The month of November is always a special time of the year for our Sangha.

First, this is the month of the year in which we celebrate our Original Order’s anniversary. The Zen Buddhist Order of HsuYun, was founded on November 8 1997 by Great Master BenMiao Zhiding (Jydin) Shakya and ChuanYuan MingZhen Shakya with ChuanZhi Shakya has its first Western Abbot.

The Order was under the authority of the Hawaii Buddhist Association like the HsuYun Temple of Honolulu, both lead by our founder Great Master BenMiao Zhiding (Jydin) Shakya.During this month, we especially remember our dear teacher, ChuanYuan MingZhen Shakya (Emma Barrows) who passed into Nirvana on November 19th 2016. We are grateful for her wonderful teachings and the light of loving presence still shines in our community.

Secondly, this Sunday we had a ZuochanHui/ZazenKai that was a bit special for the Sangha. Indeed, we celebrated the anniversary of our original Zen Buddhist Order of HsuYun with the Apprentice Dharma Teacher Ceremony of Rev. Shenjing. Having completed the Novice curriculum, Rev. Shenjing was named a Head Novice/Apprentice Dharma Teachers and vowed to dedicate his life further on the path of teaching and sharing the practice.

We also are proud to announce that to celebrate the Buddha’s enlightenment we’ll have our traditional all night sitting.

This year, we’ll sit all night from Saturday 9th 21h30 to Sunday 10th 7pm (Paris time), alternating 25 min sitting, walking, sitting, as usual… For the first time ShengJing will be the one leading the night sitting.

As you may have noted, sitting won’t be on Sunday but on Saturday, in order for more people to be able to participate.

Feel free to come and sit for the all night or just a sitting as you can.

Every being, Burning from the same fire, One Buddha!

Silly Yaoxin,

Amituofo!

The month of November is always a special time of the year for our Sangha.

First, this is the month of the year in which we celebrate our Original Order’s anniversary. The Zen Buddhist Order of HsuYun, was founded on November 8 1997 by Great Master WeiMiao JyDin Shakya and ChuanYuan MingZhen Shakya with ChuanZhi Shakya has its first Western Abbot. The Order was under the authority of the Hawaii Buddhist Association like the HsuYun Temple of Honolulu, both lead by our founder Great Master WeiMiao Jydin Shakya.

This was also the day of our Chan Order first ordination ceremony, 24 years ago.

Secondly, this is the month were we celebrate the Ancestors and Ghosts Ceremony, some of our local groups perform the ceremony at Halloween. It is a special time to remember those who have left and to dedicate the merit of our practice to all beings, material and imaterial who need the Dharma.

During this month, we especially remember our dear teacher, ChuanYuan MingZhen Shakya (Emma Barrows) who passed into Nirvana on November 19 2016. We are grateful for her wonderful teachings and the light of loving presence still shines in our community.

Thirdly, this Sunday 7th November four new clergy brothers have received Novice Priest Ordination, completing their initial study and practice and marking their entry into our sangha’s clergy.

We warmly welcome:

Br. ShenDao 深道 – Profound Way

Br. ShenHai 深海 – Profound Ocean

Br. ShenFa 深法 – Profound Dharma

Br. ShenZhi 深智 – Profound Wisdom

May those new Novice Priests be the future pillars of the tradition as the dedication of merits of the ordination ceremony says so well.

Deep and humble bows to each one of them!

Thanks to them for being the next generation.

Dear brothers, welcome in this humble path of study and practice.

May each one of you study the Way with One Body/Mind and serve others!

One Precept!

Reveal the Source,

Save all beings.

AmituoFo !

AmituoFo !

AmituoFo !

A Conversation with Hsü Yün

After living with Uncle for a few months and continuing my lessons to private students, I felt a great urge to travel again, if only for a few days. I had just been reading the Sutra of Hui Nêng (Wei Lang) which relates how a reputedly illiterate man became Sixth Patriarch of the Zen Sect well over a thousand years ago. Another monk had composed a poem comparing an enlightened mind to a bright mirror on which no dust (illusion) can collect. On having this read to him, Hui Nêng replied with another poem in which he declared that the ‘mirror’ has no existence and asked whereon such dust can collect. In this way he expressed his intuitive understanding of the voidness of all phenomena, including both illusions and the separate minds of individuals. This expression of enlightened understanding of Zen’s deepest truth won for him the Fifth Patriarch’s symbolical robe and bowl. After his death all those centuries ago, his body had miraculously resisted decay and, according to widespread belief, was still to be seen at the Nan Hua Monastery in North Kwangtung…

… The present Abbot was no other than the Venerable Hsü Yün (虚云 / Xū Yún), who was believed to be well over a hundred years old, though still able to walk as much as thirty miles a day. He was renowned all over China as the greatest living Master of Zen; so I was delighted to hear the unexpected news that he had just returned after an absence of several months spent in a distant province. Not long after my arrival, I excitedly followed the Reverend Receiver of Guests to pay my respects to this almost mythical personage. I beheld a middle-sized man with a short, wispy beard and remarkable penetrating eyes. He was not precisely youthful-looking as I had been led to expect, but had one of those ageless faces not uncommon in China. Nobody could have guessed that he was already a centenarian. Finding myself in his presence, I became virtually tongue-tied and had to rack my brains for something to say, although there was so much I could profitably have asked him. At last, I managed to ask:

“Is this famous monastery purely Zen, Your Reverence?”

