It can appear to us to be a sort of cop-out. It's like they don't like to take a stand. It's just different. But I think it may be an expression of a way of relating to the world that begins with an intuition of the fundamental oneness of all that is, rather than a fundamental division or separateness or opposition. Within that fundamental oneness, there are differences. But to say that one expression of being is right and another wrong, that one is true and the other is false, does not seem to be the way the Japanese mind instinctively responds to these differences. It simply notes that there are, in fact, different manifestations of reality, which is one.

[01:02]

So now, to return to the literature of and about Zen, on almost every page, one finds references to this non-dualistic approach to reality that is at the very heart of Zen. Koin Yamada-hoshi, who was the founder of the Sadan Zen to which I belong in Japan, the father, in fact, of my first teacher in Zen, used to speak about this fundamental insight in his teishos by contrasting Buddhist teaching with the presumption of ordinary people that subject and object are in opposition, that the objective world is standing before our consciousness as the completely different other world. For this reason, he says, these ordinary people, as he calls them, suffer pain and agony because the outer world does not obey their will and circumstances do not go as they wish.

[02:07]

In one of his teishos, he insisted that the most fundamental point of Buddhist teaching, the true satori of Zen, is that subject and object are intrinsically one. To intuit, experience, and realize this fact is the main reason for doing Zazen. Went on to say then, in the world of the essential nature, is there anything, after all, to be called gain or loss, good or bad? As I tell you so often, in the world of me, there are no such dualistic oppositions. He's referring here to this response of Jusho? I forget his name always. Joshi. Joshi. When a disciple came to ask him if a dog has Buddha nature, and he simply said, moo, or woo, meaning non, in a way, not answering it.

[03:10]

And that has become, for early practitioners of Zen, the syllable one repeats with every breath, moo, non. One does find occasional comments in Zen literature that are, in effect, admonitions not to judge. Shonryu Suzuki, for example, once said, when you listen to someone, you should give up all your preconceived ideas and your subjective opinion. You should just listen to him, just observe what his way is. We put very little emphasis, he said, on right and wrong or good and bad. We just see things as they are within and accept them. But when talking about the necessity of obeying the rules of Zen, he insisted, it is not a matter of good or bad, convenient or inconvenient. You just do it without question. That way, your mind is free. The important thing is to obey your rules without discrimination, without judgment. Parenthetically, again, here, I received the manuscript

[04:11]

of the Reflections on the Rules of Benefits of Dharma, which Norman Fisher was involved in. And it was kind of amusing for me to find Judith Simmer-Brown say in one place, a famous Buddhist sage says, there is no right and no wrong. But right is right, and wrong is wrong. No right, no wrong. No right, no wrong. So that, I think, might be another way to keep something in the background here. When we hear all, we just don't worry about whether it's good or bad. I mean, there is no good or bad. But right is right, and wrong is wrong. There still are one way is different. And that different way is not acceptable here. Now, as a Westerner and a Christian, I have to confess that Buddhism's fundamental intuition about reality, about the fundamental unity, the non-distinction of object and subject, is so different from mine that my first reaction is simply

[05:12]

to reject it out of hand as erroneous. I have been so shaped and formed by a culture which esteems individuality, which promotes competition and creativity, which constantly wants to separate things, to distinguish things, and which simply assumes as a given that the world is ultimately composed of or explicable in terms of two basic entities, mind and matter, that I sometimes feel I simply do not have the ability even to begin to understand what Yamada Roshi is getting at when he says, subject and object are intrinsically one. I don't know if I can understand it, but for reasons that are perhaps more intuitive than rational, I'm fascinated by it and attracted to it. What I can understand, however, is that if one operates out of a non-dualistic worldview

[06:16]

and strives to come to an experiential realization of this way of conceiving reality, then there is very little reason to insist on the necessity of not judging, that one should not that one fundamentally is radically unable to judge, because there is nothing out there to judge, is simply taken for granted. As I see it, it is precisely because Buddhist teaching is grounded in and built on the affirmation of the intrinsic oneness of subject and object that references to not judging are virtually non-existent in the literature of Zen. Just to conclude, let me read to you this translation that appeared in the Manual of Zen Buddhism

[07:19]

by Setsuzoku's anthology, On Believing Mind, by the third Chinese Zen master, Zeng Can, who died in 606. Then this sort of puts it in a kind of poetic form, this insistence on the radical oneness of everything and of the non-possibility and therefore non-necessity of judging. Transformations going on in an empty world which confronts us appear real all because of ignorance. Try not to seek after the true. Only cease to cherish opinions. Abide not with dualism. Carefully avoid pursuing it. As soon as you have right and wrong, confusion ensues, and mind is lost. The two exist because of the one. But hold not even to this one.

