No Toys

 Mushin and Other Unique Aspects of Budo Zen

Some Thoughts on Zen-Influenced Budo and the Differences Between Budo Zen and “Common” Zen Along with a Few Other Musings

     I write quite a bit about Budo Zen and Zen Budo.  Budo Zen is Zen that is influenced by the principles of Budo and other principles found within martial ways in and outside of Japan (most commonly Korea and China).  Zen Budo is martial training that is influenced by the principles of Zen, as opposed to its more common influences.  It’s a popular thought in modern martial arts that the Japanese Budo is one thoroughly influenced by the ways of Zen, but that’s just not historically accurate.  Most martial ways, including those from Japan, have been influenced—assuming they are even influenced at all by philosophy—by Taoism and Confucianism, specifically Neo Confucianism, than they have been by Zen.  Within the Japanese martial arts, Shinto also had an overriding influence.  The only reason that practitioners believe Budo is a “Zen art” is because of the popularity of writings by such samurai luminaries as Yagyu Munenori and Miyamoto Musashi.  But those writings—along with a few others, such as those by the Zen monk Takuan Soho written to Munenori—were popular because of their uniqueness not because they were the common philosophy of most budoka.

     In his book No Fear Zen: Discovering Balance in an Unbalanced World, Roshi Richard Collins write this: “There has been much soul-searching and hand-wringing about the appropriate role of samurai or Budo Zen, focused on discipline and self-sacrifice, and what might be called pacifist Zen, focused on nonviolence and compassion. This supposed dichotomy is only a matter of emphasis, however. Budo Zen may focus on the determination of the martial artist Bodhidharma while pacifist Zen focuses on the serenity of the enlightened Buddha. One arrives at compassion through concentration, the other at concentration through compassion.”  If you read most books published these days on Zen—with the exception of Collins’s book (and the lineage Collins belongs to; more on that soon) along with those of the Rinzai monk Meido Moore and the late Rinzai and Kendo master Omori Sogen—you will no doubt encounter pacifist Zen.  You’ll read a lot about mindfulness, compassion, living in the present moment, along with modern “progressive” ideas around social outreach and whatnot.  You will also not encounter, unfortunately, much religious Zen that takes serious (to name just a few) karma, rebirth, the afterlife, supernatural realms, along with the Transcendent aspects of the Dharma.  A lot of it has more in common with modern psychotherapy and aspects of that such as cognitive behavioral therapy than it does traditional Zen.  Not that there’s anything “wrong” with any of those accretions—it might be just what you need from a therapeutic aspect at certain times in your life—but, at best, it is incomplete.  Budo Zen, on the other hand, focuses on aspects of Zen training such as mushin (no mind), mushotoku (no profit, no gain, no attachment), hishiryo (thinking the thought of thinking not-thinking), and mujo (constant change, the instability and impermanence of all created things).

      When I was young, I trained at a very traditional karate dojo.  This was in the 1980s and the early ‘90s.  We regularly—not at every class but every few—sat zazen at the end of a training session.  I had one sensei, an older Okinawan man who I thought was ancient, though, looking back on it, he wasn’t much older than I am now.  He was in his late 50s and then early 60s.  If he taught, we sat zazen, though he sometimes called it misogi, a term that comes from Shinto and roughly translates as “ascetic training.”  And it was ascetic, since we sat zazen in seiza posture.  It was tough.  Especially considering that we did it at the end of an hour or hour and a ½ long class, when our legs and backs were already fatigued, tired, and sometimes downright exhausted.  Sensei talked a lot about mushin, or “no-mind.”  He wanted us to empty our thoughts during zazen, and to do that through hishiryo, by “thinking not thinking.”  We were expected to keep our spines straight—imagine a string from the bottom of your spine to the top of your head, pulled taut to keep your body upright—but other than that, were given absolutely no other “method” to use, such as counting breaths (susokukan) or whatever you might find in a zendo these days.  But that actually is (and was) quite common in Japanese Soto Zen.  You were expected to practice shikantaza or “just sitting.”  So, we were told to empty our minds and “just sit”.

     If you could accomplish mushin in zazen, then it was thought that you would be better able to do this while training, whether it was basic techniques, kata, or kumite.  You were to “do the kata without doing it” and so forth.

     I was very interested in Zen during those teenage years, though I stopped practicing zazen for a number of years, for around a decade.  In my late 20s, I decided to reinvigorate my practice.  I was in a very difficult marriage and was going through some other personal issues.  Voracious reader that I was (and am), the first thing that I did was head off to the bookstore and the library to acquire some books on Zen.  I understood enough to know that the kind of Zen that I was taught in my youth was for Budo practitioners, not necessarily what you would find in a zendo as opposed to a dojo.  But I expected to find at least some of the terms that my sensei taught.  In particular, I was convinced that Zen was all about mushin.  After reading a handful of books, however, I don’t think I encountered that word once.  Not a single, solitary time.

