UnMind 68. Matsuoka on Hakuin Duet 1 — Atlanta Soto Zen Center

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Sitting Zen takes time —
but time is all that you have.
Please spend it wisely.

Following on the last segment — my commentary on Hakuin Zenji’s “Song of Zazen” — we will look at my teacher’s comments on the same poem. This is excerpted from the first of Matsuoka Roshi’s collected talks in two volumes, The Kyosaku, a 400-page collection of 78 written talks on wide-ranging subjects that he had put together himself, from the early- to mid-1960s, a quite prolific period for his writing, ending about the time I met him. The second is a smaller volume of later talks. “Mokurai,” a 150-page set of 26 additional talks from the 1960s, 70s and 80s, that we collected later. We were unsuccessful at publishing these during his lifetime, unfortunately, when we did not have the digital equipment that finally made it possible. Both volumes are available on our websites.

Matsuoka Roshi’s commentary on the Song of Zazen, or Zazen Wasan, begins:

In Hakuin’s The Song of Meditation, there is a verse which is much worth reading and reflecting upon. It goes:
By the merit of a single sitting
He destroys innumerable accumulated sins.
How should there be wrong paths for him?
The Pure Land paradise is not far away.

For a quick comparison, let’s look at the translation that we used in my commentary:

Thus one true Samadhi extinguishes evils.
It purifies karma, dissolving obstructions.
Then where are the dark paths to lead us astray?
The Pure Lotus Land is not far away.

A substantial difference in the first line, distinguishing between the “merit of a single sitting” and “one true Samadhi,” claiming that one sitting can do the trick, versus the idea that the Samadhi of zazen is the one and only true kind. The following three lines are essentially the same, with the notable exception of the use of “sin” in Sensei’s version, which is an unusual choice in terms of Buddhism in general. The role of “sin” in Zen is replaced by that of ignorance. We are not born into sin, but into natural ignorance. Let’s pluck a few nuggets from Sensei’s commentary:

Hakuin is telling us that after just one sitting, our lives could be erased of the wrong paths that lead us away from enlightenment and instead, the life of the Buddha could be ours.
“How can this be?” you ask. If you ask this question, you have not yet fully understood that you are living in the world of enlightenment and you have not yet truly meditated. If you understand this verse, you have already become wise about the true nature of all things and your meditation has become a part of your life.
Hakuin wants to teach us the value of meditation, and the nearness of the world of Enlightenment. He tells us: “The Pure Land paradise is not far away” and asks how a man who has truly meditated could take the wrong path. He is telling us that such a man has discovered the wisdom that leads him only along the right road and that for him, sin does not exist.
Yet we must be careful in speaking of “sin” to avoid thinking of it in the Christian sense. “Sin” in Zen is not something by which a man will be judged at the end of his life, but instead is the thoughts, words and deeds which have been performed in error of the “right way”. They can have their effect any moment of one’s life. Their effect is to keep a man in the world of ignorance and to cause him, or others, suffering. The sins in Zen might better be called “errors” that can be erased with the wisdom of the truth.

Sensei reliably clears up the confusion regarding sin in Zen. He probably translated this poem from the ancient Japanese himself, as he did with his many quotes from Master Dogen featured in his talks. The main point here is that zazen is a kind of purification process, like smelting gold, an analogy from Buddha himself.

He then turns to the non-duality of samsara and nirvana, everyday life and liberation:

This verse of Hakuin instructs us about both the world of enlightenment and the world of ignorance. It cannot separate the two, because in reality, they are one. The world of ignorance is this world when we have not become wise to its true nature, and the world of enlightenment is this world when we have attained this wisdom.
The wisdom of the Buddha-nature that comes from meditation not only erases the errors of the past, but shows us the right way to think in the present. The future should not be our concern because it does not really exist; all that we can be aware of is the present moment. The future is a hope that the present moment will continue to be in our awareness and it is a dream about what it might contain. When your meditation is so sincere and deep that the wisdom of the true nature of things comes to you, your wrong ways of thinking will no longer exist and no thought will be given to either future or past. You will have found the world of Enlightenment in this world of illusion.

