Tosui's broken bowl, ours too.

There is a great poem written by Tosui and reported by Menzan Zuiho in his "Story of master Tosui" (Letting go, the story of Zen Master Tosui, University of Hawai press)After many years of Zen study, Tosui gave up the religious institutions, temples and monasteries to live with the poor, begging his food and living under bridges. People could hardly find him, he disappeared into the towns and cities of Japan. He became a loner, drifting in the fleeting world of clouds and busy cities, the kind of guy Jack Kerouac would have loved.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ ... 216dr.html

The poem goes like this in the translation of P. Haskel:

That is what my life is like
This is what it's like,
broad and free
A worn-out robe, a broken bowl
how peaceful and calm!
When hungry, I eat, when thirsty, I drink
That's all I know
I've got nothing to do with the world's "right and wrong"

You certainly know it. Fabulous stuff. I've heard it countless times and everytime, it sounds different. Like clear and refreshing water. Typical uncomplicated direction of the good old and new ancestors. In fact, that's what my whole life points at, that's what my eyes are made of and long to see, that what my clumsy hands trace in the mudra-seal of sitting and so on and so on. That is also what I spend my time resisting, repairing my bowl, filling it up with notions and potions, ignoring the good old kesa of the whole thing that covers every corner of this. Funny, isn'it? Sometimes, very sad. When i read these lines, I just don't read something that has got to do with the romantic picture of an unsui, a homeless monk floating like cloud or water in medieval Japan, I see a provocative statement challenging people like me, now, here.When I allow myself to stop trying to be right and avoiding being wrong, what is left? Who is left? When I give evrything a rest including the good old me-mine, what then shines in the empty treasure-room?

The simlicity of this doesn't need to be romanticaly achieved in homeless life style, we certainly don't need to live in 17th century Japan or anything special. Our cereal bowl, coffee cup, glass of water, plate of noodles, sometimes pint of beer are ...the broken bowl. Let's put it another way: we, as broken bowls, imperfect as we are, exhausted and sometimes sooooo pissed, we are given this wonder of celebrating the life we have. We can stop trying to be somebody else, dream to have another life, and do one thing at a time, beyond the idea: I am right, I am wrong.

another poem of Ryokan in the same vein:

Spring......slowly the peaceful sound
Of a priest's staff drifts from the village.
In the garden, green willows;
Water plants float serenely in the pond.
My bowl is fragrant from the rice of a thousand homes;
My heart has renounced the sovereignty of riches and
worldly fame.
Quietly cherishing the memory of the ancient Buddhas,
I walk to the village for another day of begging.

Tosui and Ryokan loved their broken bowls. The bowl, or Patra ( hatsu-u) is revered as the body of tathagata ( have a look at the 78 chapter of Shobogenzo: Hatsu-u )http://www.numatacenter.com/digital/dBET_T2582_Shobogenzo4_2008.pdf
The bowl represent also what we receive from the world . And yes we are all broken. So what? Because we are broken we can practice, we can sit. Chogyam Trungpa used to say that the greatest present a teacher might give his student is a broken heart. Indeed, bunch of happy-merry-sitting broken bowls!!!

Wonderful! Thank you very much!
very much a taunt to follow right from where we are.

Gassho

Wonderful commentary, Taigu- prompts me to ask a question I was going to start a new thread for, but these poems are a better introduction to the idea I think... My question:

Although ethical discipline and physical discipline can be pursued separately, will the former proceed more fully in the footsteps of the latter?

gassho,
tobi-ishi (in transition from tobi-ah)

Thanks Taigu. I was not familiar with that poem before, but the words are truly inspiring.

Thank you StephanCOH and Dirk,

Tobiah, the wording of your question assumes that ethical and physical discipline can be pursued separately. It is true, from the point of view of most people. In our school, and in my limited experience, kai, the precepts, jo, practice and e, wisdom, all three form a perfect triangle. Sitting is following precepts and displaying wisdom. They don't work in separate ways. You see, Buddhas are not found as a result of an action, they are the action itself. As you sit Buddha, you are Buddha. This is the end of Shoji, life-death, a great chapter of Shobogenzo?[97], it says:

Quote:

---

There is a very easy way to become buddha. Not committing wrongs;
being without attachment to life and death; showing deep compassion for
all living beings, venerating those above and pitying those below; being free
of the mind that dislikes the ten thousand things and free of the mind that
desires them; the mind being without thought and without grief: this is called
buddha. Look for nothing else.

