Does It Work?

Dharma Talk given at Still Mind Zendo, New York City by Roshi Janet Jiryu Abels

Why are we here in the zendo this evening? Why do we do this? I think it is an important question for two reasons. First, just like institutions and organizations, we humans can get lost when an initial impulse becomes muddy, when the original spark, the essence of why we embark in the first place, gets somehow lost in the form. So we need to re-direct ourselves. And it is also an important question from another point of view. A new spark, so to speak, may have ignited and we may not yet be aware of it; we may still be clinging to the old way through habit, just as we cling to relationships that are past their times or to jobs that no longer fulfill what they used to fulfill. So to ask such a question from time to time can be very helpful.

It's important to remember that we are here in this practice by choice. All of us are here by choice. We are not here because of our heritage, we are not here because of our parents, we are not here because of institutions. We are here because of ourselves. We begin Zen practice by choice.

And we begin with inquiry. Perhaps the fruits of inquiry will be of no interest. But if they do interest, then the next step is to explore them through practice: to explore and see what this exploration brings up. And if the exploration is sustained, then a commitment is made, because commitment, deep commitment, to such exploration is necessary.

So, if we are to commit to Zen, what is the basis for this commitment? Does it work?  Does the practice work? In her wonderful book Buddha (which I highly recommend for its accessibility and clarity of style), the historian Karen Armstrong makes abundantly clear that this question "Does it work?" is the basis for the Buddha's exploration into the essence of reality which finally led to his great enlightenment experience. I would like to read a few sentences from this work:

A person's theology was a matter of total indifference to the Buddha. To accept a doctrine on somebody else's authority was in his eyes an unskillful state which could not lead to enlightenment because it was an abdication of personal responsibility. He saw no virtue to submitting to an official creed. Faith meant trust that Nirvana existed and a determination to prove it to oneself. The Buddha always insisted that his disciple test everything he taught them against his own experience and take nothing on hearsay. A religious idea could all too easily become a mental idol, one more thing to cling to when the purpose of the Dharma was to help people to let go. Even his own teachings must be jettisoned once they have done their job.

This point is made over and over. "Does it work?" Not "Do I believe it?" Not "Am I doing it right?" Not "Am I better than him or her or them?" but "Does it work?" And, above all, "Does it work for ME?" That is all that Sakyamuni was interested in. That is what we ought to be interested in. So the question is: "Does it work for you?" Not "Does it work for your neighbor?" Not "Does it work for your parents or that institution or this group?" But: "Does it work for you?" This is the pragmatic basis of our exploration of Zen, and it is the basis of Zen practice.

Explorers know that they have to continue their exploration when they glimpse something they have never seen before. How do we then in Zen practice know when we are to continue? Well, I think it is pretty much the same yard stick as the one used by explorers. We know it is necessary for us to continue when we see, when we realize something that we have never seen or realized before. And we realize by being aware. Awareness is the tool.

Awareness of what is going on now. Awareness of the make-up of our present experience. That is how we know if our Zen practice works. Experiential awareness is how we prove it to ourselves. Am I able to see this person or this situation in a broader way? Am I moving through this crisis with astonishing calmness? Am I able to be more open to owning the dark side of myself as it arises in zazen or in my life: my compulsions, my cravings, my needs, my bad feelings? Am I more present to the now; am I letting go; is my universe expanding; and, ultimately, am I facing suffering? Is this happening in some measure or not? That is how we know it works or not.

Does it work or not? We cannot go to our mind for the answers. To go to the mind to find the answer to the question "Does Zen work?" is like asking a corrupt police department to investigate itself. It can't be done. The mind can't give us an answer because the mind always uses outer sources as a yardstick. Only not mind, only not knowing, only our inner sense, our inner connection knows if it works. And so we must expand our not mind, because as long as we try to grasp Zen with our mind, it won't work. I see that over and over in teaching newcomers. People try to grasp Zen with their minds, and it doesn't work.

And the practice par excellence of not mind is the practice of zazen: sitting meditation.

Dear friends in the Sangha, dear fellow practitioners, it is zazen above all. It is not the Buddha, it is not the teacher, it is not the dharma talk, it is not the Sangha, it is not Zen, it is not anything.? It is our individual practice of not mind, carried out in our commitment to the practice of zazen. And our commitment to seeing this as of the utmost urgency and importance.

Now, sure, we need the teaching, we need the sangha, we need Zen, we need these tools that are necessary to get us going and to keep us going and to keep us from falling into delusion, but ultimately they are secondary and they are redundant. It is zazen: just sitting. And so we must practice zazen above all if we want to follow the Way.

And the level of zazen that our deepest self, our most honest self knows we must do in following the Way is not a coasting zazen, but a deep and committed, on-the-edge-wherever-we-are zazen. Only when we practice in this way, only then will we know the answer to "Does Zen work?"

