Wind-in-Grass had its first practice October 17, 2009.  There were three of us there.  A week later the space was dedicated and blessed.  Its been a year.  We celebrated our birthday last week.  There were hats and cake and cookies and chocolate and fruit, because that is how we roll.  In celebration I hope that you will take the time tell us what you like in our weekly practice, what you wish we had more of, and whatever else is on your mind.  Its your sangha after all.  Any feedback you can give is sincerely appreciated. 

This week, we turned our practice toward the PZI short course koan curriculum and let the streams commingle as we will for the next 6 weeks.  And we played a game.  Business as usual.  The first koan was Mu, or the koan which is commonly known as Mu.  The koan No, or Mu, is part of the Gateless Gate collection of koans-in Mandarin, Wúménguān, in Japanese, Mumonkan.  It is a collection of 48 Zen Koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai (1183–1260) (Japanese: Mumon Ekai). We will just call him Wumen.  Its friendly, and easy to say.  Wumen's preface indicates that the volume was published in 1228. Each koan is accompanied by a commentary and verse by Wumen.  Along with the Blue Cliff Record and the oral tradition of Hakuin, The Gateless Gate is a central work much used in Rinzai schools of practice, of which PZI belongs and therefore WiG is a part. 


The way I first heard Mu was this:



A monk asked Zhaozhou, a Chinese Zen master (known as Jōshū in Japanese), "Has a dog Buddha nature or not?" Zhaozhou answered, "Wú" (in Japanese, Mu), in English, "No".  

I think this is the way the recently departed Robert Aiken translated the koan and it was how it was spoken to me by James Ford Roshi.  PZI, however, uses the entire koan, told as a story, translated by John Tarrant and Joan Sutherland thusly:

A monk asked Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?”

“Yes,” replied Zhaozhou,

“Then why did it jump into that bag of fur?”

“It knew what it was doing and that’s why it dogged.”




Another time a monk asked Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?”

“No.”

“All beings have buddha nature. Why doesn’t a dog have it?”

“Because it’s beginning to awaken in the world of ignorance.”


We sat with the koan for 25 minutes, a smaller group than usual thanks to the World Series which was taking place about 3 miles from where we sat.  Frankly, you could see into the Stadium from the meditation hall, so why miss practice?  But I digress. 

We sat, and Mu, or No, was spoken into the room. 

At the 25 minute mark, the game part, really just one thing we could do to notice our relationships with Mu, was spoken.  Sitters were asked "to notice what they notice, and in response 'no'.  To any question, "no", to any observation, 'no', to any naming or judgment 'no'. Emotions 'no', stories, 'no'.  No, no, no, no ,no."

Then we each gave our thoughts. It was community night, so we did so while sharing a cherry pie and some home made chocolate chip cookies. 

Honestly, I had C, and she was squirming, so I don't recall everyone's comments as well as usual.  I recall that A and B didn't really grapple with it, and that C noticed that she felt like a child, denying everything, feeling a power in that denial.  D and F noticed a similar experience of words and labels becoming less sticky and things just being things.  A process of negating everything and truly not knowing, thus allowing things to be left as they were.  E noticed that his usual analytic process was somewhat checked and that he had a freedom around his awareness.  

At the conclusion,  I read the commentary John presented us, and Chris Wilson gave some comments on the koan.  Next week we work with the same koan, and we will see what comes up then.

After practice, we all headed to Rocket Fish where we had sushi and wine and talked about the Giants. 

Because anything worth doing is worth doing in a big group, PZI is holding its second 6 week koan cycle.  All throughout PZI, small groups are forming to discuss how they work with 6 specially selected koans and to note how the koan works with them.  Wind-in-Grass is using the 6 koans to build our weekly practice around. 

If you have never worked with a koan before, this is a great way to learn.  It is the ancient way koans were explored in China, in a group and public setting.  In fact the word koan, merely means "public case".   In my personal experience, I remember the first time I worked on a koan in a group.  It was opening.  I didn't realize there were so many paths to the heart of a koan, so many windows for it to climb through. 

