There is something missing in American Zen

There is something missing in American Zen, and I think it's symbol is the kyōsaku.

My first stay in a monastery was the fall of 1984, the fall practice period just after Zentatsu Richard Baker left the San Francisco Zen Center. I was went to Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery from the Santa Cruz Zen Center and at the age of 26 I was quite clueless in just about everything. I recall very many community meetings, with lots of strong emotions and lots of tears. One small little bit on the emotional landscape was the rejection of the kyosaku. I was still trained to carry it, but it seems that over the years it's role has diminished to an ornament in the zendo and it's rarely now seen in community zendos.

The kyōsaku is a hardwood stick, about 3 feet long, rather round on one end and more flatish on the other, and quite sturdy. It's carried buy a student who walks slowly inside the meditation hall. Basically, if a student looks sleepy the kyosaku is placed on the meditators shoulder to wake them, then they both bow, and then the meditator gets struck on the back/shoulder. WACK! Everyone wakes up!

I was told that Suzuki Roshi, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center would send kyoskus that had broken in use back to the Japanese Soto Zen Organization to prove to them that authentic Zen was being practiced here. "Look! Very strong practice!"

I think of it as a symbol of the Japanese physical approach to practice. Apparently, their monasteries are very physically arduous with malnutrition, frostbite, injuries and extensive, very strict ways to do everything ("the forms").

An attempt was made to import some aspects of this spirit into the US but with the breakdown of the authoritarian abbot it rapidly became watered down.

That Fall, my first practice period at Tassajara, many things changed and it was the beginning of the end of the for the kyōsaku. In a more democratic, inclusive, feminized (is that OK to say?) American Zen practice there is no place to hit one another.

It should be said that the kyōsaku is not a punitive tool. It is usually referred to as an expression of compassion: it helps everyone wake up and can lossen up tight shoulders. But modern american Zen aims to be widely inclusive and supportive of even the more sensitive individuals who may have been physically abused in the past. So the kyōsaku is rarely seen. It is a symbol of changes from a quite physically challenging environment to one that is supportive of even the most delicate members.

I want to be quite clear that I am all for these changes and do not advocate going back.

But there is now something missing.

The west is contributing so much to Zen: 'humanizing' everything from the administrative structure of the sangha to what one does on the cushion: If shikantaza seems difficult then try counting your breaths. Full lotus hurts? Try half lotus, or the seza bench, or a chair or even lie down. And the intellectuals are also working hard: the bookstore shelfs are taken up with zen and psychology/gender/emotions/eating/punk/women etc. I'm all for a big tent and making new gates to Zen practice. But look at old zen literature: There is a lot of hitting and yelling. We don't do that. Is there something missing?

What is it exactly that is now missing? It is the flavors of physicality and immediacy, a "Just this! Right now!". A smack up side the head. A yell at a funeral service. A fully alive energetic state. The explosive rejection of delusion. It seems to me that this immediate physicality is a defining characterization of Zen practice. We sit physically upright, facing reality and express enlightenment in this very moment.

With the fall of the kyōsaku we have rejected the Eastern expression if it, but how do American zen teachers and students express it?

I think the Alexander Technique can play a role here.

The practice of the AT is actually pretty simple: it has only two parts and first part is "Stop". Just stop. "Stop end-gaining" is pure Zen. American Zen needs to embrace "Stop!". Stop with your end-gaining. Stop with your bullshit. Stop running away, stop hurting yourself. Stop being afraid.

Is "Stop!" is the Western kyōsaku? What do you think?



  

Sensory Appreciation

How do you know what to do with yourself on your mediation cushion?  You arrange your robes, and your body to sit.  You arrange your robes so they are tidy, but why do you arrange your body as you do?  You want to be upright because being upright is important, right?  But how do you find upright?  This is important.  Dogen, in his instruction on sitting, devoted quite a bit of his instructions on the importance of how to sit physically.  Place your ears over your shoulders, your nose in line with your navel.  I have an intellectual grasp of what this means.  I’ve studied anatomy!  But how do I do it?  How do I know when I’ve been successful?

Does it happen “naturally”?  Look around the meditation hall before the end of a long sitting.  This person is sitting a bit forward, that one looks like she’s sitting back.  That person’s is holding one shoulder higher than the other.  This person is sitting with his head far forward, and she looks like she’s looking down.  That one looks a bit twisted.   Ask them if they are in pain.  Does it make sense that sitting has to cause pain?  Sitting upright does not come naturally.

I’ve relied heavily on how I feel.  I’ve held my body or changed my posture to make my zazen conform to what I think it should be - to improve my sitting - to get more concentrated, focused, relaxed, present, alive, quieter, etc.  Through all these years, I have held dear a phrase I heard at the San Francisco Zen Center: “The body is always present”.  I misinterpreted this as meaning the sensation of my body can be relied upon, that these sensations are honest, that they will support me and guide me, that they can teach me to improve my sitting.

  I don’t think I have been alone in using my bodily sensations to guide me in sitting.  Buddhists have written about the use of a body practice.   But Zen students are direct, honest, and in the moment.  We embody the truth.  Well, here is my truth:

I am not at all sure what I am are actually doing.  It is hopeless to try to sit more upright because I have an inaccurate idea of what I am actually doing with my body.

