The Wastepaper Record

March 11, 2007
Westminster Unitatian Church
Rev. Barbara Fast

Opening Words:            March 11, 2007

Have you heard this one?
So far today I haven’t cursed another driver.
 I haven’t eaten too much sugar or fat.
No family member has disagreed with me even once.
And nothing embarrassing has happened at work.
Things are working out pretty well so far.
But now it’s time to get out of bed.
    From The Little Book of Letting Go by Hugh Prather

Our lives are filled with useless battles – carrying around unhappy scenes from the past, as if they are present-
So they are…
A still mind sees what is here and now – nothing more, nothing less.
This day, let us stop and breathe and wake up to this moment.

The Wastepaper Record
I was given…this thin volume. It is called Wastepaper Record…

It was written by a woman - Tachibana no Someko..who lived in Japan, 1667-1705. There is increasing knowledge that women have played a huge part in the development of Buddhism, but written works are rare.

Someko lived to be 38 years old.   She was a concubine of a powerful politician, and gave birth to four children.
Three of her children died at age three. 
She was deeply grieved and sought refuge and relief in Buddhism.

Niwa Jisho Roshi…The Abbot of Koonji Temple wrote the Introduction to this book and sought to have it translated into English. Niwa Jisho Roshi writes:

Tachibana no Someko lived three hundred years ago…She was the concubine of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu…perhaps it sounds bad to you that she was a concubine, but at that time it was an important and respected position. She was, moreover, a woman of ability.

“ One hears many stories of women opening their wisdom eye with Zen practice…

He begins
Niwa Jishu Roshi  writes: ‘Zen even transcends time and space, so of course in Zen there can be no grounds for discrimination between male and female. Engrave upon your hearts this account of the realization of Satori by a magnificent woman known as Tachibana no Someko.’

At the end Someko wrote:
“The ancients said that the collected scriptures are entirely torn up wastepaper. Now I have collected a few useless words and the “Wastepaper Record”. Perhaps someone will appear over the wall with it, or cover the miso with it. Or then again, maybe someone will store it away and it will become food for worms.  This or that, anything would be fine. I leave it entirely up to you.”

Roshi explains: This is a wonderful passage that improves with each reading! In Zen, speech and writing are manifestations of something else. At the very moment that there is the experience of reality within Someko, these words come out. What is important is to grasp what is behind the words, the mind, the truth, the life behind the words. Someko’s mind is a splendid thing.”

BELL

The Buddha – was born Siddhartha Gautama –in India around 560-460 BCE and living for 80 years.

His family was well off and sought to prevent him from seeing human old age, poverty and  illness. At 16 he married and he and his wife had a son. At age 29 he found a way out of the compound, and saw an old man, a sick man and an ascetic.

As a result of seeing suffering, old age and death, He was not at peace and  left his family. He renounced the world. After 6 years, still not satisfied, he decided to sit under a bodi tree alone until he died or realized the highest deepest truth. He did.
He reached nirvana, satori. He was a Buddha - one who has attained complete enlightenment, one who is awake.

The four Noble truths are:
All existence is suffering
The cause of suffering is desire and illusion
Suffering can be eliminated
The way is the Eightfold path:

Right understanding, right mindfulness, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right attention, right concentration.

BELL


The first time I met Niwa Isho Roshi was when he performed our marriage ceremony for us. 1983 - Jon had been practicing ZaZEN for several years…and friends Georgette and Max Siegel had built a small Zendo building on the farmland in NJ.  They did not yet have a sangha – community – there. They were Roshi’s students- disciples in America.

Buddhist Zen Masters- do not usually marry people in Japan. It is the Shinto priests who marry. Buddhist monks tend the cemeteries.

There we were, well after our UU wedding, I carried one glorious  crysanthymum, and in the Zendo in the woods, being married…in Japanese…we have our certificate in duplicate in Japanese, one in our bedroom, one in a Temple in Tokyo…we had a tea ceremony and then later…pizza for dinner …( I cannot remember what the vows were!)

