Mike does not use Buddhism to solve his problems, and says zazen can become an escape rather than a refuge

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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 video recording.

This morning, I'm not sure what we're going to talk about. Roman asked me to talk about how Buddhism has helped me in difficult circumstances in my life. It's a very interesting question, but the answer may also be interesting. I don't think it's helped me at all, and I'll explain why. When I have a difficult circumstance, I forget all about Buddhism. I'm completely involved in the circumstances, and I have to deal with them from my own character. For instance, if I think of difficult circumstances, I can't remember any Buddhist part of them. I don't think about Buddhism or try to apply any Buddhist rule at all.

I lived in Japan for 25 years, and I noticed that Japanese people have Buddhist habits, but they're not aware of the fact. For instance, in Buddhism there is a precept: don't get angry. And in Japanese society, generally, people make a big effort to avoid getting angry. Of course, people get angry in Japan. But there is some shared understanding among the Japanese people that if we get angry, it's like releasing a poison into our blood. So it's very disturbing for the person who gets angry, during the time when they are angry and for some time after. So they avoid it. There is an agreement among people to avoid it, if they can. I suppose that comes from the Buddhist teachings, because until 1900, Buddhist teachings in Japan were very straightforward and simple. So society was very strongly influenced by these simple teachings.

Looking at the way that Japanese people have Buddhist habits or Buddhist behaviour without knowing about it, maybe I do. But I don't know whether I do or not. I guess I do. Certainly, I'm different now from when I was younger. But it's difficult for me to know how different. The difference is due to Buddhism? But I never make any attempt to use Buddhism to solve my problems. I remember maybe one time, maybe twenty years ago, Yoko and I had a big argument. I thought, I'll sit in zazen. That will solve the problem. So I sat in zazen, very sternly and angrily. But it didn't solve anything. I think she threw something at me. Because it was an escape. And I think we can use Buddhism, and I guess other things, to escape. We can use Buddhism and ideas of balance in zazen to escape from our lives, from our real problem. I think if you use zazen in that way, it's possible to notice that it's kind of escaping.

Of course, if you're angry and you feel disturbed afterward, if you sit in zazen, it might help you to calm down. But to sit in zazen angrily doesn't work.

My teacher, Nishijima Roshi, said many years ago, maybe thirty years ago, that all we need in our life is zazen. And if we practice zazen, it will solve all our problems. I was about 35, and I believed it. So I practiced zazen in that way. At that time I used to get very strong headaches, migraines, quite frequently. I remember sitting in zazen with migraines, hoping they would go away. But usually I would have to go to bed and stop. I also thought that Nishijima meant we can cure illness through zazen. So I thought if we practice zazen, we will never become ill. And then, in about 1985, Nishijima Roshi became very ill.

Interpreter: On 1985,

Mike: So I thought, oh, he's practicing zazen, but he became very ill. So it doesn't prevent you from becoming ill.

Interpreter: How old were you at the time?

Mike: Me? Yeah. Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight. Nishijima was about sixty. And his illness was due to very low white blood cell count, which was due to some medicine he had been taking for gout, an illness called gout. You know gout? No, no, no, no, no. The blood is forming crystals.

Participant: Ah, gout.

Interpreter: it's

Mike: It's very painful. Uric acid? Yeah, yeah.

Interpreter: Okay, okay. Well, translated, I didn't know translated.

Mike: Yeah. Oh, we will read.

Interpreter: the translation.

Mike: And the reason he had gout was that he was drinking too much when he was younger. So his illness when he was sixty was a side effect of the medicine he took to cure his illness when he was young. Then I began to think about what he said about zazen. And I realized that he didn't mean that if you practice zazen, you never ever become ill, that it had some kind of magical effect. But simply that if you practice zazen, you can keep healthy.

