Why We Practice Zazen

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Editorial note: This transcript of a spoken talk has been lightly edited for readability. Repetitions, false starts, clumsy phrasing and unclear passages were smoothed out with great care not to change the meaning; we recommend listening to the original audio recording.

Now recite kaikyōge first.

[recitation, 00:00:24–00:01:30]

Good afternoon. Today we have some newcomers, so first I would like to give a talk about the reason why we practice zazen. Today we have very fundamental facts in our human society: one is religion, and the other is science. Usually we think that religion and science are completely contradictory. When we think about human history, we can find several ages, for example, the ancient age, the medieval age and the modern age. In the medieval ages, religions were very powerful. At that time, there were many strong religious leaders, and they taught their own religious opinions. Their religious opinions were based on the leaders' experience, for example, what they thought or what they believed in. Therefore, in the medieval ages, people were dominated by some leaders' religious opinions. So the basis of medieval thought is somewhat subjective, because religious thought was based on religious leaders' subjective ideas.

But in the modern ages, the situation changed. In the 14th century, some Italian cities became very rich because of their trade with the East. Each of those cities had its monarch, and those monarchs were diligent in helping men of literature, artists, scholars and thinkers. So, with the monarchs' help, a kind of new civilization appeared at that time.

That is called the time of the Renaissance. In the Renaissance, human beings found the very important fact that they had physical bodies. Before that time, that is, in the medieval ages, religious thought suppressed the fact that human beings had physical bodies. But in the time of the Renaissance, people found that human beings had their own physical bodies. This fact is very important. For example, the sculptures and paintings of the Renaissance had many images of naked human bodies. This fact shows that at that time human beings found that they had physical bodies, and this tendency increased more and more.

Then people began to recognize a world different from the religious world: that is, the human world. They revered human sense perception. From that time, human beings began to believe in what they perceived, and they called what they perceived matter. They were diligent in researching what matter was, and to research what matter is is usually called science. Therefore, we can say that in the modern ages people began to have science, and scientific research has developed more and more in the modern ages. According to scientific conclusions, there were many facts which cannot be derived from religious scriptures.

Therefore, in the modern ages, we have a confrontation between religion and science, and many people suffer from this confrontation between religion and science. But in the middle of the 19th century, or at the end of the 19th century, scientific research arrived at its culmination. At that time, people could not be satisfied by scientific research alone. They felt that something was lacking. They could not recognize what was lacking, but they felt that there was something lacking. Then, in the 20th century, people have been diligent in discovering what was lacking in the 19th century.

In other words, people are looking for something which is different from scientific conclusions. At the same time, we cannot deny the value of science. Therefore, we are wandering between science and what we are looking for. In our time, we can find a situation similar to that in ancient India when Gautama Buddha lived. In ancient India when Gautama Buddha lived, there was the same confrontation between an old spiritual religion and new thinkers who were called the six non-Buddhist teachers. At that time, there was a very famous, powerful religion called Brahmanism.

Brahmanism believed in the creator who created the universe, and they believed in a spiritual soul in each individual. They believed that we have to deny our physical bodies and that it is necessary for us to identify our soul with Brahman, or the essence of the universe. So we can think that Brahmanism was a kind of very spiritual religion. But when Gautama Buddha lived, there were new thinkers who were called the six non-Buddhist teachers. They criticized the old spiritual religion, Brahmanism. They insisted on materialistic ideas, and they denied the value of ethics and morals.

Gautama Buddha suffered from this contradictory situation between the old spiritual religion and the new materialistic ideas. To solve this contradictory situation, Gautama Buddha recognized that we are living in reality. He believed in the existence of reality. He believed in the existence of the world, the existence of the universe. When he believed in reality, he could understand that spiritual religion is one face of reality. Scientific or materialistic idea is the other face of reality. Therefore, by believing in reality, he could solve the contradictory situation between spiritual religion and materialistic ideas.

The situation in ancient times is similar to the situation in the modern ages. So, when we want to solve the contradictory situation between religion and science, we can rely upon Buddhist theory. When we are practicing zazen, we can realize reality. And when we can believe in the existence of reality, we can interpret spiritual religion as one face of reality and scientific knowledge as the other face of reality. By believing in reality, we can solve the contradictory situation between spiritual religion and science. This is the reason why we practice zazen. This is the reason why we study Buddhism.

Now, we would like to have some questions and answers about this problem. Yes.

Question: You said that Gautama Buddha suffered from the conflict between religion and science, or as it was then. But what kind of suffering did he feel? What concrete physical situation did he have? What suffering was it?

