Finding salvation is a lot like kissing a snake
"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."
The deliberately provocative line above is a koan, one of many coined by Chinese Zen master Linji Yixuan, founder of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism.
A koan is a seemingly paradoxical statement or question that cannot be grasped by the logical mind, for example: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Its purpose is to subvert the causal nature of consensual reality, thereby inducing a sudden, intuitive insight or revelation into the underpinnings of consciousness itself. The Japanese refer to this moment of ecstatic truth as satori.
Zen master Dogen said that in order to perceive reality we must "drop mind and body". In other words, it is essential to drop all habits of thought and preconceptions in order to understand the truth. The Koan forces the student to face this type of thinking. Therefore, "killing the Buddha" symbolises the annihilation of all mental constructs comprised of name and form, including the Buddha, to apprehend the true nature of reality.
The word Zen is derived from the Chinese word ch'an, which in turn is a cognate of the Sanskrit term dhyana. Indian monk Bodhidharma (fifth century CE), considered the first Zen patriarch, is traditionally credited for the transmission of Ch'an Buddhism to China.
Personal journey
After years of dabbling in scriptures of various traditions, the simplicity and spontaneity of Zen seemed to be an appealing alternative to the tomes of philosophy, which fascinating as they were, could only take one so far and no further. After making enquiries, I soon found myself knocking at the gates of Yokoji Zen Mountain Center in the San Jacinto mountains.
Yokoji is situated about halfway between Los Angeles county and Palm Springs and is built at an altitude of 6,000ft. It sits on a 160-acre plot and boasts of stunning sunsets, crisp, cool climate and a rich vegetation as well as several species of reptiles, birds and mammals.
On arriving, after signing in and placing my belongings in a cozy wooden loft that was to be my home for the next several weeks, I was thrown into a hectic daily routine. This comprised of an hour-long morning, noon and evening zazen or sitting meditation sessions, interspersed with four to six hours of hard physical labour on the premises. The work component is an integral part of the Zen system and could include chopping wood, mopping floors, kitchen detail, cleaning toilets and raking lawns.
The work assignments were executed by crews of three to five people led by their supervisors. Placed above the supervisors are "senior students" - long-term residents, who lead ceremonial functions in the zendo or meditation hall, and a few notches above them is the eno (enforcer of the code of conduct) and finally the roshi or head of the monastic order, ably assisted by his jisha or assistant. The hierarchy was rigid and atavistic, presumably harking back to its medieval origins in Shogun-era Japan.
In my time at Yokoji, I encountered a colourful selection of spiritual aspirants from widely divergent backgrounds. Among them was a recovering alcoholic with a delightful Cockney accent, who would knock back a peg when she thought no one was looking, a medical cannabis entrepreneur who ran a government sanctioned plantation not far from the center, a retired heart surgeon who had taken to Buddhism after his wife's tragic death in a car accident, an action-movie-screenwriter-turned-yoga-teacher and a Mexican au pair who had recently gotten married to the Texan oilman who she used to work for.
The supervisors and enforcers, jokingly called "Dharma Police" by residents, had taken on Japanese names like Yugen, Jokkai, Hakujo and did not hesitate to admonish inmates who stepped out of line. The chafing micromanagement was supposedly beneficial for "training the mind". David, the Eno, seemed to take his role a tad too seriously and had dispensed with social graces entirely. The staff and long-term residents were always dressed in traditional black robes, adding to the surreal vibe.
The set-up was strangely reminiscent of the film One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
I found myself oscillating between feelings of amusement and compassion for these hapless souls, who like myself, had come here seeking answers to the eternal quandary of human existence. We were urged to "watch the reactions" to mental obstacles or manifestations of the ego that might arise under pressure, and to "use the resistance" as a tool to break through delusion and conditioning.
