Over a period of eight or nine years on visits to Japan I studied koans with a Japanese Rinzai Zen Master in Kyoto – Keido Fukushima. He was a classically trained Zen Master who spoke English and welcomed foreign students, including women, in his monastery – Tofukuji. I was very lucky to have had this opportunity. He was a wonderful teacher. He died just about a year ago on his birthday, March 1^st.

Even though we say in Zen that understanding doesn’t rely on words and letters, we treasure these written records and we talk about them quite a bit. It’s important to be clear about what we’re doing when we talk about them. In classical Rinzai practice, koans are organized in a curriculum and a student is given one after another. The student chews on the koan in zazen and throughout the day and night, (and the koan also chews on the student) and presents his/her understanding of the koan to the teacher. In a nutshell, that’s the classical use of koans. Put too simply, they’re used to help the student break through to awakening. Obviously, that’s not what I am doing in writing.

So we should acknowledge the difference between doing a koan in the traditional way and talking about a koan. Both are fine and useful, but not the same. Even though traditional koan practice shuns analysis and discussion, many koans can echo and instruct in the realm of everyday life, almost in the way of fables. The particular koan I have in mind has had that echoing effect in my life. It’s from the Tofukuji curriculum. I’ve never come across it anywhere else. It’s not like most koans in famous collections. It isn’t attributed to a famous teacher and it doesn’t involve a dialog, no hitting or tweaking of the nose. It’s this simple statement: “Carry a stone lantern in the garden.” That’s it. “Carry a stone lantern in the garden.”

If you’ve seen a traditional Japanese garden, or if you’ve seen picture of one, maybe you’ll form a picture in your mind of a stone lantern. Because I was in Japan when I was working with this koan, the image I had was of a large lantern, maybe three or four feet high, square with open sides – like little windows – and a kind of pagoda style top, and sitting on a stone pillar. I’m not sure about weight. I never tried to carry one. Including the stone pillar part, I’d guess hundreds of pounds. Maybe two or three hundred pounds. Such a lantern is obviously impossible for a person to carry.

There are small stone lanterns, too. Little decorative guys, probably 10 or 15 pounds. I guess I could have envisioned a small one, but I had the impossibly big kind in mind; that’s where I met this koan. Too big to carry. How do I carry something that is un-carryable? A 300 pound stone lantern. And what about the garden? What is the garden? The koan isn’t “Carry a stone lantern.” It’s “Carry a stone lantern in the garden.” Could it be the Garden of Eden? These are the kinds of questions that come up. Interesting idea, but probably a stretch. Is it a garden as in a place of beauty and tranquility? No blundering or stumbling please! Keep off the grass! Maybe. But at the very least, for me the garden is the world of form. This world. My everyday world. So I have always taken this to be a koan about functioning in the world of form.

How will I be in the world? How will I go forward if I have to carry 300 pounds? In a way, thinking of the koan in this way is also a koan about koans. Because every koan is impossible if we rely on our usual ways of understanding. How will we carry a 300 pound question? Zen Master Hakuin – the 18^th century Japanese ancestor who re-invigorated and codified the koan system in a way this has influenced how koans are used in Japan to this day – taught that meditation in the midst of activity was essential and in fact the most useful kind of meditation, versus a quietistic, secluded hermit practice. He knew how difficult this was and said the following:

Frequently you may feel that you are getting nowhere with practice in the midst of activity, whereas the quietistic approach brings unexpected results. Yet rest assured that those who use the quietistic approach can never hope to enter into meditation in the midst of activity. Should by chance a person who uses this approach enter into the dusts and confusions of the world of activity, even the power of ordinary understanding which he had seemingly attained will be entirely lost. Drained of all vitality, he will be inferior to any mediocre, talentless person. The most trivial matters will upset him, an inordinate cowardice will afflict his mind, and he will frequently behave in a mean and base manner. What can you call accomplished about a man like this?

