Zen monk: No. 1 Thing About Happiness

Contributor Jeffrey Marsh, CNBC, 6/15/23; CC Liu, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Koans are an integral component of Zen practice: What's the sound of one hand slapping?

I lived as a monk and studied Zen for 20 years: Here’s the No. 1 thing people miss about happiness

Maura O'Hollaran left Boston

Many of us are taught to believe that we need to be in perfect control of our lives in order to be successful or accepted. But that mindset made me unhappy for years.

Growing up nonbinary, I spent a lot of time escaping to an imaginary world where I controlled everything, including what other people thought of me.

I constantly chased this idea that if I could just get that partner, that job, or that money and acclaim, I could finally relax and be happy.

To break this toxic mental habit, I did something drastic: I moved to the woods and lived among a community of Buddhists.

• *This is an adapted [and edited] excerpt from Take Your Own Advice by Jeffrey Marsh (published by TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC) Copyright © 2023 by Jeffrey Marsh.

I have since spent 20 years studying Zen Buddhism. At the monastery, I learned a valuable lesson about happiness that people often overlook:

We can't control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we [react and how we] treat ourselves.

Allowing ourselves to feel happy, no matter what our life looks like, is the key to real happiness.

Struggling for control won't make us happier

Leonard Cohen went from Hollywood up into the woods of LA's Zen Mountain Center.

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Why? When we hold on to the need for control, we start to feel responsible for all outcomes of our life. But can we really control what people think of us, or who does or doesn't give us a chance, or who we'll date, or where we'll get a job?

Julia found happiness in a tree named Luna.

We might have some say in these things, but so much of life is unpredictable — and that's part of what makes it beautiful. Unpredictability connects us all.

Another problem with the need to control is that it makes us constantly chase after a life we aren't living, making it hard to appreciate the one we do have.

For example, right now, we might be worried about finding the perfect partner. In a few years, it might be finding the perfect job.

How to let go of the desire to control

If I controlled love then I'd be happy.

If we FREE ourselves from the need to control everything, we can experience more happiness and gratitude RIGHT NOW in the present.

Here are some ways to get started:

1. Stop and reflect. Let's think about all the ways we're focusing on an imaginary future instead of the present. We can ask ourselves:

• Do we sometimes let our need to control the future get in the way of enjoying the present moment?
• When do we tend to do that and why? It is essential to honor our dreams, but how can we put some of that energy into the most important things in our life today?
• What can we be grateful for right now?

Living on Luna, saving trees, made me happy

2. Redefine unrealistic expectations we set for ourselves. Can we find that voice in our head that keeps reminding us of the need for control?

• Let's tell that voice, in no uncertain terms, that we are not living to impress it.
• Imagine living a life where that inner voice is irrelevant.
• Instead, we can direct that energy toward things that give us a sense of joy and peace.

3. Let's allow ourselves to be happy in the present moment.

• Let's close our eyes, take three slow breaths, and give ourselves permission to feel happy. 

If I move to the woods, can I meditate Zen?

TIPS: When we find ourselves struggling, think about why that is.

I've found that when people think about giving up control and letting life guide them, fear can get in the way. There will always be stressful situations that need our attention, like taking care of the people in our life.

But we can let happiness in by shifting our focus from future-oriented fears to the present.

We deserve to roll with the life we've got. We deserve to flow with the unexpected and not "have it all together."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jeffrey Marsh (they/them) is one of the world's foremost commentators on nonbinary identity and activism. Their TikToks and compassionate short-form videos have garnered over one billion views. Marsh's How To Be You was the first nonbinary memoir, and they are the first nonbinary author to sign a book deal with any "Big 5" publisher worldwide. Their latest book, Take Your Own Advice, is out now.

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Thich Nhat Hanh: breathe, walk, let go

AudioBuddha; CC Liu, Crystal Q., Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Breathing, walking, and letting go by Thich Nhat Hanh

(AudioBuddha, May 21, 2022) English narrator: Edoardo Ballerini. #ThichNhatHanh #Breathing #LettingGo

• 00:00 Breathing, Walking, and Letting Go
• 02:17 Recognizing and Calming Painful Feelings
• 04:31 Deep Relaxation
• 09:37 No Distinction between Means and Ends
• 10:34 Taking Care of Painful Feelings
• 11:55 Leaving Behind
• 14:04 Beneath the Surface
• 16:54 Letting Go
• 18:23 Mindfulness
• 21:12 Letting the Buddha Breathe

Based on Dharma talks by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and insights from participants in retreats for healing the inner child. Playlists

• AudioBuddha: audiobuddha.org

This video is for educational purposes only: It is not intended to violate copyrighted material. For enquiries or copyright issues, please contact audiobuddho@gmail.com.