The Dalai Lama often urged his fellow Tibetans to deal with the Chinese aggression and cultural imperialism by viewing one's personal demons and tormentors in a compassionate light, as a device to strengthen the practise in the face of insurmountable odds. To transcend the duality of pain and pleasure, one had to grasp the inherent emptiness of both by observing the constant rising and falling of the five skandhas (aggregates): rupa or form (matter), vedana or sensation (feeling), samjnya or perception (conception), samskara or mental formations impulses) and vijnana or consciousness (discernment).
Buddhist soteriology posits the five skandhas as functions or attributes that give rise to the false notion of "Self". The Buddha taught that nothing among them was really "I" or "Mine" and that ultimate liberation or nibbana could only be realised by penetrating the nature of the aggregates as intrinsically empty of independent existence. The deceptively simple koan, "Who drags this corpse around?" encapsulates the essence of identifying with a non-existent self.
Yokoji had been established in 1981 by the late Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi. Charles Tenshin Fletcher, an Englishman, who received dharma transmission from Maezumi Roshi, is the current abbot in residence. His two primary assistants, David aka Jokkai and Jim aka Yugen, both British, reside in the US on religious visas, and over the years had successfully navigated the immigration system to stay on in the country.
Maezumi Roshi, the erstwhile founder of Yokoji, had a chequered past. In addition to being a declared alcoholic who had undergone treatment at the Betty Ford clinic, he was also a serial womaniser who had conducted affairs with a number of female disciples, including some who had received dharma transmission from him, compelling his wife, children and several monks to leave the Sangha. He passed away ignominiously, drowning in a hot tub in Japan, where he had been drinking himself to oblivion all week.
In spite of his flaws and peccadilloes, Maezumi Roshi was renowned for his "awakened Buddha nature". According to authors Steven Heine and Dale S Wright in their book Zen Masters, "Maezumi was by all accounts an impressive Zen master - someone who it was impossible not to love and respect - but with weaknesses and vulnerabilities that derived from the simple fact that he was also finite and human. While living a truly profound and visionary Zen life, Maezumi Roshi was at the same time mortal and vulnerable to the tragedies of life."
Indeed, the human condition was a pervasive and all encompassing aspect of Zen practise. Perhaps that is what made it so potent and transformative; the fact that there was no escape from overwhelming emotional states or human weaknesses while engaged in zazen. There was no way to separate daily life, work and interactions from the practise itself. That every demon and ugly carcass from the past could arise at any given moment and the warrior had no choice but to face them, like the Buddha faced his Mara. The mind was a receptacle for the sublime, the mundane and the ungodly - welcoming them all with equal diffidence, and then sending them on their way was the only jihad worth fighting. Jim Morrison's classic line, "Kiss the snake on the tongue," came to mind more than once.
In a dharma talk, Roshi Tenshin said that thoughts were no more than "secretions of the mind" and one must never try to suppress them, only strive to cultivate a space between them and the reactions they produced, eventually causing delusions to fall away. Shikantaza or "just sitting" was the only way to achieve this. He described how strong emotions like anger could be used as tools and the key was not to succumb but to transform the powerful energy they contained.
In the days and weeks of intense meditation that followed, repressed memories, sensations and a billion random thoughts rained down on me like multicoloured confetti at a victory parade. It took a huge effort to keep sitting on the mat and not storm off into the wilderness and shout at the hills. I could feel accumulated impressions seeping from the subconscious to the surface and was constantly in the churn of a great battle, entirely within my own head. Meticulously-constructed theories fell away in the heat of war, till only the Witness remained, teetering precariously at the edge of a swirling vortex.
At the end of one such harrowing session, I opened my eyes to the statue of Tibetan Buddhist deity Manjusri, seated on a roaring lion in the centre of the Zendo. The image of Manjusri taming a powerful beast, captured the essence of zazen; that the practise could contain the most fearsome states of mind, and "just sitting" was the greatest battle that a true warrior could undertake.
After the retreat, upon returning to life in the city, the most relevant and lingering impression I took away was that there is no escaping the truth of the human condition - with all its blood, guts and glory. Clearly, salvation cannot be found by retreating from the meat-hook realities of mundane existence.
Kissing the snake on the tongue is the only option left.