Nishijima: Yes. He was a very sensitive and clever boy when he was young. A Buddhist scripture says that when he was in a field, a bird came down to the ground and picked up an earthworm. Looking at the scene, Gautama Buddha became very sad. He recognized the fact that all living beings can live by killing others. But at the same time, when he was a teenager, he got married and enjoyed sensuous pleasures. It is said that he had two women other than his wife. He was a very strong young man; therefore he enjoyed his pleasurable life.

But in that pleasurable life, he could not be satisfied. He always had some kind of sadness, and he wanted to get rid of that sad situation. So he became a priest. Therefore, the motivation which made Gautama Buddha become a priest was the contradictory situation between his spiritual attitude and his physical desire.

Question: Your explanation there sounds very easy to understand and very real. But when you talk about the conflict between religion and science, to me religion is something sort of abstract, and science is some kind of knowledge. The conflict between religion and science, to me, seems to exist in the library, not in people's daily life. Really, the conflict is between what we think things should be and how we perceive things. But that doesn't seem to me to be the same as religion and science.

Nishijima: Yes. When we believe in some spiritual religion, we want to be sincere in our day-to-day life. We want to follow religious precepts, but at the same time, we sometimes fail to follow them. On the other hand, when we think about scientific knowledge, scientific knowledge teaches us the rule of cause and effect. Scientific knowledge always explains facts themselves, so we can get knowledge about facts. But knowledge about facts cannot teach us the direction in which we should go. Therefore, in scientific knowledge, we cannot find the value of ethics or morals.

Therefore, when we live in the modern ages and follow scientific knowledge, we cannot find any standard for following morals or ethics. And when we follow religious precepts, it is rather difficult for us to follow them, because we do not have sufficient knowledge about cause and effect. Those contradictory situations are situations which modern people usually have. So I think that the contradictory situation between religion and science is related to Gautama Buddha's suffering in his young age.

Question: Religion and science are kind of products. If you put a human being on a desert island without any contact with cultural things like religion and science, they still have some basic conflict between two parts. But these are not related to religion and science. They're something more fundamental in human beings, because religion and science are products of human culture.

Nishijima: Yes. If we can live on an isolated island like Robinson Crusoe, we can suppose that situation. But we are living in the modern ages, where scientific knowledge and religious ideas really exist. So we should consider our problems in reality. In reality, there is scientific knowledge and at the same time religious belief, and they are completely contradictory. Yes.

Question: You say they're completely contradictory, but the fact is that people don't usually think so. I was talking to a person who was studying acupuncture at the conference, and I spoke about the conflict between religion and science, and he said, Oh no, there's no conflict. The conflict has been resolved, because scientists now believe that the theory of small particles is similar to Hindu ideas, and so on. So would you comment on the idea in the modern world that there is no conflict, because people think there is no conflict?

Nishijima: Yes, it's true. In Western thought, they think that religion and scientific knowledge are contradictory. But when we utilize...

Question: They very often think they are not contradictory. People think that religion and science are not contradictory.

Nishijima: But at the same time, when we read religious scriptures, for example the Bible, we can find many descriptions which cannot be true according to scientific knowledge.

Question: What is it that people like the man who was studying acupuncture, or the writing in the book by Fritz, a book about religion and science which we studied some years ago, Tao of Physics... People say, Oh no, there's no conflict now. We resolved the conflict.

Nishijima: Yes, it's true.

Question: What do they mean?

Nishijima: Such tendencies have occurred recently. We can find a kind of tendency to consider scientific knowledge and religious ideas on the basis of reality. Therefore, we can find the possibility of solving the contradictory situation between religion and science in the near future. That is the new tendency, and that is what we are pursuing. And that is the reason why we practice zazen. So we are entering into a new age of civilization. In that civilization, we can solve the contradictory situation between religion and science into one harmonized civilization. That is the task which we are pursuing. Yes.

Question: I still find some disturbance when you talk about religion and science, because your explanation of Gautama Buddha's life, to me, hits the target very nicely. I can understand that. But then he saw an earthworm and felt very sensitive, and then he had a lot of sensual pleasure with these women. That doesn't seem to me to be related to religion and science. I can't see how religion and science fit into those experiences.

Nishijima: We can explain the situation by the concepts of subjectivism and objectivism. In religious ideas, almost all assertions are based on subjective ideas. In other words: because they believe such and such, this is true; or because they think such and such, therefore this is true. This is the religious attitude. But in science, we think about facts. We use experiments, and we look at facts. We perceive by an objective method. Therefore we can say that the religious attitude is subjective, the scientific attitude is objective. These two fundamental attitudes, subjective and objective, always exist in human societies.

So even in ancient India, there might have been such a contradictory situation between subjectivism and objectivism. In the modern ages, we are suffering from the contradictory situation of subjectivism and objectivism.

