How To Practice ZenBeginning Zen
Introduction
Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;
The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there;
Nirvana is, but not the person who enters it;
The path is, but no traveler thereon is seen.
(chapter 16, section 90 of (The Path of Purification)
If we can complete this course, it will help us develop the Bodhi Mind - the aspiration to achieve Enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.
The first step to enlightenment is to "put mindfulness in front of you" as taught by the Buddha in the Anapanasati Sutta. What that means has been explained by the Venerable Ajahn Brahm. He explains that placing mindfulness up front is a two step practice. We practice the first step of those two in the first step of this course. He calls it Present Moment Awareness.
"All sentient beings" includes ourselves but "no sufferer is found, no doer of the deeds is there." No person enters Nirvana and the path has no traveler. So who suffers, who does deeds, who enters Nirvana and who tavels the path?
Who finds the answer to these questions?
When the Buddha announced the doctrine of No Self more than 2500 year ago, people pounced upon the doctrine, declaring it to be absurd and and unknowable.
And thus we know that people haven't changed much since those ancient days. When modern people hear the doctrine, they have the same reaction.
But we know the Buddha answered all questions and explained the doctrine so thoroughly and clearly that his teachings, labled "Buddhism" for easy reference, are alive and well today.
A child who asks: "Why is the sky blue?" cannot comprehend the answer without an understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum and the prismatic effect of the atmosphere.
In the same way, the Buddha's answer makes no sense to those who do not know the four noble truths and the eightfold path. The eightfold path is the fourth noble truth. The four noble truths are a summary of the doctine of dependent arising. And dependent arising is seen only when the jhanas arise and the jhanas cannot arise through the mental exercise of thinking about them.
In other words, in order to get a Ph.D., we must first enter kindergarten. In this course, we begin at the beginning. We build the foundation so that the Buddha's teachings will make sense.
The idea of attaining enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings is a Zen sect idea, but in this course as mentioned on the Home page we use the term "zen" in its generic sense of meditation. We introduce non-Zen sect practices as well.
Throughout this course, we will identify which practices are of the Zen sect and which ones are not. It really doesn't matter - it's all the Buddhadharma or the Buddha Dharma, i.e., the teachings of the Buddha.
However, the original teachings of the Buddha were preserved by the school known today as the Theravada school, the Way of the Elders. The Mahayana teachings, of which Zen is a part, came after the Buddha passed into parinirvana.
Thus, the Mahayana texts represent the evolution of the original texts. The Theravada school rejects the Mahayana sutras, but almost every talk I've heard given by a Theravada teacher includes at least one Zen teaching. The schools are not really that far apart.
I know quite a few people who meditate but refuse to read the sutras, refuse to follow the precepts, and hold such practices and other Buddhist practices, in contempt. They argue that meditation trumps everything and they can continue to cause misery to other sentient beings because they sit on meditation mats and nothing else matters.
They eat animals, smoke, drink, hunt, fish, own guns, support wars of aggression, and generally behave just like people who have never encountered the Buddhadharma.
That's how we know that meditation alone is nearly worthless. If meditation has no impact upon our behavior, we are merely wearing out meditation cushions when we sit.
Only a pure mind can see itself and wake up. A defiled mind can meditate endlessly to no effect.
Zazen, sitting meditation, is important, because it is the eighth fold of the eightfold path, but it will not lead to awakening if the meditator ignores the precepts, sutra study, and the other folds of the path.
I have even met Zen meditators who don't want to learn about the jhanas, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness or the Five Hindrances to meditation because they've never heard of them and don't want to fill their minds with too much learning. This is ignorance on steroids.
So let's practice Beginning Zen with an open mind, unafraid to learn, unafraid to practice the full spectrum of Buddhist practices from multiple schools or sects.
Enlightenment, called kensho in Japanese, can be shallow or deep. Here is how one person expressed his experience:
"All at once everything became sheer brilliance, and I saw and knew that I am the only One in the whole universe! Yes, I am that only one."
And another:
'All at once the roshi, the room, every single thing disappeared in a dazzling stream of illumination and I felt myself bathed in a delicious, unspeakable delight...For a fleeting eternity I was alone--I alone was...Then the roshi swam into view. Our eyes met and flowed into each other, and we burst out laughing..."
Both of these accounts appear in The Three Pillars Of Zen by Roshi Philip Kapleau.