So the key to the world of Enlightenment — note the capitalization — is the sincerity and depth of our meditation, in which case it does not really take any great investment of time and repetition:

All this can happen in one sitting; it has been said to you many times before that one session of meditation is one session of the Buddha, whether it be one, five, or sixty minutes. One day of meditation is one day of being a Buddha. But, it is more likely that it will take more than one moment of meditation to fully realize the truth.

Aha — we knew there was a “however” coming. Note that Sensei is talking to the same audience that he has addressed many times before, which is a characteristic of all these teachings. They bear repetition, and the ancestors are perfectly happy to repeat them over and over until they sink in. His main point he expressed elsewhere as “Five minutes zazen, five minutes Buddha.” There is lag time in manifesting Buddhahood when one is sitting in zazen. No waiting for future results. But, again the but, it is not likely that you will have instant gratification. In this, Zen is very un-American. Continuing:

Perseverance in meditation and the Eightfold Path will reveal it to you. The Eightfold Path contains the “Right “ way to think and behave. We must not make the mistake of thinking that the right way is merely the right way of behaving. Although we may restrain ourselves from a deed, that by no way means that we are free from the error that has tempted us to perform it. The root of erroneous deeds is in erroneous thought. Zen Buddhism is a way of correcting these thoughts, so that the world of Enlightenment will become apparent to us.
In Zen, it is important that we meditate to become aware of the errors of our ways and then repent. Heartfelt repentance is a good sign that we are truly wise and that our ways will change. Our habits will not change until both our minds and emotions have been aroused.

Perseverance pays, balanced with faith and doubt, the “Three Pillars” that Kapleau Roshi expounded so eloquently. However, the Three Actions are not limited to those of the body, but include those of the mouth and mind. Intemperate or false speech, plus erroneous or craving thinking. Lusting in the heart apparently counts in all systems of spiritual praxis. Of course, it should be said that the only way we can correct these thoughts, usually, is by living with the consequences. We observe the Precepts by breaking them. The hope is that nirvana will come shining through, if only we persevere.

If we think the small errors we commit are insignificant, we will never become truly enlightened. Zen is a way that encompasses each moment and every movement, and every thought. If we fail to take the smallest thought, the slightest deed, the briefest second into its spirit, we will go on to find more thoughts, deeds and time in that which is not Zen in our lives. There is a poem that says the same thing. It goes:
In the evening, If it were rain we should seek shelter,
But thinking: ‘It is only mist,’
We go on and become drenched.
We must realize that our lives are in the evening. We have only this moment in which to become enlightened. The night of death might come at any second. If there is error in our life, we cannot think it too small to be corrected, as we might think the mist too slight to be noticed. If we go on in these errors, we will travel farther from the truth and never find it.

On this cautionary note we will leave this first half of Sensei’s commentary, and continue in the next segment. I remember his saying this same thing in a more condensed form, “Be careful of that one little thing that you allow yourself.” In our practice we can have a subtle feeling of pride or arrogance, or maybe something even more subliminal, i.e. that owing to doing meditation and our other seemingly compassionate activities around Zen, we are gaining some sort of merit, mitigating our negative karmic consequences, and perhaps even approaching Buddha’s awakening. In this context it is easy for us to forgive ourselves some small imperfections. And besides, Buddhism teaches imperfection as one of the cardinal marks of existence, along with impermanence and insubstantiality. So we should not be too strict with ourselves.

This, my teacher warned, is what will get you in the end. Life is short, and by the time we have become immersed in Zen practice, we are likely in the twilight of our lives, so we are running out of time. Like the “Monk in the Fourth Dhyana,” we may be deluding ourselves and expecting to enter Tusita heaven on our death bed. If we are disappointed, the blame is not on Zen. It is on us.