Written for my 1976 B.A. Portfolio for Antioch.

Linked from Zen Center of Los Angeles

1. Describe the learning setting. Include where it took place, the role of other persons who were involved with you, and any materials and methods employed which assisted your learning.

When I arrived the Zen Center of Los Angeles consisted of two buildings on Normandie between San Marino and Ninth near downtown Los Angeles. By the time I started at Antioch the facilities at ZCLA consisted of six buildings on the same square blocks. When I came in September of 1972 the people involved included the roshi (Zen master), three monks, and about ten lay students. Now there are eleven monks and about fifty lay persons who live in the immediate neighborhood and participate regularly. By now there have been three summer training periods, and three of the monks have acted as head monk for these periods. This is the last step in training before becoming eligible for the priesthood. These three are now assisting the roshi in teaching meditation and other aspects of the practice to newcomers. The majority of the people who are participating regularly have taken jukai, the lay person’s vows, (which signify formally becoming a Buddhist). In this ceremony they receive a Buddhist name and a raksu, a cloth worn over the chest to symbolize the Buddha’s robe. I received jukai in April of 1974.

The materials and methods employed at the Zen Center are those of the traditional Japanese monastery somewhat modified to make them more accessible to people from a non-Buddhist culture. Many of the people work and therefore can not devote all of their time to the type of practice that takes place in a monastery. This means that we have regular meditation every morning and evening, and there are various types of work all day long for people who are members of the Zen Center staff. There are special three and seven day intensive retreats every month for those who wish to participate on a deeper level. Every year there is a three month training period for those who wish to experience the communal practice as it is traditionally carried on in Zen monasteries. Also available to enhance the understanding of Buddhist philosophy and theory are a talk by the roshi every Thursday evening, a beginning seminar the first Sunday of every month, and an intermediate two day seminar the second weekend of every month. For those who wish to have jukai there is a jukai orientation the first Saturday of every month.

2. Describe your participation and responsibilities in this setting.

Participation:
Ango: Three month summer training period. 1973: Full-time for two months. 1974: Part-time for three months.

Sesshin: Three or seven day intensive meditation period. 1973-4: Ten three-day sesshins and three seven-day sesshins.

Zazen: Regular group meditation, two forty-minute periods with ten minutes walking meditation in between, plus forty minute chanting period afterwards in the morning. Sept. 1972 – Sept. 1975: About three times a week on varying schedules.

Dokusan: Private interviews with the roshi. September 1972 – Sept. 1975: About once a week for five to ten minutes.

Shosan: Dharma Dialog. About ten sessions in which I participated by initiating a dialog with the leader or shosanshi.

Beginning Instruction: 1972: Full series of three talks.

Responsibilities:
I have held the following positions for various lengths of time:
Jikido: In charge of certain functions in the zendo (meditation hall) for the day, including preparing the hall and altars, giving time signals, and monitoring the sitting of those in the zendo and correcting their postures when necessary.

Doan: Ringing the bells to begin morning service. Hitting the gongs to begin, punctuate, and end the chanting. Striking the mokugyo (lit. wooden fish) to keep time for chanting. Announcing work and meals with the large drum.

Jisha, Jiko, and Sogei: Attendant positions to the roshi in entering and leaving the zendo. Bringing him the podium and sutra book for his teisho. Passing of ritual materials and objects to assist the officiant in his liturgical duties. Ringing hand bell and offering incense for the officiant’s entry and exit.

3. Describe new skills and/or knowledge derived from this learning activity which contribute to your Degree Plan.

Skills:

A. Skills at zazen meditation. The basic skills acquired in zazen are control of the body, breath, and mind. In sitting, one first stabilizes the body in the proper posture and brings the center of gravity to a point a few inches below the navel. Then the breathing is allowed to come to a calm, deep, natural rhythm. When body and breath are thus harmonized, the focus of awareness is also allowed to settle in the lower abdomen. This process can be learned by anybody who takes the time to follow the instructions of a competent teacher.

B. Skills at applying training to daily life. The main elements of zazen meditation which can be applied to daily life, and which I feel are skills I have acquired from this training are as follows: discipline, clarity, detachment, and thoroughness. The simple act of getting up every morning at four-thirty to sit for an hour and a half provides the habit of discipline which can very easily be applied to one’s other activities. The clarity of mind attained in sitting makes it much easier to deal in an undistracted manner with mental and physical tasks. The practice of neither clinging to nor avoiding thoughts which arise in the course of meditation gives rise to the ability to neither cling to nor avoid anything else in daily life. This makes it possible to devote full attention to whatever I am doing. I wanted to emphasize the detachment aspect of this undistracted awareness. The thoroughness derives from the fact that the more the body, breath, and mind are harmonized in sitting the deeper is the state of concentration. I have applied this thoroughness and depth of concentration to many activities in my daily life.

