Riccardo

Rohatsu

On Tuesday the 7th of December, I went to London, to the Zenways dojo in Camberwell to attend Rohatsu. Rohatsu is a Japanese word which literally means 8th day of the 12th month, 8th of December in other words. This is the day that Buddhists celebrates the day the historical Buddha experienced enlightenment, he realised his true nature and the nature of his own mind.

In the Zen tradition, that day is celebrated by spending the entire night meditating. So, we started at around 9.30 in the evening of the 7th with a talk by Daizan and we finished the following morning at 6. For the entire night, we alternated 25 minutes of sitting meditation sessions with 10 minutes sessions of walking meditation. We had 2 breaks of 15 minutes when we had matcha tea, I believe. So, why Rohatsu or Bodhi day as it is also called?

About 2,500 years ago, Shakyamuni Buddha sat under a tree, famously known as the Bodhi tree and reached enlightenment or awakening or realisation. He realised why he and other human beings suffer, he awakened to the fact that our own mind plays a big part in this ‘suffering business’. He realised that our own mind wouldn’t allow us to be unconditionally happy. At the same time, he ‘acquired’, during this awakening, the wisdom that allowed him to experience the happiness that is not conditioned or dependent by external conditions; the Buddha became unconditionally happy.

After the talk Daizan gave, we ate some rice pudding with the addition of some honey. The reason for that is found again in the experience the original Buddha had himself before he sat under the Bodhi tree prior his awakening. Shakyamuni Buddha for a few years before that he fasted and practiced a very strict self imposed austerity. His body became very weak and, I can only guess here, his mood and his energy became very low. One day, he was noticed by a very compassionate girl called Sujata who gave him a bowl of rice pudding with some honey in it. The Buddha, despite his self imposed austerity, accepted the food and soon his energy and his vitality were restored. Now he had the strength he required to carry on with his practice. He could look forward to the end of his quest, namely, finding out about the nature of all things. Out of this episode in which Sujata gave Shakyamuni Buddha the rice pudding stems the Buddhist doctrine of the Middle Path; the path between extremes, between asceticism and hedonism. I have to mention here that the Buddha, before setting off on his quest was a prince and he had access to all the pleasures that a prince could have. That didn’t give him that unconditional happiness that he was after since he realised that he could still get sick and die as anyone else. That unconditional happiness could not be found in the starvation of his body either as he experienced in those years of self austerity. Starve himself didn’t bring any joy and, on top of that, he must have realised that both body and mind must be nourished if he wanted to reach that state of unconditional happiness he was after.

The rice pudding we had was very sweet. I loved it and felt so grateful for this symbolic and nourishing food my body was receiving. The course was now set, we would just sit with our strongest resolve to reach enlightenment by dawn!

I forgot to mention that for the night I was Jikijitsu (I will write a post on the Jikijitsu role in the Zen tradition). My role was to keep the timings of the various sitting and walking meditation sessions. To help me with this, I had my wrist watch, two clappers and a little bell called Inkin. The wrist watch, of course, would give me the time, the clappers and the Inkin would signal to the attending people when the various sessions started and finished. My role also included another task which I am going to write about later on.

In the dojo, there were 10 people but the practice community, or Sangha as it is known also included some 30 people who joined in online. It is so beautiful to feel the energy, the intention and the determination of all these people coming together. Of course, we are meditating alone, we are alone with our own mind, our own challenging thoughts, our own physical pains but, for me at least, the presence of the community is fundamental. In this journey in which we travel alone, we are actually travelling all together, all as one, one as all.

During my sitting, I was doing my best to contemplate the nature of my mind, the impermanence of thoughts, perceptions, emotions, feelings and so on. Just trying to stay in that neutral place where all is just observed, where nothing is personal but all is just what it is. I remember, at one point towards the end of the night, to hear the sound of an airplane overhead, Camberwell must be on the flying path of one the big London airports, Heathrow I guess. The sound was simply a sound, it was not loud, it was not quite, it was not bothering me, it was not causing any particular reaction in me, it was simply a sound. I know how the mind works normally, I hear a sound, and straight after there is a comment about it, too loud, it is ‘ruining’ the silence, the airplane is a big polluter, or other kind of comments. This time it was just a sound, it was not followed by anything else, it was an empty sound and it was full of soundness at the same time. It was complete as it was, it didn’t need anything else to be what it was already. Then a thought came to my mind and, as for the sound, it was just a thought, it was not good, it was not bad, it was not annoying, pleasant, unpleasant…. it was simply a thought, empty of a fixed and independent entity (the thought depended on many different causes, starting from the mind reflecting it) and yet full and complete as it appeared and vanished. I didn’t have to do anything with it or about it, it just flew into the sky of my consciousness in the same way the plane flew undisturbed in the sky above me just seconds before. Then, all that happened after that had the same quality. Everything was just what it was; all movements, people talking, noises, the traffic on the way home were just what there was in each moment, neither good, nor bad, annoying and so on. That is what we can call no-separation, no-separation from me experiencing the experience and the experience itself, just one thing without any additional commentary.

