Coming Home: Body Practice and True Human Form

Dharma Talk by Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Sensei
Book of Serenity, Case 8
Dongshan’s “Always Close”

Featured in Mountain Record 25.4, Spring 2007

The Pointer

Jiufeng, cutting off his tongue, made a
sequel to Shishuang;
     Caoshan, cutting off his head, didn’t turn
away from Dongshan.
      The ancients’ sayings were so subtle—
where is the technique to help people?

The Main Case

A monastic asked Master Dongshan,
“Among the three buddha-bodies,which
one does not fall into any category?”
     Dongshan said, “I am always close to this.”

Hongzhi’s Verse

Not entering the world,
Not following conditions;
In the emptiness of the pot of ages there is a
     family tradition.
White duckweeds, breeze gentle—evening on an
      autumn river;
An ancient embankment, the boat returns—
     a single stretch of haze.

Body practice is one of the eight gates of training that we engage in the Mountains and Rivers Order. Daido Roshi has spoken of body practice as the “miracle of aliveness,” which I’ve always found very compelling. We are sentient—sensing, feeling—beings. The world around us and inside of us is constantly flowing into and through our senses. This world that we experience is one of sounds and textures, colors and shapes, tastes and fragrances—a vast, boundless banquet of food for the senses. We experience all of this through our senses which are located within our physical body. Yet this is also how we experience the world of pain and distress, sorrow and injustice. When we first enter into Buddhist practice and zazen, we can easily conclude that practice is very mental. We hear a lot of talk about the mind; we sit on a meditation cushion, allowing the body to become perfectly still—not seeming to use the body at all. We may conclude that zazen does not have anything to do with physicality. With time, the practice of zazen itself may dispel that false belief, but even though the evidence is right in front of us, we can still ignore it.

To study the buddhadharma is to study the nature of mind, but we have to understand what is meant by “mind.” “Mind” in Buddhism is not our brain, not something lodged in our skull. In zazen, we intentionally drop our awarenesss that is usually so fixed in our heads, down into the hara to help us break away from that rigid way of understanding “mind” and from putting all our energy into our head which stimulates thought. “Mind” is what we awaken to. A student asked Master Mazu, “What is buddha?” Mazu answered, “Mind is buddha.” The nature of mind reaches everywhere, and yet it cannot be found. It includes everything, but you can’t grasp it. To realize the self is to realize mind, and this mind is everything. If it includes trees, rocks, space and time, it must certainly include our physical body.

photo by Rodolfo Clix

That notion of dividing who we are into different categories is like believing we are a chest of drawers—in one drawer is our physicality and in another is our spirituality, in yet another drawer are our emotions and in another is our intellect. When we go to the gym, we are in the physical drawer and the other drawers are closed. We go to the temple, and we’re in the spiritual drawer; we’ve left our physicality at home. Naturally, this is not who we are nor is it an effective way of learning how to be a true person, a whole human being. This is not the way reality is, therefore we cannot practice this way if we hope to directly perceive and live in accord with reality. What happens in practice is we begin to see all those drawers as one thing. When we begin to realize this, we can begin to practice the entirety of our lives as one truth, one body.

First we need to understand a little bit about this student’s question—“Among the three buddha-bodies, which one does not fall into any category?” In Mahayana Buddhism, we speak of the bodies of the Buddha—kaya means body. One of those bodies is the dharmakaya—the body of reality—the true body, which is free of all characteristics, free of all distinctions. It has no abode, it has no aspect. It is not contained within nor defined by our skin. There is no inside and outside to this body, it reaches everywhere. A student’s first insight into the nature of the self is insight into the dharmakaya—the true body of the Buddha. The sambogakaya refers to the body of bliss or the reward body. It is the body of the enlightened experience—the body that bears the fruit of spiritual practice, and bears the marks of an enlightened being. Finally, the nirmanakaya is the transformation body, the body of the Buddha that appears in the world. Shakyamuni was a nirmanakaya buddha—a buddha appearing in the world to teach, to serve, to help others awaken. At the same time, these three bodies of the Buddha are one body, and every single person possesses all these bodies. So this student is asking, which one has no characteristics, can’t be defined, has no inherent existence? Which one does not fall into our ordinary way of seeing things, is not fixed, and does not fall into any conditioned existence?

The physical body is the place of our deepest, strongest sense of personal identification. It seems so obvious that if we are anything, we are our bodies, right? From the very beginning when we are born, what happens? We count fingers and toes. We “coo” and delight over this precious, exquisite body—this new person—and we begin the process of discrimination: is it attractive, strong, small or large? At birth we perceive the body as the creation of something new, something that has not existed before. It has eyes and skin, hands and toes and hair. And as we grow, we begin to turn more and more of our attention and energy to this body, to watching and studying it, to laud its positive aspects and criticize the negative ones. We have mirrors all around and we become fixated on this body, because we believe that’s who we are.

