Zen master Uchiyama Roshi, who died recently, wrote several books, quite a number of books on expressing his understanding of Zen, and was the head of a small temple called Antaiji in Japan. which is a small practice temple where the students had no electricity, no telephones, cultivated their own food, and lived a very Spartan kind of Zen life. The practice was a very good example, has been a very good example of simple, dedicated practice of Zen in Japan. He wrote what he called six types of Zen which are not really Shikantaza.

[01:17]

Shikantaza, of course, is our practice of just sitting without any gaining idea, dropping body and mind. And I don't know if I would call these six types of Zen. I would call them maybe six misunderstandings of practice. So I'll enumerate these six and add a few and embellish what he has put forth. He says, the depth of Zazen becomes determined by the attitude with which one sits. So the first difficulty, I'll call it, is called the Zen of Hell, which is in Japan, you know,

[02:41]

a lot of the young men are forced to go into the monastery to practice. And then when they practice for a year or two or a few years, then they come out and they can go back to their home temple and inherit the temple from their father. But they'd rather be driving BMW. out of high school or out of college, they go into the monastery, which is like very difficult practice, and it's not really what they want to be doing. So when you're doing something like practice, and it's not what you want to be doing, then it's called the Zen of Hell. Even, you know, as a practitioner, even when you're doing what you want to be doing, Or even when you don't particularly want to be doing what you know you want to be doing, it's hard enough.

[03:46]

But to be doing what you don't want to be doing, as far as practice goes, that's pretty bad. So, you know, he's very sympathetic with that attitude, but it's not the kind of attitude that you really want to practice with. We don't have that problem so much here. The problem that we have here is more when you have a friend and your friend feels obligated to practice because you're practicing or you have a relative or a spouse who is really enthusiastic about sitting zazen and you feel that you have to sit zazen too in order to maintain your friendship or your relationship, or be seen as okay in the eyes of that person. This is kind of like the Zen of Hell, because you're putting yourself in a position that's very difficult, that you don't want to be in, but you're just doing it in order to satisfy somebody else.

[05:02]

You should immediately go home. Sometimes the spouse, one spouse will be very enthusiastic and the other spouse will go along with it for a while. And then that one that's going along with it will suddenly have good realization and become very enthusiastic. And the other one will become unenthusiastic. The situation reverses. That's not uncommon. Suzuki Roshi used to say, he used to really bawl people out and say, don't think that because you're sitting zazen and your spouse is laying on the bed that you're doing something wonderful and that your spouse should be doing what you're doing.

[06:07]

You're sitting Zazen in the cushion while your husband or your wife is doing Zazen in bed. So sometimes when I see this situation I can usually spot it right away or pretty quickly and so I want to make sure that the friend or the close relative or whatever is doing the practice for their own reasons and not just to satisfy somebody else. Because it won't work otherwise. Everyone has to come to practice for their own reasons. And you can't force your children to come. It's not like going to church.

[07:10]

If you go to church, the one that's not so enthusiastic can at least sit there comfortably. But Zazen is something else. There's the hungry Zen. Hungry Zen is the Zen of someone who is lusting after enlightenment. Enlightenment, of course, is something which is independent of desire. So when one lusts after enlightenment, it just becomes a materialistic desire, and is self-defeating, and it makes a person into a kind of hungry ghost, because as they lust after desire, more and more

[08:37]

the enlightenment would cheat further and further. So they can never quite grasp it. Because when you try to grasp it, it disappears. So sometimes people are looking for enlightenment as a way to be powerful. or as a way to gain status, or to try and grasp something without, it's kind of like stealing, you know, to have the benefit of something that you don't earn. In a way, enlightenment is like grace.

[09:39]

Grace is not something you earn. It's just something that happens. I don't know if grace and enlightenment are the same, but there's some parallel. Enlightenment is your nature, your true nature. But you can't just go and grab it. It has to come about through the right conditions. So that's why we have practice. Practice creates the conditions for enlightenment. And if you just try to grab the enlightenment, forgetting the conditions or ignoring the conditions, it just retreats further and further away from you. So, we don't run after enlightenment, we just put ourselves into the practice and then forget about it.