“Oh yes,” he answered in a surprisingly vigorous voice. “It is a great centre of Zen.”

“So you do not worship Amida Buddha or keep his statue here?”

The question seemed to puzzle him, for he took some time to reply.

“But certainly we keep his statue here. Every morning and evening we perform rites before it and repeat the sacred name while circumambulating the altar.”

“Then the monastery is not purely Zen,” I persisted, puzzled in my turn.

“Why not? It is like every other Zen monastery in China. Why should it be different? Hundreds of years ago there were many sects, but the teachings have long been synthesized – which is as it should be. If by Zen, you mean the practice of Zen meditation, why, that is the very essence of Buddhism. It leads to a direct perception of Reality in this life, enabling us to transcend duality and go straight to the One Mind. This One Mind, otherwise known as our Original Nature, belongs to everybody and everything. But the method is very hard – hard even for those who practise it night and day for years on end. How many people are prepared or even able to do that? The monastery also has to serve the needs of simple, illiterate people. How many of them would understand if we taught only the highest method? I speak of the farmers on our own land here and of the simple pilgrims who come for the great annual festivals. To them we offer that other way – repetition of the sacred name – which is yet the same way adapted for simple minds. They believe that by such repetition they will gain the Western Paradise and there receive divine teaching from Amida Buddha himself –teaching which will lead them directly to Nirvana.”

At once reluctantly and somewhat daringly I answered: “I see. But isn’t that a kind of –well, a sort of – of – er – deception? Good, no doubt, but…”

I broke off, not so much in confusion as because the Venerable Hsü Yün was roaring with laughter.

“Deception? Deception? Ha, ha, ha, ha-ha! Not at all. Not a bit. No, of course not.”

“Then Your Reverence, if you too believe in the Western Heaven and so on, why do you trouble to teach the much harder road to Zen?”

“I do not understand the distinction you are making. They are identical.”

“But…”

“Listen, Mr P’u. Zen manifests self-strength; Amidism manifests other-strength. You rely on your own efforts, or you rely on the saving power of Amida. Is that right?”

“Yes. But they are – I mean, they seem – entirely different from each other.”

I became aware that some of the other monks were beginning to look at me coldly, as though I were showing unpardonable rudeness in pertinaciously arguing with this renowned scholar and saint; but the Master, who was quite unperturbed, seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Why insist so much on this difference?” he asked. “You know that in reality there is nothing but the One Mind. You may choose to regard it as in you or out of you, but “in” and “out” have no ultimate significance whatever – just as you, Mr P’u, and I and Amida Buddha have no real separateness. In ordinary life, self is self and other is other; in reality they are the same. Take Bodhidharma who sat for nine years in front of a blank wall. What did he contemplate? What did he see? Nothing but his Original Self, the true Self beyond duality. Thus he saw Reality face to face. He was thereby freed from the Wheel and entered Nirvana, never to be reborn – unless voluntarily as a Bodhisattva.”

“Yet, Reverence, I do not think that Bodhidharma spoke of Amida. Or am I wrong?”

“True, true. He did not. But when Farmer Wang comes to me for teaching, am I to speak to him of his Original Self or of Reality and so on? What do such terms mean to him? Morning and evening, he repeats the sacred name, concentrating on it until he grows oblivious of all else. In time, after a month, a year, a decade, a lifetime or several lifetimes, he achieves such a state of perfect concentration that duality is transcended and he, too, comes face to face with Reality. He calls the power by which he hopes to achieve this Amida; you call it Zen; I may call it Original Mind. What is the difference? The power he thought was outside himself was inside all the time.”

Deeply struck by this argument and anxious, perhaps, to display my acquaintance with the Zen way of putting things, I exclaimed:

“I see, I see. Bodhidharma entered the shrine-room from the sitting-room. Farmer Wang entered it through the kitchen, but they both arrived at the same place. I see.”

“No,” answered the Zen Master, “you do not see. They didn’t arrive at any place. They just discovered that there is no place for them to reach.”

An Extract from The Wheel of Life by John Blofeld, Rider and Company, 1959

Source: https://thebamboosea.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/a-conversation-with-hsu-yun-john-blofeld/

The Four Ennobling Truths and the Four Immeasurable Vows

When one develops some interest in the Buddhist teachings, one of the first teachings he’ll find will be the one called the “Four noble Truth”. And we must say it is probably the most shared one of the whole Buddhist spectrum. For most of the Buddhist traditions, may they be Southern Theravada or Northern Mahayana, it is the first and most central teaching given by the historical Buddha. It is a quadruple path, a synthetic composition, gathering the great aspects of his doctrine. It is a fact that this teaching is part of the teaching corpus of every single Buddhist school, from the more traditionnals to the more modern ones.

 

But what is the content of these crucial “Noble Tuths”?

