners, like other Buddhists, seek to break through 
delusion and attain enlightenment. The Platform Sutra says that 
within illusion, one is an ordinary sentient being; in enlightenment, 
one is a Buddha. Again, this idea of illusion and enlightenment 
belongs to the realm of coming and going.

It is not that the Platform Sutra is wrong. It is Chan practitioners 
who misunderstand the sutra.  They conceive of a state called 
illusion and a different state called enlightenment. They wish to 
leave one behind for the other. This attitude leads to nothing but a 
rather bizarre state of mind.

Ordinary people who have no understanding of Buddhadharma 
suffer through many comings and goings. Today they make money, 
an increase. Tomorrow they lose money, a loss. Today someone gets 
married; one more in the family. A child is born, yet another. 
Perhaps a divorce lies in the future, someone departs.  Parents pass 
away, more departure. All such comings and goings are common. 
Truly understand "thus come, thus gone", and you will have much 
less vexation. There is really no gain or loss of money. Someone 
marries, but no one has really come. Divorce removes no one. In 
each situation it is "as if' someone has come, "as if' someone has 
gone.

I was once asked, "Does this idea of 'thus come, thus gone' mean that 
when I marry, I don't get a wife? When my wife gives birth, I don't 
really get a new baby? There's no one for me to take care of?"

That's not the case. The idea 'thus come, thus gone' means 'as if they 
have come. You must take care of your wife as if you have a wife. 
Likewise, if you have children you have to take care of them as if 
they have come to you. Your wife and your children should not be 
the cause of your vexation. You have people in your family - take 
care of them, but understand that they, too, are "thus come, thus 
gone.

Lao Tzu tells us to "act without possessing". This idea is appropriate 
to our discussion.

You must act responsibly in any given situation, but you must 
understand that you do not really possess or control anything. 
Otherwise, you are liable to get into trouble. Suppose your wife is 
particularly young and attractive. Others will be attracted to her. if 
you are possessive, you will suffer. On the other hand, you could 
rejoice in the attention given your wife. With an attitude of "thus 
come, thus gone", you will realise she remains your wife despite 
what others may do. And if she runs of with someone else? The 
same attitude applies: "thus come, thus gone". It is as if she has 
come; as if she has gone.

A distinguished man I know in Taiwan had a wife about ten years 
younger than he. She spoke fluent English and had many non-
Chinese friends. She ran off with an American and went to Hong 
Kong. Despite the outrage of his friends, he simply said, "The 
American gentleman happens to prefer the same woman that I do. 
He has excellent taste. I am quite pleased". Six months later she 
came back and again his friends were upset: "How can you take her 
back after all that has happened?" "I have a different point of view", 
he said. "My wife, too, has good taste: in comparing me with the 
other, she finally sees that I'm the better match. So she has come 
back."

Here is another story that happened in Taiwan. A Dharma master I 
know visited me during the New Year celebration. As was the 
custom, I presented him with an envelope containing a sizeable 
amount of money. He commented, "Between you and me there really 
should be no coming and going". I thought a moment and replied, "In 
that case, this will be the last year I give such a gift". He said, "That's 
fine. In that case it will be as if it has come, as if it had gone." His 
comment almost brought me enlightenment. What do you think?

Another line from the Diamond Sutra explains Tathagata further:

If you look at all phenomena and recognise that truly they are not 
phenomena, this is the same as seeing the Tathagata, the "thus come.

If we want to see the Tathagata in ourselves as well as in other 
sentient beings, we must recognise that what we perceive as 
phenomena are not phenomena. Here, "phenomena" refers to self, 
others, sentient beings, and the span of life.

The phenomenon of the self refers to our own bodies and our own 
thoughts. This is the self. The phenomenon of others refers to the 
environment. This includes all living beings, all physical objects and 
all events and occurrences.

If I can see myself and others, not as myself and others, then it is 
possible to see the Tathagata, the "thus come". How can we do that? 
There are several methods. Let us look at two:

The first method is analytical. To understand the idea of the self, we 
analyse the body and all that is related to it. This includes the mind 
and all our ideas, knowledge and experience. With careful analysis, 
we see that the idea of self is only a collection of physical objects 
and mental processes that seek to connect past, present and future 
experiences. We further analyse the components of these objects and 
processes and we separate what we usually consider past, present 
and future into discrete moments. We then ask, "Where is the sell?" 
It is not to be found. This is the analytical approach.

We can also analyse our environment and recognise that all things 
are constantly changing. They are impermanent; they do not have 
fixed characteristics. Therefore, we cannot say that they have any 
real existence. Why, then, should we be vexed by illusion, by 
something that is unreal?

Phenomena may also be categorised in two further ways. The first 
category is phenomena of sentient beings, really the sum of the 
phenomenon of self and phenomenon of others. The second category 
is called lifespan which constitutes continuum of time and space in 
which we live.

Truly see that there is no-self, and you will see through the 
phenomena of the environment, other sentient beings, and life-span. 
All four phenomena can be reduced to one phenomenon and that in 
itself is not real. See that all phenomena are not real, and then you 
will recognise "thus come, thus gone".

The second method is the experience of practice. Reach the point 
where your mind is concentrated and unified, and eventually the 
whole mind disappears. "The mind disappears" means an end to self-
centredness. You begin self-centred, but when your mind is 
concentrated, you become aware of your self-centredness. if you 
then completely let go, you depart from the domination of the self. 
This is the experience of "thus come, thus gone".

You might mistakenly view Tathagata as a negative state, because 
the existence of all phenomena seems to be denied. This might lead 
you to conclude that your wife is not your real wife, or that your 
husband is not your real husband. The same might apply to your 
children and parents alike. How would you be able to conduct your 
life? Obviously, the Tathagata state is not like that. No, at sudi a 
stage a person is free of vexations, not responsibilities. The 
Tathagata possesses great wisdom and great compassion. The 
Tathagata is energetic, altruistic, and filled with care and 
compassion for all sentient beings.

A disciple of Master Pai-Chang [720-814] once posed this question: 
"Master, you are busy every day from morning till night. What is the 
reason?" The master replied, "Because I have no concerns of my 
own, I have no choice but to be busy".

I often express the idea that others have problems, but we simply 
have things to do. In this way we remain clear in helping others with 
their problems. This may be difficult to achieve at first, but at the 
very least we can realise that when we have vexations, others have 
them, too. In all cases when we strive to understand and live 
according to this attitude, we will grow more caring and 
compassionate.

All things in life provide the opportunity to practice. When we make 
money, it is "as if it has come, as if it had gone". When we lose it, it 
is" as if it has come, as if it had gone". Good and bad things, too are 
"as if they have come, as if they have gone". We view all things "as 
if come, as if gone." This is the attitude of the Tathagata.

Achieve the attitude of the Tathagata, and you will have fewer mental

obstructions. What physical obstructions you do encounter will 
cause you less suffering and vexation.


THE QUESTION OF LAY ZEN

Over the past few months a number of readers have responded to 
John's request to write something on "The Question of Lay Zen". 
What is this question?1 From time to time retreat participants have 
remarked that it is difficult to follow up experiences and insights on 
retreat once they have returned from mountain to market place. 
What is the good of retreats if the experience cannot be translated to 
everyday life? Most of those who develop their practice come to an 
answer to this question but the point remains a good one. What is the 
use of all these old monastic stories if they cannot be translated into 
daily experience of problems and stress in the affairs of the world? 
We are Westerners. What can the experiences of medieval Chinese 
mean for us today? Are their insights valid in the changed 
circumstances of our world. Have they got psychology right? Does it 
have a universal application? Such questions have become more 
complex lately as a consequence of the failure of some teachers of 
Buddhism, both Oriental and Western, to match the apparent 
permissiveness of the contemporary West with an appropriate 
morality. if Masters are not ethical exemplars, then what is going on 
here?

The Question of Lay Zen is then a question concerning the 
application of Zen in the modern Western world. Much has already 
been scribbled on this, especially on the other side of the Atlantic. 
But we have to create our own answers in our own time and in our 
own way.

