Sesshin with Sasaki Roshi At 101 years of age, Joshu Sasaki Roshi is still teaching his unique brand of Zen. Michael Haederle offers us a rare look at the world of this enigmatic master.

photos by Joshi Radin

You may hear bursts of gunfire or explosions during this sesshin,” the sign read. That gave me pause. Formal Rinzai Zen practice with Joshu Roshi was always intense, but gunplay had never before been part of the equation. As I read on, I realized that a movie was being shot in the neighborhood. It figured. Here in LA, reality and illusion mingle effortlessly. I had come to Rinzai-ji, the home temple of Kyozan Joshu Sa- saki Roshi’s network of Zen centers and monasteries, to partici- pate in a seven-day sesshin marking the forty-sixth anniversary of his arrival in the U.S. Forty students were converging from as far away as Austria to practice with the 101-year-old teacher. Although he has taught thousands, Joshu Roshi remains an enigma in the West. He has published little of his teaching, and he seldom speaks in public, apart from the teisho, the talks he delivers during his sesshins. Because he regards encounters with journal-

50 SHAMBHALA SUN JANUARY 2009 SHAMBHALA SUN JANUARY 2009 51 Roshi’s determination to practice with every ounce of his remaining strength inspires great devotion among his students.

“I consider Roshi to be the kancho [abbot] of Zen worldwide,” der Joten Soko Miura Roshi at Zuiryo-ji in the northern island says Oscar Moreno, a retired computer science professor from Puer- of Hokkaido. Later, he trained for twenty years at Myoshin-ji in to Rico who sat next to me for the week. He has studied with Joshu Kyoto, receiving teaching authority in 1947. In 1953 he took over Roshi since 1975 and estimates that he has sat close to 300 sesshins as abbot of Shoju-an, where the teacher of Zen master Hakuin with him. “Roshi is at the top of Buddhism, and that’s why he has not Ekaku had once presided. Nine years later, when a group of Amer- certified anyone as a successor,”M oreno says. “Unless they know what icans wrote to Myoshin-ji asking to have a monk come teach in the he knows and realize what he has realized, he won’t be satisfied.” States, the head priests there decided to send Joshu Roshi. He arrived at LAX on the morning of July 21, 1962, carrying a Everyone in the zendo wore black. Seated by a bronze gong Japanese-English dictionary and an English-Japanese dictionary. at the altar, the chant leader’s low, unearthly moan morphed into John F. Kennedy was president. Telstar, the world’s first commu- Myoho renge kyo, the first line of the Lotus Sutra. Everyone joined nications satellite, had just been launched, and the Beatles were in, chanting phonetically in Sino-Japanese as an assistant drummed, an up-and-coming band from Liverpool. Joshu Roshi managed speeding up the rhythm until we were rolling along at a kinetic clip. to make himself at home in this new land, living for a while in a The Heart Sutra followed, then a series of other sutras. garage behind a student’s house. Roshi hobbled into the zendo, his gait slowed by age and a bad His timing was perfect. Young people exploring alternative case of sciatica. Wearing his fierce, implacable practice face, he spirituality soon came to sit with him. He ordained his first sat in a chair while a list of those participating in the sesshin was American monk in 1964, and four years later he and his students read aloud. The members included priests, monks, nuns, and lay bought Rinzai-ji, a 1920s-era residence in South Central Los An- students ranging from a nineteen-year-old college freshman to geles. In 1971 he opened a monastery in an old Boy Scout camp several people in their sixties. The formalities concluded and, the on Mount Baldy in California’s San Gabriel range, and the next evening meal approaching, Roshi shuffled out of the zendo. year he established Bodhi Manda Zen Center in Jemez Springs, Joshu Roshi was born in 1907 to a farming family near Sendai New Mexico. Since then, his priests and monks have started cen- in Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture. At fourteen, he became a novice un- ters throughout North America and Europe.