[10:53]

You know, we come to practice for some reason, maybe enlightenment, that your enlightened mind brings you to practice. And then you just do the practice and let go of the enlightenment. As Dogen said, when you let go, it fills your hands. running after enlightenment. It goes from one teacher to another. And no teacher is satisfactory. And none of the practices are satisfactory. And they have some idea about what enlightenment is.

[11:58]

And as long as you have some idea about what enlightenment is, that's a hindrance to enlightenment. So you could also call this materialistic Zen. Zen, which is trying to get something and also a kind of impatience. You really need to get something. In a way, it's motivating. Lusting after enlightenment is a kind of motivation. But the motivation has to be distilled and refined

[13:05]

so that it doesn't become an obsession. One has to live one's life. To that kind of person, you might say, get a life. And the third one is called dependent Zen. The term is Chikusho Zen, which has the feeling of a domesticated animal, like a dog or a cat. When there is a residential practice, there are people who are drawn to the residential practice. They'll sit just enough Zazen and do just enough practice in order to be fed and in have a place to sleep and just not to be taken care of. We don't have so much that problem here.

[14:10]

But in a residential practice, we do have that problem. And after five years, just scratch your head and think, what is so-and-so doing here anyway? Why are they here? And it's kind of dependent then. I remember one time, somebody asked Kata Geri Roshi, in a lecture. He said, why did you become a Zen monk? And he said, I like the food. He was joking. So the kind of person that likes to hang out and be comfortable and be taken care of, which is not the right motivation for practice.

[15:17]

And also a person who maybe likes the social aspect or Zen, or practice. This is not the place I would come to socialize. But it does happen. In Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the three treasures, each one of us embodies the three treasures, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. But some people are drawn to Buddha. Some people are drawn to Dharma. Some people are drawn to Sangha. People that are drawn to Buddha are like maybe the one who really is after the teacher, you know, really wants the teacher's attention and creates a relationship with the teacher, to the exclusion of studying Dharma or relating to the Sangha. They don't care about the Sangha.

[16:23]

And study is not important. They just want to get something from the teacher. And then there are the people, the person who is not interested in the teacher, and not particularly interested in the Sangha, but just loves to study. Loves studying Buddhism. So they're missing the other two parts. Then there's the person who just really likes to mingle. And have a kind of Sangha life. But they're not so interested in the Dharma, and they don't care so much about the future either. So, you have these people who are drawn to one or the other, but the rounded practice is where you have all three. If you only have one, you should think about the other two, cultivate in the other two. And if you only have two of those, you should think about cultivating all three, because it's like a pot with two legs or one leg.

[17:24]

It should have the three legs in order to stand as a practice. So this dependent Zen is kind of Zen without enthusiasm. is simply getting along and being taken care of and finding ways to do that. Then the next one is a competitive Zen. Macho Zen. Where in Japan, the monks would be competing for, trying to see who gets In the zendo, especially in Rinzai Zen, they had these big kiyosakus, about this long, this wide, big stick, and they beat each other with the stick, as hard as they can.

[18:26]

And they try to see how many sticks they can break open. This is true. And then they compete to see who can do the most ascetic kind of practice, or the most violent, And they just keep upping the ante. I remember there was a time at Zen Center, when we had Sashin, we would sit up till two o'clock in the morning, or something like that, and then have an hour or two sleep, and then start Sashin again. And there was a kind of competitive air to seeing just how far you could go. And in that kind of situation, you just escalate. So it's important to determine and say, wait a minute, what is practice and what is just creating escalating conditions for competitive

[19:39]

satisfactions. And one should recognize when that's happening. But this happens more with young people. You might call it athletics then. And then there's Utilitarian Zen, or Gaining Zen, which is actually the most popular one. Utilitarian Zen is Zen to calm your mind, to help you in your job, to all the reasons why you're here. to get your head straightened out, for good health, for sexual stamina, to preserve your youth.

[21:06]

You want a reward, you know. In most of our endeavors, whenever we undertake something, we expect something in return. You put in so much and you get so much. And if we just keep putting all of our energy into something and nothing comes back, then what's the use, right? Do something else. So when we put our energy into practice, we usually want something. There is something, but it's not what you want. It's not in the realm of gain. What one gains is not something in the realm of materialistic gain, or even spiritualistic gain. Because spiritualistic gain is in the realm of materialistic gain.

