One Real Teacher and Simplicity

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Our way of studying Buddhism is stupid. And our teacher, Nishijima, Gudo Nishijima, was stupid. Gudo means stupid. So his name was stupid.

Participant: Stupid way.

Mike: Stupid way. Gudo. And I agree with Gabriele, and I want to point out something very important. In modern life, we have many sources of information: many books, many programmes on the television and the internet, explaining how to live. There are many different kinds of therapies, psychological systems, beliefs. And there are so many that almost every week we could find a new system. And sometimes these systems are related to the other systems.

So, just like in a restaurant, we can have a big meal on all this information. As Gabriele said, à la carte meal.

Participant: À la carte.

Mike: À la carte. I think I have some of this, and I don't like that so much. I have some of this. I have some of this. I have some of this. And now I have my meal. I don't want to criticise this. Because there are many different explanations of life. And there may be truth in some of them. I doubt if there's truth in all of them. But Gabriele and I followed a completely different way. And this is the way we follow now. We learned Buddhism from our teacher, our master,

and we were brainwashed by his teaching. So although inside I felt sometimes, I don't like that. I don't believe that. That doesn't make sense. I listened to him for more than twenty years. And in the end, I accepted everything he said. This may be stupid. But for me, it works completely. This is the meaning of the Buddhist way. To find a teacher, a real person. Not a book or a theory.

An idea or any programme. To find the real person. And to learn everything they have. Not looking at good and bad, or like and dislike, but to take everything. And actually, this is the ancient apprenticeship system in all teaching. If you learned in medieval times to make baskets, or to build stairs, or to make roofs,

or to cultivate gardens, you would learn with one person who knew completely. And you would learn everything they had to teach you, good and bad, like and dislike, hard and easy, but continuing for many years. So, in a way, we are following a very ancient way of learning, which is completely different from the way that we can learn so many things in modern life. So it's quite a severe way. But if you continue to the end, you learn everything completely, without any doubt.

So I want to point out that difference. Many times, I'm sure Gabriele too, and me the same, we doubted. How can this little man know everything? I don't like him. He's got a strange character. He says one thing, he does another thing. But despite all those things, we learned what he taught completely. And to learn something completely is wonderful. I can see it in my partner, who is a potter. She is a master of pottery. She learned it completely, and it's wonderful to see. And there are many, many potters who make lots of small things, rubbish things

from their own ideas and their own feelings, but my partner, Lisa, makes herself. So, Gabriele and I learned from our teacher to be ourselves. And it took me a very long time. When I came back from Japan in 2000, I didn't know clearly. And then I started giving talks and holding sesshin. And in the last ten years, fourteen years, I realised the rest of it.

I put the polish on the wood. So there is no other way. Of course, there are many ways to live. And, for instance, you can live a valid life exactly how you want, maybe studying something here and practising something here and harmonising with your family life. And you can live a valid life.

So we can't say that the Buddhist way is the only way that human beings should live. If we said that, it's ridiculous. Because the number of people living the Buddhist way is very, very small. But I want to point out, this is the way that we live. Gabriele and I are very different in our lives. She lives alone and has spent many, many hours interpreting, translating Dogen's work. I don't live alone, I have a family.

And I have a daughter and grandson. And I get involved in my partner's work. And so, in that way, Gabriele and I have very different lives. But in another way, our lives are the same. Because we are living the same way, which is based on zazen, and intuition that comes from zazen, and the freedom from not being trapped in systems.

And the freedom that comes from seeing the real situation. So if you want to follow the Buddhist way, it doesn't mean you have to be a monk. It doesn't mean you have to withdraw from society and live on a mountainside. We can find the same way in both situations. So it's not about the things we do, but how we live. What is the basis of our life? I think it's very difficult in modern life to see this. If I stayed in England, I think it would be impossible for me to find this. But I went to Japan, for some reason.

And I found this way of living. And for many years I did not trust it. It feels insecure to rely on some kind of intuition and not to worry about the future. Really scary. But after many years, I'm not scared anymore. So it's a kind of, it's a brave way to live. It may not be for everybody, but this is what we are teaching. And sesshin is a concentrated few days to live in a quiet, settled way, not being disturbed by ideas,

not talking too much, leaving all those activities which cloud our mind. And finding the clarity that we may have had when we were children, original clarity. So that's the meaning of sesshin. It's not to meet together with friends and talk about Buddhism or other kinds of activities that may be useful. It's not about even making this place a nice place, clearing stones and cutting wood, although we can't exclude those things. That's not the purpose. So I should have said this at the beginning.

So it's too late, but I said it already at the end.

Participant: At the same time I was starting translating Shobogenzo. And frankly speaking, when I came back to Germany, I said to myself, okay, you have learned all this, but now you have to apply it in your life. And if it works, then I accept it. And if it's not working, I have to look to find something which can satisfy me. So after ten years, it wasn't really settled to the extent that it is now. It still needed another ten years and even more, to really make it what I have heard part of myself.

