Doraku-An Zen-Dojo

Recently the Bavarian multi-artist Herbert Achternbusch passed away at age 83. With his eccentric films and his books he was the emotional polar star of my chaotic late teenage years. He shaped and sharpened my mixed emotions towards our both “homeland” Bavaria. And probably he was the first one introducing me to a Zen way of approaching life, with his famous Koan “You have no chance, but make use of it! (Du hast keine Chance, aber nutze sie!)”.

So many of my adolescent and young adult period heroes and teachers have already passed away. Getting elder, far beyond half-time of life, I find myself more and more in conversation with the friends and teachers who are no more, learning from the dead. Practising Shakuhachi I sometimes listen to old tape recordings of the lessons I took with my late teacher. I hear him playing his flute, listen to his breath. I hear his voice when giving some of the rare and short explanations. I imagine my understanding of what my late teachers wanted to share with me slowly grows over the years, and I feel guilty for my ignorance at younger age.

Besides my very straightforward approach successfully completing school and studying Physics, Philosophy and Computer Science, I always felt strong inclination towards the arts and artists. Towards those who do not fit in, who do not subscribe to the generally accepted explanations and solutions. Those who made up their own minds and went their own ways, no matter what. Hanging around with eccentric folks, yet leaving the party before dawn because I had to be fit for Math and Physics lectures describes my life style during my student years.

I remember night long discussions at the kitchen table of our shared flat, talking through all that is in life and death and beyond. My point of view, heavily biased by an increasing understanding of science, was seldom appreciated. We all wished to have water with a memory, stones with healing spirits, talking trees and magic realities beyond this one of the notoriously untidy kitchen in front of our eyes. Just I could not believe it, because I knew better. Still, I loved and envied my friends, who obviously could believe …

Now, half a life later, I see those once magic people again. The same minds untouched by reasoning and science, but with a firm believe that reality concerning Covid-19 is whatever their intuition tells them. The same patterns of argumentation, a similar energy in fighting for their own reality of whatever life is. These days I do not envy them any longer. I feel terribly sad that what was once making my life rich and colourful, had become a danse macabre, a display of sheer ignorance in the face of a very real and very much superable pandemic. They dance and sing and shout shoulder on shoulder with those fascists, who abuse the current situation and the naivety of ageing paradise birds for their very own agenda.

Mourning those who passed away and mourning those who turned away is characterising those difficult days. When in the end, you realise your friends and teachers who gave you so much are either dead or behaving stupid: you have no chance, but make use of it.

I didn’t have much motivation to write, but mostly I have been too busy this pandemic year. Always within the framework of ever changing safety regulations, our work at the Dojo was as intense as never before the past 18 months. While almost all the members quit, one after another, I slowly realised that the quality of Zen practice does not depend on the number of students, but on their dedication.

Had I had the intention to present Zen to everyone who happened to find the way through our Dojo door, this recent experience made me change my mind. It is a waste of time to work with people who do not really throw themselves into Zen practice, who see the time we share at the Dojo as an optional pastime besides other entertainment.

We copied the brushwork of my former teacher’s late teacher Omori Sogen Roshi three times a week. We worked our way through the Heart Sutra round after round, translating it character by character, and we read new and ancient commentaries as well as numerous research papers to achieve a certain level of understanding, or at least, a higher level of being puzzled. We deciphered, admired and discussed calligraphy works by old masters arriving at our Dojo from Japan week after week. And we sat many hours on our cushions, in complete silence. It was good.

During last week’s Sesshin at Benediktushof Holzkirchen in Bavaria I talked (again) about the Ox Herding Pictures (十牛図). While speaking, I realised once more that all the struggles the young shepherd experienced while searching and taming the Ox were indeed mandatory for his later awakening. If somebody brought him the ox on a cord, nicely tamed and maybe with a comfortable saddle to ride home, there would never be any awakening.

My teaching for far too long was driven by the effort to present a tame ox, by helping my students up and by taking care they have a most comfortable ride. By this, I took them all chance to experience hardship, to learn by themselves. Studying Zen means to overcome obstacles. A teacher’s job is not to help and carry his student across hindrances, but to place obstacles in their way to make them grow by themselves. How could I not have understood this, for so many years?

