Table of Contents

• To Our Dear Sangha

  • Announcements and upcoming schedule

  • Matsumoto-san's Teisho: A Record of My Zazen Practice

  • Madoka's Memo: “There’s really nothing to adjust to make zazen ‘correct’”

  • Please Share Our Newsletter!

To Our Dear Sangha

If you ask Matsumoto-san if there are any stages to satori, he will tell you no. Satori has either happened or it hasn’t. Yet in this month’s teisho, he explains the “three phases” in his practice.

Yes, it’s an example of conceptualizing the past that no longer exists, but humans also fortunately have the ability to do so. We hope that it will provide useful hints for your practice too.

Announcements

Upcoming Online Zazenkai Schedule (Japan time):

Zazenkai with Matsumoto-san:
May 17 (Sun) 19:00-23:00
May 25 (Mon) 8:00a.m.-12:00 noon
June 7 (Sun) 19:00-23:00
June 29 (Mon) 8:00a.m.-12:00 noon

**Weekend times are generally more convenient for Europe, Africa, and Asia. Monday times are generally more convenient for N/S America and Oceania.

Zazenkai with Madoka:
Thursdays: Every week at 21:00-22:00 (cancelled May 21st)
Mondays: May 4, 11, and 18th at 9:00am-10:00am.
In-Person Zazenkai in Nishinomiya: May 16, 10:00-16:10 (info here)

Zazenkai reservations can be made here:  
https://www.zen-online.info/reservations

Very Useful Time Converter to calculate zazenkai in your local time
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

(Translated by Madoka)

A Record of My Zazen Practice

I’ll write about the time when I was practicing zazen.

1.  Early Phase of Zazen Practice

The phase when I still tried hard to create a good “state” of zazen, even though I had been shown the way the six senses* are with “clap!”

When I heard, “leave thoughts alone,” I misunderstood and thought I had to create a state of leaving thoughts alone. I thought becoming better at zazen meant getting better at leaving thoughts alone. I thought leaving thoughts alone was correct, and failing to do so was incorrect. At this stage, I spent a lot of time going back and forth between, “I did it” and “I couldn’t do it.”

*The six senses: the naturally arising content of the five senses and consciousness (thoughts, feelings).

2. Middle Phase of Zazen practice

Sitting just as the six senses are**, but sometimes trying to create a good state

Through sitting, I came to understand that thoughts can arise without intending to think, and one can see without trying to see, and that is why it is fine to just sit the way it what arises is. After that I almost never attempted to create any particular state, but if any doubt arose about whether or not I was sitting correctly, anxiety would follow, and I would then go to read teisho by Gien Roshi or Kando Roshi to confirm my sitting was correct. I was trying to ease my anxiety by confirming.

I even understood that there was actually no problem, because “Is this correct?” is “Is this correct?” But when the anxiety was strong, I would go to books to try to ease it and get confirmation.

** “Just as the six senses are” does not mean being aware of the six senses the entire time while sitting. When sitting as the six senses are, there is no intentional awareness of any particular thing.

3. Final Phase of Zazen Practice

Sitting only as the six senses are = the stage when I ceased trying to do anything at all

I decided to sit just as the doubt was, and just as the anxiety was, and quit looking for confirmation in books when doubts created anxiety. Then at some point, even if I noticed doubts like “I might not be sitting correctly,” the thought to check with a teisho didn’t arise any more, and I could just sit.

This means that from the beginning, it has always been the way it is, so there was never any need to adjust anything to make zazen “correct.” From that point on, regardless of time or place, if I had a chance to sit, I sat. Reflecting back, I think I really sat a lot.

“There’s really nothing to adjust to make zazen ‘correct’”

While translating Matsumoto-san’s teisho, “there was never any need to adjust anything to make zazen ‘correct’” hit home. 

I recently went to sesshin with Kando Roshi, and while I was there, I struggled a bit with the whole, “too much thinking” issue. I couldn’t help but feel like I was failing in zazen if I noticed I had been lost in thought.

I asked Kando Roshi about it, using the example suddenly realizing I’d been thinking about school lesson plans. It wasn’t my intention to do lesson planning while sitting in zazen, but is it really ok if it happens like that? 

Kando Roshi said, “That’s not zazen. That’s thinking about lesson plans.” He said it is foolish to try to do those two things at once. Thinking about lessons during zazen is as clumsy as contemplating Zen while trying to make lesson plans.

I was uncomfortable with this answer because on the one hand, it rang true. But on the other hand, it also felt like it contradicted “‘I’m hungry’ is ‘I’m hungry.’”

So the next day, during a tea time chat with Kando Roshi, I asked, “Roshi, when I do zazen, random thoughts come up. That itself isn’t a problem right?”

Roshi said, “Why would it be a problem? It’s making thoughts into a problem that causes the confusion.”

It’s not like I’d never heard that before, but something clicked. When doing zazen, if I hear “chirp chirp,” I don’t think I failed in zazen. If I smell incense, there is the smell of insense, and I sit without feeling like a failure.

But noticing I had been thinking about something created a sense of failure because I made the thoughts into a problem. And I made it a problem because of the differences I felt between “chirp” and thoughts. I felt like “chirp” was something outside of me, so I didn’t have control of it and could let it be. But thoughts felt like they came from “inside,” which made it feel like I was doing something wrong. 

But whether it is a thought, chirp, or the smell of incense, they are all content of the 6 senses. One just happens to feel more like “me,” while the others feel like “others.” But if they are all the same in terms of being content of the 6 senses, why not allow thoughts to be same as chirps and not make them into a problem?

I am afraid I am falling into the “making zazen a method” kind of language here. It isn’t a matter of treating thoughts like chirps. And when feeling like a failure, it’s the way it is feeling like a failure.

 But somehow the realization that they are essentially the same has made it easier to sit without wondering if I should be adjusting something.

As Matsumoto-san said, “there was never any need to adjust anything to make zazen ‘correct.’”

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Love and Gassho _/\_