Two Things, and the Rest Is Fashion

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Today, this morning, I wanted to talk about Dogen Sangha. One reason is that for almost a year I took a sabbatical. It means a one-year holiday. But I came to Bratislava and had a one-day retreat. And I went to London last weekend to Andrew's group, and we had a one-day retreat. And I think that's all. I didn't give any talks or any retreats. One reason was my new hip, which is very successful. But I couldn't practise zazen for maybe two months.

For one month I couldn't sit at all. And then the second month, I couldn't sit with my legs like this. So I sat in seiza with my legs like this. And while I was sitting the second month in seiza, I thought maybe I can't sit in zazen again. So I was a bit worried. But something happened and I can sit like this now. While I was taking a sabbatical and not practising zazen, I was thinking about our groups. And also thinking about the history of Dogen Sangha. Many years in Japan. And my teacher, Nishijima Roshi. He is still alive, and he's 93.

He cannot communicate with anybody. He is completely senile. He had a very excellent brain all his life. And then about seven or eight years ago, his brain shut down. So he doesn't communicate with any of his students. I was thinking about the situation. In 1979, he said to me and to two other people that he wanted to make a new Buddhist order. He was a monk in the Soto Shu in Japan, but he didn't like the Soto Shu. His teacher, his master, was head of the Soto Shu. His name was Rempo Niwa. And although Nishijima didn't like the Soto Shu, Rempo Niwa liked Nishijima a lot. A kind of rebel. Nishijima was a rebel.

So he always wanted to do something different from formal Buddhism. He created Dogen Sangha with me and Jeff Bailey and Larry Zaki and Mike Cross. And since that time, many, many things have happened. Jeff Bailey and Larry Zaki are not practising Buddhism. Mike Cross is practising Buddhism, and I am practising Buddhism.

But many other students studied with Nishijima after we left, including Brad Warner in the States, who became rather famous. All of those people who studied with Nishijima, living with him for some years, have the same attitude. We wanted to do something different from formal Buddhism, to start something new, something different. And if you read the books written by Brad Warner, you can see he's very different. There are also some students of Nishijima who created some big groups and temples in France. That may be very nice for them, but to me it's not the same mission. All of the people who studied with Nishijima wanted to teach something different based on the teachings of Dogen. And that's why I came to England and then came to the Czech Republic. But when I came back from Japan to England, I had many Japanese traditions, so it was natural for me to do these traditions. For instance, chanting and bowing, and walking in the dojo in this direction, and many simple traditions which we adhere to.

And last September, when I decided to take a sabbatical, at the retreat in England at Earth Spirit, I said to the people who were there, I'm going to stop teaching for some time, and I hope you find out what Buddhism is. And then I said some things like, when we're chanting for a meal, we are chanting about Japanese bowls, but we don't have any Japanese bowls. And we're chanting in Japanese, so nobody understands. Things like that. And some people thought I was being critical, and they were a little upset. But I didn't mean to be critical.

I meant for people to find for themselves what is important. In the West, in Europe especially, Zen has become a kind of acting or theatre.

Boris: Fashion.

Mike: Fashion, okay, fashion, yeah. So I wanted people to take away the fashion and find out what is left. Also for me, I wanted to find out what is left if I stop teaching. So I'd like to tell you what is left. Two things. One thing is, Buddhism is a terrible word. If we can get rid of it, it would be much easier. It has become symbolic for some special kind of religion. But in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, it's easy to remember the word bud. You have the verb. And that's the meaning of bud. Wake up. That's it. And we have two ways which are important. One is we practise zazen, which is waking up and then sleeping. And when we wake up, we notice, ah, I was sleeping, or I was thinking. So we notice, life is not thinking. Life is very simple and severe. So, practising zazen, we see the nature of living, sometimes. If our life is very busy, we see maybe 10%. We wake up. Ninety percent we're thinking. We don't see the room. We don't see the wall. We don't see anything. But when we do wake up in zazen, we notice, oh, I'm here.