This course makes it easy start a Buddhist practice. This first chapter is easy and anyone can complete the steps of Beginning Zen in one hour.
We recommend following the steps of Beginning Zen every day until they become second nature, i.e., so automatic that they require no reference to this website. Then we can add the more challenging intermediate and advanced practices.
One hundred eight (108) is a number often encountered in Buddhism. So if we want to practice Beginning Zen for one hundred eight days, we mark our calendar 108 days from now with a plan to practice every day until then. We then move on to Intermediate Zen when we have completed 108 days of Beginning Zen practice.
Most books on Zen say that Zen practice is hard. To be a full-time practitioner, such as a monk or nun who has left home to dedicate all of their waking hours for their entire life to waking up, is not easy. However, this program is for lay people, people who spend most of their waking hours attending to school or work and family matters.
One idea behind this course is to lower the bar into Zen practice so that more people will try it, i.e., we are trying to reduce the intimidation factor. This is a course that lay people can take, even in the midst of a busy family and school or work-dominated life.
Another idea behind this course is to provide concrete steps that a layperson can follow to develop a Buddhist practice. Great websites like www.buddhanet.net provide enormous amounts of information by publishing the written works of many learned scholars, many of whom are monks and nuns, but the gist of most of the articles is that the reader should meditate, follow the precepts, study the sutras, and otherwise practice the Buddhadharma.
But concrete instructions are often lacking.
So we are trying to fill a gap by laying out a course in three levels that includes concrete steps and not just philosophy or exortations to practice more.
If you are lucky enough to live near a Zen (Japanese influenced) or Ch'an (Chinese influenced) center having a sanctioned teacher, or at least a senior student of a sanctioned teacher, it would be good to become a member and participate in the scheduled events. A good list of Zen Centers in the U.S. is published by the American Zen Teachers Association. Further lists, including centers all over the world, are maintained at BuddhaNet (not restricted to Zen centers) and Zenguide.
When you finish this course, you will know what goes on in Zen centers and you won't feel intimidated by them. You'll find that Zen centers are welcoming and the people there will help your practice grow.
Let's get started. One hour from now, you'll be practicing Zen.
But first, a disclaimer. "You" won't really be practicing Zen one hour from now. A deluded thing that calls itself "me" will be practicing Zen. The first fetter of the ten fetters is the belief in an independent self that is somehow separate and apart from everything else.
Most people are convinced that every thought they have is their thought, that everything they see is what they see.
In The Shurangama Sutra we learn that it is Seeing Awareness that sees, not "you." It is Hearing Awareness that hears, not "you." It is Thinking Awareness that thinks and "your" thinking is just meaningless elaboration. And Awareness that arises based upon a sensory experience is not an entity.
Buddha Nature, Universal Consciousness, the Deathless, Awareness, whatever it may be called, is not a sentient being or an entity (and to give it a name, any name, is to miss it). The point of Zen practice is to awaken, to become aware. Buddha Nature or nirvana is not something "out there" because there is no "out there."
There is also nothing "in here." Suffering is found but no sufferer exists...
The separate, individual "It" that we look for doesn't exist. The jewel at the heart of the lotus (Om Mani Padme Hum) is...nothing. When we realize that truth, that reality, we put down our burden and we are free. This is the peace that "passeth" understanding, the truth that sets us free.
We will have a good laugh when we discover that we have been concerned about everything when there was never anything to be concerned about, nor was there anyone to be concerned.
To paraphrase Dogen, everything is mind alone. The complete quote, from the Shobogenzo, is:
This mind is the mind that has resolved to realize enlightenment; it is the manifestation of a sincere heart moment by moment, the mind of previous Buddhas, our everyday mind, and the three worlds of desire, form, and beyond form. All of these are the products of our mind alone.
The belief that one owns a self that is permanent and pleasurable is a view held by all unenlightened sentient beings. The Theravadan school of Buddhism, the early school that preserved the words of the Buddha, spoken in Pali, recorded that the Buddha called such a wrong view sakkaya ditthi. The term sakkaya refers to the concept of self (body and mind) and ditthi means "wrong view."
Sakkaya ditthi is the first of the ten fetters that bind unenlightened beings. Its counterpart is Right View, the first of the Four Noble Truths. See our blog for a brief discussion of the ten fetters. Click here for a more thorough discussion.
