Hakuin’s Rohatsu Exhortations
Dharma talk by Susan Jion Postal
Rohatsu Week - December 11, 2011
The seventh day of our Rohatsu Week has dawned cold and clear. Since last Monday, we have been sitting here in the winter darkness by candlelight each evening, the silence only punctuated by the reading of the teachings given by Master Hakuin to his monks some 250 years ago in Japan. This morning I would like to tie together some main themes in his Rohatsu Exhortations – weaving several recurrent threads in such a way that they support each other thus support us as we continue our journey.
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Here, in outline, is what Hakuin asks of us in his Rohatsu Exhortations:
To Enter Samadhi and Go Straight
To Have a Great Vow
To Protect the Dharma
To Have a Daring Spirit
To be willing to Endure Hardship
To Liberate others in All Directions
To Enter Samadhi - Go Straight Ahead
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The Master said to the monks,
“Counting the breaths and entering Samadhi is called su, When you count your breaths and your condition is well stabilized, don’t make any particular effort; just though your natural rhythmic exhalation and inhalation, enter Samadhi. This is known as zui, to follow. Therefore, the first ancestor, Bodhidharma , said, ‘internally you must not gasp. Make your mind like a high wall. Thus you should enter the Way.”
“To say, ‘internally, you must not gasp’, means when you rely on your Fundamental Nature, your internal mind does not gasp for breath. This means to go straight ahead. The meaning of this is very deep. I urge you monks go straight ahead as if breaking through a great wall.
…Exert yourself to the utmost. You cannot miss penetrating into your true nature.”
Good clear pointers here. Allowing our own natural in and out breath rhythm to carry us – this is to follow. Neither gasping, nor grasping. We are pulled straight ahead through any kind of gate or barrier. We approach Samadhi – no gap between “I” and “my life”, subject and object, as we become our breath. So close, like palms together in a firm gassho, no gap, no gasp, no grasp.
It is from this, this Samadhi, that realization appears when the ripeness and readiness is there.
To Have a Great Vow
“You who practice the Way, first of all must have a great vow. Be humble in your words and deeds. It is essential to offer your heart to all sentient beings and to emancipate them without exception. As for the great Way of the Buddhas and Ancestors, not a single one accomplished the Way without a great vow.”
A great vow – the Bodhisattva Vow – is not just a promise or a decision or a resolution (like on New Years). I even question whether or not we can “take a vow” at all. Seems that Vow is something that happens to us. It arises from our experience of no separation. When we sense that our practice is not for “me” but for all beings, then vow begins to come to life in us.
To Protect the Dharma
“The Master said to the monks, ‘The Tathagata’s True Dharma Eye Treasury has been transmitted from teacher to student. This is called the Bodhisattva of Transmitting the Lamp. The Tathagatha’s True Dharma Eye Treasury is well protected. This is called the Bodhisattva of Dharma Protection. The relationship between master and members of the Sangha is like the relationship between transmitting the lamp and protecting the Dharma. When the master and the Sangha are not in harmony, the great Dharma does not flow. Therefore, protecting the Dharma must be regarded as of paramount importance. The virtue realized by even one sitting must not be belittled. Therefore Master Dogen said, ‘a day of diligence is a day of preciousness. One hundred years of laziness brings one hundred years of regret.’ How scary! Watch out!”
All of us are part of this flow of transmission, right here; we are giving and receiving, back and forth with each other. Honoring each other, grateful for each other; this is Protecting the Dharma. The Dharma is to be treasured, is one of the Three Treasures. It only has life through us - its actual ‘spark’ cannot live in books but is transmitted directly, eyebrow to eyebrow, heart to heart.
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To Have a Daring Spirit
(The story of Heishiro)
“Now he was a mere ordinary man. He had never studied or practiced Zen before.
Nevertheless, sitting for only three days and nights, he was able to prove what the
Buddha realized. With nothing but his daring spirit, he fought his delusions and defeated
them all. You monks, why don’t you have this daring spirit? You must arouse your
determination!”
In some ways you all have already demonstrated your Daring Spirit – you dared to take your seat, dared to turn the light inward and see how your ‘self’ operates, dared to enter a radical path of seeing through this ‘self’, seeing its emptiness, it’s constructed nature. Zen is a radical teaching which asks us to drop our protection and defense of me-mine self. Hakuin invites us to appreciate the Daring spirit which brought us here. He also admonishes us not to drop this thread – dare to step through wherever you feel a barrier, a hindrance. Dare to leap.
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To Endure Bitterness
“Bitterness is the characteristic of tea. It nurtures the heart. It can be said that the best way to nurture the heart is to endure bitterness. When a student delightedly undertakes hardship, and when the hardship penetrates to the marrow, the spirit becomes lucid, lofty, and cheerful. Therefore Jimyo, and ancient Chinese master said, ‘from olden times whenever strenuous practice takes place, the bright light arises without fail. It is said in a collection of encouraging Zen anecdotes, “When your mind is ceaselessly engaged in hardship, awakening surely follows.’ Therefore you monks must consider strenuous practice to be precious.”
(story of Bunmei Osho – with purple robe)
Both Strenuous practice, which we engage in intentionally, and the hard knocks of life, which come unbidden, can serve as wake up calls. Hardship may not always be in the form of rigorous formal practice. Our greatest teachers can be found in illness or pain. Practicing in the middle of what is not our preference, of what we don’t like, we discover that swallowing
down the bitter flavor burns us clean of much excess baggage.
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To Liberate Nine Generations
“The Master said to the monks, ‘it is said, ‘if one person renounces home, nine generations of his family will be liberated.’ The renouncer of home must be a true renouncer of home. To become a true renouncer of home means to uphold a great vow with a daring spirit, thus cutting through the root of life. Then Dharma nature reveals
itself. This kind of person is called a ‘true renouncer of home.’ That saying, ‘nine generations of his family will be liberated’ is the truth, not a lie. “You monks, all of you, without exception, have a father and a mother, brothers and
sisters and countless relatives. Suppose you were to count them all, life after life; there would be thousands, ten thousands and even more of them. All are transmigrating in the six worlds and suffering. They await your enlightenment as keenly as they would await a small rain cloud on the distant horizon during a drought. How can you sit so half heartedly! You must have a great vow to save them all! Time passes like an arrow. It waits for no one. Exert yourself! Exhaust yourself!”
You may persist in thinking that you sit for “me” for “yourself” but this is actually impossible. In thinking this way we cut off possibilities and reinforce delusion. Everything we do affects everything - forward and back, up and down, future and past. Awareness of the already existing interconnection, of already existing actual non-separation, allows our practice to
become Bodhisattva practice. We sit for all beings, for all life.
And so, all of Hakuin’s points feed into each other, reinforce each other. We sit for all beings, for all life. It is the realization of this truth which bubbles up as Great Vow. Our heart aches - a hard ache – to serve the awakening of all. This ache begins to bubble up as a Daring Spirit. We are surprised, even us ‘turtles’, to find ourselves manifesting with what others describe as determination and courage. My own experience is not that of “having courage” at all – more like a sense of “no choice”. We go straight ahead – distractions fall away. In profound gratitude we protect the Dharma, sometimes fiercely, sometimes subtly and mysteriously. Our connection with our teachers, our sangha and all those who have gone before us becomes embodied – it enters our own blood vein, our marrow, our very bones. May this day, our last Retreat of this year, offer us all a container strong enough for us to let go of fear side by side as well as face to face.