Roar of the Tigress Roar of the Tigress The Oral Teachings of Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett: Western Woman and Zen Master VOLUME I An Introduction to Zen: Religious Practice for Everyday Life Edited and with an Introduction by Rev. Daizui MacPhillamy SHASTA ABBEY PRESS, MOUNT SHASTA, CALIFORNIA First Edition—2000 © 2000 Order of Buddhist Contemplatives All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form except for brief excerpts for purposes of review without written permission from the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives, 3724 Summit Drive, Mt. Shasta, California 96067-9102; (530) 926-4208. Frontispiece: Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett during an interview for the Record Searchlight newspaper. This photograph first appeared along with an article about her in the Redding Record Searchlight on December 28, 1983. Reprinted with permission of the Record Searchlight. The drawings on page 63 are by Shaun Williams. They were first published in “The Next Step: Advice on continuing your practice, 1997” and are reprinted with permission of Shaun Williams. The photograph of Vimalakirti and his wife on page 193 is reprinted with permission of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. The photograph of ringing the great bell on page 268 first appeared in the fourth edition of Zen is Eternal Life and the photograph of Rev. Master Jiyu with her master, the Very Reverend Keido Chisan Koho Zenji, on page 274 first appeared in the first edition of Zen is Eternal Life. They are reprinted with permission of Shasta Abbey. Printed in the United States of America. isbn: 0-930066-21-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 00-131505 Dedicated in grateful memory to Rev. Master Houn Jiyu-Kennett. “The Light of Buddha is increasing in brilliance and the Wheel of the Dharma is always turning.” Contents Introduction ix About Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett ix About This Edition xv Buddhism as Atheism vs. Buddhism as Theism xxiv 1. Why Study Zen? 1 Where to Start 1 Enlightenment: It’s Not What You Look For; It Might Be What You Find 13 Zen practice: Activity Within Stillness 16 Zen Is a Religion 20 Questions 44 2. How to Do Serene Reflection Meditation 55 Questions 80 3. How to Live the Life of Buddha 109 Realizing that Actions Have Consequences: the Law of Karma 110 Precepts: the Everyday Acts of Buddhas 125 Questions 137 vii viii Contents 4. The Mind of the Bodhisattva 150 Charity 152 Tenderness 164 Benevolence 171 Sympathy 176 The Life of Gratitude 181 Questions 187 5. The Ceremony of Household Life 192 Youth 194 Marriage 204 Practice at Home 208 Work 221 Community Involvement 226 Death 244 6. The Way of the Monk 258 A Day in the Monastic Life 258 Masters and Disciples 270 Monks and Householders 285 About the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives 295 About the Monasteries of the Order 297 Introduction ABOUT REV. MASTER JIYU-KENNETT* Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett was born in St. Leonards-on-Sea, near Hastings, Sussex, England on New Year’s day, 1924. Baptized Peggy Teresa Nancy in the Church of England, she was the last child and only girl of a deeply unhappy marriage. Her first encounters with Buddhism came from a copy of The Light of Asia in her father’s library and a statue of the Buddha, relic of the Empire, that for some unknown reason sat on a mantelpiece in the assembly hall of her first school. This statue gave her solace in the midst of the sorrows of home and school. Even earlier as a very small girl, on seeing a person in monastic robes in the street, she told her mother that this was what she wanted to be when she grew up. In 1939 came World War II and the death of her father in December of that year after a long illness. Although evac- uated to a safer part of England, she did not escape the trauma of war: her home town was heavily bombed; stray bombs fell near her even after evacuation; Peggy’s best friend * This section of the Introduction has been adapted from the obitu- ary for Rev. Master Jiyu, which appeared in the Winter 1996/Spring 1997 memorial issue of The Journal of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. ix x Introduction was drowned, caught in the barbed wire that had been strung for defense along the coast, and the girl’s father died trying to save her. The sound of the bombs and the sight of the red night sky—London aflame—stayed with Peggy Kennett all her life and were the impetus to her spiritual search: why did people do this to one another? These years also saw the beginnings of her professional career as a musician and her first encounters with Gregorian plain chant. This became a life-long