ists (and everyone else, for that matter) primarily as teaching op- As we arrived for the Sunday-afternoon chanting session that portunities, in interviews he seldom talks about himself, preferring would kick the sesshin off, I greeted old friends and introduced my- to keep the focus on Zen practice. None of this appears to concern self to people I hadn’t met before. The setting was pure Southern him. He was firming up his teaching schedule for the rest of the year. California. The zendo was an eighty-year-old building modeled “I have no plan [for retirement],” he tells me. “Of course, I have no on a Spanish mission church, with whitewashed masonry walls plan, period. There is no word, ‘retirement,’ as far as I’m concerned.” and a high ceiling made of massive exposed wood beams. The sur- Lately, though, he has been saying he will live to be 128. rounding streets were lined with stately hundred-foot palm trees, Sesshin, which in Japanese literally means, “gathering the and a subtle floral fragrance wafted on the placid breeze. mind,” is a staple of Zen practice. It is a physically and mentally I’d never sat a sesshin at Rinzai-ji, but I knew more or less demanding period of intense zazen (sitting Zen meditation) what to expect. We would rise at 3:00 a.m. for chanting, followed coupled with regular meetings with the teacher. Joshu Roshi by four twenty-five-minute periods of zazen as students went continues to lead eighteen or more sesshins a year, a pace that one by one to sanzen, a private interview with the teacher. After challenges even his most dedicated students. a formal breakfast, Roshi would deliver an hour-long teisho, fol- “He has no dharma successor and he lives to teach,” says Seiju lowed by more zazen and sanzen. Another round of chanting, Bob Mammoser, the priest who was serving as the administrator zazen, and sanzen would follow in the afternoon and again in the for this sesshin. “It’s like if you have a child and you see he’s suf- evening before we retired, sometime after 9:00 p.m. We would do fering because he’s caught on some foolish thing, and you want this for seven days in a row, not speaking the entire time. him to change. Roshi sees we’re suffering a lot, needlessly, and Although he is well south of five feet tall and only appears in pub- he’s trying to help us understand that.” lic once a day for teisho, everyone always feels Roshi’s indomitable presence during sesshin. Photos from when he first came to the States A longtime student of Joshu Sasaki Roshi, Michael Haederle is a portray a powerful bulldog of a man, and the tales of his fierceness lay monk living in New Mexico. He has contributed to Time, People, Tri- back then are legion. He’s much gentler now that he must conserve cycle, Discovery Channel Magazine, and other publications. his energy, but his determination to practice with every ounce of his remaining strength inspires great devotion among his students.

52 SHAMBHALA SUN JANUARY 2009 SHAMBHALA SUN JANUARY 2009 53 Roshi sized up my response to the koan. “Ego,” he spat, and rang the bell.

