Freedom and the Teacher’s Character

Complete English transcript — About transcripts

Editorial note: This transcript of a spoken talk has been lightly edited to read well as written text, keeping the speaker’s voice and meaning; the wording was adjusted with great care. We recommend listening to the original audio recording too.

I don't have any subject in my head at all. But I have a very strong feeling this retreat. Not an idea, but a feeling or a sense. And if I give a word to the feeling, I suppose it's change. I don't know whether it's change in me or change in the world. I have no idea.

But for instance, yesterday evening I didn't wear my kesa because it was hot. It felt very nice. So I didn't wear it again today, and I like it. Although many Buddhist teachers say the kesa is a very special garment. And I guess it is. Nevertheless, for me, not wearing it today is very nice. So I suppose even very important things like the kesa are only pieces of cloth. I don't mean, therefore, that nobody should wear it. But I want to keep my own freedom. And I suppose I sensed that to be a Buddhist teacher can be to lose your own freedom. So this, I think, is connected with a feeling of change in me. To find my own freedom again.

Some of you know I'm going to take a break. In any case, I have to have an operation on my hip bone, which is worn out from running down mountains, I guess. And for maybe six years it's been rather painful. So I guess for two or three months it's difficult to sit in sesshin, for example. So I'm going to take a break for maybe six months. And the strongest feeling I have is, as I said, change. But I don't know what change, or where I'm going. So please help me.

Roman: I think... Sorry. If you need help now or later...

Mike: I mean, please help me with the subject for the talk.

Roman: Yes, sir.

Mike: Sorry.

Participant: How do you deal with your errors or failures, or when you are sometimes wrong?

Mike: Me? How do I deal with that? Sometimes I deny them, and I'm very stubborn. And sometimes I notice them, and I'm very flexible. So it depends on the situation. Am I wrong somewhere? Dogen said even our mistakes teach us the truth, or lead us to the truth.

Participant: It is written in Suzuki's book, The Beginner's Mind. This kind of experience of Zen teachers is... That means maybe I don't...

Mike: I don't know. Oh, okay. Yes, yes.

Participant: Then I come back to the opinion that zazen doesn't solve the problems you mentioned yesterday. I mean, but I also have the same experience, that zazen solved the problem, not exactly the problem, but solved it by changing the point of view.

Mike: Yes, it's true.

Participant: We keep looking at it the same way and we are not able to take a different view. When, during sesshin, in zazen, the view suddenly changes, we see the solution. Or at least the direction we will go.

Participant: Yeah. I thought, seeing you without your kesa this morning, it seemed to me a very symbolic moment.

Mike: Symbolic? In what way?

Participant: Like removing a burden or something. I've never seen you without a kesa at a sesshin. I was slightly surprised when I saw you.

Mike: Why not? You wear it sometimes. You don't wear it other times. You have your own freedom.

Participant: Yeah. I only mentioned that your hat is orange... Thank you.

Pavel: It's us who gave things a value.

Mike: Explain some more.

Pavel: Essentially, a kesa is a piece of cloth and several stripes. For my father it has no value at all. I went through a stage when I wanted to make my own rakusu and my own kesa, to sit wearing a kesa, to be wrapped in it. It was a very strong feeling. And I think it was a very nice period, and it helped me to move forward, or maybe it motivated me in a way. On the other hand, for me the most important thing is the state in zazen, and everything else that is added to it... recently I have wanted to get rid of everything that is not essential. So the strong feeling of wanting a kesa during zazen just slowly disappeared, and that's it, I think. From time to time I feel like wearing it, sometimes I don't feel like wearing it, sometimes it's kind of an obstacle for me, not practical. And the fact is that when I practise zazen at home, I never wear it.

Participant: Well, I live in Poland, and my Polish teacher, about two weeks ago, brought a newspaper, a magazine, where there was...

Mike: The Polish teacher?

Participant: Yeah.

Mike: Or language?

Participant: Language, Polish. Everything in Polish. She brought me the Polish newspaper, and there was an article about an artist, a Polish performer dressed as a butterfly, during a Mass that was held not in a church but on a square, among these people. And they were not able to catch him because of wearing the robes, which I laughed about a lot, because they were not able to catch the freedom, because he was a free butterfly.

Mike: Ah, yes. Now please explain in Polish.

Participant: Okay, so I will in Slovak. No, Polish, Polish. But they will not understand.

Participant: And maybe the spirit of Christianity, to be free, or really to be, was covered by the robes, by the people who perform the ceremony. So for me, they were tied. It was very symbolic to me. Or I read this as very symbolic: somebody has to show these people, ah, you are free. You can fly, you are a butterfly.

Mike: Yes.

Participant: Yesterday we talked about prajñā, intuitive wisdom. How can we make it work, or how can we experience it, or make it, or discover it in our life?

Mike: So, practising kung fu. Or doing zazen. And when we have a balanced body and mind, we have prajñā naturally. Or we don't have prajñā.