We asked a number of practitioners familiar with Zen to write for us 
on this theme expressing a personal viewpoint. From this collection 
can emerge a clearer picture of how practitioners are actually facing 
up to this implicit problem. There is a possibility that these short 
essays may take shape as a book but we begin by presenting some of 
them in this journal.

The first of these essays is from Stuart Lachs. Stuart has a wide 
experience of Chinese, Korean and Japanese Zen and, as a New 
Yorker, has also had ample opportunity to witness the appearance of 
Zen institutions in the USA. He examines the ethical considerations 
in US Zen institutions today. This is vital for us because similar 
problems are arising the Britain too and we all need to be dear about 
the issues involved. We thank Stuart very much for responding to 
our request.

1 The. form of this title derives from Freud's book entitled 'The 
Question of Lay Analysis in which he ponders the use of 
psychoanalysis in the wider social context beyond the consulting 
room world of the medical profession.





Coming Down from the Zen Clouds

A Slice of Zen in America

A Critique of the Current State of American Zen

by Stuart Lachs

[Copyright (c) 1994 Stuart Lachs from a work in progress. No part of 
this article may be reproduced in any form without the written 
permission of the author. Stuart welcomes feedback - his email 
address is slachs@postoffice.worldnet.att.net]

Zen Buddhism became widely known in America through D. T. 
Suzuki's writings, which promoted a non-traditional, modernist 
interpretation of Zen. Suzuki was a Japanese writer and intellectual 
who had experienced Zen training as a layman, and who, writing in 
the nationalistic intellectual climate of early twentieth-century 
Japan, emphasized a Zen freed from its Mahayana Buddhist context,
centered on a special kind of "pure" experience and without the
traditional Buddhist concern for morality 1. This view, represented
today by Abe Masao and the "Kyoto School" of religious philosophy,
accentuated those aspects of Buddhism that are both most different
from Western traditions and most distinctively Japanese. This view has
fostered in the West a widespread conception of Zen Buddhism as a
tradition of exclusively cognitive import, inordinately preoccupied 
with the ideas of Sunyata, non-duality, and absolute nothingness but 
with little talk of karma, Marga (the path), compassion or even the 
"marvelous qualities" of Buddhahood. Such a view fails to give 
adequate attention to the positive disciplines, including morality, 
that comprised the actual lives of Buddhists, and easily leads one to
think that Buddhists are unable to treat the ordinary world of human
activity seriously.2 This view has also placed extreme emphasis on the
suddenness of enlightenment with the accompanying idea that to cultivate
"correct views" is considered as self-improvement, i.e. gradualism.

Zen Buddhism was received in the West by a largely university-
trained community who accepted, by and large uncritically, the 
modernist view presented by Suzuki. Perhaps the greatest attraction 
of Zen for Americans of this period (post-WWII) was to the notion 
of pure, enlightened experience with its promise of epistemological 
certainty, attainable through systematic meditation training.3 Unlike 
psychologically-based movements for personal transformation 
whose leaders appeared as seekers themselves, Zen Buddhism promised, in
the person of the teacher, a master who had actually realized the Buddhist
goal of Enlightenment and manifested its qualities continuously in his
daily life.

American Zen students have tended to hold these teachers in awe, to 
the point of regarding their every action as pure and selfless. This 
tendency to idealize the teacher comes in part from the students' 
inexperience, but is strongly encouraged by the Zen organization and 
the teacher himself. Recently I heard an American roshi on the radio 
promoting his book. He emphasized the uniqueness in zen of the 
lineage of "mind to mind transmission" from Shakyamuni to the 
present and how the roshi speaks for or stands in place of the 
Buddha. Having been attracted to Zen Buddhism by the presence of 
an "enlightened person," the students came to regard the teacher's 
behavior as beyond criticism, an unrealistic attitude that had 
unfortunate consequences.

Beginning in 1975 and continuing to this day, a series of scandals 
has erupted at one Zen center after another revealing that many Zen 
teachers have exploited students sexually and financially. This list 
has included, at various times, the head teachers at The Zen Studies 
Society in New York City, the San Francisco Zen Center, the Zen 
Center of Los Angeles, the Cimarron Zen Center in Los Angeles, the 
now-defunct Kanzeon Zen center in Bar Harbor, Maine, the Morgan 
Bay Zendo in Surry, Maine, the Providence Zen Center and the 
Toronto Zen center. These are some of the largest and most 
influential centers. In most cases the scandals have persisted 
continually for years, or seemed to end only to arise again. At one 
center, for example, sex scandals have recurred for approximately 
twenty-five years with the same teacher involving many women. 
These scandals have been pervasive as well as persistent, affecting
almost all major American Zen Centers.

It should be emphasized that the source of the problem lies not in 
sexual activity per se, but in the teachers' abuse of authority and the 
deceptive (and exploitative) nature of these affairs. These affairs 
were carried on in secret and even publicly denied. The students 
involved were often lied to by the teachers about the nature of the 
liaison. In some cases the teacher claimed the sexual experience 
would advance the student 's spiritual development. One teacher 
justified his multiple sexual affairs after their discovery as necessary 
for strengthening the Zen center. Presumably, this was because the 
women involved were running satellite centers of his and having a 
secret affair with the "master" would deepen their understanding and 
practice.

The abuse of power that these men practiced has had far reaching 
effects in almost every case. The students involved were often 
devastated by the knowledge that they had been used by the very 
person they trusted most. Some required psychotherapy for years 
afterward. There were mental breakdowns and broken marriages. 
Zen centers were torn into factions of those who deplored the 
teacher's behavior and those who denied or excused it. The 
apologists, when they did not flatly deny what had occurred, would 
explain it away as the teacher's "crazy wisdom" or more commonly, 
they would blame the victim or dismiss it by commenting that the 
teacher isn't perfect. Another explanation was that the student did 
not yet truly understand the teaching. Disciplining of Zen teachers in 
America has been rare. Usually, those who objected to the goings-on 
either left voluntarily or were pushed out of the center by those loyal
to the teacher or by the teacher himself. Some of the students who left
eventually resumed their practice while others were so disillusioned and 
embittered that they abandoned Buddhism altogether.

American Zen teachers who have been exposed in their abuse of 
power have seldom been publicly criticized for their behavior by 
other Zen teachers, either here or in Japan. In one case, members of 
the Japanese Zen hierarchy threatened to cut off the training of one 
student who had wanted an abusive Japanese monk deported. The 
complaining student did in fact keep quiet, finished his training, and 
is today a well-known roshi. The monk in question is the roshi 
already described who has been exploiting his position for twenty-
five years.

Reflecting on these problems has led me to investigate Zen history 
more closely, especially certain key terms that have come to 
characterize Zen Buddhism. What, for instance, do the terms 
"dharma transmission" and "roshi" mean which so pepper the 
conversations of American Zen students and bestow so much 
authority on the teacher? Is dharma transmission infallible? What 
does the tradition itself say about regulating the behavior of
monastics? Is Zen alone among religions, in having no moral or 
ethical dimension as many practitioners believe? Are these matters 
unique to permissive American culture? Do we have an overly 
idealized view of Chan/Zen history? Is there something in our 
practice that is "lacking" if the supposed exemplars of the training 
cannot deal responsibly with the people and situations around them? 
We should keep in mind that from the Zen view truth cannot be 
expressed in words but rather alluded to only in the spontaneous and 
natural activities of daily life.4 Is koan training in particular being 
done in a way that does not carry over to how one lives one's life in 
the real world? Or, more fundamentally, is koan training mistakenly 
regarded as fulfilling the Buddha's path in itself? Has it become an 
end in itself? Is zen training and koan study in particular not about 
liberation, but more a unique training in spontaneity and learning to 
perform in certain stylized manners? Are there some aspects of the 
teacher/student relationship that need to be changed? What weight, if 
any, should be accorded the subsequent dharma transmissions of a 
disreputable teacher? What meaning does the term "monk" itself 
have? How much of Zen, as practiced in the West, is really East 
Asian but mostly Japanese culture with its special authoritarian and 
ritualized character?

