Author: Jeff

My “Nowhere to Go” Mantra

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Thursday evening sit on July 3, 2025. A recording follows the text.

This is Case 171 in John Daido Loori’s translation of Dogen’s compilation of 300 koans, The True Dharma Eye:

Dizang said, “Where are you going, Reverend?”

Fayan said, “I am wandering on a pilgrimage.”

Dizang said, “What is the purpose of your pilgrimage.”

Fayan said, “I don’t know.”

Dizang said, “Ah! Not knowing is most intimate.”

Straightaway, Fayan had great realization.

We return to this cherished koan repeatedly. We tend to focus on Fayan’s not knowing and Dizang’s declaration that not knowing is the most intimate.

But what is it that Fayan doesn’t know? He doesn’t know where he’s going.

Fayan was a senior monk at another monastery. He had some sort of transformative experience that prompted him to take a group of monks on pilgrimage, presumably in search of something—learning, a site for a new monastery, or whatever. Along the way, they took shelter in Dizang’s monastery during a rainstorm, and so we get this case.

In his encounter with Dizang, Fayan realizes he doesn’t know where he’s going. In this encounter he comes to realize more profoundly there is nowhere to go.

Knowing we’re ultimately nowhere—nowhere knowable in the small and constraining way we’ve been seeking to know—paradoxically is the most vital, alive, liberating way to be present to our own life, to others, and to experience. Knowing there’s no ultimate goal or magical end state we can reach—giving up the game and the ghost—frees us to be here, now as the goal. Knowing this deep in our bones—so deep we forget it—allows us to live with ease. To avoid layering the kinds of suffering we can avoid over the kinds of suffering we can’t avoid, like sickness, old age, and death.

I have long understood all this conceptually, and I’ve long professed it as a Zen student and teacher. But, honestly, it’s still sinking into my bones; not yet set in them and forgotten. My present experience is somewhere between Fayan’s and Dizang’s respective experiences as recounted in this koan, if we allow ourselves to idealize a bit about Dizang’s experience.

I know this by observing and being honest with myself about the ways I show up as if there’s someplace ultimately important to go, and as if I know where it is and I’m headed there.

How many times am I rushing to get to our Thursday night sights, driving a bit faster and more aggressively, and with more tension, anxiety, and anger, than I would have if I had left myself more time to get here? That would require doing less, being less busy, and that would require me to see some of the things I’m doing and goals I’m pursuing as less ultimately important than I seem to think they are. You know what? Many of the things I’m doing, perhaps most or even all of them, are less important than I think they are, ultimately speaking, and even viewing many of them solely from Zen’s relative perspective.

The other day I left my home for my office soon after Sunrise Sit. I had just meditated, and yet now I was mired in the start of an overly programmed day, rushing to make my first meeting. I came to a rolling “stop” at an intersection and made a right turn into traffic, apparently leaving the driver in the oncoming car to little space. He became angry with me, zoomed around and past me, pulled in front of me almost causing a multi-car accident, and then slowed down to taunt me. We started exchanging unpleasant words and gestures. Our days and the days of those around us got off to an unpleasant start.

What good is this? Where do I think I’m going that’s so important or desirable to get to that I’ll let it ruin my own present experience and the experience of others?

Since that experience I’ve taken up a new mantra: “Nowhere to go.”

When I’m walking from the elevator to my office and I pass the person who always wants to stop me to chat, even when I’m rushing to log onto Zoom for a meeting, and I bristle because I feel I just don’t have time for it?

Nowhere to go.

Conversely, when I’m asked to do something worthy, by someone I respect, and I feel guilty about saying no but realize saying yes will detract from other commitments and add avoidable stress to my life?

Nowhere to go.

When I’m inclined to close my office door reflexively, to create a supposed sanctuary for myself, a barrier between me and a world that sometimes seems to expect too much?

Nowhere to go.

When someone walks through that open door with a need or concern, or just a desire to connect, diverting my attention from a project or a pleasant distraction in which I’m immersed?

Nowhere to go.

Nowhere to go.

Action

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen zazenkai on June 14, 2024. A recording follows the text.

Impermanence was the theme of my last talk, which I gave at Sunrise Sit on June 4th. I opened it with this case from the Blue Cliff Record:

A monk said to Dasui, “When the thousands of universes are altogether and utterly destroyed in the kalpa fire — I wonder whether this perishes or not.