ZEN Meditation is experiential. No creeds – no dogma- yes- teachings. Your experience is yours – it cannot be taken away… it is different from a belief…It is not about belief. Buddhism is so about practice…

This is how they taught me to meditate.  Sit on a cushion, cross legged, focus the eyes, and just breathe and count with each breath. 
One to ten… slowing and evening, over and over again.

Do not judge or critique self, the mind is so well practiced at making thoughts, do not fight it or argue or worry. Let thoughts float away. Come back to the breathing and counting to keep awareness on breathing.

I was told - still the body and the mind will follow…
So we sat Sesshin…three days…sitting in 45 minutes to 2 hour blocks…
Breathe, one breathe, in, out; two breathe in,out…is that all this is?
Three breathe in out - my leg has gone to sleep…
Get the dry cleaning, forgot to call the babysitter, thoughts floating across the sky of the mind- let them float away…clouds, clouds, no judging…one breathe…back to the breath…

What was that about still the body and the mind will follow…? 

Still -  Up in the dark, before breakfast, after breakfast, after lunch, teisho- koan talk…long afternoon, after dinner.  Breathe - Buddha mind, in /out, no mind, in/out- I don’t know mind,
Oh - I don’t mind that I don’t know mind…

And after day two, making rice in the kitchen –making rice - in the kitchen !  I was rinsing rice …an illuminated activity. 
Joy- was daily increasing:  Joy…                

BELL

Dee Lovecky sent me an article…about HAPPINESS and Meditation…
You can see it in the brain - the happiness…the sectors lighting up and longer practiced faster they light up…

Then we go home feeling good and forget ,
WE fall asleep on the practice…
Nath Hanh writes:  Feel great, clarity …alert and awake…to what presents itself…non reactive…then we forget to keep practicing…

Then I had babies. I remember sitting on a sunny porch with Roshi in a warm October afternoon, with bees buzzing around us, he sitting with his paper fan, not at all bothered by the irritable autumn yellow jackets.

I remember him telling me that my children were my Zen. Of course, children are superb Zen masters.  Call up our capacity for unconditional regard, within structure and boundaries, pay attention…seeing reality…I was often tired Buddha mommy, torn mommy, multi-tasking Buddha.  Wherever you go - are you really there?
   

I remember Roshi in his white pants and socks with the toes (for sandals) pitching a baseball to Ben.  Or sitting is a restaurant in his robes…and putting on a Disney mouse nose while Dan wore the elephant tusk nose…

When he would arrive I just hugged him, not knowing Japanese Zen Abbot protocol, and he hugged back, being a Buddha mind…and then he looked forward to the hugs…but not in front of the monks.

Roshi writes in his introduction: A Koan is not a problem to be solved. It is for all at once sweeping away the “knowledge” and “common sense” that we have accumulated from the day we were born. Without this sweeping away we cannot know real Truth. The purpose of Koans, therefore is not to make you understand; their purpose is to perplex you. When we become like a child, when we become naked, then we taste the world of true experience, and go one from there.

Between sitting we would have Teisho- study the Koans and Roshi would help us with a Koan.

Our Koan was and is:  Joshu’s Mu- A monk once asked Master Joshu, “ Has the dog the Buddha nature or not?  Joshu said, “Mu!” 

Bell

From Mumonkan
In studying Zen One must pass through the barriers set up by the ancient Zen Masters…one has to cast away this discriminating mind. Now tell me what is the barrier of the Zen Masters? Just this “mu.”.

Those who have passed the barrier will go hand in hand with all the masters, see them face to face… Wouldn’t it be wonderful! Do not attempt nihilistic or dualistic interpretations…

Cast away your illusory knowledge and consciousness accumulated up to now. Keep on working…when your efforts come to fruition … 
It is as if you have snatched the great sword of General Khan . You kill the Buddha if you meet him!... On the brink of life and death you are utterly free, …you live, with great joy, a genuine life in great freedom.

Ideas about Buddha are useful but then they get in the way-
For Absolute freedom the Buddha is to be cast away, any restraints on the min, ,to kill means to transcend names and even ideas…do not be nihilistic…


Such ‘holy” figures.  They are”your” servants. The question is, who are”you”?