[inaudible]

Yes, a different aspect of something.

Participant: Yes, yes. If you read some text, you search for this meaning, but if it's the meaning, like, that helps me to understand.

Mike: Yes, there is something called the whole human being, which we can't define exactly. Sometimes we call it Buddha. This being has Buddha nature, but the being is a natural human being. And Buddhist teachers recognise that it's... And this expresses not... it doesn't mean we have to search for something. I think “Who am I?” is not a question. It means that our original being can't be grasped. So we use many different words like prajñā, Buddha, Buddha nature, and other ones which I forget. Primordial state. The face before your mother and father were born, all these. All these refer to one ineffable... which is you and which is me, which are connected.

Participant: One more question. Is it possible to say, then, that what we are talking about is always information about the experience of that particular person with what we are talking about, not the thing itself? The thing itself cannot be defined, but the person always has some experience with it. And that is the message we receive.

Mike: Yeah.

Participant: I'd like to ask about the problem of wearing or not wearing the kesa, or the freedom you feel when you can choose. When you studied Shobogenzo, I think you came across lots of very idealistic or very grand-sounding expressions in Dogen, talking about national masters, talking about, for example, wearing the kesa, one or two whole chapters about it. It seems he wanted to encourage people to adore something or to celebrate something; there are lots of these things in Dogen. At the same time... it's a huge contrast with this reality. Can you explain that? Why, and what meaning do all those beautiful and celebrating words have in the teaching? How do you understand it?

Mike: I'm guessing his character. But when he was five years old, his mother died. And when he was seven years old, his father died. And he noticed the world is always changing. Because in those days, religion was the place. [inaudible] 13 years old when he first went to the temple, until 27 years old, when he went to China. He tried to find answers to life's problems. So he must have been very lonely and unhappy inside. But at the same time, he'd been practising zazen for some years. So he found some...

So if you read Shobogenzo, you can find lots of descriptions which sound too beautiful. I guess that was Master Dogen's character. If you write something, it sounds better than reality. It won't be anything like the real experience of this sesshin. So I think, in a way, Master Dogen's writings are nothing like reality. He says these writings are no good to you. They're nothing like the real thing. He had the same life we have. He had the same unhappiness. What do you think about that? But he had great literary skill.

Participant: Also, I think it corresponds with the age and a different culture.

Mike: Oh yes, Japanese culture.

Participant: They try to, or maybe he tried to write or talk so that people can listen to it and it's interesting for them. So he could not... he should express his thoughts in a certain way that other people were used to, and we are not, obviously. But for example, if I compare Dogen with Nagarjuna, the MMK, the MMK is very dry, very dialectical, compared to Dogen, who is very poetic and creates images... Very different. So, in my opinion and experience, I always take the writing, for example a chapter, not as something grounded. It's just a report of something, pointing to something. So I'm always trying not to accept everything, I mean this kind of poetic language, and just trying to distil where he is pointing to, and then to...

Mike: That's right.

Participant: Because I found it quite difficult, you know. Dogen has a certain style, Nagarjuna is completely different, and many Chan masters write about the same thing in the end, but their language and their expressions are very different. Sometimes I understand, sometimes I don't understand.

Participant: But also, on the other hand, it's very interesting to see that you can, like a detective, search for the character, the personal character of... of Nagarjuna. And if you say that it's maybe only a text that doesn't catch reality, you can maybe catch the character of the person, the understanding of a person, and you can find a path.

Mike: Yes.

Participant: Then it's also important to write things that don't catch the real situation, maybe, and you don't understand. It's very, very good to write. Write about the situation here, about this sesshin, and find the path to it.

Mike: Ah, yes. Thank you very much. It's a good idea, thank you.

Participant: Thank you.

Participant: One more thing on that: on the one hand, Mike says that these are only descriptions and we are not able to understand those people, and that maybe he is even wrong about what Dogen was or was not like. But I notice, when Mike talks about those people, how he can find, to some extent, their character and the way they found some truth, and that through those authors Mike can get somewhere, as it were, to the beginning. I realised this already, I did not say it now in English, I realised it long ago at the beginning, that he has such an ability. So, nevertheless, he says that it makes sense to write such things, even if we do not describe the situation completely. He also said that the situation will never be described in a text as it is.

Pavel: For me, it's important that this was... It's important to understand the character of the teacher, because then I can separate the teacher's character and his teaching, and I want to know the teaching without the character hiding or covering it. For example, it was maybe the most important part of our relationship. I could understand your character, you know what I mean? Because I know you quite well, so I can see what is your character and what is the teaching. And if you meet different teachers, you can quite easily be puzzled, because maybe they are talking about one thing, but in a completely different way. And also, if you read some book, for example, we mentioned Kodo Sawaki, Dogen, and so on, it's quite puzzling for people, because maybe they are talking about the same thing, but in a different way. And I think the problem is that, for example, Kodo Sawaki lived in a certain era, in a certain... he talked to certain people in maybe a very special situation, so we can't... It's quite difficult to generalise his words, you know. So I think in my study of Buddhism, the most important thing was that I could understand your character. Because when I see your character, then I can guess more what you are trying to say about Buddhism, the truth. And afterwards, I could understand other people and other teachings. So, for example, I guess when I realised this problem with character and different characters, it was much easier for me to understand what Kodo Sawaki was trying to say, what Deshimaru was trying to say, and Nishijima and Suzuki and so on. Much, much easier. But it took quite a lot of time.

