Zen Classics for the Modern World

By Jeff Shore

A book review in Amazon

Tim Pallis

Jeff Shore’s new book is marvelous – maybe the best book on practice ever written. Zen Classics for the Modern World directs the person away from self and back to the real suchness of zazen. I agree with him all the way. He has found a form of teaching that really works.

First of all, I am very fond of his definition of ’sudden enlightenment’ (p.89). We all learned the translation sudden enlightenment from D.T. Suzuki and misunderstood Zen for years. For decades I have had the fantasy of attaining sudden enlightenment one day. Then I realized it was hopeless, but I was still not without hope. Then I realized that there was no attainment – nothing to attain, and no self to attain anything. What to attain suddenly? – And by whom? All mistakes because of the idea of attaining sudden enlightenment.

Jeff states that ’sudden’ really means ’immediate’ – without mediation. I am so happy to hear this, because it ends the bad trip of wanting to achieve sudden enlightenment one day. That would be fine for the illusory ’self,’ but it is not Zen. Awakening without mediation is our real and present situation. It moves and is non-dual reality. It is reality or truth, and I am this all the time – endlessly. I have never read or heard this stated so clearly.

My most exquisite experience is when I stand in front of a great tree and gaze into its inner being. I forget my self and become awakened by the truth of the tree. That is sanzen for me. It is my one-on-one confrontation with truth. It is two in one, but without that concept. What a marvelous tree I am!

But that is merely a particular experience which points to a more general truth. We are that one-in-manyness from birth to death, even in periods of ignorance – even when we are filled with delusional emotions or thought. In that sense we have never left the truth, but have always been it. What has zazen to do with this? And what has zazen to do with Zen?

Zen has now become my daily life, because my one-on-one truth is present when I am washing the dishes after dinner – I am the washing machine of my family. The most challenging thing in my life as a 73-year-old is to take care of my three small grandchildren. It is good old-age training – better than monastic life.

I greatly appreciate the single experience of being a great tree or a stone in a moss garden. But it is fine just to do daily things as well. There is nothing beyond the immediacy of what my grandchildren want – which the parents have difficulty giving because they are busy and involved in themselves. My grandchildren are so young! And I have not told them anything about Zen. How could I?

I re-read the book backwards from the last chapter, ”Clarifying the Mind of Nirvana.” Here the author takes up some statements in The Lotus Sutra. I wonder if Jeff is near master Hakuin’s final realization when he was 41 years old and re-read The Lotus Sutra.

Jeff says: "There is nothing to attain, and yet this urge, this samsaric condition, the self's dis-ease, is still functioning" (p.118). ”...this Buddha of Penetrating Wisdom was just about to attain perfect and complete enlightenment, but the Buddha Dharma was not revealed to him" (p.119).

Jeff is quite sharp: "…in entering Zen, every ’way’ must finally be done away with. Otherwise it can get in the way, can become an obstacle. Yes even zazen. In the depths of your zazen here and now – however deep it is – there cannot even be a hint of zazen, let alone some kind of illusion to eliminate or enlightenment to attain" (pp.119-120). "Sit until there is nothing to attain" (p.120). "If you have any intent to become a Buddha... your practice is not yet pure" (p.122).

Jeff is very near Shin'ichi Hisamatsu's fundamental koan when he states: The Buddha of Penetrating Wisdom "did everything right, but did not attain Buddhahood… Self cannot attain it... That's why we sit like this – without our little bags of tricks… We have to – not attain – but realize it, actualize it... Just doing what must be done at that time and place is the freedom we seek" (p.124). I like the way he expresses it; it is very beautiful.

I read that years after his kenshô, D. T. Suzuki finally realized the meaning of "The elbow does not bend outward" as absolute freedom. I was so relieved. What an insight! The freedom I had hoped for was already there. I was graced with all my limitations.

When you stand in front of a closed door with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cheeseburger in the other, what do you do? How do you enter the sanzen room? Okay, you just walk in – but without self-consciousness. You know how to do it, because when your grandchild shits in his pants, you just clean without thinking of yourself. Sometimes you have no time to do it – you do it immediately without thinking. That immediacy is awakening – thank you very much, Jeff!

In the next chapter, ”The Constant Practice of Right Effort,” he gives a clear understanding of ’immediate awakening’ in the language of early Buddhism: "…with awakening one realizes that what must be done has been done, that final freedom has been won, that dis-ease has come to an end once for all, that there is no more becoming…" (p.112). "Let what must be done be the practice of the moment. Will it always go smoothly? No." (p.113) It is indeed a joy to read this book!