Knowledge:
A. Knowledge of the rituals of Soto Zen.
I have been assigned to write up a procedures manual for the Zen Center of Los Angeles. I will obtain the detailed information on procedures through personal interviews with Maezumi Roshi and John Tesshin Sanderson. Tesshin has recently completed a year of training at Daieji Monastery in Japan and will be teaching a class at the Zen Center on the rituals as they will be applied here. I will attend this class and do the write-ups based on material presented. I have already participated in most of these ceremonies in my three years at the Zen Center. These are some of the ceremonies I learned before enrolling at Antioch.

Nenju: This is a ceremony held at the end of a week of training to thank the roshi. All the trainees recite in unison, vowing to become one with, the names of the ten buddhas. In groups of three they walk up to the roshi and bow together, after the Ino (chanting leader) recites a verse encouraging us all to practice diligently. The ceremony ends with the Ino’s announcement of the weekend break period.

Fusatsu: This is a twice monthly renewal of the vows. It is a long series of chanting and bowing in which all the trainees chant, in unison, the Gatha of Repentance, the vow to become one with the ten buddhas, the Four Great Vows, and the Gatha on Opening the Sutra. The roshi gives a brief talk on the meaning of these vows. Then the group chants the Gatha on the Adoration of the Three Treasures. The Ino recites a closing dedication and the group chants a closing dedication.

Shosan: This is the Dharma Dialog, held about once a month. The leader is usually the roshi or a senior training monk. Bows of respect are offered to the shossanshi (leader of shosan), and he gives a brief talk. Then he invites the trainees to come forward and question him on the subject of his talk or any other matter. The trainees must bow, ask the question from chokei (sitting on knees with back straight), and offer thanks and a full prostration after the dialog is over. When everyone has come forward, shosanshi gives a brief closing talk and all chant the four vows.

Morning Service: When I came to Zen Center this service was being held, as follows, every Monday through Friday morning, at 6:20, after dawn zazen. The officiant enters, with attendants. All present do three bows and chant in unison a series of Buddhist sutras. Bells, gongs, and mokugyo punctuate the chanting at set places. On certain mornings offerings are made in honor of predecessors in the Zen lineage of our teacher. Three bows conclude the service, and the officiant leaves with his attendants.

B. Knowledge of literature and theory. This has been attained through attending teishos (formal discourses) by Maezumi Roshi, and a few talks by guest speakers. Teisho is given every Thursday evening during the year and every afternoon during monthly sesshin. Most often the subject is a koan from one of three primary sources: Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate), Hekigan Roku (The Blue Cliff Records), or Shoyo Roku (The Book of Equanimity). These are collections of koans, records of dialogs of past masters in which they attained enlightenment or illustrated an aspect of the Way.

The teishos are also based on other major Zen texts: Sandokai (The Identity of Relative and Absolute) by Sekito Kisen, Genjo Koan (Realization of Koan) by Dogen Zenji, and the Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra.
I have also attended teisho on the significance of Ango (summer training period), Fusatsu (Renewal of Vows), and Basic Techniques of Zazen.
Further knowledge of Buddhist theory as applied to my own practice comes from dokusan (private interviews) with the roshi.
Knowledge of Buddhist theory is supplemented by extensive reading in the Independent Study Project.

4. Self-Assessment: Evaluate this learning activity. Mention such things as the quality of the experience itself and its personal significance to you.

Quality: Maezumi Roshi is officially recognized as a Zen Master in the three major lineages of Zen: the Soto school, and the Takuju and Inzan lines of the Rinzai school. This unique combination makes the quality of his teaching unusually deep and wide. He is also a graduate of Komazawa University in Oriental Literature and Philosophy, and therefore has a scholarly grasp that is rare among Zen masters. The community that has grown around him, and in which I study, is one of the strongest Zen training communities in America. The three years of studying and living there before entering Antioch represent a very high quality of learning in Buddhism.

Personal Significance: This has been a very significant activity for me. The Zen Center has been the focus of my life for the last three + years. I have confronted my highest aspirations and begun to test them, i.e. to be enlightened and to be a Zen master. That is, when I came these were my highest aspirations. Now I can see in relation to the first, that it is a subtler problem than I had thought. On one hand there is a particular experience which comes almost automatically from very ardent practice. On the other hand there is the belief that we are already enlightened and zazen is just an expression of this. I feel that I have only the slightest glimpse of either of these aspects. And yet this is the deepest sustaining force in my life, the growing conviction that I am in fact one with all existence.