When I was young, more than half a life ago, I was into white water kayaking. It was great fun heading down the river when we made it the right way around the rocks and hydraulics. Reading the river beforehand was a must, since often right means fun and left means death. We enjoyed life these days, but thinking back, I must say we were not much attached to it.

“Awesome, I almost drowned!” were the breathless words a friend shouted in excitement after we pulled him out last second from his boat which was squeezed by the current underneath a big boulder. Growing old was not a perspective, but a worry, if at all.

April 2020. Suddenly we all have time, at home. Plenty of time.

Not all of us, though. Some are much busier than before, and they cannot enjoy the safety and quietness of a temporary hermits’ life. We clap our hands for them and keep them working for us, underpaid.

About 0,1 per mill of the world population are infected by the new Sars-CoV-2 virus as of today, with 46,413 deaths so far (1).

“Of the roughly 150,000 people who die each day across the globe, about two thirds—100,000 per day—die of age-related causes” (2).

Enough statistics. Although I seriously wonder why these figures let me (a trained scientist) come to so much different conclusions than most of my peers.

Death is guaranteed, sickness very likely and old age a mercy. That is what Buddha called “dukkha”. We all have to die, unavoidably, sooner or later. The meaning of our life, if we want to define such thing, is to pass on what we have to the living, to those having a few days or years more to spend on earth after we are gone. The meaning of our life is to ever let it go, give it away freely (and this, if anything, is my understanding of “rebirth”).

Now the world decided to shut down. To stop passing on their knowledge to the next generation, to interrupt the stream of wisdom flowing from the old to the young. The world decided to take away a young generation their summer, their school’s end, their start into job or studies. To put a hold to their, and our future. To keep them confined at home, deprived of all meaningful experience.

The world decided to take a generation of young grandchildren their maybe last chance to spend time with granny and grandpa, months of exchange lost during a most formative period of their life.

It is not about fun and pleasure we have to postpone for a few weeks to save millions of lives (save for how long … weeks, months, maybe a year or two?). A life cannot be saved. It can only be spent.

This is the big illusion within the current crisis.

Inevitably we will die. And if we did not live in vein, something will be passed on. Clinging to life, my little existence, for the price of stopping the stream of human life on earth – what a selfish endeavour!

What happens now, these days, I am sure, will not enter history books as a world-wide unified act of seclusion to save millions of lives. It will be remembered as a suicide in fear of death. Or, from a Buddhist point of view: a childish attempt to deny impermanence and ignore dukkha.

Month after month the young generation protested Friday for Friday for a global change, the future of coming generations and life on earth – and not much happened. Now our last few old and possibly sick years on earth are in danger (given we get infected, with a probability of about 1% or less to die), and we shut all down in no time.

While I stay at home, as I’m supposed to, I hope this madness will end soon. We all have to die. So please, let us care about those who will be living a bit longer than us! This is true compassion.

–

(1) https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html April 1st, 2020
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_rate

As a kid I loved to run around with Indian feathers on my head, a Sheriff’s star on my jacket … and of course I was a “Cowboy”, because that word sounded so cool. My name was Old Shatterhand-Winnetou and I remember I refused to come for dinner when not being called by that proper name.
Not much changed since than, I guess … I just exchanged the Indian-Cowboy-Sheriff crossover dress into some Japanese Kimono, and instead of having that Karl May heroes’ double-name I nowadays use some Japanese names given to me by my teachers. Well, I come for dinner on my own …

What remains the same is the absolute dedication in aspiring “to really be” and really live what impressed me as a kid, or now as an adult. I was as much a little Indian-Cowboy-Sherrif as any real Indian or Cowboy or Sheriff at age nine, maybe even more. Nowadays, my Japanese friends often mention my lifestyle is by far more Japanese then theirs … and after enough beer or sake “you seem to live more like my grand-grandfather”. Well, he probably didn’t write a blog …

Recently I followed a discussion concerning some celebrity who had the funny idea to call her collection of underwear according to her given name plus adding “ONO”, to make it sound “KIMONO”. The person in question seems to be free of any relation to Japan or (Japanese) culture or any knowledge about it. Possibly some PR agent made that suggestion explaining “Kimono” means something to wear (which is correct), and so she agreed. And of course she had her brand name trademarked.
Unbelievable the uproar in Japanese media that broke out, eventually urging the Major of Kyoto himself writing her a letter asking to not use the word Kimono for her underwear.

