“What is the Dharma body of emptiness?” asked
a disciple.
Shoushan replied, “Your old teacher is
underneath your feet.”
Responsible
Elihu
Genmyo Smith
Our life practice is responding as this moment universe, being
responsible. This is beginner’s mind.
Being present this moment - without holding to or being
blinded by emotion-thought of what we “know”, “don’t know”, are “good” at, are “not good” at, “should” do, or “shouldn’t” do - nurtures
responding. Responding is not dependent upon specific skills or experiences. When we walk by something and hold to the
belief “that’s not mine to do”, “oh, that shouldn’t require my efforts”, “someone
else needs to do that”, right there, in believing attachments and reacting out
of body-mind habits, the reactiveness misses this present moment, this endless
dimension universe – and unfortunately often results in stress and harm.
Response-able is not holding to the fixed habits that arise;
it is not that habits, attachments and reactions don’t arise but that despite
the reactions like “oh, I don’t know how
to cook,” when it is our opportunity and the circumstances call for it, we
cook. “I’m not good at…”are thoughts and
beliefs, reactive habits. It doesn’t
matter which of many beliefs arise, how self-centeredness appears – I am or am not
good at gardening, at computer work or…. Holding to these without seeing and being what
is so right now is living in daydreams, in habits -and misses this moment, this
universe. All we have is this moment; not this moment me and the world but this
moment the whole universe that is our life of encounter. Do you see this?
This is the beginner’s mind that Suzuki Roshi clarifies in Zen
Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Despite our
resistance to it, despite our holding to “expert body-mind”, to self-daydream of
what so-and-so is like and what such-and-such should be, the ability to respond
is what we are, what this life is. A simple response is inhaling after we
breathe out, after exhaling. All of us exhale, and at a certain point you
respond (to the need for oxygen, for air) by breathing in. Very natural - responding as this moment.
This is the universe breathing.
When arising habits, tendencies, beliefs and reactions, “run”
our life then this hinders this life, this present moment. If we allow them to
be the basis of actions, responses, then stress, dissatisfaction and suffering
result. And this is also so if we allow them to be the basis of what we do to
others, what we expect of others, react to how “others” are or are not, and
“get into” their business. If we don’t notice these arising, do not see the reacting
out of them, the not-noticing and the reacting-out-of is how much we are not responding
as this moment. While the arising is neither good nor bad, it is simply cause-effect,
at the same time there are consequences in our life, the life of those around
us, the life of the universe.
Able to respond is being present, is able to sense, see and hear
the universe, this moment – to not only hear and sense the self-reactive
habits, attachments and beliefs that arise. Able to respond is able to feel
this life here; it doesn’t mean we have to do any particular thing, doesn’t
mean we have to respond in any particular way or even have any special skill.
Our ability to respond grows out of being present. Our capacity is only hindered by holding to
emotion-thought such as “oh, I don’t do that,” or other beliefs/attachments
such as I shouldn’t, I can’t; especially holding to beliefs of self and other,
to dualism and self-centeredness.
Responding isn’t anything fancy.
As I said, it is breathing, inhaling after exhaling. This is responding,
being responsible - all of us know what happens if we exhale and don’t respond. You know it very well. This is natural awareness,
being awake. Responding - and being willing to respond - is this beginner’s
life that we are. Responding is whole being-ness,
intimacy. We have opportunities from morning to night, from when we open our eyes,
when we wake up. Every encounter is this moment. Breathing in, breathing out,
is encountering, is responding; being listening is responding, being responsible,
being able to respond – it is not limited to doing any particular thing.
Greeting someone we meet with a bow, a smile or “hello” is responding; “please”,
“thank you” and “you are welcome” are
responding, silence is responding. Does not matter if we are strong or weak,
old or young, healthy or sickly, responding is as we are – as we are is the
perfect universe manifesting.
Responding is also to see what is ours to respond to and
what is not ours to respond to. We can create all sorts of difficulties if we
mix these up, if we attempt to respond to what is not ours, interfere with
others in what is theirs to respond to, attempting to make them be or act as we
believe, creating body-mind stress, harm and suffering over mixing into what is
the universe of not-ours to respond to. A simple example of this is believing
and acting out of judgments of others.
Only our inability or unwillingness to be what is so, to see
what is so, hinders us. Only holding to preconceived ideas, beliefs about
so-called me or so-called others, hinders our functioning. And it is our willingness to see those when
they arise, to allow those to be, to be in the midst of experiencing, of being
this open life that we are, this not-knowing beginner’s mind, that is our
practice opportunity. Our unwillingness, our wishful thinking, doesn’t change
reality, it doesn’t change what is so - and yet it hinders this life that we
are. The dialogues and encounters of
various ancient masters or modern masters clarify this. Since I brought up Master
Shoushan Xingnian (10th century China - Shuzan in Sino-Japanese) in
an earlier piece, I will mention a few of his dialogues.
