Part 3 (2/2)
In other words, we can't know the present in the usual sense because the present is obscured by the present itself and by the act of perceiving it and conceiving of it. Form meets emptiness here and now and all of creation blossoms into being.
Nirvana Betcha think I'm gonna make some reference to Kurt Cobain's band. That's not the real Nirvana. The real Nirvana was a two-man band from England who put out some great psychedelic LPs in the '60s. But that's not what the Heart Sutra is talking about.
In the West, nirvana is often misunderstood as some kind of Buddhist heaven, or, since nirvana nirvana literally means ”cessation” or ”extinction,” a lot of people have a seriously mistaken tendency to equate the idea with nihilism. Others equate nirvana with some kind of everlasting spiritual bliss. Nirvana isn't about bliss. If you want bliss, you'd be better off smokin' a fat ol' doobie, dude. Just brace yourself for a stiff dose of reality again when you've used up yer stash. literally means ”cessation” or ”extinction,” a lot of people have a seriously mistaken tendency to equate the idea with nihilism. Others equate nirvana with some kind of everlasting spiritual bliss. Nirvana isn't about bliss. If you want bliss, you'd be better off smokin' a fat ol' doobie, dude. Just brace yourself for a stiff dose of reality again when you've used up yer stash.
If you must, you can understand nirvana as a kind of goal of Buddhist practice. Now, any good Buddhist teacher will tell you it's the path path that's important in Buddhism and not the goal. It's like shooting at a target with a bow. You just aim as well as you can and let the sucker fly. Maybe you hit, maybe you don't. Either way, you do what this moment calls for. And this one. And this one. In that's important in Buddhism and not the goal. It's like shooting at a target with a bow. You just aim as well as you can and let the sucker fly. Maybe you hit, maybe you don't. Either way, you do what this moment calls for. And this one. And this one. In Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way, Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way, our old Indian buddy Nagarjuna says that nirvana is not reality. I agree but I'll add that nirvana is also our old Indian buddy Nagarjuna says that nirvana is not reality. I agree but I'll add that nirvana is also ultimate ultimate reality. Buddhism's just chock full o' contradictions. Doncha love it? reality. Buddhism's just chock full o' contradictions. Doncha love it?
And here's something that'll really get your panties in a bunch: Maybe your concept of ultimate reality has no counterpart in ultimate reality.
Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi This means ”complete, unsurpa.s.sed, perfect enlightenment.” Notice, though, that the sutra first says the bodhisattva has nothing to attain and that, because of having nothing to attain because of having nothing to attain, he attains complete liberation. You can't attain liberation the way you can attain a 1968 Camaro or a D-plus on a math test. You can only attain liberation by clearly seeing there is nothing to attain there is nothing to attain.
Complete liberation sounds like a big deal. And it is. It's the biggest deal around. But don't make too much of it-because it's also absolutely nothing at all.
I love the covers of those New Age books that show some Enlightened Saint with blue halos around his body, s.h.i.+ning pure white light from his head and fingertips. It's pure c.r.a.p. A real enlightened being doesn't look any different from anyone else. They're just ordinary people like you. That other stuff's just special effects. Annutara-samyak-sambodhi Annutara-samyak-sambodhi is you. Enlightenment is reality itself. is you. Enlightenment is reality itself.
And reality is you-naked, stinky, and phony as all get-out.
Reality doesn't know a d.a.m.ned thing.
Reality has doubts and insecurities.
Reality gets h.o.r.n.y sometimes and sometimes reality likes to read the funny papers.
Reality is an old guy in Cleveland Heights complaining that his grandkids have stolen his dentures again.
Reality is five guys trying to tune three guitars and a Farfisa compact organ to the same pitch and failing miserably.
Reality is the source of every star, every planet, every galaxy; every dust mote, every atom; every klepton, lepton, and slepton.
Reality is the basis of every booger up your nose, every pit-stain in your dad's T-s.h.i.+rts, and every dingleberry on your a.s.s.
Reality is this moment.