In my life, that's true. Practicing zazen has kept me healthy. Living in Tokyo, which is a very busy, crowded city, there is not so much chance to exercise or walk in the country. But practicing zazen every day, I think, seems to keep me fit. That's my experience. But whether practicing zazen solved my problems or not, I don't know. Maybe it brought out my problems from inside me, expressed my problems. I'd been teaching zazen in Bristol for nearly ten years when I met my present partner, Lisa. She's an artist, so she has a very different character and lifestyle from mine. In the first few years, we had a very difficult relationship because of different points of view.

One thing I realized and learned from her is that I was using zazen as an alternative to a fuller life. Can you understand?

Participant: No. No.

Interpreter: No.

Mike: She said that. No, I realized that. Is that too much? Do you want to say some example?

Interpreter: that is

Mike: Oh, sorry, sorry. Okay. There's some serious problem. Well, because I'd been teaching Buddhism in quite a simple form. It's difficult to explain. I based my life on a kind of routine. To some extent, I used that routine to escape from the possibility of

Participant: changing.

Mike: If you teach Buddhism and you practice Buddhism, you keep reinforcing to yourself what you're saying. When you give a talk, you reinforce it to yourself. So it can become kind of stiff. So I think I was doing that. But Lisa's life is more chaotic, which I wanted to refuse. Because my stiff, not stiff, not too strong, my customary life based on my teaching became a kind of coat or cover, protection.

So I realise that we can, and I have done, use Buddhism as an escape. I used zazen as an escape rather than a refuge. The difference between escape and refuge is a subtle one. So, to answer Roman's original question, how did Buddhism help me with my problem? I think my problems help me with Buddhism more.

I realise that the teachings of Buddhism don't belong to Buddhism. Very clearly. So groups who think they have some special teaching, or some special learning, some special position in society, some special moral advantage, I think that they are damaging Buddhism or damaging the truth.

I think with all kinds of teaching, there is a tendency to keep the teachings belonging to me or to my group. If a teacher does that, they can climb up to the top of the group. But if they stop keeping it, they might fall down. So there's a tendency for teachers to want to keep something. We are special, we have something special. So we're different, and so on. But I don't think... it's not true. It's quite damaging.

Interpreter: It's negative. But I think we are special. Anyway.

Mike: You are special.

Interpreter: No, no, no. I think Dogen Sangha as a group is quite special among some other Buddhist groups. It has some special advantages, I think so.

Mike: Okay. But the true we can see only between opposites.

Participant: That's true.

Mike: That's true. But the truths that Buddhist teachers have taught since ancient times appear everywhere. So Buddhist teachers are trying to point out the truths that are everywhere, not to teach a truth that nobody knows but to point out a truth that we all have. We have already. We always had. We always have. We always will have. That's my opinion.

Question: Could you give us an example of how you changed, or what happened when you met Lisa and you became more open?

Mike: Oh, I don't know, really. Well, when I was in Bristol in the early days, I'm sure Pavel remembers, I was more strict. I used to give more talks on Shobogenzo. I wouldn't say strict. I would say focused. But now I'm less focused.

Question: So did you change your lifestyle a little bit? Did you take up sea kayaking, or did you change your daily routine a little bit?

Mike: Of course, my daily routine changed, living with a different person. It's natural. But this is quite interesting, because I think relationships between couples, man and woman, or man and man, a woman and a woman.

Interpreter: or a woman and a woman.

Mike: Contain two elements, a male element and a female element. It doesn't mean that woman is all female and man is all male, but there are some characteristic female elements and characteristic male elements. Characteristic male elements are conservative, resistance to change, investment in power for self, and some of them. Female elements include sensitivity to others, no, skill to help others develop, relational skills. We have both. But in most relationships, there's polarity. Man doesn't understand that woman is trying to change him for his benefit. So he resists, he can't trust. I think that's, in my experience, a common situation. And for me too. So I suppose that process happened again for me. So now sometimes I do what I'm told. But sometimes, now I can see the wisdom in the female. I don't mean woman, I mean female. But the female wants to help you and to develop you.