Of course, a long night contemplating the mind can really help seeing more clearly into its own nature and the illusions that this can create. The challenging conditions created by a night long meditation, when the body is begging for a bed, can show more clearly the mental patterns and the tendency to not accept the reality of things. Not giving in to my own mind is the initial and essential thing to do if I want to find a different way to interact with and, in life. Gently allowing the mind to take its own course but not giving any energy, allowing things to arise and to pass, just remain present and have the ambition to see what is clearly necessary to do in each moment. That, in my own experience, starts developing another kind of mind, the wisdom mind, the mind that knows without knowing as I like to call it. It knows without knowing because it doesn’t need to have the knowledge of past events, of an encyclopaedia of things to know what the present moment requires. This illuminated mind just prompts one to act with no further thinking, what it is necessary, appears very clearly, no need to ask around. Out of laziness, out of habit, out of fear, out of so many different things, we don’t take the trouble or we are not patient enough to wait for this mind to show what is real and necessary, we, at least me, just jump on board of our personal and conditioned mind and we just act, or don’t act, out of laziness, out of habit, out of fear, out of so many different things. Meditation and mindfulness help us greatly in developing this new approach toward things in general, they, meditation and mindfulness, develop this patience and care that allows the illuminated mind to shine forth and help us to act in a more generous, caring, effective and true way.

Back to Rohatsu now. The night went on very smoothly, one session of sitting was followed by some walking meditation in a tennis court adjacent to the dojo. We would do 5 laps, around 10 minutes. Outside I felt cold and that helped me to stay awake during the night. At one point, I wore an extra layer since I had a nose bleed and I thought it was caused by the contrast between warm inside and cold outside. In any case, I did like and benefited from the walking. All I was doing, was to try to stay with the sensations I was experiencing; cold, sleepy, tired and so on. I tried my best not to energise any of the thoughts that came to visit. Just open and aware of walking.

One more responsibility for the Jikijitsu during Rohatsu is to use the Keisaku. This is a flat wooden stick used as a remedy against sleepiness. It was the first time I used it and I didn’t know exactly how to. Initially I thought that I would need to gently tap it on people’s shoulders to keep them awake or to remind them of their initial resolve. However, I found out that you want to strike people with some energy to energise them to keep practicing. There is a specific place on people’s back where the Keisaku is used and, in that place, no injuries are left but the vigour in their bodies is restored. That was for me a very interesting experience because of course, I felt a strong objection towards ‘hurting’ people but then I realised that it was my role in that moment. All was done with compassion and care towards others who just wanted to energise their practice. It was something that went beyond my mental likes and dislikes and it was done with love and compassion, supporting other people in their own practice.

In my experience with Zen, there have been many of these situations which might appear to be controversial for the ‘conventional mind’. It is unusual to think of striking a person on their back out of love and compassion. However, that is my own understanding of the use of the Keisaku; it is not about me and about what I like or don’t like, it is about being available to others, to support them in their own practice and, if what it takes is to be hit by a flat stick, you don’t argue about that, you just do it. That is what the moment, that is what the path to liberation is requiring; it is this going beyond the intellectual mind, the good and the bad, right or wrong, breaking through the conditions ‘imposed’ by our own minds.

At 6 in the morning, I rang the Inkin and clapped the clappers for the last time. We then gathered together around our breakfast tables and enjoyed some food. There was no signs of sleepiness in myself and I could not see signs of sleepiness in other people either, just the desire to share a very joyous moment.

Zenways

In October 2018, I attended a course to learn to teach meditation and mindfulness. In October 2018, I attended a course to learn to teach meditation and mindfulness. The course was run by an organisation called Zenways, more specifically, the course was run by one of its members, Seán Collins. The course lasted for a week and I knew, at the end of it, that things would not be the same as before. A major change happened during that week I spent in Forest Row where the course took place. I felt like I gained tons of confidence in myself and in what I could do from then on. Of course, little I knew back then, that the journey would be long (actually the journey, I feel, never ends) at times it can feel arduous and other times it feels enjoyable. I was basically starting to realise a little bit more about myself and how the mind functions. How it, the mind, had power when it came to perceive things in and out of myself. The mind says that something is good, then I act accordingly. The mind says that something is bad, then I act differently. Throughout the life, the mind has built a storehouse of good things and bad things and one acts in accordance to this storehouse, attracted by the good things and repulsing the bad things. So, what changed during that week? It is very difficult to describe it exactly in words but, one way to put it, is that I found the neutral place. The neutral place is a mental awakening that sees things as they are and not as they are determined by the conditioned mind, by the storehouse of good things and bad things. It is a clearer way of seeing things, unfiltered, direct. New potentials seems to be at the horizon.