Everyday we experience ourselves and the world around us through this physical body. While this is not wrong, it is not entirely right. We take this body as the person, and therefore become attached to it—not only attached to our own, but attached to the bodies of others. It’s what we can see, smell, taste, touch, experience in a visceral way. It is not only how we experience another, but it’s how we express our experience.

We identify completely with the body and so too evaluate it: Is it good? Is it not good? Is it valued? Is it praised or criticized? That evaluation begins to have an increasingly important role in our sense of ourselves and others. If we are male or female, if we are light-skinned or dark-skinned, if we are tall or short, thin or large, all of these things become very important in terms of determining selfness. And although that evaluation is present for everyone, for some it is the primary fixation of their lives—sometimes because they love it so much, sometimes because they have so much aversion to that body.

Years ago when I was a teenager I read a book by the naturalist and writer Annie Dillard. She talked about finding a spider one day—a spider that was missing some of its legs. She reflected on the imagined life of this spider, how it clearly lived a real life, had been through challenging events to have lost its precious legs. Rather than seeing this as loss and diminishment, she saw it as a tribute or testimony to having lived fully. Unfortunately, we don’t see our bodies the same way. We see the aging process as a diminishment of value, and culturally that is precisely what happens. As the body becomes less valued, the person becomes less valued.

When we take up the question of life and death as a spiritual question and we begin to face the certainty of our own mortality, we may encounter a certain degree of anxiety about our bodies because we equate their loss as the loss of our selves. This belief is precisely what keeps us trapped, not only in our bodies, but in this very small way of seeing things. That is why zazen is so essential—letting go of that small, confined way of understanding who we are, so that we can experience the dharmakaya. Yet we cannot experience this through the senses; the senses cannot perceive that true body. Thus, we quiet the mind and let go of grasping at the senses so we can leap free of them and experience this true body of reality directly. We discover that there is an experience of life that transcends what we can touch, taste, think, see, and hear; and yet, at the same time, is not in conflict with our senses.

This is one of the reasons we discipline ourselves to sit in stillness. It is not just for the sake of discipline, but because of the way we identify with the body as self. As long as the body is moving, we recreate the illusion that “I am here,” and more to the point, “I am.” It is only in that deep, perfect, complete stillness that we can actually begin to let go of that self-awareness of the body. It’s not negating the body; it’s providing the space through which we can move beyond grasping to experience one’s true body. Why? So that we can inhabit our physical body freely, without any restriction.

In some of the early Buddhist sutras, and in many religious traditions, the body is presented as an obstacle to spiritual practice. We have bodily sensations that then give rise to desires. We see something nice, and we want more of it, and that’s where we can get into trouble. And so from the perspective of asceticism, the solution is to deny the body, deny your desires, starve the senses. The body can then become the enemy, which just reaffirms the illusion of the body as self. In the Shobogenzo Dogen has a fascicle entitled Shinjin-gakudo (“Body and Mind Study of the Way”) in which he said, “To study the Way with the body means to study the Way with your own body.” Who else’s would you use? “It is the study of the way using this lump of red flesh.” The difference here is that in Zen we use the body to see through the body. Desire is not the problem; the senses are not the problem; the object that we perceive is not the problem. The source of the problem is our attachments, our way of experiencing our bodies and desires. The true body comes forth through the study of the Way, through the study of the self by forgetting the self. Through forgetting the body, the real body appears. In other words, we experience it for the first time as it truly is. All our ideas—good, bad, old or young—drop away and there is “the miracle of aliveness.”

Dogen says, “Everything which comes forth from the study of the Way is nothing but the true human body. The entire world of the ten directions is nothing but the true human body. The coming and going of birth and death is the true human body.” Clearly he is not talking about just this physical form, nor is he negating it. “To turn this body around, to abandon the ten unwholesome actions, keeping the eight precepts, taking refuge in the three treasures, and leaving home and entering the homeless life is the true study of the Way. For this reason, it is called the true human body.”


photo by Jane Cleary
In this koan, the student wants to know which of the three bodies of an enlightened being are not fixed, are free of all categories. Dongshan says, “I am always close to this.” How close? How close do you have to be to go beyond any category? A hair’s breadth of distance is like a thousand miles. As long as you can see that to which you’re moving closer, there are still categories and distinctions. We are still in the realm of the discriminating mind which arises when a single thought appears. In true intimacy there is no distance. “I am always close to this.” Does this mean Dongshan never has a single thought arise? To be free of conditioned existence is to be liberated unconditionally. It is not dependent on a certain state of mind. The presence or absence of thought cannot create or eliminate delusion; if so, then our liberation is dependent upon that particular state of mind. This is why it’s said, “When one thought is enlightened, all subsequent thoughts are enlightened.” Thus Dongshan says, “I am always close to this.” This intimacy, this true human form, this body of the Buddha is always present.