A full treatment of these questions goes beyond the scope of this 
paper, but I believe these topics call for examination and thoughtful 
discussion. The crux of the matter comes to this: how does the 
institution of Zen Buddhism actually operate in the world as opposed 
to how we expect it to function based on the mostly idealized view 
that we have accepted uncritically.

What, then, is the content of this idealized view? First, let us 
consider the meaning of the term "dharma transmission." According 
to the widely held view, dharma transmission is the recognition by 
the teacher that the student has attained the "mind of the Buddha" 
and that his understanding is equal to that of the teacher. It is the 
continuity of this chain of enlightened minds supposedly unique to 
Zen and going back to the historical Buddha that is the conceptual 
basis for the present teacher's considerable authority. From the point 
of the Zen tradition it is dharma transmission that justifies regarding 
the teacher as the Buddha, which is what the Chan tradition has 
done since the Tang dynasty.5 It is this use of a spiritual lineage as 
the basis for authenticity ("a separate transmission outside of the 
scriptures" )6 rather than a particular text that distinguishes the 
Chan school from other Chinese Buddhist sects of the period. This 
interpretation would imply that dharma transmission is given solely 
on the basis of the spiritual attainment of the student. On 
investigation, the term "dharma transmission" turns out to be a much 
more flexible and ambiguous term than we in the West suppose. To 
be sure, it is given in recognition that the student has attained as 
deep a realization of mind as the teacher himself. This view, and 
correctly only this one, is sometimes called "mind-to-mind 
transmission." Mind-to-mind transmission logically implies the 
enlightenment of the disciple. However, Dharma transmission has 
been given for other reasons. According to some scholars, dharma 
transmission has actually been construed as membership in a 
teaching lineage, awarded for any of the following, presumed 
legitimate, reasons: to establish proper political contacts vital to the 
well-being of the monastery, to cement a personal connection with a 
student, to enhance the authority of missionaries7 spreading the 
dharma in foreign countries, or to provide salvation (posthumously, 
in medieval Japan) by allowing the deceased recipient to join the 
"blood line" of the Buddha. In the later Sung Dynasty (AD 960-
1280), at least, dharma transmission was routinely given to senior 
monastic officers, presumably so that their way to an abbacy would 
not be blocked.8 Clearly, enlightenment was not always regarded as 
essential for dharma transmission. Manzan Dohaku (1636-1714), a 
Soto reformer, supported this last view citing as authority the 
towering figure of Japanese Zen, Dogen (1200-1253).9 This became 
and continues to this day to be the official Soto Zen view.

Philip Kapleau relates the story that Nakagawa Soen Roshi, of the 
Rinzai sect, had told him that he (Soen Roshi) did not have kensho 
when Gempo Roshi appointed him his successor.10 According to 
one scholar's interpretation, formal transmission actually constituted 
no more than the ritual investiture of a student in an institutionally 
certified genealogy.11

As a lesson in the significance of institutional history, let us look at 
the present-day Soto sect in Japan. This sect strives to match the 
institutional structures of Dogen's time when every Soto temple had 
to have an abbot and every abbot had to have dharma transmission. 
In 1984 there were 14,718 Soto Zen temples in Japan and 15,528 
Soto priests. Since every abbot has to be a priest, it follows that 
almost every Soto priest (95%) has dharma transmission. It should 
be noted that a majority of these priests will spend less than three 
years in a monastery. Most interestingly, while there is much written 
in Soto texts on the ritual of dharma transmission, there is almost 
nothing on the qualifications for it.12

The term "roshi" has also been used in a variety of ways. Once again, 
a rather idealized interpretation prevails among Zen students who 
take "roshi" to mean "master," i.e. someone who is fully enlightened 
to the point that his every gesture manifests the Absolute. 
Historically in Japan, "roshi" has indeed sometimes been understood 
to indicate rank based on spiritual development while at other times 
it is used as a term of address connoting no more than respect. There 
seem to be occasions in Japanese (especially Soto) usage when it 
merely denotes an administrative rank. There is no central authority 
in China or Japan or anywhere else that certifies anyone's official 
passage into roshihood based on any criteria and certainly not on 
spiritual attainment. It is not a misstatement to say, as Soko 
Morinaga Roshi, the former President of [Rinzai] Hanazono College, 
once remarked, "A roshi is anyone who calls himself by the term and 
can get other people do the same."

An interesting example can be seen in the person of Philip Kapleau. 
Mr. Kapleau uses the title " roshi " and his students, as do most Zen 
students, address him as such. Mr. Kapleau has been extremely 
influential, both through his personal teaching and his writing of 
books and articles, in spreading Zen in America and abroad. If 
nothing else, he has taught for many years and remained free of 
scandal, something that a number of others with officially sanctioned 
dharma transmission and titles cannot say. However Mr. Kapleau 
himself has explicitly stated that he is not a dharma heir of his 
teacher, Yasutani Roshi, and did not receive the title roshi from him 
or anyone else.13 Essentially, he took the title himself. This is not to 
say he is or is not any more or less qualified than anyone else. 
Interestingly, Mr. Kapleau has " transmitted " to some of his 
disciples. This is essentially a line beginning with himself, contrary 
to all other Zen lines, which at least rhetorically maintain the myth 
of an unbroken lineage dating back to Shakyamuni Buddha.14

"In Korean Zen, the equivalent of roshi/Zen master, the pangjang, is 
surprisingly an elected position and carries an initial ten-year term... 
If the master does not perform adequately, a petition by fifty monks 
would be enough to have a recall vote... A monk's affinities are more 
with his fellow meditation monks than with a specific master".15 
This is extremely different from the Japanese model which is 
commonly assumed by Americans to be the only authentic form.

The term "monk" is another word that calls for some scrutiny. The 
Chinese term means "left home person" and is applied exclusively to 
individuals who have left their families and follow the rules for 
monks, which include celibacy among other requirements. The 
Japanese use the same word (obosan) for both "monk" and "priest, " 
and permit marriage as do some Korean sects.16 In America when 
used by Zen people who are part of lines originating in Japan, the 
term "monk" has no well-defined meaning. Celibacy is seldom 
implied in the American usage of the term. A man who calls himself 
a monk may be married, may live with someone, or may be dating. A 
similar situation prevails for nuns. It may even be the case that a 
"monk" may date a "nun." Some people who refer to themselves as a 
monk or a nun may in fact be celibate, but they would be a minority 
in the American Zen world. Nor do American Zen monks appear to 
follow the other requirements of rules for monks, such as avoiding 
entertainment, liquor, and socializing with members of the opposite 
sex. One American Zen group has gone so far as to institute a new 
ritual, "spiritual union," to recognize and legitimize a sexual 
relationship between members who otherwise view themselves as a 
celibate monk and a nun.17

The idealization inherent in the terms "dharma transmission," "roshi" 
and "monk," has contributed to the problems we have experienced in 
American Zen. By the very nature of the roles the student ascribes to 
the titles, he routinely gives trust to the teacher that he would not 
give to anyone else. This trust is often quite complete and natural, 
because the wearing of the robes traditionally signifies the turning 
away from selfish motivations, the vow to save all sentient beings 
and not to inflict harm. To an observer not familiar with this type of 
religious practice, the extent to which a student surrenders can 
appear astonishing. Many people accept this kind of trust in spiritual 
practice, but it leads to problems when the teacher is not emotionally 
mature or disciplined enough to assume the responsibility for 
guiding students. Though the teacher may have some level of 
attainment, it is too often far from the idealized view of the student 
or from that promoted by the Zen institutions. "In the Chan tradition, 
the rhetoric maintains that each transmission is perfect, each 
successor is the spiritual equivalent of his predecessor... the primary 
feature is its participatory nature; to receive certification of 
enlightenment from a Chan/Zen master is to join the succession of 
patriarchs and enter into dynamic communion with the sages of 
ancient times. One either belonged within the lineage of enlightened 
masters or not; there is no in-between category i.e. 'almost 
enlightened' or 'rather like a master'".18

In Zen, one can identify a two-fold process, looking-in and looking-
out. Looking-in includes the process of meditation; looking-out 
includes taking the teacher as a model for living and as an 
inspiration for practice. As is common in Gnostic-type religious 
practice, the teacher in Zen is the final arbiter of reality. Not only 
does the teacher judge the student's level of insight/wisdom, but, for 
closer students at the least, will often comment and judge on every 
aspect of the disciple's daily life. However, as we have seen, there is 
often a serious disparity between the student ' s view of the teacher 
and the teacher's actual life. The students don't hold the teacher to 
any standard of conduct not merely because they feel they 
themselves lack the authority to make such judgments about the 
teacher. They also fear that criticisms which undermine the teacher's 
authority would cast doubts on the value of their years of practice 
under that teacher. Some have also come to feel protective of 
immature Zen institutions in the United States, and hesitate to 
contribute to the damage that public scandal could cause. Others fear 
their own rise to a position of teacher would be jeopardized.