The Great Transcendent Mantra The last section is really different from the rest and seems to be encouraging us to chant that little line at the end, ”Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate. Bodhi! Svaha!” ”Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate. Bodhi! Svaha!” ( (Gate is p.r.o.nounced ”gah-tay,” by the way.) This basically means ”Gone, gone, all the way gone to the other sh.o.r.e. Enlightenment! Hot d.a.m.n!” It's not really meant to be chanted. It's just an expression of joy in response to realization. is p.r.o.nounced ”gah-tay,” by the way.) This basically means ”Gone, gone, all the way gone to the other sh.o.r.e. Enlightenment! Hot d.a.m.n!” It's not really meant to be chanted. It's just an expression of joy in response to realization.
Someone once asked Kobun Chino, who was another student of Nis.h.i.+jima's teacher, what that line meant, and Kobun replied, ”I don't know, that's just Indian stuff.”
A lot of Buddhism is wrapped up with Indian spiritual traditions. But that's not the important part. Woody Allen often exclaims ”Jesus!” ”Jesus!” in his movies but that doesn't mean he's a Christian. The mantra at the end of the piece is just a motif that was common in the culture at the time it was written. in his movies but that doesn't mean he's a Christian. The mantra at the end of the piece is just a motif that was common in the culture at the time it was written.
”The other sh.o.r.e” is enlightenment but enlightenment is also this sh.o.r.e, where we are right now.
Does that irk ya? No? Read it again until it does.... If Zen Buddhism were only the understanding that what we are right now is fine and dandy why do we bother practicing zazen and reading books and listening to teachers? It's an important question.
This was the burning question that our man Dogen-the founder of j.a.panese Soto Zen and one of the coolest Zen guys ever-took up when he began pursuing Buddhism in earnest: If we're already perfect as we are, why should we study Buddhism and practice Zen? No one could answer Dogen's question for him, and so Dogen had to find the truth for himself. In a sense, Dogen's entire multivolume Shobogenzo Shobogenzo was his attempt to answer this one simple-sounding question. But that's his answer. What's yours? was his attempt to answer this one simple-sounding question. But that's his answer. What's yours?
There are people who think of the spiritual life as a journey. Buddhism isn't like that. We may use the word path path, but we're not trying to get anywhere. We're trying to fully experience the wonder and perfectness of being right here. Some of those other paths might claim to whisk you off to some magical place-and maybe they'll really do it. But when you get there you'll be just as baffled as you are right now.
BUDDHISM WON'T GIVE YOU THE ANSWER. Buddhism might help you find your own right question question, but you've gotta supply your own answers. Sorry. No one else's answer will ever satisfy you-nor should it. But the real magic is that once you have your own true answer, you'll find you're not alone. As unique as your own true answer is-the one you find after questioning and questioning and questioning-it will be absolutely in tune with the answer Gautama Buddha found all those centuries ago, the answer Nagarjuna expounded upon, the answer Bodhidharma brought to China, and the one that Dogen wrote about in j.a.pan.
And that that answer will announce itself like thunder from the sky overhead and an earthquake from the ground beneath your feet. And it will be just like nothing at all. answer will announce itself like thunder from the sky overhead and an earthquake from the ground beneath your feet. And it will be just like nothing at all.
Sitting in the back of your grandma's VW Bug, in that little indentation there by the rear window, you're three years old and the world is big. Suddenly, as the engine warms up and the car begins to back down the driveway, you look out at the clear blue sky and for an instant see that you are everything. You want to say something, but none of the words you have will stick at all; nothing will come except for a wide, wide smile that crosses all of s.p.a.ce and time-and the moment is utterly forgotten. Then one day you're walking along the banks of a river somewhere far, far from that driveway and all at once it comes rus.h.i.+ng back, though it never really left.
But still, none of the words you have will stick to it at all.
”DON'T WORRY,IT WILL COME... WITH ENLIGHTENMENT!”
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
PHILIP K. d.i.c.k.