“This perishes,” said Dasui.

“If so,” persisted the monk, “does it follow the other.”

“It follows the other,” said Dasui.

As you can see, we’re serious about the idea of impermanence in Zen. Even emptiness is empty. It dies with form. Don’t think of it as the ultimate ground of reality, at least if you’re imagining something that exists apart and persists forever.

I said at the end of that talk that I would connect the observable truth of impermanence, of change, to action. I’m making good on that promise now. 

Let me open this talk with another koan, a brief story, from the record of Dogen’s teaching, together with his brief commentary on it:

Mayu, Zen Master Baoche, was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, “Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why, then, do you fan yourself?”

“Although you understand that the nature of wind is permanent,” Mayu replied, “you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere.”

“What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?” asked the monk.

Mayu just kept fanning himself.

The monk bowed deeply.

Dogen’s commentary:

The actualization of the buddha dharma, the vital path of its authentic transmission, is like this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, the wind of the buddha house brings forth the gold of the earth and ripens the cream of the long river.

Here we meet yet another monk who has gained some insight—and who is stuck in emptiness. He thinks the nature of wind somehow exists apart from wind. He thinks he’s grabbed the lion by its tail and caged it. He’s not yet become the lion.

We know the wind as it beats against us. As we move the fan. We know the lion as it roars. As we roar.

The nature of emptiness can’t be expressed as an idea (even this one): Emptiness is only ever actualized, enacted. Emptiness is expressed as action. The action of the wind. The action of my hand moving the fan.

Action is motion. The best definition of life I’ve ever heard, from a biologist, is movement. Living things are moving things. And everything is alive, even supposedly dead things. Corpses and logs are expressing a form of life we call decomposition. They’ll eventually spawn forms of life that appear to be moving faster for a while, until those life forms “die” and decompose.

Motion is change. Impermanence.

What does it mean to say the nature of wind is permanent? What does permanent mean here?

Change. Wind moves as wind.

In my last talk I also said another core tenet of Zen Buddhism is that our default mode is to resist the reality of change. We cling to whatever evokes pleasurable feelings. We’re averse to whatever threatens to take away pleasurable feelings. We remain willfully ignorant to the reality of impermanence; to our inability to avoid change. We seek a safe haven in which nothing changes, and in which we needn’t change.

Mayu is demonstrating a more viable path. The path of activity beyond ideas. The path of becoming a Buddha. Dogen said, “Buddha-nature and becoming a Buddha always occur simultaneously.” The nature of wind and wind always occur simultaneously. 

Our ideas also are activity. We must permit them to change. I never get myself into more trouble than when I cling to a misguided viewpoint or idea about some situation and myself and others in relation to it. 

It’s 90 degrees out. Mayu is hot. He fans himself. An appropriate response. 

I’ve taken offense at what someone else has said or done. My blood is boiling. I fan the flames. An appropriate response? Likely not.

How are my preexisting, fixed views conditioning the experience and my reading of it? Can I let my views be susceptible to change? Can I remain open to newness and possibility, including newness and possibility within myself? Can I remain truly present and curious? If so, perhaps I’ll use my fan to cool the room, or even to extinguish the flames, rather than fanning them.

Zazen—our practice of sitting still—is activity. It’s the activity of becoming a Buddha; of learning to act as a Buddha acts. Finding the still point on the crest of the wave of impermanence. Maintaining our balance there. Knowing how precious this passing moment is and how precious those with whom we briefly share it are. Knowing this in our bones. Moving as the wind, roaring as the lion, to enact that knowing.

Even This Perishes

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. A recording follows the text.

This is Case 55 in The Blue Cliff Record:

A monk said to Dasui, “When the thousands of universes are altogether and utterly

destroyed in the kalpa fire — I wonder whether this perishes or not.

“This perishes,” said Dasui.

“If so,” persisted the monk, “does it follow the other.”

“It follows the other,” said Dasui.

Sleep. Morning dew. The chill in the air. Feeling happy. Feeling sad. This day. Tomorrow. This life. All life.

Impermanence is a core tenet of Buddhism. Why? Because it’s observably true. How can we deny the reality of change?

Another core tenet of Buddhism is that our default mode is to resist the reality of change. We cling to whatever evokes pleasurable feelings. We’re averse to whatever threatens to take away pleasurable feelings. We remain willfully ignorant to the reality of impermanence; to our inability to avoid change.