Participant: And it is true, I did pass through phases where I read many other books. I noticed that it gave me a lot of confusion. It was because I wasn't yet really, how would I say,

Participant: Ripe.

Participant: Ripe, yes. So it is really like that. Fortunately, I had the translation going on in Germany and going back to Japan always to check with Sensei. I kept in contact with my teacher all the time, and I could verify also with him all the time.

Participant: And the translation itself was somehow helping me going on even when doubting. So I think it's quite natural that we doubt. Now I have faith in zazen, and I find really that what our teacher Nishijima Roshi taught us is a good way to live. But it did take time, and I think that's the same for everybody. It has to sink in. Only then we can be satisfied. You know, there's a very good saying, but there's one word in English missing.

Participant: You say in German, ‘Knowledge, oder Wissen, ist ein Fass ohne Boden.’ Can you translate?

Robert: Yes, yes, yes.

Participant: Knowledge. Wissen. Wissen. And that includes all our, what is written in books and what we hear, what we kind of...

Mike: What is it in English?

Participant: Yeah, that's the problem. I don't know what a Fass ohne Boden is in English.

Participant: It's a pot without a bottom?

Participant: Yes, yes.

Mike: Bottomless pot.

Participant: Yes, bottomless pot.

Mike: Okay.

Participant: That's it. And I think that is so true. It's so true. A million lives are not sufficient to...

Mike: To get knowledge, information.

Participant: Yeah. Information. Knowledge. Without intuition, it's useless. It doesn't help you. You're just accumulating. It's a bank of information. It's a sad life if you go on like that. This is what I learned.

Participant: I noticed, as if Gabriele underlines what Mike is teaching by expressing herself. Although Mike and Gabriele are two different people, and that's what is beautiful about it, I notice they have something in common, clearly some kind of simplicity. So Gabriele being here helps me understand Mike better, or I can see your simplicity better because of Gabriele expressing it.

Participant: So I can notice you have your character, your mentality, your emotions, but that's not what you're teaching. Gabriele has her personality and likes and dislikes, but that simplicity that you both have is the same. And I think that's after I started to understand a little bit that this simplicity I should do in my life too. I can see it's sometimes very difficult because I can notice all Buddhist students, as if we are afraid to be simple. We want to know more and read another book. We are afraid to be simple.

Participant: Afraid. And I'm trying to learn this simplicity. So I always remember Mike: just what's the next step? Okay, so I have a problem in my life, but after all, what can I do? Only the next step. And it works.

Participant: You know, I'm also immature. I'm trying to learn from you, and I can see there is another person who comes and helps me to understand not more, but something more simple. So it helps me be more simple too. Like, you don't have to be that complicated. Just... and I enjoy that simplicity.

Participant: If I can apply it in my life, and if I can learn it from Mike or Gabriele or from Brad, I only met him once, and, you know, he writes about all kinds of things, and you may not like everything he writes, but I can always sense some kind of simplicity behind all that stuff that he has to write. Just he's not afraid to be simple and say, ‘Look, I don't know. I don't understand this shit.’ You know, he's not afraid. Just be simple. Or, like, stupid, but not badly stupid.

Participant: Stupid in a way like a child that is ready to enjoy whatever is happening now. I don't think Buddhism is complicated, but we are afraid to be simple. Very afraid, I think.

Mike: All the things we enjoy. But it doesn't mean that. It's not simplicity without any possessions. It's not the simplicity where we get rid of all our desires. It's just the simplicity of...

(laughter)

Mike: simplicity. Yes, so don't misunderstand. We're afraid. Oh, it's too severe. Oh, I can't. I wouldn't be able to have sex. I have to make my life very simple and severe. No, no. Not like that. I know Tibetan Buddhism concentrates on the mind, the workings of the mind,

in ancient psychology, and our line of Buddhism doesn't come from the mental aspect, but we found by experience that practice gives us mental simplicity. Not working on the mind to make the mind simple. Because actually, there's only the mind to work on the mind. So the complicated mind is making mind simple. So it's like standing on the carpet and pulling...

So our teaching says don't work on the mind. Of course, the mind is important. Work on the body mind: zazen, healthy eating, exercise, balance. They will give you a healthy mind. So don't worry about your mind. Then it will become healthy. So worrying about a healthy mind is unhealthy. At the same time, modern psychology is very effective. I trained as a psychotherapist in the 1970s before I went to Japan. And I practised as a therapist for seven or eight years.

