On June 3, 1949, I met the nun-teacher Nagasawa Sozen of the Nun's Practice Center (dojo) and listened to her give a talk. At first I thought, "How could she understand this pain, this suffering? She's never given birth to a child or raised a child, much less had a child be killed." My hard heart was shut tight, leaving me without a soul in the world to turn to. However, as I listened to the talk, and was touched by her character, I felt somehow that there was dragged out from me some kind of innocence free of poison which was just on the other side of my deep and relentless bitterness.
My feelings toward Nagasawa Roshi changed a little, and as I was pulled along more and more by her lecture I decided, "maybe I'll give meditation (zazen) a try. The upshot was that I tried meditating for two days, then three, and finally completed a week's retreat (sesshin).
As the retreats piled up, my shallowness bored deeply into me, by which I mean I realized that though it was true that Nagasawa Roshi had not borne a child, raised him, and had him die, with respect to the search for knowledge she possessed exalted experience surpassing that of the world's mothers. I was bitter. And yet, wasn't there deep within me a great, shining compassionate heart which spontaneously wrapped itself around humankind in all their infinite variety? Yes, a compassionate heart! I made my decision: "I too will be the disciple of this teacher. I'll break through the barrier!" Henceforth, as I pressed ahead on the path, I depended upon the teacher in my literally do-or-die struggle. However, I did not escape from the saying, "It's easy to say but hard to do." During the retreats, my pain and sorrow, my melancholy and wretchedness were beyond words; those who haven't had this experience cannot know what I suffered.
As a beginner, jumping headfirst into this world without knowing the first thing about it, my first surprise was a big one. When I saw the group earnestly taking up the practice of Mu, I didn't know whether to think it was a joke, or some kind of stupid incompetence, or perhaps that I was in a mental hospital and they were psychotics. Meals were even more surprising. When we received two slices of pickle, we reverently joined our palms in thanks. How often we joined our palms- for the rice gruel, the water, the clearing up- from beginning to end, the whole meal seemed like it was taken with joined palms! These harmonious manners were truly graceful and beautiful, but on the other hand, I felt that the solemnity brought with it an oppressive restraint.
In the search for Mu, I didn't relax my meditation posture, I didn't sleep, and I lost sensation in my whole body from the pain in my legs. But despite the fact that I was struggling with the misery of a thousand deaths and ten thousand pains, just when I wished for some mercy, I was hit from behind [with the encouragement stick], making sparks fly from my eyes. It was the first time in my life that I had ever been hit by anyone. "How barbaric!" flared up my rebellious thoughts. I went furiously into the private interview with the teacher (dokusan).
"Don't spout logic! It's just your ego!" she thundered at me, driving me out with the ringing of her bell.
"Mu-, Mu-, Mu-" with all my might. I thought, "I am driving myself to death or insanity knocking up against this." But each time the teacher would crush me with, "That's emotion! That's theory! That's interpretation! What are you waiting for?" My faith, my ideas were demolished. "Mu-, Mu-, Mu-," while sleeping, while eating, while in the toilet room, just Mu.
As time passed, I lost my appetite. At night I couldn't sleep, but sat up in meditation. The fatigue of body and mind reached an extreme. I was seized, tormented by Mu to the extent that during walking meditation, my feet could not take a single step forward. Though Mu was in my tears, I could not seize Mu. Private interview was always, "That's an hallucination! That's just a belief! That's just an idea! That's just a blissful feeling!"-an unbearable, merciless, cutting whip of words.
Soon all means were exhausted and I had nothing left to cling to. "Oh, I'm no good. I'm an evil person totally lacking the necessary qualities to be helped." How many times I gave up, sinking to the bottom with a sorrowful "thud"! I even thought, "My son disappeared with the dew of the battlefield, but I don't think his suffering was worse than mine is now."
At one time I clung to the Roshi, overflowing with hope, believing that only she was capable of being my spiritual teacher; but after all, that was still my ignorance. Another time I decided to run away as fast as I could from this practice center; I went to my room, and as I was tearfully packing my bag, I heard a voice from deep within my heart saying: "Under the sky of a far-away foreign land, no food, nothing to drink, lying down in a field, sleeping in the mountains, how many times did he dream of his home? I'm sure he wanted to see his father and mother, his beloved younger sister. Cutting off his unsuppressable personal feelings, fully aware of the preciousness of his life, with no way to advance and, following his superiors' orders, no way to retreat, what was his distracted state of mind like?"
"I must think of my child's death in war!" I thought. "What is my hardship? It doesn't amount to a thing! If I don't open up the way here and now, when will my dead son and I be released from the world?" Instantly, all thought of fleeing vanished. Greatly stirred and with courage renewed, I picked up the practice again.
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