THE ZEN EYE

Tim Pallis

A collection of Zen talks by Sokei-an

Edited by Mary Farkas

Weatherhill 1993

In: The Eastern Buddhist NS. Vol. 29 no. 2, 1996

On my way to Sogenji in Okayama in August 1995 I stopped a few days in Kyoto where Jeff Shore from the FAS Society invited me to join a small supper party at Ryosen-an in Daitoku-ji. It was 15 years ago since I left Kyoto after having trained at Sōhaku Kobori Osho's temple Ryoko-in. At that time we sat in the zendo of Ryosen-an in the morning, cleaned the garden and had tea with its caretaker Ueno san.

It was a time full of memories, so I was naturally moved to have an opportunity to see Ryosen-an again after all these years. I must admit that I was a bit disappointed to find that the nice little zendo, a miniature of the zendo of Daitoku-ji Sōdō, had been transformed into a hondō.

I realized that Ryosen-an was not anymore used as a place where western seekers without the knowledge of Japanese could come and have their first Zen training. The western "study room" in Ryosen-an with the extensive English library had not been in use since its abbess Mrs. Ruth Fuller Sasaki died in 1967, and was, I am sorry to say, still not in use in 1995.

I came to Ryosen-an the first time in 1969 at the time the Chinese specialist in I Ching Mr. Leon was caretaker of Ryosen-an. At that time there was still a vague echo of the golden days for western students of Zen at Daitoku-ji.

Names like Walter Nowick, Gary Snyder, Donnatienne Lebovitch, Philip Yampolsky, Burton Watson, Paul Weinpahl, Fred Summer, Dana Frazer, Vanessa Coward, Jan Willem van der Wetterring, Zef ben Shahar, Ernesto Falla, Irmgard Schloegal call to mind - all students of either Zuigan Gotō Rōshi (1879-1965), Sessō Oda Rōshi (1901-1966) or Nakamura Sojun Rōshi.

Mrs. Ruth Fuller Sasaki made it a part of her life work to restore Ryosen-an, a small temple within the precincts of Daitokuji, and turned it into The first Zen Institute of America in Japan. She build a study-room, library and zendo for the serious western Zen students, who both wanted to study the Buddhist religious texts, learn japanese and practise zazen. It was a place for both advanced researchers and for those who wanted to undertake preliminary training for later on to commit themselves to further training at the Daitoku-ji Sōdō.

Mrs. Sasaki began her Zen studies in 1932 under Nanshinken Rōshi at the Nanzen-ji Sōdō. She continued under Sokei-an Sasaki Rōshi in New York in 1938 at the First Zen Institute of America, founded by Sokei-an in 1930. She was the daughter of a wealthy Chicago family and therefore in a position to be a pillar of the Institute. Sokei-an Sasaki Rōshi married her in 1944 in order to legally stabilize the Institute at the time when his health was failing. Moreover she could have his name to carry out his work of translating the Rinzai Roku or recorded sayings of Rinzai in Japan.

Sokei-an died in May 1945 without formally leaving any dharma heir, and the work of the Institute was carried on by Ruth Fuller Sasaki. In 1949 she travelled to Japan to resume her Zen training under the elder dharma-brother of Sokei-an, Zuigan Gotō Rōshi, then Chief Abbot of Daitoku-ji. At that time Daitoku-ji offered her as a residence a house built on the site of Ryosen-an, the buildings of which had been demolished in the beginning of the Meiji Era during the anti Buddhist movement.

It was not by mere coincidence that she devoted the rest of her life to Ryosen-an, for Sokei-an Sasaki was in fact ordained by Aweno Fuetsu, a priest of the Ryosen line of Daitoku-ji. In 1956 Daitoku-ji gave Mrs. Sasaki permission to build the study-room, library and the small sixteen-mat zendo on the ground of Ryosen-an. Upon its completion in 1958 Mrs. Sasaki was ordained a priest at Daitoku-ji and abbess of Ryosen-an. She was the first non-Oriental and the first woman to hold such a traditional position in Japan.

