The Kōan of Life
In early 2019, I spent 15 days living in a Zen Buddhist monastery, located in a small fishing village called Shuki of the Ōita prefecture, on the most southwestern island of Japan known as Kyūshū.
With a deep yearning for an intensely ‘spaceful’ environment in all respects — physically, mentally, and spiritually — I found the most remote and immersive experience, within a country and culture which I’ve always felt a deep affinity and connection towards.
I intentionally went into this experience without setting any expectations — whether general or specific. However, we will always have some preconceived notion of what and/or how something will be — likely formed by our exposure to familiar concepts throughout our lives — regardless of whether we make a conscious effort to form these ideals in our minds.
Without expecting much at all, my experience at the monastery still managed to surprise me. It wasn’t anything that I could have dreamt.
Even now when I am quizzed on the experience, I am not quite sure what to say and am unable to clearly articulate what it meant to me, but here is my best attempt to do so.
Authenticity
Any circumstance which is seemingly ‘ outlandish’ is not so because of the ‘ unbelievable ‘ nature of the circumstance itself, but rather, is due to expectations, preconceptions, and ideals one holds toward it; that is, one’s level of openness — or lack thereof — with respect to the thing or situation in question.
As I previously mentioned, going into this experience I really did not know what to expect. Many hours of daily zazen (meditative practice) and plenty of solitary time; absolutely.
Staying in a hostel-like environment in what felt like a share-house, an extremely relaxed and ‘anything goes’ vibe, bonding with other guests, all whilst living day by day according to our monk’s spontaneous, off-the-cuff “planning”; not so much.
After a couple of days of observation and reflection, I realised that I was witnessing and experiencing authenticity in its purest form; that our monk was living the most authentic life imaginable. Regardless of whether his guests were there or not, he would be living in exactly the same manner. He was living each moment that was immediately in front of him, fully and completely. We guests were simply there for the ride.
Then it dawned on me: the life the monk leads is in fact, the perfect representation of Zen philosophy.
I am not saying that he was the perfect human being, like the Buddha, personified (far from it!). Rather, and very simply, he is a human being just like you and me.
The difference is that he is a human being who lives each day in utter spontaneity and authenticity, as required and/or demanded by each situation immediately at hand.
This authentic way of life is all neatly framed by the discipline and tradition of zazen; intentional meditative practice to begin and end each day, with the simple goal of living more authentically than the previous day.
That is it.
If I were overly attached to expectation or preconceived ideals, I may not have been open and aware enough to interpret such an important observation and lesson.
To recognise that Zen isn’t so much a state of mind to be reached or attained, but rather, a simple way of life which is lived as purely and authentically as one possibly can.
Zen in Weeding
Staying at the monastery, guests were required to participate in daily samu — physical work/chores around the property for maintenance and upkeep — in honouring the Zen Buddhist maxim of
“A day without work is a day without nourishment.”
This included (but was not limited to) working in and harvesting from the garden, digging holes, general maintenance and upkeep, chopping firewood, adventures into the bamboo forest, and of course, weeding.
The task for each day was assigned by the monk every morning immediately after meditation. Weeding was a popular choice (not so much for the guests), and understandably so — being at the foot of a bamboo forest in rural Japan, the monastery had enough vegetation to outlast multiple lifetimes of weeding.
Day after day, hunched over and pulling weeds for hours on end became physically taxing on my fragile city-boy body. At the conclusion of morning meditation, just before our monk would announce our samu task each day, I would repeat a silent prayer to myself (naively, too, if I am honest) “please not weeding, please not weeding, please not weeding…” Unfortunately, this was a prayer that was rarely answered.
One particular day, I was weeding in the front of the property in the pebble-ridden driveway. Pulling tiny weeds strewn throughout and within pebbles across a ~10 square metre patch of land was more overwhelming than I am describing.
I remember saying to myself, “one weed at a time…” and putting my head down to do just that — extracting one tiny weed at a time and placing it into my weed bucket.
*Dig, extract, bucket; dig, extract, bucket.*
I was completely entranced by this repetitive task, for what felt like hours, but as a sharp pain in my lower back brought me out of this powerful trance, I took a short break and looked up to glimpse at my hard work.
I’m not sure why I was surprised, but it looked as if I hadn’t pulled a single weed and it looked just as overwhelming as when I began. To be honest, I was a little dejected, then no sooner did the monk walk by, raised his eyebrows slightly and gave a modest nod of approval (I think?) whilst admiring my handy work. Then I looked back into my weed bucket and, although not close to being full, I could see that I had definitely made some solid progress.
Weeding is a recurring task of maintenance — something that would scarcely be called ‘enjoyable’, yields little benefit, and will always require attention (unless we use weed-killing chemicals, but, of course, we’re definitely not about that life).
Despite all of this, the simple fact of the matter is that it is a task that needed to be done.
Zen can be found everywhere and in everything, if only we look intentionally with the purity of our hearts. The weeds were simply something that required attention, so it was tended to.
And just as with every task we are given in life:
i. when something needs to be done, we just simply need to do it;
ii. whether the task is ‘ big’ or ‘ small’, we approach it the same way — by first, simply starting;
iii. the process of completing each task is followed the same way — one step after another;
iv. the quality of any outcome is determined the same way — by the amount of effort and attention given to the task;
v. any task, situation, or circumstance is as ‘ good’ or ‘ bad’ as it is perceived.
The monk’s acknowledgement — apart from being a nice little pat on the back for my ego — was simply an affirmation that I was on walking in the right direction, that I was walking this path in the correct manner, and that all I had to do was continue walking, one small step, or weed, after another.
As for the contents of my weed bucket — it was simply further proof of this.
Kōan
Utilised during the training of Zen Buddhist monks, kōans are used as a tool to assess the openness of their minds, the level of detachment and transcendence achieved over rationale, logic, and egoic thoughts, and ultimately, test their understanding of the greater truths of the world and themselves.
An example of a well-known kōan which you may have heard before is
“What is the sound of one hand clapping?”
They are paradoxical statements, riddles, questions, anecdotes, or stories that do not have an answer or solution but are nevertheless presented in order to provoke continual exploration and (hopefully) the revelation of seemingly inconceivable, new depths of thought.
As for words of advice or lessons given in a direct manner, this was rather rare from our monk, and this wasn’t much of a surprise, given the clear language barrier, as well as the fact that, as mentioned, he was essentially living his life and allowing guests to observe at close proximity. He is a monk of Zen Buddhism, not a teacher, nor did he feel the need to act as such.
In saying this, he did leave me with a very powerful lesson, one which I feel perfectly encapsulates my entire experience at the monastery. It was delivered in just four words whilst I was studying some of the many kōans plastered around his kitchen walls:
“Life is a kōan.”
How true and profound these words are.
Our lives will never cease to be a mystery to each of us.
The day that you decide there are no further questions to be asked of life is not the day you’ve found the truth, but rather, the day you’ve simply chosen to accept the reality you perceive at that particular moment.
At this very point in time, there is not one human being on Earth that can definitively say they understand everything that there is to understand about their own life, without a glimpse of doubt.
The immense complexity of this world and our physical existence within it cannot cease to be so, but only merely dismissed through sheer close-mindedness and ignorance.
Even knowing the almost-inevitable hopelessness of answering life’s greatest riddle — that of life itself — we never stop asking the question, we never stop learning the lessons life teaches us, we never stop practising, we never stop being disciplined, we never stop in our intentional pursuit of truth.
This, for me, is Zen.
Originally published at https://www.findingspace.co on September 19, 2019.
