A Review: Discovering the True Self: Kodo Sawaki's Art of Zen Meditation

[Jundo]

Dear All,

I would like to offer a personal review and recommendation of Arthur Braverman's "Discovering the True Self: Kodo Sawaki's Art of Zen Meditation" ...

https://www.counterpointpress.com/dd...the-true-self/

... a treasure for all of us in the Soto and wider Zen Buddhist world. This book is an important addition to the other writings, too few, which are available in English by Sawaki Roshi, including "The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo" (LINK), as well as the unfortunately rather expensive and sometimes hard to find translation of Sawaki Roshi's "Commentary on the Song of Awakening" (LINK). I would also add Arthur Braverman's wonderful "Living And Dying In Zazen: Five Zen Masters Of Modern Japan," with profiles of Homeless Kodo and several of his successors such as Uchiyama Roshi.

Arthur Braverman is our finest living chronicler in English of the life, lineage and teachings of Homeless Kodo, who earned that name through his decades of traveling far and wide across Japan to introduce the sittiing of Shikantaza Zazen. "Discovering the True Self" very much adds to the earlier works by presenting a further selection of sharp, pull-no-punches, occasionally profane yet always profound quotes, stories and teachings by or about Sawaki Roshi, here centered on Shikantaza Practice in particular. As a small example ...

Shikan [from shikantaza] means “just” or “only that.” I mean the
“just” as in “just talking” or “just practicing zazen” or “just a potato.”
A life in which you are not led around by your paycheck, I
call shikan or “just.”

and

One incident that Sawaki’s biographer Tadao Tanaka writes
of was when young Kodo lifted his robe and one leg and let out an
enormous fart. This was in response to an intellectual discussion
some Entsuji monks were having, a discussion Sawaki felt had
nothing to do with the real essence of Buddhism. He listened until
it became too much for him, then farted and walked out of the
room. He was known for those kinds of antics because he liked to
be a gadfly to those he deemed too full of themselves.

As well, the accompanying biography adds much to Sawaki's story, from his childhood raised by an alcoholic gambler and sex worker in the slums of western Japan, to drafted soldier thrown into bloody combat on the Russian front, to wandering priest, to professor of Buddhism at Soto Zen's main university, to his tireless work to spread the message of Zazen from a small, dilapidated temple in Kyoto (the original Antaiji) during his final years of failing health. It is quite some tale, maybe sometimes surprising even to those who think they know the story. I am pleased to say that the book includes remembrances of Sawaki Roshi by my own teacher, Nishijima Roshi, who in his younger years, practiced with Sawaki Roshi ...

In October of 1940, I [Nishijima] was fortunate to learn that Master Kodo Sawaki would have a Sesshin at Daituji, a temple in Tochigi Prefecture. I attended it carrying rice in a clothes bag, because it was a time when the Japanese food situation had become very bad.

In the morning we got up at 3 o’clock, and we practiced zazen for two sittings, 45 minutes each, two times before breakfast, two times in the morning after breakfast, two times in the afternoon, and once at night. Master Kodo Sawaki presented his Buddhist lectures two times a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. While listening to his Buddhist lecture, I realized that I was hearing a true Buddhist lecture for the first time. ... At the same time, I think that the most excellent point of Master Kodo Sawaki’s Buddhism was his absolute pure attitude as he pursued the truth. ... Master Kodo Sawaki clearly knew this fundamental Buddhist principle in his practiced Buddhist life. Therefore he didn’t want to own a temple throughout his life. He realized that if a Buddhist monk has his own temple, his job to manage the temple would leave him so busy it would be impossible for him to study the true Buddhist teachings thoroughly. Therefore Master Kodo Sawaki never married, and he devoted his whole life to promote Buddhism.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone, not only those of us who are dedicated to the way of Shikantaza and the unique voice of Sawaki Roshi. He took no gruff, spoke and cussed more like a dock worker than priest, tamed the violent and troubled heart of his youth through Zazen ... and has left us all wiser for his teachings and inspiration.

Gassho, Jundo

STLah