If you approach this course with a determination to become a better person, you have already fallen into the trap. Such thoughts are mere sakkaya ditthi, arising from a belief in self as an independent entity in an external world. But the Buddha taught that there is no mind and body within, no world without. That is Right View or Right Understanding, the first step of the noble eightfold path.
The Dharmacakra (wheel of dharma)
The Buddha taught that we overcome sakkaya ditthi through samatha (calmness meditation), vipassana (insight meditation) or bhavana (a combination of both).
Zen teachers teach essentially the same thing but with a few "modern" techniques such as koan and shikantaza practice. Koans and shikantaza were apparently unknown to the Buddha because those practices are not mentioned in the Pali canon.
If "you" have overcome sakkaya ditthi, then "you" are or almost are an enlightened being who will gain nothing from following the beginning, intermediate, or advanced levels of this course. We won't be putting "you" or "we" in quote marks for the rest of this program, but those terms should be understood from the vantage point of enlightenment, and not in their vulgar, deluded meaning.
In this course, we use the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures as our guide. We refer to the Ten Dharma Realms as well. With the first nine steps of the course, we rise from a lower dharma realm and enter into the next higher dharma realm. At the tenth step, we arrive at the first dharma realm, the realm of Buddhahood.
It's OK if you don't know what a dharma realm is. We will learn about all ten of them as we go through the ten steps of Beginning Zen.
Most of us will not rise above a dharma realm with each step; the ten dharma realms are a teaching tool to help us understand the benefits produced by each practice.
But if we practice each step to perfection, we can awaken to our inherent Buddhahood by practicing these ten steps every day. We can awaken to the first dharma realm.
Step 1 - Seeking the Ox
(Leaving the tenth dharma realm)
Nirvana is the highest happiness...the Buddha, as quoted in The Dhammapada, verses 203 and 204.
Of the ten steps in this course, the first seven can be practiced in the morning, before breakfast. This requires early morning energy, not slothfulness. Zen practitioners do not use coffee to wake up!
The first seven steps can also be spread throughout the day. The first three steps can be practiced before breakfast and the final four can be practiced throughout the day.
And once we have learned the first three steps, we'll know how to live now, to be home here.
However, if we follow the recommended prostration practice of the seventh step, we will easily perform
the seven morning practices before breakfast.
In this step one, we learn from Venerable Ajahn Brahm how to practice Present Moment Awareness; it is the practice that allows our natural happiness to grow. It is the first step on the path to enlightenment as taught by the Buddha.
Dharma Master Hsuan Hua teaches in The Ten Dharma Realms Are Not Beyond A Single Thought that happiness must be cultivated so that we do not descend into the lowest of the ten dharma realms.
Sadness, melancholy, and lamentations prevail there. Western scholars translate the tenth dharma realm as "the hell realm" but that is a misleading translation based upon the Judeo-Christian world view. There in no permanent hell in Buddhism, nor can anyone, other than ourselves, send us to such a place.
Remember the words of Dogen Zenji, quoted above: All of these (the three worlds of desire, form, and beyond form) are the products of our mind alone. The hell worlds belong to the world of desire (the one we live in) and if we find ourselves in the hell worlds, it was our own thoughts that took us there.
So there is no need to fear a vengeful, jealous and wrathful god who will punish us if we don't believe in him. But there is a need to fear an undisciplined, pleasure-seeking mind that is awash in ignorance.
His use of the word "vacation," is not only humorous but also enlightening: nothing is permanent, not even anger and sadness.
So our first job every morning is to cultivate happiness in order to insulate ourselves from the dharma realm that lacks those qualities.
We cultivate happiness by practicing Present Moment Awareness. We prepare ourselves for Present Moment Awareness by walking in kinhin.
At the beginning of our kinhin, we mentally recite the Three General Resolutions of Zen:
I resolve to avoid evil.
I resolve to do good.
I resolve to liberate all sentient beings.
Reciting these three general resolutions on a daily basis at the beginning of our morning kinhin will help us plant the seeds of happiness that will lift us from the tenth dharma realm and prevent us from returning to that lowest of dharma realms.
Happiness alone cannot insulate us from falling into the tenth dharma realm. A church-going, animal-killing, gun-loving, happy war-monger is not heaven-bound. That's why we adhere to the Three General Resolutions while cultivating happiness.
