Author: dorakuan

Like many of us, enthusiastic after coming back from my first trip to Japan more than a decade ago, I wanted to give my home a bit of a Japanese atmosphere. I tried very hard, but it did not work out.

Was it the western architecture of my flat? The lack of a nice calligraphy hanging in the tokonoma? Was my ikebana flower arrangement not good enough?

Travelling back and forth, every time I was in Japan, I carefully studied the Japanese style rooms, architecture and decoration of the temples and the ryokan I visited. I took so many notes and pictures back home, every detail I observed. It did not help.

That was until once, when my Shakuhachi teacher announced to come to Bonn and teach at my place, and I spent a whole week cleaning each and every corner. No dust, nothing, nowhere … and suddenly it was there, this special atmosphere, which I believed to be so typical Japanese!

Since then, my preparation for seminars at my Dojo is not reading Zen books, or deep thinking about what and how to teach, or the schedule or the students’ background. It is just cleaning the place thoroughly, so my mind gets empty and the students can enjoy a bit Japanese atmosphere.

As a beginner, how to find your teacher, is the most important task to solve!

But how can you know, if he or she is really good? Or if he or she is just a fake, maybe abusive, maybe only a business oriented self made guru? You have no chance, but finding out yourself!

Once you found some candidate for being your teacher, work with him, full heartedly. Don’t hold back, and see where it brings you! But keep your responsibility for your life, for your mental and physical health, with you!

If you get angry, if you get very angry,  if your teacher (who once was so soft and kind) corrects you and scolds you all day long, although you already explained you gave your very best; if you think he or she is an idiot, and you should stop working with this teacher immediately; even if he eventually kicks you out … don’t quit! In case of trouble, sit down on your pillow, practise Zazen! Maybe, after an hour, a day or a week,  you’ll find out, that he or she did a great service for you, touching your big big ego! 

This teacher is good and loves you, and by all means you want to stay with him!

But if you realise that he, or people in his close environment, are going to destroy your life, your family, your body and soul, you must leave!

Only professional young Zen novices, entering the training hall to sacrifice their life for studying with their Roshi, have no alternative. If you feel up for this, go ahead! But we Zen lay people must never forget our responsibilities, our family, our job, our beloved ones who depend on us. And it is vital not to mix this up!

So, if you find out that the relation becomes abusive, if you get a very clear impression that you do 100.000 times more for your teacher, than he or she does for you; if he lets other people in his environment interfere the exclusive teacher-student relationship; if he manipulates you instead of letting you grow … or if end of the day you realise it’s all about titles, certificates and money,  you must quit and safe your life!

My first contact with Zen was through a book (Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by S. Suzuki, I still recommend, if someone asks me for a “good book on Zen”). It gave me some good initial ideas, what “Zen” is about (mainly practice, not theory, mainly daily life, less something holy, special, enlightened …), and I started practising at home, on my own.

But soon after, I got stuck. Problems with my daily sitting emerged, mentally and physically. And unfortunately, I read more books on Zen to solve my problems. The advices given there did not help me much, and even worse, I tried to live up to what was described there. Eventually, I got the impression, that the only real and justified way of practising Zen is to become a (possibly Japanese) monk in a (possibly Japanese) Zen-Temple.

Fortunately, at this time I relocated due to my University studies. Having no money to rent a flat, I lived for a couple of months in an Aikido Dojo, with a busy daily schedule, including Zazen in the early morning.

I did not like getting up so early and sitting for long hours, but I had no chance! Before 6 a.m. I had to roll up my sleeping bag and get my pillow ready. Then the teacher came, and we did Zazen … he did not give much advise, except correcting my posture and explaining how to breath properly. But that was just right, after all the “Zen” I read. And having someone around, day by day, every morning, sitting with me, was an enormous help! Suddenly, there was no more doubt that I wanted to sit, and that it was good and somehow important to keep up this practise without questioning too much.

Years later, I met my second Zen-teacher, with whom I very closely worked for almost 13 years. It was an enormously intense exchange,  which often brought me to my absolute physical and emotional limits. Today, in spite of all the hardship and suffering during those years, I feel very grateful for his dedicated teaching!

Sometimes I read or hear, that it is better not to engage into too many activities, but focus on Zen practice alone. I believe, that the basis of all our practice is a regular, strong and joyful Zazen! Without sitting regularly, day by day, everything I do becomes weaker and weaker, like a flower lacking of water.

