Book Review: Zen Radicals, Rebels, and Reformers
I recently was asked by Wisdom Publications to review a not yet released work called Zen Radicals, rebels, and Reformers by Perle Besserman and Manfred Steger. I was a stoked on the one hand because I love rebels and a bit apprehensive because I pretty much don’t like history books. I wasn’t sure where this one was going to fall exactly, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. This is really a good read.
The book focuses on 8 men who changed Zen in various ways over the past thousand or so years. The list of 8 is not, of course, exhaustive, as the focus is greatly Rinzai focused more so than anything else, so Dogen is not in it at all. Nevertheless it was a good read for me.
Each chapter focuses on one man and each begins with a look not at the man at all, but the politics and culture he was born into. Before you ever meet the Zen dude, you know what was going on in his culture and the Zen practice of the time. Often, these men were disillusioned with the state of affairs in their province and in the way Zen was being corrupted and co-opted into politics.
My favorite came right at the first example, that of Layman Pang who kept a family and taught while living life (in fact his whole family were well versed in zen practice). This is the man who gave us the example of Zen as being “Drawing water and chopping wood”.
My second favorite would be potty mouth Rinzai who said Zen is “just shitting and pissing and becoming ordinary”. “If you base your understanding on secondhand notes from some dead old guy…you are nothing but a blind idiot” he is also quoted as saying.
Bassui impressed me as well with several quotes: “I became a monk to understand the great matter of life and death, not to wear Buddhist robes”, and “Reciting part of a sutra with the desire to benefit others is like reciting a recipe in the hope it will prevent people from starving”. It was here, as well as many other places in the book that I busted out laughing. It was Bassui’s point as stated in the book that “Buddha…did not gain buddhahood from reading and reciting sutras, but from meditating”.
If there was a common thread amongst these men, it was that they promoted practice as the Buddha way, not specific rituals or chants. I think this is why I liked the book as much as I did. It felt like these dead old guys were echoing my thoughts on why I practice Zen. Well, that and they have a lot of bathroom humor. It seems that talking about poop was a popular way to shake people out of their calcified modes of thinking.
When this book comes out in January of next year, it’s definitely worth a look even if you hate history books as much as I do.
Day 100 of 100
Day 100, well holy shit. When I started this ride 100 seemed so far away I just kinda didn’t think about it too much. Now that it’s here, I don’t know exactly what I think. Maybe that’s part of the sitting, I just don’t think too much right now. I don’t mean I’m thoughtless…well if you read some of my posts and tweets, you might get that I’m quite thoughtless…I mean my mind is really quiet. Wandering thoughts come thru as they will, but they don’t have any hooks attached to them or they are so small they don’t latch on to anything in particular and just sail by if they come up at all.
I don’t have a holistic description of what this practice did for me. Perhaps that comes with some time away from it. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the case. What I do have now are a bunch of disconnected random thoughts that I wanted to capture. I also wanted to give you something to look at on day 100 since you’ve been reading this stuff from day 1. I also have a photo essay but that’s not quite ready yet.
I started off with these guidelines for myself:
- had some discipline to it
- was beneficial to myself and others
- had resilience or ‘staying power’ (especially when it didn’t feel fun or convenient or the new had worn off)
- was do-able
- was grounded and integrated (as opposed to spacey and disconnected from everyday living)
- was personally meaningful to me
- was adaptable and malleable so new experience could change it
First random bit – I think I followed these guidelines. I’m pretty happy with the way things shaped up overall.
Another one – as mind gets clearer, what also gets clearer is the fact that this practice stuff and mind are incredibly…ordinary. There’s nothing magical and that’s really cool. I totally get Rinzai’s quote now when he says that zen is about “shitting, pissing and becoming ordinary”. Also I like him cuz he’s a potty mouth like me.
Next random bit – I’m possibly more irreverent than when I started…hard to believe, I know.
I finally understand the idea of the string being not too tight nor too loose so that it plays just right. That was with the help of Mr. Phrawg. 38 Special had a little ditty about it too.
Also, it seemed that setting up too much form/ritual put activated a part of my brain that wanted to be in competition with that set form. The competition set up a mental duality . The duality created something I had to drop. Dropping things is a large part of daily practice. Is this circular mind fuck really necessary? Is this what Zen forms/precepts are about in the first place?
The last bit for now is my observation of the process (more about that in my photo essay as well). A lot of the daily grind that I watch myself go thru is caused by a buildup of mental toxins like poisons flowing into a pond. Individual worries, concerns, fears, pushings, pullings all leave one or more drops of poison in the pond. Chronic habit energies are like poison pumps into that pond. A lot of regular zazen cleaned the pond out and then shut down the pumps by de-energizing them. Remember that bit about not attaching to wandering thoughts…it takes their energy away and they shrink up.
Well, whatever the case, that’s my first thoughts on this process I put myself thru. I find that my larger desire to re-establish a regular sitting practice was completely successful, so I feel like no matter what else happens, I got what I was looking for.
Ok, gonna stop for now as this is already TLDR (too long didn’t read).
