Zen And The Way Of The Warrior P M T - WordPress

Page 3also one of our biggest liabilities.Rocks,trees, stars and most animals arenot bothered by self-awareness, and thesemanifestations of the universe move naturally and freely in their course, as naturallyas water running downhill. We humans,on the other hand, become easily confusedabout which way is up. Perceiving clearlywithout distortion is crucial, but even ifwe are perceiving the world relativelyclearly, because we are very complex, selfperceiving creatures it is easy to becomestuck or favor one set of sensations overanother. Most often we become stuck onour “self.”The second step in mastering fear is learning (or relearning) how to let go, i.e., howto let go of all sensations as they arise inour consciousness without getting “stuck”or “fixated” on any of them. From theEastern perspective, anything that can beperceived or observed is a kind of mentalsensation; hence, a thought, feeling,physical sensation, hope, desire, dream,fantasy, insight, or even one’s self-perception can be viewed as a kind of mentalsensation. Whenever our mind rests, stopsor ruminates on one kind of sensation it isno longer free to observe or respond toeverything, everywhere. In a life and deathsituation, having one’s mind stuck on onesensation, or one constellation of sensations can be very detrimental. As weknow, each breath can be our last, so ifour mind is even temporarily stuck here orthere we are not free to be of benefit to either “self” or “other than self.”Fear and anxiety area kind of barometerof how stuck we are. When fear and anxiety are on the rise we can be pretty surethat one’s mind has become stuck or attached to something. Instead of viewingincreasing fear and anxiety as our enemy,it is far more useful to view these sensations as an ally which signals that we havebecome stuck on something and that it istime to let go. In this way, the view develops that increasing fear and anxiety arethe symptoms of a stuck mental system;in addition, from this perspective, theamount of fear and anxiety present can beviewed as the requisite “heat” or “pressure”necessary to free the system and get themind flowing freely again.Plum Mountain NewsAs weall know, it is really easy to become stuck on our “self.” It is very difficult to face death, or fully face life, whenwe are attached to keeping our sense of anabiding self. Nothing is fixed, everythingis in flux; yet, most humans never developbeyond a fixated (read stuck, limited, broken, i.e., neurotic) sense of self. Why?How is this so? There are many theories,but Western psychology has gone far inelucidating the many developmental pitfalls that we all face during the naturalmaturation process into adulthood.Forwhatever reasons, our culture andtime are very poorly suited to fosteringsmooth free-flowing human development.I sincerely believe that ancient indigenousand aboriginal cultures were better at itthan we are today. Nevertheless, it is easyto understand that as very intricate creatures our early development is both fragileand crucial. Yet, because we are so intricate, we are very adaptable creatures wholearn how to compensate for many earlylosses.Humansare susceptible throughout ourlifetime of acquiring what Carl Jung called“complexes,” closed, fixed loops of ideas,hopes and desires in response to some perceived loss, lack or wrong. In early childhood when we are the most vulnerable,children may develop severe complexesthat hold deeply conflicted hopes and desires for un-met, disallowed or traumatizedneeds in patterns of convoluted thoughts,ideals, dreams and fantasies. In otherwords, complexes compensate for lossesby holding them in abeyance, a kind ofunconscious limbo or homeostasis. Whenkey developmental needs are not adequatelymet, complexes arise weighing us downand fostering a stuck, fixed, abiding senseof self that becomes progressively incapable of freely flowing with circumstances asthey arise. If the magnitude of the complexes becomes caustic enough, then theself-system begins to split or disintegrateinto more or less discreet sub-systemsstarting with idealized and vilified fixedimages of who we are (or who others are).Becausecomplexes are more or less unconscious manifestations of our psyche,we may never become aware of them untila particularly stressful environment drawsthem out producing some kind of unbalance, dis-order, or dis-ease.One“wonderful” aspect of practice is that in itsconcentrated form during a sesshin (Zenretreat), Aikido test, high tea ceremony, abattle, a dance or a vision quest, we are exposed to high levels of stress, and thesestresses bring our complexes to the surfaceone by one. Through practice we comeface to face with our developmental andpsychological shortcomings. Anyone whohas trained at any “deep art” has had to facethemselves in ways they never imagined.Facing ourselves is what concentrated periods of practice are all about.Through training and practice our mostlyunconscious shortcomings, our stuck, incomplete developmental patterns start tobecome self-evident; they become painfully conscious. With this painful expanded consciousness, comes a dawningunderstanding of where we have comefrom, and what we need to be about now.If over many years of time, one’s practicedoesn’t feel like it is leading to a completetransformation by occasionally “scaringthe shit out of you,” then it is probablynot rigorous enough.In the course of deeply dedicated training,each of us will likely face one or more“dark nights of the soul” where nearly allseems lost in a morass of dark, conflictedconfusion. A dark night indicates that apractitioner has uncovered a core complex.When in a dark night, one really feels theContinued on next page Vol. 2.1