You can say. Yes, in Sanskrit. It's like a— Sanskrit. From Sanskrit, yes. Your grammar is the same as Sanskrit grammar. So this is one thing, to notice, to wake up, and to notice what sleeping is. Not to say it's terrible, we have to stop. But to notice what it is. So, noticing what thinking is, and noticing what being is, we can see clearly the difference.

And the second important thing is some kind of way to understand. So we have Buddhist theory. And Buddhist theory is huge. Millions of books are written. But actually, we only need a theory with which we can understand life. So we need to think, or listen to other people explaining, and we need to evaluate and decide. Hmm, I don't believe this. Hmm, maybe that's correct. And to challenge. Otherwise, we can never find what kind of explanation we can believe. Can we believe an explanation which says we are dying and then coming back to another life, and then we are getting a bit better, and then we're dying and then coming back? Can we believe some explanation that we must be very kind to everybody? Does it work in our life? And this process of finding some kind of explanation which we can believe continues forever. It doesn't stop. So we always need to think about how I can understand my life, how I can understand my partner, how I can understand my work, how I can understand everything.

So, two things. One is practising waking up. The second is understanding life. That's it. Everything else is fashion. This is my feeling. So it's fashion, it's noise. So we don't have to throw away fashion. But we don't have to hold on to fashion. So it may be nice to wear a black koromo. Or a blue koromo. Or a red koromo. Blue, cherry, red koromo. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what we wear to practise zazen. But we like to wear something nice, or something comfortable. And it's nice to chant before eating, because it has some kind of making a group. But it's only minor.

So, coming back to the original, I think Nishijima wanted to create Dogen Sangha based on these two things only. And so he was a rebel, because other Soto people said, Oh, he doesn't know what to do properly. He doesn't know how to hold incense. And so on. And Nishijima loved fashion. He was an old Japanese monk. So he dressed in a black suit every day for work. And a tie. Shirt. Very smart. But in Buddhist activities, he liked to wear a koromo and sometimes a hat, which looked very funny. It gave him freedom. So he wore it even in Tokyo. And looking back, I think his attitude is very nice. He was born before the Second World War, and he grew up in Japanese society. And so he was part of Japanese society.

So, for instance, although he spoke very loudly that men and women are equal, he couldn't make them equal in his life. His wife looked after him and cooked and cleaned and everything, and brought up the children. So he found it difficult actually to let men and women be equal. And when I was living in Japan, I thought, oh, he's a hypocrite. But now I realise he wasn't a hypocrite. He was just a person of his time. And I'm the same. So I talk about being in the moment and waking up. But I remember last year here, most of the time I was worrying in my head about my relationship, because that was my problem. So we are all people of our time. But although we're people of our time, we can say what we believe, even though we can't do it. So I'm hoping to give you a picture of a small group which Nishijima started in Tokyo in 1979, and which has now spread in a very rough way, not so sophisticated, to different places. And we are one of those.

And one important thing Nishijima said is, don't try to build a group. But don't resist a group if it's building. So, in other words, let something happen naturally. Don't create a big organisation. But for people who like to practise zazen, coming together is very happy. So we can say, I remember Pavel said last year, Dogen Sangha appears when we have a meeting or a session. Then it disappears. And it's the same in England. In England, there's a group of people in London, and they meet every week, Wednesday evening. Then Dogen Sangha is there. Then it stops, and they're gone. There's no Dogen Sangha. There's no office. There's no officers. There's no uniform.

This is actually what I like. And as I said before, I don't like hierarchy. Nishijima didn't like hierarchy. But he was always at the top. We put him at the top. And for instance, his Japanese students put him at the top because it's part of their culture. So they called him sensei. Sensei. Ah, sensei. So I lift you up, I go down. Because of that, they couldn't talk to him person to person. So they would talk to him like, Oh, sensei, I'll ask you a question. Is it okay? Please, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. This is Japanese culture. And it's not necessary. And actually, it's not productive, because unless you relate to somebody person to person, you can't know who they are. So, although I created the Dogen Sangha group in England and then it spread here, I'm always trying to escape from being at the top.

