Cultivate Only Don’t Know

Here’s an old Taoist story. An old farmer had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbours came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful”, the neighbours exclaimed. “Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbours again came to offer their sympathy for his misfortune. “Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officers came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbours congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe,” said the farmer.

One of the Temple Rules of the Kwan Um School of Zen - On Keeping the Bodhi (enlightened) Mind - instructs us thus: “Let go of your small self and become your true self. In original nature there is no this and that. The Great Round Mirror has no likes or dislikes.” In the story the farmer keeps just such a mirror-like mind. He reflects only the truth of each situation, whereas his neighbours hasten to make a story of good and bad from each incident.

It’s easier to see in this story that to keep chasing after what seem to be good outcomes is delusion, whereas to keep an unmoving mind and cultivate equanimity allows one to be with things as they actually are. We can manage this in our own life by developing a meditation practice. Cultivate Don’t Know, which means not having to reflexively condition our experiences by making them into stories, and see where it leads.

Photo by Lucia Macedo. Unsplash.

UPCOMING: "Illuminating the Heart: Art Can Show the Way" with Lizzie Coombs JDPSN

Join us live or via recording for "Illuminating the Heart: Art Can Show the Way" as Lizzie Coombs JDPSN guides us through two classes about how artistic works can speak to our own spiritual life. 

Session One / October 4 / 12 PM Eastern
See this event in your time zone
Hokusai: “My Master is Creation”
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), best known for his print ‘The Great Wave’, was a prolific and highly accomplished artist with a life-long devotion to spiritual practice. We will see how the two connect and how his work speaks to our own spiritual life. We will also look at the materials and techniques he used and how they inform his work.

Session Two / October 18 / 12 PM Eastern
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Mirror and Moon: Yoshitoshi, Hiroshige et al
A look at how other 19th century Japanese artists articulated their response to all aspects of human life and to the natural world. A selection of prints and drawings expressing humour, compassion, wonder and all the drama of the world.

About the teacher: After receiving a B.A. in art history, Lizzie Coombs JDPSN trained as an art conservator specializing in the preservation and restoration of Japanese woodblock prints and other works of art on paper. She worked in art museums and then in private practice for 28 years. She absorbed much of what she knows about Japanese prints and paintings from the connoisseurship of her late husband, the art historian and scholar of Japanese prints, Roger Keyes. Lizzie started practicing Zen in 1987 and received inka from Zen Master Soeng Hyang in 2018. She is Guiding Teacher of York Zen Group and The Peak Zen Group in the U.K.

All classes are recorded so you can choose to join live or watch the recordings later, at your convenience. Recordings of each live session will be available within 48-hours for those who can't attend in person. The cost of the two-class series is $30 USD. Find out more and sign up below.

[ATTENTION Members of the 360 Zen Study Series: There is no need to purchase this class as it is already included in your subscription.]

What's the Rush?

This piece was written by Tim Lerch, teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen, for the Providence Zen Center newsletter in August 2005, reproduced by permission. It’s the essence of Zen.

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What’s the Rush?

Zen Master Lin Chi said, “When students fail to make progress, where’s the fault? The fault lies in the fact that they don’t have faith in themselves! If you don’t have faith in yourself, then you will always be in a hurry trying to keep up with everything around you, you’ll be twisted and turned by every environment that you’re in and you can never move freely. But if you can just stop this mind that goes rushing around moment by moment, always looking for something, then you will be no different from the patriarchs and the Buddhas. Do you want to get to know the patriarchs and the Buddhas? They are none other than you, the people standing and listening to this lecture on the dharma!”

Lin Chi said this to his students over a thousand years ago, and this teaching is just as important for us today. Our tendency as Zen students is to approach our practice the way we do most things, by trying to get something from outside to make us feel better inside. But that very tendency is the origin of our suffering! Trying this mantra, trying that technique, going to see this teacher, going to see that teacher, we are always going around and around, searching outside of ourselves for a fix. Approached this way, Zen or any other kind of practice only results in more suffering and confusion. But Master Lin Chi gave us the key: “Just stop this mind that goes rushing around.” How do we do this? Thinking about stopping the mind only creates more movement, more turmoil. But when we look into the question “What am I?” this question leads us to our before-thinking mind, don’t know. This is how we “just stop this mind that goes rushing around.”