Page 4Continued on next page complexity of the complex. If you haveever been here you know what I’m talkingabout. I have definitely been here and Ican tell you that it is not fun. Yet, I canalso offer some hope. A dark night reallyis “pay dirt!” There is a way to turn thismorass of heavy material into gold. To doso, the person facing the dark night mustbecome a warrior of mythic proportions.It is time to do “battle” with the demonsof shame, self-doubt, judgment, self-deprecation, greed and hate that always seem toarise. As warriors we must learn not to befooled by these demon aspects of ourselves. When I sit with psychotherapyclients in my practice, there is a smallstatue that I look at all day of the Bodhisattva Manjusri. He holds a sword in onehand and a sutra (Buddhist scripture) in theother. Manjusri’s sword is not used to killanyone, but to dispel delusions. The sutrahe holds mirrors and illuminates truth.Thebest way to meet these demons or“enemies” on the field of battle is to turnthem into our “allies.” If we make themour teachers then we can not help but“win.” Aikido students know that the bestway to “defeat” the “enemy” (i.e. partnerinitiating the attack or uke) is to gentlyallow and firmly encourage the energy ofthe attacker to neutralize itself. This iswhat we must do with our own interior demons. Yagyu Tajima no kami Munenori(1571-1646), another of Japan’s greatswordsmen told his students that the desireto get rid of whatever disease one is infected with can become an obsession thatmakes a slave of the student. He says,Let yourself go with the disease, be withit, keep company with it: this is the wayto get rid of it.InZen, we take the four Bodhisattvavows. During a sesshin we repeat them atleast nine times a day. The first vow is tobe of benefit to all sentient beings; to slayor be slain by the demonic aspects of ourselves will not do. The second vow saysthat we will relinquish all self-delusions;there are no greater delusions than the demons that arise out of the dark night. Thethird vow says that the number of gates totruth are immeasurable; therefore, everyPlum Mountain Newsaspect of the universe is to become ourteacher. The last vow acknowledges ourcomplete faith in the Buddhist path; implying that we will walk it unto death.When we accept our own interior demonsas our allies they show us their true colors. The judgmental demons show us howthey arose as defenders to protect us fromexternal criticism or abuse. We realizethat we could protect ourselves from perceived threats of annihilation or abandonment by annihilating or abandoning ourexternally unwanted or unacceptable aspects before anyone else could. By witnessing and naming, rather than angrilyblaming and judging ourselves or others,we neutralize our demons. When they areneutralized we will touch the lost, rejected,stuck (obsessive, compulsive, greedy,needy) parts of ourselves by feeling thepain of their long absence. With the battlefield cleared in this way, the stage is setfor our wounded aspects to express themselves. This can become a whole newdrama, but with firm, compassionate care,our repressed aspects can slowly integratewith our self-system, freeing the self-system of “hang-ups” or fixations, finallyunknotting the complex. I warn any ofyou spiritual warriors out there, this takesa lot of tenacious patience. The caring forthe stuck or repressed parts of ourselves isa lot like suddenly becoming foster-careparents of abused, abandoned, totally untrusting children.grate with your daily life, so that your life,just as it is, turns into a full-time practice.I have a practice that includes one hour ofzazen daily, four week-long sesshins ayear, and around an average of three extrahours of zazen on the weekends. Even after twenty years of training, this scheduledoes not include enough time with my Zenmaster, or enough concentrated time onmy own to adequately turn my daily lifeinto a full-time practice; therefore, I supplement my formal training with variousmindfulness practices, most especially twohours of psychotherapy a week with amaster therapist. I seem to have a richself-system full of complexes, so my interior practice requires this attention. If Iwas more completely immersed in Zentraining perhaps no additional supportwould be necessary. Probably all of mydark nights could be