A monk asked “What is Shoushan?” Shoushan is the name of the
mountain where his temple was, as well as the name of the temple. The custom in
China and Japan, and even in the United States, is for a head of a temple or
monastery to take the name of the temple.
Shoushan literally means chief or head mountain. Shoushan responds, “east mountain is high,
west mountain is low,” expressing this life directly and simply – following along the question and expressing
the truth of life – these are never two!
The disciple doesn’t see Shoushan’s response; instead he seems
to hold some ideas that the answer is about the height of mountains and not his
“fundamental” question. From the disciple’s response we may assume he wanted to
ask a “Zen” question and to get a “Zen” answer.
So the disciple again asks, “Oh, what about the person inside the
mountain?” He is saying, “I’m not interested that mountain’s high, that
mountain’s low, that is just some externals, I want to get some important
truths. I want to get some Dharmic fundamental points about the True person in
Shoushan.” Is there a person inside the “mountain”, a separate person “inside”
Shoushan? The master responds, “Fortunately for you, my staff isn’t in my
hand.” Do you see Shoushan’s response, the kindness and at the same time directness
to further manifest this point, to attend to and sweep away what blinds and
catches the questioner?
Asked about mountains, the response is in terms of the
question, allowing the questioner to let go of what he believes he knows about
internal/external, mountains, people and Dharma; the response is life right
here now. Don’t live in a daydream, in beliefs and dualism - which is what we
do when we don’t respond out of this moment. There are all sorts of daydreams
that we may live in. Our practice is responding, or noticing what daydream we are
caught and blinded by - which is responding; otherwise the daydreams result in
missing this moment life encounter, this moment breath, short breath, long
breath.
Appropriate for today’s early winter, another questioner asked
Shoushan, “What is the eye that does not deceive others?” If I explain, which
is already off, he is trying to ask a question about genuine awakening but in
conceptual, theoretical terms. Shoushan responds directly, being response-able.
“Look, look, winter is approaching.” Being in windy late fall - “what eye doesn’t
deceive others?” “Oh, all the leaves have fallen and the wind is blowing
strong. Look, winter is approaching.” But the questioner wasn’t satisfied with
the immediate response, the response-able response. So he said, “But what about
the ultimate meaning of it all;” The questioner could be saying –“I mean seeing
the ultimate meaning, what is really important. Not what is going on now,
winter weather approaching, that doesn’t matter, I am asking about what is
really important, the dharma eye that does not deceive.” And the master said,
“And after that, we will have gentle spring breeze.” Not buying into the
questioners daydream, he shows the questioner what is appropriate.
If we live up in our daydreams then we walk through a life
of daydream; we don’t live this moment, don’t see the piece of paper that needs
to be picked up from the floor. “Oh, that’s not mine, I’m thinking important
things.”
Asked, “What is the Dharma body of emptiness?” Shoashan
replied, “Your old teacher is underneath your feet.” “Oh, why reverend sir, are
you under the feet of your pupil?” “Oh, this poor, blind fellow who is living
in a daydream.”
Life is always this moment, practice always this moment -
not some ideas about it. Our opportunity is being this moment, being responding.
We don’t need to figure out anything else. Not because there isn’t a time or place
to do that if you want to; but if we carry that around in all sorts of places
then we miss, literally miss, our life. Then we have “an expert’s mind” that
knows all sorts of things and knows what they should or shouldn’t do, knows who
should or shouldn’t be in front of them. Then we miss the food that we put in
our mouth because we don’t taste it; we don’t feel the bowl when we are holding
it, we don’t feel the floor as we’re walking. And we don’t see the person who
is speaking to us. Instead, we are “they shouldn’t say that to me, should know
better, should …” – being so leads to
difficulties in our life and the life of others.
Reactive tendencies and habits are “normal”, the result of
all sorts of cause-effect - biological, psychological, sociological, genetic,
etc. There are many ways of explaining them. Nevertheless, our practice is
always now. Right now, what is called for? What is skillful and appropriate,
compassionate? This is the simplicity and immediacy of our practice, in the
midst of individual skills and abilities, of capacities of all sorts - as a
musician, a programmer, a doctor, a waiter, all sorts of abilities that we
develop. Always the capacity of being beginner’s functioning, this
able-to-respond, being open, loving - this is awakened state - in sesshin,
after sesshin, with friends, family, strangers, at work, the grocery store, and
everywhere else. And we know very well the trouble we can get into when
attaching to reactive beliefs.
At times we use the words “you are responsible” in terms of
blame or judgment, or in ways that hinders us from seeing how wonderful our
ability to respond is. Like the tree response-able to the changing seasons with
the leaves turning color and then the tree dropping leaves – simply tree being response-able.
From morning to night response-able is the universe
responding. Our opportunity is to be this universe that we are - respond.
Respond to the conditions as they appear in many realms, so-called inside,
so-called outside. If we attach to judgments, daydreams, we may get in trouble
and cause trouble. Be the joy of our encounters, responding as the circumstances
and conditions of this life.
© 2014 Elihu Genmyo Smith
