“I often think we are deceiving ourselves by imagining we are involved in spiritual pursuits; and spiritual activities are very fashionable these days. It is easy to join meditation retreats of one kind or another believing we are undertaking something meaningful. but in fact we may merely be indulging in a kind of spiritual recreation.”
(For the full exposition on Zazen and Meditation, see last section of this article)
I’ve found out today that sadly Zen master Hogen Yamahata, master in the lineage in which I practice, has passed.
I thought I would reprint his obituary here, offer a few grateful words and some learnings to have essentially come by way of him and his dharma successors.
One thing I’ve noted for sometime is how deeply his style and understanding of Zen has influenced my direct teachers. The depth of their appreciation for the man is clear testament to his character.
This goes beyond the sappy surface sentimentalities we’re so often exposed to these days. There is something deeply transcendent in their recollections of various interactions and expressions of their deep appreciativeness. This can be clearly seen whenever they recount stories or offer short talks to us. This way has been extended to us.
Hogen-san was one of the Japanese masters that introduced proper lineage and transmission to the West. I am told he felt Zen had become fibrotic in Japan, and sought more fertile soils for its growth.
I am very grateful for this. Australia has always been the poorer cousin of the Western world for legitimate teachers and teachings. Less spoiled for choice than the United States or Europe.
As you know I consider Zen a very excellent and strong practice. While Zazen is pure in and of itself, I’ve also found it comforting that the essential method is very much in line with neuro-scientific and physiological insight. Because it’s so close to what we really are. Hogen-san was particularly non-dogmatic in his approach, according to my understanding and readings of his work. His writings indicate a way that is clearly very elegant and simple.
The lack of emphasis on iron-age rules or enormously verbose sets of medieval metaphysical speculations are very much in line with the temperament of the average European mind. So I consider Zen a very accessible, and therefore powerful, yogic tradition. There is less space for the genuinely curious European mind to fool itself with symbols or verbose speculations.
I think it’s clear to anyone with even a little experience that Zen has been faithfully and cleverly distilled down to the essential matter. It is defined by directness, with nothing to hang on to. So it requires courage.
Despite it’s apparent naïve simplicity, I’ve come to view it as extremely sophisticated.
Other Buddhist methods can often obfuscate the essential perfection of every moment with complex “dualistic” practice methods. Many are culture-specific and therefore difficult for us to understand. They often have a strong emphasis on rules and regulations which are easy to get swept up in and can often further muddy the waters.
Zen has shown me there can be nothing external to hang on to that can possibly grant access to the essential matter. No set of words, clothes, books or theories can do anything but obfuscate the essential insight.
We are told that Zazen is already perfect. How could it be any other way?
For sure, words cannot really help us when it comes to these matters. According to Master Hogen’s teacher, Tangen Harada Roshi:
“There are those who have been studying the way for years, who have read everything they can, but for whom truth is somehow beyond reach. You can take any Buddhist text and read it an interpret it - every words of the Buddhist teachings is an exposition of truth - but you have to penetrate the exposition. Truth is not mere explanation - it’s what’s happening always and forever, what is happening right now. For that you have to let go of self-grasping and release the desire to look this way and that way outside of yourself, the desire the arrive at the answers rather than to be the answer…
It is far better than reading volumes of books to understand fully just one line, just one single word. Like counting the breath, following the breath, shikantaza, your original face before your parents were born. What is the sound of one hand?
Just this, just Mu - the brave will find enlightenment in one instant. Open your palms wide and release your hold. You won’t be satisfied by just words; they will always seem foreign, faraway, separate. You must receive truth fully, wholly - you have to become it.”
Tangen Harada Roshi
This lineage of teachers helped me understand that refuge in the Dharma is a simple matter. It’s not about rules or words. That is there is just this. Nothing to be done. Sitting is a complete and simple matter.
Simple though extraordinarily difficult. Because we are so far away from what we are.
Men like Hogen-san gracefully and kindly present to us a cogent reminder of the ultimate. And to remain humble in the inconceivable face of it. Not to get too hung up on things - conflicts, words, theories or books. Whatever other phenomena we amuse ourselves with.
It seems the curse of men, and women, not to easily realise this. Even though the masters tell us it’s actually all fairly obvious.
We tend to be so hopelessly addicted to words and theories that we cannot even enjoy the fruits of these human faculties on their own terms. We become their slaves; ruled by them.
In fact, we rarely taste life’s richness simply as it is. Becoming deeply enamored with fleeting constructs and illusions. Expending vast energies defending them. Not really having any idea of the debilitating illness that this really is.
Until I came across this lineage, I was very much this way. Very much. Still, as with most who engage in the way, something didn’t feel right about it all, so I stuck with it.
