Opening the Hand of Thought: Foundations of Zen Buddhist Practice

by Kosho Uchiyama

You may think it best to stick to English words, but if you do not know their origins it will be hard to make sense of the different meanings mixed together in the one seemingly simple word “self.” What has traditionally been translated as “self” in the expression “all dharmas are without an independent self” is the Sanskrit word atman. In Japanese atman is translated as ga, a substantive, clinging, avaricious spirit or soul. This is not jiko.

I've been asked about why we use Japanese in ceremony and other places. I think this explains it well.

Jiko in Buddhism and in Dōgen’s and Uchiyama’s teachings is not about utility and self-improvement. Rather it has to do with seeing one’s life from the broadest perspective and then functioning in a way that enables that perspective to manifest most fully through one’s day-to-day activities.

What I want for you, the reader, is that you understand with your own intellect that Zen concerns the true depth of life that is beyond the reach of that intellect. This “life” is not Eastern or Western, it extends through all humanity. I hope that as you read you will look at your own life with a completely fresh mind and apply what I have written to your everyday life. That is the only place where the real world of Zen is.

By studying Western philosophy academically you can pretty much learn what it is all about, but Buddhism is another matter. It’s virtually impossible to make much sense of it if you don’t actually practice it.

I described two sides to a person who practices zazen. One side is the personal self that is always being pulled to and fro by thoughts about desires. The other is the self that is sitting in zazen letting go of such thoughts; this is an ordinary person living out universal self. The first side is like clouds, and the second is like the wide sky that the clouds float in. I wrote: When we look up we tend to think that clouds mount up high in the sky, but I read that if we draw an eight-inch circle to represent the earth, the pencil line is the thickness of the entire atmosphere. The clouds are just things floating here and there, appearing and disappearing within that thin space. Rain is just something happening under those miniscule clouds, but when rain keeps coming down, we think the entire sky is nothing but clouds and rain drops. In reality, above the atmosphere that is only as thick as a pencil line, there is always blue sky and the sun is shining. But we cannot even imagine that. How pitiful we living beings on the ground are! In the same way, we are always covered with dark clouds of anxiety and sorrow, caught up in storms of anger and ambition, encounters with agony and despair. However, the clouds and rain of our thoughts are only happening within a pencil-thin atmosphere. This mental weather is simply happening within our thoughts that seek satisfaction. Outside of that sphere of thoughts, the sky is always blue, and the sun is always shining in it. When we can s...

Walking the way of the universal self is what is called butsudō, the Buddha Way. This is the way I’ve been walking in my life. When people hear a phrase like buddhadharma or Buddha Way, they may get the idea of something very special or holy, but they are just expressions that have been passed down through the ages to orient us. What I’ve been trying to do in my life is to explain these things in a concrete way that might be understandable and helpful to anyone. I had to look at both Christianity and Buddhism and, intellectually, at Western philosophy, to realize both my own self-expression and my life vow of expressing the true meaning of living out the whole self.

The starting point for Buddhist practice is how a person chooses to live out his or her life. Please don’t misunderstand me when I use the words Buddhist practice or Buddhism. I’m not talking about some established religious organization. I’m concerned with how a person, any person, who is completely naked of any religious or philosophical clothes, can live out their life fruitfully.

Uchiyama.

What we call “I” or “ego” arises by chance or accident, so we just let go instead of grasping thoughts and “I.” When we let go of all our notions about things, everything becomes really true. This is the fourth undeniable reality, complete tranquillity, or nehan jakujō. It is also described as “all things are as they are,” shohō jissō. Therefore, when we let go of everything, we do not create artificial attachments and connections. Everything is as it is. Everything exists in one accidental way or another. This is the present reality of life. It is the reality of that which cannot be grasped, the reality about which nothing can be said. This very ungraspability is what is absolutely real about things.

I Feel this speaks to the essence of prejudice.

Dwelling here and now in this reality, letting go of all the accidental things that arise in our minds, is what I mean by “opening the hand of thought.”

According to Buddhist teachings it doesn’t quite work that way. The past, present, and future are all contained within the present.

People go through life thinking of themselves as members of a group or society. However, this isn’t how we really live. Actually, I bring my own world into existence, live it out, and take it with me when I die.

Our life is whatever we are encountering right now, and our practice is shikantaza, which is literally “just sitting.” More broadly it means to put our energy into settling everything in our world here and now,

Shikantaza

You should always bear in mind that all sentient beings are suffering. Everyone is fretting about something inside their head. For example, should I stay where I am or should I go somewhere else? That’s the sort of thing we worry about, all too often. Actually, it doesn’t matter where we are, since that is only a minor problem going on in our heads. There really is no such place as Japan. There really is no such place as America. Where you are living right now is all there is.

