The Zen Practitioner’s Journal Facing Truth Summer 2015 $9.00 / $10.00 Canadian Danna C.Tangles MOUNTAIN RECORD (ISSN #0896-8942) is published quarterly by Dharma Communications. Periodicals Postage Paid at Mt. Tremper, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: send address changes to MOUNTAIN RECORD, P.O. Box 156, Mt. Tremper, NY 12457-0156. Yearly subscription of four issues: $32.00. To subscribe, call us at (845) 688-7993 or send a check payable to Dharma Communications at the address below. Postage outside ter ri to ri al U.S.: add $20.00 per year (pay in U.S. cur ren cy). Back issues are avail able for $9.00. All material Copyright © 2015 by Dharma Com mu ni ca tions, Inc., unless otherwise specified. All pho tog ra phy and art are Mountain and Rivers Order’s National Buddhist Archive prints unless oth er wise credited. Printed in the U.S.A. CDs of the dharma dis courses that appear in the Mountain Record are avail able free of charge to the visually impaired. The articles included and the opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors, who are solely re spon si ble for their contents. They do not necessarily reflect th opinions, positions or teachings of Zen Mountain Mon as tery or the Mountains and Rivers Order. Cover image © by Andrew Stawarz With the entire body and mind, study the realm where the ear, nose, and eye are neither old nor new. This is how blossoms and rain open up the world. —Eihei Dogen Vol. 33 No.4 Summer 2015 Speaking Truth 4 BODY OF TRUTH, Geoffrey Shugen Arnold Sensei Moving beyond dualistic distinctions of self and other 13 XXX, Danika Shoan Ankele Editorial 14 FROM CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC, Claudia Rankine Moments of being at a loss for words 19 THE MUTE STORY OF NOVEMBER, Maggie Nelson Poem 24 CRAZY HORSE, WE HEAR WHAT YOU SAY, John Trudell Tapping into our common lineage of humanity 30 WILDERNESS, Jamie Samdahl Poem 31 FROM MULTIPLICITY IN ONENESS, Rev. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Spirituality of social justice as its true essence photo: Lisa Gakyo Schaewe 39 THE TRANSFORMATION OF SILENCE INTO ACTION, Audre Lorde Rising to self-revelation in the face of fear 42 FROM THE LANKAVATARA SUTRA, translated by Red Pine Meaning beyond words in the tathagatas 47 THE POWER OF WORDS, Simone Weil Using words for clarity over warfare 51 FROM UNSPEAKABLE THINGS, Laurie Penny What do we and are we supposed to want? 58 CLIMATE CHANGE IS VIOLENCE, Rebecca Solnit A call to look closely at industrial-scale violence 66 RIGHT SPEECH, Joseph Goldstein Cultivating mindfulness of expression in daily life 74 LET IT GO, Brian Doyle A strong and gentle whisper to the clan of the consoled 77 ELEGY, Aracelis Girmay Poem 78 INTIMATE LANGUAGE, Eihei Dogen Permeating the connection between buddha ancestors and ourselves 84 MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS ORDER NEWS News, Sangha Reflections, Affiliate Directory . Body of Truth Dharma Discourse by Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Sensei Xiangyan’s “Person Up a Tree” True Dharma Eye, Case 243 Main Case Master Xiangyan said to the sangha, “What if you are hanging by your teeth from a tree on a thousand foot cliff, with no place for your hands to hold or your feet to step on? All of a sudden someone asks you, from below, the meaning of the Ancestor’s coming from India. If you respond, you will lose your life. If you don’t respond, you don’t do justice to the question. At just such a moment, what would you do?” Then Senior Monastic Hutou came forward and said, “Master, let’s not talk about being in a tree. But tell me, what happens before climbing the tree?” Xiangyan burst into laughter. 4 photo by Lee Ann Terilla Commentary Old master Xiangyan’s words are clearly lethal. The only path through this dualistic dilemma is to die the great spiritual death, and realize freedom. How is this accomplished? We should appreciate the fact that the questioner, in asking about the Ancestor’s coming from India, is also “hanging from a tree on a thousand foot cliff.” If you can answer Xiangyan, you will not only free yourself but the questioner as well. Master Dogen says that, “If we look at this koan with a ‘nonthinking mind,’ we can attain the same real, free samadhi as Xiangyan and grasp its mean- ing even before he has opened his mouth.” What is this ‘nonthinking mind’? Setting aside Xiangyan, the tree, and the cliff, you tell me, what is the meaning of the Ancestor’s coming from India? If you open