| It is the mantra that expresses
Prajna Paramita, or crossing to the other shore. Gate, gate, paragate,
parasamgate: gone, gone, gone to the other shore, svaha.
Svaha is not exactly translatable. It’s a kind of exclamation;
something like "well-gone." This mantra is called the great bright mantra,
the supreme mantra, the unsurpassable. What does it mean, and how does it
apply to the sutra?
I used to think of Suzuki Roshi’s
life as a mantra. We tend to think of a mantra as a phrase which we repeat
over and over again. Sometimes people ask, "Can you give me a mantra?" —
something to repeat over and over in order to evoke or to maintain a
certain concentrated or pure state. But when I observed Suzuki Roshi it
seemed to me that the way he lived his life as a mantra. His life had a
very obvious form. Every day at the old Sokoji Temple at Bush Street (in
San Francisco), I would see him enter the zendo from his office and light
the incense, sit zazen and do service. Every day he did the same thing,
which was amazing to me. I had never seen anyone do that kind of activity
before. His life was devoted to sitting zazen, bowing, lighting incense,
and the various other things that he did.
When there were so many other
things to do in the world, here was this person simply doing these things
over and over again every day. And he had been doing them over and over
every day for most of his life. I never thought of myself doing anything
like that in what seemed like such a narrowly disciplined way of life. So
I was impressed by it. After a while, it occurred to me that his life was
a mantra. Everyday he had these tasks that he would do. He was always
concentrated and went about his activity in a light and easy manner.
Somehow, it was not just repetitive. It was a dynamic that was always
producing light. One way to produce energy is to have something going
around in a circular path. If you hook up a conductor to that energy
producer, the energy flows from it as a dynamo. That’s why he had so much
spiritual power.
The form that he gave to Zen Center
is what made Zen Center work so well. The schedule is also like a mantra.
The mantra is a powerful basis. There also has to be sincerity and some
incorruptible leadership. With good leadership and the strong, powerful,
dynamic mantra of form, the Prajna Paramita reveals itself and is lived
through the form.
Thich Nhat Hanh talked about the
Heart Sutra when he was here. He said that you shouldn’t just revere the
Heart Sutra as some ancient Buddhist document. He said that you should use
it. You should know how to use it. And he kept saying that every day. We
should think about how to use the sutra. The sutra is intellectual—it
tells us something and prepares our mind; but the dynamics of the mantra
expresses the actual use of the mantra.
In The Tiger’s Cave, Abbot
Obora talks about the great bright mantra of the Heart Sutra. When we sit
in zazen, our mind is like a mirror, sometimes called the "great round
mirror samadhi." Whatever appears in front of us is reflected just as it
is, without any thought, or idea, or concept standing between clear mind
and its perception. Perception is direct and intuitive. With that kind of
direct perception our mind is like a mirror, simply reflecting, without
contrivance.
It’s like when you come out of
zazen into the bright morning. The trees are glistening and everything has
a very fresh vibrancy; and you feel, "Oh, I hadn’t remembered seeing it
this way before. It’s beautiful." That’s because you are beautiful. You’re
seeing a reflection of your own mind; seeing it just as it is. It’s not
beautiful, we feel that it’s beautiful. We feel something, and then we say
it’s beautiful. Before we say, "It’s beautiful," we just have some
feeling. We see our own reflection in the trees and the bright morning.
And when we see our friend we have some kind of feeling and we see that
wonderful feeling reflected back on us; some identification and reflection
because there is nothing standing between us. This kind of mirror samadhi
we have in zazen. When we leave the zendo, we can’t stay in zazen posture.
I can’t walk out with my legs crossed and my concentration gets diffused.
I start thinking about things and discriminating. Pretty soon I see
something I don’t like and it bothers me.
Abbot Obora tells the story of a
monk who talks to Hogen. Zen Master Hogen was one of the well known zen
masters in China. The monk asked Zen Master Hogen, "What do I do with the
bright mirror?" Hogen replied, "Smash it into a thousand
pieces."