After some time, though—and this takes years to really develop—you begin to get a perspective on things. You begin to realize that there’s nothing more important than just letting go. Don’t take what I’ve said to mean that problems won’t come up anymore; they will. But you begin to see things for what they are: ideas, plans, and even how you perceive the things around you are just mental secretions.

To think that people become great by doing zazen, or to think that you are going to gain satori, is to be sadly misled by your own illusion. Zazen is to Buddhism what prayer is to the Judeo-Christian traditions. Just as prayer is a giving up of our small petty desires and asking that God’s will be done, zazen is also a giving up of our egotistical evaluations of ourselves (whether as superior or inferior) and entrusting our life to the power of zazen as embodied in the fourth seal, all things are as they are.

But ultimately it does not have anything to do with a little or a lot. We just continue to practice, aiming to live a true way of life as best we can, neither worrying nor gauging what we are doing. In that environment the sweet persimmon branch will flourish naturally.

“Did it ever occur to you that this feeling of dissatisfaction or emptiness might be caused by your searching for the value, the basis, or recognition of your existence only in things outside yourself, such as in your property, or in work, or in your reputation? This empty feeling of yours probably comes up because you haven’t yet found this basis within the reality of your own true self. In other words, you feel a hollowness in your life because you have always lived only in relation to other people and things, and haven’t been living out your true self.”9

Your true self is beyond either relying on others or avoiding them in order to know who you are.

The self of Western psychology is the Cartesian “I think, therefore I am.” But actually, we are, whether we think so or not, and behind the conscious self your life continues even when you are unconscious or unaware. And precisely because of that we are alive with a life that includes our thinking self. In fact, it is because we have this actual ongoing life that the thought can occur that we are only our thoughts. So our true or whole self is not just an abstract self made of thoughts. Our whole self is the force or quality of life that enables conscious thought to arise, and it includes that personal, conscious self, but it also includes the force that functions beyond any conscious thought.

The self.

The whole or universal self is the force that functions to make the heart continue beating and the lungs continue breathing, and it is also the source of what is referred to as the subconscious.

Whatever is alive—that is jiko, or universal self. All of this—thoughts and feelings, the and desires, the subconscious and the beating heart, the effort that enables other lives to function and the creative power of life itself—is what I mean by the “self.”

Zen, it is said that a person knows cold things and hot things only when she herself experiences them.14 Everything is taken in as the real life-experience of self.15 This means there is no true value in definitions of things, reports of other people, or so-called pure observation of things, from which the life-experience of one’s self is removed. As far as that goes, the difference I see between Zen and existentialism is that present-day existentialism is the philosophy of general existence, not the practice of the very life of the existentialist himself.

Zen and existentialism.

Isn’t agonizing over things that don’t work out just the way you want nothing but being dragged around by more fantasies? You have to begin with your present reality.

Concentrate! --Robert Livingston, Roshi

We are always living out the reality of our own lives, although we very often lose sight of this reality, getting caught up in fantasies of the past or in our relationships with others. We end up being dragged around by those fantasies and by our comparisons of ourselves with others. Living like that, how can we not become filled with feelings of utter isolation and loneliness, overwhelmed by our jealousy and envy of those around us or by some other great suffering?

Suffering.

We tend to plunge our heads too far into memories and fantasies, into religious dogma and rigid doctrines. When we admire them and believe in them blindly, becoming frenzied and fanatical, we become imprisoned by this fixed and conceptual existence.

Zazen is not something we think about doing wholeheartedly—-it is something we actually practice.

kakusoku,

We are at all times and in every situation living out the reality of our own lives, whether we believe it to be so or not. Nevertheless, we lose sight of this. We doze off or start thinking, and thus we cause this reality to appear dull and foggy. It’s just like driving a car when we are either sleepy or absorbed in thought. Our life, like our driving, becomes careless and hazardous. “Waking up” means to let go of thoughts—that is, we wake up from sleep or thought and perform the reality of the zazen posture that we are practicing with our flesh and bones. In other words, it is with our flesh and bones that we actualize the reality of the self.25

Once we think of something we want or like, we assume that the simple fact of thinking we want it or like it is the truth. Then, since we think this idea is the truth and is worth seeking, we proceed to chase after it

everywhere and our whole world becomes a world of greed.

On the other hand, once we think of something we hate or dislike, we assume again that the simple fact of thinking we hate it is the truth. Thinking that this idea is the truth so we ought to follow it, we ...