In the weeks to come after the course, emotions started to pour. It seemed that things inside me started to disentangle and were being freed somehow. As they freed themselves, they would manifest in tears and, I would find myself crying and crying. No sad crying, no happy crying either, just crying. Beautiful and liberating. I could easily observe all of this outpour in a way which I would define detached. It was definitely happening but not happening to someone in particular, it was just happening. And, of course, it goes without saying that when one becomes detached from the inner turmoils, they don’t get so caught and so enslaved by them. I have learned with time that when I am not attached to what it is going internally, I don’t suffer, I can see what is going on without being overwhelmed by it. I guess that I started to have a first hand experience on how meditation and mindfulness worked in practice, I am not sure, I am just guessing here. Before then, I had lots of theory in my mind and by practice meditation regularly I was experiencing the array of benefits that meditation can offer; feeling calmer, being kinder, being more patience and so on. Now, I was starting to enjoy a different way to relate to myself and to things and/or people that were around me.

Going back to Zenways now. I found out about Zenways because some time before I read a book by Daizan Roshi called Practical Zen: Meditation and Beyond.

I remember I enjoyed the book very much and got attracted, among other things, by the fact that Daizan run an organisation or Sangha, a community where people practiced Zen Buddhism, I’d wanted to join that. I had never explored Buddhism before and I knew very little (nothing) about Zen either. I soon wanted to know more about them, Buddhism and Zen so after the course in Forest Row, I joined Zenways. My guess is that my ‘opening’ which occurred during the week of the course, lead me straight to go to the source of what I believed caused this opening in the first place. Perhaps a sense of gratitude, curiosity, excitement.

I joined Zenways and wanted to meet Daizan as soon as I could so I went down to the dojo in London, Campberwell, and finally met him. I went to speak to him in a private meeting which in the Zen tradition is called Sanzen. In these meetings, Zen students can tell their teacher about their practice, normally, but not only that. I remember that all I could tell Daizan was ‘thank you!’ or something along those words. I just wanted to convey my gratitude for the ‘shift’ or ‘opening’ that happened just a couple of months before.

Daizan, myself and my wife Amy on our wedding day

From that moment onwards, I got more and more involved with Zenways and their activities. Becoming a member of Zenways, means becoming a Zen student. Becoming a Zen student, in this case, meant to study Zen or to practice Zen under the supervision of Daizan. That is what I did, I started practicing Zen which meant, in my case, having a daily meditation sitting or two daily meditation sittings. Also, I started reading the vast Zen literature which has really been helping me to understand or, try to understand, where or what all the Zen masters of the past and present point at. It does feel right to say that all this practice, reading, applying mindfulness and so on started to develop a Zen mind or no-mind, whatever that means.

Also, little by little, I realised that Zen can be practised in an endless number of ways. All activities we find ourselves involved in, can be used to practice Zen and, possibly, the first and still to me, most important lesson has been that, when doing something, do it totally, become the action, be totally available, wholeheartedly. By becoming one with the action, one is no concerned with what is going on in the mind (likes, dislikes, resistances and so on) but they become just concerned with what is necessary to do. As I heard many times, we break down that wall of separation which makes us feel separate from the universe, makes us feel a separate entity, a ‘struggling’ entity, a ‘fighting’ entity, a tiny entity that is about to be crashed by the universe. Zen, in my own understanding, helps us to see that this split, this separation is just illusory, it is created by our own mind, by the storehouse of ‘good things’ and ‘bad things’. In reality, we are part of the moving universe, we are that universe in fact. The self and this idea of a separate self is an empty idea, no real. It stays together because of our habitual way of thinking about ourself and the rest. Little by little, this understanding or knowing becomes experiential but, I still have to work hard at times to bypass the habitual mind which do not allow me to see this Truth. It is a constant reminding myself of this, moment to moment, no split, no separation, just acting as required by the situation.

This is in a nutshell, the training that I have been doing with Zenways. There is more than this but for me at the moment, this is the core teaching/practice. Also, in these years with Zenways, I realised why it is called Zenways. The reason is very simple, there are many ways to practice Zen, not only one. Zen can be practiced whilst walking, working, running, speaking, looking into a mirror, working with a Koan…… Zen is no separation in the many different ways we manifest our presence in action. And then, of course, Zen would not allow any definition of Zen……

SESSHIN (5-DAY RETREAT) – MIRROR ZEN

I know every wrinkle on my face, every scar, indentation, valleys and rises as I stared in a mirror for 5 consecutive days.