This passage is copied from Zen Letters: Teachings Of Yuanwu:
The renowned poet Bo Juyi asked the Bird's Nest monk: "What is the Way?" The Bird's Nest monk said: "Don't do any evils, do all forms of good." Bo Juyi said: "Even a three-year-old could say this." The Bird's Nest monk said: "Though a three-year-old might be able to say it, an eighty-year-old might not be able to carry it out."
To understand that happiness and good humor are important parts of spiritual practice is the beginning of wisdom.
Only the foolish dwell in unhappiness with long faces. As Sheryl Crow sings: "Gonna tell everyone to lighten up (I'm gonna tell 'em that)."
By the way, that monk was called the Bird's Nest monk because he sat in trees high above the ground when he meditated!
As a child, I watched a series of Church of Christ ministers approach their podium every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, with a solemn, unhappy look. I never saw a smile on a minister's face.
Many westerners meeting Buddhism for the first time are surprised to learn that the cultivation of joy is one of the seven factors of enlightenment.
Happiness is the foundation upon which all of Buddhism rests. When we make the conscious choice to be happy, and when we persist in daily cultivation, we are seeking the ox and leaving the tenth dharma realm.
The ministers of my childhood were wordlessly teaching just the opposite. Their religion was founded on unhappiness. We were all damned if we didn't believe that God loved us and he would torture us forever if we didn't believe he loved us.
LOL!
The happiness that we deliberately cultivate, however, is a far cry from the joy that is one of the seven factors of enlightenment. That joy is experienced only when we arrive at deep levels of meditation. But by cultivating happiness every day, we create one of the conditions that allows that deep meditation to happen.
We cultivate happiness every day by beginning and ending each day with kinhin. Kinhin is the practice that ties together all ten of our daily practices. We can think of the ten steps of this course as a kinhin sandwich because we begin the day with kinhin and we end the day with kinhin. All ten steps of this course are wrapped in kinhin.
Even when things go crazy on some days and we can't complete all ten steps, we can still walk in kinhin at the beginning and end of each day.
And no matter how crazy things get, we can always find time to practice Present Moment Awareness.
Our resolve to liberate all sentient beings puts us in league with the Buddhas of the past, the Buddhas of the present, and the Buddhas of the future. Our job is no longer to enrich ourselves but to enlighten all sentient beings.
We are no longer the center of our universe nor do we exist apart from all other sentient beings.
However, after reciting the Three General Resolutions at the beginning of kinhin, we concentrate only on the kinhin. We also close our day, at the end of step ten, by walking in kinhin. It is kinhin that ties our practice periods together.
Ignorance and delusion, the source of unhappiness and dissatisfacion, are dispelled or rooted out at least in part by deep understanding and contemplation of the Four Noble Truths.
The first noble truth is the truth of dukkha, sometimes translated as suffering or the absence of satisfaction. The wheel of life rolls unevenly because its axis is off-center, eccentric. To put it bluntly, the Buddha taught that suffering is an inherent part of existence itself.
The second noble truth is that desire or craving is the cause of suffering. The desire to have a permanent, unchanging, independent and pleasurable self is the cause of suffering.
The third noble truth, the source of happiness, is that the axle can be moved to the center of the wheel. Unsatisfactoriness, suffering, unhappiness, can be brought to an end.
The fourth noble truth is that suffering is brought to an end by daily following, daily practice, of the eightfold path. Such practice creates the conditions that enable enlightenment to arise in all sentient beings.
Ignorance in Buddhism is usually defined as ignorance of the Four Noble Truths. However, it is also defined as taking the impermanent (anicca) as permanent, seeing the painful (dukkha) as pleasurable, seeing no-self (anatta) as self, and seeing the foul as beautiful.
As a practicing Buddhist, we soon learn that kinhin is an extremely important practice. It is the thread that binds all of our practices together. A single, isolated practice period is like a single battery; it produces a negligible current. But string a bunch of batteries end to end, in series with one another, and the current becomes strong. Kinhin strings our practice periods together, and our chi, our vital energy, becomes strong.
It is difficult to make progress when sitting in meditation for about half an hour if that one sitting is an isolated practice. In order to make progress, we have to begin the second sitting with the momentum built up in the first sitting, and so on. That is where kinhin shows its greatest power.
Kinhin is walking meditation practice.
If we can maintain our sitting meditation practice during kinhin, which is our walking meditation practice, three thirty minute sittings become a ninety minute sitting. At a retreat, a day of sitting adds up to one very long, unbroken sitting and a week of sitting, according to the Buddha, may be all we need. See The Satipatthana Sutta which forms a part of the Majjhima Nikaya (Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha), (sutta number 10 in the third edition, 2005).
