I should begin by stating that I am by no means a “Zen master” or a Zen teacher. My experiences with Zen have had deep impacts on my life and my artistic practice, but I am merely a student and long-time practitioner. I don’t want to pretend to offer any kind of definitive word about Zen. I will simply share my experience, how it has affected my life and practice, and the perspective on practice that I currently find most useful.
The late Zen teacher John Daido Loori told a story that went something like this.
When I first started studying Zen, I thought I understood what it was about, but then about six months later, I realized that I’d completely missed it, that it was about something completely different than what I thought. Then, about six months later, it happened again, “Oh no, it’s not about that at all, it’s about this.” Now, 30 years later, this is still happening. The only thing that’s changed is that I realize that this is part of the process. (see footnote)
One of the things that maintains my interest in Zen is this constantly unfolding nature of the practice.
Zen is not a doctrine or a set of beliefs. Rather, it is a practice, it is something that we do. At its core is the practice of zazen, which most people would refer to as seated meditation practice. Zazen is just sitting, letting go of the distractions created by the mind, and paying attention to the experience of the moment. It sounds simple, and in many ways it is, but it is not easy. The first and most obvious difficulty is letting go of the endless chatter of the mind, the seemingly endless stream of thoughts and ideas that the mind is constantly creating, which distracts us from our experience of this moment.
At the Zen Center where I have been practicing for over twenty years, people do different practices but they are all variations of the same core practice, to sit still and pay attention, to watch the breath come in and then out. Then, to watch the next breath, which is not the same as the first breath. Then, the next breath. We keep doing this until the timekeeper rings the bell, which is usually about twenty-five minutes. Then we do five minutes of walking meditation followed by another twenty-five-minute round of sitting. After three rounds, we go home.
Sometimes, we sit all day in blocks that last two to four hours, with breaks in between to mindfully rest or eat, staying in silence the whole time. And sometimes, we spend a whole week in silence, sitting eight to ten hours a day, eyes lowered, mindful of each and every moment. This week-long practice is called sesshin. It is both extremely difficult and very transformative. When you go to sesshin, you know that you will not come out the same person you were when you went in. I’ve done roughly one sesshin per year for the last twenty-three years.
However, the heart of Zen practice is simply sitting every day. In recent years, as I devote more time to artistic practice, I might only sit for 15 minutes each day, but I do it every day, almost without exception. It keeps me honest. There is something humbling about that daily reminder that I don’t know anything.
What makes this practice so powerful and so attractive to me is what remains when the mind chatter fades into the background: just sitting, just being, without needing to have any intellectual idea about who or what I am. It is just the raw experience of being alive without the filter of the conceptual mind. Often, I don’t know who I am or what I am doing. Am I even doing Zen practice? But inside this deep not knowing, the experiential reality becomes vivid and alive, never static, always changing and unfolding, no breath exactly like any other breath.
Zen is a practice, a constantly evolving process that I do every day. It is something that I surrender myself to, intentionally allowing it to form me. Many times, my teachers have reminded me, “Trust the practice.” When I talk about artistic practice as a spiritual practice, this is what I am talking about. Conscious artistic practice and Zen practice are not identical, but they have much in common. One of the key elements that they share is this sense of surrender, the sense that rather than me doing the practice, I am allowing the practice to do me.
Zen is commonly portrayed as a path to “enlightenment,” a vaguely defined state of bliss that everyone seems to agree is desirable to attain. I don’t resonate with this perspective. Many Zen writers point out that the Chinese character that is usually translated as “enlightenment” also literally translates as “intimacy,” and many of them suggest that this is perhaps a better translation. “Intimacy” is more consistent with my understanding and my experience. In my Zen practice, I am not trying to attain some mythical state of pure bliss at some point in the future; I am rather becoming more intimate with my life, learning to experience it more directly and deeply. This isn’t happening in the future; it’s happening right now. And being intimate with life means being intimate with all of it, the joys, the sorrows, the ecstasy, and the pain. To quote Seng-T’san, “The great way is not difficult for those who do not pick and choose.” (see footnote)
This sense of practice as the development of intimacy with life translates well to artistic practice. If we are letting go of practicing to be “good,” letting go of trying to prepare for some future performance, then why are we practicing? The answer to this question that I find most useful is that we dance to become more intimate with our bodies and the experience of being embodied on this earth; we play music to become more intimate with sound and its effects on us, with the experience of creating those sounds, and with the experience of being embodied on this earth. As long as we don’t get stuck and get too attached to this idea, it’s a useful tool for making sense of what we are doing.
Shunryu Suzuki (1970) talks about “beginner’s mind.” He writes, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” He is pointing out that when we think we understand something, when we think we know what is going on, our conceptual mind takes over the experience and slots the current experience in as another example of any number of similar experiences we have had. It puts a filter on our sensory input and causes us to be less aware of our actual experience in the moment. I notice this all the time in my music practice. If I think that I know how to play a tune, the experience is very different than if I assume—even if I’ve played it hundreds of times—that I don’t know how to play it and instead approach it as a beginner, opening myself up to whatever and wherever this particular experience the tune wants to lead me right now.
Another idea that I find useful is, “no gaining idea.” I’m pretty sure that I got this from Suzuki Roshi as well, but now as I write this, I am having trouble finding it. This is the idea that we are not practicing zazen to attain anything, not enlightenment, not anything. We are practicing simply for the experience of being alive in this particular way at this particular moment. This is a powerful way to approach artistic practice, to let go of all thoughts of attaining anything, of becoming a “good” musician or dancer, and instead to allow ourselves to sink into the experience of the sound, the experience of the movement of the body. It’s not easy to do; our culture surrounds us with a paradigm of attainment. I have found that I have to be very mindful of where my attention is and what my motivations are in each moment of my practice. When I find myself wandering off into some fantasy of attaining something, I pull myself back to the present, back to the experience of the sound, the sensations of the moving body, and the experience always becomes richer.
A third idea from Zen that I find useful has to do with the nature of questions and answers. Back when I was first beginning to practice Zen, I wrote in my notebook, “With Zen, questions lead while answers impede.” Questions in Zen are often seen not as problems that need to be solved, but as tools to help us let go of our ideas and become more intimate with our lives. To feel that we have definitively answered a question is to kill its effectiveness. However, after a question has taught us its lesson, it is often best to let it go and move on. It is possible to get attached to a question just as we can become attached to an idea. Often, I have found, a question will come back, sometimes years later, this time seen in a new light and with new lessons to teach.
Good questions, ones that really lead us to new understanding, are difficult to find and difficult to identify. If I have learned anything from my years on this artistic path, it is not where the answers are, but rather where some of the good questions are. Thus, in writing this blog, I am not trying to provide answers but rather to point out some of the questions that I have found to be particularly useful.
References
Loori () I had to reconstruct this from memory, but I have listened to it many times on a recording of a talk of his that I used to have.
Seng-Tsan () From Verses on the Faith Mind.
Suzuki, S. (1970) Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
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