Question
Dear Kosen: I have been following the Buddha’s teaching for eleven years. I began with Deshimaru’s teaching, then moved to Thich Nhat Hanh’s, by accident, LOL. Right now I feel lost, because I am discovering there is a lot of perversion in Zen and Buddhism. I see that you are a very authentic master who questions many things, very honest, and I like that. But I wonder whether this obsession with zazen isn’t also a kind of perversion of the Buddha’s teaching, because to me Zen is a state of being or not being (well, you know better than I do), LOL, that can be present in everything we do and in every possible and imaginable posture of the human body, not only the zazen posture. You say, “Zen is zazen,” but zazen is sometimes Zen, not always, right? It gives me the impression that there is a kind of delusion about this posture, a kind of deification that isn’t very Zen, LOL. So my question is: Why are you so attached to a posture? Isn’t it just one posture among others?
Anonymous
Answer from Master Kosen
When you have practiced one hour of zazen meditation, the “king of samadhis,” as taught by the Buddhas and patriarchs, you still have twenty-three hours to experience Zen in any posture you like and in every possible situation in your life.
What’s the problem? LOL?
To draw a circle, you must mark the center from which you anchor yourself to draw that circle, which is only an emanation of the center. You would like a circle without a center, a kind of deformity you would call Zen, since supposedly everything is Zen? That is why Master Deshimaru said: Without zazen, nothing is Zen.
Kosen