Kinhin at the Victoria Zen Center
We don't do extended sittings at the Beginning Zen level but we do need to practice kinhin at the beginning and end of each day. As we go about our school or work day, we try to maintain our cultivation of happiness by mentally reciting the three general resolutions and contemplating the four noble truths throughout the day.
In other words, we walk in zen throughout the day. Our daily movements, when mindful, are one kinhin so that when we finish the day and begin our formal evening practice, we are not starting all over from the beginning. With our day-long practice, we maintain momentum and our evening practice has increased power.
The alternative is to have a scattered, unconcentrated mind all day, a mind that follows all distractions like a cat watching our finger as we wave it around. Unmindful living dilutes both the morning and the evening practice.
The Buddha identified the three roots of evil as greed, hatred and delusion or ignorance. We run toward things we like (greed), we run away from things we dislike (hatred), and we are ignorant of the four noble truths.
So in addition to leaving the tenth, ninth and eighth dharma realms as we practice the first, second and third steps of beginning zen, the first three steps of this course are also designed to help us begin to root out ignorance, hatred, and greed, in that order.
After a few minutes of kinhin, we will be mentally and physically awoken from sleep. If we have recited the Three General Resolutions and then concentrated on the kinhin, we will have already begun our Present Moment Awareness.
In keeping with both Zen and Theravada training, we try not to move during the sitting. When the body is moving, the mind is moving (an old Zen saying). We sit facing a wall, maintaining the eyes slightly open but not focused on anything, looking down with the eyes only so that the head is erect. This is the classic Zen meditation posture in a nutshell. Consult The Three Pillars of Zen for a more detailed description of postures.
For beginners, we recommend the quarter lotus. We recommend the half lotus for intermediate practitioners and the full lotus for advanced practitioners.
As taught by the Venerable Ajahn Brahm, a monk of the Theravada school, we begin our morning meditation by instructing our mind to forget the past, to drop all thoughts of the future and to experience only the present moment. While seated on our meditation cushion, we can listen to birds chirping, street sounds, and so on, as long as we are only listening to the sounds of the present. We can enjoy the smell of incense as well. Ajahn Brahm calls this practice "Present Moment Awareness" and his invaluable book, Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond discusses how to practice Present Moment Awareness in wonderful detail.
After we have focused on the present moment for a few minutes, we are ready for the second step of our seven step morning practice.
When we sit in Present Moment Awareness, we are doing what a Buddha does. That will make us happy and we can say goodbye and good riddance to the lowest of the dharma realms.
It is possible to ignore the final nine steps of this course and to attain enlightenment just by practicing Present Moment Awareness each day, with a kinhin at the beginning of the day and a kinhin at the end of the day.
Why? Because if Present Moment Awareness is practiced to perfection on a daily basis, the remaining steps will unfold naturally. However, only those who have sharp karmic roots, developed from many lifetimes of following the Middle Way, are able to practice Present Moment Awareness with perfection.
The rest of us need to follow our Present Moment Awareness with a second practice.
Step 2 - Finding the Footprints
(Leaving the ninth dharma realm)
After doing our best to establish Present Moment Awareness, we seamlessly transition into a second form of meditation also taught by the Theravada school of Buddhism.
This meditation is the perfect meditation to help us climb out of the ninth, the next-to-the-bottom of the ten dharma realms. Master Hsuan Hua says that dislike and hatred of others (and ill will directed to one's self as well) causes beings to fall into the ninth dharma realm, known as the realm of hungry ghosts. (They are not hell-dwellers, but their suffering is intense and their spiritual development is below that of animals. Imagine being less aware than a crocodile!)
Most modern people scoff at the notion of a Hungry Ghost dharma realm. It is perhaps best understood when one considers that even animal and plant species are not always clearly defined, i.e., there are animals and plants that blur between species and are difficult to classify. There are even some creatures who can be classified as plants and animals, of course.
The dharma realm of hungry ghosts is thus understood as being between the hell worlds and the dharma realm of animals. The hungry ghosts have purified their mind enough to escape the hell domains but they still are more defiled than animals.
Some teachers say that hungry ghosts are created by excessive greed rather than hate and anger. But Master Hsuan Hua says that excessive greed leads to the dharma realm of animals so we will stick with his teachings. Either way, we don't want to cultivate hate, anger, or greed.