     The more I studied and practiced, attending a few sitting groups on occasion, the more I understood that pacifist Zen was quite a bit different from Budo Zen.  As I also reinvigorated my Budo practice, however, I came to understand that one form is not “better” than the other.  As Collins wrote in the quote above, it’s more a matter of emphasis, though they both lead to the same end.  That being said, there is certainly a good deal of difference in Zen schools depending on the kind of zendo or “Zen center” that you study at.  The idea of a Zen center, for example, is a very modern, decidedly American invention.  Such a place was unheard of in Japan, or any of the other countries where Zen made a mark, be it China, Korea, or Vietnam.  A Zen center brings in democratic values and other western ideas.  A traditional zendo, and dojo for that matter, should be run as a “benevolent dictatorship.”  Imagine if you went to a karate dojo where the students ran the whole thing and the teacher had little say—well, that’s exactly what a modern Zen center is.

     I do think, however, the kind of Zen and zazen that you practice should depend upon your personality.  In this manner, it’s akin to lifting or martial arts.  You’re more likely to stick with it if it’s something you enjoy and a training that resonates with you.  For me, it’s Budo Zen that resonates.  That will never change, though I can certainly learn from other forms, the same way that a bodybuilder can learn some things from a powerlifter and a karate practitioner can learn a thing or two from judo or other martial ways.

No Toys

     I’ve only touched upon some minor differences between Budo Zen and the more common Zen that’s practiced at almost all modern Zen centers.  But hopefully it’s enough for you to understand the difference.  Now, I want to offer some of the components of Budo Zen that should be emphasized and how those components can help one’s Zen Budo.

     If there’s one “style” of Zen that, at its heart, is closest to Budo Zen it would be the branch of Soto Zen that comes from the great Japanese teacher of the early to mid 20th century, Kodo Sawaki.  He gave Dharma transmission—authority to teach—to three prominent 20th century Zen masters, who in turn taught a number of westerners (and other Japanese) who still teach to this day.  Those three men were Kosho Uchiyama, Taisen Deshimaru, and Gudo Nishijima.  Deshimaru wrote one of my favorite “Zen and the martial arts” books titled The Zen Way to the Martial Arts: A Japanese Master Reveals the Secrets of the Samurai.*  When I was a teenager, if you wanted to discover anything about Zen and the martial arts (or just Zen, for that matter), you had to find a book.  There was no internet—knowledge wasn’t just one click away as it is now.  I would do chores or yard work for neighbors in order to scrounge up enough money for a book.  The first book I think I purchased was Joe Hyams’s god-awful Zen in the Martial Arts.  It’s still a perennial favorite for some reason, though it has very little to do with real Zen.  Around that same time—I was probably thirteen—I bought a translation of Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings.  I liked it, but I doubt my thirteen-year-old-mind really understood much in it, to be honest, especially the last chapter on ku, emptiness.  But not long after that, I discovered Deshimaru’s book.  It I could understand.  I prized that book.  (Roshi Collins, who I quoted earlier, is a student in Deshimaru’s lineage.)

     Uchiyama, cutting to the heart of the Budo Zen taught by Sawaki, once said that zazen—specifically the practice of shikantaza—is Zen with “no toys”.  You don’t have breath-counting, mantras, visualization, loving-kindness meditation (or any of the 4 Brahmaviharas), and no koans to crack open.  Just body and mind as one until body and mind “drop off”.  You aren’t trying to “achieve” anything—no experiences of kensho or satori, no unitive awareness of being one with all that is.  In the words of Kodo Sawaki, zazen is “good for nothing”.

     Many practitioners of the martial arts get in the habit of acquiring.  They want to learn all kinds of techniques—new katas, new weapons, new throws, fancy high-flying kicks, you name it.  I’m often amazed at the number of persons—some of them relatively young, certainly much younger than I am now—who have multiple black belts in different martial arts, some of them wide-ranging.  I suppose it would be one thing to have two or three black belts from similar karate styles, such as if one were a black belt in Goju-ryu, Shorin-ryu, and Isshin-ryu—those three are all closely related.  They all have a similar “base” structure.  But even then it makes me wonder what is the point of needing to acquire multiple belts.  However, I have seen folks who brag about—usually listed in their “credentials” if they’re trying to sell something, their school or website or whatnot—having multiple black belts in karate, Taekwondo, BJJ, Judo, Hapkido, along with, amazingly, a few others.  That’s just having a lot of toys.