To a certain extent, this is a little rant about Rinzai practice being better than Soto practice, but it’s also about carrying around a koan morning to night no matter what the circumstances. The stone lantern must be carried. Hakuin is saying that we are only fully awake and fully alive when we have engaged with what is impossible. So, this koan is a constant invitation to consider how to meet what seems and even actually is impossible in life. This is how the koan continues to echo for me.

When you meet your koan teacher in dokusan, you have to do something. It wont’ do to shrug your shoulders and say “Aw shucks.” You have to say or show him or her in some way how you carry a stone lantern in the garden. Of course, dokusan only lasts for a minute or so. What about outside of dokusan? In dokusan, I know what my koan is. It’s been given to me on a piece of paper. But what is the stone lantern in my actual life? Do I know what it is? This isn’t a simple question. Are you carrying a stone lantern in your garden? Do you know? Sometimes we know unmistakably. I have a friend whose five year old son fell off a table while he was with his mother in a doctor’s office waiting room. And he died. Just like that. His mother was sitting a few feet away. There is no question for my friend about what it is in his life that is impossible to carry, but that must be carried. His is a profound, dramatic situation. The stone lantern is unmistakable. And maybe for many people – depending on your beliefs about reincarnation or life after death – and especially those of us who are getting older, mortality is a stone lantern. In any case, I’m convinced that staying close to the tough stuff – the impossible, if you will – is an essential part of how we develop. One meets people who haven’t had any spiritual practice, yet they are deep, actualized, and fully human. I think it’s at least partly because they’ve met and carried what is impossible in their lives.

What’s my relationship to what feels impossible in my life? Do I know? Maybe a colloquial equivalent for the stone lantern in the garden is “the elephant in the room.” We use that expression  to talkabout something we’re pretending isn’t there, something we’re avoiding, even though it’s huge and everyone can see it. It’s just necessary to look. I think it’s that way. So maybe we could come up with a contemporary American version of this koan. It could be “lift the elephant in the room,” or “ride the elephant in the room.” Or “lift YOUR elephant in the room.” What is your elephant in the room?

As to my own relationship with such things, I confess my tendency is to prefer the small decorative stone lanterns – the 10 to 15 pounders – to the 300 pounders. I have to challenge myself to be awake to what feels impossible and to stay close to it. This is one of the best gifts of practice. Practice is an ongoing invitation to stay close to what is impossible. Is it possible to do do zazen “well?” I say it’s really impossible. You never get it right. If you’re doing zazen well, you’re not doing it well. Really, we never get anything in practice really “right” in the way we imagine we might. Do you do oryoki? Designed to be impossible. You know the “Made in China” “Made in USA” printed on things? Practice should be stamped “Made to be impossible.” Dogen Zenji said, “Shoshaku Jushaku.” To succeed wrong with wrong. One mistake after another. He said a Zen master’s life is one continuous mistake. This is because our life is in a way impossible. Impossible to understand in the usual way of understanding. Impossible to master. You know the expression “anything worth doing is worth doing well?” I like the expression “anything worth doing is basically impossible.”

There’s a contemporary koan that’s something like the stone lantern koan. It’s from Shin’ichi Hisamatsu, a 20^th century Japanese lay Zen teacher who taught what he called the fundamental koan. It’s “When nothing will do, what will you do?” When the resources you rely on aren’t up to the situation, but the situation cannot be escaped, then what? What now? How do you meet such a moment? What’s powerful in the question, and like the stone lantern koan, is that it has two parts: part one says “nothing will do” but part two says “you have to do something.” Here’s a comment from Hisamatsu:

“Whatever I do will not do; what do I do?”  This “What do I do?” creates positive activity.  I consider this the root, the source, of all koans.  You can always ask this of yourself.  When walking: Walking won’t do, what do I do?  Bending over the toilet: Bending over won’t do, what do I do?  We are always something, but if being something — anything — won’t do, what will we do? 

I especially appreciate this last bit: “If being something – anything – won’t do, what will we do?” All of us who practice can relate to this. We know how we keep trying – to be something, to be someone – and on some level we know the self we construct won’t do. It may do mostly or partly. It may get us through the day, mostly. But it won’t really do entirely. This is something we know deeply through practice. All our stuff, our efforts, our achievements, our knowing, won’t do. But still we have to do something.

