Compassionate with Others, Strict with the Self

Last updated on: September 2, 2014 at 1:15 pm by Dosho Port

Compassionate with Others, Strict with the Self 2014-09-02T13:15:27-06:00 Dosho Port

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Today was the first day for morning zazen (aka, “Wake the Heck Up! Morning Zazen”) for Great Tides Zen here in Portland, ME. We walked down the wharf and into the Pierce Atwood Building with the lobster fishermen and seagulls.

Seven people showed up and it was a lovely session.

Getting up early enough to be at zazen and in our seats at 5:25am might sound rather severe. A phrase that Katagiri Roshi used often in guiding our practice comes to mind – “Be compassionate with others and strict with the self.”

Katagiri Roshi modelled this phrase in how he lived (especially in terms of “strict with the self”), as have other teachers in my life, like James Myoun Ford Roshi (especially in terms of “compassionate with others”).

This phrase has also come up in our Vine of Obstacles: Online Support for Zen Training practice meetings as we move toward our second home-based practice period and the cohort version of our primer, “Guidelines for Studying the Way.”

Some of Katagiri Roshi’s students, especially the therapists, would argue with him about this dictum, suggesting that instead we need to be compassionate with others and compassionate with ourselves.

And there certainly is something important there too. Many of us come to Zen practice with self-hatred issues and (mis)use the strictness of practice as support for practicing this painful pathology.

“Strictness though, may not be quite the right word – “demanding that rules concerning behavior are obeyed and observed” or else you’ll be whacked (in the traditional Japanese model, not at Great Tides Zen) in not always such a “light tap” way. Perhaps “firmness” fits better as one of the foci. As such it is an aspect of the Śīla paramita – the perfection of precepts – and it’s about living in vow, actualizing our innermost request.

“Compassion” also might be tuned a bit. I see it here as “accepting” as in accepting of others and firm with oneself. As such it is the Kṣānti paramita – the perfection of patience, and it’s about the not-two nature of self and other.

Certainly there are times when it is important to be firm with others and accepting with ourselves – like in parenting.

There are also those moments when firm with others and firm with the self is fitting. Take the situation of the two cute monks in the drawing. They look a lot like each other and that seems like a clue. In their respective positions, the one who taps and the one who is about to be tapped, firmness is vital. As is acceptance.

In zazen we see how our propensities to pander to our projected distortions are profound and pernicious. All of this we radically accept. Yet if we are to turn around, swim upstream through these karmic predispositions and realize ourselves, a considerable degree of firmness with our intention for this one great life is necessary.

In our practice, we learn acceptance in firmness and firmness in acceptance.

So each of the four combinations for accepting and being firm, applied to self and other, has it’s place. Should I get up and go to zazen this morning or stay in bed? Should I go to sesshin or take care of family or career responsibilities. Acceptance and firmness are one set of foci in practice that work in dynamic, intimate conversation.

There is no one right answer and so we learn by experimenting, tuning the violin of practice with the accepting/firm tuning peg, increasing or decreasing the tension on string so as to control the pitch.

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