Smash it into a thousand pieces. In
all the thousand pieces of your life, each piece becomes a mirror. In all
the splinters and bits and pieces of our daily life, each one is still a
mirror, reflecting in its own sphere, having that clear mirror quality. As
Dogen says, "Even in each dewdrop on the grass, the whole universe is
reflected."
Our mantra must be extended like a
thread that runs through all of those bits and pieces, even if we don’t
see it. It is not a thread that ties it into a big bundle. It’s a thread
that makes all of the pieces consistent with each other. This is how we
express the mantra and how prajna is brought forth in our daily life. This
is an interesting way to think about it. Mantra is our daily activity
expressed moment after moment. It’s not just something written down at the
end of a page.
You don’t have to say "gate,
gate" all day long; just practice the spirit of zazen, which is to
continually bring forth the Bodhisattva mind. It means that when we have
to make a decision, we can make a decision based on our Bodhisattva mind
and not on a self-centered idea. If we want to practice the mantra, then
we base our decisions on preserving Bodhisattva mind so that we never get
turned around through anger, delusion, or greed. Even if we do get upset,
we keep bringing ourselves back to Bodhisattva mind. No matter how much we
want to do something right, we’re bound to do something wrong. Every once
in a while, we do something right. But knowing when we do something wrong,
even in doing something wrong, there’s life in it. It’s our
life.
No matter how much we want to do
something right, we can’t live an ideally perfect life. Realizing this
brings forth our compassion. We feel compassion for others and for
ourselves. First, we have to be able to feel compassion for our self. When
we can do that, we can feel compassion for others. A perfect life must
include the imperfections.
We can be strict with ourselves,
but strict does not mean without compassion. Being strict with ourselves,
we should know what we have to do and really try to do it. If we really
make an effort, we won’t do so much wrong. And if we do something wrong or
something that we can’t do so well, the very fact that we are sincerely
trying, or that we’re facing our failures and not turning away from them,
is itself compassion. And we can extend that compassion to others. If we
have that really deep compassionate mind, even though our life does not
meet our ideal, we still have some fundamental current of joy, and we can
appreciate our life.
In our practice we are trying very
hard. Sometimes we’re successful and sometimes we’re not. But within
success and failure we can enjoy our life. One moment things are going
beautifully and the next moment it’s all wrong. But the practice of zazen
is to be settled in that ‘right there’ place in the midst of these
conditions. When our legs hurt in zazen we just abide in this calm place.
The only thing you can do is to become calmer and calmer. Even if the
world is raging right through you’ you just get more and more calm, till
you finally get down to the bottom of your life. When you finally get down
to the bottom, you know how to practice within all of your activity,
always returning to that still place. Compassion comes forth from that
place, and the mirror-mind is always reflecting each aspect of our life,
and each moment’s division reflects our true mind.
Question: Could say a little
more about the Bodhisattva mind?
Sojun: Bodhisattva mind is
the mind which is always turned toward practice, which means it is always
fundamentally grounded in emptiness and is expressed through our activity.
Bodhisattva mind is the mind which is always giving up self-centeredness
in order to see into the truth. So we always keep returning to that mind.
It’s like sitting zazen, we have all this activity going on and thoughts
are coming up and desires keep arising. So in daily life, when some
question comes up, you return your mind to the Fundamental, in order to
come to a decision. How does my decision accord with this non
self-centered view? If you keep doing that, then you’re continuously
practicing. If you’re just getting carried away by your feelings, thoughts
and emotions and start to follow all these tracks, it’s easy to get lost.
But if you keep coming back to base your decisions on this Fundamental
Mind, then you don’t get lost and you know how to practice. You may get
lost, but you know how to get back. You always know what to come back to.
We’re constantly coming back. That’s zazen: constantly coming back to our
undivided Fundamental Mind. That’s Bodhisattva practice and the mantra of
our life.
Reprinted from the Berkeley Zen
Center Newsletter
© Sojun Mel Weitsman,
1997 |
