Question
1/ The Sixth Patriarch says, “Sitting is an illness, but it is not Zen.”
How can we understand this when the basis of Zen today is precisely the zazen posture??
2/ It is said that “perfect, unsurpassed awakening”—satori, enlightenment, etc.—is sudden and has no stages of development; otherwise it could never be attained.
How, then, can we speak of evolution and refinement in Zen practice??
Anonymous
Answer from Master Kosen
Do not make categories. Do not think about the Way; practice it. You give me a quotation without saying where you got it? From the Platform Sutra, I imagine. Who translated it? A mondo always has a relationship between master and disciple at a particular moment, and Eno was speaking to his disciples. I think the Sixth Patriarch meant the following: there are errors in practice, illusions, called mayoi in Japanese. One illusion is to sit like frogs, thinking that is Buddhism, or, as some say, to make the mind blank and that is it. But zazen is not something dead. Changes are always appearing around us, and Buddhism is living, concrete wisdom, beyond categories. The wisdom of zazen, hishiryo, allows us to live while accepting the opposites and contradictions we encounter at every moment in life. Practice is not something dry and barren, and the same goes for satori: it is immediate understanding, but also digestion and application in daily life.
Kosen