Boris: Yeah. So? Think. Okay, if you want. It's like a black hole.

Mike: Black hole?

Boris: I think it's my feeling that you...

Mike: Yes.

Participant: Then you disappear totally.

Mike: Yes.

Participant: Okay. I think it's a way. I disappear. I disappear.

Mike: Yes, yes, yes. That's what you're afraid of.

Boris: Yes, yes, I know. But it's a way. It could be a way, okay? It could be a practice.

Mike: Yeah, sure. Okay.

Participant: But I want to say that I have the same experience with Kaisen that you told about Nishijima, that zazen helps with maybe every problem, should help, or also with health. That's the same teaching. Something should be in the Japanese thinking or thinking art of... Is he always like this? Well, because I met him, I told you a few days ago, and still he's keeping this idea. See, I see now very clearly the differences. It's so like a sun and moon. For you, for me it was like a moon and sun, maybe it's not so important, but okay. But I have the same experience that you have with Nishijima, and then you changed. And then you have gone another way.

Mike: However, I think I misunderstood. I think there is a custom in Japan for teachers to be strong. Deshimaru. Samurai. My teacher wasn't like that. But when he said something, it was very direct. So he would say, if you practice zazen, all your problems are solved. And I would understand exactly from his words, but he didn't mean it like that. He didn't live like that. So I think it was my misunderstanding. Mike Cross, another member of Dogen Sangha in Japan, who translated the Shobogenzo with Nishijima Roshi, also had the same misunderstanding. Nishijima Roshi used to say, sit straight and pull your chin in. And sit. So Mike Cross thought, I must sit straight, I must put my chin in, and if I do it a lot, I will be better. So he sat like this for some years, and of course it made him very tense. Then after some years, he came back to England and studied Alexander technique, and they told him, relax, let your body be natural. And he realised how tense and how idealistic his interpretation was. So my problem was I interpreted what Nishijima Roshi said

Participant: idealistically. Practice zazen and you have no illness. No problems, everything's fine. It's crazy. So I think it's a kind of process of studying Buddhism. I have one question. Nishijima Roshi's posture in zazen was straight. He was disciplined.

Mike: So he sat straight. But not rigid. And he always had the tendency to put his head on one side. Without knowing. But no, he didn't. He didn't sit like this. He wasn't like, for instance, Deshimaru. And Shunryu Suzuki is the opposite. He was a very soft man. So maybe Nishijima was between Suzuki and Deshimaru. And he is a man of his time, a Japanese man of his time. He was born in 1919. So he had the cultural habits of a Japanese man born in 1919. Although he used to say, men and women are equal. Master Dogen said, men and women are the same. And yet sometimes he had the Japanese habit of treating women like a servant. Not always. So we are people of our time.

Question (Slovak): May I ask something more about Mike and his experience with Buddhism. He spoke about how Buddhism does not help him with problems and...

Interpreter: Mike, you thought that Buddhism doesn't help you in your problems? And if you could tell us why you practice Buddhism?

Question (Slovak): Could you tell me why he actually devotes himself to Buddhism then? Because why are you Buddhists, and why not?

Mike: Oh, yes.

Interpreter: I couldn't question this.

Mike: Yes.

Interpreter: Say and we will put it on our website.

Question (Slovak): I want to take it as a demotivational video.

Mike: I don't say that Buddhism didn't help me with my problem. I don't know if it helped me, because when I'm involved in a problem, I don't think about Buddhism at all. But it may be there in me. Well, why do I continue with Buddhism? One reason is that I like practicing zazen. Zazen gives me a kind of base, base or ground. And it keeps me healthy. I believe the essential ideas. Cause and effect are absolute. The present time is only reality. I know that what the Buddhist precepts say is pretty well true. Although I don't make a strong effort to follow the precepts, I think over some years, the precepts follow me. So I guess I changed. So I keep doing it. But not as focused as, say, ten years ago.