And you cannot know any of this with your mind. It must arise out of yourself. And when it does, then you will know and you won't have to believe.

I want to close with another piece from the book Buddha:

The dharma is essentially a method and it stands or falls not by its metaphysicality or acuity or its scientific accuracy but by the extent to which it works. The truths claim to bring suffering to an end, not because people subscribe to a salvistic creed or to certain beliefs but because they adopt the Buddha's program or way of life. Over the centuries men and women have indeed found that this regimen has brought them a measure of peace and insight . . .  They have realized that by reaching beyond themselves to a reality that transcends their rational understanding, they, as men and women, become fully human.

For the Buddha this was fact; for him, his method worked.

Does it work for you?

Living in an Uncertain World

Dharma Talk given at Still Mind Zendo, New York City by Roshi Janet Jiryu Abels

We would have to be living in a very deep fog if we were not aware how world events were pushing our individual lives into deeper and deeper levels of uncertaintywith no end in sight. It is the fact of where we are, whether we admit it or not, whether we choose to worry about it or ignore it. Our life, always fragile, is more fragile than ever.

Not only the threat of war in the Middle East; not only the threat of nuclear devastation in Asia; not only the threat of terrorist attacks in our city and country; not only the economic downturn; not only the overheating of the planet and the erosion of the very earth and water we depend on; but ALL of the above. Not to mention our individual life uncertainties: moving, getting a new job, struggles with our finances, changes in relationship. And then just the small uncertainties of life: Is it going to snow? Will I be able to start my car? It's endless! It's enough to make you want to go on retreat and forget about it all!

And so you come on retreat and you get the schedule and you look at the quote on the top and you read the following:

Not in the sky, not in the sea, not in the clefts of the mountains is there a known spot in the whole world where one might live free from being overcome by death.

Oh, my! How depressing. It boxes you right in, doesn't it? Nowhere to turn. Nowhere to turn.

I must admit that I debated whether it was too difficult a quote to use as our theme. But the very intensity of the uncertainties around us really left no option. I could not not use it.

We do not come to sesshin to retreat but to advance. To move forward. Move into. Move into what? Move into the uncertainty as a choice. Not as something forced upon us by our world or by our life circumstances, but as a choice.

So, what is uncertainty?

Well, it s not any of the following: fixed, settled, dependable, reliable, inevitable, incapable of failing, destined. All of these are dictionary definitions of certainty. So when our life, our society, our world is not fixed, settled, dependable, reliable, inevitable, incapable of failing, destined, we are thrown into disarray, are we not into uncertainty. There seems to be no fixed point, no coherent direction. There is a helplessness, there is fear, there is a sense of death. Because when there is no fixed point, when there is nothing to depend on, the self that each of us calls I faces the uncertainty of that I continuing.

In other words, faces death. Death of the fixed, the settled, the inevitable, the destined self.

And that is why, at the very heart of the matter, we fear uncertainty so much.

Uncertainty is a loss of the comfortable, the familiar, the known. And the self that we call I is comprised solely of knowns, of fixed points of certainty. That is why we continually try to prop the self up: I'm okay, tell me I'm okay; I'm right; tell me I am right. You're wrong, so I can be right. Clinging to identities, to titles, talents, to possessions, to people, to religions, to ideals. All propping up the I, the me, propping up the fixed, the settled, the known, the dependable.

But the Dhammapada, the compilation of the Buddha's teaching that was put together several hundred years after his death, says, There is nowhere one might live free from being overcome by death. Nowhere, in other words, where one might live free from, sooner or later, being overcome by the not known.

Sesshin, at the deepest level, is an advance, by choice, into that not known. A movement, by choice, into the experience of uncertainty; the experience of no road ahead, no fixed point, no dependable map, no destined end. No result. The practice of sesshin is the constant choice of returning to this experience of the not known, the not fixed, instead of running away from it into the familiar.

And the experience of the not known, the not fixed, is the experience of not mind, not thought. It is an experience of NOT held through the focus on the breath.

The breath, like uncertainty, is always moving, is not fixed, is always rising and falling, always changing. The breath is not anything, and yet it is our one constant the first thing we do when we are born, the last thing we do when we die, and our one constant in between.

The breath can only be breathed one moment at a time. We cannot breath two breaths at one time. The breath is simple.

The breath can only be breathed now.

The breath can only be breathed here and never there. (This reminds me of that well-known quote of Gertrude Stein: When you get there there isn't any there there.)

The now and the breath are not fixed. They move, they move all the time. And yet they are constant and they are dependable. We can depend on always getting the next breath (providing the system is working!) We do not have to think, Oh, I have to get the next breath. It's there.