I still cherish the possibility of becoming a Zen teacher. In fact this would mean ever deepening the experience of this unity. Otherwise there is nothing to teach. My primary motivations for being a psychotherapist is that it seems to be the closest that I can realistically hope to come to doing this type of teaching and still make a living in the world of 20th century America. So these Zen goals are very instrumental in my planning for a career at this time.

The Zen practice has given me the discipline and steadiness to stay with my work and music and to undertake this ambitious program at Antioch. That is, the aspect of discipline, patience, and thoroughness is what has kept me in one town for more than a year (now into the fourth year) for the first time in the ten years since I dropped out of college. This has enabled me to stay with psychological work long enough to feel that I am still on the path toward becoming a psychotherapist. In steadily going forward with that work, and the Zen practice and shakuhachi study, I felt the need to integrate them. The discipline I have learned in three years of sitting at the Zen Center gave me great confidence that I could successfully take a step in this direction by bringing together all of the learning of the last ten years in one year of intensive study at Antioch. Without the experience of finishing several arduous sesshins and training periods I would have no basis for thinking I could successfully complete such an ambitious project.

5. Describe the methods of evaluation and feedback used during the learning experience itself.

Dokusan and informal talks with the roshi provide the primary form of feedback in this practice. In fact that is the whole reason for studying Zen with a teacher. Only he can tell you when you are doing enough or not enough or too much in striving to benefit from the teachings of Zen.

6. Describe the material products of this learning experience, if any.

Built the kitchen table, tore up the concrete where the garden is, Journals helped edit, rakusu.

7. List the forms of testimony and evaluation that you will include in your portfolio as demonstrable evidence of learning. Please attach these.

Evaluation by Taizan Maezumi Roshi.

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Central Staff Advisor’s comments:

A beautiful assessment by Roshi! Brings out again the personal development in Ed’s education.

Central Staff Advisor’s signature___________Date March 17, 1976

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Evaluator: Taizan Maezumi Roshi

1. A brief self-description: your relationship with the student relative to this learning experience; professional and/or academic qualifications. You may attach a resume.

I am Director and Head Priest of Zen Center of Los Angeles, Inc., a sanzen dojo, or training center, for monks and laity of the Soto Sect of Zen Buddhism. Kenzan has been my student since his arrival at ZCLA in the Fall of 1972. For further information about my background and qualifications, please see the resume previously submitted.

2. Describe the student’s learning in this experience. Mention observable growth, skill development, information mastery, aesthetic sensibility, or other evidence of acquired learning.

When Kenzan began Zen practice with me, he seemed to be a very unhappy person. He often expressed the feeling that he could not really trust himself or his friendships with others. Sometimes, he would make difficulties with others by saying things sarcastically, or he would feel that he was being criticised or attacked when he was not. As we got to know each other, I could see that he had often failed in the past to complete projects or tasks he had begun, and that he usually reacted to this sort of thing by leaving the area and moving into another part of the country. So my emphasis with him was initially on getting him to settle down in one place long enough to finish something.

At first, his efforts to sit zazen were not very successful. Kenzan seemed to have a great difficulty just doing the basic task of counting his breaths. Day after day he would report that his concentration was weak and scattered, and that he felt really frustrated. I encouraged him to continue his efforts, though, and to renew them daily, and he agreed to do this.

After a few months, largely as a result of his persistence, he began to report a greater degree of control over his attention, and that a sense of strength and power began to mark his sitting periods. I pointed out that these were signs that his practice was growing stronger, and that although he should be encouraged by his success, he should not dwell upon it too much, but even more vigorously continue with his daily practice.

By December of 1973, Kenzan was able to report that he had become able to count his breaths with generally strong concentration, and that his attention was no longer so unruly as when he had first begun this work. In fact, he said, he had become so involved in counting his breaths that he no longer found the numbers useful, but rather found that the counting action itself became a hindrance to his progress. At this point, I recognized that his progress was enough to let him move to the next stage of practice in sitting, which is to discard the numbers and to simply watch the breath entering and leaving the body.

This particular exercise is a bit more difficult than breath-counting, since it offers fewer “props” (i.e. numbers) to support the attention of the sitter. It requires a higher level of skill to watch the breath than to count. But by this time, I could see that Kenzan had grown strong enough, and so he began to follow the breath rather than counting.

At the beginning of his practice, Kenzan seemed to draw a sharp line between his meditative work in the meditation hall, and his general daily activities at work and with his friends. He wanted, however, to be able to remain more calm and stable in this general activities as well, and so I encouraged him to sit really patiently and consistently, knowing that this would give rise to joriki, which would help him achieve greater stability and effectiveness in daily life.

The practice of zazen gives rise to a peculiar kind of strength called joriki, or the “power of stability.” This comes up in the course of daily meditation practice, and tends to accumulate and grow, moving into every aspect of the daily life of the practicer.