Mike: In Buddhist writings, they say the truth is transmitted from master to student, or person to person, in one line. And it's the transmission outside the scriptures. And this sounds very mysterious. But it means what Pavel said. Yeah, the same. But the way it's written in Buddhist writings sounds very... Don't you think so? So I'm trying to show you my character as clearly as possible.

Pavel: I think that, I didn't mention it in English, but I think there is a problem when you start studying, for example, that you try to copy. I tried to copy you. I wanted to be like you, your speech. You know, that's a problem. You try to copy.

Participant: Yeah, yeah, we do. Yeah. You can see this in a sangha, and I think for years, actually, I was parroting Mike because I was so convinced he was right. So I thought anything I said must be right too, which completely misses the point. You have to make it your own. It has to have its own energy.

Participant: It must be your own engine. And my version is even worse, because I only took Mike's weaknesses and thought, Mike is like that, I can be like that too.

Mike: Weakness. Weakness. Women are weak? Joke.

Participant: Yeah. Okay. No, I was partly serious, partly joking, actually. But of course I could see a lot of beautiful... For me, for example, I tend to simplify, and then I see it's not realistic. For example, I notice that I love or admire different people's characters. My students at school are beautiful characters and wonderful people, and I acted like that for a while until I found out they were not so beautiful. So I tended to... I think we cannot just kind of copy the teacher's beautiful sides and weak sides, because it will be different in our life. It doesn't work.

Mike: It's very nice to try it, because then you realise that you are this or you are not. Yes.

Participant: Yes, maybe not so clearly, but yes.

Mike: In Japan, yes. In Japan, the traditional method of learning arts and even sport is to copy. When you learn calligraphy, first you have your teacher's shape underneath, and you copy on top. When I was married to Yoko, my Japanese ex-wife, her son learned soccer at school. And for one year the students didn't have any ball. They just practised. And then they got the ball the next year. And lots of arts and crafts are copied like this. For instance, ceramics, pottery, is like this. So, from the point of view of artists in Europe, it's a very strange way to find your own voice.

[inaudible]

No, she did her own thing from the beginning. She doesn't like to copy anybody. Even when she came to retreat, she doesn't like to do this: No, I don't want to do that. That's also a problem, yes. To refuse to copy anybody is a problem. So to be flexible is better. Everything is balance.

Participant: But for example, in our relationship, or generally in a relationship between a teacher and a student, the problem is that what is obvious is your kind of being, your character. But what you are trying to transmit or say is something very subtle, which you can't see so easily. So, I mean, the student first of all tries to copy the character, and then maybe he finds that something subtle within. And find out whether it's working or not.

Participant: And this is a universal problem of student and teacher, because I studied philosophy some years ago, and for three years I studied Ludwig Wittgenstein, who had something like two stages in his teaching. He was very enigmatic, and from the first stage he had a lot of followers, and when he changed, when he started to think and teach differently, his students didn't follow him. So they created something like the Vienna Circle or something, and they continued teaching his previous philosophy, and he was saying, No, no, they are not teaching anything of what I am teaching. So I just wanted to say that it's always a common problem in the relation of teacher and student.

Participant: When I was teaching students to draw, I had a problem with my students: when they felt some success, that they had managed something, they held on to it and did not want to go further. They managed a portrait, they managed a figure at a certain stage, and that was enough for them. So we had several lessons when they stretched paper and drew only with water, so they could not have the results fixed. It would disappear. But then I had problems with the management, because there were no results.

Participant: Also, what helped me to understand that what we are trying to learn from our teacher in Buddhism is not copying someone's mentality or character: I read that Uchiyama Roshi, who was probably, maybe, a kind of soft character, asked his teacher, Kodo Sawaki, When will I be like you, that strong and independent? And Sawaki told him, You will never be like that, because I was like that even before I started to practise zazen. It's me. It has nothing to do with Buddhism. I don't think we have to change ourselves radically, but understand what we really are.

Participant: For instance, many, many, five, six, seven. But meditate as you can, and sit with other people. And then you can see clearly what you like and what you don't like.

Mike: I think that depends on character. It's the same with relationships. You can have lots and lots of relationships and then decide what kind you want. But some people just choose, and they stay happily. So these are very different situations. But for you, it's a good way.

Participant: If you start when you're young, you have time.

Mike: Yes.