A great deal of water has flowed under the bridge since I last posted here in 2009. In that year it was necessary to place this blog on hold because I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, one of the several bone marrow cancers that afflict the elderly. I have been successfully treated, in the main, and the disease for the most part driven into remission, which is just as well because there is no cure.

Since the onset of the disease I have undergone a number of sophisticated cutting edge therapies together with an astounding (to me at least) orthopedic procedure that installed a titanium steel tube in my left femur in order to keep the bone from cracking or breaking due to a large new lesion. Multiple myeloma is so named because its most noticeable and perilous effect is to dissolve lytic lesions in various regions of the body. They often look as if someone had shot cannonballs through the bones. An equally undesirable effect of MM is the hypercalcemia, excessive calcium levels, that result from the dissolving of bone tissue. This causes all sorts of complications, three of the least pleasant being kidney failure, anemia and pneumonia.

I was diagnosed quite late in the fourth stage of development of the disease. Consequently the extreme anemia caused two coronary events of the "dry pump" type, where the heart struggles to obtain oxygen from a bloodstream that contains little or none. Both of the coronaries occurred, luckily, in the presence of the internist who was treating my pneumonia, so that I was at once placed in the hospital's intensive care unit.

And that is where there appeared, so to speak, a silver lining within the otherwise dismal clouds threatening my existence. Twice during my sedation and intubation my heart stopped and I died, and that is why I am recounting these events. Alert and very competent nurses quickly got my heart going again each time it stopped, but during those brief times I went not just to death's door but right through it. The experience was not at all like the ones we often read about. There was no tunnel, no extracorporeal flight, no vision of departed loved ones. Rather there was nothing but an ocean of dazzling light into which I was dissolving like a cloud in the sky. I had no weight or mass, indeed no body. I felt, if that is the word for an unbodied experience, only an intense delight and a sense of having dropped an intolerable burden. The expression "perfect peace" scarcely suffices.

The great English philosopher-teacher Douglas Harding remarked shortly before he departed the world, "It is very interesting to die." What an understatement! The experience of dying, even for a minute or two, eclipses everything else that life contains. I recommend it to everyone, which is perhaps a redundancy because it comes necessarily to each and every one of us. Life is, after all, fatal.

One of the most vivid memories of that momentary death experience is a striking parallel to what we encounter in practicing zazen, and indeed most meditative practices in the wisdom traditions. Buddhism, never at a loss for a descriptive technical term, uses the Sanskrit term "shamatha" to denote the effortless, stable one-pointed focus of the mind, called "ichigyo sanmai" or "one-pointed samadhi" in Zen. In the state of shamatha it is possible to experience "vipashyana"or "insight," the supramental perception that samsara and nirvana are one. In their Chinese form as "Chih" and "Kuan"  or "Shikan" in Japanese, these complementary states are the focus of the Tendai school of Buddhism.

My recollection includes a timeless moment in which Shamatha and Vipashyana arose simultaneously, utter stillness and total insight. As it is said in (I believe) the Mumonkan, "Who would not wish to enter this gate?" You doubtless know where I'm going with this. It's not necessary to pass through death's door in order to enjoy the unitary experience of shamatha-vipashyana. Zazen, either with a wato (koan) or in shikan taza ("just sitting"), carries us unfailingly to that inimitable destination, the Gateless Gate where we experience, as Yengo wrote, "peace, ease, non-doing and inexpressible delight."

Joshu Sasaki Roshi, Senior Rinzai Abbot

Joshu Roshi has had an immense impact on Zen in North America ever since his arrival in 1962.  Now 102 (in 2009), he continues to maintain a grueling schedule visiting the 22 centers associated with him in the Rinzaiji community. On occasions he has told his followers, "Excuse me for not dying."

The curriculum vitae of Kyozan Joshu Sasaki published on the website of the Mount Baldy Zen Center reads as follows.

Born in 1907 in Japan's rural Miyagi Prefecture, Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshibecame a novice at the age of 14 under Joten Soko Miura Roshi, a master in the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism. Under Joten's guidance, Joshu Sasaki became an Osho after seven years, and when Joten was appointed head abbot of Myoshin-ji, the preeminent Rinzai temple, Joshu Sasaki followed him there to continue his training.