As noted earlier, while D. T. Suzuki and others have led people to 
believe that there was no prescribed Zen morality, a different picture 
emerges if we look at the historical beginnings of Zen. In China, 
where Zen began, Zen monasteries became distinct from other 
Buddhist monasteries with the famous rules of P'ai-chang (749-814) 
who supposedly prescribed a strict code of behavior for members of 
the monastic community and severe penalties for improper behavior. 
All of the classical accounts of Pai-chang's founding of an 
independent system of Chan monastic training, it turns out, may be 
traced back to a single source, "Regulations of the Chan Approach" 
(Chan-men Kuei-shih) written in approximately 960 A.D.19 
According to this text, "If the offender had committed a serious 
offense he was beaten with his own staff. His robe and bowl and 
other monkish implements were burned in front of the assembled 
community, and he was [thereby] expelled [from the order of 
Buddhist monks]. He was then thrown out [of the monastery] 
through a side gate as a sign of his disgrace. The rules applied to 
everyone. P'ai-chang further recommended that "a spiritually 
perceptive and morally praiseworthy person was to be named as 
abbot." This definitely implies a moral and social aspect to Chan 
life. This is the logic of Zen from its earliest formulation as a distinct 
Buddhist sect.

If students have offered excessive power to teachers, that does not 
tell us why so many Zen teachers have taken advantage of the 
opportunity to abuse their power. Not all of them have, after all. The 
question arises, which does not often get asked in America Zen 
circles, what is the connection between attainment and behavior? 
What are we to make of the evident disparity in someone with 
institutional sanction, i.e. dharma transmission, supposedly having 
deep insight but behaving irresponsibly? It is difficult to understand 
why teachers with exalted titles and long years of meditation 
practice behave in such selfish, self-serving, dishonest and 
destructive ways? The Platform Sutra itself states that, "If we do not 
put it (wisdom) into practice, it amounts to an illusion and a 
phantom."20 One partial explanation could be that of Chih-i (531-
597) the founder of T'ien-t'ai Buddhism and author of the most 
comprehensive guide to Chinese meditation, who was aware that the 
very effort of intense concentration may agitate the klesas 
(afflictions and illusions) generating various feelings and desires that 
would not occur during normal consciousness, tempting the 
practitioner away from practice.21 In any case, rarely does one 
question the teacher's level of attainment.

Could the problem have something to do with the description and 
view of enlightenment as static, in the sense of seeing only what is, 
rather than a more dynamic view which also involves that which 
functions? A view of Buddhist attainment that also focuses on 
function, rather than objectifying an experience, would also place 
primary emphasis on context and connections, i.e. relationships with 
other people and society as a whole.22

The question of the relationship between enlightenment and 
cultivation has persisted in the Zen tradition from the end of the 
eighth century onward. Enlightenment in this context refers to the 
experience of deep insight into the true nature of reality. Cultivation 
may be taken as living one's day to day life from the enlightened 
point of view which includes an awareness of other people's full 
humanity and our connectedness with them.23 Ma-tsu (709-788), a 
major and influential Chan teacher, claimed that the sudden 
enlightenment experience was inherently so thorough that the whole 
of the Buddha's path was realized and completed in that experience. 
This view came to be known as "sudden enlightenment/sudden 
cultivation." Other major Zen teachers, such as Tsung-mi24 (780-
841), Yen-shou (901-975), and the Korean, Chinul (1158-1210) took 
the view that sudden enlightenment might bring full attainment, but 
perhaps only for exceptionally endowed individuals such as the 
Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng and Ma-tsu. For the more ordinary run of 
mankind, who are less spiritually talented, the enlightenment 
experience indeed offers a true view of one's self-nature, but without 
exhausting selfishness. Some delusions, such as existential 
bewilderment, may be overcome by a deep experience. Other more 
deep-seated delusions such as craving, hatred and conceitedness can 
only be overcome by making "that which we have seen a living 
experience and molding our life accordingly."25 The Buddhist 
injunction to live an ethical life is comprised of not only exercising 
restraint and self-control, but also of positively manifesting 
compassion in our dealings with other people. Chan master Yen-
shou put the matter in this way:

If the manifesting formations are not yet severed and the defilements 
and habit energies persist, or whatever you see leads to passion and 
whatever you encounter produces impediments, then although you 
have understood the meaning of the non-arising state, your power is 
still insufficient. You should not grasp at that understanding and say, 
"I have already awakened to the fact that the nature of the 
defilements is void," for later when you decide to cultivate, your 
practice will, on the contrary, become inverted. ... Hence it should be 
clear that if words and actions are contradictory, the correctness or 
incorrectness of one's practice can be verified. Measure the strength 
of your faculties; you cannot afford to deceive yourself.26

As a matter of historical fact Ma-tsu's line survived and has 
dominated the Zen tradition from the Sung dynasty (960-1280) to 
this day while Tsung-mi's line, for instance, died out. The result is 
that the view that sudden enlightenment entailed sudden cultivation 
became the official rhetoric of Zen Buddhism. The opposing, but 
still orthodox, Zen view that sudden enlightenment had to be 
followed by gradual cultivation, has largely been de-emphasized. In 
Tsung-mi's words, "Awakening from delusion is sudden; 
transforming an ordinary man into a saint is gradual."27 Most 
teachers are hardly fully enlightened Buddhas, but are people who 
need to cultivate themselves further. We need to keep this in mind 
when we interact with them. Though in Zen practice we must focus 
on our own shortcomings, there remains a place for common sense 
in viewing the actions of others, even those of our teachers. The 
Dalai Lama has written concerning the student's view of the teacher, 
". . . too much faith and imputed purity of perception can quite easily 
turn things rotten."28

Endnotes

1. According to Suzuki, Zen is "extremely flexible in adapting itself 
to almost any philosophy and moral doctrine as long as its intuitive 
teaching is not interfered with. It may be found wedded to anarchism 
or fascism, communism or democracy, atheism or idealism, or any 
political or economic dogmatism." Zen and Japanese Culture, 
Princeton University Press, 1959, p. 63. For a fuller discussion of the 
sources and nationalistic motivations of D.T. Suzuki's presentation 
of Zen Buddhism see the article by Robert H. Sharf, "The Zen of 
Japanese Nationalism, " History of Religions, August, 1993. Bernard 
Faure also analyzes critically some of Suzuki ' s thought in Chan 
Insights and Oversights, Princeton Press, 1993, pp. 52-74

2. Paths To Liberation; the Marga and Its Transformations in 
Buddhist Thought ed. by Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Robert Gimello 
1992, U. of Hawaii Press, p27.

3. see "Buddhism and the Rhetoric of Religious Experience." 
delivered at the annual meeting of the American Academy of 
Religion, 1992, p. 37, Sharf.