Therefore, to climb out of the ninth dharma realm, that of the hungry ghosts, the realm of transition between the hells and the animal dharma realm, and to ensure that we will not fall back into it, and to find the footprints of the ox, we practice Loving Kindness (metta) meditation every morning after our morning kinhin and Present Moment Awareness meditation.
We can Google Loving Kindness meditation and find many different variations of it.
It typically goes something like this:
May I be well, happy, calm, and peaceful.
As we sit in our zazen posture, we repeat that statement (mentally) several times. It helps to reinforce feelings of happiness that we cultivate during the first step. Then we repeat each of the following statements in the same way:
May all of the members of my family be well, happy, calm, and peaceful.
May all of my relatives be well, happy, calm, and peaceful.
May all of my friends be well, happy, calm, and peaceful.
May all strangers be well, happy, calm, and peaceful.
May the people I dislike be well, happy, calm, and peaceful.
May all beings on the earth be well, happy, calm, and peaceful.
May all beings throughout all of the universes be well, happy, calm, and peaceful.
We sit quietly and still, letting each thought of loving kindness pervade ourselves and the universes. We don't rush through the practice. By enjoying and savoring each step of the practice, we cultivate patience, the third of the six perfections.
By climbing out of the ninth dharma realm, we have found the footprints of the ox and need only one more practice to pull ourselves from the dharma realm that is third from the bottom.
The three dharma realms at the bottom of the ten dharma realms are known as the evil dharma realms. With our next practice, step three, we will at least have climbed out of those realms.
Daily metta meditation is of profound importance. We will soon discover its magic. We will easily notice the huge difference between the days with it and the days without it.
Just as we walk in zen throughout the day by being mindful of the three general resolutions, the four noble truths, and the present moment, so too do we practive loving kindness meditation throughout the day. Especially if we have to deal with people whom we wish would just go away and leave us alone.
After we have performed our metta meditation, we seamlessly enter into a third stage of meditation in order to have a first glimpse of the Ox.
Step 3 - First Glimpse of the Ox
(Leaving the eighth dharma realm)
Our Loving Kindness/metta meditation is performed in the present moment. That's why we practice kinhin and Present Moment Awareness before practicing metta. We don't abandon our Present Moment Awareness meditation as we transition into metta.
When we conclude our loving kindness meditation, we maintain our Present Moment Awareness and transition to Silent Present Moment Awareness. This is where we learn to live now.
After we have sent out boundless loving kindness to all sentient beings in all universes, we simply let that be our last thought. We are finished with thinking and now we are going to let the silence in.
Venerable Ajahn Brahm counsels us to make the transition by dropping our internal dialog. Instead of thinking: "I'm doing my Present Moment Awareness practice now," or "Now I'm doing my Loving Kindness meditation," or "I'm beginning to really enjoy this morning meditation practice," we just sit without inner commentary.
When a bird chirps, we no longer think: "I just heard a bird." We let everything pass without commentary. We exist in the present moment without discursive thought. We drop our thoughts and give our mind a vacation from everything. We let the five senses and the mind just go away into the nothingness from which they came.
Thus by letting go of everything we transition from Present Moment Awareness to Loving Kindness to Silent Present Moment Awareness. We sit in Silent Present Moment Awareness as long as we can.
Our happiness will increase each day and our dislikes will diminish, as will our greed.
We conclude our Silent Present Moment Awareness meditation by reciting the repentance gatha (verse):
All evil actions committed by me since time immemorial, stemming from greed, anger, and ignorance, arising from body, speech and mind, I now repent having committed.
Dharma Master Hsuan Hua teaches us to climb out of the third lowest dharma realm, the dharma realm of animals, by overcoming greed. He says that humans fall from the human dharma realm into the animal dharma realm because of greed, i.e., the karmic result of a human life lived with greed is re-birth, as he says, in fur and horns.
So we repeat the Repentance Gatha at the end of our morning meditation, and several times throughout the day, and vow to reduce our greed. How we practice greed reduction is up to us.
The Repentance Gatha also mentions anger (a form of hatred/ill will; it arises due to things we don't like) and ignorance. So recitation of this gatha also reinforces the work we are doing in the first two steps.
We may practice greed reduction by eating just a little less at each meal. Fasting is not a Zen practice so we do not starve ourselves. But we do think about leaving the dharma realm of animals by teaching ourselves to overcome greed by eating less, by learning to stop before we are stuffed.