But as human beings we have to eat, which involves chores, preparing food and chores again. We must maintain our living environment, which means chores and manual work. As lay-persons we often have a job and family … there are so many things to do in our life, and we should not consider them as something unpleasant, distracting us from Zen-practice!

In the beginning, when our Zazen is still weak and our practice lacks depth and experience, there is sitting Zazen on the one hand side, and daily life on the other. This is o.k. for beginners, you need some time to adjust your body and mind to a new routine!

But for sure, if we do not force our Zen practice to be restricted upon the time we spend on our pillow, our Zazen experience will more and more pervade our daily life. Gradually, the way we prepare food or do chores will change, and with surprise and joy we will realise, how much Zazen and preparing food or cleaning the toilet have in common.

But this is not adding Zen to our daily life! It is not something, we put on top of our day-by-day routines!

Our Zen-experience takes something away! It takes away the non-focused, over-concerned, lost-in-thoughts and anger-about-good-and-bad way, in which we often perform our tasks. And with all these disturbing thoughts gone, we just do what we do, realising daily life is more pleasure and demanding less physical and emotional energy than before.

As a young student of Aikido, I believed we should behave somehow strong and superior, a bit like the samurai in certain old Japanese b&w movies. When, at the end of my first year of practice, Kobayashi Hirokazu gave an Aikido seminar in my home town, I was much looking forward to meet some kind of martial arts super hero …

And there he came: yellow T-shirt, worn-out blue jogging pants and two plastic bags in each hand. He occupied the place on the bench next to mine in the changing room, and started putting on his dogi and hakama.

He? A super duper martial arts hero, looking like that? An Aikido master who studied over 25 years with Ueshiba Morihei, the founder of Aikido? In a yellow T-shirt? Undressing next to me in the students’ changing room? He must be a fraud!

But Kobayashi Sensei was a true master, I later found out (and I am very grateful for what I learned from him during all the years)!

Though, his behaviour was always so modest, so normal, so non-pretentious, you could easily mistaken him for just a friendly old man. Well, actually, that’s what he was: a friendly old man … and a true master of his art!

All the really good teachers I have later met in my life shared this attitude of true modesty, of friendliness and compassion. All of them were always very approachable for the young student … and so I kept as good as possible a certain safety distance to those teachers and senior students, who appeared too fierce and master-like already at a first glance.

I often wonder, why so many of us are so eager to get degrees and certificates? A coloured or black belt for the martial arts, student- and master ranks for calligraphy, flower arrangement, or even a certificate stating your Enlightenment for some few Zen-students.

But what kind of Enlightenment is that, which can be proofed by a sheet of paper? Would you seriously consider asking your partner for a certificate to hang above your bed, confirming your qualities as a lover after a perfect night?

Looking back in Japanese history, the system of certification was introduced mainly to create a life-long dependency of the student from his master. The student will most likely never be free, and it is this master alone, who will or will not promote him to the next rank, years after he worked so hard for him and paid sufficient tuition and examination fees. And if the master wishes to do so, he can any time take everything away from his devoted student, without any justification.

I have seen so many dedicated and talented students of Japanese (martial) arts, who lost all joy and pleasure of studying while hunting for the next degree, or the next teacher, who has a higher rank in his pocket as a welcome gift. And I have met others, who, in desperate need of high ranks, founded their own organisations, to issue degrees to themselves.

Why can’t we just enjoy what we learn? Why not gradually improve our skills, and trust our intuition and our teacher’s guidance, that things develop in the right direction?

I never saw my beloved Aikido teacher  Kobayashi Hirokazu examining students or issuing degrees. His teaching was generous, and we stayed independent. He sometimes said, he gives us the pearls, but making the necklace from them is our duty.

In my Dojo, there is examination every day, every moment! As soon as you come through the door, until you drive away with your car, I see you! And you see me. Both of us pass or fail, moment by moment, no difference. I won’t write it on a sheet of paper, and I won’t ask you to do so.

Tomorrow, we get our next chance, pass or fail, and so on, day by day. This is our life, moment for moment, day by day!

In Singapore I visited the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum. It is a new and very impressive Chinese-style red-golden-shiny building, which houses a temple, a museum, a museum-shop, a roof-garden with an enormous prayer wheel (they say the “world’s largest”), thousands of Buddha statues of any colour, size and origin.