4. "Encounter Dialogue and Transformation in Chan" by John R. 
McRae in Paths to Liberation, ed. by Robert Buswell and Robert 
Gimello, U. of Hawaii Press, 1992, p. 354.

5. p 195 "On the Ritual Use of Chan Portraiture in Medieval China, 
" T. Griffith Foulk and Robert H. Sharf, Cahiers D'Extrˆme Asie 7

6. For an interesting discussion of the rather late and even 
controversial acceptance of this self-defining idea in Ch ' an see " Ch 
' an Slogans and the Creation of Ch ' an Ideology: ' A Special 
Transmission Outside the Scriptures, " a paper presented at the 
Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion by Albert 
Welter, November, 1995.

7. Holmes Welch, Buddhism in China: 1900 to 1950, Harvard 
University Press, 1967, p. 315. Welch gives the interesting case of 
one Chinese monk in the twentieth century who gave dharma 
transmission to another Chinese monk then in Burma, "without ever 
having met him, and indeed, without even finding out whether he 
would accept the dharma."

8. "Myth, Ritual, and Monastic Practice," by T. Griffith Foulk in 
Religion and Society in Tang and Sung China, ed. by Patricia 
Buckley Ebrey and Peter N. Gregory, U. of Hawaii Press, 1993, p. 
160.

9. Soto Zen in Mediaeval Japan, William M. Bodiford, U. of Hawaii 
Press, 1993, p. 215. "Zen dharma transmission between master and 
disciple could occur whether or not the disciple had realized 
enlightenment, just so long as the ritual of personal initiation had 
been performed." For a further discussion of the surprising usages of 
dharma transmission see: Welch previously cited, The Rhetoric of 
Immediacy, Bernard Faure, Princeton University Press, 1991, and 
Foulk. See also "On the Ritual Use of Chan Portraiture in Medieval 
China, " T. Griffith Foulk and Robert H. Sharf, Cahiers d'Extrˆme 
Asie, 7, 1993 pp. 149-219

10. Letter from Philip Kapleau to Koun Yamada, Feb. 17, 1986.

11. See Sharf[2], footnote 20, p. 44

12. The Zen Institute in Modern Japan" by T. Griffith Foulk, P. 157-
177 in Zen:Tradition and Transition, Kenneth Kraft ed., NY: Grove 
Press, 1988.

13. Public letter from Yamada Roshi 1/16/86. Koun Yamada Roshi 
was Yasutani Roshi's heir. He became the leader of the Sanbokyodan 
school of Zen started by Yasutani Roshi and also gave dharma 
transmission to Robert Aitken. Also , letter from Mr. Kapleau to 
Koun Yamada 2/17/86

14. It is also true that almost no modern scholar of Zen, Eastern or 
Western, takes seriously the idea of an unbroken Zen lineage going 
back to Shakyamuni Buddha.

15. The Zen Monastic Experience, " Robert E. Buswell, Princeton 
University Press, 1992, pp. 204-208

16. From 1910-1945 Korea was under the military occupation of 
Japan. Under the pressure and influence of married Japanese Zen 
priests, some Korean monks took wives and started families. This 
caused a split with the traditional, celibate monks in the Korean 
Sangha that became so severe that in 1954 President Syngman Rhee 
was called in to resolve the dispute. see pp. 30-31, The Way of 
Korean Zen by Kusan Sunim, Weatherhill, 1985.

17. Mountain Record Magazine, vol. XII, number 1, Fall, 1993, p. 
59, a publication of Zen Mountain Monastery, Woodstock, NY.

18. "Encounter Dialogue and Transformation in Chan" by John R. 
McRae in Paths to Liberation, ed. by Robert Buswell and Robert 
Gimello, U. of Hawaii Press, 1992, p. 353,354.

19. The Chan "School" and its Place in the Buddhist Monastic 
Tradition, Ph.D. dissertation of Theodore Griffith Foulk, University 
of Michigan, 1987, available from UMI Dissertation Information 
Service, U.S. telephone number: (800) 521-0600, p. 348

20.  The Platform Scripture, trans. by W. T. Chan (New York, 1963), 
p. 69. 
  
21. Paths to Liberation, "Encounter Dialogue and the Transformation 
of the Spiritual Path in Chinese Chan, " McRae, p. 347

22. In relation to the famous verse of Bodhidharma: A separate 
transmission outside of scripture Not founded on words or letters, 
Point directly to one's mind See one's nature and become Buddha. 
(Jpn. kensho jobutsu)

In the Rinzai koan curriculum, " ...kensho is something that one does 
[a verb, not a noun], it is not primarily something that one has. " 
from " Koan and Kensho in the Rinzai Zen Curriculum, " an 
unpublished paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American 
Academy of Religion by G. Victor Sogen Hori, Nov. 21, 1994. 
Permission to quote granted by the author.

23. For an interesting discussion of essence/function and " integral 
practice, " the idea that the degree of integration into one ' s behavior 
was the criterion for achievement of the teachings of the sages see A. 
Charles Muller, The Composition of Self-Transformation Thought in 
Classical East Asian Philosophy and Religion. " Toyo Gakuen Kiyo, 
March, 1993.(Also available on the World Wide Web at 
http://www2.gol.com/users/acmuller/index.html)

24. Tsung-mi was a patriarch in both a Chan line and the Hua-yen 
sect of Buddhism. He wrote the most complete analysis of Chan 
Buddhist sects in ninth century China. For a full treatment of this 
important Chan personality see Tsung-mi and the Sinification of 
Buddhism, Peter N. Gregory, Princeton University Press, 1991.

25. see The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by SGam.Po.Pa, trans. by 
HerbertGuenther, Shambala Publications, 1959, footnote 1, p. 252.

26. The Collected Works of Chinul, Robert Buswell, U. of Hawaii 
Press, 1983, p. 305. This entire book is a treasure for Zen students. 
Of special interest is the chapter entitled, "Excerpts from the 
Dharma Collection and Special Practice Record with Personal 
Notes," written one year before Chinul's death in which he 
comments on varieties of enlightenment experience and how careful 
one must be in one's practice. Modern Korean Zen still bears the 
strong imprint of Chinul.

27. The Collected Works of Chinul, Buswell, p. 278

28. Snow Lion Magazine, Winter Supplement 1995, p. 1.





DISCIPLINES - John Crook

How about this?

No man gets to heaven
going by the book
Ten days in this temple
have sent me up the wall
Anytime you meet me
you know where to look,
Fish shop, wine shop, brothel
would each be worth a call

These disturbingly Zen sentiments were sent to me by a friend. I do 
not know where he culled them from, but I recently came across 
their true origin.

Ikkyu (1394-1481) was known for his combination of irrepressible 
impertinence to authority, his wild demeanour, riotously brilliant 
calligraphy and his zen insight. Born the son of a lady in waiting and 
the Emperor Go-Komatsu (1377-1433) of Japan, he resented deeply 
the humiliation of his mother when she was Ousted from court by a 
jealous empress. He never respected any authority again. Although 
given to altercation1 his vigorous scenting out of hypocrisy startled 
many into a realisation of their error-bound ways. Despite being a 
monk, he increasingly freed himself from social conditioning, his 
was a free life style that included love for women and a rejection of 
monkish ways. Once, after marching out in disgust at the formality 
of a sham Buddhism at the Nyoi-an temple in the Daitokuji complex 
in Kyoto, where he had been appointed Abbot, he wrote these lines:

Ten days  in this temple and my mind is reeling.
Between my legs the red thread1  stretches and-stretches.
If you come some day asking for me
Better look in a fish stall, saki shop or brothel!

This would seem identical to the livelier translation above and 
probably its true source. Shortly before his death he wrote:

I won't die
I wont go anywhere
but l won't be here.
So don't ask me anything
I wont answer
Dimly, dimly thirty years; 
faintly, faintly thirty years;
Dimly, faintly sixty years
I pass my turds
and offer them to Brahma.2

This brief anti-puritan reminder is dedicated to the Dharma in the 
hope of enlightenment for all contemporary reprobates.

