On Minding Your Own Business … or Not

Last updated on: December 14, 2009 at 3:58 pm by Dosho Port

On Minding Your Own Business … or Not 2009-12-14T15:58:00-06:00 Dosho Port

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Sometimes students here are kinda picky. For example, they want consistency! In this last sesshin, I got caught speaking out of both sides of my mouth.

Our focus during the sesshin was this passage from Genjokoan the great “one doing!” lion’s roar of Soto Zen:

…When a person does practice-enlightenment in the buddha way, as the person realizes one dharma, the person permeates that dharma; as the person encountersone practice,the person practicesthat practice.

I summarized this with Katagiri Roshi’s frequent admonition, “Progress in practice is not your business. It is other’s business.”

That is, in zazen, surrender yourself to the form of zazen. In kinhin, surrender yourself to the form of kinhin. When chanting sutras…you get the idea.

In other words, don’t constantly worry about whether the bread is done, constantly opening the oven door. Just let the bread bake. Otherwise, we’re always getting in our own way.

However, it seems to me that this overstates the case. In order to throw ourselves into one thing, a gentle, loving, introspective voice is important. Distinguish this from the harsh critic or swirling in self obsession that I think Roshi was referring too. Sometimes (like with the nine stages for calm abiding) this quality of mind is likened to a spy, peaking at what’s going on. The by stander, witness consciousness, must also be included in the one thing or it isn’t one. Becoming “one thing” isn’t a like winning a battle.

Now, what about the “It is other’s business” part? This refers to the value of feedback from our friends.

For example, once during a practice period at Hokyoji in the olden days, I left the zendo in a very quiet state of mind and went to kitchen to coordinate serving. As I opened the kitchen door, a scene of utter chaos struck my oh-so quiet mind. The noodles weren’t done and the tenzo and kitchen crew were panicking, literally running around trying to get the meal together at the last second. As I looked on judgmentally, a friend suddenly charged up to me, looked me in the eyes and said, “Wisdom but no compassion” and charged away.

Zing! I was holding back when the practice of the moment would have been to jump in and help out. My practice was my friend’s business and she let me know about it straightforwardly.

Now for the other side of my mouth. I often used to say to students, “Don’t look around.” Just do your practice.

During sesshin, one student noticed that incongruence. “So are you saying that other’s practice is our business or should we not look around?”

Well … just like the first practice suggestion, this one only makes sense in context. When a practice group gets all into what others are doing so their own only-one-doing gets off-centered, then “don’t look around.”

Even when we’re not looking around, of course, we tend to know what others are up too. Like the first case too, what’s important is that we don’t obsess about it and make watching others the central organizing principle of our practice.

Here’s an example that a student who studied with Katagiri Roshi told me recently. He had been struggling with his paid work because he didn’t think it was very helpful to people. Roshi encouraged him to stay with it. The student said, “I suppose that it is helpful for people to work with someone who is a practitioner.”

Roshi responded, “Don’t put yourself above others.”

And that, me thinks, brings this post all together.

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