Its a wonderful experiment we invite you to join us.  In Potrero Hill or on line. 

Reeeeeaaady:  Go!

This week's koan:

A monk asked Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?”

“Yes,” replied Zhaozhou,

“Then why did it jump into that bag of fur?”

“It knew what it was doing and that’s why it dogged.”

Another time a monk asked Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?”

“No.”

“All beings have buddha nature. Why doesn’t a dog have it?”

“Because it’s beginning to awaken in the world of ignorance.”

Check out John Tarrant's commentary on his blog, Zenosaurus

Since I started sitting with PZI, and to be truthful, thanks to a friend's blatant disregard for US copyrights vis a vis MP3s of some of John's sesshin talks, about a year before, I have been hearing John Tarramt describing the vast spaciousness, or at least increased spaciousness, that comes from sitting.  [For those interested, I receive a small royalty for the number of commas I can use per sentence.  Back to our regularly scheduled programming...] . I won't say result since Zen is not supposed to be goal oriented.  Unless it is, but I digress.

At any rate, its been repeated so much I stopped thinking of it, but always love to hear John pronounce that word.  It has a soothing effect on me not unlike hearing the word "weekend", or "peaceful", or, in certain contexts "opening day".  John too seemed and seems to favor pronouncing the word and I can tell that it represents great happiness for him.  The spaciousness, not the pronouncement.  For some time, without realizing it, I had associated the concept with a silence of thoughts- somewhat that bleary wiggy meditation high one can sometimes wander into, unless one is trying to create the effect of zen-ed out blissfullness in which case it can be created somewhat reliably.  That place where you just go "mmmmmmmm" and there are no thoughts rippling the quiet pool of our mind.  That is what I thought, this spaciousness was meant to represent.  Now I am not so sure.  Actually, I am pretty sure I was wrong, but I am willing to be wrong on even that.

Sitting lately has been interesting.  I have been imagining that my sitting has hit a flat place.  I lacked the vigor and enthusiasm for sitting as I sometimes have.  I kept sitting of course, and somewhere in there it appeared to me that this was it too, that what I have been experiences as flatness is in fact the shattering of a certain delusion that meditation would be different or that I would be different or better.  I was thrown off my the fact that such an implosion was utterly silent. 

So there I have been, hanging out with me, accepting that that is not going to be hammered into some odd notion of better or different and in fact kind of wondering where i got the idea that this needed hammering, when I noticed a spaciousness in my mind.  Not one fewer thought, really, but kind of looking around and realizing how roomy it is in there.  Where previously thoughts had been eating up nearly all my mind's eye, I started to notice, at least sometimes, that those thoughts, and my reactions to them, really only take up a very small amount of real estate. And when you see its just one tenant, its hard to get too caught up in them.  Or harder.  Sometimes at least.  So that's the spaciousness I have found.  Its not that my thoughts have become smaller or quieter, its just that my awareness has become larger. 

Or that is how it feels to me.

David thought the title Meditation Retreat and Koan Seminar sounded a bit stiff.  He liked Koan Brunch.  I actually think its really good, so there you go.  We had a wonderful koan brunch today.

There were 13 of us in the end, gathered in the Art room of the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House.  E.Y made a lovely lunch with a quinoa salad and vegetarian sushi.  LH made a monster salad and well, if not for the enlightenment, you could have come for the food and still made out just fine.

As it was, it was a great day.  David lead us through our play with Yunmen's koan:

There is a light within each of us,
If you look for it, you cannot find it, only darkness. The darkness is dark
A storage room
A gate
Having nothing is better than having something good.

We sat with it and then discussed.David began the day though with some wonderful instruction on koan practice.  He said that there are as many ways to work with a koan as there are people and koans.  He said sometimes you look for it, sometimes you repeat it over and over, some people wait for a part to trickle up.  Others wait for the koan to find them.  There is no failure, he said, and dared the group to prove to him that they had failed. 

It set a wonderful tone and we sat intently, and discussed at length. 