[22:12]

This is what's really hard to understand. This is why lust for enlightenment, although it seems spiritual, is really in the material realm, materialistic realm. It's gaining idea. So it's the hardest thing to ungrasp, to grasp. is the understanding of not gaining, not adding something to what you already have. The purpose of zazen and practice is to let go. So it's just the opposite of our usual desire. The object of desire is always to gain, but in practice, the object of desire is to let go.

[23:17]

So, as Buddha says, the problem of suffering is the problem of desire, of gaining. One has to be continually letting go. And sadhana is not to gain something. It's simply to let go. And what you gain is letting go. It's a non-gaining game. When desire is transformed, It's no longer called desire. It's called way-seeking mind, which means it's the direction to your life, which is how to negotiate the way of practice.

[24:31]

That's no longer called desire. Desire is put into the service of practice. So there's really nothing to gain, except that when you practice, you're pretty healthy. Things work well for you, usually. All the things that you would want are usually there. But if you want them through practice, it's like wanting enlightenment. When you practice for those things, They're not there. And then you become very frustrated. Gee, I've been practicing all this time and I still don't have... I haven't increased my sexual prowess. My head is still not straightened out.

[25:42]

I've been practicing for 20 years and my head is still not straightened out. I'm still just as crazy as I was before. It doesn't matter. If you were practicing to get your head straightened out, then of course you're disappointed. But if you'd actually practiced to let go of your head, you'd probably be straightened out. Then there's the Zen which is called Hermit Zen. In Japan, Hermit Zen is very much discouraged. People are encouraged to practice together.

[26:42]

Practicing by yourself, going to some retreat and practicing by yourself is considered egotistical Zen. Although Zen Buddhism has always been practiced by hermits to some extent. Its problem with this kind of practice is that one tends to do the practices that they like. And they don't particularly like being under someone else's thumb. And they don't particularly like having to answer to other people. And it's easy to avoid the problem that's your problem. and just kind of take the nice stuff, the stuff that you like, and practice it, and not have to deal with the stuff that is really important, like your ego.

[27:53]

When people practice together, or practice with a teacher, there's always a challenge to your ego, a challenge to self, which is what practice is about. Practice is a big challenge to self. And if you avoid that, then it's not practice and it's a kind of hindrance. You know, every week we have Zazen instruction. People come and they get instructed in Zazen. And then once in a while somebody will come back and practice. And I wonder about all the people who have Zazen instruction and go off thinking they know what Zen is. And If you just sit Zazen by yourself without any instruction or connection, it just easily becomes an egotistical practice.

[29:00]

And you think you're sitting Zazen, but it's not Zazen. So even though the posture looks the same, the activity is not the same. When people practice together, even though they don't speak to each other, there's teaching and communication that goes on. And there's always a challenge. Something is... your self-centeredness is always being challenged. And then there's the Dilettante Zen, which is number seven, although he puts them together. Dilettante Zen is when someone comes to Zazen and then they leave and they don't need a teacher, they don't need the Sangha, but they sit

[30:16]

in coffee houses, smoking cigarettes and discussing the high points of Zen. Not in Berkeley. And then they think that they know much better than anyone else about what's going on. So I think that each one of us is touched by some of these, or one of these. And I think we should be careful and practice for the right reasons. When we come to practice, we don't always come for the right reasons.

[31:19]

Mostly we don't. Because we're led to practice by enlightened mind, but we're also led to practice by our ego. A kind of combination of ego and enlightened mind. And so we're doing something for ourself. We want something for ourself. You don't come here when you first come in order to support the Sangha. You just come to do something for yourself. And then as our practice matures, we realize that we don't just practice for ourselves. We practice to let go of ourselves and to support the Sangha, to support everyone who is practicing and to help them to practice and to extend our practice into the world. And that's a maturity. We're no longer concerned about whether we're enlightened or not, or whether we're doing good zazen or bad zazen.

[32:29]

We just practice sincerely. We take care of our practice and we take care of the practice mutually and that has far-reaching effects in the world and for ourself as well. When we can let go of our own self-centeredness and work for the benefit of others, then enlightenment is already there. So, do you have any questions? Ross? In making an effort to balance the three treasures, it seems like with sangha, one can overcome their shyness and just persevere

[33:39]

I guess once that during lecture, you should. Well, we actually have more than one teacher. We have a number of teachers. And as the Sangha grows and matures, we have more teachers. So people can actually relate to more teachers. What's common in a larger Sangha is that primary teacher becomes a teacher for the older members, and then the older members become teachers for the younger members, not strictly speaking, but mostly speaking, and in a general way.