This koan probes the furthest reaches of Zen Buddhist notions of impermanence. The monk accepts that the morning dew, and even our whole universe, will vanish. But what about this?

We Zen types are always point to this. Just this. But what is this? Is this permanent?

No, the Dasui says. Even this perishes. It perishes with the tea and the teapot. With the moon and the stars.

As usual, the answer to the koan is in the question. The monk divides the world into this and that. Destroyed and not destroyed. 

And, as usual, the question is about oneself. The monk has some insight into the Great Matter. He’s seen into emptiness—and has become identified with it.

If emptiness is not destroyed, might I live on?

Just as form is no other than emptiness. Emptiness truly is no other than form. When all the many universes are destroyed in the kalpa fire, their moons and stars with them, emptiness perishes with them. And you and me with them. This is no thing.

This koan is about as close as Zen gets to dogma on physics and metaphysics. As physics and metaphysics, this perspective undoubtedly is debatable. But we know the Buddha declined to engage in metaphysical speculation. I don’t think Dasui is engaging in metaphysical speculation either.

The monk is still looking for something permanent to hold onto. He’s searching for the ultimate and equating it with permanence. Dasui is channeling the ancients that preceded him, and foreshadowing the ancients that will follow him, like Dogen, who tells us that hitting the mark—finding what we’re seeking—is knowing we never have another nest than this fleeting moment in this fleeting life in this fleeting universe in which to settle.

Dasui is advising the monk, and advising us, that, whatever perspective you may have on physics or metaphysics, it’s best to live in accord with the observable reality of change, including the ways we ourselves, and our own perspectives, are susceptible to change. Orienting ourselves in this way invites and enables, in turn, a particular orientation toward our actions, or activity, another key Zen theme that Dogen emphasized in his teaching. It opens us to newness and the possibility of an appropriate response to what’s arising here and now, rather than to our prior, fixed and, quite possibly, misguided views on ourselves, others, and the situation in which we now find ourselves–views on which we may have a death grip and which we may layer over our immediate experience, strangling the life from it. I’ll return to and develop this theme in my talk during our upcoming Zazenkai.

I’ll close by reading our koan again . . .  

Crossing the Flood

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit on May 21, 2025. It’s based on the poem “Calm” by the early Buddhist nun Upasama:

How do you cross the flood?

You cross calmly—one step at a time, feeling for stones.

How do you cross the flood, my heart?

You cross calmly—one step at a time,

or not at all.

Gatha of Atonement

Jeff

I gave this talk a short while ago at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit. A recording follows the text.

Last Thursday we began using a different version of the Gatha of Atonement during our sutra service. It’s Version 3 in our Sutra Book. We’ve been using Version 1.

Here’s Version 1:

For all my unwholesome actions since olden times,

from my beginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance,

born of my body, speech, and thought,

Here’s Version 3:

I now fully atone. 

All harm caused by me,

because of my greed, hatred, and ignorance,

through my conduct, speech and thought,

I now deeply regret.

I thought I’d comment this morning on a few of the noticeable differences between these two versions of this important verse that’s chanted daily in Zen communities. Let’s take them line by line:

For all my unwholesome actions since olden times (Version 1)

All harm caused by me (Version 3)

The first line in Version 1, which speaks about “my unwholesome actions,” seems entirely focused on, and primarily concerned about, me as the person reciting the verse. At the same time, the phrase “since olden times” introduces one theme of the first version: my actions are entangled with events that precede my personal history. In this verse we’re looking at my actions from the perspectives of oneness and relatedness, or interbeing, which is important and beautiful, and which also raises challenging questions about the degree to which I’m even responsible for my actions.

The first line of Version 3—“All harm caused by me”—seems laser focused on how my actions have affected others and seems to place responsibility for them on me.

The second line in each version also highlights these distinctions:

from my beginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance (Version 1)

because of my greed, hatred, and ignorance (Version 3)

Version 1 seems to suggest my “unwholesome actions” somewhat mysteriously arise from my “beginningless” greed, hatred, and ignorance, Buddhism’s three poisons. I do appreciate the reference to mybeginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance. It conveys a both-and quality that implies I have a responsibility for all that is, including the consequences of unskillful actions throughout history that precede my personal existence. Version 1 of the gatha seems to let me off one hook to a certain extent by acknowledging that my personal karma is entwined with all karma, past and present, but it also tells me I’m on the hook regardless.