Jeff also clarifies some problems that a beginner inevitably falls into because of his need to understand and overcome his dis-ease. It is about right effort and wrong effort. It is easy to express what wrong effort is: "…chasing your own tail... Striving to get somewhere, to attain something...and trying to convince myself that I'm okay [when I’m not]" (p.103).

It is more difficult to express what right effort is: "Being fully engaged in what is right here and now...directly seeing through the present experience..." (p.105). He adds: "It is really very simple, yet it can be easily misunderstood... Proper practice is not really difficult. But there is something subtle about it that can easily be missed or misconstrued" (p.106).

Well, Jeff, I am a good example of a guy who missed it, because I am still working on it after more than 40 years. Only in the last couple of years have I felt that I could really practice right effort. I can now finally practice zazen the way that is satisfying in a subtle way. It has to do with many small physical and mental adjustments and adaptations. I think that I have finally learned how to practice zazen.

Thank you for this: "Confronted with the challenge to simply see – and be – what actually is, self is totally at a loss" (p.106).

The teaching in the chapter ”Enjoying the Way” is very liberating for westerners imitating Japanese monastic Zen: "The Japanese priest is not a useful model for us…what Japanese priests do in their job…is no more ’religious’ or worthy, no more important or valuable, than what we do in ours... One thing we can learn from monastic life is the value of constant, sustained practice, a life of practice..." (p.79). Great stuff indeed.

Then the quote from the Sôtô monk Boshan: ”Practicing Zen, the worst thing is to become attached to quietness, because this will cause you to be engrossed in dead stillness without realizing it…” (p.80). This might surprise many beginners who come to zazen for ’peace of mind.’ In a way, Jeff is a teacher for experienced and mature monks – I dare not say masters.

In the end of this chapter, Jeff gets down to the essentials of practice. He offers some fundamental questions, using the personal interrogative ’WHO?’ I would prefer ’WHAT?’: "Who wakes up every morning and falls asleep every night? ...It allow us to see who and what we really are too" (p.81). Here he is putting in a ’what’ – thank you for that. Fine advice about the essence of practice, and again he uses ’what’: "That is precisely what Zen practice is – not escaping from anything. It is seeing what really is, being what you really are" (p.82).

"Indeed, it is necessary to be fully present in the present" (p.83). But Jeff calls for going beyond the present too: "…let go of the present as well...Present moment is the last refuge of the self" (p.83). Jeff is even more radical than Hisamatsu's fundamental koan. A true blessing – I trust that the reader can realize it.

Jeff really sends any poor fool who comes to him for help into a cul-de-sac: "Where is this present moment? ...Freed of past and future, now is the delusion ego-self maintains in order to preserve itself... There is no present moment, nor is there any self in the present moment... ’Gone beyond all that is, Mind released in every way…’ This is what Buddhism is all about. It is not being in the present. Now, where are you?" (p.83)

The next chapter, ”Great Doubt: Getting Stuck and Breaking Through The Real Koan” sounds like classic Rinzai stuff. Why confuse the poor fools with the illusion of breaking through and gaining sudden enlightenment? I am all for it, but I was given the name Taigu (”Great Fool”) and I wouldn't advise anybody to follow the way I took!

It is very good that Jeff distinguishes between: I don't know, I'm not at peace, and I can't seem to get free (p.50). As I mentioned, my problem has never been ’who’ but ’what.’ The last two are definitely me.

"Whatever form it takes, the point is for the question to come to encompass all – beginning with oneself" (p.51). Yes! You discover it when you take care of grandchildren. If you come down to their level on the floor, everything is fine. But if you want to do something for your self, there will be trouble. When I go out to the kitchen to wash the dishes, they cry for grandpa.

"More simply, see into the question: ’Right here and now, what is lacking?’" (p.51) Well, nothing is really lacking. That is the irony of our effort to overcome dis-ease. This lack is the same as the dis-ease of the four noble truths. We feel it strongly, but it is also a big illusion, isn’t it?

It is good that you mention: "…there is no ’outflow’ – or inflow. Yet everything is there – crystal clear... For it is not objectified... Here is the entrance to realized Zen practice, to body-mind fallen off" (p.53). That is real shikantaza!

Instead of sticking with the term "breaking through the Great Doubt" you clarify it in terms of breaking up of the Great Doubt, and state that this is neither self breaking into, nor self breaking out of, something. (p.53) I understand that you consider the doubt, separation, dis-ease, and the feeling of lack as conditions of the fictive self, and that the whole mess has to be broken up.

That is very important. I am not so fond of the term ”broken through” because it still smells of sudden enlightenment. I have the feeling that also you feel this, that there is something wrong with such terminology. It is a classic way of expressing these things, but from my lifelong inquiry into the meaning of that terminology, I don't think it is very helpful in the long run.