It was only years later, struggling through sesshins and home work, that I came to recognize how non-sensical and essentially self-defeating that way of being is. It’s also really quite funny. There’s something quite funny about being serious all the time, and using serious words as a proxy for profundity. The “search for truth” using words and theories - without any practice - really a total absurdity.
Beyond this, any discrepancy between words and do-ing is a rank, self-diminishing task. It was through the Zen method he and his students imparted to me, and some others, that I came to realise this as an inescapable truth.
Life is so much better when simplified, and distilled.
Looking back under my no-doubt at the time furrowed brow, all I was really engaged in was a laughably silly obscurantist magic trick. Whatever it’s practical utility appeared to be.
Many in these spaces are wrong when they speak of life-denial and Buddhism. Zen is very much life affirming; it cuts through the essential delusions we burden ourselves with for no good reason. With these burdens, we are in our normal state the true life-deniers.
Zen frees up our bodies and minds in real ways. Practice energizes us. It is the exact opposite of deadening.
All this must be experienced. And once it is, no matter how small the initial taste, it takes root. Things can’t be seen the same way again.
As Master Tangen Harada says…you won’t be satisfied with just words; they will always seem foreign, faraway, separate.
Life then becomes a playful matter. A process that is light, vital. To be enjoyed. To be cherished. Light though somewhat ironically experienced as deeply as possible. For the gift that it is.
And it is due to this man that I even had access to this way, this practice.
“Just THIS, awareness of THIS.”
(Republished obituary)
Zen Master Hogen-san
Rev. Daido Hōgen Yamahata, the founding teacher of Open Way Zen, died in Spain on 31.03.2024, aged 88.
Hōgen san’s life was committed to spreading peace through each of us awakening to the deepest truth of our existence. In 2004 he wrote, “Utimately, it is the most crucial and urgent task of our own awakening nature of compassion and understanding to put off our inner-war-fire which is the seed of wars in the world, everywhere.”
Born Yuzo Yamahata, on 28 September 1935 in Kiryū city, Gunma Prefecture, Japan, he started zen practice at age 16 under Tetsugyū Ban Rōshi. In 1961 he entered Bukkokuji Zen Monastery in Obama, Japan for formal training under the guidance of Harada Daisetsu Tangen Rōshi, initially as a lay practitioner. Hogen san’s story of his native koan, which led him to awakening, can be read here: life koan.
He ordained as a priest on 8 August 1963, taking the name Yamahata Daidō Hōgen, and received certification of Dharma transmission on 10 November 1972. He eschewed the title of Rōshi, and was simply known as Hōgen san.
On 16 April 1974 Hōgen san was appointed Abbott of Chōgenji Temple in Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan, and in the same year married Keikō Katsuyama.
In 1980 Hōgen san led daily zazen sittings and gave lectures on Zen at the British Aikido Federation Summer School at University College of North Wales, Bangor. From then until 2016 he led retreats in Ireland, England, Holland, Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Norway, France, Spain, Portugal, U.S.A., Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand and India. Hōgen san had an intuitive understanding that the dharma being transplanted to the west needed to sprout and develop in its own organic way and not be defined by the formal zen practices of his native Japan.
Hōgen san authored “On the Open Way” (published in English, Portuguese and Japanese in multiple editions), “The Other Shore”, and “Falling Leaves, a Shooting Sprout” (Portuguese and English bilingual edition). He also translated two of Thich Nhat Hanh’s books into Japanese, “The Heart of Understanding” (privately published) and “Transformation and Healing”.
He made regular visits to Australia between 1986 and 2016, spending much of his time during these visits at Byron Bay, where a practice centre, Dōchu-an, was established through the efforts of his students.
In 1989, Hōgen san established Jikō-An in Spain, a Zen meditation centre located on the southern slope of the Sierra Nevada.
In early 2013, Hōgen san formally recorded his lineage transmission to a number of his Australian students who have undertaken to transmit his teachings there, whom he referred to them as “sprouts shooting from the old plum tree”. From that time, he was able to devote more time to his “life-work”, that is to live like a humble novice monk and to try and document the essence of his teachings for future generations. He finally retired as an active teacher in 2016, when he left Australia for the last time and went to spend his last years in Spain.
On behalf of Hōgen san’s thousands of students we offer our condolences to his family and express our gratitude for the significant sacrifices that they made so that he could benefit the lives of so many via his very humble, simple and direct teaching of zen. He once wrote, “… the only one kōan and mantra we all have is just THIS (awareness of THIS, discovery of THIS)”.