What about the Zen thief? Bankei's cure

Buddha Groove (blog.buddhagroove.com); Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

What? He's really not going to do anything?

Great Master Bankei’s meditation classes attracted many students from all over Japan. During one of these [retreat] courses, a student was caught stealing. The incident was brought to Master Bankei’s notice. However, he chose to disregard it.

A few days later the pupil was again caught stealing. Master Bankei was again informed, and again he took no action. This greatly agitated the students.

They approached the meditation master with a petition they had drawn up demanding the student’s removal, failing which, they would all leave the course.

Rinzai Zen Master Bankei Yotaku (wiki)

Master Bankei read through their demands and then summoned all of them before him.

“Brothers, you are indeed wise! For you know the difference between right and wrong. You may leave if you wish to pursue your studies elsewhere. But this poor brother cannot tell the difference between right and wrong. If I do not teach him, who will? Therefore, I have decided to keep him even if all of you leave.”

Tears ran down the face of the erring student, the thief who was left with no desire to steal.

• Rinzai, Obaku, or Soto Zen Buddhism?
• Japanese PM Shinzo Abe announces intention to resign

Zen story: Steal the Moon

Buddha Groove (blog.buddhagroove.com); Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Zen Master Ryokan lived a life of simplicity in a cabin near the mountains. When he was away one night, a thief broke in only to find nothing worth stealing.

Just then Master Ryokan returned and seeing the burglar said: “You have travelled far to visit me! I can't let you return emptyhanded. Here are my clothes. Please accept them as a gift.”

The baffled thief took the clothes and ran away.

Now naked, the master gazed at the moon. “Poor man,” he sighed, “how I wish I could give him this glorious moon.” Source

The Way of Zen and Humor (Nov. 21)

Zentoons.com; Ananda (Dharma Meditation Initiative), Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

"Without Thoughts" (Daniel Lopez de Medrano)

What is the way of Zen? It is having no heroes and no teachers, no authorities and no goal.

It is the art of just being. We are human beings, after all, not human-doings. Spiritual Entertainer/Zen Master Alan Watts pointed out the way, and all the old great storytellers pointed at the Way.

What if we were to say to our monkey mind, "Circle...O, Zen empty spot, there is nothing you are and nothing you are not." For all there is in the end is suchness.

Many Zen stories are humorous because of unexpected twists that reveal our assumptions. Koans (paradoxical riddles) can get us out of our habitual ways of thinking. This free/by donation DMI session has stories, meditation, and Japanese-style vegan refreshments. RSVP

• Dharma Meditation Initiative, L.A.
• Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019, 7:00-8:30 PM
• Ahiah Center for Spiritual Living
• 150 N. El Molino Ave., Pasadena 91103

Zen Meditation Instructions (cartoon)

ZenToons; Zen Mountain Monastery (zmm.org); Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Sit up straight but not so rigidly that it's a strain (Daniel Lopez de Medrano/zentoons.com).

Calm down. Sit up. calm down.

Zazen [sitting] is the form of meditation at the very heart of Zen practice.

In fact, Zen [ch'an, jhana, dhyana] is known as the “meditation school” of Buddhism. Basically, zazen is the study of the self.

The great Master Dogen said, “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.”

To be enlightened by the ten thousand things is to recognize the unity of the self and the ten thousand things. Upon his own enlightenment, the Buddha was in seated meditation.

• Learn Zen meditation in Los Angeles (FREE, Nov. 14)

Zen practice returns to the same seated meditation again and again. For 2,600 years that meditation has continued, from generation to generation. It’s the most important thing [the practice] that has been passed on.

The Buddha was born on Afghan's Silk Road

It spread from India [and Afghanistan] to China, to Japan, to other parts of Asia, and then finally to the West. It’s a very simple practice. It’s very easy to describe and very easy to follow. But like all other practices, we have to engage it on a consistent basis if we want to discover its power and depth.

We tend to see body, breath, and mind separately. But in zazen they come together as one reality. The first thing to pay attention to is the position of the body in zazen. The body has a way of communicating outwardly to the world and inwardly to oneself.

Watch this short video on three ways to sit: zafu, chair, or seiza (monasterystore.org).

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Empty the mind (Piraro/Bizarro.com)

How you position your body has a lot to do with what happens with your mind and your breath. The most effective positioning of the body for the practice of zazen is the stable, symmetrical position of the seated Buddha. Sitting on the floor is recommended because it is grounded.