Once again, Version 3 is simpler, more direct, more focused on my responsibility. The harms to others I’ve caused: I’ve caused them because of my own greed, hatred, and ignorance. This is because I ignorantly imprison myself and others in the delusion of ontological separation and horde more for myself and/or burden others with what I don’t like, including my own projections (that is, what I don’t like in myself).

Ignorance is something we should talk about more in Zen circles, especially our tendency toward ignorance by choice, or “motivated ignorance,” as psychologists call it. This is a key strategy humans use to cling to partial narratives that provide false security and comfort.

born of my body, speech, and thought (Version 1)

through my conduct, speech, and thought (Version 3)

I must confess that “born of my body” seems far too exonerating to me. I get that we don’t choose our lives or bodies, at least initially, and that we don’t control our impulses entirely. I get that, depending upon things like the color of our skin, disabilities, or gender, some of our bodies are read by others in society in ways that are unfair and hurtful. Still, for purposes of this verse, I prefer the third line of Version 3. The harm I’ve caused because of my greed, hatred, and ignorance—and most of us have caused at least some harm, whatever our circumstances, causes, and conditions—is caused through my conduct and speech and the thoughts (or thoughtlessness) that motivates them. My body—my limbs, vocal cords, and brain, to the extent I have them or they function in typical ways—is an instrument. And most of us do have considerable agency with respect to its activity.

I now atone for it all (Version 1)

I now deeply regret (Version 3)

I like the word “atonement” for its layered meanings. At-one-ment provides a view of our broken world and interconnected selves from a relational perspective and of our neither-perfect-nor-imperfect universe from the perspective of the Absolute, of oneness or wholeness. Version 1 of the gatha uses the verb form of the word: atone. This suggests I must do something, whether just acknowledging my unwholesome actions or trying to address their consequences somehow.

Yet it also feels to me like there’s something lacking, or at least not sufficiently acknowledged, in the word atonement—something affective, something emotional—that’s captured in Version 3. It calls upon me to “deeply regret” the harm I have caused. To turn toward it, see it, understand its conditions, causes, and consequences, fully own all that, and deeply feel others’ pain—and my own. To deeply feel the weight of our own responsibility. I see that as a prerequisite to genuine atonement. If you’ve ever received an apology from someone who claims to get the harm they’ve caused but is defending themselves against deeply feeling the weight of it—or you’ve offered one yourself—you know that apology is not clean and will land flat.

Each of these versions of the gatha is beautiful. Each shines light from a different angle. Both are true. Neither is best. Version 1 may feel more approachable and palatable for many of us in the West, having grown up in traditions, or in family cultures, that may have been punitive and shaming. The first version can feel like a welcome corrective to that. Yet we can take that corrective too far. Version 3 of the gatha can help us accept responsibility maturely, without deflecting or defending against it; without succumbing to crippling shame if we’re prone to it. It’s nice to have and be mindful of both versions. 

Shikantaza and Mindfulness (or Zen and the Other Mindfulness, Take 2)

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit today. A recording follows the text.

I gave a Thursday evening talk earlier this month about Zen and what I called “the other mindfulness”: the work of Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer, whose research has revealed the surprising power, and many health and other benefits, of simple awareness—of paying attention. You can find that talk on my blog if you didn’t hear it.

Langer describes her work as the study of mindfulness, but she chose that term without knowing about Vipassana meditation, which is more commonly called mindfulness meditation. She sees no connection between the two. In fact, she thinks mindfulness meditation can be mindless. She says mindfulness is what might happen for meditators after they meditate, and that you don’t need to meditate to experience it.

Langer’s disclaimers haven’t stopped people from making connections between mindfulness meditation and Langer’s research about the power of noticing. They’re all wishful thinkers from Langer’s perspective. But all the comparisons are made between her work and Vipassana meditation, which is very different than shikantaza, Zen’s approach to meditation.

I think there are interesting connections between Langer’s take on mindfulness and shikantaza. Those of you who heard my earlier talk will recall that I asked an AI tool, Claude, to help me explore possible connections. Here’s what it said, which I think is quite good:

1. Non-goal orientation: Both Langer’s mindfulness and shikantaza emphasize process over outcome. Langer critiques mindless pursuit of goals, while shikantaza explicitly avoids meditation as a means to an end.