It is like a man who is drinking saké (consuming fantasies). At first he knows that he is getting drunk, but when he gets to the stage where the saké is drinking the man, then he is adrift in fantasies without even knowing it, and he acts accordingly. Almost all people and societies throughout the world today are carried away by desire and delusion. This is precisely why our zazen comes to have such a great significance. When we wake up during zazen we are truly forced to experience the fact that all the things we develop in our thoughts vanish in an instant.

There is scenery only where there is life. While we are living in this world, there will be happiness and unhappiness, favorable and adverse conditions, interesting and boring things. There will be pleasant times and painful times, times to laugh and times to be sad. All of these are part of the scenery of life. Because we plunge into this scenery, become carried away by it, and end up running helter-skelter, we become frantic and we suffer. In zazen, even though various lifelike images appear to us, we are able to see this scenery of life for what it is by waking up to ZZ’.

Through sesshins, we are actually made to experience what it means to have the bottom fall out of our thoughts

The true satori of Shakyamuni Buddha is not like this. It is said that Shakyamuni made the following statement upon attaining satori: “I attained the way simultaneously with the whole world and all sentient beings. Everything—mountains, rivers, trees, grasses—all attained buddhahood.”

Everything that I have been talking about is nothing other than jijuyū zanmai, that is, zazen. Sitting zazen is the universal self sitting alone. Yet, at the same time, all things are the content or the scenery of that zazen or self. That is the meaning of jijuyū zanmai.

People want things to go smoothly and try to avoid anything that involves suffering. Put simply, paradise is good, hell is bad. Actually, whether I am in heaven or hell I am living out my own life. Since both of them form the temporary scenery of my life, I am in no position to say I like paradise but don’t like hell. If I fall into hell, then I have to acknowledge where I am and be willing to serve out my time there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2K4diw1WHM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

The reality of life goes beyond my idea of myself as a small individual. Fundamentally, our self is living out nondual life that pervades all living things. This self is universal existence, everything that exists.45 On the other hand, we usually lose sight of the reality of the life of universal self, clouding it over with thoughts originating from our small individual selves. When we let go of our thoughts, this reality of life becomes pure and clear. Living out this reality of life as it is—that is, waking up and practicing beyond thinking—is zazen.

It is clarity and purity.47 In Buddhism “belief” does not mean to believe something in one’s mind, such as that every person has an individual soul or that God exists outside us. Belief, in Buddhism, is to become clear and pure in actualizing the reality of universal life.

In Buddhist sutras and commentaries, a vast number of words have been used to express this universal self, including suchness, buddha nature, mind, and nirvana.49

You should realize that sutras are directly connected to your zazen and that they are meant to guide and teach you about the zazen you do.

That we make continuous scientific progress resulting in greater human comfort is fine, and that we possess the dissatisfaction that serves as the force for developing and progressing is also certainly a wonderful thing. The problem is that dissatisfaction with the present easily leads to impatience for our desires to be fulfilled, and that engenders a behavior of daggers drawn toward any and all competitors, resulting in the total loss of any peace in our lives.

Therefore, if the continued existence of a religion is to be justified, then that religion will have to concern itself with overcoming those anxieties that cannot be assuaged by scientific advances, and with helping us find a new basis for a sense of direction in our lives. What it will have to do is deal with the pursuit of peace in the purest sense.

Buddhism does not raise the question of god. Consequently, for a time Christian-influenced scholars even denied it was a religion. However, it is nonsense to decide whether or not a teaching is a religion by the presence or absence of the concept of god. If we decide that something qualifies as a religion only on that basis, then religion must have disappeared when the mythological worldview came to be replaced by the worldview of natural science.

“Live in the world relying on the self alone as a foundation, be freed from all things, depending on no thing.”

Samadhi refers to self settling on true and immovable self, but “immovable” should not be interpreted to mean functionless or fixed in an inactive state.

Buddhist samadhi—that is, zazen—is the foundation for the manifestation of this life.

Here again, I have not chosen this self, but have simply received life in my mother’s womb unconsciously, or ignorantly.56 I received the foundation of my personality plus innumerable hereditary elements from my parents. Without realizing it, I was educated according to my particular society, era, and family, and I internalized my experiences within this environment. In this way, through the combination of an accidental set of factors, the views I now hold have been formed.

Nevertheless, it is also true that we aren’t always living fully, we aren’t always actualizing our life. This is because unlike the flowers in the fields, human beings bear the burden of thought. Thought has a dual nature: thought springs from life, and yet it has the ability to think of things totally ungrounded and detached from the fact of life. This is delusion and it leads to some strange consequences.