 

First, as we said earlier it is a synthetic way of looking at the crucial steps of the Buddhist path towards enlightenment. It points, thus, to the fact that the path we choose to follow, far from being a static journey, is “a dynamic harmony”. We could say it is a process, an ennobling process in a way. An ennobling process that is put into practice and flourish in our lifes day after day. We could say then that these “Noble Truths” could be called “Ennonbling Truths” to put the accent on the progressive and experiential aspects of these Truths.

 

So, what about these “Ennobling Truths”?

 

We can find this teaching in the First Sutra of the Buddha, relating his first teaching after his enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, called the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta.

We could say in essence that they consist in:

 

The Truth of dukkha

The Truth of the origin of dukkha

The Truth of the Cessation of dukkha

The Truth of the Path leading to the Cessation of dukkha

 

Isn’t it clear now? Seriously, what is this dukkha that seems so central? It is generally translated as “suffering”… and here it is the famous preconception about Buddhism being Nihilist is back in your minds. More seriously, we could translate it as “the suffering born from insatisfaction” or lets say the suffering born from always wanting something new, always wanting to escape from impermanence by doing or wanting something. In a certain way it is the suffering born from our incessant tendency to occupy our mind and energy, what is sometimes described in the Buddhist teachings as the constant “craving”, or “desire” that seems inherent with being alive.

 

And to put it in a more Zennish way, that is the whole paradox, that is a great gongan (koan)… There is a craving which is inherent to being alive, and at the same time the Buddhist path has is consecration in Nirvana… which is exactly the end of this craving. Then how to attain this Nirvana, while being, at the same time, both alive and without cravings.

 

Well … that is not the Buddhist path. It’s a Western, very modern and quite nihilist, view of the Buddhist path.

 

There is nothing about having no desires at all in the Buddhist teachings, the whole practice of Chan/Zen Buddhism is to, ultimately, not fall into following our profound personal tendencies, the game of our Ego. But understanding that the practice is not a path of total suppression that could only result into tensions and problematic psychological subeffects is essential, because that’s the exact contrary of what True Buddhist Practice should be leading to.

 

This question could be the subject of a book by itself and I won’t carry on, but just share some basic contextual informations. In Mahayana Buddhism there is a central concept shared by the Indian scholar Bodhisattva Nagarjuna, (150 CE), in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the concept of the “Two Truths”. The Two Truths of Nagarjuna, namely the “absolute truth” or “non-conditional reality” and “conventional truth” or “relative reality”. Nagarjuna states that there is no fundamental difference between these two truths, altought we feel the contrary because we are driven by our Ego. This is the Essence of the “Heart Sutra” and the majority of the Prajnaparamita Sutras.

 

“Śāriputra, form is not different from emptiness, and emptiness is not different from form. Form itself is emptiness, and emptiness itself is form

 

In Zen, we usually express this reality in terms of polarities: Form-Emptiness, Absolute-Relative, Nirvana-Samsara. But in none of these major Mahayana traditions we can find an opposition, in terms of contradiction or duality, in the two parts of these polarities. They are fundamentaly One, yet they are Multiple manifestation. And the One Net behind all these realities is fundamentally “Empty”, we could say it is a realm of “pure possibilty” of manifestation.

 

The Four Noble Truths are a simple yet synthetic formula, but it can also feel like an immense “mental cliff”, of a pharaonic difficulty suddenly rising in front of the sincere practitioner. Indead, the Four Noble Truths are of an almost gigantic scale, so much indeed that we could be horrified in front of the arduous task to accomplish.

 

Luckily for us, Shakyamuni Buddha didn’t just proclamed the the Four Noble Truths, he also revealed the Path leading to that “Cessation” when revealing the Eightfold Path. This teaching is also accepted by every school of Buddhism, even if every tradition has its own way to put it in practice. They simply don’t understand it the same way, and more profoundly, don’t make it a living reality in the same way.

 

This being said, lets get back to the Four noble Truths. What objectives do they pursue?

 

Asking oneself sincerely this question could quickly, and prosaicly, lead into asking oneself ”what has the Buddha to propose? And could maybe lead into asking “what is the utility of Buddhism”?

 

Each Buddhist tradition defines answers in his own terms, basically it is not a matter of definition or philosophy. It is about experimenting the reality that the Buddha named “Cessation” (ch.: Chi or Zhi ; jp.: Shi) of Suffering. This is the cessation, the end, of the insatisfaction born from our natural tendency to “build, nourrish and believe” in a “separate self”, or “ego”, which in the Buddhist view is purely conventional. I believe this conventional “I or Ego”, isn’t a bad thing per se, we need this kind of concept to deal with others in our day to day life. But “nourrishing this concept” as a reality, not conventional but as the “core of reality”, is a consequence of our own confusion or ignorance of “what we really are”. In this process, resides the beggining of a “profound gearing” in ourselves that inevitably separates us from “What we are” as a living reality.

