Dear All Ango and Jukai Participants,
In some comments I spotted in a Facebook discussion of Zen retreats, some folks wrote that our Zazen practice must be "brutally tough and relentless," "requiring extraordinary effort" to let go of the illusion of self. We must struggle with hours of sitting, self-doubt, sometime discomfort, distractions and fatigue. Other folks commented that our practice is, to the contrary, to "just relax and let go," not "feeding the dragons" of struggle within.
Who is right? Both, I feel!
We are strong, unbending and straight, but our power comes in feeling as light, fluid and flowing as a breeze.
In Shikantaza, all is just the same, two faces of a no sided coin! We are tough as iron by becoming gentle as lambs, fully determined but free of any struggle. We do not give up the fight, yet we never take up the fight nor put it down! The backbone is hard and determined by remaining soft and yielding.
We certainly must devote "brutal and relentless energy" to this practice each day by day, and yet do so with such profound "non-effort," effortless-effort, doing-non-doing, that it feels precisely like "relaxing and letting go." There is no struggle even as we sometimes tough it out. Zazen is hard as nails within, yet with an attitude serene and non-striving. We are victorious because we drop the inner war, we are strong because we bend like bamboo in a storm. The fellow who insists on a heart filled with brutality, hardness and tension is making his own inner battles! The soft waters flow past the hardest stone, the gentle wind sails over the tallest mountain.
In Shikantaza and in all of life, even in facing our greatest day-to-day challenges, be it long hours of sitting in Sesshin, raising kids at home while holding down two jobs, or the struggles of cancer treatment in a hospital, we effortlessly slip right through and past the formidable barriers ... even as the body might be swept with exhaustion, tears sometimes fall, doubts and fears want to play with the mind, When we relax, drop the resistance and fight, we slip right through the hardness without friction. Challenges become non-challenges. There is no tension, no striving, no fear, and thus we keep going, meeting every scary enemy as a friend ... even as we battle on.
Yes, we must sometimes harden ourselves, be determined and courageous, face what scares us ... and yet the heart can be still and peaceful even as the sweat pours from our brow and the knees shake.
This is what Master Dogen (himself no coward and lazy bones when it came to sitting and living!) called the "Dharma Gate of Balanced Ease". If ever the "going gets tough" during Ango or Jukai, please just keep the attitude that the "mild get going" and, anyway, there is "no place to go!"
Tigers on the outside, pussy cats within. Don't ever doubt how strong we "softies" can be!
Gassho, Jundo
(sorry, ran a little long)
STLah
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