your mouth to answer, you have missed it. If you don’t open your mouth, you are a thousand miles away. The Senior Monastic makes it clear. In the tree, below the tree, before the tree, after the tree —it’s all dirt from the same hole. Verse Where affirmation and negation merge, there it is, alone and revealed. On the solitary mystic peak, the blue mountains have not a speck of dust. 5 harma practice-realization is to be free in the midst of entanglements,to Dlive real, free samadhi, in birth and death and beyond birth and death. Within the Zen tradition, koan practice developed as a skillful means to help us discover this freedom. A koan works because it presses us to transcend our deeply entrenched dualistic mind, to move beyond thought, beyond all of our ideas and beliefs. An old master said, “If you want to realize the truth, you have to discover it by means of what is true.” So while the koan may appear as an entangle- ment, this entanglement is not outside of our personal mind. This is a well-known and wonderful koan. Master Xiangyan says, “What if you are hang- ing in a tree by your teeth, your hands can’t touch the branch, your feet can’t touch the trunk, the tree is suspended from a thousand foot cliff.” What does that mean? In such a situation, we might become very concerned with the tree, the branch, the cliff, the dis- tance to the ground; our jaws may begin to ache. We would be concerned with how we got there, with what would happen next. Our biggest concern of all would be getting ourselves out of this situation. Master Dogen says, “Now quietly exam- ine the words. What if you were hanging by your teeth from a branch on a tree on a thousand foot cliff? What is you? What is the you that is hanging by your teeth?” Master Dogen brings us to the heart of the matter. What is this you? If we want to go beneath the surface of our life, if we want to discover the fundamental truth, then we have to ask the fundamental question: Who am I? Koans Master Xiangyan offers this moment in the are a powerful and spiritually dangerous way tree—one that occurs throughout our lives of practicing because they use words and lan- —as a way of moving beyond all ideas of who guage to bring us beyond words and language. we think we are. 6 To enter into this koan as direct pointing is we can be in such a predicament, different to be this very person, hanging from this tree ways of hanging. There is hanging in dark- by your teeth, suspended on this thousand ness, with our eyes closed, lacking awareness foot cliff. Now, there are different ways that that we are hanging. This is seeing samsara as 7 true reality, perceiving pain as pleasure, see- another standing on the ground, where is the ing the impermanent as permanent. place that “affirmation and negation merge?” There is hanging in the darkness with The Faith Mind poem says, “The Way is one eye open—now we are aware that we are perfect like vast space, not a speck of excess hanging, but our awareness is dim, partial. or lack. It is due to our choosing to grasp or We apprehend some aspects of our situation, reject that we don’t see the real nature of but we don’t understand how we got there. things.” From within the mind of grasping It may seem as if others are responsible for and rejecting, hanging from this tree is defi- making this happen to us. Master Dogen says, nitely a problem. So take the backward step “Remember, you climbed up this tree.” “One and go to the “solitary mystic peak” to realize eye open” means we’re beginning to perceive the mind free of hindrances. the situation more clearly, and may want to When we receive initial instruction in break the cycle, but are still bound by our zazen, we are encouraged to not turn away habit energies. from arising discomfort. This is the begin- We can hang from the tree as two, with ning of the inner revolution. When we give distance between ourself and our experience, up our attempt to avoid discomfort, we begin a distance that breeds fear and alarm. And to taste real freedom. When we turn toward then there is hanging as one—one undivided hanging in the tree with “no hindrance in the activity reaching everywhere and in all direc- mind,” it is not different but not the same. tions. There is no hindrance, therefore there This “hanging in the tree” is our life from the is no fear. There is just this. Body and mind moment our consciousness appears. It is the are freed of body and mind; no thing is born first noble truth of dukkha; it is Thoreau’s and no thing can perish.