 

We could thus summarize saying that the Buddha showed us a path to get out of the confusion we live into, a confusion that is the source of our suffering and insatisfaction. It is thus a method that puts us in front of “what we are” beyond our own illusions, in a non-separate or non-dual way. Here too, every Buddhist tradition elaborated their own terms to qualify the “non-separate reality” that we both “are” and “participate with”, beyond illusion, confusion, and thus beyond words.

 

Now, these concepts could seem easier to understand… beware, as we all know but forget to often, it is one thing to intellectually understand the concepts, it is another to put them in practice and to express them in our lives And here is an important aspect of the Buddhist teachings, they aren’t dogmas that should be learn by heart, but a realization that we must make flourish ourselves, in the fertile ground of our daily minds.

 

Of course, when looking for inspirations in the Buddhist teachings, we might be found guilthy of a certain affinity for what looks exotic, Asian, just different from our Western, largely Christian based background. And, in a way, it is a kind of skillful mean. We might first be interested in Buddhism because of all these exotic particularities, we will face soon or later an important matter… we don’t live in an antique Asian city, our everyday life is far from Brahmans and mango groves, and it might be disapointing at some point. But it is an important step to make in the Path, a needful realization to pass from a passive admiration to an “experimental realization”. Realizing the Truth of the Buddha’s teaching in our life and actualizing it, wich means “acting in accordance with this profound realization”, is a matter of harmonizing with each situation, and it is thus totally linked to different societal and cutural contexts we might face, Asian or Western.

 

Thus the task remains gigantic and we may be very enthousiast and dedicate, it is still very difficult to express these realities in our lifes. That is why the Zen masters of the past transmitted a teaching that is a “wonderful lever”, the “Four Immesurable Vows”.

 

These “Four Vows” are often said to be “Bodhisattva” vows, wich is an error. They are vows of immesurable scale that are a tool to the practitioner on the Bodhisattva’s Path. But too often in our informal Zen Centers, the term “bodhisattva” is used to named different things.

 

The Four vows first, but also the so-said “Bodhisattva precept”. These precepts are in fact the precepts of the “Brahma Net Sutra”, a major Sutra of Mahayana Buddhism and a sort of earlier version of the Avatamsaka Sutra. They consist, in general, in the 10 major precepts of the Brahma Net Sutra, the “lesser” 48 precepts being generally unknown to most Zen Buddhists.

 

Most Zen people never read the sutra, they thus don’t understand that these precepts are a practical articulation of a 10 step Bodhisattva Path described in the first part of the Sutra. To their defense, most Japanese monasteries, in a fashion instored by Saicho of the Tendai Sect of Japanese buddhism, only read the seconf half of the Brahma Net Sutra, the one including the precepts. Lacking thus the articulation between the two.

 

I must also note that China had his own relation to the precepts and in particular the “Bodhisattva precepts of the Brahma Net Sutra”. But they didn’t retract their view of the original 10+48, they originally didn’t generalized these precepts to every single Buddhist follower and certainly didn’t used the name “Bodhisattva” to designate a lay follower who just took his first vows, as it is so often found in most Zen Centers today.

(These notions will probably the subject of a future article in the following months… )

 

Now that these distinctions have been made, lets get back to the Four Vows. They are in fact a profound aspiration to realize the Four Noble Truths in our lives, to realize our True Nature and to harmonize with all things trough Compassionate actions.

 

We can thus put side by side the Four Noble Truths and the Four Immesurable Vows:

 

The Truth of Suffering : I vow to save all Beings

The Truth of the origin of Suffering : I vow to cut down all Illusions

The Truth of the Cessation of Suffering : I vow to master all Dharmas

The Truth of the Path leading to the Cessation of Suffering : I vow to realize the Way

 

The Buddha revealed the context, the processes that are alive in us, and makes us fooly believe in an individual and separated being in a lot of early suttas. From his first sermon, he proclamed the Four Noble Truth and lightenned the “poisonus process” in wich we engaged ourselves trough our habits and thoughts, wich are the first two Truths. He then proclamed the possibility to put an end to this poisonus process and explicited the Path leading to the end of this Self Illusion or Self-Hallucination, the two last Truths.

 

In all this what about the Four Vows? They are wonderful skillful means, pure aspirations to help us practice. They are like good seeds to plant, nourish and maintain on the Path that the Buddha gave us, the Eightfold Path.

 

Thus, each of these four vows is a method, very skillful indeed, to maintain in us a strong aspiration and dedication to realize the Four Noble Truths in our lives. But these aren’t a trivial thing, these are vows. A Zen practitioner should give importance to what he says, to what is being planted and nourished in his own MindGround. Taking vows isn’t a trivial thing indeed, but what a wonderful help.

 

Next time you recite them in your Zen Center, remember how they are related to the Four Noble Truths and, with simplicity and humility express your True Nature by a profound bow to All Buddhas and All Beings, without distinctions of time and space.

 

Amituofo!

Song of the Open Door to Dharma Winds

Heaven, earth, sun, moon, mountains, rivers, this vast world is in truth the Grand Kasaya of the Buddha. 

Every day, however, you enter through the six doors, seeking what has never left you. Stop losing your precious life! On the Zen pathless way, keep faith in your Buddha Nature, harmonize with the masters, their teachings and their methods. At every moment, investigate Zen. At every moment, look with sincerity deep inside of What Is, without adding anything. 

