Zen and Awakening by Master Roland Yuno Rech

Infographie : P-O Reynaud

Roland Yuno Rech :
Hello and welcome, the practice of zen dates back historically to Buddha Shakyamuni.

He was the son of a king of a small state in northern India who, despite the fact that his life in the palace protected him from difficulties, felt the human suffering linked to impermanence and death and wanted to meet with spiritual masters to resolve this problem.

Gautama, (this was his name) remained unsatisfied even after having studied with masters for many years, so he chose not to refer to the belief systems of his time and to, alone, open a new way, having the intuition that man could get out of his suffering alone, without subscribing to a dogmatic religious system.

It was by going to the end of this way that he awakened, that is to say, that he truly became the Buddha, this word which actually means : « awakened one ».

Not that he went against the beliefs of his time, he didn’t question them, except for a few precise points, but he believed them to be an inadequate way of achieving liberation from suffering for human beings, a programme that he had made up his mind to put into place, after the night of his spiritual enlightenment at about 35 years old, and that he pursued right up to the moment of his death at over 80.

What did he awaken to ?
Let’s point out, first of all, that Buddhism has a very modern attitude for people of today, because everyone wishes to have a concrete experience of reality, without blindly believing what people say on this subject.

Buddha awakened to the reality of our deepest, most intimate nature and, above all, chose to live in accordance with this reality.

Awakening is therefore a particular frame of mind which is all at once clearer, more lucid, and can fathom the truth with wisdom, that is to say without being blinded by its own representations of this, and with compassion, that is to say, feeling united with all beings, and feeling solidarity with their difficulties.
In Buddhism, a personal, individual awakening has no meaning, and wisdom is always inseparably linked to compassion.

Over the centuries, the development of Buddhism has gone through several periods, break ups, but everything began in India and then followed the land and sea transport links to spread rapidly into the neighbouring countries, Tibet in the north, as well as into all of South East Asia.

It was, above all, a philosophical and intellectual Buddhism that became well known during this period of expansion, and it wasn’t until the intervention of certain monks like Bohidharma in China or later Dogen in Japan that Buddhism could again become, for its followers, what it was at the beginning : a practice with the body that I’m going to show you now, which consists of a sitting and immobile posture that is called zazen.

Za meaning sitting and zen , concentration, meditation.

The word zen that we use in everyday conversation doesn’t mean the same thing to a Buddhist. To a Buddhist zen is not an impassive and complacent relaxation, but rather an attitude of great vigilance and openness which allows us to remain in contact with our body through our breathing, which also has an important part to play.
We can say that zazen depends neither on the intelligence, nor on the suppleness of the person ( there are possible adjustments which can be made to the posture for those who have serious difficulties in practising it), but only on the quality and the intensity of this concentration at each instant.

The form of zen that we practise here in Nice comes from the Soto school which pays close attention to the body, because it is, not an enemy to fight against, but a support of meditation, an ally.

So,initially, it’s about feeling at peace with yourself rather than judging yourself or rejecting parts of yourself which you don’t like or which disturb your inner peace.
Other forms of zen, such as Rinzaï, have a different pedagogy and insist more on koans to prevent the dialectical and discursive aspect of the mind from intervening, but they have the same objective.

The cushion or zafu allows you to tip the pelvis forward, to keep your knees pushing down toward the ground and to stretch your spine energetically upwards.

Then it is important not to try to empty your mind, to become insensitive, anaesthetized to all sensations and to all interior and exterior perceptions, but on the contrary to become sensitive in a fluid way, without attachment, without blocking, while being aware of the vacuity of all the phenomena which come up.

We let the beginnings of new thoughts, emotions, perceptions come up to the surface of our consciousness before they are fed by floods of overflowing and invasive emotion.

And the posture which re- centres the body on the Hara, which calms the breathing, which calms down the mind and thoughts, allows us to come back to the true nature of everything that happens inside us, that is to say, not to give too much attention to these phenomena as we usually do in everyday life.

Indeed, we are spurred on to believe that everything that happens exists, and we forget to discern the other aspect of phenomena taught by Buddhism which is vacuity : ku in Japanese.

Vacuity is not negation, nihilism consisting of acting as if none of this existed, but on the contrary facing up to it through profound and instant personal experience without remaining, without stagnating on anything.
Otherwise said, our mind develops the quality of being a mirror, which isn’t tarnished by rumination, not distorted by our opinions, but which reflects things as they are, that is to say without fixed substance, without persistant, lasting reality.