Such language might be good to get a beginner to sit. But after a few years of zazen, he can't be fooled any longer. There is no self to overcome or to be broken through. Thinking that there is a Great Doubt Block which has to be broken through into sudden enlightenment can be counter-productive. Change the diapers, wash the dishes and don't obsess about it. That Zen is good enough for me. I have been a laborer all my life. I am at one with reality. But I have been a fool to believe in a great experience. Now I just do shikantaza and the cleaning that has to be done.

Don't misunderstand me, Jeff – I am all for your advice when you say: "If you’re waiting for something, you're not giving yourself fully to practice" (p.53). I know you can appreciate a good wine, so it was nice to read: "You’ve just had three glasses of vintage Chateau Margaux – how can you say your lips are dry?" (p.54)

There is something provocative about Boshan’s questions: "When you are born, where do you come from? ...When you die, where do you go?" (p.55). I practiced for many years under Nanrei Kobori at Daitokuji in Kyoto. He gave me the question: ONE - where does it come from? Well, I am still unable to answer that strange question. It has nothing to do with my search.

My ”answer” would be to reject it as something meaningful at all. Because when you regain consciousness, the content of consciousness is not separated from the suchness of consciousness. And I shall never experience death, because waking consciousness is the eternal now until it suddenly stops. There is nothing after, but of course reality continues. Don't ask me about it – I won't answer.

The question "Where do you come from?" has some very satisfying answers according to cosmology, evolution, biology, and family background. That is good enough for me. But the question "Where do you go when you die" can be a great quest, because most people believe there must be something more after death. Body becomes ashes, but the soul?

You are right: we have to know where we really are right now. ”Start where you actually are, with your present experience..." (p.55). That is much better! So, you are fond of genuine shikantaza too: "genuine ’just sitting’ is enough – if it goes all the way” (p.60). I like your expression: "in Great Doubt, all activities of consciousness naturally come to an end of their own accord" (p.61). I would like to add – when there is no longer any reflective consciousness, the Great Doubt naturally comes to an end too.

It is a traditional Rinzai teaching that real kenshô or satori comes first: to break through the Great Doubt. Then comes the after-satori training for many years. I respect the genuine spiritual life that creates a master such as Jeff, who can turn the Dharma Wheel and create new masters, so that the transmission can continue into the next generation. It is very important.

But there are cases where there is no kenshô or satori or great awakening. That person might sit in his cul de sac for 30 years with a deep quest. Without really knowing how, one day he discovers that everything that belonged to I, me, and mine actually has fallen off, and that he sits or works right here without much self-consciousness.

In the chapter ”No Bull: Zen Oxherding Pictures” it is great fun to read Jeff’s comments on 1. Seeking Ox: "I recognize that greedily seeking some enlightenment experience that's supposed to solve all my problems is, indeed, a big problem. Instead of ’Seeking Ox,’ this first stage could be called ’No more Bull’” (p.6).

In 2. Seeing Traces, he says something very profound. It is maybe the best sentence in the book, and all people practicing all over the world should know it: "Dharma is not simply something you do. It must be what you are" (p.10). That is the best koan I have heard for many years. Thank you Jeff!

In 3. Finding Ox, he introduces the root-source of experience: "…salt in water, the glue in paint suggest that the source is there ’in’ each and every thing, but inseparable" (p.15). I know that Jeff is not so fond of western metaphysical terms such as transcendence and immanence, but I must say that here he has given a perfect interpretation of the term immanent. And that is very important, because of the Roman Catholic accusations of pantheism for monks who talked about the immanence of God.

"The living source that cannot be objectified or separated out – but which you now know you are inseparable from – will not lead you astray" (p.15). Fine indeed.

In 6. Returning Home Riding Ox, I notice Jeff’s kindness to a fool like me: "Who needs outside confirmation, lineage, or transmission?" (p.27)

In 7. Ox Forgotten, Man Remains: "The ox is gone – again!... No bull... The person remains." Now we get into the profound mystery. It is a relief that Jeff then says: "This ’one’ is inseparable from all.” Great! You are right: "There's not really one either" (p.30).

There is a spiritual dimension to our life right here. Jeff is revealing it to us: "What remains here? This alone, without object – or subject. Without re-presentation, without being turned into something, anything, within or without: ’Ox vanished, you're at ease’” (p.31).

The chapter ends with his free translation of the Four Great Vows. They are very difficult to translate in a satisfying way. Most of the translations are hopeless and cannot be used by westerners in daily chanting, since they have a very critical mind. But your translation makes the vows into a personal and meaningful truth for all:

Numberless beings – set free

Endless delusion – let go

Countless Dharma – see through

Peerless Way – manifest!

––Tim Pallis, retired librarian, University of Copenhagen

Author of works in Danish on Zen and mystic religions