Right View, Right Action. Naturally, Manifest your Universal Nature. Wherever you are, when your mind is confused, shines the flame of Attention! By the attention to the breath, by the recitation of a sacred formula or by the practice of Wu/Mu, enter into Inner Silence. 

Established in Concentration, turn the Light of Attention inward. At this moment, who is attentive to the breath? Who recites the sacred formula? Where is Wu/Mu? Sincerely observe the root of what is born and what dies, without attaching to birth or death. 

Established in the Union, Concentration and Observation in harmony, All sounds are the Subtle Breath! All sounds are sacred formulas! All sounds are Wu/Mu! In the letting go, the voice of KuanYin / Kannon resonates everywhere. 

The True Door has no door. Here, neither mundane nor sacred, just the authentic person. Samadhi Sans-Traces is free of shapes and space, within the shape and the space … The Cosmic Breath. So go, without traces, and let your True Nature manifest itself in you, through you, around you.

Amituofo! Amituofo! Amituofo!

 

Rev. YaoXin Shakya

« True Zen »

Some seek « true Zen » by discriminating against other traditions for what they do or do not do, say or do not say. To be right or wrong, however, does not make sense in Zen. Only the fact of manifesting the truth matters. The one that is lived, chewed and re-chewed, the one that everyone experiences and expresses differently.

No one can manifest reality as experienced intimately by another person. No one can do it for you. Finding out who is right or wrong is like discussing the quality of the frame when the house is on fire. Often it’s just fallacy and rhetoric … but it’s not Zen.

So, Zennists, Chanists and Buddhists of all stripes, show YOURSELF the way you experience the Way. Do not base your practice on arguments, which is why others would be wrong to experience the practice in this or that way. There are a thousand colors in the rainbow of traditions. All teach the same truth:

Zen is the personal manifestation of our universal nature. This encompasses all things in all places, in us and around us, without any distinctions.

Amituofo!

Making Great Vows

When one develops some interest in the Buddhist teachings, one of the first teachings he’ll find will be the one called the “Four noble Truth”. And we must say it is probably the most shared one of the whole Buddhist spectrum. For most of the Buddhist traditions, may they be Southern Theravada or Northern Mahayana, it is the first and most central teaching given by the historical Buddha. It is a quadruple path, a synthetic composition, gathering the great aspects of his doctrine. It is a fact that this teaching is part of the teaching corpus of every single Buddhist school, from the more traditionnals to the more modern ones.

 

But what is the content of these crucial “Noble Tuths”?

 

First, as we said earlier it is a synthetic way of looking at the crucial steps of the Buddhist path towards enlightenment. It points, thus, to the fact that the path we choose to follow, far from being a static journey, is “a dynamic harmony”. We could say it is a process, an ennobling process in a way. An ennobling process that is put into practice and flourish in our lifes day after day. We could say then that these “Noble Truths” could be called “Ennonbling Truths” to put the accent on the progressive and experiential aspects of these Truths.

 

So, what about these “Ennobling Truths”?

 

We can find this teaching in the First Sutra of the Buddha, relating his first teaching after his enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, called the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta.

We could say in essence that they consist in:

 

The Truth of dukkha

The Truth of the origin of dukkha

The Truth of the Cessation of dukkha

The Truth of the Path leading to the Cessation of dukkha

 

Isn’t it clear now? Seriously, what is this dukkha that seems so central? It is generally translated as “suffering”… and here it is the famous preconception about Buddhism being Nihilist is back in your minds. More seriously, we could translate it as “the suffering born from insatisfaction” or lets say the suffering born from always wanting something new, always wanting to escape from impermanence by doing or wanting something. In a certain way it is the suffering born from our incessant tendency to occupy our mind and energy, what is sometimes described in the Buddhist teachings as the constant “craving”, or “desire” that seems inherent with being alive.

 

And to put it in a more Zennish way, that is the whole paradox, that is a great gongan (koan)… There is a craving which is inherent to being alive, and at the same time the Buddhist path has is consecration in Nirvana… which is exactly the end of this craving. Then how to attain this Nirvana, while being, at the same time, both alive and without cravings.

 

Well … that is not the Buddhist path. It’s a Western, very modern and quite nihilist, view of the Buddhist path.

 

There is nothing about having no desires at all in the Buddhist teachings, the whole practice of Chan/Zen Buddhism is to, ultimately, not fall into following our profound personal tendencies, the game of our Ego. But understanding that the practice is not a path of total suppression that could only result into tensions and problematic psychological subeffects is essential, because that’s the exact contrary of what True Buddhist Practice should be leading to.

 

This question could be the subject of a book by itself and I won’t carry on, but just share some basic contextual informations. In Mahayana Buddhism there is a central concept shared by the Indian scholar Bodhisattva Nagarjuna, (150 CE), in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the concept of the “Two Truths”. The Two Truths of Nagarjuna, namely the “absolute truth” or “non-conditional reality” and “conventional truth” or “relative reality”. Nagarjuna states that there is no fundamental difference between these two truths, altought we feel the contrary because we are driven by our Ego. This is the Essence of the “Heart Sutra” and the majority of the Prajnaparamita Sutras.

