Doraku-An Zen-Dojo

The other day, I was made aware of an unlucky mail exchange between two Zen teachers, posted in this blog. Usually I am not much interested in gossip and communication gone wrong, but this discussion rises the interesting question what qualifies someone to be a Zen teacher.

In addition to my earlier comments (“The Hidden Master”, “Teaching Zen” and “Licensed Pilots, and other Things”) on a similar topic, I will try to list some criteria I consider important. Hopefully, they will help you to find a good teacher, who…

• … practised regularly Zazen for many years, and still does practise.
• … has intensively worked with a good teacher for a long time.
• … has gained teaching experience as student, helper and assistant teacher on many sesshin or seminars with a lot of different students.
• … has received an o.k. (in a formal or informal way) from his teacher, that he or she is qualified to teach. 
• … has developed a certain amount of compassion for his or her students.
• … feels confident and happy to teach.

What I consider not sufficient, even not at all important to judge a Zen teacher’s qualification, is his or her…

• … nationality. 
• … success in the “Japanese Zen-Monk Look-Alike Competition”.
• … monastic status or position within an organisation.
• … teaching license, issued by some authority.
• … title (such as “Master”, “Roshi”, “Sensei”, ….).
• … business concept, driving the students into a ranking- and career system. 
• … number of students.
• … number of Zen-books published.

Don’t let you fool by shiny titles or a master-like appearance, judge yourself if the person in question is a real, authentic Zen teacher, worth your dedication, time and money!

When I take a walk across the fields outside my Dojo, at minus ten degrees these days, I can see the past and the future: big clouds of steam from the coal fired power plant on the left, and the wind wheels turning slowly on the right. Currently, I read, in Japan 50 out of 54 atomic power plants are shut down …

Today is Setsubun (節分), the beginning of spring according to the lunar calendar. Many Japanese visit their local shrines for spring celebration called Risshun (立春), and throw roasted soya beans, Fukumame (福豆) towards someone dressed as Oni or deamon to drive away the evil spirits.

The deputy head priest of our Dojo’s partner temple Shunkoin in Kyoto suggested angry Japanese citizens to throw beans at Tepco, the operator of the collapsed Fukushima nuclear plant. But then he wonders if beans are not too good for them … while I read that more and more leaks occur in the temporary cooling system (the experts at Tepco maybe did not consider water freezes below zero degrees), releasing tons of contaminated water, I can do nothing but agree.

This is the cycle of cause and effect, or Karma: our intentions and actions each moment have an impact on the future. Concerning atomic energy, hundreds of generations to come will suffer from the bad Karma we produced.

Lesson 1 – Getting Started

In a previous post I promised to give some regular guide and inspiration for studying Zen-Calligraphy. Of course, the best option is working with a qualified teacher, but these are hard to find … so I hope my posts will help you to enjoy practising Zen with brush and ink, or Hitsuzendo (筆禅道).

Maybe you already have some basic experience with Shodo, the Japanese art of calligraphy. Maybe not … in that case I suggest you browse the web to look up some basics I won’t explain. A good introduction page is for example here, a book I can recommend is “Zen Brushwork” by Tanchu Terayama.

Next, set up a daily (or weekly) schedule, some 30 to 60 minutes for regular practise. I consider it important to exercise regularly. Say, each morning (or each other day or each Sunday), some time before breakfast … morning is better than evening!

• Set up your place (ideally, the evening before … or keep it always ready).
• Start with Zazen, your preferred time, 5 minutes, or 10, or 20. Don’t skip the Zazen!
• Do a few minutes breathing exercise, Qigong, Tai-Chi …
• Practice calligraphy for about 10-15 minutes by copying the sample a few times (details following in a next post).
• Close with Zazen.

The purpose of Hitsuzendo or Zen-Calligraphy is not producing a nice piece of art. It is a Zen-exercise, so you can, like I do it, use newspaper to write upon, and throw the result after your practise is finished.

… to be continued.

The air smelled a bit like spring the last days, but this morning the garden Buddha at my Dojo was suddenly covered by snow. It is cold, and will become much colder the next days.

The plum blossom at Shunkoin, our partner temple in Kyoto, will start soon. Here winter pays a late visit. I am glad to live at a place where one can enjoy the four seasons, like in Japan. It is this same rhythm of nature, which sometimes makes us feel so surprisingly similar, in spite of all obvious differences in culture and language.

Maybe due to spring, summer, autumn and winter all the things and ideas I brought from Japan over the years blend so naturally into my 250 years old mill, now serving as a Zen-Dojo?

Writing with brush and ink is an excellent Zen exercise. And it is good fun. Alas, finding a teacher outside Japan is not so easy. As a young student, I tried to copy from books with ancient calligraphies, but I usually could not figure out the stroke order, tell the difference between the various styles … and often could not make any sense of what I was writing at all.

After working with my former Japanese teacher for 13 years (and learning Japanese), I had the idea to provide what I wished to find myself two decades ago: (more or less) regular suggestions on what and how to study Zen Calligraphy, classical Zen sayings or individual characters.

My idea is to post here once or twice a month a sample with some instructions and explanations. Printed out, it hopefully can serve as a template for your own studies … and maybe motivate you to come to my Dojo one day for a seminar and more intense practise!

Sticking to tradition, secluded high up in the mountains and rejecting anyone who is not willing to give up everything is an option … opening up, finding ways to become more approachable, using the internet and trying modernisation is another one.