I saw the priests and many many devotees chanting Sutras for more than an hour, you could go anywhere even during the ceremonies, and all admission free. On the top floor there is a golden chamber with a golden shrine containing Buddhas tooth relic, also open to the public.

In the Museum, the life of the historic Buddha and spreading of Buddhism is explained and illustrated with many statues from all over the world. The second half of the exhibition deals with the future Buddha Maitreya, which appears to be an essential believe for the community operating this temple.

Having a more practical hands-on and not-so-religious approach towards Buddhism, I usually don’t do much more than filling the little bowls of my kitchen and Zendo Buddhas, and occasionally I bow and light incense, considering the long long line of ancestors transmitting Buddhism to our part of the world and our generation. I guess, that’s really the horizon of my understanding of Buddhism …

So I was curious to learn, how the monks living at such an elaborate and educated place would express their Buddhist believes with their bodies’ actions.  It was a bit astonishing to see, that none of them bowed to the big golden Buddha, when entering the 100 dragons hall before the ceremony started. They just came in and sat down on their chairs, like my engineering students at the university do, before I start my lecture.

On the Shinkansen from Sendai back to Tokyo I saw something I would call “typically Japanese“. I do not like calling people’s behaviour “typically something”, but a brand-new iPhone 3, charging at the power supply next to a sink opposite of the toilets, and no owner nearby, is typically Japanese, and I love it!

The bag left outside the toilet house by the businessman while answering nature’s call is a not so rare sight in Ueno Park (where lots of homeless people live as well), and still today many of the more old-fashioned ryokan have no lock at the sliding doors. Anyone could enter my room while I am away, but obviously this is no concern.

The feeling of mutual trust creates an atmosphere, which makes daily life so much easier and so much more pleasant. Just imagine, no locks required!

Another special encounter with trusting people I had at Engakuji temple during my visit last Sunday: I wanted to buy a new samue (monk’s working cloth), since my old one recently completely ruptured during chores. The lady had one perfectly suitable for my size, but I did not have enough money with me. Eventually, she suggested I take the samue with me, and transfer the money via postal order some time later. All she wanted to know was my name, so she can later match it with the transferred sum. I first thought that must be a misunderstanding, caused by my occasionally failing Japanese, but it was not.

Japanese Buddhist legend tells about creatures called gaki, the hungry ghosts, which have big bellies and a thin throat and never can get enough of anything. In one popular image, the gaki sit on a table full of delicious food. But having too long chopsticks to eat, and being too consumed with satisfying their own desires, they won’t feed each other and eventually all stay hungry.

There is a Buddhist ceremony (around O-bon) which is called Segaki  (feeding the hungry ghosts). Maybe that’s why there are not so many hungry ghosts around in Japan, steeling your things?

Looking back to my ten days journey from Kyoto to Sendai, there was one specific characteristic amongst the people I have met, which impressed me most: I did not see or talk to even one single Japanese, who complained or seemed to have given up. The judgement of the disaster and the actual and potential after-effects of the collapsed power plants in Fukushima differed widely, but the spirit of going on was common amongst everyone.

It was out of question! Giving up and complaining is not an option!

When we practice Zazen, I am confident, we can develop a similar spirit of never giving up.

Living day by day, practising day by day, regardless of good or bad circumstances, regardless of being tired or not, regardless of having time or not, regardless of feeling pain or not … and not even thinking, that this is something special, something beyond our ordinary daily life, this is the meaning of our Zen practice.

In the early days of the common use of the internet, even before the http protocol was defined, we had a usenet news-reader called “nn” (which is still around today). The “nn” stands for “no news is good news”, I always liked that name.

So often we aim for the special, the extraordinary, the outstanding, the enlightened … but in fact, going on day by day, as if nothing special happened, no news to report, is the way of Zen!

My visit to Sendai today was absolutely normal, I was amazed in which speed the city recovered to a seemingly ordinary daily life. The uninformed visitor could even be mistaken that nothing had happened on March 11th.

There is such a strength in “daily life”, and it requires so much endurance, power and bravery to keep it up or restore it in spite of all misfortunes and circumstances. But it is exactly this, I believe, which makes it possible for us to live together as a social community, as human beings.