Interview with Roshi O’Hara (Part 3 of 4)
In the third part of our chat, Zen master Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara talks about Zen art, walking meditation and her “Five Expressions of Zen.” To read Part 1, click here. To read Part 2, click here.
Your Five Expressions of Zen are meditation, study, communication, action and caring. How did you come to develop these expressions?
There is a rubric, in the Tibetan tradition in particular, of the Five Buddha Families, each of which represents one aspect of an enlightened mind. That’s what inspired me to develop the Five Expressions. They cover what we need to cover.
What makes Zen Buddhism unique in the Buddhist practice?
First we have to look at the cultural source. Zen Buddhism is profoundly influenced by Taoism. Tibetan Buddhism was profoundly influenced by the indigenous Bon religion of the Himalayas. That was a mystical tradition, so a certain mysticism flowed into the Buddhism that arrived in Tibet and Nepal. Likewise, the Buddhism that went to Southeast Asia incorporated cultural elements of those regions. In the early 19th century, Westerners did not know that those were all variants of Buddhism and thought they were different religions. They looked so different and they they began to realized that they were all talking about this person called Buddha. [laughs.] And Zen means “mind.” It’s Taoist, so it tends not to be deity-oriented, much more secular, much more grounded in the everyday. Zen “says” we don’t believe in writing and conversation. However, what’s a little embarrassing is that there’s more written in China and Japan than in the other traditions. Zen had an appeal to the intellectuals in China, and then Japan. But our form of practice is to continually critique the use of language as a way to understand the world.
Is that why there’s a lot of silence in Zen?
Exactly. And there’s also a lot of [makes sudden loud yell] to break things up, which says you’re not going to capture it with words. Words are fine. But they are not the truth. So that’s fundamental to the Zen tradition. Whereas, say, in the Tibetan tradition, there’s much more attention to analytical thought, more scholarship, more debate. In the Southeast Asian tradition, there’s an incredible emphasis on the “Vinaya,” or rules that outline morals and ethics.
As part of my own meditative practice, and because I’m also a visual artist, I started doing sumi ink drawings. How can this type of activity help achieve mindfulness?
Because they really are the same thing. You have your brush ready, you have your ink and paper ready. And you take a moment, a breath, and then pick up the brush and start painting. That’s it. That’s what we’re doing on the cushion. These practices interact with one another quite beautifully.
Do you think that because of the heavy influence of the arts in the Zen Buddhist tradition, that artists and artistic type might gravitate more towards the Zen style of Buddhism as opposed to the more theory-heavy Tibetan Buddhism or the more yoga-centric Buddhism of India?
That’s certainly true of this sangha. We have a lot of artists here. Most Zen communities I’ve experienced have a strong artistic element.
Can you recommend one Zen artist or poet as a good introduction to the artistic creativity of Zen philosophy?
Definitely check out the Edo-era poet BashÅ. He was a great master of haiku. Also Ryokan, who was a late 18th- and early 19th-century Buddhist monk and hermit who revealed the essence of Zen life through poetry and calligraphy. And Hakuin Ekaku, a painter and calligraphist from the late 17th- and early 18th century who helped revive the Rinzai school of Zen. I really suggest going to the Japanese wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
How is Zen meditation different from other meditation traditions?
The body, breath and mind are the foundation, the tripod, of Zen meditation. We do not do affirmations, mantras or Metta, a Theravada tradition that involves sending loving thoughts to others. We don’t imagine deities. We’re actually facing the wall. If someone says to me, “Oh, I’m starting to see something,” I’ll tell them, “Well maybe your posture isn’t right.”
It’s really more basic. More raw.
Absolutely. Ordinary. Plain water. No traces.
Some meditators recommend closed eyes so that you turn inward, some say half-closed so your mind doesn’t think it’s time to go to sleep. There’s also Hindu “fixed-gaze” technique of trataka in where the eyes are open and staring at a single point. Which technique do you teach?
We instruct eyes half-open, looking down. This prevents you from having hallucinations or sleepiness. In my experience, the wide-open technique tends to put too much strain on the eyes and they start to water. And you want your eyes relaxed.
Obviously a big part of meditation is about sitting. Can you explain walking meditation?
We do it all the time. We sit for half an hour and then the bell rings. We stand, and we do one of three different kinds of Zen walking meditation. There’s very slow walking, so you take a half-step with every full cycle of the breath. Talk about mindful. You have to be very aware, or you’ll start walking fast. It’s inhale, exhale, half a step, inhale, exhale, half a step. That was at the temple where I studied in Japan. And it was so fascinating; I’d see these guys across the hall and you never saw them move, but somehow, after five minutes, you’d look over and they were in a different location. It was so gradual, it was amazing.
It’s like butoh.
Yes, very much so. It’s very Japanese. So we would do that for five minutes and then we’d hit the clappers a normal walking meditation. Now, when we go on retreat and we can go outside, sometimes we’ll lead the group out. But everybody follows one another in a line. And the third kind of walking meditation moves at a trot. We don’t do that very often. That’s a Rinzai style. But everyone does it at some point. If I feel things are getting really sleepy, I’ll say, “OK, let’s speed up now.”