[08:22]

When a mind is not disturbed, the 10,000 things offer no offense. In one emptiness, the two are not distinguished, and each contains in itself all the 10,000 things. When no discrimination is made between this and that, how can a one-sided and prejudiced view arise? So in the light of this, I think I would ask what else are all our attempts to pass judgment on another, if not a one-sided and prejudiced and therefore limited and ultimately erroneous discrimination between this and that? I'd like to conclude now with just a bit more autobiographical part about my own practice of Zazen

[09:32]

in relation to this command of Jesus not to judge. One of the reasons I accepted the abbot's invitation, and it was an invitation. He said, I won't send you to Japan if you don't want to go, but I'd like you to go. One of the reasons I accepted that was precisely so that I could in some disciplined way undertake the practice of Zazen. And so I began looking for a teacher almost as soon as I arrived, but it took about a year before I finally linked up with Yamada Roshi and the Sun in Zenko. And since then, I've continued to practice. Usually, I try and sit twice a day. When I can, I try to make a session. It's becoming more and more difficult for me now because of my involvement in pastoral ministry to Brazilians. And also, we're living out of Tokyo now, so I don't have that immediate access to my teacher. But again, things are working out. I have to get back to Tokyo once a month, and usually, that works on the very weekend

[10:35]

that one of my teachers has a Zazenkai. Yamada Roshi, who is also now back in Tokyo. He had been abroad for a number of years, also has a Zazenkai at his home. So I will have, once again, more regular contact. But the introductory lectures given at the Sun in Zenko recommended that one select a room that one can regard as sacred in which to practice Zazen. And for that reason, I generally go to the oratory of our monastery, and sit near the tabernacle, that receptacle for the consecrated bread of the Eucharist. But I sit alongside the tabernacle. I don't sit in front of it. And my reason for doing this is because I regard my practice of Zazen in the presence of the sacrament of Christ's body and blood not so much as a way of focusing my attention on the mystery of the incarnation and its continuation in time and space through the sacramental signs of bread and wine, but rather as a way of expressing my desire

[11:35]

to participate in the sun's silent adoration of the Father who is infinite, eternal silence. Perhaps a better way to put it would be to say that one of the reasons I, as a Christian, have undertaken the practice of Zazen is to allow myself to be drawn more deeply and more fully into the Son of God's silent adoration of the Father. So I do understand my practice of Zazen to be prayer, but prayer expressed not by conversing with God, but simply by being silent in the divine presence. A Japanese Carmelite priest by the name of Augustine Ichiro Okumura in a book, Awakening to Prayer, recalls an incident that occurred when he was nine years old imitating the example of his Buddhist parents. As he left his home, or as he left home on the way to school or play,

[12:37]

he would pause to pray in front of the Shinto and Buddhist altars that were in his home. One day his father asked him, what are you praying? He was a bit taken aback by the question and not knowing what to say, he said he sort of mumbled, well, nothing. That's it, his father said. For him to remain a moment before God with a pure heart is enough to please him. Father Okumura says that he believes these words of his father are very likely the starting point for his ever-growing realization that we also pray when we simply come before God with empty hands and say nothing. Prayer understood as being silent before God, as participating in a son's apophatic adoration of the father, takes on, I believe, an even deeper meaning when we reflect on it

[13:38]

in the light of Jesus' self-emptying, his kenosis, to which Paul refers in the second chapter of his letter to the Philippians. That passage from Paul's letters included in the Roman liturgy for vespers on Saturday evening, and we pray the Roman liturgy, the Roman form of the liturgy of ours in Japan. And so I pray those words about Christ's emptying of himself at least once a week. Again, in the Japanese translation of the liturgy of the hours, this verse, emptying himself, he became a servant, is translated as jibun wo munashiku shite, tsukaeru mono ni natta. So, emptying himself, he became nothing, he became a servant. Even though the mu of munashiku is not the same as the mu that I use in my zazen, the mu of munashiku means empty, and the mu of zazen means not or un.

[14:39]

To become empty and to become nothing are really pretty identical in meaning. And so as a Christian, I understand my practice of zazen to be a way of sharing in the silent, obedient, self-emptying of Christ, which allowed the glory of God to completely possess and transform the human form, the human morphe, which he, although equal to God, took upon himself. And I might add that this way of understanding the practice of zazen was encouraged by Kon Yamada Roshi, when he would have his doksan with Christians. In his book, Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit, Father Robert Kennedy recalls that Yamada Roshi told him several times he did not want to make him a Buddhist but rather he wanted him to empty himself in imitation of Christ, your Lord, who emptied himself, poured himself out, and clung to nothing.