And we can always depend on being in the now, because there is only now, there is only here. It reminds me of that quote from Suzuki Roshi when the woman at sesshin came to him and said, I want to leave; it s just too difficult, and I want to leave. And Suzuki Roshi said, Well, you can leave but there's nowhere to go. Indeed, there is nowhere to go.

So, as we sum up the courage and stamina and discipline and perseverance to stay with and trust, above all trust, the breath and the now (all of which is the scary and difficult practice of Zen), we begin to see that uncertainty is movement, uncertainty is change, uncertainty is the opening of new vistas, whether global vistas, or personal life vistas. Uncertainty is necessary.

Uncertainty is the movement of life. And the movement of life is certain and constant and dependable. The movement of life; not life, but the movement of life. There really is no such thing as life; there is only the movement of life.

This movement of life is the now and the now is certain. It is the fixed point. And if we trust the movement, if we stop clinging to the illusion of certainty and trust the movement, trust the now, the movement will lead us. The now will lead us, will reveal the next now, and the next now, and the next now, and the next now, and the next now, and so forth.

And this living in the certainty of the uncertain now, this living in the certainty of uncertain change is called freedom. Unlimited freedom. It is also called Nirvana.

It is our true, our essential, our complete self. And until we realize it, really realize it, in the depths of our being, we will suffer. As the Buddha said, The world (and we could say us) whose very nature is to change, is constantly determined to become something else. It (we) is at the mercy of change, only happy when caught up in the process of change. But this love of change contains a great measure of fear. And this fear itself is called dukkha... suffering.

So we must take risks; embrace the uncertainties of our individual lives, of our world. Not allowing the uncertainties to shake us, to distract us, to paralyze us, to intimidate us, to fill us with fear. But rather, we must advance, ride the fear, ride the uncertainties, whether they be about our next job or about our death. Ride the uncertainties, confident in the certainty of the now which just is.

Not born, not destroyed, says the Heart Sutra. Life is impermanence, said the Buddha. For impermanence to happen there must be death. And that is why not in the sky, not in the sea, not in the clefts of the mountains is there a known spot in the whole world where one might live free from being overcome by death. How wonderful! Thus, and only thus, can life fully move.

Each time we choose to follow the certainties of the known, we find limitations. Each time we choose to follow the uncertainties of the not known, we find open movement, we find essential self, we find life. Choose life, says Yahweh. Choose life, no matter how risky.

Brenda Ueland, a twentieth-century writer and teacher of writing, wrote an amazing little book in 1938 called, If You Want to Write. It is a book about writing, but it is so much more than that. In it she counsels:

The only way to find your true self is by recklessness and freedom. True self is never a fixed thing. True self is always in motion, like music. A river of life. Changing, moving, failing, suffering, learning, shining. That is why you must freely and recklessly make new mistakes. Make new mistakes and not fret about them.

Yes, indeed. Because not in the sky, not in the sea, not in the clefts of the mountains is there a known spot in the whole world where one might live free from being overcome by new mistakes, from being overcome by death.

When we can fully accept this fact, there is nothing to fear.

This is Nirvana.

The Stepping Stones of Zen

Dharma Talk given at Still Mind Zendo, New York City by Roshi Janet Jiryu Abels

The purpose of Zen practice, or Zen training as it is sometimes called, is to wake up.

And because waking up is not a fixed "thing," is not an idea or a concept, Zen, therefore, is not a philosophy or a religion or anything. It is waking up. What of course we are waking up to is life. "Choose life," says Yaweh. Wake up. And because life keeps moving on, there is no end to waking up. So one of the most important aspects of Zen training, and one of things we all struggle to realize, is that there is no "end product" in Zen.

This practice of waking up applies equally to those who are just at the beginning of Zen practice and long time practitioners because even if we have woken up, or begun to wake up, we must be diligent in not falling asleep once more. The maintenance of "awakeness" is difficult work - as difficult as the initial waking up.

So what is this waking up Well it is, literally, the opening of our eyes to see what is right here under our nose. Just this, as it is, at this moment. Not as it was, not as it might be, not as it should be, not at it could be, as it is. Wake up. Now, when we are not awake (which is most of the time, let's face it), we think we are with just this, we think we are looking at reality, but it's actually a delusion, a dream, and a delusion and a dream cannot fulfill us, cannot make us free. And that's why we keep looking for more and more and more, and we are never satisfied because delusions are never enough.

The practice of Zen is the confronting of these delusions which come from only one source, our mind. The way the computer chips, if you will, of our mind have been put together what they are in our particular, unique life will be our particular delusions. But no one can tell us how to do this because we are the only one who "is us." So the awareness, first of all, of our particular computer chips, and then the challenge to their supremacy in our life, is what makes up the diligent, careful, difficult, sublime practice of Zen.

