Turning Points in Living the Zen Life

Navigating the Waters

In Buddhism, this world is sometimes referred to as the “Ocean of Samsara.” Samsara is sometimes referred to as the “World of Patience” in that it tries our patience. Buddha likened the dharma to a raft that we ride—read cling to for dear life—to sail across the ocean, to the “other shore” of enlightenment.

There are various turning points in this process, some positive, some negative, as with everything else in life. Whether they are positive or negative is largely a matter of interpretation, of course. The famous Ox-Herding Pictures illustrate various turning points on the Path, generalized to fit most anyone’s journey into what I call “The Original Frontier™” of Zen. This is the title of a manuscript I am working (and reworking) in collaboration with a couple of professional publishing agents. By the title I mean to point to the frontier that Shakyamuni Buddha discovered, and entered, some 2500 years ago. It beckons to us still, today.

Perhaps the first turning-point precedes even the oxherd seeing the hoof-prints of the ox, the first of the illustrations. It is usually interpreted as indicating one’s first exposure to the existence of the teaching, buddha-dharma. The prints resemble brush strokes a bit, so the obvious analogy is to the written teachings, which is how most of us first contact the dharma.

However, something else, another turning-point, has to precede this event. In order to begin the quest for enlightenment, one has to feel that something—enlightenment—is missing from life. Otherwise, why would you even be looking? Master Dogen touches on this in his tract called “Genjokoan” (“actualizing the fundamental point”), which I featured in last month’s third Sunday dharma dialog on Soto Zen liturgy:

When you first seek dharma
you imagine that you are far away from its environs
But dharma is already correctly transmitted
you are immediately your original self

We are going along with our everyday life, fat and happy, when, one day, it occurs to us: Is that all there is? or, What’s it all about (Alfie)? However normal our circumstances seem, and however full and rich our life is, there seems to be something else that is not quite right, something missing. Matsuoka Roshi emphasized this “unsatisfactoriness,” and claimed that everyone feels it, and eventually comes to Zen to find what is missing. By eventually, he may have meant many lifetimes in the future.

Other turning points in life can precipitate a crisis of confidence, one which either drives us to Zen in the first place, or makes us question whether it is really right for us. Or whether it works at all, for anyone. Let’s take a brief look at a few of the more obvious turning-points that tend to come up with some frequency, in dokusan or practice discussion, from time to time. Perhaps you may find yourself in one of these pictures.

Changing Jobs


One of the most stressful turning-points that many people face today with increasing frequency, is the need to change jobs. This may come about through a personal decision, or one made by one’s employer. In either case, it can be very disruptive. Some folks have fretted that they could not afford to continue their practice during the transition, either from a financial position, or from an availability of time. Both of these judgments are ill-considered, but the pressure feels real at the time.

In my most recent Dharma Byte, published in May, I made some comments regarding the Precepts of Zen. I closed with the following:

The first Five Precepts, in the Matsuoka lineage, are given to candidates for Initiation into Soto Zen (J. jukai tokudo), while the Ten Precepts total are reserved for the first formal stage of training as a priest, which we call Discipleship (J. zaike tokudo). Other lineages differ. But the receiving of Precepts is regarded similarly in all sects of Zen, as a living act of commitment to examining our life, and penetrating to its depths.

The meaning of the Precepts evolves over time, maturing with our practice. Like everything else in Zen practice, “The meaning does not reside in the words but a pivotal moment brings it forth” (Precious Mirror Samadhi). Hopefully, for those of you who have gone through Jukai in the past, this has become clear. For those of you who are planning to do so this year, may it come to pass soon.

The only other point I would like to make about the Precepts, is that they are not something new or different, really nothing special. You already harbor precepts about killing, lying, stealing, et cetera, which may be inchoate, and may not be fully conscious. When you go through the initiation ceremony, it raises your own precepts to the level of conscious awareness, perhaps for the first time. You may find that your preconceived precepts do not match those of Zen Buddhism. In the difference you will find the critical sameness.

In this follow-up, I want to suggest that you consider undergoing Jukai in July, if you have not already done so. And if you feel you are ready to commit to a more serious practice of Zen.

This last sentence is, of course, an oblique reference to The Harmony of Sameness and Difference, by Shitou Xiqian (J. Sekito Kisen), one of three Chinese, or Ch’an, chants in the Zen liturgy. It is a wonderful dissertation on the mind-boggling distinction-without-a-difference that we associate with our dualistic notions of reality. We chant it each Monday morning after zazen:

Grasping at things is surely delusion
According with sameness is still not enlightenment

So, sorting out the “Myriad Things” or “10,000 Things” into the usual categories the mind conjures, however useful, represents a fundamental kind of delusion. But merely intuiting the sameness underlying the obvious differences in things is not, in itself, enlightenment. According to Matsuoka Roshi’s “360 Degree” model, this is realized at 180 degrees, only halfway around the circle, from our beginning Zen practice at point zero.