This week I picked up a book from the Sangha Jewel library edited by our dharma grandfather, Taizan Maezumi Roshi and his student Bernie Glassman. It is a collection of teachings given by Maezumi Roshi and his teachers titled On Zen practice II. I flipped it open to a talk by Koryu Roshi titled, ‘Joshu’s Dog.’ Joshu’s Dog is often the first koan a Zen student is given. “A monk once asked Joshu, ‘Does a dog have Buddha nature?’ Joshu answered, ‘Mu.’
You might be thinking What!? That’s it? That’s the whole koan? Zen koans are often confusing at first glance, especially if we are trying to understand them with the thinking mind. Koans invite us into a kind of intuitive understanding below logic, below ‘yes’ or ‘no.’
By the way, ‘mu’ means ‘no’ or ‘not’ in Japanese. Here’s how Koryu Roshi instructs us to practice with this koan… “The whole essence of work on this koan can be summed up like this, you totally become mu yourself, from morning to night. Even in dreams, even in sleep you are with mu and mu becomes yourself. That is the way to work on this koan. When you work on this all the time, you will get very used to it, and without trying to put too much effort into it you will be in that state day and night. As you maintain such a state, you eventually become one with mu, and you become mu yourself, and mu becomes yourself, and you become the whole universe yourself…”
This kind of continuous presence and inquiry takes Great Determination and Great Love. These are two of the qualities of Jizo Bodhisattva, the theme of our Jizo retreat which starts tonight. We must be determined in our practice, moment by moment, to be fully present and cut through suffering, the belief in separation, the imagined ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my’ that needlessly causes us so much pain. This determination comes from our great love for life and for truth. This love calls us to keep looking, continuously, devotedly into this koan. We can call it MU or we can call it NOW. Please bring this kind of unwavering devotion into your life. It is a truly satisfying way to live.
Love, Shinei