1 Meaning passion
2 Translations adapted from p 56. Stevens, J.1993 'Three Zen 
  Masters". Kodansha International Tokyo



HERMIT AT STALLION'S ROCK
by Ken Jones

It was a cliff overhang rather than a real cave. But the walls glowed 
with beautiful lichens, and at one end was a rockfall hung with ferns. I 
cleared out the sheep dung, set up a little shrine, cut a bed of reeds 
and laid out my sleeping bag. I was in business at least as a part-time 
hermit.

Notwithstanding two decades of tough Zen training, I still had a 
romantic itch for the hermit life - all those poems and ink drawings! 
I've done many a solitary in lonely cabins, as well as being a seasoned 
backpacker. But four walls or a good tent make all the difference   
Perched several hundred feet up on my cliff ledge I would have 
nowhere to hole up and no choice but to hang out.

Good weather sustained my first days of idyllic delusion. I'm high up 
at the top end of a wild valley of steep grass slopes and craggy 
outcrops. However.  

For stonechats and ravens
this isn't a melancholy place

The little stream gathers its tributaries arid, plunging into deep green 
pools, flows on past the ruins of ancient sheepfolds to the main valley 
two miles away. There are no signs of human habitation, nor have I 
ever seen another human being or any footprint but my own. At the 
lower end a solitary pine stands sentinel, growing out of a cleft in the 
rocks. Down among its roots are small bones and the acrid smell of 
fox. Since my I Ching name is (in Welsh) Coeden ar y Mynydd (Tree 
on the Mountainside) - hexagram 53, for the curious - maybe this 
would be a good place to end up:

Zazen in Cwm Hiraeth
where my ashes will join me

That first night I had good company:

Outside my shallow cave
enchanted by moonlight
stonechats sing the night away

Came the morning star, and dawn meditation above my mist-filled 
valley. Back in my sack, I watched mist and sunlight vying along the 
ridge opposite, as my spirit stove struggled to produce the coffee.  My 
ledge falls steeply to the stream below: mindful or dead ... But 
morning and evening down there, among the reeds, is always a special 
time:

Surrounded by wilderness
among the pebbles of the spring
my delicate pink dental plate

But as yet I was no more than a visitor playing the hermit. My first 
initiation came that night. At dusk came the thunder, the lightning and 
the torrential rain. Water running down the cliff curtained off my 
hermitage, and the little springs springing into life all round me 
explained the luxuriant ferns:

Chanting mantras
burning incense
my sleeping bag gets wetter
and wetter

'What kills in the British hills is the combination of sustained wetness, 
cold and wind.' This is big, desolate upland, famed for its bogs and 
unforgiving of travellers who make an error of judgement. It was 
better to risk hypothermia by staying put than to attempt the many 
miles to the nearest sheep farm.  Apart from some minor drainage 
works, and invoking the aid of Kuan Yin (who specialises in tacky 
situations like this) there was not much I could usefully do all night 
except watch my mind (quite dramatic) and sense the damp slowly 
chilling my bones.  In the middle of the night, cradled surely by Kuan 
Yin, I sank into a deep, peaceful sleep. And at first light, pausing only 
for a grateful bow in the thick mist, I fled my flooded cave.

After that, life at Craig y March (Stallion's Rock) began for real. 
Mostly it is weather: too wet, too cold, too blustery or:

Like me
the midges
enjoy hazy sunshine

(Frankincense and myrrh keep them at bay; culture-specific, they 
ignore the oriental stuff.) Worst of all, the roof of the cave is too low 
for meditating in the approved posture. Indeed, in some weathers I 
am condemned to long periods of sheer idleness. Just hanging out 
there. Reduced to watching my mind. Or watching the view in its 
ever changing sameness.
                         
Days and nights of solitude
deeper in the belly
the sutras growl

Again I am reminded that acceptance is what it is about; leaving space 
for clarity, gratitude, love, joy and energy to bubble up - laughing at 
nothing with no one to hear me. The valley and I have become more 
intimate than even the wild cwm where I normally live, but where 
there is too much else going on that fogs my perception of how it 
really is. But here in Cwm Hiraeth:

Day after day
the mind flutters 
against the cwm's 
irresistible reality
day after day 
the cwm is there 
the stream below
winding through yellow grass
and opposite my cave
the ridge
coming and going in the mist
the end of longing

Humping out across the mountain, I encounter a shepherd checking 
the old ridge fence that doesn't know it's become a Euro-constituency 
boundary. We stop to enjoy each other's company, two pairs of boots 
settling gently into the bog. Talking about a parliament for Wales we 
are.   


HOW CAN I COMPARE LIKE WITH LIKE? 1

Hebe Welbourn

"In Zen a tree just is. A Christian, seeing a tree, sees it as 
a manifestation of God, who is beyond." (From John 
Crook's talk to the Bristol Chan Group on 16.2.94)

"Be careful, you will find they are in it for the sake of 
enlightenment, as an end in itself." Words from my 
Christian spiritual adviser when I first told him of my 
interest in Zen Buddhism.)

In the first instance, John was referring not only to 
Christianity but also to the teaching of Greek 
philosophers, particularly Plato - which subsequently 
became an important skein woven into Christian tradition. 
In this case what is my reference for comparison? As a 
Christian looking at a tree, am I a philosopher, a 
philosophical theologian, or just a "person in the pew" 
following, as best I can, the teaching presented to me in 
my Church? And who is the Zen Buddhist with whom I 
am compared? A Zen Master, a philosopher, or a peasant 
to whom the tree may, indeed, represent demons or 
deities?

In the second instance, why do I meditate? Do I practise 
the discipline for the sake of getting enlightenment for 
myself? No - and yes. The necessary paradox - loss or 
gain of self - is the same in both traditions. You can't "get 
it" as an end in itself. Further, do I just meditate. Or do I 
meditate in order to contemplate a personal presence who 
is there? As far as I, personally, am concerned, anyone 
there is a projection of me. There is no-one there. I just 
sit. In the presence of all the me I don't know, all the 
infinity of time and space, all present in this moment. The 
words, poetry, pictures, models, come to me in God-talk, 
through Jesus Christ incarnate. But the words are 
inadequate.

This experience is contained in another skein of Christian 
tradition: the Gospels (particularly Mark), the Desert 
Fathers, Eckhart, the Cloud of Unknowing, Angelus 
Silesius, Simone Weil. The apophatic, wordless, tradition. 
If it is wordless, how is it  communicated? Is the "Zen 
experience" the same for a Buddhist, philosopher, a 
factory worker or a peasant? If it is wordless, how do we 
compare our experience?

So we come to "God-talk" as a means of communicating with 
ourselves and others. A Buddhist may enter the koan "Who is it that
loves?" by visualising the Bodhisattva Chenrezi. A Christian may
contemplate Christ on the cross. In this case am I comparing like with like?


1 As I began to write this, I found it already said. much more extensively
and deeply by Tbomas Merton in A Christian Looks at Zen in Zen and the
Birds of Appetite which has just been republished as a Shambala pocket
classic.




ODE TO HYPOCRISY

I always tried to be so good
And do the things that Buddha would
But now I find it's come to pass
That no good things were made to last.

So now I stand upon this hill
Submit myself to thine own will
And in the merry month of May
The beast I feared has come to play.

I've given up the strength to fight
No longer yearn for love or light
For now it's hell's gates that open to receive me
And it's the Antichrist who doth redeem me.

Ian Finlay


THERE FOR THE TAKING - John Crook

Introducing Linji

Before we try to understand Linji, from whom our tradition derives, 
then are some things to be said. Linji seems strange to us; we who are 
used to cause and consequence and well-drawn argument. We sit and 
giggle over the delicious way in which the master affronts his questioners. 
Yet we have no understanding of why he does it. We marvel over the 
cleverness of a Zen paradox, but we have no insight into what it means. 
Shame upon us; we who pretend to admire without any understanding. It is 
time to wake up and penetrate the meaning.