Sokei-an's family name was Shigetsu Sasaki. He was born in 1882 as a son of a Shinto scholar-priest, who died when Shigetsu was fourteen. He did not know his biological mother, but his fathers wife loved and cared for him as her own child. After completing middle school he became an apprentice of a woodcarver, who taught him the art of carving dragons. He spent a year of wandering from one mountain temple to the other carving dragons for roof beams.

When he returned to Tokyo he entered the art school connected with Tokyo University. At that time he also found his biological mother, who was married well and had several children. She was from the flower-willow milieu and her family and friends belonged to the theatrical world of geishas, joruri singers, actors and rakugo comedians. The 17 year old Shigetsu Sasaki found a new family ready to share their arts with him. He discovered that he had talent for performing and dreamt about becoming a rakugo monologist himself.

One day he overheard certain words that caught his attention, words like "subjective/objective" and "abstract/concrete". A student suggested that he visit the Zen master Sokatsu Shaku (1870-1954), who guided a lay society called Ryomo Kyokai, which meant The Society for Abandonment of Subjectivity and Objectivity. This was the beginning of Sokei-an's life in Zen.

The Ryomo Kyokai had been founded in 1875 by the Zen master Imakita Kosen (1816-1892), who wanted to establish a zendo near Tokyo, where lay people could train without entering a monastery to become monks.

Imakita Kosen Rōshi was the teacher of both Soyen Shaku (1859-1919) and Daisetz Suzuki (1870-1966). He was himself trained at Sogen-ji in Okayama by the great master Gisan Zenrai (1802-1878), so was Soyen Shaku. Kosen Rōshi first studied Confucianism before he became a Zen monk. These studies made him feel called upon to cause an interest in Zen among laymen as well as in the lay education of young Zen Buddhist monks.

To keep the record straight I like to mention, that even today Sogen-ji is living up to this tradition. It is now a training place for both monks and laymen in the Inzan line of Hakuin Zen, and most of the laymen there today are Western people. They are being trained by one of the most capable Zen teachers of modern Japan Shodo Harada Rōshi.

Imakita Kosen Rōshi, who was the grandfather of the Rinzai Zen that has come to the West, became Kancho of Engaku-ji at Kamakura. Daisetz Suzuki trained under him until he died in 1892. Then Soyen Shaku Rōshi was appointed Kancho, and Daisetz Suzuki continued his training under him.

Among those who came to study under Kosen Rōshi during the later years of his life was Sokatsu Shaku. Sokatsu continued his Zen study like Suzuki under Soyen Shaku, who adopted him as his son. Sokatsu Shaku was only 29 when he "finished" his Zen training and traveled to Thailand and Burma. When he returned Soyen Shaku asked him to go to Tokyo to revive the dispersed Ryomo Kyokai. It was here Sokei-an Sasaki began his Zen training under Sokatsu Shaku Rōshi.

Sokei-an joined the Ryomo Kyokai in 1902 and visited Sokatsu's zendo as often as he could. It was the eve of the Russo-Japanese war and he found himself much troubled politically and "a no-good boy for daily life". In 1905 he graduated from Tokyo University Academy of Art and then found himself in the army, transporting dynamite at the front in Manchuria. In spring 1906 the war ended and he returned to Japan.

Already in September same year Sokatsu Shaku invited him to join a group of 6 lay students of Zen to travel with him to America to open a branch of the Ryomo Kyokai in San Francisco. Sokatsu's group included the philosophy student Zuigan Gotō and a young lay woman named Tomeko. As it was considered improper in those days for her to travel without her family, Sokatsu suggested Sokei-an marry her. Sokei-an was not at all unwilling to marry the vivacious and attractive Tomeko. According to Gary Snyder their children are now having ranches in San Joaquin Vally in California.

The party sailed for America and this was the beginning of Sokei-an life and career in America until his death there in 1945. After some difficult years as far as establishing a zendo in America Sokatsu Shaku in 1910 went back to Japan taking his disciples with him, but leaving Sokei-an and Tomeko behind.

Sokatsu said: North America is the place where Buddhism will be spread in the future. You should stay here and familiarize yourself with the attitudes and culture of this land. Be dilligent! If in the future no one else appears, the responsibility for bringing Buddhism to America will be yours.