2. Present-centered awareness: Both approaches value immediate experience rather than abstract analysis. Langer emphasizes noticing novelty in the present moment, which aligns with shikantaza’s open, non-discriminating awareness.

3. Rejection of rigid techniques: Langer’s approach doesn’t involve formal meditation techniques, and shikantaza is considered the most technique-free form of meditation.

4. Creative engagement: Langer emphasizes creative engagement with one’s environment, which has some resonance.

So, this morning I want to say just a bit more about what’s going on in Zen’s approach to meditation in my experience, and why I do think it supports “the other mindfulness” (Langer’s version), whatever may or may not be happening in other forms of meditation. 

Here are some of the key functions of Zen meditation and how they help us cultivate the presence of mind and being—presence to experience, to life—that Langer studies:

  • Capacity to cope. When many of us begin to meditate, we fear we won’t be able to sit still for 25 minutes. That we won’t be able to tolerate the discomfort. That the sky really will fall if we don’t respond to that email now. Maybe we fear just being with our thoughts and feelings. One of the first things meditation does is simply increase our confidence that we can bear experiences we’d cast as unbearable. This reduces adventitious suffering: the extra suffering we tend to layer over suffering we can’t avoid, like an injury, or that we choose to endure, like a surgery to repair an injury. Meditation—all or most forms, I imagine—develops our capacity to cope, and this helps us become more at ease with life, with ourselves, and with others we find challenging.
  • Inclination toward noticing. This is Langer’s territory. It’s what she studies. Shikantaza truly is the most technique-free form of meditation. We just sit. There’s nothing more to it. So all that’s left is being. All that’s left is noticing, receptivity. What do we notice? We notice leaves rustling and sirens getting louder, then quieter, then gone; we notice our stomach growl; we notice our noticing come and go. We notice impermanence. Change. The river. 
  • Nonseparation; identification with it all. The river’s water works on the stone that we are, or at least that we’ve imagined ourselves to be. It smooths it, softens it, makes it porous, dissolves it in time. The distinction between stone and water becomes less clear. We feel less separate; more part of it all. More attuned to context, because we experience ourselves as woven into the fabric of our context. Sometimes we forget ourselves—in a good way.
  • Comfort with no-thing. The more we sit and notice, the more we know and don’t know. We know our experience more intimately, but confidence in our capacity to contain it conceptually declines. Our best concepts and constructs remain useful, but we see their limits. We no longer hold them so tightly. We develop comfort with not knowing and not being able to contain or control everything.

These are some of the fruits I feel Zen meditation practice, and Zen practice more broadly, offers over time. They seem very related to and supportive of the qualities in which Langer sees such value, including genuine curiosity and the capacity to get out of our own frame to consider others’ experience. Ultimately, she’s all about creativity: our capacity to respond freely and appropriately to life in the moment; to be creatures that co-create creation. I think Zen’s all about that, too.

The Hands and Eyes of Compassion

Jeff

I gave this talk on March 15, 2025, at our annual Two Traditions, One Family Zazenkai (one-day retreat) with and at Providence Zen Center.



This is Case 89 in The Blue Cliff Record:

Yun Yen asked Tao Wu, “What does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion use so many hands and eyes for?”

Wu said, “It’s like someone reaching back groping for a pillow in the middle of the night.”

Yen said, “I understand.”

Wu said, “How do you understand it?”

Yen said, “All over the body are hands and eyes.”

Wu said, “You have said quite a bit there, but you’ve only said eighty percent of it.”

Yen said, “What do you say, Elder Brother?”

Wu said, “Throughout the body are hands and eyes.”

Tao Wu is saying compassion isn’t something we do. It’s what we are. It’s what we’re made of.

Can you feel it? Do you experience it all through your body? If not, maybe you’re not compassionate enough with yourself.

Have you had that pillow experience? I have. I’m shifting in bed, still in a sleep state, but conscious enough to know I’m readjusting my position. I reach for a pillow without thinking and put it someplace that provides support and comfort. And then I slip back into deep sleep. It all just sort of happens.

I got new pillows a few years ago. They’re great for side-sleepers, but too heavy. Now, when I adjust them, I struggle and strain my shoulder. I need to buy lighter pillows, but I don’t.