WHILE LIVING IN TOKYO and working on selling Ultraman to the world, I kept attending Nis.h.i.+jima's weekly zazen sittings, finding them alternately stimulating and exasperating. 3 3 The nice little Zen books on the shelves these days don't give you much of a sense of how truly grating Zen masters can be. They're the ultimate in know-it-alls. You can't tell them anything. And Nis.h.i.+jima may be the very worst of the lot. He seems to delight in throwing lines into his talks that are guaranteed to put everyone in the room on edge. The image of the gentle Zen master soothing his audience with tranquil words of serenity and peace is a Hollywood invention that far too many wanna-bes spend far too much energy learning to imitate. Nis.h.i.+jima's talks are never stilling-they're downright irritating. The nice little Zen books on the shelves these days don't give you much of a sense of how truly grating Zen masters can be. They're the ultimate in know-it-alls. You can't tell them anything. And Nis.h.i.+jima may be the very worst of the lot. He seems to delight in throwing lines into his talks that are guaranteed to put everyone in the room on edge. The image of the gentle Zen master soothing his audience with tranquil words of serenity and peace is a Hollywood invention that far too many wanna-bes spend far too much energy learning to imitate. Nis.h.i.+jima's talks are never stilling-they're downright irritating.
In addition to his weekly sittings and lectures, Nis.h.i.+jima also hosts several zazen retreats at a temple near the city of s.h.i.+zuoka, in the foothills of Mount Fuji about two hours south of Tokyo by bullet train. It's a beautiful old Zen temple surrounded by tea fields, miles from the nearest convenience store and not a McDonald's or Starbucks in sight. Still, if you desperately need a sugar-laden soft drink, you can take a five minute walk down the hill to the vending machine out in front of the little noodle shop that caters to tourists who stop by the temple and folks who come around to arrange funerals.
As far as I could tell during my first visit the main activities of the monks at the temple seemed to be hanging out in the kitchen watching vapid TV chat shows, drinking beer and brus.h.i.+ng up on the chants used in funeral services. Over the next few years I discovered I was pretty off base with that a.s.sessment. The guy I'd seen drinking all the beer turned out not to be one of the monks (though he did have a shaved head and lived in a temple-sue me for getting that one wrong) and managed to give up the booze by the following summer-no small feat in j.a.pan where you can get plastered seven nights a week and still not be considered an alcoholic. The monks are in fact all hard-working guys who perform an important service for their community. Still, apart from the head of the temple who usually joins us for at least one sitting, the only other monk there I've ever seen doing zazen-which is the central practice of Zen Buddhism, mind you-was a Sri Lankan guy from the Theravada school of Buddhism who was there as part of some Buddhist exchange program. Unfortunately, this is pretty typical of Buddhist temples all over j.a.pan.
Nis.h.i.+jima's retreats are pretty lightweight as Zen retreats go. While many such retreats have their students wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning, Nis.h.i.+jima lets his students get up at a very leisurely 4:30. There are four zazen periods each day, two of which are forty-five minutes while the other two are an hour and a half each (that's forty-five minutes of zazen, fifteen minutes of walking meditation, and another forty-five minutes of zazen). This is about half, if that, of what the really rigorous temples make their students do. The retreats are just three days long, rather than the week-long or even month-long affairs elsewhere. Still, if you've never done that kind of thing before, even this can be a major jolt to the system.
BY THE TIME I went to my first formal retreat, I'd already been doing zazen for eleven years and going to Nis.h.i.+jima's lectures for two. But my first retreat with Nis.h.i.+jima was my first experience in an actual temple with an actual j.a.panese Zen priest running the show.
I hated it.
For starters I was completely confused about the arrangements. Bonehead that I am, rather than signing on for the annual English-language retreat for foreigners, I signed on for the one Nis.h.i.+jima holds for new members of the company he works for. The company president is enamored of zazen and requires all new employees to attend one of these. A bunch of spotty-faced new college grads who've just entered the fabulously exciting cosmetics industry are herded up to the mountains to sit still for three tedious days. There's no beer, no dried-fish snacks, no karaoke or party games-just peace and solitude and sitting up straight facing a wall all weekend long. Needless to say these kids are not happy campers.
I ended up being one of three of Nis.h.i.+jima's special guests that weekend, along with Jeremy Pearson, one of his long-time students, and a strange Korean man who was apparently some kind of philosophy professor somewhere. The four of us shared a room on the temple's second floor.