[35:18]

So, the junior teachers, so to speak, I have tees with members, and I also have practice instruction with members, and are actually in many ways much more available than the primary teacher. So, if there was only one teacher, it wouldn't work. So that people should take advantage of the other teachers. Yes? perfectionists in does not fit in to anywhere here. What is perfection? Perfect stitches, perfect posture. There's no... Virgo's in.

[36:22]

Perfection, it depends on what your definition of perfection is. Getting all the pieces right. There's always something that's a problem. Whenever you have anything that's perfect, there's always a problem. So, I would call our Zen, Problem Zen. Dealing with the problem, not so much looking for perfect. When something's perfect, that means it's finished. static. So perfection actually is in imperfection. The imperfection itself is integral with the perfection, or integral that you would think of as perfection. So, you know, we say perfect posture, right?

[37:24]

Well, you may have the perfect posture for a moment, And then the next moment, it changes. And then you have to find it again. And then it changes, and you find it. So, holding something in perfection is not a good idea. Rather than trying to find perfection, to realize that everything is falling out of balance and finding its balance. Falling out of balance and finding its balance. And if you can stay with that dance, then you're singing the right song. And then when you fall out, you climb back on again. We don't look for perfection. Buddha talked about the four horses.

[38:32]

There's the horse that runs at the shadow, when he sees the shadow of the whip. Then there's the horse that runs when he feels the whip grazing on his hide. And then there's the horse that runs when he feels the whip digging into his flesh. Then there's the horse that runs Maybe I left first, but anyway. The most severe. Only runs when, you know, he's totally in pain. So we always like to be the first horse, the perfect horse, you know, that doesn't need any goading. And who just does everything just perfectly, just right. That's not Zen. Zen is dealing with the difficulty. Within the difficulty you have, really making a big effort.

[39:39]

And not letting the difficulty get you down. So, rather than thinking about perfection, think about what is your difficulty? What is the difficulty that we're all having? And within the difficulty, to really make your effort in practice. That's perfection. In your own experience and experience with students, do you find that you or they have a natural or a proclivity for one of the types of Zen? Is it something that keeps coming back? Are there those who may touch upon all six or seven or a hundred how many ever there are, yet there's one that they keep coming back to. Yeah, well, some of us have a propensity for one or another.

[40:43]

I don't know if anybody has a propensity for all of them. But it's something to work with. If you know what your problem is, and practice with that, then you have your practice. So, you know, we would like to think that perfection is letting go of all these things and getting rid of all... You can't get rid of all this stuff. Don't think about getting rid of this and getting rid of that. Just think about, how can I practice in the midst of this? It's like, how can I get rid of my ego? Cut off ego. You read the book and the book says, cut off ego with a roof. Sure. We have to practice with ego. Ego is something wonderful to practice with. It brings us to practice, in a sense.

[41:46]

And then we lay our ego at the foot of practice. And Buddha says, well, OK, practice with that. Yes. If there is no teacher available, how do I avoid the pitfall of a hermit? Yeah. Well, but there is. I live in Rhode Island. Rhode Island? There's the Providence Zen Center. I've been there. Well, that's the problem. So if you don't have a teacher, then have one good text that you read some every day. And that can be a good teacher.

[42:48]

I suggest Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. I have. Yeah. Every day, read one of those. a little chapter. What about what? We have a sangha. I have a sangha with a group of people and we have lots of pictures of different teachers. This could be a problem. So that's kind of eclectic, you know, which is nice in a way, but it doesn't give you a focus. If you narrow it down to, it's okay to have the pictures around, but if you study one thing, is what I'm saying, just take one thing, one book, and just study that over and over again. That's like having a teacher. If you just read this, and then you read some of that, you're just putting information into your head, it's not teaching. But if you have one text, or even one piece of paper that has something that's really

[43:57]

significant on it, and just read that one piece of paper every day until it starts to penetrate. Then there's something going on between you and the piece of paper. Of course, a piece of paper is just, you know, nothing, right? Black dots on a rag. But there's something significantly coming out of that. And you can create a dialogue with that. Don't go nuts, but keep it simple.

[44:34]

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