[15:41]

And then, Father Kennedy adds, whenever Yamada Roshi instructed me in this way, I thought this Buddhist might make a Christian of me yet. So to empty oneself in imitation of Christ, our Lord, in order to share in his risen life, to suffer the loss of all things regarding them as rubbish in order to gain Christ, and to be found in him, not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, this is from Philippians, that is the call of the gospel. And for me, at this time in my life, the practice of zazen is one of the ways in which I try to respond to that call. There was another word from the gospel that struck me so much when I heard it in Japanese, and that's jibunosute. We translate that in English to deny yourself. Take up your cross, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. Now, again, coming out of a Catholic childhood and all the rest, denying yourself meant what?

[16:44]

Not denying, just following. Okay. Now, denying yourself meant... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Good timing. Denying yourself meant not eating sweets, you know, all those kinds of things. But jibunosute means throwing yourself away, staying, I am staying. My first connection with that word in Japanese in connection with the garbage. That's what you did with the garbage. Going to stay. And this is the way that Japanese translation translates this word of Jesus. Not deny yourself, but throw yourself away. Jibunosute. Get rid of the ego. Leave the ego is really what it said. That, I remember, hit me so strongly, too. It's something that I refer to in my books on Hiroshi. Now, the question. Is this practice helping me to grow in love and compassion by becoming less judgmental? This practice of zazen. And I have to confess that at times,

[17:46]

it seems to be producing just the opposite. I mean... On one occasion, when I was participating in a zazen party led by Sister Kathleen, I told her that after I began practicing zazen, I seemed to be getting even more judgmental than I was before. Looking down on everybody else who didn't meditate and those poor slobs. And her reply was that progress in zazen means coming to the awareness of those poor slobs hardly. And a couple months later, I repeated that same concern to Kubo Tawashi, who was conducting a session of the Sanin Zen. His response was very interesting. He said, the practice of zazen heightens perception. And so it does make us more discriminating. But this does not imply that one is to act in a critical way. When the breakthrough comes, we will recognize our oneness with that which, in this dualistic experience of reality,

[18:47]

we see as other and inferior. Continue to live the life of me, he repeated over and over. That's all you have to do. That's all you have to do. Now, these conversations took place about two years ago. And since then, there have been no dramatic breakthroughs. But I think there has been some movement. And I continue to meditate in the hope and the conviction that my practice of zazen will continue to move me in the direction of nonjudgmental compassion. If I continue to sit, continue to try to concentrate on me, letting go of my desires to be someone, to accomplish something, I believe that I will gradually, or maybe even through some sudden and undeserved breakthrough, be brought to an experiential realization that it is not I who live, but that it is Christ who lives in me, the Christ who prayed that all be one as he and the Father are one, the Christ in whom all things hold together

[19:48]

and in whom all the fullness was pleased to dwell. As this truth moves from my lips and my mind down into the depths of my heart, purifying it from the need to set itself over and above what it still thinks is outside itself, I believe my heart, my true self, will be set free from its compulsion to judge, be set free for love. At that point, I believe I will be able to recognize and realize that the reason Jesus tells us not to judge, sabahunah, is ultimately because there is no one and nothing out there to judge. In him, we live and move and have our being. In him, who is divine love incarnate, we are all one. Ultimately, of course, the following of Jesus with a pure and undivided heart goes beyond not judging others. It means loving them with the same love with which God loves us in Jesus. In all three of the synoptic gospels, Jesus is asked a question about the greatest of the commandments. Each of the evangelists, interestingly enough,

[20:50]

interprets the reason for asking this question a bit differently. Matthew understands the question as a test. In Mark's gospel, the question is put by a scribe who is sincerely impressed by the way Jesus responds to the other scribes. And in Luke's gospel, the questioner wants to know what he needs to do in order to inherit eternal life. But in all three gospels, Jesus' unequivocal and unambiguous answer is the same. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. For the Christian, the practice of zazen can be, I believe, a way of putting this commandment to practice. One sits in silence before the one whom one loves above and beyond all else, content simply to be silent in that presence. And in this silence, one gradually, perhaps even suddenly, comes to the realization that in this all-embracing love, all differences are overcome. There is no need to judge.

[21:51]

All that is needed, all that is possible is to realize the oneness, to realize our oneness, to love the other as we love ourselves, to love the other with the same love with which God loves us. In silence, one can come to the ecstatic recognition that we are all one and that this awe-inspiring unity, as the Christian would put it, is nothing other than the one Christ loving himself. Or in the words of the leader of the letter to the Colossians, Christ is all and in all. Thank you. Aj… Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[22:46]

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