nothing, but the practice actually requires a very active engagement with both body and mind. To sit still yet energetically alert for thirty or forty minutes, one must pay close attention: “Did I just slump forward?” Sit up straight. “Oh, shoulders feel tense.” Slowly, quietly shrug them. Hands have fallen open on thighs. Bring them back against the belly into the mudra. Pain in the knee is distracting. Breathe into it. Thinking about what happened last week. Return to just breathing in and breathing out. This patient way steadily trains the mind to relax and release repetitive, distracted thinking. This skill gradually carries over into everyday life, where one uses it to live in the present, be mindful, and respond with a clear head to whatever comes.
Zen practice is a study of the mind, how it functions, how it eludes reality, how it masks truth, and, with the right stimulus, how it can reveal to us important insights. Based on what we learn about and from our minds, we are guided by Buddhist teachings toward ethical, beneficial actions in the world. The mind works in a seemingly serendipitous way because we each are conditioned by many factors from the past and present. We are usually unaware of our deepest conditioning; our thoughts and actions are often unconsciously driven. Until we study our minds, our habitual actions can be, to a greater or lesser extent, outside our control. Through zazen, we can bring our attachments and delusions into awareness, where it is possible to release them, train ourselves in beneficial mental habits, help others, and live more happily ourselves.
Zazen can be calm and restful, but it is not an escape, as some believe meditation to be. At times when the mind is repeatedly distracted or frustrated or when one is in physical pain, it takes concerted effort and commitment to remain seated and still. Zazen reveals and reflects whatever is going on in our life, including unconscious material. In fact, zazen is a window into the unconscious. It informs us of negative emotions, beliefs, and perspectives we didn’t know we had. What comes up during zazen can be disturbing, even alarming, but it helps us know ourselves in deeper ways than ever before.
Sometimes in zazen we encounter difficult emotional material we’d rather avoid. Maybe we’re tempted to stop sitting and leave. This is when sitting in a group is helpful. We feel obliged to not disturb the other students, so we stick it out and observe what happens next. Not giving up trains the mind and body to be steadfast. Sometimes the group energy is high, joyful; other times it is heavy. Whatever the prevailing tone, sitting with others encourages dedication and right effort. We learn that everyone’s effort helps everyone else practice.
In each period of zazen the mind offers up whatever is happening right now. The zazen experience is always unique because what’s happening is always changing, often in unexpected ways. No matter the content or mood of one’s zazen, the only thing one can do in zazen is to be with oneself as one is, in the present. Zazen trains us to be present—the only location where we can be fully alive. Working with the distractions of our worldly lives is the special challenge of lay practice, as compared to monastic practice, in which one spends much more time in silence and meditation and thereby is mentally freed to connect more deeply with the unconscious.
A daily practice of zazen at home can offer easier access to a quiet mind than sitting with the sangha once or twice a week. Sitting by oneself, one is not distracted by anyone else’s energy, joyful or dark. Sitting at home at the same time of day every day, morning or evening, develops the habit of touching in with ourselves, calmly preparing for the day or winding down at its end.
Sesshins (retreats of days or weeks) combine the benefits of both individual and group practice. Following the rigorous sesshin schedule day after day is not easy, but doing so relieves us of daily decisions about what to eat, wear, or do. The mind is freed to become aware of habitual feelings and thoughts. Add to this freedom the unusual experience of living entirely in silence with others, and all manner of submerged thoughts, emotions, memories, and insights can become conscious.
Each of the three modalities of zazen—sitting weekly with sangha members, sitting at home alone daily, and sitting in sesshin for a week or longer—offers unique opportunities for training the mind. Each modality enhances the other two. Together they enrich and deepen the study of the self—which is, ultimately, to forget the ego-oriented self in order to be open to whatever is happening, moment by moment.
I learned to practice Zen in these three ways over time, beginning in the early 1970s. This was a few years after Suzuki Roshi had established San Francisco Zen Center, attracting a following of young Americans eager for the rigors of zazen. Because I lived fifty miles south of the city, I never practiced at SFZC, but I followed its entrepreneurial ventures—a downtown meditation center, two monastic centers, a bakery, and a restaurant. I also witnessed Zen’s evolution from the Japanese strictly male institution to its gradual American inclusion of women as priests and ultimately as leaders. As a member of Haiku Zendo, the smaller center in Los Altos also founded by Suzuki Roshi, I enjoyed the relative serenity of our non-residential, lay practice (weekly meditation, dharma talks, study groups). However, I did not escape the influence of the masculine, institutional Zen tradition as it settled into the West. In fact, in those early years the warrior qualities of Zen helped me meet my challenging life circumstances with courage and determination. It was only in my elder years, when my physical stamina declined, that I began to question the spiritual benefit of Zen’s warrior energy.
I was attracted from the beginning of my practice to books that suggested the simple teachings that guide me to this day: Being Nobody, Going Nowhere (Khema 1987); Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life (Fields 1984); and 9th century Chan master Lin-chi’s description of the ideal monk as “a true man without rank” (Watson 1993, xxiv). These phrases expressed my longing to be truly, simply myself.
At age seventy-eight, after forty-five years of Zen practice, I was ordained as a novice priest (one in training to become a fully authorized priest who can ordain others). Now I wear robes—a black gown and a black okesa (Buddha robe) draped over the left shoulder. It is unusual to be ordained so late in one’s practice, let alone in one’s life. Usually the motivation to ordain is a calling to study deeply, perhaps to live monastically or teach in a Zen community, even to become a noted Zen teacher. These are appropriate goals for priests in their thirties or forties, who have many years of practice ahead of them. My ordination at nearly eighty would shape and limit the service I could offer the sangha in ways I didn’t then anticipate.
Directly following ordination I was required to participate in an arduous, three-month practice period at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California. This intensive monastic experience demanded every ounce of my energy and determination, but it also awarded me, as my story reveals, insights into my life and early conditioning that I could not have had in any other way.
This book recounts events in my life that led me to Zen during its early years in America. Zen brought to the West a profoundly different understanding of the nature of reality from the Judeo-Christian view. Zen helped me understand and accept my life in an entirely new way. As a dedicated practitioner over many years, I have welcomed new people to the practice and helped them find their way in its multiple, exotic forms.
I am not an important person in Zen. I am not a charismatic teacher. I am a participant in and a witness to the flowering of Zen in America over the past fifty years. It is from this obscure but privileged position that I have recounted my life’s experience in Zen Buddhism into old age and how it has inspired me. It is my hope that sharing my experience will encourage those who yearn to deepen their lives to venture out on their own journey—not only Zen students but also readers who in later life are drawn to Buddhist teachings. The trail of discovery is not always smooth. One can stumble over protruding, gnarled roots and hidden, inner rocks. But the trek is worth the cuts and bruises. The vistas along the way can be sublime.
Chapter 1
The Journey Begins
Like many Americans attracted to Zen and other Eastern religions, I sought refuge in Buddhism from a difficult life situation. I was thirty-nine. Trauma in childhood had prepared me to need the equanimity of Zen and then much later in adulthood, once I found it, immediately to recognize its benefits. That childhood trauma distorted my understanding