In the last segment of UnMind, we touched on the typically fraught turning points in normal life of changing jobs, going through divorce, and becoming empty-nesters when and if the kids finally move out. And if they don’t move back in again. They say you should write what you know, so I am living up to that dictum.

In this installment we will touch on the traditional “marks” of dukkha: sickness, aging and death, and then turn to the subject of turning points in zazen itself. It is important that as we experience these pivot points in our practice, that we resist the temptation to interpret them negatively, as evidence of failure, and that we persist through thick and thin, assuming and accepting that we are no more in control of the progress of our meditation than we are in control of the pilgrim’s progress of our lives. Zen, and zazen, work on subtle and subliminal levels, beyond our control. We should take the advice of the third patriarch in China, and “trust in Mind.” In closing the last passage, we mentioned that the various time-of-life changes that we all go through, if we live long enough, are generally exploited in the service of selling ever-more narrow-niche categories of products and services, including ever-increasing scams inflicted on the unwary.

Sickness & Drugs

If you still watch the news on television, you belong to an ever-shrinking segment of the population, and can see this process in extreme. Commercials hawking every kind of cure for every imaginable disorder of body and mind, some truly unimaginable. The firehose of drugs coming out of Big Pharma’s pipeline is overwhelming, ostensibly to treat an ever-expanding cascade of illnesses of the aged and infirm, who are typically shown in highly affluent situations, joyfully engaging in cool, strenuous activities in luxurious settings. Each new wonder drug comes with an endless list of side-effects that make the cure sound worse than the illness. It leaves me wondering what they are going to do, when they finally run out of names for the next generation of cure-alls. Expect to see companion drugs designed to treat the endless litany of side-effects.

According to a Zen student who works in the industry, and who just happens to be a PhD neuroscientist, most of the new drugs are actually old drugs, in which a single atom of the molecule may have been tweaked, yielding the minimum legal requirement for calling it new. So much for claims of return on investment for multi-million dollar research. 

Aging & Death

Speaking of aging, most of the turning-points that we associate with time-of-life — and other transitions in the normal process of “living la vida loca” — are basically attributable to aging. If we did not age, many of these passages would be impossible. Or at least, more of a choice on our part.

Death may be the penultimate turning-point in aging. That’s right, not the ultimate, but next to it. There is yet another, final turning point, even after death. It is called rebirth. Or its earlier version, reincarnation. In any case, something comes after death.  

As with divorce, it is tempting to say that if you are against death, don’t get born in the first place. Birth is, after all, the leading cause of death. Birth is, we might say, an indeterminate turning-point. What comes after birth depends upon you.

In one of the most startling developments regarding cultural coping strategies for these turning-points, I recently came across a news article entitled “Putting the fun in funerals.” I am not making this up. Because you can’t make this stuff up.

In his teaching titled Genjokoan, which translates something like, “actualizing the fundamental point,” and which seems to touch on nearly everything in life, Master Dogen weighs in on the nature of birth and death, in the process refuting reincarnation:

Just as firewood does not return to firewood after it is ash

      you do not return to birth after death

This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma

      to deny that birth turns into death

Accordingly birth is understood as no-birth

It is an unshakeable teaching in Buddha’s discourse

      that death does not turn into birth

Accordingly death is understood as no-death

Birth is an expression complete this moment

Death is an expression complete this moment

Then, with his usual default to concrete examples from the world of Nature:

They are like winter and spring

You do not call winter the beginning of spring

Nor summer the end of spring

Thank you Dogen, for clearing that up. I don’t pretend to understand this fully, but then Master Dogen himself does not claim to understand it. He merely lays it out as it is, take it or leave it. Interesting to contemplate that birth does not turn into death: Hallelujah! But wait a minute; death also does not turn into birth. What does that do to our aforementioned concept of rebirth? 

As usual for vintage Dogen, after he bludgeons us with an uncomfortable truth, he turns to Nature to soften the blow. Some of us, however, would petulantly argue that winter is, indeed, the beginning of spring, and summer its end. The monkey mind is stubborn in all seasons.