I’ve been thinking about Fukushima Roshi so much this last year since he died. When I met Fukushima Roshi and saw the way they practice at Tofukuji, I was intimidated. It was clear he was a very powerful and deep teacher. But the practice there was scary. It was so hard. The first time I tried to do sesshin there, I quit after one day and the only way I made it through the one day was by promising myself a reward for finishing the day. The reward was that I would never ever set foot there again. And this was after thirty years of practice experience. I was beyond cautious about entering a practice relationship with Fukushima Roshi. But I did return, and after one or two sesshins in his temple, I asked him if he would accept me as a koan student.

He said, “I hope so.” Pretty funny. It reminded me of my first relationship with a Japanese Zen teacher – Josshu Sasaki Roshi – in 1965. I was a college freshman and I heard him give a talk and went to a zazenkai in the Hollywood Hills at a student’s apartment and got zazen instruction and met with him in dokusan and he gave me a koan to work on – What was your face before your parents were born? And afterwards, when we were all together drinking tea and chatting (he was drinking plum wine) he said, indicating me – the youngest person in the room, about 18 – something like “If this person can continue to practice, Zen will survive in America.” I thought he might mean that I was an exceptional person, chosen to keep the flame alive. Later, on reflection, I realized that he meant “if a clueless idiot like this can hang in there, Zen might actually have a fighting chance.”  Now it’s 45 years later and I’m pretty sure Fukushima Roshi meant the same thing. I hope so.

If you’re paying attention to your life, paying attention in detail, you have to notice that you goof up a lot. When you notice, it’s probably upsetting. Especially if you tend toward perfectionism. Mostly, we don’t like the idea that we make mistakes, that we goof. Especially if others see us goofing. That makes making mistakes even more uncomfortable. Zen practice can look like a cure for mistakes. You could imagine that some kind of enlightenment experience will cure you of whatever causes you to goof up. More superficially and maybe more temptingly, the outward forms of Zen practice might look like a refuge from mistakes.

In his book Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit, Robert Kennedy writes, “A visitor to a Zen temple can usually recognize the beginning students at a glance. Their heads are perfectly shaved, their robes complete and in order, their sleeves folded just so, their hands held this way and not that way, their eyes cast down as they have been told.” In other words, “looks like good.” Not that following Zen forms closely and carefully (or any practice forms) is always a mistake. It’s only a problem if you think doing so is somehow pure, of if you think it’s a refuge from mistakes, a way of escaping or by-passing the impulses, habits, and other forces that fuel human mistakes.

If you’ve been paying attention to your life, you know there are countless ways to goof up, innumerable impulses and forces that are at the root of goofing up. The fact is they’ve set up housekeeping in your life with a lifelong lease. Roommates til death do us part. When I think about this, if I’m not careful I get discouraged. I’ve concluded the two main causes of goofing up are selfishness and carelessness. Selfishness is the worst. By selfishness, I mean putting myself and my own felt (or marginally conscious) needs ahead of everything else. And by carelessness, I mean just not paying careful enough attention to what I’m doing. Simple. Basic.

These two frequently work in tandem, leading to all kinds of goofs. For example, I managed a very lovely set of cascading goofs over the last couple of days. It started when I discovered a Japanese market near where we recently moved. I was excited. I like Japanese food. We’d invite our daughter-in-law and grandchildren for dinner. My wife and I had a lot of stuff to getdone: keep the grandchildren on track doing their homework, shop, cook, and get it all ready early. I said I’d cook, the schedule was tight, and I was so focussed on the Japanese food that I didn’t make veggies for my wife’s dinner. She always (always!) has a big serving of veggies for dinner but I didn’t prepare any for her. Even though I felt like I was being good by preparing dinner for everyone, my over-engagement with the Japanese parts of the meal took me off course.