interest and was put to excellent use in later years in the liturgy used by the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives, which she founded. During this time she also strengthened her connections with Buddhism. She received an excellent education in the basic teachings of the Theravada tradition, eventually taking the Refuges and Precepts from the Venerable Dr. Saddhatissa, a leading monk and scholar of that tradition who taught for many years in London, and earning a diploma in Buddhist doctrine from the Young Men’s Buddhist Association of Sri Lanka. In the years following the war, Peggy Kennett worked as a church organist wherever she could find employment. She also joined the Women’s Royal Naval Reserve and worked for the Conservative Party as a youth representative. In 1954 she became a member of the London Buddhist Society, eventually becoming one of their lecturers and, in 1958, a member of the governing Council. There being no money forthcoming from her family for her higher education, she put herself through university. She first studied at Trinity College of Music, London, where she was awarded a fellowship, and then went on to obtain the degree of Bachelor of Music from Durham University, spe- cializing in organ and composition. During her time at the London Buddhist Society, Peggy met and studied with the many Buddhist teachers who visited About Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett xi there, including D. T. Suzuki. In 1960 one of the Chief Abbots of the Soto Zen Church of Japan, the Very Rev. Keido Chisan Koho Zenji, visited London. He was on a tour of Western countries to investigate the possibilities of spreading the Dharma and to look for suitable Westerners to train as his disciples. He met Peggy Kennett, as she helped organize his visit, and invited her to come to Japan to be his disciple. She said, “Yes!” and began to make preparations. She worked at various jobs teaching music at several schools to help raise money, but in the end had to borrow the last few pounds from a friend to afford the boat ticket. Around this time, the Buddhist community in Malaysia, led by the Ven. Seck Kim Seng, had finally succeeded in obtaining authorization from the government for the first public celebration of the Buddha’s Birth. In commemora- tion of this, the American monk Ven. Sumangalo wrote the words to the anthem “Welcome Joyous Wesak Day”, and an international contest was held to find a composer to set it to music. The contest was won by Peggy Kennett, and the Malaysian Buddhist community asked her to stop in their country on her way to Japan to receive the award and to give public lectures on the Dharma. In the fall of 1961, Peggy Kennett boarded a ship for the East by way of the Suez Canal and India. Arriving in Malaysia, she discovered that, due to misunderstandings, preparations had been made for her ordination there. Because there was intense and often hostile coverage of her situation by the non-Buddhist press, she agreed to be ordained in Malaysia, rather than in Japan as she had planned, and asked the Ven. Seck Kim Seng to be her ordination master. This was because she thought that a refusal to be ordained in Malaysia might be used by the press to bring Buddhism into disrepute. On January 21, 1962, she was given Shramanera ordination xii Introduction into the Chinese Buddhist Sangha and received the name Sumitra (True Friend). At her request, she also received the Bodhisattva Precepts from Ven. Seck Sian Toh, assisted by other masters who were allowed out of China specifically for the ceremony. After several months in Malaysia studying with her ordination master, Rev. Sumitra travelled to Japan. On April 14, 1962, she was received by Koho Zenji as his personal disciple, and her ordination name was translated into Japanese as Jiyu (Compassionate Friend). At this time she also received the religious “family” name of Houn (Dharma Cloud), the family name that her disciples bear to this day. There was considerable controversy in Sojiji, which was Koho Zenji’s monastery and one of the two great training seminaries of the Japanese Soto Zen church, over his plans to train this foreign female disciple in what was to many minds a place for Japanese male trainees only. She asked him a number of times if she could go to one of the female monas- teries, but he refused, knowing that unless she trained at Sojiji and did everything that the men did, it could be said in the future that things had been made easy for her. Finally, the way was cleared for her to formally enter Sojiji as a novice trainee. Shortly before her entrance, the senior disciplinarian confronted her: what did she want? Many foreigners came to Japan seeking various things.