Dongshan doesn’t explain “not falling into any category,” he doesn’t talk about intimacy. This would be to move away from it. In the pointer, reference is made to different masters who “didn’t turn away from Dongshan,” that is, also used skillful means to help their students directly experience this intimate truth. Caoshan was a disciple of Dongshan. After Dongshan’s death a student asked Caoshan, “What is the meaning of the late master’s saying, ‘I am always close to this?’” Caoshan said, “If you want my head, cut if off and take it.” If you want to realize the mind of the Master, you must see it for yourself. Shishuang was a contemporary of Dongshan. A student asked Shishuang about the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West. Shishuang gnashed his teeth. He did not explain the truth of Zen, but embodied its subtle truth. Jiufeng was Shishuang’s disciple. A student asked Jiufeng about Shishuang’s response and Jiufeng said, “I’d rather bite off my tongue than violate the nation’s taboo.” What is the taboo? To speak intellectually about the truth is to move away from it, to fall into categories of this and not this. Jiufeng would rather lose his tongue than create such illusions.

Zazen is the practice of closeness, of that true intimacy with body and mind. It begins with being stuck on your cushion. Once the bell rings you don’t move, you’re contained. Zazen is skillfully holding you so you can’t go anywhere, can’t go looking somewhere else for relief. Sometimes what feels like closeness gets so claustrophobic that we want to leap out of our skin. Yet, there is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, nothing to avoid, no distractions from our distractions. All our nervous habits, all the ways in which we express not being close begin to be revealed. It can be very painful and yet it’s the only way to return home. An old Chan master wrote a poem about this case:

This closeness is heart-rending
if you search outside;
Why does ultimate familiarity
seem like enmity?
From beginning to end, the whole
face has no color or shape,
Still your head is asked for by Caoshan.

When you look from the outside, trapped there on the cushion, it’s heart-rending. It can get very emotional because you’re looking from the outside. Things can look monstrously large and insurmountable or pathetically small and meangingless. Why does this closeness seem like the enemy—something of which we are afraid? What is it that we actually fear? What we see when searching from the outside is not what we see when we turn toward ourselves. That is why it is so important to come close. We all seek intimacy—with others, with our lives, as something that is meaningful, with God, with the breath in zazen—and yet, this very intimacy is what frightens us most. Just look at how many ways we ingeniously avoid it.Students of our order are encouraged to take up body practice. Some take up traditional disciplines, such as Qigong, Taiji, or other forms of moving meditation. Some people dance, some people run. It’s not about building up the body. It is not, ultimately, even about being in good shape or taking care of our bodies, even though this is very important. It is about realizing the true body of the Buddha through the human form. Then we begin to realize that every action is a form of body practice: How we open a door, how we take off our clothing at night, how we pick up a cup of tea, how we handle the bodies in our lives—in other words, the “other” bodies—all practice is, in a sense, body practice. Shaking hands, hugging a friend, hammering a nail, washing vegetables, all of it reveals the depth of our ultimate familiarity or the lack of it. What we begin to see is that in our actions, in the way that we move, we are expressing, moment after moment, that depth or shallowness of our intimacy with this life.

During and after high school, I spent a number of years working in veterinary hospitals and on farms, and so I saw animals in many different states of health and illness. When animals lose some ability, they just deal with it. They just shift. It is like the trees in the city that you see growing out of concrete. You see how they mold around signs and wires and they just work with things as they are. But for us, Why does ultimate familiarity seem like enmity?

Hongzhi’s poem reads: Not entering the world, Not following conditions; In the emptiness of the pot of ages there is a family tradition. Our family tradition is realizing our true nature, that all things are empty of inherent existence. In birth, there is no entering the world; in death, there is no departing. In the midst of the myriad streams of life and causes and conditions, we can be free of those conditions. Neither ignoring nor following after and being defined by the ten thousand things: white duckweeds, breeze gentle—evening on an autumn river. In autumn, the vast array of living things begin to drop away, there is a deep stillness. As the footnote to that line says, “Pure, empty, cool, plain.” And within that cool stillness, white duckweeds bend gently in the evening’s breeze. There is no obstruction or conflict between the weeds and the breeze; each moves in perfect accord.

photo by Marcelo Gerpe

An ancient embankment, the boat returns—a single stretch of haze. To realize oneself is to go from the shore of delusion to the shore of enlightenment. When we reach the other shore we realize that we haven’t gone anywhere. This shore and that shore are the same place. We realize we actually haven’t taken a step, even though we have covered many, many miles. Having discovered that mountains are not mountains—we are not our bodies—we realize that, after all, mountains are mountains—our body is the body of the true human being. We realize that although there is poor health and good health, youth and old age, life and death, in birth there is no arrival and in death there is no departure. To realize this is to realize the body and mind of the Buddha.










Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, Sensei is vice-abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery, branch president of the Zen Center of New York City: Fire Lotus Temple, and head of the National Buddhist Prison Sangha. He received Dharma transmission from Daido Roshi in 1997.