     If you want to reach the living water, you have to dig in one place and dig deep.  Digging a little bit here and then a little bit over there plus a little bit in a couple of other spots on the property will never reach water.  Besides, you’ll just end up with a lot of holes and a really ugly yard.  If all these guys with seven different black belts were a piece of land, that’s what they would look like.

     The Zen Budo way is the path of training with a limited repertoire—only a few stances, blocks, strikes, throws, and katas—but perfecting that small range.  I believe that’s the reason that styles such as Uechi-ryu and Motobu-ryu have the fewest formal kata, often teaching only a handful to their pupils.  It’s rooted in this understanding that one must dig deep in one place to reach perfection.  The style that I first trained in, Isshin-ryu, has eight formal empty-hand kata.  I think that’s about the limit of what is needed.  Though, in that case, the founder of the system, Tatsuo Shimabuku, created eight so that each one represented a limb of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path, a fact often not discussed (or even known) at many Isshin-ryu dojos.

     When I was young, I wanted a lot of toys.  I wanted to know all of the Isshin-ryu katas and techniques, plus I practiced kung-fu, incorporated many components from Taekwondo and Kyokushin karate into my training, along with whatever else I could “acquire”.  Looking back on it with, perhaps, a bit more maturity, I should have perfected what I did know before moving on to “fancier” techniques.  Some of that, I think, is understandable.  When you’re a teenager, and you love martial arts, you want to know all that you can.  Also, one of my heroes was Bruce Lee, and since his Jeet Kune Do system was rooted in several different martial ways, I was inspired by his example.

     One of Lee’s better-known sayings is this one: “Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”  I think one of the reasons it’s popular in the West is because it goes along with our beliefs regarding individual freedom and a certain degree of utilitarianism that we believe in, especially here in America.  And there is some truth to it, but it’s also problematic in that it not only reinforces our individualistic egos but we reject what is “useless” when, if we were to go deep into it, might not find it useless at all.  We use it as an excuse to just acquire newer and shinier toys.

     If you owned a dojo or were attempting to get more students, a truly effective path of teaching only a limited number of techniques and just working on perfecting those few movements might be a hard sell.  (This isn’t the essay for it, but that’s also the problem with martial arts schools as businesses.  They need to make money, which means they need students.  Many of the greatest martial arts teachers throughout history didn’t even want students.  When they had them, it was only a handful or less.)  But that is the way of Zen Budo.  Train in a limited number of techniques and perfect them.

     This is where a regular practice of zazen—shikantaza or breath-counting; there is nothing wrong with breath-counting zazen despite Uchiyama’s comment on “no toys” shikantaza—can help.  Pick a basic practice and do it every single day.  Stick with it.  You will learn the benefits, and the knowledge, that comes from just sitting.  It may seem so basic that you just can’t understand the benefits of such a limited practice as opposed to training in numerous practices, but if you stick with it, its depth will reveal itself.

     If a “narrow” practice such as zazen proves beneficial—which it will, assuming you have the patience and perseverance—you will come to see how beneficial a narrow martial practice can be, as well.  “Narrow is the path that leads to life,” as Christ says in Matthew’s gospel.  Instead of acquiring hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of techniques, you will perfect only a handful.  But only a handful are needed.  Though I may have written that teaching only a handful of techniques might be a hard sell, keep in mind that in a boxing gym, that’s exactly what is taught.  And perfected.  Also, although the techniques are few—jab, cross, hook, uppercut—the combinations, and creativity of the fighter, are endless.  Not many toys there.  Not many are needed.  To quote Lee again: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

 The Hwadu

     When I was young, around 10 years of age, I would lie in bed at night and ponder the meaning of my life.  It was a form of philosophical enquiry, though I wouldn’t have even understood what that meant back then.  I would ask myself “Why and how am I me?”  Why am I this person, in this mind, with this body, as opposed to other people?  Why am I me, I would wonder, rather than the billions of other people in the world?  I found it so incredibly odd that I was me as opposed to any other sentient being.  I also found it odd—I suppose I still do—that others didn’t ask those same questions.  I would try to talk to adults about how I felt, and they would look at me rather peculiarly, as if I was odd and strange for even thinking such things.

     With that in mind, I want to discuss one other “no toys” practice that I have always been drawn to—I think for the reason above—within Zen, though it doesn’t come from any of the Japanese traditions but, rather, from Korean Zen (“Son” or “Seon”).  It’s the hwadu method (hua tou in Chinese or wato in Japanese).  Although used at times throughout Chinese and Japanese Zen, it was perfected by the Koreans so much that I would say it is their unique contribution to Zen.