This is an aspect of vacuity, the other aspect is that being empty of their own reality, they exist in interdependence with everything, and nothing or nobody is ever seperate from everything. Nothing exists independently from everything that surrounds it. The precepts of Buddhism, which it is recommended to respect, are not things which are forbidden, a narrow-minded moralism, but the living concrete expression of this reality which zen proposes we discover in the experience of zazen.

Not killing, is to consider all living beings, even the most insignificant, as being a part of this field of interdependence and therefore not seperate, not different form us. It’s not killing either, the awareness of this interdependence, of what we have in common with all creatures.

Not stealing, it’s not only not taking what doesn’t belong to us, but it’s living the koan : « does anything really solely belong to me and me alone ? ».

With the practice of zazen, cthese forbidden actions are no longer imposed from outside but felt to be the natural expression of a freedom which transcends the dimension of the ego, the freedom of what we sometimes call the Great Self, the divine dimension of each of us which we cannot define, grasp, which is shared beyond ourselves, with all the universe.

Everything around the practice of zazen in a dojo, gassho, the ceremonies, the prostrations, the guen maï are the expression of this awareness, this recognition and the attainment of this dimension.

Gassho is no longer making a difference between ourselves and the person who we address the greeting to.
The ceremony is to dedicate zazen to the good of all beings.
The prostration is to abandon our body and mind, and to recognize that their origin surpasses us.
The guen maï is accepting food that is offered to us and paying tribute to the people who worked to prepare it.

Infographie : P-O Reynaud

Today we live in a world where the spirit of gratitude has disappeared, we demand everything,and everything immediately, and it’s never enough.
The crisis of our civilisation could be considered from a point of view of course of a loss of values and points of reference which underpin our life together , but also for a large part, from the point of view of a loss of gratitude for what we receive at each instant from everything that surrounds us.
If it’s only the air which we breathe, the food we absorb, the water which quenches our thirst, the sun which warms us.

The whole debate around the ecological awareness which is lacking in our industrial societies could be revolutionised by the proposition that everyone become grateful.

Not only for something that we receive and that gives us pleasure, not only to such and such a person, but as a fundamental attitude of mind without a particular object.

Because, you have understood, zen influences the mind profoundly through the body, going by the principle that they are not two separate entities but an inseparable unity, one not being able to exist without the other.

We can thus get back in touch with a religious dimension of our life, which is difficult to find when we no longer wish to call on, or refer to established religious institutions.

The practice of the four unlimited virtues, for example, which seem to me to be so natural through the experience of zazen, seemed to me to be incoherent in the recommendations of Christ to do Good to your enemies.

Yet the benevolence, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity taught by Buddha are very close to what Jesus taught.
 Benevolence is to contribute to the happiness of others.
 Compassion is to help resolve the suffering of others.
 Joy is to rejoice in the happiness of others instead of feeling jealousy or envy.
 Equanimity is to welcome all circumstances as they are.

Unlimited means that the virtues that we develop in relation to others are not only for people we like and who are close to us, but also for those who we are indifferent to and even hostile to.

Therefore, in addition to the psychological benefits of feeling better with ourselves and with others in our relationships, the practice of zen allows us to attain the spiritual dimension of our existence through an intuition of profound communion with nature in a broad sense, and of love for it.

Carried out in such a spirit, it’s not only zazen which is clarified by this awareness, but all daily activities, and this is what we try hard to do during a sesshin, our courses of intensive practice, during which, not only the meditation aspect of practice is considered, but all the aspects of our life, as the extension, the continuation of the experience realized in the dojo.

A Christian would say, it’s to express the presence of God in each of our daily activities. Thus work takes on a completely different meaning to that of the etymology of the word work, which makes you think of an instrument of torture.

We can appreciate a job, and practise it as help given to the community, and not only for the compensation of a salary which it enables us to obtain.

We can develop the qualities that a cook cultivates in his art within a temple : gratitude, being happy to do this work and being able to offer it to others.
 Vast mind, accepting the ingredients and circumstances as they present themselves.
 Compassion, that is to say, paying attention to all the people who help to carry out the work at the same time as us.

It is important to note that what is proposed here, and which might seem inaccessible or ideal, is not to be put into practice immediately, as soon as we enter the dojo, but is proposed as a path to follow, according to a process of progressive transformation, in the course of which each day is the opportunity to make another step forward.

We act according to our reality, to what we are, what we are able to do to go a little further forward, to what is possible.

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