I didn't know Jeremy very well at the time, but he had a shaved head, knew every chant and mealtime ritual, and wore a set of monk's robes all weekend. Clearly he was a very serious Zen guy. I never could work out exactly why the Korean guy was there. He spoke fluent English and could get by moderately in j.a.panese, and he had obviously studied a lot of Buddhist literature and considered himself quite the expert in the field. For all I knew he might have been one of Korea's most renowned Buddhist scholars. He certainly carried himself like Korea's most renowned something something . Maybe he had come to get a bit of hands-on experience with j.a.panese Zen, no doubt so that he could go back to Korea and legitimately claim to have been through some real j.a.panese-style Zen training. . Maybe he had come to get a bit of hands-on experience with j.a.panese Zen, no doubt so that he could go back to Korea and legitimately claim to have been through some real j.a.panese-style Zen training.
But my main impression of him was this: He farted a lot. Now don't get me wrong, of course pa.s.sing gas is fine and normal and natural. But this man seemed to have no idea that doing so loudly and odoriferously in the middle of a polite conversation was potentially a bit off-putting. He'd just be chattering away then lift a cheek and let one rip without the slightest pause in his speech. I'd heard about some Asian countries where nose-picking in public is not considered odd or rude, but I don't think there's any part of the world where farting is considered an ordinary part of polite social intercourse-and j.a.pan certainly certainly is not such place. The man had a lot of the qualities of the autistic people I used to work with when I'd been an instructor at the Summit County Board of Mental r.e.t.a.r.dation. He seemed unaware that there were other people in the world. He spoke only in monologues as if he'd created his own mental images of people and reacted to those images rather than the people themselves. Before he asked you a question, he already had your answer worked out in his mind and no matter what answer you actually gave, he responded to the one he'd heard in his mind. It made for some very odd conversations. Something like this: is not such place. The man had a lot of the qualities of the autistic people I used to work with when I'd been an instructor at the Summit County Board of Mental r.e.t.a.r.dation. He seemed unaware that there were other people in the world. He spoke only in monologues as if he'd created his own mental images of people and reacted to those images rather than the people themselves. Before he asked you a question, he already had your answer worked out in his mind and no matter what answer you actually gave, he responded to the one he'd heard in his mind. It made for some very odd conversations. Something like this: FARTING MAN: What's your favorite color? ME: Blue.FARTING MAN: You know red is a symbol of... (blah-blah-blah about red for an hour) (blah-blah-blah about red for an hour) Okay, I'm exaggerating a little-but not much.
Anyhow, I arrived at this particular retreat with a chip on my shoulder. I'd been doing zazen for over a decade by then and I was pretty miffed that I had yet to reach enlightenment. I'd read all the major Buddhist sutras and had made a thorough study of most of the major Indian holy books. I had shelves full of dog-eared books by big-wig spiritual teachers like Krishnamurti, Ramana Mahars.h.i.+, Shunryu Suzuki, and anybody else who'd written on the subject of being enlightened. I'd even been to Christian churches to check out their ideas about ”born-again experiences,” which I figured might have been a kind of Christian version of enlightenment. (They weren't. FYI.) Buddy, if anyone shoulda been enlightened it was me!
One evening, I was upstairs with Nis.h.i.+jima, Jeremy, and Farting Man, and I steeled up my nerves enough to ask Nis.h.i.+jima about enlightenment.
Let me give you a bit of background. In a nutsh.e.l.l there are two major schools of Zen in j.a.pan: Soto, to which Nis.h.i.+jima belonged and in which my teacher Tim McCarthy had studied and taught; and the Rinzai school, Soto's main compet.i.tor, as it were. The difference between them is this: the Rinzai school believes in enlightenment and the Soto school doesn't.
All right, admittedly it's a good bit more complex and interesting than that. But for now, that's all you need to know to follow the story.
Knowing that Nis.h.i.+jima was a Soto guy, I was trying to be cool about the whole enlightenment thing. I didn't actually use the e e-word, I just kinda hinted around, saying stuff like ”I've been studying for ten years and I still haven't got it got it, you know? I mean I don't, like, y'know, understand anything... understand anything...”-everything short of nudging and winking to show him I was in on the big secret.
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