On Mondays the Zen Center was closed; but on Tuesday I went to evening zazen from 6:55 to 8:30 and again on Wednesday and Friday. I liked sitting at the temple in the evening. I'm early to everything. I arrived at 6:40 or so and there were never many people present, usually just Mark and Edward. The doan had arrived at 6:30 and turned on the porch light, the table lamp in the corner beside the couch, and the light in the zendo. At 6:50 the doan opened the window a crack, just how much depended on the weather, he lit the candle in the zendo, and he offered a stick of incense to the brown statue of Manjusri, the sitting buddha who is the personification of wisdom. At 6:55 the doan hit the rolldown on the han and the three of us entered the zendo and sat. At 7:00 the master joined us and three times the doan struck the inkin.
Bing—
Bing—
Bing—
I was determined to impress my teacher and without stirring I sat the full ninety minutes in half lotus—my left leg down, my right leg up—in spite of the pain I experienced the last half hour. I liked the soft, dim, yellow light of the candle and the ceiling light which hung from chains over Manjusri and the curling smoke of incense which sailed over my head and out the window. I could hear small birds twittering at the feeders in the backyard, the occasional boink boink of a blue jay, and twice I was startled when Sammy barked and ran barking out the doggy door in the kitchen. At 7:40 I heard the loud whop whop whop of the police helicopter as it twice circled the neighborhood. At 7:50 I heard the master roll from his cushion and brush his mat, walk through the buddha hall, climb the stairs to use the toilet, and then come back down to walk kinhin for five minutes on the creaking and moaning hardwood floor of the buddha hall before he returned to sitting. At 8:20 the doan announced for my benefit—the others present were already familiar with the routine—the page of the sutra to be chanted and I pulled the thin white booklet from under the front of my mat and held it as I had been instructed while the doan sang the title—"Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen"—with an up down up lilt on the final syllable before the master, Edward, and I joined in.
The Way is originally perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent on practice and realization? The true vehicle is self-sufficient. What need is there for special effort? Indeed, the whole body is free from dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from this very place; what is the use of traveling around to practice? And yet, if there is a hairsbreadth deviation, it is like the gap between heaven and earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion.
The chant, written a thousand years ago by Eihei Dogen, the founder of Zen Buddhism in Japan, is a thousand words long and took between five and ten minutes to recite. Its central section, as indicated by the title, comprises the step by step directions for sitting zazen, just as the master had instructed me and my classmates at our five Thursday evening classes, and statements of philosophical and psychological principle. Just as at service on Sunday morning we four this evening chanted in a rapid monotone without inflection or pause until the falling, dying, extended final syllable of the last word.
Honored followers of Zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, do not doubt the true dragon. Devote your energies to the way that points directly to the real thing. Revere the one who has gone beyond learning and is free from effort. Accord with the enlightenment of all the buddhas; succeed to the samadhi of all the ancestors. Continue to live in such a way, and you will be such a person. The treasure store will open of itself, and you may enjoy it freely.
As our voices faded to silence the doan struck the inkin.
Bing—
We bowed, knelt, brushed, fluffed, stood, bowed, turned, bowed.
We waited.
The master bowed, knelt, brushed, fluffed, stood, bowed, turned, bowed.
He stepped to the altar.
He bowed.
He took a baby step backward and bowed.
Bing—
We bowed.
The master turned and exited.
Bing—
We bowed and filed out.
The doan, last to leave, closed the window, extinguished the candle with a wave of his hand, and turned out the light. The master fed his dog Sammy in the kitchen. We three men left the temple. No conversation. This scheduled temple activity was concluded and we were expected to leave promptly. Edward and I sat in the white plastic patio chairs on the front porch. I slipped on my sandals, Edward his shoes. Mark turned off the porch light. He pulled shut the heavy front door and locked it. He pushed shut the storm door and turned its handle to latch it. He pulled his shoes from the rack and sat on a porch step to put them on.
"Good night."
"Good night."
"Good night."
Down the steps we went, into our cars, and home.
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