Roman: Could it also be the opposite, without disagreeing with you? It makes perfect sense, what you're saying. My experience, because I used to be very bohemian, my life was very chaotic. I used to go to sleep at five, and I used to take drugs, and my life was a lot of mess. So in my experience, zazen helps me to return to some kind of order and some kind of simplicity. And do you admit that this could also be so for someone else because they have a different background, a different past? So zazen and Buddhism can help them to be more simple, to be more focused, and to be able to live a kind of decent life. So I feel it has helped me to have a less chaotic life, in my case. And my girlfriends would—it's funny, it's the opposite of what you said, Lisa's experience—my girlfriends would often say, It's high time you practice zazen. Go and practice zazen because you're too annoying. And after zazen they were—yeah, I was usually...

Mike: Can you translate?

Participant: I

Question (Czech): Could I say it myself?

Interpreter: No.

Roman (Czech): Well, that without wanting to disagree with Mike, because what Mike says makes perfect sense, but whether he could admit that it can also be the other way round for someone, that in my case I was a big bohemian and my life was chaotic, I went to sleep at five, I took drugs, and I actually had a big problem keeping at least the basic obligations in life. So I have a feeling that zazen, on the contrary, brings me back to a somewhat more normal life, and I am able to go to work and to fulfil almost all my obligations. So it is, as it were, from the other side again. And I also said that my girlfriends often told me: You can't be put up with any more, go and practice zazen.

Question (Czech): So it is funny that it is actually the other way round from what Mike said regarding his partner.

Mike: So what's the question?

Question: So do you admit it could be the other way too?

Mike: Yes, I'm telling you my experience. I didn't take drugs and be untidy. I've always been quite tight, the opposite.

Roman: Yeah. So two different people can come to something similar. You are more relaxed and I'm less messy.

Mike: If we think about it, you can say that. I think, don't you, that like any experience, if you undergo an experience, you learn from it. Something from it. And so when you do zazen, you'd learn something from it. So, in my case, for example, I don't shout at other drivers so much if I'm doing zazen regularly. But I think that's purely because of learning, as you do in zazen, to let interruptions pass. It's the same when I go to the dentist. Well, I see him coming at me with that drill. I remember my zazen experiences. And that helps me let the pain and the fright go away.

Participant: Oh, that's true. No, that's true. I do that too.

Mike: I think it teaches you, or I think you learn, through doing zazen, techniques to use.

Participant: Or the body learns.

Mike: Perhaps, yes, maybe.

Participant: The body

Mike: Okay, you can point it away from me now, please.

Question: Can I ask a question? I'm very sleepy during zazen. Is it bad? Is it good? What to do with it?

Mike: It's a fact. It's not good or bad, but if we're sleepy, usually there's a reason. So often if we're sleepy, we need to go to sleep. And even if we try to sit in zazen, if we need to sleep, we can't get rid of the sleepy feeling. So it may be better to sleep. On the other hand, sometimes we feel sleepy if we are pushing, pushing down some emotion. We can decide. You can decide whether to continue sitting with your sleepiness or to get up and have a sleep.

Participant: Because after zazen I'm so alive, suddenly.

Interpreter: He said that after zazen you don't want to sleep.

Participant: My experience.

Mike: Yes. Sometimes I become very, very sleepy when I sit. Almost like a drug. I don't know why. At home, some days if I get up and sit, I can't keep awake. I'm almost asleep. I don't know the reason, but I always have a nap.

But it's easier for me. I guess my life is not so busy. But I think if we have very stressful, busy lives and then we come to sesshin, it takes some time for our stress, busyness and tiredness to come out. In Japanese they say that tiredness comes out. Which is a nice expression. So if we take a break from a busy life, sometimes we express our tiredness with some small illness, a cold or headache. As we are relaxing slowly, tiredness comes out. But the simple answer is, if you're very, very, very sleepy. Have a sleep.

Interpreter: Thank you.

Mike: And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. I think that's very nice.

Participant: So I put it in the book.