I find it a particularly compelling expression of Dogen’s understanding that he refers to both birth and death as “an expression complete this moment.” It begs the question, “An expression of what?” An expression of lifewould seem the logical answer, but Master Dogen’s worldview does not depend upon simple logic.

Turning Points in Zen Meditation

Speaking of Dogen, we owe him — big-time — for the point when each of us turned to Zen. If he had not made zazen his cause célébre, we would probably still be smudging ourselves with smoke, engaging in Shamanistic shenanigans, hoping for some kind of revelation.

The turning points in zazen are too many to catalog. The Ox-herding Pictures touch on eight or ten of the main ones. I want to mention just a couple that come up frequently. I recognize that you, like me, are not 100% responsible for your short attention span, or your attenuated threshold of patience. Especially if you are in the midst of a turning-point of your own, at the moment.

First is comfort-level.  

To those of you struggling with a critical turning-point in your life — or just the aches and pains, not to mention anxiety, confusion, and generalized angst that can sometimes accompany zazen, and not only at the beginning — it may be cold comfort, but zazen is supposed to be the “comfortable way.” I think the most reasonable rationale for this assertion is that any and every other way of meditation you may take up is at least as uncomfortable, in the long run, at least.

It has been my experience, and is my testimony, that there is a turning-point in zazen that comes about, when the posture does actually become comfortable. I can also assure you that it becomes comfortable not only in the physical sense, but that the nattering nabob of the monkey mind finally wears itself out, like a kitten or a puppy dog, and lies down to take a nap. Mental and emotional comfort ensue. Of course, your results may vary, especially with any significant change in your circumstances. That pesky turning-point, again.

Eventually, you may even become socially comfortable with zazen. That is, even though your spouse and other family members may not practice Zen, or even bother to understand it; and even though your in-laws insist on making a wedge issue of your devotion to Zen, this is okay with you. You no longer feel the need to explain, let alone to apologize, for doing zazen.

Of course, this turning-point may precipitate a turning-point in your relations to the others mentioned. But you may find that you are comfortable with that, too.

Another is the plateau effect.

After practicing for some time, even over many years, it may begin to dawn on you that it seems that nothing is happening in your meditation any more. Curiouser and curiouser, interesting things that used to pop up from time to time — in the form of creative ideas; resolution of a nagging problem; or cool sensation, vision, or hearing experiences — just aren’t happening. It seems clear that Zen isn’t working, or else you are not doing it right. You have flat-lined, plateaued.

Interestingly enough, Matsuoka Roshi mentioned this, and introduced me to a new Japanese word: cho-da. He said it means a “fall up.” You go along for some time, practicing your little heart out, but are getting nowhere. Nothing seems to be happening. Then, one day, if only you do not give up, you go through a cho-da. You fall up! It may be a small cho-da; it may be a large cho-da.

But, you fall up — to the next plateau. A plateau is, by definition, flat. So, once again, just when you thought it was getting good, nothing happening. The good news is you never go back. The bad news is that the plateaus just keep coming. No one knows how many there are.

Traditionally, there are said to be three major barriers in Zen. The first is physical, getting beyond your comfort zone to true comfort. The second is said to be sleep. Once you are cozy and comfortable in zazen, naturally, sleep would raise its ugly head. I have not heard what the third barrier is, but I suspect that it would involve some kind of plateau. Perhaps it is simply self-doubt. Matsuoka Roshi pointed out that by far the greatest cohort of Westerners who engage in Zen meditation are those who give up too soon.

So if you see yourself in any of these pictures, welcome to the club. If you are uncomfortable in zazen, welcome to that club. If you are plateauing, welcome to the flatliners club. Zen is the most exclusive club in the world. But it is all-inclusive. The only dues it demands of you is everything you have. But the payback is huge. What else can you do that will give you your whole life back? as Matsuoka-Roshi would often ask.