Early Monday we were startled awake as someone swept into start of sesshin to get my head clear, and Roshi always has an uncan- the dorm ringing a bell and flipping on the lights. Settling onto my ny ability to tell when I’m lost in the realm of conceptual thought. cushion a few minutes later, I could hear a few sleepy birds chirp- In Zen Buddhism we practice directly realizing the nature of reality, ing as Lucy, the black-and-white temple cat, nonchalantly strolled dropping our ordinary discursive thinking to see things freshly—as through the zendo. The assistants served hot green tea and then it they really are. But that is surprisingly hard to do, and Zen teachers was down to business. For the day’s first period of zazen, the ze- constantly look for ways to shake students up, jostling them out of ndo’s head monk used the wooden keisaku (sometimes called “the conventional, conditioned mind. Joshu Roshi is particularly good at encouragement stick”) to give two stinging, energizing blows on this; many of his students tell similar stories of sanzen encounters in each shoulder of any student who was slouching or falling asleep. which he was so attuned to their state of awareness that he seemed It was still not light out when the administrator rang the bell, to be reading their minds. summoning students to sanzen. The zendo erupted as a handful He picked up his little brass bell and rang me out. Chagrined, I of people leapt from their seats and raced for the exit, jostling one made a thank-you bow and returned to the zendo. another to be first in to see the teacher. Joshu Roshi does not confine himself to the classical canon of My turn came and I bowed into the sanzen room. Roshi was Chinese koans passed down through Japanese Zen. He often uses sitting in a low chair, surrounded by vases of fresh flowers, a koans of his own devise that he feels are suitable for Americans. hanging scroll, and some statues. I approached him and per- He might ask a student, for example, “When you see the flower, formed another deep bow, then I knelt. where is God?” He changes or rewords koans frequently, which “Hai. Koan,” Roshi said in his low, gravelly voice, a cue to tell tends to keep the student off balance. Rather than strive for a him what koan I had been working on since the last sesshin— momentary experience of enlightenment, he wants his students koans being the puzzling riddles that students of Rinzai Zen con- to learn to consistently manifest (his word) true love—a poetic template as part of their training. I announced my koan in a loud expression for unification or nonduality. voice, since Roshi had grown hard of hearing in recent years. He Oscar Moreno says that Joshu Roshi nurtures in his students cupped his hand to his ear and I repeated it. What followed was all a slow process of ripening that naturally leads them deeper and too familiar. He posed some questions, which I failed miserably to deeper. “The maturation, the wisdom, happens slowly and I find respond to. He said a few more things in his heavily-accented Eng- it very deep,” Moreno says. “All the time he leads you through a deny God, Roshi told us, but it doesn’t personify God the way other sit bolt upright and straighten my back. But the sleepiness returned lish, but one phrase came through loud and clear: “Still thinking.” contradictory process, where you say, ‘Oh, now I know what en- religions do. Like everything else, he said, even God must obey the and the cycle would repeat itself. A fresh breeze cooled things off in Yup, he had that right. It often takes me a couple of days at the lightenment is.’ But then he shows you the other side.” law of impermanence and cannot be a fixed entity. the evening, and as the sun faded, a police helicopter circled over- After a brisk formal breakfast in the zendo, we returned to the Anicca, the Buddhist principle of impermanence, plays a key role head and a passing ice cream truck played “Für Elise.” No gunfire, dorms for a few minutes of personal time, during which students in Joshu Roshi’s teaching, a model in which two equal and mutu- though. Soon enough we were back in our dorms. catnapped, brushed their teeth, or showered. Many stretched to re- ally opposing activities endlessly meet and separate. The instant in The next morning, one of the priests opened the first period lieve stiff backs and legs. The first few days of a sesshin are when you which they unify is variously described as true love, equality, zero, or of zazen by hitting the first six monks—including me—with the remember just how hard it is, and you may ask why you’re putting emptiness. It is the unification of subject and object. But when these keisaku. Good morning! This is sometimes done to set a more yourself through it. Thankfully, the mood usually passes. two activities separate, the objective world—the world of self-and- rigorous, energetic tone in the zendo. I found the blows relaxed One of my companions in the dorm was George Bowman, a re- other—appears. Joshu Roshi uses a variety of synonyms for these the tense muscles in my shoulders and upper back. spected Zen teacher in his own right whose original teacher, the late two opposing activities, referring to them as expansion and contrac- Roshi talked in teisho about plus and minus, mother and fa- Korean Zen master Seung Sahn Soen Sa Nim, first encouraged him tion, plus and minus, mother and father, or male and female. Joshu ther, birth and death, fluidly shifting from one to the next, and to sit a sesshin with Joshu Roshi in the late 1970s. “It was a really life- Roshi calls his style of teaching Tathagata Zen, Tathagata being one in sanzen he assigned me a new koan, which I would wrestle changing experience,” Bowman says, having sat several sesshins a of the names for the Buddha. While the teaching may sound abstract, with for the remainder of the week. After breakfast, I noticed the year with Joshu Roshi ever since. Describing what he laughingly calls Roshi wants his students to manifest it in their zazen and, whatever kitchen staff had brewed coffee. A small blessing. a “love-dread relationship,” Bowman says that working with Joshu else it may be, it is a very sophisticated guide to meditation. Another ice cream truck came by after dinner, blaring a repetitive Roshi keeps him humble and honest: “It’s always digging deeper, An hour into teisho, the administrator rang a bell. We hadn’t ditty. As it happened, we were doing a practice that involved walking climbing to the top, getting knocked down, and starting over.” heard much yet about Hyakujo or the fox. “I’m not feeling well,” slowly around the zendo, chanting one syllable from the Heart Sutra Roshi said. “I feel a little woozy.” But later, after a period of hot, with each step. This wholehearted chanting in unison was creating a The next morning Roshi entered and, with help from his sleepy zazen, we found ourselves filing off to sanzen. powerful sound that filled the zendo and drowned out the extrane- attendants, he slowly climbed to the high seat, where he read the ous—random thoughts and ice cream trucks included. opening section of the subject of this week’s teisho: “Hyakujo and Already on this first day, some people were so sleepy they the Fox” from the Mumonkan. At first he barely mentioned the fa- forgot to bow when entering the zendo, or they moved when they I was coping with a familiar pain beneath my right shoulder miliar koan. Instead he spoke of God, something that would surprise weren’t supposed to. Groggy myself, I would relax into my breath- blade, an ache that intensified until it felt like someone was twist- people who think of Buddhism as nontheistic. Buddhism doesn’t ing, only to drift involuntarily into micro-sleep. Catching myself, I’d ing a knife in my back. I knew it was arising from mental tension