What is this part of me that doesn’t seem to take care of myself? Is it there when I’m not as compassionate as I could be during the day?

If you’re like me, others do things that can trigger you. We respond harshly sometimes. It’s a protective reaction. We feel vulnerable somehow. There’s something important at stake, but our reaction neither leads to the care we need nor addresses the relationship challenge with wisdom and compassion.

Maybe that vulnerable part needs compassion before we can respond less reactively. Maybe it needs to know we’re tending to it, perhaps by setting healthy boundaries in the relationship or reconfiguring it.

Perhaps I don’t replace the pillows that bother me when I sleep because I overload myself when I’m awake. Part of me feels vulnerable to becoming overwhelmed, so it’s on overdrive, cutting things from my to-do list that’s always too long. Too often it’s cutting things important to self-care.

Maybe we should listen to those vulnerable parts whispering about something we need, so we care for ourselves better and can express our karma more fully and clearly. So we let compassion move more freely around and through and as us.

Zen and the Other Mindfulness

Jeff

I gave this talk on March 6, 2025. A recording follows the text.

There are thousands upon thousands of students who have practiced meditation and obtained its fruits. Do not doubt its possibilities because of the simplicity of the method. If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
– Dōgen

I recently listened to a long podcast interview of Ellen Langer, a pioneering and iconoclastic social psychologist who I admire immensely. I’ve never met her, but her work has quietly influenced my own—and my view of human folly and potential more broadly—for the past 30 years. She has been studying awareness, attention, and their implications for personal and social wellbeing for nearly half a century. 

Langer initially was interested in what she called mindlessness. Her work on mindlessness quickly piqued her interest in its opposite, which she called mindfulness. Langer’s use of the term mindfulness has led to some confusion between her ideas, on the one hand, and practices and ideas initially associated with Theravada Buddhism in the West, on the other hand. Today, Buddhism writ large—all streams and practices, including Zen—tends to get reduced to the term “mindfulness” in the Western popular imagination. Buddhism and mindfulness have become nearly synonymous.

But Langer didn’t know anything about meditation or the way some people were using the word mindfulness when she began her research. She chose the term mindfulness to describe her own research interest independently decades ago, and she’s still not particularly interested in so-called mindfulness meditation. 

Let me tell you just a bit about Langer’s work and findings. I learned about her as a graduate student as I worked closely with one of her colleagues. I used to spend endless hours in the basement of Williams James Hall, where the Harvard psychology department had its library, photocopying articles and book chapters I needed for my work on conflict resolution. Can you imagine? That was the Stone Age. Who does that anymore?

One of Langer’s early experiments involved copy machines. She observed how people standing in line to use a copier reacted when one of her graduate student collaborators tried to cut the line. Sometimes she would say, “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the xerox machine?” About 60% of the time the collaborator would be allowed to cut. But, sometimes, when her collaborator cut the line, she would say, “Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?” In these cases 93% of these poor people mindlessly let Langer’s collaborator go first, even though she had given them a contentless non-reason for cutting the line. Needless to say, everyone else was in line because they also needed to make copies.

Langer became famous after another of her early experiments. She put a group of frail men in their 80s together in a residence that had been set up in every way to resemble the world 60 years earlier. The newspapers were reprints from their youth. Antique radios and TVs played music and shows from their 20s. Before long, these men were playing basketball together. Their mental health improved markedly. Blood draws before and after the experiment showed important biomarkers improved significantly, becoming typical for a young person.

Langer has produced scores of other fascinating, pathbreaking research over the years, much of it focused on improving health and healthy longevity. I’m looking forward to reading her most recent book, The Mindful Body. As the title suggests, she doesn’t accept the notion of mind-body dualism.

So in this interview I mentioned, Langer said something that has led to this talk. Asked whether her work on mindfulness was connected to mediation, Langer said no, then added, “mindfulness is what happens after meditation.” She’s implying that mediation can be mindless, or just unrelated to mindfulness by her definition. She’s more interested in the experience of those of us who meditate when we’re not meditating. Meditation is valuable from her perspective only if it promotes mindfulness as she defines it. And, even when it does, she’s saying it isn’t the only way to become mindful off the cushion. While I do think different forms of meditation can produce benefits other than those Langer cares about most, I agree with her as far as she goes.