 

“Śāriputra, form is not different from emptiness, and emptiness is not different from form. Form itself is emptiness, and emptiness itself is form

 

In Zen, we usually express this reality in terms of polarities: Form-Emptiness, Absolute-Relative, Nirvana-Samsara. But in none of these major Mahayana traditions we can find an opposition, in terms of contradiction or duality, in the two parts of these polarities. They are fundamentaly One, yet they are Multiple manifestation. And the One Net behind all these realities is fundamentally “Empty”, we could say it is a realm of “pure possibilty” of manifestation.

 

The Four Noble Truths are a simple yet synthetic formula, but it can also feel like an immense “mental cliff”, of a pharaonic difficulty suddenly rising in front of the sincere practitioner. Indead, the Four Noble Truths are of an almost gigantic scale, so much indeed that we could be horrified in front of the arduous task to accomplish.

 

Luckily for us, Shakyamuni Buddha didn’t just proclamed the the Four Noble Truths, he also revealed the Path leading to that “Cessation” when revealing the Eightfold Path. This teaching is also accepted by every school of Buddhism, even if every tradition has its own way to put it in practice. They simply don’t understand it the same way, and more profoundly, don’t make it a living reality in the same way.

 

This being said, lets get back to the Four noble Truths. What objectives do they pursue?

 

Asking oneself sincerely this question could quickly, and prosaicly, lead into asking oneself ”what has the Buddha to propose? And could maybe lead into asking “what is the utility of Buddhism”?

 

Each Buddhist tradition defines answers in his own terms, basically it is not a matter of definition or philosophy. It is about experimenting the reality that the Buddha named “Cessation” (ch.: Chi or Zhi ; jp.: Shi) of Suffering. This is the cessation, the end, of the insatisfaction born from our natural tendency to “build, nourrish and believe” in a “separate self”, or “ego”, which in the Buddhist view is purely conventional. I believe this conventional “I or Ego”, isn’t a bad thing per se, we need this kind of concept to deal with others in our day to day life. But “nourrishing this concept” as a reality, not conventional but as the “core of reality”, is a consequence of our own confusion or ignorance of “what we really are”. In this process, resides the beggining of a “profound gearing” in ourselves that inevitably separates us from “What we are” as a living reality.

 

We could thus summarize saying that the Buddha showed us a path to get out of the confusion we live into, a confusion that is the source of our suffering and insatisfaction. It is thus a method that puts us in front of “what we are” beyond our own illusions, in a non-separate or non-dual way. Here too, every Buddhist tradition elaborated their own terms to qualify the “non-separate reality” that we both “are” and “participate with”, beyond illusion, confusion, and thus beyond words.

 

Now, these concepts could seem easier to understand… beware, as we all know but forget to often, it is one thing to intellectually understand the concepts, it is another to put them in practice and to express them in our lives And here is an important aspect of the Buddhist teachings, they aren’t dogmas that should be learn by heart, but a realization that we must make flourish ourselves, in the fertile ground of our daily minds.

 

Of course, when looking for inspirations in the Buddhist teachings, we might be found guilthy of a certain affinity for what looks exotic, Asian, just different from our Western, largely Christian based background. And, in a way, it is a kind of skillful mean. We might first be interested in Buddhism because of all these exotic particularities, we will face soon or later an important matter… we don’t live in an antique Asian city, our everyday life is far from Brahmans and mango groves, and it might be disapointing at some point. But it is an important step to make in the Path, a needful realization to pass from a passive admiration to an “experimental realization”. Realizing the Truth of the Buddha’s teaching in our life and actualizing it, wich means “acting in accordance with this profound realization”, is a matter of harmonizing with each situation, and it is thus totally linked to different societal and cutural contexts we might face, Asian or Western.

 

Thus the task remains gigantic and we may be very enthousiast and dedicate, it is still very difficult to express these realities in our lifes. That is why the Zen masters of the past transmitted a teaching that is a “wonderful lever”, the “Four Immesurable Vows”.

 

These “Four Vows” are often said to be “Bodhisattva” vows, wich is an error. They are vows of immesurable scale that are a tool to the practitioner on the Bodhisattva’s Path. But too often in our informal Zen Centers, the term “bodhisattva” is used to named different things.

 

The Four vows first, but also the so-said “Bodhisattva precept”. These precepts are in fact the precepts of the “Brahma Net Sutra”, a major Sutra of Mahayana Buddhism and a sort of earlier version of the Avatamsaka Sutra. They consist, in general, in the 10 major precepts of the Brahma Net Sutra, the “lesser” 48 precepts being generally unknown to most Zen Buddhists.

 

Most Zen people never read the sutra, they thus don’t understand that these precepts are a practical articulation of a 10 step Bodhisattva Path described in the first part of the Sutra. To their defense, most Japanese monasteries, in a fashion instored by Saicho of the Tendai Sect of Japanese buddhism, only read the seconf half of the Brahma Net Sutra, the one including the precepts. Lacking thus the articulation between the two.