We use a zafu (video) — a small meditation pillow — to raise the behind just a little, so that the knees can touch the ground. With your bottom on the pillow and two knees touching the ground, you form a tripod base that is natural, grounded and stable. More

• To receive beginning instruction in zazen at the monastery, come to the Sunday Morning Program or Wednesday Evening Zazen. All weekend retreats, including the Introduction to Zen Training Weekend, also include beginning meditation instruction for newcomers.

How to sit Zen (video)

Yokoji Zen Mountain Center, 10/3/11; Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

(ZMC.org) Postures: full-lotus, half-lotus, quarter-lotus, Burmese, kneeling, or sitting in a chair.

How to Meditate Zen style

This is Zen meditation instruction from Yokoji Zen Mountain Center (zmc.org), a Zen Buddhist training center located in the Southern California mountains near Idyllwild. Instruction is provided on how to sit zazen ("seated meditation") in various positions -- full lotus, cross legged, using a chair -- plus tips on breathing and how to go in to and out of meditation periods.

• Dharma Meditation Initiative: Learn Zen FREE, Nov. 14
• Zen Mountain Monastery (zmm.org) meditation instructions
  

Zen: What freedom means (D.T. Suzuki)

Maria Popova (brainpickings.org); Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Illustration by Andrea Dezso for fairytales of the Brothers Grimm (brainpickings.org)

Buddhist prayer flags (illustration by Lizi Boyd from "Flashlight," brainpickings.org)

D.T. Suzuki on What Freedom Really Means and How Zen Can Help Us Cultivate Our Character

“The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow.”

Alan Watts may be credited with popularizing Eastern philosophy in the West, but he owes the entire trajectory of his life and legacy to a single encounter with the Zen Buddhist sage D.T. Suzuki (1870-1966) — one of humanity’s greatest and most influential stewards of Zen philosophy.

At the age of 21 Watts attended a lecture by Suzuki in London, which so enthralled him that he spent the remainder of his life studying, propagating, and building upon Suzuki’s teachings.

Legendary composer John Cage had a similar encounter with Suzuki, which profoundly shaped his life and music.

Cats who don't meditate are jealous and mean.

In the early 1920s, spurred by the concern that Zen masters were “unable to present their understanding in the light of modern thought,” Suzuki undertook “a tentative experiment to present Zen from our common-sense point of view” — a rather humble formulation of what he actually accomplished, which was nothing less than giving ancient Eastern philosophy a second life in the West and planting the seed for a new culture of secularized spirituality.

Kittens love sincere meditation teachers.

But by 1940 all of his books had gone out of print in war-torn England, and all remaining copies in Japan were destroyed in the great fire of 1945, which consumed three quarters of Tokyo.

In 1946, London Buddhist Society President Christmas Humphreys set out to undo the damage and traveled to Tokyo, where he began working with Suzuki on translating his new manuscripts and reprinting what remained of the old. The result was the timeless classic Essays in Zen Buddhism (public library), originally published in 1927 — a collection of Suzuki’s foundational texts introducing the principles of Zen into secular life as a discipline concerned first and foremost with what he called “the reconstruction of character.”

As Suzuki observed, “Our ordinary life only touches the fringe of personality, it does not cause a commotion in the deepest parts of the soul.” His essays became and remain a moral toolkit for modern living, delivered through a grounding yet elevating perspective on secular spirituality.

Suzuki begins at the beginning, laying out the promise of Zen in our everyday lives:

Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one’s own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom. By making us drink right from the fountain of life, it liberates us from all the yokes under which we finite beings are usually suffering in this world. ...

This body of ours is something like an electric battery in which a mysterious power latently lies. When this power is not properly brought into operation, it either grows moldy and withers away or is warped and expresses itself abnormally. It is the object of Zen, therefore, to save us from going crazy or being crippled. This is what I mean by freedom, giving free play to all the creative and benevolent impulses inherently lying in our hearts. Generally, we are blind to this fact, that we are in possession of all the necessary faculties that will make us happy and loving towards one another. All the struggles that we see around us come from this ignorance… When the cloud of ignorance disappears… we see for the first time into the nature of our own being.

One of Suzuki’s most overlooked yet essential points — and one particularly prescient in the context of what modern developmental psychology has found in the decades since — has to do with the crucial role of adolescence as a pivotal point in moral development.

The teenage years, he argues, are when we begin “deeply delving into the mysteries of life” and when we are “asked to choose between the ‘Everlasting No’ and the ‘Everlasting Yea’” — a notion young Nietzsche intuited half a century earlier when he resolved, “I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!”

At this fork in the road of existence, Suzuki insists, mastering the principles of Zen can make the critical difference in leading us toward a meaningful and fulfilling life. He writes:

Life is after all a form of affirmation… However insistently the blind may deny the existence of the sun, they cannot annihilate it.