     In Japanese Rinzai, the koan method is used by many as another way of acquiring toys.  A practitioner will be given a koan, she will “solve it” and then move on to another one, solving each one in succession until she has acquired all of the koans of the particular school.  The Korean hwadu approach is the “no toys” answer to this.  Essentially, it comes down to working on one koan and working on it throughout one’s life, or at least for years on end.  Perhaps at some point, the practitioner might use a 2nd one, though two seems to be about the limit.

     The most popular hwadu is probably “what is this?”  “Who am I?” might be a close second.  You sit with this one hwadu during zazen.  Off the cushion, you carry it with you throughout all that you do.  Driving.  What is this?  Doing the laundry.  What is this?  Washing the dishes.  What is this?  Practicing your kata.  What is this?  What is this kata?  What is this kata?  What is this kata?  The answer isn’t an intellectual one.  It’s not some kind of riddle that can be “solved” and then the “answer” can be passed on to someone else.  The hwadu is a great ball of doubt.  Great doubt and great faith go hand in hand until the “realization” of the hwadu occurs in one’s mind and body.

     The Korean Zen master Kusan Sunim said this in a talk one time about the method: “In Zen meditation, the key factor is to maintain a constant sense of questioning. So, having taken hold of the hwadu “What is this?”, try to always sustain the questioning: “What is seeing?” “What is hearing?” “What is moving these hands and feet?” and so on. Before the initial sense of questioning fades, it is important to give rise to the question again. In this way, the process of questioning can continue uninterrupted with each new question overlapping the previous one. In addition, you should try to make this overlapping smooth and regular. But this does not mean that you should just mechanically repeat the question as though it were a mantra. It is useless to just say to yourself day and night, “What is this?” “What is this?” The key is to sustain the sense of questioning, not the repetition of the words. Once this inquiry gets underway there will be no room for boredom. If the mind remains quiet, the hwadu will not be forgotten, and the sense of questioning will continue unbroken. In this way, awakening will be easy.”

     This, I feel, is a very Budo Zen approach.  Like the samurai whose only thought is perfecting the one sword technique that he is working on at the moment—the one technique staying with him at all times—you work on the hwadu day and night, without fail, until it lives not just in your mind but pervades your entire body in all that you do.

     The hwadu also teaches the martial practitioner to focus on one technique or one kata at a time.  Your practice might go something like this: When you awake in the morning, sit in zazen with the hwadu.  When you get off the cushion, don’t practice kinhin (walking meditation) but immediately take your "don’t-know mind" of zazen to the practice of kata.  Practice one kata.  Over and over.  Let the don’t-know mind of the hwadu pervade the kata, becoming one with the kata.  When your practice is finished, if you have the time, sit again, even if it’s only briefly, just 5 minutes or so.  Take that mind with you throughout the day.  Don’t let it leave you until you sit zazen again at night before bed.  And let that same mind be with you and in you as you drift off to sleep.  Pick it up again as soon as you awake.  Repeat.  Every.  Single.  Day.

Final No-Thought Thoughts

     Please don’t try to see a difference in the zazen of susokukan, shikantaza, or the Korean hwadu.  In the end, they should have the same goal.  Too many times—this is, I think, a “symptom” of modern, pacifist Zen—the goal of zazen, and Zen training in general, is to simply “be happy” or to calm the mind, or any other similar goal.  It’s not, once again, that there is anything inherently “wrong” with those goals, but they should be results of the goal of attaining to awakening.  The goal should be realization.  But, and here’s the paradoxical part, it should be a goalless goal.  You shouldn’t try to become enlightened.  You should practice without even thinking about that and it should come of its own accord.  And for one who practices Zen Budo, that should be the goal of your martial practice, as well.

     Zen Budo is stillness in movement.  Budo Zen is movement in stillness.  In Zen Budo, all that you have to do is train.  In Budo Zen, all you have to do is sit.  It’s as simple as that.

Sources

No Fear Zen: Discovering Balance in an Unbalanced World by Richard Collins

The Way of Korean Zen by Kusan Sunim.  “Sunim” is an honorific title similar to “roshi” in Japanese Zen.  Kusan was a master of the hwadu who lived from 1909-1983.  This book contains transcripts of his Dharma talks given on retreat.

*Despite my enjoyment of Deshimaru’s book, my hands-down favorite “Zen and the martial arts” book is Jay Gluck’s Zen Combat.  I have read it over and over (and over) throughout the years.  It should be on the bookshelf of all budoka.