54 SHAMBHALA SUN JANUARY 2009 SHAMBHALA SUN JANUARY 2009 55 and prolonged sitting in a fixed posture. The genius of sesshin, I Things changed on Friday, as newcomers joined us for the hurts,” he said. And yet, I reflected, he spends an hour a day in proceeds forward, it’s the activity of forward moving, and when reflected, is that it offers many different ways to squeeze you and final three days of sesshin.A mong them was Paul Karsten, a stu- teisho and at least six hours a day sitting in sanzen. That tremen- it comes back, it demonstrates the activity of coming back. Here, make you uncomfortable. You’re stuck in a hot, sweaty, aching dent of Roshi’s since 1973 and the president of a Seattle acu- dous effort in the face of pain inspired me. we have to understand the concept of difference or discrimination. body with no escape: what do you do? I’ve learned that the only puncture school. Karsten sees his study with Joshu Roshi as the What is the concept of difference or discrimination? That is called thing that works is to unify with the discomfort. And one way or practice of making relationship with others. “My studies have Two days after sesshin ends, a translator and I would sit down for an kyo and rai. Kyo is ‘to leave.’ Rai is ‘to come.’” another, unification is what Roshi always teaches. made me a more effective health care practitioner,” he says. “I’ve interview with Roshi in his apartment. Wearing a white kimono and “Will Roshi find American successors?” I ask. In sanzen the next morning Roshi sized up my response. trusted Roshi to help point me to what’s important.” reclining in an upholstered chair, Roshi was in a relaxed mood. At one “I don’t know about that,” he says. “It’s not in my consideration. “Ego,” he spat, and rang the bell. Later, in teisho, he talked about Roshi took a long time with people in sanzen that evening, point he teasingly pinched the translator’s earlobe to make a point. It does not help me to know who it would be. Some might say, ‘I “How are you this morning? the old man in the koan who approached Hyakujo and begged and I felt I was having a more freewheeling encounter with him, have received your Tathagata Zen teaching, and I will continue “Tired,” he says. “After sesshins I need two days of rest. I used to to be released from a particular error he had made, which had letting go of some of myself. I felt energized as we left the zendo your activity,’ but that can be a lie. If someone comes around say- not need anything. One day is not good enough—I need two days. caused him to be reborn 500 times as a fox. The old man in the that evening, and for a while, sleep wouldn’t come. ing, ‘I’m going to throw my whole body into continuing your activ- By the third day I become vital again.” story was a “monster,” Roshi said, because he couldn’t manifest Despite getting no more than four hours of sleep, I felt pretty ity of Tathagata Zen,’ then I would say, “Oh, is that so?’” “You call your teaching Tathagata Zen. Where did the teaching unity with his students. I was feeling a bit monstrous myself. good on Saturday, day six. The city around us was quiet, and it of Tathagata Zen originate?” On Thursday we reached the sesshin’s halfway point, and fewer occurred to me that people were thinking about going to the “Chinese Zen defined tathagata and tatha-agata. One is ‘Thus- The seventh day dawned clear and cool, and I enjoyed spacious and fewer people were making enthusiastic sprints for the door beach. During teisho, Roshi told the famous story of how, as coming,’ and the other is ‘Thus-going.’ It originated in India—Indi- sitting in the zendo. Late in the afternoon it was announced that at the start of sanzen. Maybe I wasn’t the only one confounded by he grew old, Hyakujo’s students stole his gardening tools so an Buddhism already had this concept. It’s a moving activity, so it is we would end a little early and then go to see Roshi for a final my koan. More than once, the head monk had to bark, “Sanzen!” he’d have to rest from his labors around the monastery, and ‘Thus-coming, Thus-going.’ Even we contemporary people are asked interview—a formal goodbye. to get people to leave the zendo. Stuck though I was, in afternoon how Hyakujo stopped eating in protest. A good bit older than how we define this moving activity. It is a very essential thing. It was then that I finally got whatR oshi had been driving at all sanzen that day something I did seemed to resonate with Roshi; Hyakujo himself, Roshi told us he’d been suffering from sciatica “This moving activity never stops. And then, all the time it’s week. It had literally been staring me in the face all along. Roshi at last I felt I was moving in the right direction. for twelve years. “Now, if I sit for more than fifteen minutes, it smoothly proceeding. Though it is moving all the time, when it smiled and rang the bell. ♦

