Zazen is simple. Just don’t put effort into doing it.
When deluded, our world turns upside down, right side up, and upside down again and again from the moment we get out of bed. That’s the price of seeking status and wealth. It’s the results of learning transactional love – “Do this and get that in return.” In other words, our self-worth is knit together with a condition. The condition being the degree, the promotion, the salary raise, the victory, the dream vacation, etc.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with striving for something. But when our identity becomes ensnared with the outcome of our pursuits, we’re in for a roller coaster ride for our emotions, or worse, our mental health gets easily derailed.
In the movie, “Gold” (loosely based on a true story) Kenny Well’s comes from a mining family. He’s about to lose everything his ancestors worked for when, after much effort, including a near death experience with malaria, he discovers gold in Indonesia. He starts thinking and living as a millionaire – planning the location of his dream home, going to extravagant parties, rubbing elbows with the wealthy, flirting with an attractive woman. As he’s about to get filthy rich with a 300-million-dollar contract, because his name was no longer included in the deal, he flushes the offer down the toilet and ends up losing everything he’s worked so hard for, including the only person who sees through the illusion – his girlfriend. His identity was coupled to his worth. He’s essentially saying, “My name is worth more than $300 million dollars.”
This is an extreme example of what most of us do with our name, and with words. We tie a value to them as if they are real, and then expect compensation equivalent to our ideas, completely oblivious to the reality right in front of us.
The movie is a graphic depiction of what the Buddha referred to as craving. Craving stems from a scarcity mentality, the thinking that we don’t have enough. But if there’s one thing I learned from how the monks in Japan used everything they were given, and myself being reminded again and again by my teacher that there’s always more, is that when we are not mindful, we see things out of habit. Or rather, because we live out of habitual ways of doing things, we don’t see what’s right before our eyes. When we break this habit through mindful observation of the present moment, then the universe opens up to us and reveals options.
As Dogen Zenji says at the end of his universal instructions for Zen meditation, “The storehouse opens of itself and you may use it freely.”
Some people might think that what I’m sharing can only be found after long hours of sitting meditation. I’d love it if people meditated more. But it ain’t gonna help none. Zen meditation doesn’t necessarily increase our mindfulness one iota outside of that one spot in the zendo.
Recently, I had two instances within a few hours of each other in my familial life where I was able to practice what I learned while living as a Zen monk. Neither was dependent on meditating. The first was with my 8-year-old son. He was trying to create a mini suspension bridge based on instructions in a book. One of the materials he needed was four flexible straws, the kind that easily bend so you can put your lips to it without damaging the plastic. But we didn’t have any straws, in part because my wife -thankfully – has been conscientious about reducing the amount of plastic we bring into the house. So, I told my son that we don’t have to do it the way the book says. We can find some bendable sticks out in the yard and use them instead. He was skeptical because we weren’t following the exact instructions of the book, and he reluctantly followed me outside where we found the necessary items in nature, without having to go out to the store to buy anything. It was interesting to watch his growing anticipation and excitement as the structure came together.
The second instance was with my one-year-old daughter, just a couple hours later. My wife had made popcorn that evening and my daughter had been enjoying it immensely, stuffing her mouth with handfuls of puffy white cloud-shaped popcorn. We had come to the end of the batch, and I was about to throw the unpopped kernels quickly into the compost because my daughter kept reaching into what I saw as an “empty” bowl, and I didn’t want her to accidentally eat or choke on those kernels. But then I looked more closely before dumping them and saw that there were still small bits of popcorn that most people would probably discard. I proceeded to pick out these tiny white puffed balls and hand them to my daughter who then eagerly snarfed them down, along with the nutritional yeast, oil, and salt that coated them. I remembered my teacher demonstrating how absolutely nothing is wasted in a Japanese Zen temple. The Tenzo’s would sometimes eat the remaining rice gruel that was stuck to the bottom of the pan after a meal, rather than throw it out or even compost it.
Just before we came to the very last little puff ball of popcorn I realized I could dip some small pieces of cheese into the bowl in order to coat it with the nutritional yeast and salt and see if she would continue to eat to her fill. Sure enough, she was more than happy to continue feeding, and although the popcorn was now well gone, cheese had replaced it and she was happy as a clam. Had I not had Zen training, I doubt I would have ever been mindful enough to see that there was plenty at hand. Rather, I would have been thinking out of scarcity complex.
While everyone should go to a Zen monastery in Japan and train for three months or longer, most people won’t. While everyone should immediately find a Zen teacher and desire to learn from them, most people don’t. While everyone ought to look me up and ask how they can do zazen effortlessly, my inbox and voicemail are mostly empty. The alternative here is to just be mindful of the present moment that you exist in right now. Then there’s no need for a teacher, a monastery or even for zazen.
However, I don’t know anyone who can live in the moment without some degree of training. As individuals we have too many blind spots, and we are too often unaware of our own egos. A monastery or temple, or simply practicing with several other people creates an atmosphere of attention that can’t be easily replicated when sitting by our self. For those that wish, a teacher can skillfully point out one’s blind spots in practice, but also encourage us to not give up.
In an ancient Zen story a monk was struggling to light a fire and finally gave up, telling his teacher that there was nothing to light the wood with. The teacher grabbed the tongs from the monk’s hands and reached deep into the fireplace ashes pulling out a glowing ember, demonstrating, one, that when we think we have run out of options, we’re not looking mindfully enough, and two, sometimes inspiration comes from outside. Reading what follows, for example, can be that inspiration we need for understanding better how to meditate.
In Chan Master Yongming Yanshou’s writing on the “Source Mirror” he says, “Without even the slightest effort, one completely opens the treasure storehouse.” This statement is totally in line with the gist of not wasting one morsel. If anyone puts themselves within the stillness of zazen for just one second and promptly gets this phrase of effortlessness, then there’s absolutely nothing more needed, wanted, nor desired. The “treasure storehouse” opens. Your Buddha nature becomes readily accessible. It’s not necessary to engage in some technique to discover the treasure. No need to dig for gold. No need to put effort into seeking something outside the immediacy of the moment. Just look and see all the potential, all the possibility. We might notice that there’s “more edible popcorn at the bottom of the bowl.” Yongming further writes, “When the spiritual jewel is in one’s hands, one is forever precluded from rushing around in search of it.”*
Well, most people unfortunately think the jewel is not in their hand, but in someone else’s, and they go around begging. But what if happiness and contentment required no effort whatsoever? What if happiness, rather, was a choice? The moment you wake from sleep tomorrow morning, ask yourself how you would like to live the next 24 hours. When we are mindful, options emerge. I wish my dear reader that upon waking you may see treasures popping up like popcorn all around you.
* These quotes come from Yongming Yanshou’s Conceptionof Chan in the Zongjing Lu, by Albert Welter. Oxford Press, 2011, page 236.