Said that, without a profound study and understanding of the roots of any tradition, modernisation is not possible. The outcome is otherwise a lifestyle-product, a shallow feel-good approach or fashion trend to follow, similar to buying a new outfit.

End of the day, it is all about commercialisation, whatever the promoters of the lifestyle-industry might promise, their main purpose is selling a product … find out about the latest trend of being a “Tera-Garu” (Temple-Girl) at http://tera-cafe.com/ .

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Inspired by the tweet: RevTakaZen Takafumi Kawakami

寺＝パワースポットてのがどうだかなぁ・・・本質を理解せずに行っているModernizationってやつだね。

Sometimes students ask me, if I don’t teach “advanced classes” for Zazen and Hitsuzendo. Usually, I announce my seminars as “Introduction to …” … but this is simply a trick not to scare away newcomers. We immediately do the “real thing”, that is: practise Zazen and write calligraphies with brush and ink.

Who is an “advanced student” I wonder? My Iaido teacher said “until you performed a certain exercise for at least 2000 times, you are a beginner”. Writing about 25 sheets of paper per seminar, that means you are a beginner for the first 80 or so seminars. Attending 4 seminars a year … but I don’t much like applying such measures and scales to people!

Occasionally, not often, someone coming to my Dojo does not want to learn what I demonstrate. He or she has different ideas about how to sit or how to write … and often students are physically or mentally not yet ready to learn, too much preoccupied with their own body and mind and struggling with many kinds of problems inside and around themselves. These are beginners, and I try my very best to treat them kind and carefully, not disturbing too much.

Once you made the jump and you become ready to learn, with your heart, mind and your body, progress is very quick. This I consider advanced. It is not you know more techniques or spent more years on your pillow or achieved anything special, you are just ready to learn. Some few are immediately, others might never reach what in Zen and Budo is called SHOSHIN (初心), or a “beginner’s mind”.

Well, I’d love to teach “advanced classes” for students with a true beginner’s mind! I also love to continue teaching “Introduction to …”.

When I’m boarding a plane, I trust the pilot had a proper education and passed all examinations required for getting his license. I trust it’s not just his wishful thinking he can fly, and we all will find out he was wrong just seconds before dying.

Said that, I believe it is no good idea to transfer the “license concept” to all areas of life. Too much can not be licensed. For sure, most people would not prefer cooking a “licensed dish”, listening to “licensed music”, spending time with “licensed friends” or sharing their life with a “licensed partner”, instead of their favourite and cherished ones. We trust our taste, our brain or our feeling to make our choice. Asking for a license is nothing less than dedicating my own responsibility to a licensing authority, in a situation where I believe that I do not have the ability to judge with my own senses. Concerning pilots and bus drivers, this usually is a good and working concept … but what about your Zen or Budo teacher?

Delegating your responsibility to find out if your teacher is good for you or not can have very severe consequences … wasting years of your life with a person who got his shiny title for political reasons and/or money, or from an organisation he founded himself with his buddies, is by far not the worst what can happen!

Some good teachers I met had high ranks and titles, others didn’t. Some bad teachers I met also had high ranks and titles, others didn’t. It is meaningless … if rice fills your stomach well, don’t go for the carrots, just because they are “licensed”. You can find out yourself what is good for you, the best person to judge the qualification of your teacher is you! Make sure not to mix up entering a Dojo with boarding a plane …

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P.S.: In case you or I do have some licenses and titles, never mind!

In China and Japan there is a long tradition of writing calligraphy, Chinese characters artistically brought to paper with brush and ink. I consider it fascinating how many non-Asians I have met have strong feelings and associations with a certain piece of calligraphy.

Occasionally, I write “custom made” pieces, and the process of finding suitable characters, deciding the style and eventually discussing the result is always most interesting. Someone who usually cannot “read” and “understand” a single character, never used a brush on his own, and without experience on judging “balance” or “quality of a stroke” makes highly accurate comments on my writings, sometimes pointing out weaknesses or strong points I have not realised myself. And always has a clear feeling about “like” or “dislike”, which more often than not matches my own view of my artwork.

I believe there is “something” about Zen-Calligraphy, which directly speaks to the viewer’s heart, transcending all culture- or language barriers. When writing with all your heart, you completely expose yourself, and this can be clearly seen in the brush-strokes you leave on the paper. A trace full of energy, or “full of emptiness”, appealing to everyone with open eyes …

Nothing wrong with reciting Charles Dickens’ novella, like last year, and the year before, and the year before last year … just in case some of my blog’s Zen-inspired readers are looking for something new for this year’s Christmas, let me recommend “Before the Law” (Vor dem Gesetz) by Franz Kafka.

As a young Zen student, I heard from my seniors things like “it is impossible for us to master Zen”, “only the Chinese and Japanese Monks of past periods had a chance to achieve understanding”, or “you must give up everything” for living a Zen-life.

Well, yes, never mind … all these words are the words of the gatekeeper in Kafka’s parable, and after reading it, you know that his only purpose is to guard the gate dedicated for you to enter. Don’t waste your time listening to his words, or start counting the flees in his coat … just enter, straight away, or leave and let him and The Law alone … it might anyway not be what you are looking for!

I wonder if Kafka was aware of Mumon Ekai’s Mumonkan? For sure, he is a much misunderstood Western Zen-writer …