But Langer’s conception of mindfulness is mainly contrasted with Vipassana meditation—its techniques, goals, and effects. Vipassana meditation is quite technique heavy and goal oriented. Langer is focused on developing our capacity to notice new things, to be present, and to be sensitive to context and perspective. In Vipassana, the goals are to develop insight into the three marks of existence (impermanence, no-self, and unsatisfactoriness), and eventually to attain nirvana: the end of suffering by exiting the cycle of birth and death. It offers a structured and staged approach to meditation in pursuit of these goals.

Zen’s shikantaza approach to meditation is very different, and very resonant with Langer’s work. All the comparisons of Langer’s work to Buddhism seem to focus on Vipassana, so I asked an AI engine (Claude) if it’s ever been compared to Zen. Here’s what Claude said:

“Most comparative analyses have indeed focused on contrasting Langer’s approach with meditation-based mindfulness derived from Vipassana/Theravada traditions (particularly as adapted by Jon Kabat-Zinn).

However, there are some interesting conceptual parallels between Langer’s approach and shikantaza . . . :

1. Non-goal orientation: Both Langer’s mindfulness and shikantaza emphasize process over outcome. Langer critiques mindless pursuit of goals, while shikantaza explicitly avoids meditation as a means to an end.

2. Present-centered awareness: Both approaches value immediate experience rather than abstract analysis. Langer emphasizes noticing novelty in the present moment, which aligns with shikantaza’s open, non-discriminating awareness.

3. Rejection of rigid techniques: Langer’s approach doesn’t involve formal meditation techniques, and shikantaza is considered the most technique-free form of meditation.

4. Creative engagement: Langer emphasizes creative engagement with one’s environment, which has some resonance with Zen’s emphasis on spontaneous, unfiltered interaction with reality.”

There’s so much more I’d like to say about this, and about what I think is going on when we sit shikantaza, but we’re out of time. Let me end with Langer’s definition of enlightenment, which she was asked about at the end of the interview. She seemed a bit taken off guard because it’s not really her thing, but she was happy to respond anyway. (Langer is a very happy person.) I loved her answer. She said enlightenment is being curious about the reasons someone else is doing what they’re doing. That it’s a shift in disposition so that everything and everyone isn’t judged solely from our present, myopic perspective. She traces all our problems, personally and collectively, to that mode of perception and judgment.

Amen.

The Ten Grave Precepts and the Ten Commandments

Jeff

A Cursory Side-by-Side Comparison

This is a talk I gave at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit on February 19, 2025. A recording follows the text, which includes some elaboration on a few of the closing points not included in the recording.

We’re midway through the progression of our Precepts Study Group, in which many of you are participating. We’re currently discussing non-speaking of others’ faults and errors, the sixth of the ten so-called Grave Precepts.

The fact that we have exactly ten grave precepts got me thinking last week about the Ten Commandments and whether there are parallels among them and our Zen Boddhisattva Precepts. Having now examined the commandments and the grave precepts side-by-side, I think the fact that there are ten of each is a coincidence. But what are the similarities and differences between these sets of moral principles that developed independently within two—eventually, three—distinct religious traditions, Judaism (and, later, Christianity), on the one hand, and Zen Buddhism, on the other hand?

There are similarities. Each of the first four precepts—non-killing, non-stealing, non-misusing sex, and non-lying—has an analogue. Five of the ten commandments prohibit killing, stealing, coveting others’ possessions, coveting another’s partner and committing adultery, and bearing false witness. These similarities seem rather predictable. Across cultures and throughout history, to promote social stability, ethical and legal systems have provided slowly evolving norms about killing, stealing, lying, and sex among group members that tell them when these actions are and are not appropriate.

But there also are at least two stark differences between the precepts and the commandments.

The first difference is that we have several precepts that have no analogues among the ten commandments—yet the inverse arguably is not true. Each of the commandments arguably is contemplated by one of our precepts, but not the other way around.

We have a precept for non-misuse of intoxicants; for keeping a clear mind. We have precepts for non-talking about others’ errors and faults and for non-elevating oneself and blaming others. At least on the surface, it’s hard to see commandments that correspond to these precepts.