 

I must also note that China had his own relation to the precepts and in particular the “Bodhisattva precepts of the Brahma Net Sutra”. But they didn’t retract their view of the original 10+48, they originally didn’t generalized these precepts to every single Buddhist follower and certainly didn’t used the name “Bodhisattva” to designate a lay follower who just took his first vows, as it is so often found in most Zen Centers today.

(These notions will probably the subject of a future article in the following months… )

 

Now that these distinctions have been made, lets get back to the Four Vows. They are in fact a profound aspiration to realize the Four Noble Truths in our lives, to realize our True Nature and to harmonize with all things trough Compassionate actions.

 

We can thus put side by side the Four Noble Truths and the Four Immesurable Vows:

 

The Truth of Suffering : I vow to save all Beings

The Truth of the origin of Suffering : I vow to cut down all Illusions

The Truth of the Cessation of Suffering : I vow to master all Dharmas

The Truth of the Path leading to the Cessation of Suffering : I vow to realize the Way

 

The Buddha revealed the context, the processes that are alive in us, and makes us fooly believe in an individual and separated being in a lot of early suttas. From his first sermon, he proclamed the Four Noble Truth and lightenned the “poisonus process” in wich we engaged ourselves trough our habits and thoughts, wich are the first two Truths. He then proclamed the possibility to put an end to this poisonus process and explicited the Path leading to the end of this Self Illusion or Self-Hallucination, the two last Truths.

 

In all this what about the Four Vows? They are wonderful skillful means, pure aspirations to help us practice. They are like good seeds to plant, nourish and maintain on the Path that the Buddha gave us, the Eightfold Path.

 

Thus, each of these four vows is a method, very skillful indeed, to maintain in us a strong aspiration and dedication to realize the Four Noble Truths in our lives. But these aren’t a trivial thing, these are vows. A Zen practitioner should give importance to what he says, to what is being planted and nourished in his own MindGround. Taking vows isn’t a trivial thing indeed, but what a wonderful help.

 

Next time you recite them in your Zen Center, remember how they are related to the Four Noble Truths and, with simplicity and humility express your True Nature by a profound bow to All Buddhas and All Beings, without distinctions of time and space.

 

Amituofo

 

The Koans and us

Gongans/koans are important texts, they are part of our history and was bequeathed to us by the masters of the past. Now, it is often used too systematically, no need to go through all the gongans to practice, as the japanese rinzai schools have done, this is not our way. The gongans are what HsuYun called tail words, they are the manifestation, a posteriori, of an exchange which led someone to awakening. But we must never forget that the gongan only bore these fruits when the individual was close, the individual has practiced for many years before, the gongan is therefore only the tail, the end, of the process. This is why our tradition, which can use koans, will especially stick to the word head (huatou), to the central question of the gongan. This can bring us back through introspection to the same achievement as the gongan. But our party is to say that we do not need to pass through hundreds of gongan, the practitioner of the huatou will often have only one all his life, sometimes two or three if he does not bear fruit and that the master redirects the student’s practice according to his needs. But fully realizing our nature does this only once. Now where it makes sense is that it’s not enough to have gotten a great kensho and then that’s it, once the nature of our mind is recognized, the only one is born the beginning of the way of chan, of naturalness, and therefore the possibility of simply practicing zazen, pcq the practitioner will be able to really enter into samadhi with his one spirit.

 

Our way is therefore, the recitation of the name and the precepts in the daily life to sit our practice, then the practice of the huatou to open the doors, the veils, and to recognize our spirit by penetrating into the chan, (sometimes several huatou are necessary on a lifetime), and then only the practice of serene naturalness, the royal samadhi of zuochan (the practice of all too often trivialized zazen).

 

Regarding the practice, do not worry about your achievements. Never weighted, never introduces good or bad, the reduction of the respiratory rate, or the superficial chi which circulates are side effects of our practice. Some schools focus on these phenomena, for us they are only things that happen, it is important to know them so as not to get carried away by them. There is, however, no point in denying them.

 

Classically, Zen treats them all as makkyo if not the students so attached and do nothing more than try to reproduce its possible states of grace, or to avoid very disturbing states … to the detriment of real practice: to realize our heart -spirit, our true nature.

The beginning of the path can be expressed in terms of a method for realizing the nature of the mind, but once the land of the mind is recognized, we are outside of all methods, chan is pure naturalness! This is real zazen, no more words are useful, just the serene and luminous presence.

It is a process towards serene naturalness. In short, a mystical path since it is located in experience, beyond words and conventions, a reversal of our brains where all perceptions remain but where the self, the ego has disappeared (that’s the satori from when we recognize our true nature). In short, a natural state where we recognize that there is nothing to take away and nothing to add!

 

The practice of recitation allows the same path. First discipline and firmness in practice. Then, when the practice is stable, a voluntary turning inward, towards the root of this spirit, beyond perceptions and other manifestations, we illuminate the base of the spirit. By dive with openness and concentration, at one point the recitation is done by itself ‘without recitation’ say the texts. By dive in with concentration and relaxation, ‘he who’ disappears and we experience the recognition of our Land of the Spirit. And only then the possibility of a serene naturalness practice (recitation in naturalness, this Just Now that we know well). At this stage, the zazen is not only the seat or the recitation, in a word the chan has been penetrated and we continue to dig and to walk towards ourselves but in all simplicity.