What use is it to sit and goggle at the absurdities of the old monk's 
statements? what good is it to seek in explanatory texts what the old man 
means? what point is there in listening to the vaporising of this your 
teacher when you should yourself be penetrating the root-essence of your 
own ignorance!

Yet if we attempt nothing and remain puzzled even while we smile, we 
cannot advance. When we cannot understand why attainment is not what is 
meant it is still wrong to give up. In truth, these matters are entirely dear. 
We only need the right eye for the seeing thereof if you gain the right eye 
then you can laugh. There is not anything to it.

Ha - we missed even that one. Truly, there isn't anything to it. But if we 
leave it like that, we will go home just marvelling at the quirkiness of it 
all. The gateless gates will all remain firmly shut. What then to say? 
Anything said will be a great mistake yet to say nothing is not enough.

Two things may be helpful. When we read the word "Mind" in Linji's 
sayings, we are apt to pass it over quickly as if we knew what was meant. 
In fact at this very point, you must pause and recognise in your own 
cognition what the subject of discussion really is. In English, "mind" often 
means all sorts of cognitions all the way from consciousness itself through 
to memory and the calculations of sums. Yet, in these texts, "mind " is not 
always so inclusive. At the root of this mind is the ever present evaluator 
himself or herself for whose benefit, however obscure, the activity is going 
on. The mood of this subjectivity is quite different from the state of a 
subject who is freed from this innate habit; who is just present in the world 
as immediately given by the six senses. In understanding Linji, this 
difference is important.

It is imperative that we have a personal and direct experience of this 
contrast. Those of us who have never left the discriminatory mind cannot 
understand personally what is being said here because our comparative 
experience is defective. Yet, even so, if you are intelligent, you can see 
what the words mean and thereby seek to confirm them. Let us try to make 
it more clear.

You may be sitting in a garden. The clouds are gathering. You begin 
thinking of how it might rain. How inconvenient that might be. You must 
clear up the tea things and put them away. You are annoyed because you 
were expecting to laze an hour away in the sun. In such a state the subject 
is judging, discriminating, calculating, all in an edgy condition of self 
reference. You may even become irritated if someone asks you what the 
time is!

Compare this with sitting in the garden, in exactly the same condition, but 
now you merely observe the clouds. They are simply there. Your senses 
are open to them, their massive height and grandeur, their slow march 
across the blue. In creative imagination you see them, mile after mile of 
them, massively blowing in from the ocean. In your mind's eye, you can 
see that the furthest clouds have not yet reached the coastline. The massive 
regiments advance yet, you suddenly sense that up there in the heavens 
they are moving in total silence, a huge, as it were, pensive silence. Even 
here among the hills there is only the light wafting of the breeze in the ash 
tree. You realise suddenly that the great stillness you are evoking is inside 
you. Your mind is still, no thinking, no calculating and no self reference. 
The suchness of the moment hangs before you and you are free. A kind of 
clarity shines forth from everything being just as it is. Going further - that 
is how is has always been, always is and always will be. The universe is 
always quietly on the move in its own way. if you flow with it, all remains 
at peace. Such an insight is there for the taking at any moment, any time. 
Even in Trafalgar Square with the traffic.

The mind has switched off its perpetual self-referring judgement. Is it 
good for me? What am I gaining? What is my status? How long before 
enlightenment? Is all this worth the bother? Such thoughts, however 
unbidden and resisted, seem so easily to dominate. Whenever we assert 
anything, a contrary view can arise in opposition.

Again and again in Zen, we encounter the great NO. Bodhidharma's 
definition of Chan, Hui Neng "letting the mind arise but not putting it 
anywhere", Linji swatting a monk with his fly whisk even before he has 
finished his question, Master Sheng-yen telling us that if we open our 
mouth to answer a koan, we are wrong! Always this mind blocking 
negation, this apophatic assertion. Why?

If you say anything your mind congeals around it. You set in concrete. If 
someone objects, both of you set in concrete, congealing around your 
opposed reifications. When nothing is said, there is no opposition, no 
judgement, no movement of discrimination. So in facing the Koan - What 
is it? - Pause, wait, resist the rising response. Say nothing but continue 
gazing into the space the question has cleared before you. Allow the great 
doubt to arise. Nothing there? Hey, wait a bit. What is it that is there but 
cannot be said? What is the essence of the NOT SAYING? This eternal 
moment.

What is it? The clouds go on moving. They reach down to us and take us 
up. We reach up to them and take them in. The huge immensity of their 
movement carries us along. We too could let go like the clouds. Put a œ100 
note in a bag and just take off in the car. Which way would you drive? No 
decision. Yet, here you are going along the road. Maybe it is raining. 
Maybe, the sun is there. When it is all the same there is a start to 
understanding.

Back at home, the phone rings. There is something important to be done. 
Going with the circumstance you do the necessary. That is all. When I 
awake, I get up. When I lie down at night, I go to sleep.

So said Linji. Do we understand him?



RETREAT REPORTS

We are grateful to retreat participants for writing so freely about their
experiences on retreat. This gives us valuable help in understanding the 
retreat process and guides us in our efforts. The reports also provide 
others with an insight into the difficulties and benefits of attending a 
retreat. We continue to publish these accounts anonymously, selecting 
reports from both genders. We regret that we cannot publish everything 
that we receive.


PEOPLE TALKING IN A BIG SPACE

Western Zen Retreat, Maenllwyd January 1994

I felt very much at home sitting around the fire on the first evening, happy 
I'd come and ready for the retreat. I'd taken a bit more care than usual to 
prepare myself with additional meditation and tried not to arrive too tired. 
My wife and I have had a lot of sadness in the last few years, which has 
beaten us down, and the retreat was a chance to emerge from this. I also 
wanted to explore the way in which meditation sometimes becomes 
effortless and to understand more about the process of working on a 
question, at least to become familiar with it. John's lucid chess analogies 
pointed the way.

The retreat began steadily. At my first interview I talked about the 
difficulties we have faced over the last few years. We are beginning to 
come through it, and I was feeling "Well, what now, how to proceed?" 
Was there some form of words that encompasses this situation, this 
question. It seemed to me that "What is life?" was the question. How was I 
to face this situation and live in it?

The beginning - advancing your pawns. It feels like talking to old friends 
late at night. "What is life?" began as a discussion of the pleasures of life, 
but quickly passed on to painful themes. My daughter's birth, my feelings 
of pain and guilt at the time. I remember a long period on the second day 
of wondering how people could have children, how they could subject 
them to life, to the full horror of it. What are parents thinking of to allow 
casually another person to be born? All this was intertwined with my own 
guilt and sadness, my own parents. It all seemed to be about love and loss, 
sadness and tears.

Then the horror of life became the dominant theme, feelings I've always 
had but seldom talked about. Who would want to listen? Some terrible 
images of mutilation and children, not actual visual images so much but 
the two ideas inextricably linked. No feelings of violence or anger, just 
honor and vulnerability. The horror of birth. At one point the pain of 
existence expressed itself as a feeling that every surface of the zendo was 
covered with razor blades - every perception seemed imbued with pain. 
Although I felt all these things keenly it was less horrific than it might 
seem; I still felt fairly steady, able to watch these experiences. All the time 
too I was kept on course by John's guidance and talks. The analogy with 
opening, middle game and end game was crystal clear to me and, even 
while going through all this, I knew roughly where I was in the process. 
The middle game was long and turbulent but the emotional turmoil 
gradually eased and resolved  My meditation was mostly steady and 
spacious, the question burning into me.

The morning of the fourth full day was absolutely filthy, cold and wet, yet 
I found myself humming 'singing in the rain' when doing exercises at 5am. 
Happiness just welling up inside me. Then, having tea, the question was 
inside me, filling me, producing images of beauty and pain, inextricably 
mixed. Then there were more tears - of joy this time, waves of gratitude 
washed through me, filling my eyes with tears, fullness of emotion. The 
world was extraordinarily beautiful. I remember being transfixed by the 
sight of a walking stick completely absorbed in the vivid beauty of my 
surroundings. There was an absolute cascade of momentary insights and 
experiences, each lasting a few seconds or so. I remember thinking 'Why 
do we have Buddhas on the altar? Anything would do'.