I went to a Sesshin last month, a meditation retreat in the Zen tradition. During this period of intense practice (meditation practice), one follows a very rigid schedule; sitting meditation, walking meditation, working meditation, eating mindfully, mindful movements, chanting and silence, lots of silence. And, it was from the shadow of this silence that I got to see very clearly what was going on in the mind when I attended the various scheduled activities. I could not distract myself by chatting to someone else but I had to live totally with my own thoughts, feelings, emotions. Resistances, likes, dislikes, wanting to move, scratching, rushing to get some food, not considering others, getting upset because food run out…… In silence, all these things are clearly seen, they are clearly heard like a scream in the dark, one can’t pretend to not have heard it.

Don’t get me wrong, there is also great beauty in spending so much time in silence, especially for a person like me that feels at times inadequate when being around people. I didn’t have to talk, I just had to get on with the various tasks, my own inner stuff and my face reflected in a mirror, not such a bad thing after all.

At the Noddfa centre, around 30 people moved inside the boundaries of the rigid Sesshin schedule, focussed on themselves; noticing their thoughts, emotions, likes and dislikes. Noticing without reacting, that is one of the qualities of a mindful mind. Noticing what arises, allowing space without grasping. The more I allow, the more there is a sense of space expanding (well, that’s what it feels like). In the moment I try to grasp a thought, for instance, the same space shuts down around that thought, I am caught, my attention is caught. Is there anything wrong when the attention gets caught? No, nothing is neither wrong or right for that matter but I am limiting myself within claustrophobic boundaries whilst missing out on the actual experience that is unfolding around me. I am holding on to something, not letting go, fixated on a concept or an idea, very intellectual and not really experiential. Of course, there are times when I need to focus on thoughts, I need to analyse or work something out or when I speak to someone and I want to know exactly what to say. However, when meditating we want to allow thoughts to arise without us ‘disturbing’ them. Thoughts are not a problem at all but what we do with them can create the conditions for some potential disharmony with how we deal with situations, people and ourselves too. We all know how one thought leads on to the next one and the next one again in an endless thread that carries us down the spiral of our own creative, corrupted, conditioned, individual story about how things are. This spiralling is what we call the world of separation, our story versus what is out there, the ‘hostile’ world. Rather than experiencing things, we think about them, what we like or don’t like about them, how we can twist them to try to ‘gain’ something, how to avoid or how to have more. Thoughts are gauging the actual experience of life, they are not the experience itself, they are ideas about it. My experience with Zen is that we are practising to break down this illusory wall that separates us from the ‘hostile’ universe. Once the wall is down, there is no separation, we are the universe, there is neither hostility nor no-hostility, we are just what we are. However, why did we stare in a mirror for 5 consecutive days then?

The Mirror Zen Sesshin is based around the practice of sitting and facing yourselves in a mirror. Practice which was developed in a Japanese temple called Tokei-ji in the Kamakura period by female Zen master Kakuzan Shido. Kakuzan Shido would meditate before the mirror to see into her own nature. In the same way, later generations of nuns and us at the Noddfa centre have been meditating on various koans associated to the mirror image and reflections. I can kind of imagine Kakuzan Shido walking towards a mirror; thoughts must have popped into her mind whilst she was getting closer to it. As she got very near to it, she must have clearly seen that those thoughts were not reflected in the mirror, they were reflected by an inner mirror which we commonly call mind. Possibly, she saw the reality that laid in front of her reflected in the mirror and the reality of her own thoughts. Two separate realities. There were thoughts about how she saw things, how she believed things were. Clearly, she realised that the 2 realities were not matching. What was seen by her own eyes was different or corrupted by what her mind was saying. The mind had ideas about what she was seeing and these ideas were clearly subjective, conditioned, dependent by factors such as mood, lightness, darkness and so on and so forth. For that reason, I guess, she carried on with this Mirror Zen practice, she refined it and passed it down to other students. This is my reading of how things went which I am sure is very far from what really inspired Kakuzan Shido.

Is the mirror showing the content of my own mind? Where in the mirror are the thoughts which appear in my mind? Can I see them? These were some of the questions that naturally arose and sustained me during my practice of seeing into my own nature. If thoughts are not in the mirror, where are they coming from? These questions help breaking our logical way of seeing things and open up to a different way of experiencing life in general; not so much an intellectual endeavour but rather an experiential experience, a moment to moment experience, from a philosophical approach to things to a more practical one, from an intellectual way to relate to things, to a more intuitive one.

Staring in the mirror in my room during the Mirror Zen retreat

What did I take home from this retreat? I am not sure that I took home something specific from the retreat. Definitely lots of inspiration to keep practicing and admiration for all of those who practice. Gratitude towards Kakuzan Shido and 22 generations of practitioners after her who kept this specific practice alive. What was apparent in the mirror of my mind were those thoughts of inadequacy that at times take over. Being able to let go of those fears and of that sense of me, personal me, separate me, that illusory sense of separation in general. That is what showed up very strongly at the end of the retreat. So ‘full speed ahead’……