 

Asking too many questions can become a brake on the relaxation necessary to dive into the deepest practice and experience this reversal of the spirit which leads years to realization, to the recognition of its luminous vastness.

We must persevere without asking questions, give ourselves to practice until immolating ourselves in it, until our whole being burns there and a new being is reborn, but yet no different. This is the entrance to the mystical path. It takes this very mystical passage, based on trust in the Amitabha Buddha, on his universal light, before heto understand the nature of the spirit and to be able to practice the True Direct Way.

 

I hope that it will help you a little and that it will bring more answers than questions. You must cultivate faith, yes the word is dropped. But not blind faith, faith that is born of trust and knowledge. Understanding intellectually the nature of amitabha and its pure land as only the mind is important, but at some point it is also a hindrance. Unnecessary intellectualization.

 

It is sincere faith / trust in our true nature, in the pure land of the Buddha of life and light which allows us to be reborn and to receive our teaching (realizing our nature and living in serene naturalness-so). .. it is necessary to go beyond oneself, and thus enter into chan … right here and now.

Cessation, samadhi and Satori

Samadhi is a Natural consequence of the practice towards knowing our true nature. Through deep and purified consciousness. Samadhi is only a deep state of consciousness, but not usual consciousness. It is a state of temporary withdrawal from the ego, often accompanied by a deep realization and an ecstatic state, especially when it is experienced the first time. It’s a gradual, deep track, like a stone going slowly to the depths of a seemingly bottomless lake. Unlike the instant satori, the ego simply disappears there, torn from the illusion it exerts on us, it gives way to the experience of reality without masks and judgments, the ease of the ego-free.

 

The way of cessation consists in the search for samadhi, by any practice gradually allowing concentration and a calm and serene mind, thus experimenting more and more subtle forms of consciousness. In these states it may seem that self-consciousness disappears for longer and longer moments, from its moments can emerge deep realizations. Cessation is therefore the way of calm, of progressive pacification of the body, of breaths and thoughts. It is a fabulous means which can lead to experiences of the same nature of Satori, kenshos (moments of deep realization by the momentary withdrawal of the ego, often experienced as ecstasies or beatitudes.

 

But it is very different from Satori, from what I have studied, practiced and especially received from Ming Zhen and all my masters: it is the same nature this (a withdrawal of the ego which allows to taste directly what is ) but it is different in two ways: its sudden appearance and its profound implications.

It’s no longer a temporary withdrawal from the ego, it’s an ego to be taken out of this body, and out of awareness of who we are: neither an ego / mind, nor a physical body, nor anything that is outside of that … here is a fundamental gongan!

The experience is stronger and above all more lasting. Attention, this experience, the satori, also lasts only a few seconds, after this experience the ego is still BUT it no longer takes, it’s like “having seen the world through the eyes of the mountains and going back to live in the body of an ant ”, you don’t get caught.

 

We have had a real experience of the fact that there is no differentiated thing called ego, neither with us nor with others, only houses of cards that we build like children. We have built chimeras and we firmly believe in them, more firmly than what we are told about the reality of our deep experiences.

 

Our way is, by the practice of the concentration in zuo chan to reach the cessation (of which the achievement is gradual and carrying experiences, but attention !!! Once reached, samadhi has nothing gradual, l ‘to reach is to see the earth of the spirit, to understand how our spirit really is. But there is still the presence of doubts, of the ego and these games, in short it is not yet satori.

From there, we practice simplicity, the naturalness of zazen, or we continue what we practiced with simplicity. We recognized the nature of his spirit and we practice the return, « residing and living simply according to the precepts ».

So we polite ourselves, while waiting for the right moment, of the harmony which suddenly, after years of practice ranging from concentration to cessation, from cessation to samadhi, to the realization of samadhi as “serene naturalness”, has the experience of satori. No more ego or traces of doubt, just certainty and freedom!

 

It is a journey that corresponds to the main phases of our lineage, the Indian patriarchs bequeathed us the sutras, the precepts and the practices of concentration and observation which leads to Cessation and to the Samadhis, the Chinese Patriarchs bequeathed to us the Samadhis based on naturalness, and the masters succeeding them the practices leading to just practice, and differences, from Samadhi THEN, after years of practice, to the suddenness of Satori. (Those who transmitted gongans and Huatou to us to see our Spirit directly (Linji, Yunmen, Chenglu), and those who left us the calm and serene way, and direct, the royal zuochan or zazen (Chihi, Bodhidharma, Huineng, Huangpo) , to deepen our harmony with what is, waiting WITHOUT WAITING !!!, since everything is already there, the Satori which will only be fortuitous and sudden. Masters like Hanshan and HsuYun have transmitted to us the whole Buddhist way, anchored in the Chinese Mahayana and allowing us to make this journey in ourselves, towards ourselves and the world.