At Kaz Tanahashi’s workshop, Brush Mind, at Tassajara, I was asked to select, read and comment on a passage from theShobogenzo,the collected writings of the great 13thcentury Japanese Zen Master Dogen. Here is the passage:
“Mazu was engaged in the continuous practice of zazen [formal sitting practice] for more than a decade. Ponder his sitting on a rainy night in a thatched-roof hut. There is no account that he skipped sitting on a cold platform when stranded by snow.
When Nanyue visited his hut, Mazu stood up.
Nanyue said, “What have you been doing these days?”
Mazu said, “I have been just sitting.”
Nanyue said, “What is your intention of just sitting?”
Mazu said, “I intend to become a Buddha.”
Then Nanyue picked up a tile and started polishing it on a stone near Mazu’s hut.
Mazu said, “Master, what are you doing?”
Nanyue said, “Polishing a tile.”
Mazu said, “Why are you polishing the tile?”
Nanyue said, “I am trying to make a mirror.”
Mazu said, “How can you make a mirror by polishing a tile?”
Nanyue said, “How can you do zazen and become a Buddha?”
Mazu said, “What should I do?”
Nanyue said, “When driving a cart, if it stops moving, do you whip the cart or the ox?”
Mazu was silent.
I think Dogen is maintaining here that just sitting through thick and thin with the right alignments is necessary, but not sufficient to become a Buddha. It is like trying to polish a tile, presumably the very rough one of one’s mind, into a mirror. While it is important to show up and sit in the proper alignments in all conditions, it won’t get you to the other shore of Buddhahood. For Mazu, the cart has stopped; his zazenpractice is going nowhere. Whipping the ox or the cart is equally futile. Perhaps this is the meaning of this unusual passage of the Shobogenzo. Dogen is very fond of inserting these zingers in his text. This is the Buddhist “crazy wisdom” version of Samuel Beckett’s theatre of the absurd. Dogen’s intention, however, is to get you out of your conventional mind, not remind you of the futility of existence.
Mazu must try something different than his ferocious meditation practice if he is to become a Buddha. The answer—as Dogen, reiterates in many passages of the Shobogenzo— is letting go. Instead of trying to achieve Buddhahood, he has to give up trying. Of course, this is also trying. What a conundrum!
Perhaps a discussion of my experience in the calligraphy workshop with Kaz will help.
At first, we were given the task of drawing a character in the traditional classical style, following the great Chinese masters. To achieve this is very difficult. The brush must be held in the correct way, which means sitting and breathing in a prescribed manner. Each basic stroke must carry the right amount of ink, must have its proper entry and exit point, must be accomplished in the right order, and must be balanced with the other strokes to form a harmonious whole. Chinese school kids who endlessly practice drawing classical characters according to the Chinese masters have “polished this tile” far longer than us, and are far better than us at this. In short, trying to draw a Chinese character in the classical style was a very humbling experience for those of us in the workshop.
Kaz gave us some words of encouragement, saying, “We are all beginners.” Even for the masters, including Kaz, calligraphy is still intimidating given the limited control of the calligrapher; there is much ink and paper wasted in the process.
As the workshop progressed, we moved from the classical style to the looser semi-cursive style and finally the loose cursive style or “running” style. We ended the workshop using large and very large brushes on newsprint. We spilled ink all over the paper, the tables, and ourselves. We stopped trying to imitate the classical masters and just let loose. Abandoning ourselves to the brushes and ink was a lot of fun. Some of our best work was produced when we gave up trying and were simply present with what was happening. But the idea of making our “best” work was also gone.
Kaz cautioned us that we were not doing Jackson Pollack paintings. In fact, he really seemed to have it in for Jackson Pollock. Although the running style is close to abstract art, in Chinese and Japanese Zen calligraphy, the characters can still be read, sometimes with great difficulty.
Here is an example of the running style in a painting by the Japanese Zen master Sengai (1750-1837). There is still a “bone structure” to this very free-style work, however invisible it may be to the observer unversed in Chinese calligraphy. And this bone structure took many years of calligraphy practice to accomplish.
In Sengai’s painting, the inscription reads in rough translation, “If zazenwould get you to enlightenment all frogs would be Buddhas.” Of course, the joke is that the sitting posture of frogs is close to that of the one used inzazen. Sengai has reiterated Dogen’s idea that sitting is not sufficient for enlightenment, and Sengai’s looser, running-style calligraphy marks the way.
Once you have achieved the proper alignments— despite internal or external obstacles—whether in calligraphy, zazenor Kundalini meditation, or even in Tai Chi or Qigong—how do you let go? For me, letting go can involve letting go of a purpose for letting go; otherwise you are still stuck in trying to achieve something. This is not really letting go on a deeper level. There is a difference, for example, between letting go of the conceptual mind because thoughts are bothering you, and letting go of the conceptual mind without trying to project a result. There is letting go of glitches in the physical and subtle bodies without considering that there will be a better flow of energy. There is letting go of the little self without wanting to achieve the oneness of the Void body. In my experience authentic oneness with the Void body is a state of grace that happens beyond our control.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with letting go for a purpose if it is improving our depth of surrender— as Rudi continually exhorted his students to do. Yet, I am talking about another kind of letting go here. In this kind of letting go, the mental, physical, subtle and Void bodies dissolve simultaneously. It is like jumping off a cliff and not caring where you are going to land. What happens when you let go in this way? Tell us in this blog forum! To say that you had a “good” meditation is to miss the point. Of course, through all of this you are sitting with the right alignments, so you are pointing in a direction.
In closing, a few more words from Dogen in the Shobogenzo:
“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be verified by all things. To be verified by all things is to let the body and mind of the self and the body and mind of others drop off. There is a trace of realization that cannot be grasped. We endlessly express this ungraspable trace of realization.”
This letting go is not nothing! Or, in the words of Shitou, an 8thcentury Chinese Zen Master, “Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.”