need to make any remarks. For example, if the child calls to her fa- ing her self-ness, alone, on her own. When human condition. It is the complete True Love, Ultimate Zero ther, “Daddy!”, what comment can he make? If the father does not the daughter is clearly separated from the manifestation of “Thus coming.” You respond to this call, the child would lightly nudge him and remind father, she does not need to call him. She are no longer mother, father, and child, A grueling seven-day Zen retreat takes its toll on everyone— him, “Look at me.” Then, if he looks at her, she’ll say, “I love you, is manifesting her completeness by herself. and the great cosmos all becomes one. including the teacher. Joshu Sasaki Roshi says that at 101 it Daddy.” The ancient Indians called this the activity of karma. The father could also be aware that the When you are able to directly experi- takes him a few days to regain his energy, but when I met Today, we don’t know if the ancient Indians prior to Buddha daughter does not really require him, so he ence the activity of “Thus coming,” with him following the July sesshin in Los Angeles, he was in understood this as Buddha did, as they simply used the term can remain in the “at ease” state. you are “at ease” and in a tranquil an expansive mood, talking for an hour about his teaching of “karma.” They did not define the activity of karma, but Buddha In this state of independence, though state. No matter how much we talk, it Tathagata Zen. Here is an excerpt. —Michael Haederle made it clear that karma is the activity of “Thus coming” and they are oppositions, without opposing, will not bring us satisfaction or true “Thus going.” Buddha defined it clearly and then he realized that they coexist in one space, together. But happiness. Only when we reach the The activity of movement contains two different na- none of us can escape from the activity of karma. looking at the same situation from the state of transcendence, “Thus com- tures: difference and discrimination. The single activity of “go- The Chinese translated “Thus coming” and “Thus going” as broader vantage point, we can also define ing,” can we be satisfied and “at ease,” ing” includes “coming,” and the single activity of “coming” in- nyorai and nyokyo. The term nyo—“thus”—is a very philosophi- it as opposition. Though seemingly oppos- which is true love, the ultimate truth. cludes “going.” The activity of going and coming is encompassed cal, important word. Nyorai also implies God, or dharmakaya. The ing, they are not really in opposition. That Father is satisfied. Mother is satisfied. by the activity of equality. male activity and female activity are completely separate and op- is the state in which it is not necessary for Child is satisfied. They are not satisfied The whole universe is one: equality holds difference and dis- posed to each other. The Chinese character for nyo includes within anyone to insist on his or her “I am” self. individually, but the whole universe is crimination within it. The activity of equality includes plus and it the symbol for “woman,” but in the context of Buddhism, while There, father and child exist separately in satisfied. It is a totally tranquil state, minus. Therefore, it is zero. male presence exists in nyo, at the same time the natures of male one state, and they don’t bother each other. the zero state. You can only experience the state of equality; you cannot de- and female are viewed as difference. As indicated before, nyo also Each is complete in herself or himself. This Whenever we teach Zen, direct scribe it. If someone demands an explanation of it from me, all I means “Thus.” Man and woman are not as one. Nyo is nyo. Things state we are talking about inevitably appears, but without failing, it expression and directly pointing out is critical. If you cannot can do is kiss the person. Or I could hit him. Do you understand are as they are, in their own essence. But once you start to talk will break through and manifest unification. Then all will disappear. promptly respond to the teacher, you cannot say that you are this? Have you got it? about this totality as “object,” unification breaks and separation of Inevitably, the state in which you no longer claim yourself will be practicing Zen. When you gaze at the sky, what kind of direct Generally people say, “We love equality, we love equality.” the states of female-ness and male-ness are manifested. In the uni- manifested. Buddhism concludes that this is the true self, true love, pointing would be manifested? What direct expression can you Rather than simply mouthing those words, you must come to fied state, complete tranquility takes place, and there, the self does and the ultimate truth. Zen’s view is that words cannot point out make by looking straight up at the sky? When the daughter’s un- understand this principle. When the state of equality is mani- not exist. You don’t need to say anything. the ultimate truth. It is utterly, completely zero. If true love exists as cle visits the family, the mother, father, and child bow to him and fested, it is the state of zero. This is the state where you no longer When the daughter and father are completely separated, there is such, it is the ultimate truth. say hello to him, manifesting the basics of Buddhist realization. need to insist on or claim your own self. no need for them to say anything. Although she is with her father in Nyo is also gotoshi in Japanese, meaning, “As such,” or “Like In America or Europe, people use the direct expression, “Amen.” If you understand this important point, then fine. There is no a clearly separated state, she has no need to call him. She is manifest- that.” The state of nyorai is the state where one transcends the Isn’t that the same thing? ♦

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