In 1947 at age 40 Joshu Sasaki received full authority as a Roshi and became abbot of his own temple, eventually relocating to, restoring and presiding over Shoju-an, a remote monastery in the Japanese Alps founded by Shoju Ronin, teacher of the great 18th Century Zen master Hakuin. In 1962, Daiko Furukawa, Joten Roshi's successor as abbot of Myoshin-ji, asked Joshu Roshi to begin teaching in America.

Joshu Roshi arrived in Los Angeles on July 21, 1962, and has remained a US resident ever since. Rinzai-Ji, his main city temple, was established in Los Angeles in 1968, followed by his two main training centers, the Mount BaldyZen Center in the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California (1972) and the Bodhi Manda Zen Center in New Mexico, just outside Albuquerque (1973). His students have opened centers in the US, Puerto Rico, Canada, Austria, and Germany. Joshu Roshi continues to maintain a full and uncompromising schedule. Through his teachings and work he emphasizes direct experience over an intellectual or pious approach to spiritual growth. Today, he represents the last of a generation of pioneering Japanese teachers who brought dharma to the West.

Despite his advanced years, Joshu Roshi has not named a successor.  When asked about this he has replied, 

"If someone would turn up who can totally abandon their ego and that can manifest that zero state that is neither subject nor object and that is a complete unification of plus and minus then I think I would make them a successor. However such a person has not yet appeared, a person that knows that true democracy is a manifestation of true love and that the manifestation of true love is the manifestation of the state that is neither subject not object. If such a person did, then I could finally take a break and be happy about that."

Although he has named no successor abbot, Joshu Roshi has trained many "osho's" (Zen monks) who have gone on to teach Zen on their own behalf.  One of these is Sensei ("teacher") Genshin Edgar Kahn, a former mathematics professor, who writes,

“In Zen Buddhism practice is essential. What you learn in Buddhism must be your own experience. It cannot be learned by reading or thinking. You must get beyond your personal self. What self then appears? You must find out. Who is then the one who finds out? Only by dissolving the self can a new self come into being who finds this out.”

The Rinzaiji Community

The Rinzai school is one of three Japanese Zen traditions that remain active today.  The other two are the Soto and Obaku schools.  Of the three Soto is considerably the largest, because it presents the least apparent difficulty to the modern day seeker.

Although the Rinzai branch is relatively small, and is in turn divided into sub-branches that often correspond to individual temples in Japan, Rinzai Zen is famously the fastest and most effective path to self realization.  This is because Rinzai teachers emphasize direct experience over intellect or piety in their communication of the Buddha Dharma.

The living example today is Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, senior roshi of the Rinzai sect, founder and chief abbot of the Rinzaiji community in North America.  Born in Japan in 1907, Joshu Roshi came to America in 1962 at the invitation of Zen enthusiasts in the Los Angeles area.  He founded Rinzai-Ji, his principal Los Angeles temple, in 1968 and in the same year founded the Vancouver Zen Center in Canada.  In 1972 he founded the Mount Baldy Zen Center in California, now the principal Rinzaiji training center, and in 1973 the Bodhi Manda Center in New Mexico.  There are now 20 Zen centers throughout North America affiliated with Sasaki Roshi.

"Tozan" is the dharma name of the author and moderator of this blog, who for too brief a time was able to learn under Sasaki Roshi's guidance at the Vancouver Zen Center in the late 1960s.  Thanks to the many homonyms of the Japanese language the name has several meanings, including "going on foot," "laboriously climbing" and, of course, the Japanese form of Tung-Shan, co-founder of the Chinese Ts'ao-Tung (Soto) school of Zen.  That illustrious Tozan's verses outlining the Five Ranks, or five degrees of realization, are among the classical landmarks of Chinese Zen.

Although this blog deals primarily with Rinzai Zen, there is no contention that any school of Zen is superior to another.  One's choice of a particular path is a matter of temperament more than technical competence.  However at a time when a great deal of misinformation - and often outright nonsense! - is published under the purported banner of Zen there is a need for both accuracy and clarity in public discussions of this most important subject.