It seems to provide a kind of internal gyroscope, which enables the practice to stay in balance emotionally and physically to a greater degree than would otherwise be likely. It also seems to help speed up recovery from upsets. A person having strong joriki lets his life happen more easily, and does not need to struggle for control so much; whatever happens, he can deal with, and so does not fear defeat or crave success so much. He is more interested in just doing what needs to be done, and in living his life more directly, with less intellectualizing about non-intellectual activities.

Kenzan has shown a lot of growth in this area, developing the ability to continue his undistracted attention and calmness, not only in the zendo but also at work as well. This development points to an integration of his practice of zazen, so that it is not a limited, specialized thing that he does in a special place at a special time, but that it is becoming a way of life for him. This effect is one of the most certain indicators of the development of powerful joriki, which can only arise out of strong and steady practice.

Another indication to me of his growth has to do with the way he participates in sesshin. Sesshin is the three to seven day period of especially intensive sitting practice. Many people find it a strenuous experience which taxes their endurance and willpower to the utmost.

When Kenzan first sat sesshin, he had just injured his foot, and was therefore unable to sit in one of the traditional forms of the lotus posture. On the first day of the sesshin, he found himself having a lot of disturbing feelings, such as not feeling able to go through the three day period of sesshin, and feeling very worried and unhappy about it. I told him that he need only stay put, sitting in his chair, for the sesshin, and that that in itself would be a good success for him. All he really had to do, I insisted, was to not run away, and to stay in the zendo for those days. He did so, and after that, seemed to have a very noticeable increase in self-confidence and appreciation of himself. I think perhaps he was surprised that he was able to last that long, and that he may have learned not to so readily underestimate his strength.

The next sesshin he sat, a month later (April 1973), his foot was not fully healed yet, so he started the sesshin once again sitting in a chair. But during the second day, he felt able to move to the floor and sit upon a cushion like the others were doing, and so he finished the remainder of that sesshin with yet another proof that he was able to move beyond his preconceived limitations. As time went on, he continued to participate in the general schedule of activities in the Center, getting progressively more self-confident, and yet not having much trouble with arrogance or cockiness which is not uncommon with students. Instead, Kenzan simply involved himself as much as he felt able in what he was doing, and proved to be very patient and determined over a period of many months.

By this time, he was beginning to be seen by other students as one of the more reliable, experienced ones. And in March, 1974, he was assigned two or three fairly important tasks during sesshin which involved positions of leadership, such as monitoring the sitting (jikido), performing as timekeeper and also assisting in the religious services and ceremonies. His reaction to this new set of responsibilities was initially to feel self-conscious and overburdened, but he participated conscientiously, and became familiar enough with his duties to perform them rather well. During 1974 and the earliest part of 1975, Kenzan continued to maintain a full-time work schedule and still participated actively in the zendo, living in the same building as the meditation hall, and serving in various administrative capacities at ZCLA at the same time.

By January of 1975, he found, however, that he was trying to do too much; he didn’t have sufficient energy to keep both work and sitting schedules as actively as he was trying to do. And so in that month, he stopped sitting sesshin, in order to give himself the chance to rest more fully. It was difficult for him to do this while living in that building, for from his room he could hear the gongs and bells every day, and was always reminded that while he was resting, his fellow students were sitting and participating in the zendo schedule. He must have had a difficult time, feeling guilty about not sitting sesshin, yet knowing that he really needed the rest in order to keep his health. This kind of problem, that of setting limits for oneself which are neither too tight nor too loose, is often especially difficult for American students. It is not uncommon for them to actually leave the practice angrily, rather than to assume responsibility for taking care of themselves. But Kenzan faithfully continued to sit regularly when he could and to rest when he needed to, and so it seems to me that this time was also an important learning experience for him.

Six months later, in early summer, he realized that he needed more privacy and space than he could find in his small room over the meditation hall, and so he moved into an apartment a block away. He had once again made it possible for himself to continue in his practice, and he had also taken note of his physical and emotional needs at the same time.

During this whole period, he had been involved with publication of the ZCLA Journal, a periodical of ours which demanded a high degree of skill and care of its staff. He stayed with this project, which still relies heavily upon his involvement, and proved to be a great help to the Center and to many distant readers whose only contact with Zen may be through this magazine. More and more, Kenzan was leaving behind his role as an outsider or failure, and becoming a part of the community and of our practice here. He has even started to become comfortable with his successes, and to demand more of himself.

These few observations are perhaps sufficient to show my appreciation of the nature and degree of his development, learning, and maturation.

It is not often that one sees a student keep as faithfully to his practice and as patiently persevere in overcoming difficulties as with Kenzan.