Much of that blindness, he admonishes, comes from our attachment to the ego. Paradoxical as it may sound to any parent or teacher of a teenager, Suzuki suggests that adolescence is the time most fruitful for the dissolution of the ego:

We are too ego-centered. The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow… We are, however, given many chances to break through this shell, and the first and greatest of them is when we reach adolescence. More

Life in a Zen monastery (video)

Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Abbot Muho Noelke; Sen Baba; Antaiji (Antaiji/youtube)

(Sen Baba) Peter Barakan interviews Abbot Muho Noelke, the German abbot of Antaiji.
 

Stop. Sit. Watch the breath.

Antaiji is a Zen Buddhist monastery located deep in the mountains, close to the Japanese sea. The monastery commits itself to the practice of seated meditation and the study of the Buddha's teachings in the tradition of Dogen Zenji and Sawaki Kodo Roshi. The monastic community also cultivates the fields around the monastery, cuts grass and trees, and does construction work to stay self-sufficient [which runs counter to the historical Buddha's teachings but is in line with North Asian custom.] In the interview, Abbot Muho explains zazen (seated meditation), community life, and the relation between teacher and student, guru and chela or disciple. Another controversial topic is their precept of not-killing living beings or eating meat.

The Zen of Field Tripping ($10 tour)

Roshi Jeff Albrizze, Wisdom Quarterly; The Buddhist Progress Society (hsilai.org)

Hsi Lai Temple ("Going West" Monastery), Hacienda Heights, suburban Los Angeles, CA

Hillside parking lot, main entrance, Hsi Lai (Jesse Kaplan/TheGuibordCenter.org)

  

Courtyard with dining hall behind

PasaDharma provides a place to practice Zen. With an idea of having no ideas but "just sitting," the trip often remains on the mat. However, on Saturday (March 29) the local sangha will take up mats and walk around the grounds of the largest Buddhist temple complex in the western hemisphere: Hsi Lai ("Going West") on a hill that separates the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles from Orange County. This is a field trip.

Carpooling provided from Pasadena at 10:30 am. Those driving themselves are invited to meet at the temple at 11:00 am or join the carpool caravan going east to the temple. Chinese vegetarian lunch at 11:30 am. Tour starts at 1:30 and concludes at 3:00 pm.

• Saturday March 29th, 2014
• 3456 S. Glenmark Drive
• Hacienda Heights, CA 91745

What is Hsi Lai?

WQ at Hsi Lai full moon observance

This massive Taiwanese Mahayana Buddhist temple encompasses 15 acres and a floor area of 102,430 square feet. The temple's dynastic Ming (1268-1644 CE) and Ching (1644-1911 CE) architecture is reflected in its buildings, gardens, fountains, and statuary. Chinese speakers may regard Hsi Lai as "Coming to the West," signifying the dedication of the Buddha's Light Mountain (Fo Guang Shan) Buddhist Order to spread the teachings of the Buddha to the Western world. It is incluseve and provides Theravada as well as Mahayana teachings, having established the first Buddhist universities (University of the West) in the US. The founder, Ven. Master Hsing Yun, had previously established Fo Guang Shan, the largest monastery in Taiwan, which encompasses over 600 acres.

Going West under a full moon (WQ)

The temple was built to serve as a spiritual and cultural center for those interested in learning more about Buddhism and Taiwanese/Chinese cultural practices. This form of Mahayana came to be called "Humanistic Buddhism" aimed at creating a "Pure Land" on Earth. Built to fulfill these goals in the USA, the temple's objectives are to benefit society through charitable programs, nurture missionary activity through education, spread Dharma through rich cultural observances, and to edify people through traditional Buddhist practices.

RSVP (Roshi Jeff Albrizze at 626.529.4074 or jeffalbrizze@hotmail.com) so an advanced count can be provided to the temple.

CARPOOL: Meet at the Pasadena School District parking lot, 351 S. Hudson Ave., Pasadena, cross street East Del Mar Blvd.

MEET: Main entrance outside first Buddha Hall at 11:00 am; the group will then proceed together to dining hall for lunch, followed by tour starting at the Information Center at 1:30 pm.

DRESS: Out of respect dress comfortably but appropriately: avoid tank tops, shorts, or mini-skirts, smoking, and please avoid bringing meats of any kind or outside foods and beverages.

DONATION: $9 (cash only) per person covers delicious all-you-care-to-eat buffet Chinese vegetarian lunch. Museum admission is an additional $1. There is also a temple gift shop with prayer beads (malas), Dharma books, statuettes, souvenirs, and art.

Humanistic Buddhism & Leadership Online Certificate Program (uwest.edu)