We practice in our garden
Our garden is our practice
What is Zen?
Zen is one of the many evolutions of the teachings of the historical Buddha.
Hakubai Temple is in the Soto Zen lineage of Japan through Tenzan Kaibun Roshi and Houn Kobun Roshi.
All Buddhist schools are dedicated to reducing the suffering of all beings.
They vary in the tools and techniques they employ.
They all share the notion of Nirvana and Enlightenment, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path.
The other quality most schools have in common is that each thinks it is the best, and the truest to the teachings of the Buddha.
Our school relies on direct one-to-one transmission of the Dharma: from Shakyamuni Buddha through Nagarjuna, Bodhidharma, to Dogen who brought it to Japan, to Keibun and Kobun Otokawa, who brought their lineage to the U.S., and now to Hakubai Daishin Roshi who continues this direct transmission lineage.
The main tool we use is our own awareness.
Our main technique is meditation.
We cultivate awareness to see into our delusions,
delusions that separate us from direct experience in the reality of life.
These appear as obstacles to our conceptual mind.
To know oneself it is necessary to slow down.
When the body settles, the mind can settle.
When the mind settles, our thoughts,
and the emotions they try to hide,
become very clear to us.
This is the beginning of the process of liberation.
Zen is not just about sitting.
The mind of sitting penetrates all activities.
Everything we do, every move we make with our bodies,
is done with awareness.
Whether we are writing thank you notes for donations
or chopping vegetables, we observe every breath and appreciate it.
All aspects of living a full and happy life are included.
Part of this is cleaning up.
Kobun once told me that people mistakenly think that Zen is about meditation.
He said “it includes meditation, but it’s mostly about cleaning up.”
This might include cleaning our desk, the temple toilets, or wiping the floors by hand, or cleaning up after a sangha lunch.
When you learn to bring awareness to all your activities, it makes no difference what you do.
When breath by breath awareness is restored,
we know exactly what to do and how to do it.
This is co-emergent wisdom.
The knowing appears on an “as-needed” basis,
but it is reliable and trustworthy.
In the Japanese Soto lineage, there is often an emphasis on perfection.
A piece of stationery must be folded with great exactitude
to fit perfectly into a designated envelope.
Then the stamp is placed a measured distance from the edges of the envelope,
with each stamp placed identically according to the specifications.
In our transmitted lineage, there is a strong emphasis on perfection.
Whatever we do--
folding our robes, eating our meals, drinking a cup of tea--
we try to do with perfect elegance and relaxation.
When we chant a sutra, every pitch and intonation is perfect.
You bring total awareness to what you are doing,
you are not multi-tasking.
When we are moving, we move with full attention,
relaxation, and heightened sensory awareness.
While sitting,
we sit with breathing in
and breathing out,
or standing up, or lying down.
When the “I” (ego) does not appear,
there is no “I” to choose between this and that.
When the “I” appears, it becomes a concept,
and soon mistakes are made and everything slows down.
Uncertainty arises.
Thankfully we also have repentance practice.
By the standards of our lineage my behaviors
leave a lot of room for improvement.
Kobun was without a doubt the best at this. He was a great artist,
calligrapher, cook, cleaner-upper, chanter, bow master.
I am the opposite.
At the end of each day, I have a long list
of behaviors and thought, things I’ve said and done,
that were not up to the standards of my teachers.
What may be the problem is that
I am always trying.
Kobun just is (or was).
He was just kind and relaxed
with all beings.
