Book Excerpts

"Open Mouth Already a Mistake"

Don't Know is Closest to It

             
                     For those of you that are new to our style of practice and
             Zen practice in general, I will now introduce you to the practice
             of "not knowing". Usually, people want to learn something, to
             know something. Zen practice actually moves in the opposite
             direction; from knowing to not knowing.                               
                    This not knowing is represented in the classical Zen literature
             by a famous story about Zen Master Poep An. Poep An was one
             of the main figures of Chinese Zen during the T'ang Dynasty, 
             which was the Golden Age  of Zen in China. He lived around 900 
             AD. At the time this story takes place, Peop An was not yet a
             Making a Zen pilgrimage didn't mean the same thing as traveling
             means to us today because, of course, there were no airplanes,
             trains, or buses, just ox carts or foot travel, for the most part, and
             most of the main centers were in the mountains. So, the journey
             to call on the various Zen Masters was a rather arduous one.
             in and of itself, the hardship of travelling hundreds of miles over
             every kind of terrain, not knowing where you would sleep that night,
             or where you would find food, was a practice in facing oneself. This
             was a practice, as the old Zen Masters say, in "putting it all down."
                   Poep An came to a particular monastery and greeted Master Ji
             Jang, who was to become his final teacher. Ji Jang asked Peop An,
             "You're travelling all around China; what's the meaning of your 
             pilgrimage?" Initially, Peop An felt stuck and momentarily all thinking
             stopped. Then he said, "don't know". Ji Jang responded, "Not
             knowing is most intimate". Sometimes you'll see this translated as:
             "Not knowing is closest to it." So, Poep An decided, I'd better stay
             here and see what this guy has to offer.
                   After spending some time at the monastery being introduced into
             this "don't know", Poep An decided he would continue on his
             pilgrimage. He told the Master, "Tomorrow I'll be leaving here to
             become a wandering monk again". Ji Jang said, "Oh, do you think
             your ready?". Poep An said, "Certainly!" "Then let me ask you a 
             question," said Ji Jang. "You are fond of the saying that 'that the
             whole world is created by the mind alone'. So, you see those big
             boulders over there in the rock garden? Are they inside your mind
             or outside?" Poep An said, "They're inside my mind. How could
             anything be outside it?" The Zen Master said, "Oh, well, then you'd
             better get a good night's sleep because it's going to be hard
             travelling with all  those rocks inside your mind"! Peop An was
             undone and taken aback,  and stayed there with this Master and
             finally attained great awakening.
                  This one sentence, "don't know" or "Not knowing is most intimate",
             is very much at the heart of our practice. The word intimacy is also
             quite interesting. Closeness. Becoming one with something. Really
             being able to fathom something. And, of course, many of our
             difficulties come about by holding on to some conception of
             knowing, or some opinion, or some dualistic attitude that seperates
             us from our experience. So, as we cultivate and enter into this 
             attitude of not knowing, true intimacy becomes a possiblity, true 
             at-oneness with our own experience and with the world that we find
             ourselves in. .........................................  

                 
                      In Zen the word practice is used in the same way that
              we talk about the practice of medicine or the practice of law. It is 
              not practicing to get somewhere, it is a practice which is a way of
              being and of living.
                        So, everday mind is the path! When a monk asked Zen 
              Master Joju, Master! I've just entered your monastery. Please
              give me your teaching!" Joju said, "Did you eat your breakfast?"
              The monk said, "Yes I did". Joju said "Then wash your bowls!" The
              monk had an enlightenment experience. 
                       That's a very down-tp-earth kind of teaching. Imagine,
              expecting something profound and hearing, "Did you eat
              breakfast? Then wash your bowls." Everyday mind is Zen, and
              Zen is everyday mind. Just be clear about what you're doing.
              Washing your bowl is enlightenment; enlightenment is washing
              your bowl.
                       In our form of meditation practice there are a few simple
              things we emphasize and rely on. It is not very complicated.
              We emphasize sitting straight so that you support yourself
              and keep mindfull of your actual sitting position. We emphasize
              breathing so this area in the lower belly opens up. And then we
              emphasize some basic looking into ourselves, some question-
              ing attitude, some awareness: What am I? What is this? That
              is not very complicated.
                       Also, simple down-to-earth practice asks, "How compas-
              sionate is my movement in the world as compared with how
              self-centered it may be?" This is more important than any
              particular experience. And, of course it comes from perceiv-
              ing essentially what is my basic nature? If you perceive
              what your basic nature is, you perceive that in some way you're
              inter-related with all beings! So, out of that comes a kind of action
              which has a compassionate connection with all beings.
                       If you perceive clearly then that means you have basic, 
              enlightened mind. The word for enlightenment is called 
              kensho in Japanese, which means to see or perceive true
              nature. In reality, however, just seeing is nature! So, if
              you are just seeing and not making opposites, then 
              you experience true nature. Very simple! Just hearing, just
              seeing, just being, just acting, just washing  your bowls. So,
              various experiences may come and go, but far more important
              is your way of being. ................................. 

                 
                       Q: At Chogye International Zen Center of New York, we
              have a Zen teacher who is also a psychotherapist. My question
              relates with both those areas. I don't get it, how you can do both,
              because it seems that in the therapeutic approach you're en-
              couraged to "go into" certain feelings you have, go into the blocks.
              And Zen, on the other hand, is about "before conditioning," before
              "story"---no story. As one works on whatever that story was in ther-
              apy, isn't that missing "it"?
                       A: What's "it"? 
                       Q: Before thought! By bringing your story into "it"---isn't that
              killing or obscuring "it"?
                       A: You can never kill the moment. One form of being in the
              moment is obscuration in varying degrees. There's an old Zen 
              saying, "In the beginning mountains are mountains, rivers are
              rivers." After practice for some time, "Mountains are not Mountains,
              rivers are not rivers." After that going further, "Mountains are
              again mountains, rivers are again rivers." So, in the beginning your
              story line is very solid: Who you thind you are, the face that you
              got from your parents, is a very substantial and solid edifice.
              Huge! Made out of granite! How you see yourself and how you
              see the world and how you see the world in relationship to your-
              self exsists through your story line. So, that's "In the beginning
              mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers." You take it to be that.
                        But, words are only designations for something. Unfortunate-
              ly, we take words as if they really had definite meaning to them.
              Not just that they are pointers to something. So, when you come
              to the point of reaching the word's head, then, at that moment,
              "Mountains are not mountains, rivers are not rivers." So, your story
              is not your story. There is no story at that point!
                        But, if you stay at that point, then you're attached to some par-
              ticular condition, some particular state called "no-story." No mind.
              Emptiness. There's a lot lf Zen jargon for this. The old Zen Masters
              caution about falling into emptiness and getting stuck there. But, if
              you go further, mountains are again mountains, rivers are again 
              rivers. If you touch base with your original mind--before thinking,
              before color, that mind which has no taste--then you can pick up
              your story and use it in its appropriate way! ...........................