The way Dogen Sangha is developing here and in England, especially in the last year when I am not doing anything, has made me very happy. You had a session at Padma Farm, you know this session, and then Vincent and Boris organised one day in Bratislava, and you're having sittings in the Lotus Centre, and sitting in your flat, as you like, when you like. If you don't like, it doesn't matter. And the same is in England. So this, to me, is a nice way to do things. To summarise, I think what we are doing in a very rough and non-formal way is what Nishijima wanted. So that's it. That's what I wanted to say. Do you have some questions? So please talk if you want to say, or ask, or keep quiet.

Participant: Could you please elaborate on the second point, understanding life, and

Mike: Yes.

Participant: how to avoid going back to thinking too much when we want to understand it?

Mike: Yes. It's very difficult in the modern world to avoid thinking too much. We have a very idealistic society. Greek philosophy and Christianity are based on thinking and the spiritual area. But slowly, over hundreds of years, society became more physical, practical, with science and technology, and medicine, and so on. And then in recent times, a solution to the problem of thinking came on its own. First of all, football became very popular in many countries. And then people are building. They establish spas and exercising. People have more free time, so they are doing many different activities. Kayaking. Dancing. And then human beings thought, Oh, these activities make me stop thinking and make me feel happy. So when they come from the office or from their work with a lot of tension and a very busy mind, swimming. And this brings them back from the mental area to a more simple area.

And it became so popular that we celebrate it in a huge event like the Olympics. So although the Olympics are celebrating medals, they are also celebrating a human ability to be balanced, and less intellectual, or not so much in the head. So I think the answer is physical activity. Stop just thinking so much. And zazen is a kind of physical activity. So it's kind of the simplest sport. And we can do zazen, which is very simple. It doesn't matter if it's raining or hot or cold. And we can also do other physical activities to balance our very intellectual society, where we're always thinking. This is my idea.

Participant: Thank you. Well, I shall dance. And it relates to the way we understand life, how we learn about what life is, these activities. Can they help us to understand what life is?

Mike: Yes. Indeed. Yes, because when we practise, for instance, sport, we notice that we can move without consciously thinking. So, for instance, if you're playing tennis, you can notice that you are not thinking, I have to hit the ball here, now I have to hit the ball here. So our action is intelligent without logical thinking. And if we do a lot of sport, we can learn to trust our intelligent action. So, you know, or other activities, we learn immediate action, which is intelligent. So then we learn there is a different area where we can do things without logical thinking. So this helps us understand life.

Roman: I noticed when I was travelling in France that when I stopped thinking, well, I went to France with a couple of friends of mine, and they decided that we would sleep outside, under the open sky. I am only forty-five, and I did this when I was eighteen, so I said to myself, this is completely crazy, but if they find something, I will lie down there too. And I realised if I thought about it, it was crazy, and I had no idea where to sleep. But when I didn't think about it and just tried to find the best spot, driving in the car, looking for the hill and the path and the right place where there are not many stones, we always found a way to sleep. And in the morning I realised I didn't have to worry about it, because we just acted. We just kept looking, and then we found the spot, and we slept even with the mosquitoes, and it worked. If I had thought about it, I would never have done it in my life. So it was a kind of simple actions without thinking too much and making them free.

Mike: But we can't live like that alone. But I'd like to talk more about it. And Robert found a very nice book about this subject. If you ask him, I'm sure he'll tell you. Sounds very interesting. But we can learn the value of intelligent action from sport, for example, but also from cooking, or from painting, or from many other activities. So then we can start to understand life is not only here. Because I'm so tired here. I want a break. Oh, it's okay, you have a break then.

Boris: I would like to ask about the word “severe.” You meditators use this word,

Mike: Yes, I do.

Boris: but I think it's always just labelling only. If you put on life the word “severe”…

Boris: Yeah, it's interesting. When you told me life is severe, it's not really cruel what you mean. It's more like... Life is severe. Can you define the word? What does “severe” mean exactly?

Mike: But then it sounds like, cruel.

Boris: Cruel, cruel. You see, you actually didn't mean cruel. Life doesn't care.