When we return to don’t know, our minds become clear. Clear mind sees, hears, smells, feels, perceives, and functions clearly just as it is. This is great substance and great function, our original job. Any environment, tumultous or calm, is just how it is - complete. There is no need to rush around and around looking for something. Everything is complete, moment to moment, just as it is. There is no fault and no progress. This is called having faith in yourself, getting to know the Buddhas and the patriarchs, and moving freely in this world. This is also called the great bodhisattva way.

And Still We Feel We’re Not Complete//Video

This video comes from a question and answer session I led at the Providence Zen Center, Cumberland, Rhode Island, USA in January 2020 for their Sunday Dharma School. Most of the questions came from people just starting to meditate. I hope you enjoy it.

A Bad Situation is a Good Situation

The Founding Teacher of the Kwan Um School of Zen, Zen Master Seung Sahn (1927-2004), used to say

“A good situation is a bad situation and a bad situation is a good situation.”

When I first heard these words I thought they sounded crazy. Being in a good situation seemed the only place to be: find it and hang on tight! How could that be bad?

But he was only pointing to the truth. As he would say: when life looks good it seems as though you don’t need to do anything. Just relax, no need to meditate. Why get up early for bows*, chanting and sitting? But, in an instant, everything can change, the things we’ve relied on to keep us safe, happy and apparently in control swept away. If we are only dependent on external conditions, not having cultivated a foundation of practice, then we may suffer greatly when those conditions disappear.

The Covid-19 virus has shown us just how this can happen. Living in the middle of the ancient city of York my husband Roger and I had a very good situation: beautiful parks, shops, cafes and restaurants, the cathedral, theatre, musical performance. Now, the whole city has been closed down unless providing essential services. We can’t even meet up with our family and friends. Our good situation disappeared very fast! And, for so many others, the virus has brought far worse: mass unemployment, terrible sickness, death and the loss of loved ones.

But, we have found, acceptance has been possible. Our daily Zen practice has become even more precious and focused. Meditation practiced daily gets us to be with things as they actually are, in each moment. It shelters and nurtures, giving focus and courage. So a bad situation becomes a good situation. We sincerely encourage everyone to try it and see for themselves!

York Zen has been transformed by the Covid-19 lockdown. Formed officially a year ago with the launching of this website, it was already becoming a strong and committed sangha but, apart from Roger and myself, had had no interaction with the wider Kwan Um School of Zen. Then, after our last in-person practice session, on March 16th, we moved to online meditation sessions and kong-an (koan) interviews and this has provided a great opportunity for members to explore the wealth of KUSZ resources online and meet teachers and practitioners from sanghas in other countries. As a consequence the sangha is flourishing and even more mutually supportive. Generosity and gratitude abound. And so, here too, a bad situation has become a good situation.

*we begin each day with 108 full prostrations.

The Blackbird and Sven

Watching you work, completely focused, single-minded, bringing all you are to make this one thing alive, creating meaning, beauty and function in one whole piece; generated through instinct, and coming into being as we watch, though still invisible to the wider world. Meticulous, patient, bit-by-bit becoming until there it is, in the light: complete, unique and perfect. (And so it is with each of us: one by one each thing has it, one by one each thing is complete.)

As Sven’s fingers move over the keyboard building this website with colour, fonts and photographs, an about-to-become-a-mother blackbird inspects the corner of a shelf against the white-washed wall of our city yard. She hops and settles, repeats. Is this the right place to build a nest? She moves aside some clematis vine to make a space behind it, flies off, and returns with her mate. He looks too and they agree, and so she weaves a bowl of feather, leaf and twig. When Sven and the blackbird each have finished building, he the website, she the nest, you don’t see either of them anymore, but each is present in their creation.

Thank you, Sven Mahr, for building the website for York Zen Group and taking the brilliant photos. You have completely realized our vision, laying out the warm welcome we want to give to all who already enjoy Zen meditation and all who might like to begin. Sven Mahr is based in Leipzig and can be contacted via his website here.