Even though I learned this gradually, to write it is still profoundly disturbing and unsettling.  And writing that makes me sad: This sitting, which has been the backbone of my life, and I have no idea at all how to physically do it.

I have lots of colorful and descriptive examples from my own life to illustrate how profoundly unreliable sensory appreciation actually is.  In fact I have so many examples that I must conclude that everyone who has notices their use, must come to the same conclusion that I have.  Since I have no evidence that anyone is interested I won't talk about my own examples.   I don’t think anyone could convince you that your all your ideas on what you are actually doing are unfounded.  I imagine that you are like me and have to have many examples before the truth sets in.  But let me offer this: has a teacher ever come up behind you and ‘adjusted your posture’?  Afterward, did you say “Ah, now this feels right!”  or did you think “Oh! this feels totally wrong!”

FM Alexander had something to say on this topic.  FM Alexander was a theatrical speaker.  He began to lose his voice.  With consultation of physicians it was decided that the cause of his difficulties was something he was doing while reciting.  With the use of mirrors, he found that to his surprise he was not doing, or using himself, in a way that he thought he was.  He called this unreliable sensory appreciation.

It is not that the raw data that our senses provide are at all wrong.  The problem is that the judgments, opinions, and conclusions are poor and unreliable.  They do not provide sound basis for actions.    We are like a ship in the ocean and we constantly missread the compass.  We just can not read it right.

But again I won’t try to convince you.  I can’t convince you that the sensation from your back may, or may not, have anything to do with your back.  Who am I to tell you that you don’t know if you are leaning right or left.  You would never believe me if I suggested that your use of your self should not be based on how you feel, on your proprioception?  You have a lifetime of experience and that makes you an expert .  Experts are loathe to change their opinions.  And when they do it hurts and they feel lost.  Anyway, I do.
 And an expert in the meaning of their senses might be deeply afraid to admit they have faulty sensory appreciation.  Then what would you do to guide their use of their body?  How would they know how to adjust their posture?  You don't have a teacher who is correcting you posture frequently.  You don't have mirrors around you for feedback.  Can you imagine sitting for long hours knowing that you really don't know how to sit upright?  What a scary thing to imagine.   But it's also a start.

Alexander Technique and Emotions

On this topic I have only the poem:

Short, narrow: fearful
Ah, Alexander Technique
Now long, wide: loving.

West Meets the East, the Socially Engaged Buddhist

I've been thinking a bit recently about Zen, or more generally Buddhism, meeting the West.  I am no means the first.  I read a very good essay in  Best Buddhist Writings 2010 by David Loy entitled Why Buddhism Needs the West.
Briefly, the author noted that the main contribution from the west is social change.  This is the idea that people, and the groups that they become, have the ability to change social and political structures.  This seems obvious to me, but that's because I'm a product of the West.  It was not obvious before ancient Greek civilization.  They thought social structures are dictated by the gods or social structures are actually  natural phenomena.  Social change is not obvious in the East where tradition is unquestioned.
Buddhism offers a wonderful path towards self actualization and personal liberation from suffering but it has not been very good at inspiring social justice.  However, this is not inherent to Buddhism.  The historical Buddha was quite active in social change.  The religion that he inspired, however, was a part of Eastern civilization.  And monasteries depended on the status quo for their support - there was a disinsentive to expand the concept of liberation from the personal to social relms.
    The West was likewise handicapped.  There have been many social upheavals, but with the individual mired in greed, hate and delusion, a new social structures was at best only marginally better than the one it replaced.    Parenthetically, FM Alexander was a product of two world wars and deeply skeptical about the possibility of social movement to better our lot.
So David Loy hopes that those who are not overwhelmed with their greed, hate and delusion can effect real beneficial and durable social change.
My question is:  "Where precisely does East meet West?
I will say East meets West in your habits.  In your conditioning.  East meets west after you get up from your meditation seat, go outside and a stimulus to act reaches you.  One moment you were Sitting, laying the ground work of insight which generates the intention to act for the benefit of all beings, and the next minute you are outside getting the stimulus to act.
The actual stimulus does not matter much.
Now I am deeply humbled by my betters who are at the forefront of social change, they devote their lives to make this world a better place.  They are inspiring and I am very grateful for their efforts.  But the practice of the greatest Buddhist activist of our time is no better that the middle class woman who feels the discomfort (a stimulus) of seeing street urchin and, instead of walking by, turns towards the beggar and shows a bit of kindness.
For the socially engaged Zen student, there is only one question:
"What are you doing right now to make the world a better place?" 
Regardless of the stimulus, are you acting out of unconscious habit?  Are you acting out of a life long conditioned response based on greed, hate and delusion?  Or have you been able to create some space between stimulus and response?  Have you used that space to consider what you truly want to do?  In you heart of hearts, how do you really want to respond?  If you have created that space then I think you are a socially engaged Buddhist.
Zazen helps refine your intention regarding how you want to live - how you want to respond to stimuli.  And zazen helps a bit to create a space between stimulus and response.  But, forgive me, it is quite limited.
The Alexander Technique is all about creating space.  The Alexander technique is precisely at the point where East meets West.  It is an incredibly helpful tool if you aspire to be a socially engaged Buddhist.  If you want to help to heal the world you should take some lessons in the Alexander Technique.