After lunch we explored a bit of Tai Chi, then sat again with the koan.  E. open the discussion by stating that she thought her meditation was poor.  It opened up a lot of interesting observations from the group about awareness and its tendency to migrate you toward things that work, toward awareness and wholeness.  We talked about dreams and day dreaming on the cushion and even sleeping on the cushion and how that is not really better than clear lucid focus on anything. 

I really should have taken a photo, but I forgot.  The koan play was too rich and it was just such a wonderful and intimate group.  Thanks to G, A and D for making it out from Oakland, E from coming down from Santa Rosa, I from giving up her weekend studies to drive up from Santa Cruz, R for joining and A for running over after her marathon training, L for finding a sitter to join, E for the lovely lunch, T for coming over the bridge to join us, A for making the long trip over the city and last but not least, C for driving all the way over from Marin,

This is a reminder that Wind-in-Grass is reprising its highly successful full day meditation retreat this weekend, Saturday from 10-3:30.  More details here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=151049228252500#!/event.php?eid=151049228252500.

David Weinstein Roshi will lead the discussion and meditation.  Come join us.  We hope to sit with you. 

Last night we celebrated the first year anniversary of Wind-in-Grass.  I was pleased that even with sesshin going on, and many of our sangha up at retreat, there were still 9 of us.  A year ago, on our inaugural sit, there were three.  Those three are still strong members today. 

I am really proud of our little sangha.  Its a great and strong community, diverse and sincere.  We placed a birthday card and a number 1 candle on the altar and wore Birthday cone hats.  We lo

On to the game. 


With the group in sesshin, I was interested in the role of intensity in practice.  What effect has urgency in koan practice?   There was a story I read recently, frankly the kind of story that used to inspire me but now offends me slightly with its machismo, about a monk taking a stick on incense and a knife, sitting down with the resolution that he would realize enlightenment by the time the incense bit his fingers or plunge the knife into his gut taking his life. 

Like I said, not my cup of tea, but still, I wanted to know what would happen if I, or we, worked on a koan with the sort of rapid intensity as the legend depicts.  

Everyone was given a stick of incense (in addition to the birthday party hats), Which was lighted on a candle.  No knives were distributed as that is a rotten way to build a sangha, and the cushions are a loaner and blood so hard to remove.  We sat with the instruction that with the extinguishing of the incense, so too would our lives end if we had not realized our koan.  Not a pleasant message to get on a Wednesday evening, but none the less, and experiment is an experiment. 

Many people let the incense burn their fingers before dropping it.  We walked, we distributed party snacks (thanks Marika and Toby), drank tea and discussed. 

A: Noted that she didn't much care for the urgency, and in fact, was unable to connect with the sense of urgency
B: Also noted that she came for not thinking, and that the note of urgency in the game made her feel like she should be thinking. 
C: Was new to koans and mentioned that he gazed at the red line of the burning ember and let it fill him.
D:  Noted how the urgency of the moment, as the ember burned close to his fingers, expanded his heart and made his koan feel close to him. 
E: Noted that at first, she reacted to the note of urgency, but that later, after having sat urgently, it melted away and she was clear and aware only of her breath and chest rising and falling
F: Noted that she was unable to connect with the sense of urgency until the incense was close, then she felt nothing but her koan filling her and her mind surrendering.
G: Noticed that while his rational mind usually set to work trying to crack a koan, in this exercise, with only 25 minutes until the end of everything, his mind just gave up, and he was aware of the sky turning dark and the lights of the city and just that
F: Noticed recrimination from his mind when it got to thinking, but also a sense of community deeper than usual.  Also, as the incense started warming his fingers, just silence and koan and a complete calm and spaciousness. 

We talked for a while, about the role, if any, of enlightenment, and whether we cared if we found it, and what we did after we found it.  It was a warm night, and we sat outside.  We sang, and sat and celebrated. 

Happy Birthday Wind-in-Grass. 

Is wisdom something we do, or something we don't do.  More specifically, if it something we learn, or is it something we realize by unlearning the crap that gets in front of it?