It cascaded. I felt bad and wanted to make a greater effort not to goof. And especially in taking care of my wife. I felt bad…guilty. I knew she wanted a dresser of hers moved to another part of the room. So I moved it, but I was so distracted wanting to “look like good,” that I rushed; I didn’t take proper precautions and I scratched up the floor we had just had refinished. It was inattention and carelessness in the middle of what looked like taking care of something. And there’s more – the cascade went on – but I think the point is clear.

What does this have to do with Zen? There’s a famous story about Baso (Matsu) and his teacher Nangaku. Baso was an ardent practitioner of zazen, sitting day and night under all conditions. One time, Nangaku asked him why he was sitting so much and Baso said it was to become a Buddha. Nangaku picked up two bricks and started rubbing them together and Baso asked him what he was doing. Nangaku replied he was polishing a brick to make it a mirror. Baso asked, “How can you make a mirror by polishing a brick??” And Nangaku said, “How can you make a Buddha by sitting zazen.”

This is a popular story Les Kaye uses in his book in the chapter “Continuous Effort.” That’s the part of his book I referred to earlier to illustrate that practice doesn’t make us into something else. In the context of mistakes and purity, if you have the idea that you can be transformed from an impure being into a pure being (whatever that might be), you’re going to be disappointed. Or you’re going to put a ton of energy into “looking like pure” by following surface forms fastidiously. Maybe you’ll succeed to the extent that you can trick yourself into believing that you’ve been transformed be cause you “look like transformed.”

I sometimes think about the maddening logic a guru I once admired used if you dared to point out that he made a mistake, even a small one. He’d say he did it on purpose to give his students a “way out.” That if he embodied purity and perfection continuously, it would be a trap that hampered or denied his disciples’ freedom. Pretty slick. He apparently tricked himself into believing his mistakes were part of the apparatus of his flawlessness. It’s like the joke, “I did make one single mistake once, when I thought I was wrong about something but actually turned out to be right.”

Does all this suggest Zen practice is useless when it comes to how we live? That we’re destined to make the same mistakes over and over? I don’t think so. Dogen Zenji famously said a Zen master’s life is shoshaku jushaku, which translates as “to succeed wrong with wrong” or, more colloquially, “one continuous mistake.” Suzuki Roshi said it also has the meaning (or the feeling) of “one single-minded effort.” He also said, offering a clarifying example, “one who thinks he is one of the worst husbands may be a good one if he is always trying to be a good husband with a single-hearted effort.” (It’s a coincidence that this quote touches the example I gave above of my own recent husbandly goofs.)

We’re not destined to make the same mistakes over and over. Not if we pay careful attention and are alert to our tendencies. We learn to do better. But we never arrive at a state of pure goofless-ness in this human life. As Les Kaye writes, “No matter how much we grind it, a brick can never be perfectly smooth. Just like that brick, no matter how much we polish our self, there will always remain some surface roughness.” I would add that there will always remain deep roughness, too.

So how do these examples – the brick and mirror story and shoshaku jushaku – come together in the light of Zen understanding? Do you know the Zen expression “not one, not two?” This is a compact, cryptic reference to the alignment and unity of form and emptiness, of relative and absolute, of identity and differentiation. More practically, it’s a reminder that what we might think of as opposites are not absolutely opposed to each other and that to see clearly and function freely, we need to have a big fluid view and move flexibly between what might at first seem to be incompatible positions.

This sounds pretty abstract, but Suzuki Roshi’s comment on what it means to be a good (bad) husband is a simple and concrete example. Do we make mistakes? Do we goof? Sure. Are mistakes and goofs bad? Yes. But also No. Everything is moving and changing. Life is actually alive. What we think of as a mistake – stepping on someone’s toe – is a mistake. But it is also many other things. It is a link in a long – a very long – chain of causality. It is a connection. It is a wake up call. It is a meeting. And, circling back, it’s also a mistake.

Can we, should you apologize for a mistakes when you cause trouble for others? Absolutely and without reservation. Should you seal up what happened as just and only “a mistake?” Probably not. What do you think?