Mike: No. No. No. Even if you want something very much, life doesn't care that you want it. Even if you don't want something very much, life doesn't care that you don't want it. Life has its rules. So I say severe.

Boris: I know quite a lot of people who believe that when they ask life, when they believe, then life will always give them. Sometimes a cruel lesson, but it always gives.

Mike: Yeah, maybe. It's nice. We can have many attitudes towards life. It's only an attitude. We can say everything is great. Oh, I cut my arm. Oh, that's good, because now I have a holiday. It's an attitude. So it can slip and fall over. Maybe nice. And each person is a bit different. Some people a bit pessimistic, some people a bit optimistic. And some wobbling.

Boris: Oh, it's a retreat. I have to get up and practise zazen. So today maybe like that? Tomorrow maybe, ah, nice. Or zazen this morning, maybe.

Mike: Zazen this afternoon, maybe.

Participant: So you are talking about, I think, the awake and sleep.

Mike: Yeah.

Participant: And I think there is a third, what you call it, way. It's awake, sleep, and dream about something. And I don't know. In my experience, dreaming is always very valuable, because I think all my work is about dreams. It's not real things, but what I saw. And I think one way to be whole, or it's maybe art, it's maybe film, because it's, I don't know, if you want something painting, or I very like the opera. It's just pure feeling, and I feel it's without me. It's no mind, nobody, it's just pure feeling. So maybe it's a way too. I don't know. But for me it's very valuable to have these two extremes: dreaming and waking. So we are very, very deep in sleep and very, very deep awake. But I think I can't live without one.

Mike: That's great for you now. But if you have three children, you have no time to dream. You have to be awake.

Boris: I think it's a good thing.

Mike: So life is different, a different time and a different person.

Boris: Even if you don't have three children, just when the landlord comes and wants the money, the monthly payment.

Boris: Yes. But dreaming is important. You dream of a very deep love, or you dream of very good food.

Participant: And isn't it perhaps your great goal? It's a bit... I think people need to dream. Dreaming is like alcohol, and people need it.

Roman: Can I ask you, like you said, there are different little groups evolving and you are happy about it. And I noticed that when you were organising the retreat in October next time in Wales—

Mike: Not me.

Roman: the other people are organising. And I noticed that although you encourage people and you don't want to teach, or you want to take a sabbatical, they still want— almost everyone said, I only want Mike to give talks, and I'm not going to hear anybody else's talk because it would be disturbing. So what is your opinion of that?

Mike: It's like in a family. When you're a child, you think your father and mother are perfect. They know everything. So you ask them, Oh, mummy, what's this? When? Why this? Why? Why that? What should I do? What should I do here? What should I do there? But then as we get older, we realise, oh, they're only my parents. Then we make our own decisions. Sometimes somebody's going to say, Oh, we don't need to listen to Mike.

Participant: She just tells you that you don't have to listen to Mike.

Participant: In the Czech Republic now it is quite popular in some groups, the dream of there being no need to eat physical food.

Roman: Can we get the food? They don't want.

Boris: Just get a publicity.

Mike: They need to go to a poor country where people are starving, and they can teach them. They can teach them— it means the poor people can teach those people. The starving people could teach them.

Roman: Karim says that, right after you talk, people maybe expect you to talk always. And he noticed it was nice at Padma Farm without you. It was nice to hear other people talk, and that he didn't expect some absolute truth from these people, but he noticed that even among common people there is some wisdom.

Participant: Yes. Yes. Wisdom of the crowds. This is the modern crowd.

Participant: Yeah, like you said, the modern wisdom of the crowd.

Mike: No, I think I spent many years in Japan, and I was working in a job, but in my other time I was studying Dogen and Buddhism. So I made some structure in my brain to talk, to explain things. And I found it's nice if I can explain something, I make myself happy. So it's just my character.

Roman: And I also think that the talks at Padma Farm just reflect what we learned from you a lot. It wasn't just...

Mike: Learn from me? I learned it from you. No, really, we learn life from life, not from a person, but from life. So I'm just good at making words to explain, because I like doing it. So I explain what you know. If I explain what you know, you think, ah, yes, yes. Finished. Good.