There was much talking about “cultural appropriation” in the context of that Kimono Scandal. But isn’t cultural appropriation only an issue, when an allegedly superior culture decorates itself with items from parts of the world to where it otherwise looks down to (or spends a few weeks of holiday, at most)?

Borrowing items, names, or a life-style from an equal or even superior culture can only be either “cultural learning and study”, or an act of total ignorance – which was probably the case in the concerned scandal.

Aiming towards Japan and Japanese culture, we can often see a weird mixture of admiration (“Samurai”, “Geisha”, “Zen-Master”) and totally gone wrong attempt to frame the one or other symbolic item within our Western context.

Just the other day I came across the advertisement of the German branch of a Japanese automotive manufacturer. The little film starts by some (possibly Western) person drawing an ENZO (Zen circle) with a big brush on the floor. All the setting, atmosphere and background gives a very strong impression of China, while the (German) text goes “In Japan we call it Enzo…”. The rest of the lyrics reveal a total misunderstanding of Zen and it’s prominent symbol Enzo by linking it to “perfection” (and the imagined perfection of the Enzo to the cars to be sold …).

I imagine none of the car manufacturer’s Japan Headquarter management had seen this advertisement before it went on-line in Germany. Will the head priest of Myoshinji write a letter, maybe? I don’t think so …

Said that, I believe there is only a very small step from that Enzo-car-advertisement or Kim’s Kimono to all those folks in Europe and the US who call themselves “Zen-Master” or “Roshi”, wearing fancy robes and names and don’t speak a word Japanese or fulfil any of the requirements to be called a “Master” or “Roshi” in Japan, the very place on earth they refer to with such masquerade.

While Japan perfectly incorporated Western culture, technology and lifestyle into it’s very Japanese Way, I believe we still have a long way to go before naturally living a Western way of Japanese culture.

It’s a joyful way, as far as I am concerned, with some tough lessons to learn. Cultural Learning literally costs a certain amount of blood, sweat and tears … other than Cultural Appropriation.

I have once read, alas I forgot the reference (*), that amongst the first Westerners studying and translating Chinese Buddhist texts were quite a few lawyers. The reason for that interest is supposed to be a misunderstanding of the Chinese character 法 (Japanese pronunciation is “hou”), which usually translates “law”. The Western lawyers, versed in Roman Law, were probably hoping to discover another unknown ancient legal system.

Nowadays in Western Buddhism the Sanskrit Term “Dharma” is used to describe, for what in the Chinese writings the ambiguous character 法 was employed. I imagine the lawyers were confused, and they likely caused a certain confusion by their accidental contribution to introducing Buddhism in the West.

My experience with lawyers is: as soon as they get in the loop, things become incredibly cumbersome. Once a sufficiently easy and satisfying way to handle things is established, a lawyer can mess it all up. Legally correct, but very difficult to handle, inefficient and with loads of extra work on top.

Maybe you have heard that we got a new law in Europe which is very strictly regulating the handling of all data which can be related to a person, such as Name, Address, Email and so on. Even maintaining a simple list of subscribers to a blog like this, via a file of (self-registered) Email-Adresses stored somehow somewhere in the depth of the system, is likely against the new law. At least, as long as no difficult to handle, inefficient and with loads of extra work procedures are established.

I have simply no time and energy to learn about and implement such a procedure for this blog. Currently I count some 180+ subscribers, though I guess many, if not most of them, are bots and not a real person with a real interest to read here.

To my (maybe few) real readers I want to apologise: in order to avoid any (possibly expensive) conflict with the above mentioned law, I will erase all mail addresses from the database. In case you got a message about a new blog post every now and then, you won’t get any longer.

If you are really interested, please come here from time to time to see if there is something new …

–
(*) if you happen to know the source, please let me know!