"Yellowed faced Orientals" were not welcome in San Francisco, but Sokei-an and Tomeko found friendlier people in Seattle. A son was born in San Francisco 1910 and a daughter in Seattle 1912. For work there were always cleaning to be done. Sokei-an would help with the children in the winter, but in the summer, he would go about the United States on foot and practice zazen in nature sometimes dressed as a Siwash Indian.

He began writing a column he called "nonsense" for a Japanese-American newspapers and various journals in Japan. His writings became rather popular and one of his books went into four printings in Japan. In 1916, with a third child on the way, Tomeko and children went back to Japan to live with his mother. Tomeko had been happy with living a more primitive life among Indians on an island in the bay of Seattle, but she was unhappy with the civilized life in America.

Shortly after Tomeko and the children had left for Japan Sokei-an went to live with artists and writers in Greewich Village in New York. At that time he began to write sketches for Chuokoron, one of the leading Japanese newspapers. According to Kotsubo Utsubo it was frank conversations on the way of life of of the common people in America, his writing crisp, clear, and unusual.

Suddenly one day in 1919 walking in the streets Sokei-an saw the carcass of a dead horse, and something happened to him psychologically and he realized that he had to see his teacher Sokatsu Shaku. He went straight back to Japan, united with Tomeko and the three children and resumed his Zen training. But he was not happy there and went back and forth between America and Japan several times until he finally resolved to complete his Zen training in Japan. He "completed" his Zen training at the age of 48, and in 1928 Sokatsu authorized him to teach: Your message is for America, return there!

During the forty years of his teaching 3000 people came to Sokatsu Shaku to study Zen. Of these he initiated 900 into Zen, but only 13 completed the training. Of these only four had really penetrated to the core of Zen and were authorized to teach. They were Zuigan Gotō, Eisan Tatsuta, Chikudo Ohasama and Sokei-an Sasaki.

Sokatsu had spent all his life on starting a lay Zen lineage of Ryomo Kyokai that Imakita Kosen Rōshi had begun. However Sokei-an knew that the Americans would not take a layman seriously as a Zen teacher. He therefore insisted upon returning to New York as an ordained priest. He was in fact ordained by Aweno Fuetsu, a priest of the Ryosen line of Daitoku-ji. Sokatsu Shaku became furious and never forgave him, they never spoke to each other again, in fact Sokatsu officially declared him not to be his disciple.

Sokei-an returned to New York with no money and no place to live, and it took him several years of hard work to gather a small group of Zen students together in the Buddhist Society of America. In the beginning of 1931 there were eight students, in 1935 fifteen and in 1938 the group had doubled to thirty.

This was the year Mrs. Ruth Fuller Everett joined the group and after a couple of years she became the editor of the society's first journal: Cat's Yawn. Sokei-an is a most remarkable teacher in sanzen, Ruth Everett wrote. He is utterly transported out of himself, when he sit in the Rōshi's chair. And you have the feeling, that this is not a man, it is an absolute principle that you are up against.

The editor of The Zen Eye Mary Farkas once said: When I am asked if we were given "instruction" in Zen my answer is "no", for his way of transmitting the Dharma was on a completely different level. It was, of course, his SILENCE that brought us into IT with him. It was as if, by creating a vacuum, he drew all into the One after him.

Sokei-an spoke extremely slowly, his pauses sometimes seemed to last forever, but as Mary Farkas noticed, his teisho was always dramatic. As she explained: Sokei-an played not only the human roles, but also the animal, mineral, and vegetable as well. Sometimes he would be a huge golden mountain, sometimes a lonely coyote on the plains. At other times a willowly Chinese princess or Japanese geisha would appear before our eyes... There was something of Kabuki's Joruri, something of Noh's otherworldliness, something of a fairy story for children, something of archaic Japan. Yet all was as universal as the baby's first waah... all animated by his own vital energy.