Question: Religion is like the most abstract, removed manifestation of the subjective tendency, and science is the most kind of intellectual, abstract manifestation of the objective tendency. So if you describe the conflict as a conflict of religion and science, I think the people I know in England will just say, Well, okay then. Go away and solve that conflict. They aren't interested in that, because ordinary people don't live in the realm of conflictive abstract things. But if you're explaining it as practicing zazen to solve the conflict that all human beings have within themselves, of subjective tendency and objective tendency, then the explanation seems more widely applicable to all people.

Nishijima: Yes. If people do not have any interest in the contradictory situations between subjectivism and objectivism, it is not necessary for them to study Buddhism. People who have an interest in the contradictory situations between objectivism and subjectivism can have an interest in studying Buddhism. So Gautama Buddha distinguished between ordinary people and Buddhist people. All people have an original tendency to have an interest in the contradictory situations, but some people cannot have any interest in studying Buddhism throughout their lives. This is a very sad situation, but it is a dear situation. So Gautama Buddha said, People who do not have any circumstances to have interest in Buddhism cannot be saved. This is a rather strong expression, but this expression is true, I think.

Question: I have a very strong interest in studying Buddhism, but when I came to Japan, I never studied religion. I never went to church, and at school I avoided scientific subjects. So if you talk about the conflict between religion and science, I can't find that it applies to my own life. If you talk in the kind of explanation you gave of Gautama Buddha's life, then I can really understand it. But when you talk about the conflict between religion and science, to me it just seems to be somewhere out there, based on a kind of history lesson, not on my own lived experience.

Nishijima: Yes, it's true. The time in which I can explain the problem is not so long, so my explanation was cut short. That is the reason. Should we continue directly with the lecture on Kokyo, or are there any questions?

Question: I think I find a similar problem to what was being asked. I am a scientist, and as a scientist I can find the conflict between somebody who is very religious or somebody who is very subjective, because I always say that the fact is how I can see it or observe it, but the other person says the fact is how I feel or think about it. And I can feel that conflict. But at the same time, I don't know if it's only English, but certainly in English, the words religion and science themselves don't seem to be very real. They don't seem to be very much part of our real existence. They seem to be kind of thoughts divorced, taken away from daily life.

Nishijima: Yes, it's true.

Question: But in Japanese, I don't think you have that problem. And I wonder whether it's because Japanese society, Japanese people, don't have so many abstractions. I noticed that the Japanese people I talk to have a kind of simple philosophy of daily life, and they don't think that their philosophy is some very spiritual thing. They have a very practical philosophy. So many times I've heard people in Japan talk about which is the best way to live, or say, I'm thinking about how I should live. That way of thinking is rather strange to me. I'm used to thinking either very theoretically, and I call it philosophy, or very practically, and I don't call it philosophy, and I don't call it science, and I don't call it religion.

Nishijima: Yes. About that problem, I can find two reasons. One is that Japanese life is soaked with Buddhist philosophy. Therefore, we are not conscious of living in Buddhist ideas or Buddhist habits. Actually, we are living in Buddhist habits. Therefore, it is not necessary for us to worry about the contradictory situations of the spiritual world and the scientific world. In our day-to-day life, the two worlds are mixed into one vague situation. This is one reason. The other reason is that the Japanese ability to think is not so strong. This is the second reason.

Question: So sometimes when you use particular words in English, they point us into a very theoretical area, but in fact I don't think you mean to point us into a theoretical area. I think it has some connection with the value of words in different languages.

Nishijima: Yes. So I have to study English more diligently. One reason is my poor English. I would like to explain Buddhist theory and concrete facts, but sometimes it is rather difficult for me to express those situations in English.

Question: Can you express it in Japanese?

Nishijima: Yes. In Japanese, it is easy for me to explain Buddhist theory and real situations.

Question: I think we feel some frustration because it's difficult for us to find that very concrete, real link between your ideas and our experience. Week after week, we hear about religion and science and very abstract things. Sometimes we get a hint that this big situation is related to our private life, but I think we want more. And so sometimes, when I or someone else seems to criticize your way of teaching, it's that kind of hunger that we have for more concrete or real explanations.

Nishijima: Yes, it's true. So I have to study more concrete English words and get the ability to explain Buddhist theory on the basis of more concrete facts. At the same time, I expect that my students will explain Buddhist theory on the basis of concrete facts in English. Yes.