---

These lines are about Shikantaza. Just sitting. Everything in one. A wonderful bargain.

gassho

Taigu

Thank you so much for this, Taigu. I am living perpetually exhausted these days, and began the day wrapped in self-pity. With your prior admonition I determined to start a new day, and pursued sitting single-mindedly (as much as possible, anyway). This message was exactly what I needed to read, most encouraging. The footnotes to the chapter brought me a delicious new word also--Zasatsu--and I can now remember to just continue sit even when it's difficult, and just continue to work, even when it's difficult. I will hold my bowl, with all it's chips and flaws, and moment to moment, just continue. Thanks again...gassho, ann

Ann, thank you for your teaching. Holding our broken bowl is all there is, and you might also find out about all the joy too...

Take great care of yourself

Gassho


Taigu

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taigu

In our school, and in my limited experience, kai, the precepts, jo, practice and e, wisdom, all three form a perfect triangle. Sitting is following precepts and displaying wisdom. They don't work in separate ways. You see, Buddhas are not found as a result of an action, they are the action itself. As you sit Buddha, you are Buddha.

---

Thank you, Taigu.

Gassho,
Eika

Quote:

---

In our school, and in my limited experience, kai, the precepts, jo, practice and e, wisdom, all three form a perfect triangle. Sitting is following precepts and displaying wisdom. They don't work in separate ways.

---

I had suspected this might be true... so what about varying degrees of physical discipline? For instance, a monk may be living with vows and in conditions which lay-practitioners do not have. What is the comparison there, between the quality of one's experience? I can feel that this is not the right question for my line of thought, but I don't know what I'm missing... something beyond me.

gassho
tobi-ishi

A very good question, Tobiah, and quite a complex issue. In many streams of Buddhism, the monks who give their lives to the practice of Buddha-Dharma are seen as different and somehow more "advanced "than lay people. It is true in many countries where Buddhism used Monasticism as a vehicule of Dharma practice and survival. The monastery is seen as a body of Buddha, everything is supposed to be designed to facilitate Dharma practice. It seems that Dogen had a more lay-orientated vision when he started to teach in Japan, in Kyoto and Kosho-ji, as opposed to the late years where his teaching was focusing on training monks in the remote mountains of Fukui. These days, things are changing. It becomes obvious that the seals of secrecy, the idea of monk more worthy of respect, the idea that lay practice is not as valuable as monks's practice, all this is fading away. More and more people think that if there is a future in Buddhist practice, it will be not in these "utopia" that monasteries were, but in everyday life. And I think it is one of the greatest revolution found in Buddhism coming to the West, the fact that lay people and women's practice are seen and ackowledged as perfectly identical to monk's practice. In the realm of As-it-isness, in true shikantaza, you cannot make the difference between this samadhi and that samadhi. All you may say is that a monk has more time to practice in a certain way...Remember though, the last image of the Oxherding pictures: back to the market place. Indeed, I see people like you, Ann, Will , I see all of you as genuine people with priceless practice. You don't have an easy time (monks don't either, one should not idealize monastery life, pretty gruesome I tell you, just t read Eat-Sit-Sleep http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Sleep-Sit-Japans-Rigorous/dp/4770030754)

and you do it where it is the hardest.

So, no difference in quality, shikantaza is shikantaza, whoever, wherever, whenever.

gassho


Taigu

Yeah, I make too many distinctions- trying to lighten up on that! Thank you Taigu

gassho
tobi-ishi

Thanks, Tobi-ishi. Even trying is extra. Leave it as it is. :D

And, yes, I really enjoyed your poetry!


gassho

Taigu

Quote:

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The bowl, or Patra ( hatsu-u) is revered as the body of tathagata

---

Thanks for the teaching Taigu.

Gassho

Will