We also have a precept for non-being angry. We can see anger as an emotion that often fuels behavior prohibited by one of the commandments, like killing, but we have a separate precept about non-killing plus a separate precept about non-being angry. We also have a precept for non-being stingy. That may sound vaguely related to not coveting and not stealing, but I think it’s different. We’re encouraged not only to refrain from wanting and taking what is not ours, but to freely share what we have; to be generous.

The second stark difference between the Ten Commandments and the Ten Grave Precepts is that there are at least three, and maybe four, commandments that seem to be about respect for a god figure who seems rather self-focused, authoritarian, jealous, and obsessed with displays of loyalty. These are the commandments to recognize the lord as thy God, to have no other gods before thy God, and not to make idols of God or take God’s name in vain. Perhaps we can add the commandment to honor the sabbath to this subset. The sabbath is a day of rest but also the day when Jews and Christians gather to worship God.

If we were to make a connection between these commandments and one of our precepts, the leading candidate would be non-abusing the Three Treasures (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha). That seems like a fair comparison, but the spirit of our precept and the emphasis of these commandments seems very different.

There are three or four (!) commandments focused on submitting to and honoring a god figure who is somehow above it all. In contrast, we have one precept about not disrespecting the Three Treasures. (Notice we’re not told to exclusively elevate them.) And, as you know, we think of each of the Three Treasures both literally and metaphorically. Buddha is both the founder of our tradition, who is not regarded as a god, and our own innate, awakened, realized nature. Dharma refers to the Buddhist teachings and to all distinct beings and things in the universe as such. Sangha is the community of Buddhist practitioners and the unity, the ultimate oneness, the interconnectedness of all beings and things.

The metaphorical perspective on the Three Treasures also points to another major difference between the Judaic and Christian commandments and our precepts. The former are expressed as literal commands: “thou shall not” or “thou shall” do something. Our precepts are expressed rather curiously in terms of non-doing or non-being something.

As you know, while a literal construction of our precepts is one perspective we take on their meaning, we also consider them from two other perspectives, which we sometimes call the relational perspective and the intrinsic perspective. Whereas the commandments are expressed in literal terms—thou shall not kill—our precepts are expressed in the language of the relative or intrinsic perspective. Dōgen’s statement of this precept is at once relational and intrinsic: “Recognizing that I am not separate from all that is, I vow to take up the Way of Not Killing.” The older formulation attributed to Bodhidharma seems to double-down on the intrinsic perspective: “Self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the everlasting dharma, not giving rise to concepts of killing is called the Precept of Not Killing.”

I’ve just made a rather cursory comparison between the Ten Grave Precepts and the Ten Commandments. I know there are Jewish and Christian thinkers throughout the ages who offer less literal, more richly nuanced interpretations of the commandments. (I also should hasten to add that many of the older and much more numerous Theravada Buddhist precepts that partially inspired our Zen precepts also are rather literal prescriptions and proscriptions.) Even so, the differences between the primary expressions of the commandments and of our Zen precepts are striking and significant. Comfort with metaphor, mystery, nuance, and complex, synthetic thought and experience is part of the Zen vibe. It’s there from the start, both on the surface and at the core of our tradition.

Our tradition has a distinctive quality. Zen has a very different psychological, cultural, and spiritual developmental orientation than the mainstream elements of other religious traditions. Maybe we can think of this a bit like swimming pools, which can be shallow or deep or have a shallow end and a deep end. Zen has one depth: deep. Paradoxically, deep envelops, sustains, and partially expresses itself as shallow. We can think of the literal perspective—just don’t kill, for example—that way in the realm of the precepts.

This is evident in the fact that other traditions generally are better at connecting with young children and providing a context in which their development is supported. Many of Zen’s forms, practices, and ideas put relatively more emphasis on the relational and intrinsic perspectives. Seeing from all of these perspectives requires a developmental vantage point young kids (and even some adults) don’t yet occupy. There’s no problem with that, however, because kids are expressing all three perspectives perfectly all the time. And we can respond to them from all three perspectives with our more developed capacity to conceptualize and reflect on this without needing to conceptualize it. In fact, Zen practice ultimately is about un-forgetting and then forgetting again; awakening to oneness and then letting our awareness of it sink back into our bones. Conceptual realization is an important waypoint on the path for some of us, but real realization is about unselfconscious actualization. Simply expressing it. Presence. But elaborating on Zen through the lens of developmental psychology will need to be a topic for a future talk.