Question: I think a lot of what I've been experiencing lately in my life is a lot of this contradiction. I don't understand the confusion these people are facing, and maybe if I shared an experience, that might help to make it more concrete. I'm a school teacher. I teach children; in the schools, I teach young children. And in the schools, the parents and the administration, everybody wants the facts. They want the information: what he knows, what he's learned, what his grades are, testing, testing. Japan is very, I would say, scientific this way in its schools. My feeling in the schools, working with little children, is that maybe they need more religion. Maybe they need more love, more... Maybe it's the age of the children I'm working with. They have very big hearts. And there, I'm the teacher, so I have a very strong contradiction. Who am I teaching, the children? Do I work with their hearts, or do I make the parents happy and show them the grades that we require? And I was thinking, in every situation we have, even if we're eating something: Oh, I like the taste of it, but then, you know, that's the feeling part, the religion part. Oh, I like this. The logical part, the science part: is it good for me? How many calories is it? What vitamins? And maybe there's a contradiction there. Maybe, you know, maybe there's...

Nishijima: Yes, it is true. Fathers and mothers in Japan today were brought up in the time of war, or just after the war, which was a very miserable situation, for example, a scarcity of food and a scarcity of clothes and so forth. Therefore, those parents are usually materialistic in their lives, and therefore they are very competitive in bringing up their sons and daughters. That is one reason for the parents' attitude.

But at the same time, children are naturally religious. In other words, children are natural; therefore, they can believe in something sacred in the universe. Therefore, you can find contradictory situations between parents and children. This is the situation of schools in Japan today, I think. At the same time, we have the experience of contradiction in our day-to-day life. When we eat meals, we feel the taste, and tasty food cannot be denied, should not be denied. But at the same time, we take meals in order to work.

To work is the aim of our life, and the tastiness of food is a kind of means to promote our appetite. Therefore, in such a simple fact, we can recognize two factors. One is meaning; the other is fact. The meaning is food which is useful for our work, and at the same time, to be tasty is not bad. Therefore, even in such a small fact, we can always find meaning. That is the subjective side. And the other side is the volume of calories. This is an objective fact. According to Buddhist theory, we should synthesize the two factors into one reality. That is the attitude of Buddhism.

So even though our life is usually separated into two parts, we should synthesize those two parts into reality. This is the Buddhist idea. So we should find the real situation in the parents' competitive attitude, and at the same time, we should revere the children's religious attitude too. That combination is reality. We should not throw away the two. We should revere objective fact and subjective meaning. This is the Buddhist attitude. Yes.

Question: When the conflict between those two disturbs us, how can we revere both of them?

Nishijima: When we think about that situation by intellectual thinking, the two parts are separate and can never be synthesized. Therefore, we should transcend our intellectual thinking. We should enter into reality. Therefore, we practice zazen. By practicing zazen, we enter into reality. And in reality, there cannot be any different factors in our day-to-day life. There is only one reality. It has two faces, but the faces are not all of reality. We are reality itself. We are living in reality itself.

In such a situation, we can transcend the contradictory situation between subjective and objective. So the Buddhist attitude is very simple, but at the same time it is rather difficult to enter it. So we practice zazen.

Question: So if we practice zazen and we are able to transcend conflict in our lives, does that mean the conflict disappears, or does it mean that we just accept the conflict?

Nishijima: Yes. When we recognize that we are living in reality, we can perceive the conflict directly, and we do not have any emotional effects from looking at the contradictory situations. We can accept the contradictory situations without any emotional disturbance. Sometimes the contradictory situation is an emotional disturbance itself. I don't think so. In Buddhism, we usually think about sunyata. Sunyata is feeling as if it is nothing.

When we have sunyata, or in the situation where we can feel as if it is nothing, we can be unemotional about every fact. This is a Buddhist fact.

Question: So if we're sick, then it seems like an emotional disturbance. It seems like a parasympathetic nerve is very strong. So does that mean our consciousness?

Nishijima: When we are sick, it is not the Buddhist state. So to cure our sickness is an important Buddhist effort.

Question: When you talk about a non-emotional state, in English that sounds like a very cold, unfeeling state.

Nishijima: Yes.

Question: But you don't mean that, do you?

Nishijima: Yes. Sometimes Buddhists are thought to be cold, and usually people think that we have to be emotional, we should be emotional, we should have love for others. But having love sometimes brings about a different situation, that is, hate. So according to Buddhist theory, love and hate are balanced in the real situation. So to insist only on the value of love has a kind of danger. That is my idea. That is the Buddhist idea.

Question: I wonder, is it possible to say a peaceful state instead of no emotional state?

Nishijima: Yes, I think so. The peaceful state is a balance between love and hate. This is a very important point. Many people insist that we should have love, but love sometimes has a dangerous character. So the balance between love and hate is the peaceful state. That is called the unemotional state. This theory sounds strange to some people, but this is the Buddhist idea. Yes.

Question: Sometimes, though, we feel that very emotional state, love and hate going to extremes, but...