In his talks Sokei-an selected two texts as essential to an understanding of Buddhism. It was the Sixth Zen Patriarch Hui Neng's Platform Sutra and the Record of Rinzai. Sokei-an worked on a rough English translation on them, and commented on the texts sentence by sentence, explaining or pointing out their hidden meanings.

He also delivered informal talks, general introductions to Buddhism and to Zen, especially giving very detailed etymological, psychological, existential, religious and philosophical descriptions of key sanskrit words like the 5 skandhas, the three bodies of buddha, the eight Consciousness, The four wisdoms etc. It is from these lectures that Mary Farkas has collected the materials for this wonderful book.

In 1945 the Buddhist Society of America changed its name to the First Zen Institute of America. Mary Farkas became secretary of the Institute as well as editor of the Institutes new periodical called Zen Notes. Much of the material included i The Zen Eye has appeared over the years in both Cats Yawn and Zen Notes.

None of Sokei-an's talks were ever written down by him, but there were always several note takers who recorded every talk he made. The talks are informal and concerned with introducing buddhism and especially Zen buddhism as a living and practical religion to those Americans, who came to the Institute not only to hear about Zen, but to commit themselves to Zen training.

Reading the Zen Eye it is very clearly felt, that Sokei-an was exposed to western literary formulations for many years, and that he mainly expressed himself to an English speaking audience. Mary Farkas has selected the lectures she found most compelling and most representative of Sokei-an.

It is of cause a matter of personal taste what should be included in such a book introducing Sokei-an teaching and wisdom to a much broader audience, and what should be left out. When I was in Kyoto in the seventies I happened to find all the back issues of the Zen Notes at the library of the NCC Center for the Study of Japanese Religions. I copied all the talks by Sokei-an, and skimming through them again I think I would have made a different selection.

There are for instance in some of these not included lectures a deeper and more detailed evaluation and description of important Mahayana Buddhist Sanskrit terms that I like very much. And at the same time there is an exceptional different and novel interpretation of the 5 skandha in a contemplative context which fascinate me. The material left out will hopefully one day find its way into yet another book that dive deeper into Sokei-an's spoken legacy.

Sokei-an's style is at times chocking direct and clear, it is telling everything or saying too much and might annoy the reader who finds the suggested literary style more charming, but I think it is refreshing. I think it is necessary too to break through westerners tendency to be very academic, intellectual and scientific, and be daringly open about our Buddhist engagement and our experiences.

The direct and open approach is a help for many seekers, who has either read too many nutty occult books about spirituality, or do not study Buddhism at all, but just sit and sit or practice the liturgy. Here is a book which can blow the crowded mind of many misguided devotees and irritate the careful academicians a bit, because it all seems so easy to understand when Sokei-an talks.

Sokei-an is not afraid to tell about his own realization:

How did I get into it? Well, I shall tell you the truth. One day I wiped out all the notions from my mind. I gave up all desire. I discarded al the words with which I thought, and stayed in quitude. I felt a little strange, as if I were being carried into something, or as if I were touching some other power unknown to me. I had been near it before; I had experienced it several times, but each time I had shaken my head and run away from it. This time I decided not to run away, and "Ztt!" - I entered. I lost the boundary of my physical body. I had my skin, of course, but my physical body extended to the corners of the world. I walked two, three, four yards, but felt I was standing in the center of the cosmos. I spoke, but my words had lost their meanings. I saw people coming toward me, but all were the same man. All were myself! I had never known this world. I had believed that I was created, but now I had to change my opinion: I had never been created. I was the cosmos; no individual Mr. Sasaki existed. I went to my teacher. He looked at me and said, "Tell me about your new experience, your entering the transcendental world." Did I answer him? If I spoke, I would return to the old world. If I said one word, I would step out of the new world I had entered. I looked at his face. He smiled at me. He also did not say a word.... From the new world, I observed this world. Now, I enjoy this world very much, both in favorable circumstances and in adverse circumstances. I enjoy this world in joy and in agony. I have no fear of death. This is an easy world for me.... There is only one key that opens the door to the new transcendental world. I can find no single word for it in English, but, using two words perhaps I can convey the meaning: shining trance. In that clear, crystallized trance - Ztt! you enter the transcendental world.