ZAZEN: SITTING MEDITATION
by Hôgen Yamahata
I often think we are deceiving ourselves by
imagining we are involved in spiritual pursuits;
and spiritual activities are very fashionable these
days. It is easy to join meditation retreats of one
kind or another believing we are undertaking
something meaningful. but in fact we may
merely be indulging in a kind of spiritual
recreation.First of all, it is necessary to be free of any
preconceived ideas about meditation, and also
of any kind of habitual thinking, to starve the
mind of ideas and thoughts. Zazen is not a way
of gaining great knowledge; it is a way of
humility there being nothing to acquire, nothing
to keep; it is the transcendence of all that is
habitual in us. It is this vast unknown original
field of reality which no one has ever explored
Each moment is new, virgin soil.Our whole lives should be penetrated by zazen;
whatever we do should be none other than
zazen; there is no spare time to indulge in
anything, even zazen itself. And no preparation
is needed for this, because meditation is our
original way of life; it is the deep peace of the
mindfulness we experience when our whole
being is absorbed and opened by what we are
doing now, be it sitting, or going about our
daily activities.Our own individual being is like a man in a
small boat; and the boat is floating at the mercy
of the waves on the sea. So long as we remain
like that man in a boat we shall be easily
influenced and disturbed by daily events,
clinging to conventional beliefs and old habits in
the hope that they will provide us with some
kind of security; our entire lives may pass like
that of a dreamer, or a drunkard.Zazen is the recognition of the universal life, as
it is, within us. Everyone is seeking eternal life
and peace, but it is, miraculously here within
this moment. Deep peace does not always
come from inspiration, special knowledge, or
practice; it is present in each and everyone's
exhalation, in the deep silence of no-mind.Zazen is a primordial practice, essentially the
trinity of body breath, and mind; and true
zazen will not be opened in us until our sitting
posture, breathing, and mind are correctly
adjusted. Daily practice, awakened determination
and teachings bring about this trinity of zazen.
We must sit with the back straight and breathe
calmly leaving thoughts as they are to come
and go like clouds in the sky Our eyes will
naturally be cast to the ground in front of us,
not looking at anything; everything around us
naturally being reflected, as it is. When we have
no focus inside or outside of us, we have 'ten
direction eyes', and are free from everything.Breathing is the rhythm of the universe; it will
awaken us to the truth that there is nothing but
the breath of the cosmos, coming from an
immaculate origin.To sit in zazen is to experience transparency and
nothingness, as well as endless abundance. To
sit in zazen is to discover the one within who is
born anew every moment of this timeless reality
When one acts with intention, however, there
is a split between God and man. To sit and sit
without one's 'self' is real sitting.Do not have satisfaction, or dissatisfaction —
Just sit and sit and sit. Once sitting is truly settled,
the mind is free from wandering, and one is
peace itself To sit firmly and unconditionally is
to realize one's original simplicity and to
understand clearly that very little is needed in
ordinary life. Seeing this, one is purified.Zazen is the cessation of the everyday business
of thinking! It is, in fact too simple to want
to continue — doing nothing, expecting
nothing, getting nothing! But we should not
be sitting-machines. If our everyday lives are
unsound, it is impossible to practise the real way
of zazen. If zazen is not the son of daily life, it is
a lie. But the opposite is also true — daily life is
the son and zazen the mother.We do not need a particular time to be at
'the gateless gate of dharma', it is enough if we
sit in calmness for a while each day Being busy
is not the same as having the empty sky in our
hearts. If we sit we find that we can sit
however busy we may be. Time will be found
for eating and sleeping. So, if we say we have
no time for meditation, what we are really
saying is we have other priorities.We are all beginners. This is not only true, but
necessary — even for someone who has been
practising for more than one hundred years. This
is not trite sentiment. We need the beginner's
mind in everything, whatever we do, whoever
we are.Expert practitioners are naturally able to discern
and rectify their attitudes and actions the
moment the need arises. They are always able
to abandon their own selves. They are always
beginners.This is the meditation of infinite awakening; this
sitting does not remain as our own.Generations of peoples, primarily in Asia, have
maintained that the historical Buddha, Gautama,
invented zazen, and so was an Absolute God in
zazen. The truth is, of course, zazen was not
born of, nor created by the historical Buddha;
Buddha was born of the unfathomable depths
of zazen. We too may be born from the same
place, as countless buddhas have in the past.
We are all absolute perfection in zazen, infinite
perfection — the transcendence of ourselves;
the transcendence of the practice; the
transcendence of all things. Zazen is and was
the mother of Buddha. We should confirm this
with our own direct experience — otherwise
we shall be carried away by man-made stories
and the euphoria of dogma; and this is not our
true practice.