This is Zen. As Sensei Joko Beck, puts it: "A zendo is not a place for bliss and relaxation. It is a furnace room for the combustion of our delusions. What tools do we need to use? Only one. We've all heard of it, yet we use it very seldom. It is called attention." Attention. Not bliss, not relaxation, not ideas, not concepts, ATTENTION - to "just this." Just this breath, not that breath, this breath; just this step, not that step, this step. Each unique, each arising, each falling away for the next arising. Stay awake!

To further elucidate on this, I would like to share with you a koan that directly points to the reality of "just this." It's koan 52 in the Blue Cliff Record. A monk said to Joshu, "The stone bridge of Joshu is widely renowned, but coming here, I find only a set of stepping stones." Joshu said, "You see the stepping stones, you do not see the stone bridge." The monk said, "What is the stone bridge" Joshu said, "It lets donkeys cross over and horses cross over."

The stone bridge of Joshu (which was the name of the province where it was located as well as the name of the abbott of the local monastery) was one of three very famous stone bridges in China at that time. They were not the kind of bridges that we know today. They were made up of rocks placed in the river that acted as stepping stones. So the monk's question, and our question, might be, "I have come all this way looking for the great renowned Master Joshu and all I see is an ordinary looking old man." (Joshu died when he was 120 years old!) Or the question might be: "I have come looking for the exquisite way of Zen, and all I see is a bunch of monks sitting and walking and sweeping and eating." Or the question might be, "I have come to this sesshin (or I have come to my daily sitting) looking for enlightenment, looking for freedom and insight, and all I get is frustration and pain and distraction and boredom. That is all I seem to get. Where is Zen?"

Can you see? Looking for answers, but only getting questions. The monk we come to Zen with an expectation, an idea created by those computer chips in our mind: This is what I expect the famous bridge of Joshu to be, this is what I expect the famous Master Joshu to be, this is what I expect Zen to be, this is what I expect the longed for freedom and insight to be. And it is not. And it is not because all these expectations are delusions, ideas, concepts, created by the mind. We see only the stepping stones. We do not see the stone bridge because we're looking for a "stone bridge." And as long as we're looking for a "stone bridge," as long as we're looking for our idea of Zen, we're going to miss the real thing. We're going to miss this moment and we're going to miss our life.

And it is at this point that we have a choice. We can follow the delusion, trying to find the answer elsewhere, or we can try, try to be with "just this," to stay with "just this," to try to see reality, just as it is. We have a choice to continue sleeping or to wake up.

In a few moments we will be chanting the Relative and Absolute chant. At the end there is the line, "You do not see it, even as you walk on it." The bridge is the stepping stones. Wake up. The teaching of the dharma is this insignificant old man. Wake up. The sublime freedom of the Way is this tiredness, this pain, this loneliness, this boredom, this confusion. Wake up! See it. Whatever "it" is. Elizabeth Barret Browning put it well, in a slightly different context, "Earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God." There is nothing that is not "it." There is no moment that is not "it." But we must be awake to see this.

Now this monk still doesn't get it. He says, "So what is the stone bridge, Master Joshu, what is it? Tell me, show me, I must know it, I must see it." You can see the anguish there. "PLEASE I've come all this way. I've got to get it . TELL ME!" And Joshu basically says, "I cannot. I cannot tell you, because "it" is unutterable, unthinkable, inexpressible. How can I, or anyone, possibly tell you I can only point. It allows donkeys and horses to pass over." The bridge is not a thing; the bridge is a way. Reality is a verb; it's not a noun. The way of this stepping stone, and then this and then this. The way of this moment, then this moment, then this moment. Movement. Each "just this."

So does it matter ultimately what the makeup of the "just this" is? Does it matter if it's tired, or awake or this or that? Is not each stepping stone the bridge? Is not each moment of our life, no matter what it is, "it"? Is it not complete? The question is yours. Joshu cannot tell you. The Buddha cannot tell you. Abraham and Jesus cannot tell you. Because only you walk the stepping stones. Only you breathe this breath and walk this walk and eat this bread and live this moment and live this life.

And only you can choose to have confidence in it, only you can continue to wake up. And when you do, there will be no doubt that this stepping stone is the bridge. And you will no longer have to believe - because you will "know." And then there will be no doubt that this moment, no matter how painful or difficult, is all right. And then you will be free. Because everything is always all right.

As Zen Master Ango wrote in the twelfth century: "To those who are awake, the universe is not veiled. All its activities lie open. Whichever way they may go, they do not get stuck. With every move they make, they have the confidence to act with authority."

So let us sit well, let us sit strong, and let us continue to wake up.