Working in a crisis centre, for people who wanted to kill themselves, and also with students at college who had problems. But when I met Nishijima Roshi's teachings, I didn't need that viewpoint. But then recently I found that psychotherapy is very useful. And actually, I attended a psychotherapist for nearly two years

to help me find an answer to getting angry. And that was very helpful. But it didn't interfere with my Buddhist life. I went to see a therapist every week and talked about my past and my childhood and the kind of triggers in my character

that make me angry, and where they started. So that is all very useful understanding of myself. But I didn't feel anything to do with Buddhism. So my way of living, Buddhist way of living, and psychotherapy are completely different to me. Somehow my Buddhist life doesn't matter about psychological problems. More simple than psychological problems. So I looked at psychological problems on a different level. And I found psychotherapy is very helpful

from both sides, as a therapist in the past and using therapy in recent times. So there's no need to, if you live a Buddhist life, there's no need to deny the value of understanding ourselves. So, we don't need to be afraid to be simple. It's a bit scary

because it's insecure, but you get used to it. Modern times became twisted. Why shouldn't it take twenty years? Our life experience teaches us there are excellent people who can understand or realise what life is when they're young. But not me. So I think most people, we take ten or twenty years to understand our life. Why should it be shorter?

Participant: This is modern ideology, that everything has to go fast.

Question: I was more interested in, what did you feel was the biggest obstacle for you?

Mike: Myself. I think it's a question of throwing things away. So it's very difficult to throw things away.

Robert: Yeah, just look at our lives here.

Mike: Ideas have a piece of elastic. Throw them away. No. I had lots of elastic.

Participant: I confirm.

Mike: So, throwing things away doesn't mean throwing the possessions away. Something, throwing away something, dropping off something, again and again.

Question: Do you think that moving to a foreign country like Japan, a very different culture, helps you in a big way in throwing things away?

Mike: But everybody can't move to Japan. Throw away our point of view: this is what I had to do. So for four or five years in Japan, I had a terrible time to throw away my point of view. And still it comes back sometimes.

Question: Can I ask you about simplicity? I think about what you said and what the word means, and I want to ask about my experience with people, simple, like when you say simple people, I think about my grandma and... They live in the village and they work in the field and things like this. And it's very easy to make them ideal, that they are really kind people. But in fact, I see that, because the only thing that my grandma, for example, studied, or not studied, but believed in, is Christianity, the Catholic Church, and the traditions that are in the village, that, you know, these people are very sensitive to what others think about them. And also another example of the only thing that you may study as ideology, as you said about the Buddhists: I thought about the Islamic extremists, yes, you know. That the only thing that they see and they hear, and the only source of information, is some guy that's telling them that if you die for Allah, you will go to heaven. And there's 72 virgins on chains for you. So that's something I imagine, a simple person, but you can see this is not so good.

Mike: Yeah, the same kind as that.

Participant: Yes.

Mike: But if you believe, when Europe was a very strong Christian society, everybody knew what to believe. How to behave. Most people. So they could be fairly simple. But we lost our faith in the modern world. So we don't have anything to believe. So it's very difficult to be simple. So Buddhism says believe in reality. Don't believe in something spiritual or something material. Believe in this world, this life. So then, if you believe in something, you can become more simple.

But it's important what you believe in. So, similar to terrorists. But different belief. So it's impossible to die for this world. They can die for their belief, because they have another world. But how can you die for this world when you come to this world?

Participant: So I think it's a paradox because Buddhist simplicity is not being narrow-minded,

Participant: But why narrow-minded?

Participant: not being narrow-minded, not blind simplicity.

Mike: But to be simple, more like a child, before somebody manipulates the child. So I think I also had a similar great-grandmother who I heard stories about. How simple she was.

Participant: And she only, as far as I know, only worried about her family being happy, and to go to church, and to work hard. So I think there is this Buddha in each of us: this simple, sincere, caring way of life is Buddha. But then if somebody says, ‘Well, you have to do this, this is the right thing, and we have to kill those people because they are wrong’, it's not simplicity anymore, it's being manipulated.

Participant: And we don't want to be crazy Buddhists like, ‘I only believe Mike, and I will do anything Mike tells me to do.’ That's not what Mike wants us to do.

Robert: But Mike said at the beginning that we should take a teacher and learn everything from him, bad and good. So we can try to go something different, like you said now.

Mike: Yeah, find a teacher and learn everything from them, but it doesn't mean you have to like them or do what they say.

Participant: I used to criticise Nishijima Roshi a lot. We had real, you know, fights. I didn't accept everything he was saying, the whole ten years I was there. And even when I came to Japan, the last time I saw him, something like four years ago, it was the biggest fight we had. You know what I told him? I said, ‘You're not a Buddhist.’ Remember, Mike? This was only between us. But nevertheless, I know his teachings are what I can accept, but there were many sides of his character to criticise. The way he treated women. These are cultural differences I didn't accept. It was not about me because he never treated me badly, but—

Mike: He's afraid of you.

(laughter)

Participant: But how he treated a Japanese woman who was living in the dojo. So there were some of the aspects of his character I really detested. But that never interfered in our relation concerning the Shobogenzo translation or his Buddhist teachings. So that's very important to understand. You don't need to love your teacher, you know. You can criticise. And that's what we did, sometimes.

Mike: Anyway, it's important to see the difference between the way that we learn normally in the modern world and kind of very unusual traditional apprenticeship systems that the world is forgetting about.