When I have talked about koan study, I have often noted how little instruction I received in how to actually work with a koan. The advice which seemed to be in the air was to just sit with it, breathing it in or out or both, to fasten on one word or phrase. “Mu” or “Don’t know,” and breathe with it.
Jishu always said, “Go deeper,” but I didn’t know what she meant.
Bob told me to approach koans from the point of view of the Absolute. I think that helped. I understood the Absolute as no self or other, no separation.
The advice from Ellen Burstyn probably carried me the farthest. Her advice, to approach koans the way she was trained to approach a role when she studied the Method at the Actors Studio seemed to work. I have been repeating her advice to my students since I began teaching, whenever I talked about working with koans.
This morning it seems that what I took from Ellen was too one-sided in its emphasis. This morning, I am recontextualizing what I took from her. My Zen practice is framed by Dogen’s formulation from the Genjokoan: To study Zen is to study the self. I have talked a lot about precept study and how in our Dogen Zen we use the precepts as tools to study the self, not to judge the self, and certainly not to judge others. We use them to go deeper.
We do not study koans in order to learn a bunch of koans, although perhaps there are some who look at them that way, that we study koans so that we have something to talk about when we give Dharma talks. Some teachers put a lot of koan-study energy digging up the biographies of the characters in the koans, putting the koans in their historical context, comparing translations. Sometimes all this philology and hermeneutics is interesting. Sometimes it bores me although I’m sure Ellen would remind me that for some actors, research of that sort helps them get into a part.
I want to re-Dogenize Ellen’s advice. Remember, we study koans to study the self. Koans are tools. Koans are mirrors. I am more interested in what I can see in the mirror than I am in the history of the mirror or the techniques of its manufacture. To get to the work, we need to turn the light inward. In becoming the monk who asks Chao-Chou if a dog has Buddha nature, I am going inward. I am finding the monk in myself. Maybe he’s a part of me that I don’t want to look at. The koan pushes me to open the door, to let the demon out.
I have found myself mu-ing much more. As a beginning teacher, I was reluctant to Mu. When a student raised a philosophical or theological question, some contemporary version of “Does a dog have Buddha nature?” I tried to respond with what I imagined to be compassion. It is a watchword of good teaching: “There are no stupid questions.” For many of us, the pathway into practice begins with such questions. But lately I have been mu-ing more. I am remembering an interaction I observed many years ago. The Staten Island Society of Clinical Social Workers had invited Diane Shainberg to speak at our annual meeting about spirituality and psychotherapy. Since I was the Zen guy in the Society, I was asked to liaison with Diane. It was a karmic moment. Driving Diane to the meeting site, she suggested that I check out Bernie Glassman. It was the briefest of life-changing interactions.
I don’t remember Diane’s talk. I remember one interaction from the Q & A. Dennis, who I knew a bit – I’d briefly been his boss – asked some version of the Buddha dog question? “Why is that question important to you?” Diane responded.
“It’s not,” said Dennis.
I don’t remember Diane’s words. They were her version of Mu, and then she moved on to the next questioner. I was horrified. I could feel Dennis’ embarrassment. I look back now. At that moment -- I was a bare beginner, I hadn’t yet met Bernie, the idea of becoming a Zen teacher from myself was nowhere on my horizon and even when I began teaching, I didn’t understand Mu as clearly as Diane did -- I was, to extend my Ellen imagery, nowhere near ready to take on the role of Chao-Chou in the next Scorsese movie.
I have talked often about my progression through Mu. I passed that koan with Bob by becoming the dog. I was able to connect with my inner puppy – playful, unruly, irreverent. I crawled around the dokusan room, peed in the corner (not really; I was acting), crawled back and laid my head in Bob’s lap.
It was years before I was able to play the monk, to find the monk in me. I remember the room at Mt. Manresa where we sat and where I gave the talk in which I became the monk for the first time. I had walked in straw sandals a thousand miles across China on dusty, rocky roads to get to Chao-Chou, driven by my burning question. By the time I bowed before the master, I was screaming. “I know, I know. The Buddha said all beings have Buddha nature. I don’t give a shit about the dog. Do I have Buddha nature?” I couldn’t believe then that Chao-Chou hadn’t answered my question. I’d come so far to see him. My feet were killing me.
It was years longer before I was ready to embody Chao-Chou. “Stop wasting our time with intellectual games. Show me the darkness. Show me your shadows.” I know I sometimes sound harsh. But it feels more compassionate now not to waste our time chatting about the dog.
It has taken me a long time to appreciate Diane’s courage. It’s taken me a long time to understand Ellen and the Method. To become the character in a koan is to find the character in myself. Very Dogen? I think so.
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