I know several people who tried to incorporate meditation into their daily lives, but weren’t able to stick with it. What would you recommend to them?
In my experience, the only way to do it is to join a group. That is just it. And I’m not a “joiner” and I could never join groups, but it’s what I have learned through my own life experience and the people who have come. Maybe there are a few people who can sit on their own, but not very many. But when you come here, you agree to sit still for 30 minutes. You’re not going to get up and check you phone, because we won’t let you. We’ll say, “Sit down.” [laughs] What’s most important is to find a group, a place that where you like the people and the setting that will make you want to go and sit. That’s all it takes.
Stay tuned for the fourth and final installament of my chat with Roshi O’Hara, in which we talk about social justice, compassion and whether or not meditation can be used for evil ends. — Reynard Loki
ABOUT ROSHI PAT ENKYO O’HARA
Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara serves as Abbot of the Village Zendo. She received priest ordination from Maezumi Roshi and Dharma Transmission and Inka from Bernie Tetsugen Glassman. Roshi Enkyo’s lineage comes through Maezumi Roshi whose teaching was uncommon, bringing together Soto priest training and study of the Rinzai koan system. Moreover, Roshi Glassman’s focus on social engagement and peacemaking underlies much of her vision of Zen practice. Roshi is a Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Family, a spiritual and social action association. Roshi’s focus is on the expression of Zen through caring, service, and creative response. Her Five Expressions of Zen form the matrix of study at the Village Zendo: Meditation, Study, Communication, Action, and Caring.
ABOUT VILLAGE ZENDO
The Village Zendo is a community of people who come together to practice in the Soto Zen tradition. The Village Zendo offers zazen (sitting meditation), one-on-one instruction with a teacher, dharma talks, chanting services, retreats, workshops and study groups. Co-founded in 1986 by Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara and Sensei Barbara Joshin O’Hara, the Village Zendo is committed to authentically continuing the Zen tradition while keeping it contemporary and relevant to today’s world. The Village Zendo is located in lower Manhattan, offering a place of healing and sanctuary in the midst of one of the world’s busiest and most vital cities.
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Tess wrote on Mar 24:
The Zen of Evil Businessmen compares Steve Jobs with Donald Trump. He is clearly an idiot.
The Zen of Evil Businessmen wrote on Mar 24:
I suggest creating an entire series of these. You can call it "The Zen of Evil Businessmen." You can do a similar interview with Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay (Enron), Robert Rubin (Goldman Sachs), Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco), the Walton Family (Wal-Mart), Donald Trump, Hermann von Siemens…the list is endless. Steve Jobs, as the king of slave labor, would top the list, of course.
who cares about steve jobs wrote on Mar 24:
why people continually feel the need to talk about this clearly evil person is shocking...move on people
anonymous wrote on Mar 21:
For the record. Everyone has a Buddha nature. This is one of main ZEN principles. It applies to me, you and Steve Jobs. We all have right to opinions, so I don't mind sparring. However I won't further exchange opinions with my predecessor who clearly shows lack of balance and hysteria in his opinions. It is demagogy per se.
Zen of Steve ok, but how about the Buddha of Bill! wrote on Mar 21:
Steve Jobs clearly brings up extreme emotions: devotion and adoration on one side, and hatred and disrespect on the other. Perhaps some may find it interesting that he made statements which seem Zen. But it was sadly just an affect of a life philosophy that is not at all Buddhist. The Buddha said, "Do not commit evil; Do good devotedly...that is the precept of all Buddhas." Steve Jobs was certainly no Buddha. When you look at his life, he was an ingenious capitalist driven by primarily by greed who did not care for the welfare of others and who amassed an obscene fortune. There is no comparison between him and Gates, who is giving away his fortune to help save lives. Jobs had zero public record of philanthropy. ZERO. Jobs made cool gadgets via slave labor. And he said a few things that sound Zen while his slaves toiled away and his dedicated sheep bought his Macs and iPhones. Time to move on from Jobs. He did his damage, we are still seduced by his gadgets. Oh well. In the end, he was a bad person, arguably evil, who doesn't need more airtime now. It is more interesting to look at the Buddha nature of Bill Gates, someone who is a true humanitarian who follows the precepts of the Buddha.
M wrote on Mar 21:
Oh boy, what an outpour of negative energy flows after "The ZEN of Steve" interview! I am frankly taken aback. Too bad all of it comes as quotes from others. It is too easy and not very creative. My interview with Steve Jobs never took place . All his answers are made up from his quotes. I came up only with questions..
I don't want to judge Steve Jobs as good or bad person, or make him a saint or a hero. I simply noticed how close are his statements about death, simplicity and other subjects to ZEN principles. Perhaps he showed in his life traces of what Tibetan Buddhist call a crazy wisdom. It refers to unconventional and outrageous behavior, being either a manifestation of Buddha nature, or a method of spiritual investigation.
Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs? Basically good vs. evil . wrote on Mar 21:
"Steve Jobs was a hero only in the Ayn Randian sense. A living, breathing character out of Atlas Shrugged, he treated the people who actually manufacture Apple products like serfs and hoarded his $8.3 billion fortune to no apparent purpose. Apple is a wonderful company for its customers and investors...But Apple is also an engine of misery for its subcontracted Chinese workers...thirty-four-hour shifts, beatings, child labor, an epidemic of suicides and a general prison-camp atmosphere prevailed...How ironic that the media love to celebrate this alleged icon of ’60s idealism at the expense of poor, square Bill Gates, who is devoting the better part of his fortune to improving the lives of millions of the world’s poorest people. " -- The Nation
Jobs was a total asshole wrote on Mar 21:
Normally, I would not speak ill of the recently dead but all this gushing over this piece of shit human being has really disgusted me. Here are some examples of the gag inducing idiocy on the part of the masses that are devoted to this fucking asshole who certainly wouldn’t have given a shit if you, or I, died.
Apples and flowers and candles and notes littered the sidewalks in front of Apple stores around the world Thursday. In a rare show of emotion for an American CEO, the world reacted to the death Steve Jobs with an outpouring of devotion. -Washington Post
Even our idiot corporate-puppet president had his stupid say, he said,
Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve was among the greatest of American innovators — brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.
Seriously? Changed the world? I’m sorry but making fucking cell phones and tablets for yuppies to show off to each other is not changing the world for the better, and it certainly isn’t a reason people should be mourning an asshole. His phones didn’t even have anything that groundbreaking about them, sure the UI was better, but its not like he discovered cold fusion people. Stop this bullshit. Even actual good people aren’t mourned like this when they die and they at least tried to help starving people or were doctors to people in Africa, or tried to help people in some other way. Instead, we don’t even know those people’s names, but we mourn an asshole who helped create the fucking iPhone, the most overrated piece of technology ever. This says a lot about our civilization and its messed up priorities. Steve Jobs, with his technological creepy marketing-created cult and the factories in China where slaves build the iPad and iPhone, only made the world worse, since humans become a bit more monstrous each time they exchange wholesome emotions for the empty worship of electronic gadgets.
To be honest, I am glad he is dead. It shows that while rich people have taken everything away from the poor; their hopes, their dreams, even their minds and their dignity, at least they still haven’t achieved immortality yet. They die just like us and for that I am glad. In the end, all the advanced medical technology and transplants of 3rd world children’s livers weren’t enough to fight off the great equalizer, death.
He wasn’t even a nice person, he was an arrogant, aggressive and temperamental jerk who just used people. He claimed to be a Buddhist, but there is nothing Buddhist about a greedy asshole who only cared about wealth and his own inflated ego. I think lots of people like him because he is epitomizes the values of our bullshit society. Our society which wants us all to just fawn over products, be bland people who love money, and, most importantly, not give a fuck about each other. He is like every bullshit asshole I meet in Manhattan, claiming to be part of some “counterculture” but in reality just being conformist money-grubbing egotistical pricks. Steve Jobs was what all the asshole hipsters and yuppies who worship him wanted to be, and that is both sad and horrifying. Changing the world indeed, changing it into something worse. Even his own once-illegitimate daughter lived on welfare for 2 years because he just didn’t give a fuck, he even denied paternity by claiming he was sterile.
He even fucked over the Woz, who is a much nicer person, on numerous occassions, one of which is,
Jobs noticed his friend Steve Wozniak–employee of Hewlett-Packard–was capable of producing designs with a small number of chips, and invited him to work on the hardware design with the prospect of splitting the $750 wage. Wozniak had no sketches and instead interpreted the game from its description. To save parts, he had “tricky little designs” difficult to understand for most engineers. Near the end of development, Wozniak considered moving the high score to the screen’s top, but Jobs claimed Bushnell wanted it at the bottom; Wozniak was unaware of any truth to his claims. The original deadline was met after Wozniak did not sleep for four days straight. In the end 50 chips were removed from Jobs’ original design. This equated to a US$5,000 bonus, which Jobs kept secret from Wozniak, instead only paying him $375.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Also, after resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs. So don’t be fucking stupid and cry for Steve Jobs, he wouldn’t care about you. He didn’t care about anyone except himself and his ego. Fuck Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was an asshole.
http://www.dystopiaearth.com/?p=645
LP wrote on Mar 20:
I think Malcolm Gladwell is wrong. Forgetting Jobs is like forgetting Gutenberg. It's not gonna happen. Statues of Bill Gates across the Third World?..yuck!
Alan W. wrote on Mar 20:
"Of the great entrepreneurs of this era, people will have forgotten Steve Jobs. 'Who was Steve Jobs again?' But ... there will be statues of Bill Gates across the Third World…There's a reasonable shot that -- because of his money -- we will cure malaria…I firmly believe that 50 years from now [Bill Gates] will be remembered for his charitable work. No one will even remember what Microsoft is." -- Malcolm Gladwell