We may elect to counter our greed by giving money to a homeless person. Or by buying them some food or helping them find a paying job. Or by sending money to a monk or nun. (They do not accept money directly or personally; it must be sent to their monastery or other practice location for the benefit of the practice center in general).
We cultivate the idea of living a less greedy lifestyle. Our wisdom increases as we understand that the cultivation of generosity can lift us from the animal realm.
Giving, i.e., generosity, the antidote to greed, is the first of the six perfections. So in the first three practices of our morning routine we have climbed from the three evil realms and practiced two of the six perfections (generosity and patience).
As our happiness increases and our ignorance diminishes day by day with continued practice of the first step, as our loving kindness increases day by day as we practice the second step, reducing ill will, and as our generosity grows day by day, reducing greed, we gradually climb out of the evil dharma realms, never to return.
A quick summary of our morning practice so far:
1. Kinhin
2. Present Moment Awareness
3. Loving Kindness/metta
4. Silent Present Moment Awareness
5. The Repentance Gatha
Silent Present Moment Awareness is at the heart of learning to live now, to be home all the time. It requires the foundation of kinhin, Present Moment Awareness, and Loving Kindness meditation.
When we close our Silent Present Moment Awareness with the Repentance Gatha, ten thousand Buddhas sitting with us will rejoice. And as we continue to develop our practice with the steps that follow, we will realize how true that is.
Step 4 - Catching the Ox
(Leaving the seventh dharma realm)
After the Repentance Gatha, we read or recite from memory the five lay precepts, as worded by Roshi Kapleau:
I resolve not to kill, but to cherish all life.
I resolve not to take what is not given, but to respect the things of others.
I resolve not to engage in improper sensuality, but to lead a life of purity and self-restraint.
I resolve not to lie but to speak the truth.
I resolve not to cause others to take substances that impair the mind, nor to do so myself, but to keep the mind clear.
With a few minutes of effort, we can commit the five lay precepts to memory for silent recitation each morning, immediately following the repentance gatha.
For those who prefer to spread these practices throughout the day, the five precepts can be recited before and after lunch. Such before and after recitation requires us to be mindful.
More importantly, we work each day to actually follow the precepts. As situations arise, we recall the precepts and behave accordingly.
As we have seen, there are three specific practices we must cultivate to leave the lowest, the second lowest, and the third lowest dharma realms (cultivating happiness, loving kindness, and generosity, respectively).
Those three dharma realms are known in the Mahayana school as the three evil dharma realms as mentioned earlier and that is why we practice cutting off unhappiness/ignorance, hatred/anger/ill will, and greed.
Dharma Master Hsuan Hua teaches that upon rising from the third lowest dharma realm, the animal dharma realm, by cutting off ignorance, hatred and greed, we enter the human dharma realm.
However, the famous Lotus Sutra, (The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law), places the realm of the demon gods, the asuras, above the animal realm but below the human realm. And the Theravada school includes the Asuras in one of the four evil realms. (There are a total of thirty one dharma realms described in the Pali canon).
The seventh or asura dharma realm is the realm of fighting, the realm of aggression. The ancient Buddhist texts describe the asuras as gods who have cultivated happiness, loving kindness and generosity to rise from the hell worlds (the tenth dharma realm), the world of hungry ghosts (the ninth), and the animal world (the eighth), but their constant strife prevents them from rising to the sixth dharma realm, that of humans. They are the gods of combat.
Humans who love militarism and pursue combat, and those who urge others to enter into the military profession, are working hard to get into the asura dharma realm.
As Master Hsuan Hua says, in The Ten Dharma Realms Are Not Beyond A Single Thought, the asuras are laden with blessings but they lack power.
We will follow the Lotus Sutra's arrangement of dharma realms for convenience. It doesn't really matter whether the asuras are one step above or one step below the human dharma realm. Our current work is to leave the six lower dharma realms.
The Pure Land sect of Buddhism (another non-Zen sect), teaches that a human being who keeps the five precepts cannot fall below the human dharma realm when re-born.
When we cultivate the five precepts every day, we begin to understand why that is true. If we can keep the five precepts, we leave the seventh dharma realm of the asuras and enter the sixth dharma realm, the dharma realm of humans. Happy, filled with loving kindness, generous and upholding the precepts, we have left the dharma realm of the asuras.