Roshi writes:

‘You and I live here and now. Who is it that gives life to this ‘I’  living in this precious cherished detestable and delightful world?”

Someko Wrote: 

Real blessings
From a shadow of nothingness:
Just as they are
I tuck them up my sleeve
Words of a dew drop.

BELL

When I write a sermon I come to this place – always - a place where I don’t know…I start out thinking I know…I get to the place where I don’t know…where the sermon wants to go with me…it is always a new place from the place I thought it would go.

So when I got to that place Friday morning - It hit me like a Roku stick - the monks slap your back to keep you awake!

Go and sit …with your not knowing mind…So I did. And you sat with me too.
I bowed to the cushion, I banged the bowl you gave me.
It has such a beautiful sound…I sat and breathed.

My dog came in and her Buddha nature was needing a scratch..and usually she can nose my hand one more time than I replace it…but she settled down next to me.

Sitting one afternoon in the Zendo, autumn light filtering through the windows…Roshi told us that he might not be coming again to America, he was getting older. He said how much he loved us and wanted us to continue on with our study and practice. 

Kossan who chanted so well at my installation is a Monk at Koonji Temple with Niwa Roshi…He has been sent to replace Niwa Jisho in America…to teach and practice ZaZen and lead sesshin…Kossan is awaiting his visa as a religious teacher…harvesting sugar cane in Manila.

So when he was in NYC this past Autumn…he and I spoke about his coming here to have sesshin…one day.

Part of his spiritual practice is to put on his roller blades…and skate up to the Met Museum twice a week and take out his hat and lay down his begging bowl and chant for the well being of all sentient beings…He is inviting the passers by to experience generosity.  

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote,  “You do not have to abandon this world. You do not have to wait to go to Heaven or wait for a new day…You only need to dwell in the present moment.
Mindfulness, mindful breathing. Mindfulness is the light that shows us the way into the living Buddha within.
Practice each day and the practice becomes a habit…so that when a difficult time comes…it is natural and easy to take refuge…
Devotional practice is transformational and transformational practice is devotional…and a community helps…”

Gateless is the Great Tao
There are Thousands of ways to it
If you pass through this barrier
You may walk freely in the Universe.
    From Mumonkon

I meditated into the sermon and the dog ate, drank, needed to go out, needed to come back in, offered herself to me for a pat or two, slept…
It came to me. I don’t mind that I don’t know. Who am “I” anyway?
I don’t know a thing or two.

SOMEKO wrote about her enlightenment…
“The Great Questioning that I have bourn for so many years is now, all at once, crushed. The Original Face is just this. Truly, holding all the Buddhas of the three worlds in my two hands, we simultaneously look at each other and understand. In all the vexed and contorted words of the 1700 Koans there is not the tiniest point of true meaning that I do not understand.
I return them as a great pile of waste paper.”

Her Roshi said: “All that is so, yet all the same you must go and develop it well.”

A monk wrote - “Before I began to practice mountains were mountains, rivers, rivers. During many years of practice, mountains stopped being mountains, rivers, rivers. Now as I understand things properly, mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers.”

Then I read that it was on a March 16 she received acknowledgement of her satori from her teacher, and I thought of that March day in spring hundreds of years ago…one mind free…

Enlightenment brings about true happiness and true life. The substance of a Buddha is enlightenment. Every time you practice conscious breathing, you are a living Buddha. 

To go back to yourself and practice conscious breathing is the best practice in difficult moments. Mindfulness of breathing is an oasis, a refuge.

I will end with her words:

“The ancients said that the collected scriptures are entirely torn up wastepaper. Now I have collected a few useless words and the “Wastepaper Record. “ Perhaps someone will appear at the wall with it, or cover the miso with it. Or then again, maybe someone will store it away and it will become food for worms.  This or that, anything would be fine. I leave it entirely up to you.”

The question is who are “you?”

END


Copyright Barbara Fast 2006
May be used with attribution.


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