contained and resolvedwithin a monastic practice. Yet, I knowof several people who powerfully combineZen practice, Aikido training, and psychotherapy with a “modern” daily life.Noone can face an internal or externalbattle for you, but there is no good reasonto do it alone, especially before you, yourself have become a master. (On one level,becoming a master means dropping thebarriers between self and others so that youare never alone, and on another levelmeans being always alone.) This is whywe train with teachers and other practitioners. It is not in your self-interest or theinterest of the community to have anyshame in this, yet many do. Letting go ofthis shame is crucial for gaining true humility and true dignity. If you have theopportunity to train full-time in a Zendoor Dojo, take it, life is short. If you donot have the opportunity to practice one“deep-art” full-time for many years, I advise that you put together a package ornetwork of several practices that can inte-Asone’s self-system becomes ungluedand unstuck, it becomes more capable tonaturally and spontaneously respond to theenvironment without flinching, withoutholding back, and without giving morethan is needed in a given situation. Itseems odd, but for all our arduous andskillful training, the aim of any deep-art isto bring the practitioner to “beginner’smind.” A beginner has no pretensions ofbeing an expert, nothing to lose and everything to gain by putting one’s all into theactivity at hand. A beginner tends to bringVol. 2.1

Page 5a fresh response to any new activity. D.T.Suzuki puts it this way:To state it in terms of swordsmanship thegenuine beginner knows nothing about theway of holding and managing the sword,and much less of his concern for himself.When the opponent tries to strike him, heinstinctively parries it. This is all he cando. But as soon as the training starts, heis taught how to handle the sword, whereto keep the mind, and many other technicaltricks -- which makes his mind “stop” atvarious junctures. For this reason whenever he tries to strike the opponent he feelsunusually hampered; [he has lost altogether the original sense of innocence andfreedom]. But as days and years go by, ashis training acquires fuller maturity, hisbodily attitude and his way of managingthe sword advance toward “no-mind-ness”which resembles the state of mind he hadat the very beginning of training when heknew nothing, when he was altogether ignorant of the art. The beginning and theend thus turn into next-door neighbors. In a similar way, when the highest stage isreached in the study of Buddhist teaching, a[person] turns into a kind of simpletonwho knows nothing of Buddha, nothing ofhis teaching, and is devoid of all learningor scholarly acquisitions.response will degrade its naturalness immensly. If while serving in tennis I thinkabout my serve, I almost always doublefault. Yes, we want to respond to lifewith the skill of an adult, but the spontaneity and naturalness of an infant.In Zen, a mind thatis not stuck on anything and ready to meet everything(including our last breath) is called theMind of No-Mind or Mushin. From theBuddhist perspective a “self” free of attachment to personal identity or personal history is called “No-self” (Anatta inSanskrit), and it represents the highest assimilation of the Buddha’s teaching. Forthe Mind of No-Mind fear has no opportunity to become debilitating. For fear tobecome a hindrance, the mind would haveto “stop” and ruminate. Fear or anxietythat arises in a mind that maintainsMushin is absorbed so smoothly that itproduces a natural, useful vigilance to seeand act as circumstances warrant.Additional Reading:Daisetz T. Suzuki,Zen and Japanese Culture,Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery,Arnold Mindell, The Shaman’s Body,& The Leader as Martial Artist.SotoZen Master Dogen (1200-1253) isfamous for saying:To study the Way[Zen, martial arts, tea, flowers ]is to study the self.To study the self is to forget the self.To forget the self is to be enlightened byall things.To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self andothers.Howwondrous: when tired sleep, whenhungry eat, after breakfast wash yourbowls, do what needs doing. Our job asspiritual warriors is to live a life free ofencumbrances, flowing like water downhill, being compassionate to one’s self andothers, at our passing leaving no trace.Comics by Francesca SundstenWhen Zen talks about beginner’s mind it W ith gassho,is referring to one’s original untarnishedGenjo Marinellonature, where mind is free to flow withouthindrance and “stops” nowhere. There isnothing wrong with thinking, analysis, orfine discrimination, but, as we all know,taking even an instant to “think” during aPlum Mountain NewsVol. 2.1

Zen and the Way of the Warrior Many people have asked over the years how Zen Buddhism became so intimately linked with the Samurai, the Martial Arts, and Bushido (“the Way of the Warrior”). Bushido does not mean the way of the ag-gressor. Bushido might be better trans- late