Outside, later, I leant on the gate in tears of gratitude. Walked up the hill 
saying 'yes, yes, yes' in a kind of affirmation. Then on the way down I 
realised that the time of emptying and negating was over. Now it was a 
question of allowing something to fill this space that had cleared. I began 
to quieten down and feel - this is hard to express - pleasantly stupid. I kept 
thinking of Eccles from the Goon Show, good-heartedly and inanely 
bumbling his way through. It was a cheerful unthinking daze, but 
accompanied by spaciousness and clarity.

Then, later, things became ordinary again - and yet not quite ordinary - a 
sense of freedom, lightness and spaciousness, - alive and untroubled - no 
emotional turmoil, no great highs or lows. I felt that the question had 
passed through me, matured me somehow. I felt as if I had resolved the 
question - and yet also that it wasn't complete. Later after another talk, I 
realised, that I had entered the 'endgame', in which I just had to allow the 
koan to work within me. The day passed quite easily, quietly. I remember 
saying at one point that 'it's as if the answer is gradually coming into 
focus'. The solution was present, but I couldn't quite see it.

During the afternoon various solutions and obstacles emerged for 
inspection. An endless, exhausting, series of responses came up for 
inspection. I knew they all had to be jettisoned, just looked at with a wry 
smile and allowed to drift off. I found an image for getting rid of them: an 
idea would come and I would imagine setting a detonator under it and 
blowing it up. Boomf, all gone, mind clear again, just a few fragments. I 
blew up my pride in getting this far, my attempts to understand what was 
happening, all kinds of reflections and thoughts, some useful and 
interesting, others not - they all got the treatment though.

Then my partner said something about people suffering, and suddenly the 
people in the room came into focus as individuals. A general feeling of 
warmth and openness suddenly had specific links. I had a strong sense of 
connection to everyone there, very quiet, very simple... What is life? ... 
'People talking in a big space' was the phrase that came to me. There was a 
sudden click, and a feeling of not exactly certainty but 'oh, I see'. When it 
came to my turn to talk the question seemed to have gone. I was just 
looking into a space where it had been.

I asked John for an interview. We went upstairs, he lit two candles on the 
shrine, What is life? 'People talking in a big space'... I tried to describe the 
feeling. John asked, almost casually, whether there was one word that 
summed up this feeling. I was blank for a moment then it came to me... 
love. John said, "Yes, I thought that might be it..." and asked other 
questions which helped me explore and appreciate what I was feeling. 
This made me realise that it was a very spacious feeling, not particularly 
directed at any one person.  Unlike all the previous responses, which 
became dust after a few minutes inspection, this one just expanded the 
more I looked at it.

I felt very much that I wanted to do some prostrations, then I went back 
downstairs and just continued. I didn't want another question, feeling that 
this was a kind of still point before the question opened out again. It was 
marvellous to have some time to allow the answer to expand and reveal 
itself.

I went back to talking about my daughter again, feeling love for her, and 
other people close to me. I talked about my work, my practice all kinds of 
things, re-examining them in the light of this spacious warmth. There was 
a great feeling of release of energy; things I wanted to do but was holding 
back from suddenly seemed possible. During meditation I tried to push 
more deeply into the feeling. Sometimes I had intuitions of merging with 
the hillside outside the window - on the edge of vanishing into it.




THE TREE

Oh, resolute pine
how you have stolen my heart! 
Majestic and proud as a warrior ever-watchful, 
behind Maenllwyd.

It is clear there is nowhere to go:
night follows day
for the time-worn shepherd 
alone with the hills.


Julia Lawless



GOOD MEDICINE ALWAYS TASTES HORRIBLE 

Tantric Retreat, Maenllwyd, July 1994

Driving up to Maenllwyd, knowing that I would be asked, I tried to 
formulate the reason as to why I wanted to participate in the retreat. I 
couldn't really think of an answer and was quite relieved when not asked. 
With hindsight I think that I went because I was curious as to what 
"Adding Tantra to the Path" entailed and wanted to experience the same 
"high" as I had experienced on Western Zen Retreats. I had imagined that 
although the techniques used would be slightly different I would leave 
with the same understanding of "It". This was not the case.

I found the retreat quite a struggle. I was constantly tired and counted the 
hours until it would be time to go to bed. During the first night I felt that I 
had hardly slept at all. I had all sorts of thoughts constantly racing through 
my head. Maybe my mind was trying to make up in advance for the 
forthcoming sacrifice of thoughts in meditation over the next few days.

For the first two days I found myself to be very resistant to the process. 
This is very unlike me as on previous retreats I have thrown myself into 
what I was asked to do.

I also felt very negatively towards people in general. Not to people on the 
retreat but the whole of mankind. Thoughts such as "Why should I be 
compassionate?" and "May I send all sentient beings to hell" ran through 
my mind. Looking back I think I realised that I was not going to get my 
high, that the practice on the retreat really was for the benefit of others and 
not myself and I resented this. I have never thought why I go on the 
Western Zen Retreats. I think now that although the outcome of the 
Western Zen Retreats was a selfless experience, when this experience 
faded into memory the motivation for going back might have been a 
selfish one. Maybe I am being hard on myself, and I am not sure that this 
is the case, but it is how my lack of compassion to others might be 
analysed.

After having my initial interview I began to ponder on why I was loathing 
the retreat and the world so much. I think this was tied into my not 
knowing really why I had gone to Maenllwyd. I realised that over the last 
few months I had begun to wonder why I bothered to be a vegetarian when 
I loved meat, why I gave up smoking when I used to enjoy it, why I always 
stayed reasonably sober when my friends were enjoying getting merry, 
why I had got rid of my three televisions because I thought I could make 
better use of the evenings when I really do enjoy watching television. I 
resented one particular friend who said I was becoming very straight and I 
defended my lifestyle adamantly whilst knowing that I didn't know why I 
was doing these things, apart from a vague notion that they assisted in 
mindfulness. However, this was a shallow reason as I never meditated.

The retreat made clear to me that I need to think more on why I attend the 
retreats. I know that I shall not stop attending them, I just need to know 
why I am going. On the retreat I came to the conclusion that I participate 
in order to make the world a slightly better place by my efforts. I came 
away from the last WZR with the idea that I had a responsibility to keep 
up the practice because my karma was such that I had a small amount of 
insight into the way things are. These thoughts need to be developed. I am 
now going to go back to the koan "Who am I?" I know that the question 
will eventually be resolved by my dropping the question, that on a 
fundamental level there is no I. However I think that it is important for my 
practice to go through this process. I think this will also be useful with 
regards to the major life change of having a baby. It will give me a sounder 
basis on which to develop myself as a mother.

I learnt a lot from the retreat and therefore a lot about myself. It brought
up areas of my life that need to be looked at and taught me that the retreat
is not necessarily always easy. That the "I" that went to the last retreat is
not the same "I" that attended this one. This is obvious but it still was a
hard lesson to learn in practice.

To maintain a clear mind in order to be able to resolve these issues I am 
determined to meditate regularly. This will be aided by my empowerment 
to use the sadhana. I am glad that I went on the retreat. Good medicine 
always tastes horrible!


YSTRAD HAIKU

(from a seven day solitary retreat on the Ystrad Estate in Radnorshire)

Surrounded by sprouts 
stone cottage 
labouring poor

Sleep so deep 
I forget the names 
of lovers long ago

Small birds sing their evensong 
how sharp the incense!

Smoke drifts 
from my neighbour's chimney 
morning rain

Birdsong and rain 
incense and solitude 
day follows day

Young flames leap 
in pale sunlight 
it's Sunday morning!

Hanging up my old kimono 
incense ash

Ken Jones

[END]