On Saturday 20th July the AZG hosted its first zazenkai - one-day intensive - at St. Chad's Church, our regular home on Thursday nights.

Zazenkai means 'to come together for meditation'. It's an opportunity to take time for extended practice and take a day out from our busy lives to practice together. It's also a good opportunity to practice for a longer period to prepare for longer retreats like the upcoming AZG residential sesshin in September.

This zazenkai, Allan Marett Roshi gave dokusan (one-to-one interviews between the teacher and student) a teisho (a formal presentation of the dharma) as well as an encouragement talk to help students with their practice. Allan has kindly let us publish his encouragement talk, which is below.

Thanks to the AZG committee for their work organising the day, and especially to Julian Di Bez and David Edwards for all their work!

Realisation and Compassion

An Encouragement Talk given at a one-day Zazenkai 20 July 2024.

Allan Marett Rōshi

Back in the 1970s, I had the good fortune to become a student of Yamada Kōun Rōshi and to practice, over a period of some years, with his community in Kamakura. Before meeting formally with Yamada Rōshi, I, like all new students, was required to listen to a series of lectures that had been written by Yamada Rōshi’s teacher, Yasutani Haku’un Rōshi. These lectures were later published in Philip Kapleau’s The Pillars of Zen. Some of you may be familiar with them.

Once I had completed the course of lectures, I was permitted to meet the Rōshi in a formal private ceremony known as shoken, or literally ‘first meeting.’ Most western sanghas, including ours, have abandoned shoken as a formal practice today, though the first meeting between a student and teacher is nonetheless a significant event. As part of the formal shoken interview, a Roshi would ask you about your aspiration in taking up Zen and depending on your answer, allocate you a practice. Yasutani Rōshi’s lectures recognised four types of aspiration. The first was simply the aspiration to become a member of a like-minded spiritual community. The second was to improve your mental and physical health. The third was to learn about Buddhism and the fourth was to attain Realisation or Awakening—kenshō or satori in Japanese—and to see clearly into your own true nature.  

Among the non-Japanese students practicing at the Kamakura Zendō there was a view, which was communicated to me, that if you wanted to become Yamada Rōshi’s student, you had better say, in the shoken interview, that your aspiration was number four: the desire to attain Realisation. Recently, however, I reread Yasutani Rōshi’s lectures, and was struck by the fact that he said, “Tell me your feelings honestly. Do not add anything out of pride or modesty. Depending on what you tell me, I will assign you the zazen most appropriate for you.” Thinking back, I now wonder if the advice that I got from my fellow students was correct, but nonetheless I followed their advice and duly told Yamada Rōshi that my desire in doing zazen was to attain Realisation and awaken to my true nature.

This was not a good start, because I knew, even as I told him, that this was not my primary motivation. The fact was that I, like many students, had come to Zen because of the pain and dissatisfaction in my life. I wanted to practice zazen in order to attain peace of mind and free myself from suffering. 

The tension between what I believed I was required to say became like a piece of grit in my practice. The question, “why did Yasutani Rōshi and Yamada Rōshi privilege a desire to attain satori-awakening over a desire to alleviate suffering?” became for a sort of natural koan for me. 

As I came to know more about Buddhism, I learnt that the Buddha’s motivation in embarking on the spiritual quest that led to his Awakening, had, like mine, been a desire to alleviate suffering. This is clearly set out in his very first discourse the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (or Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dharma), where he expounded The Four Noble Truths. Truth number 1 is that there is suffering. Truth No. 2 is that suffering has a cause, which the Buddha identified as clinging and aversion. Truth No. 3 is that there can be an end to suffering, and Truth No. 4. is that the Eightfold Noble Path, as set out by the Buddha, is the path to the ending of suffering. I don’t want to dig into these any more here. I just want to establish the centrality, in Buddhism, of suffering and the end of suffering.

My good friend and Insight Meditation teacher, Patrick Kearny, is very clear that for practitioners in the Insight tradition the ending of suffering is the primary project of Buddhism. According to Patrick, it is through the realisation of No Self (anatā) (what we might call Emptiness) that we are freed from suffering (dukkha).

So it seems that whereas the Theravadan Insight tradition focuses on the alleviation of suffering, Zen focuses on the attainment of Realisation. But it is not as clear-cut as this. Suffering and Realisation are intimately entwined in both traditions. In the Insight tradition, it is the attainment of Nirvana (Full Awakening) that puts an end suffering.  But Zen too sees Realisation or Awakening as the means to ending suffering. In the Zen tradition, this relationship is set out very clearly right at the beginning of what is arguably our most fundamental text, The Great Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra, which we always chant together when we assemble for formal practice—whether that be for our regular weekly zazen meetings on Sunday morning and Thursday evening, or in retreats such as this, or sesshin. Avalokiteswara Bodhisattva, practicing deep prajna paramita clearly saw that all five skandhas are empty, transforming anguish and distress. I like to paraphrase this as: when the bodhisattva of Compassion (Guanyin) practiced the Wisdom that brings us to Realisation, she clearly saw into the Emptiness of all things, and in this way brought an end to suffering (dukkha). So in short, the Zen tradition is very clear that Realisation is the path to ending suffering. It is by Awakening to our true nature that we cut out the very root of suffering. Isn’t this wonderful! This is why Zen so firmly put its emphasis is on attaining Realisation, or Awakening. So that we can free ourselves from Suffering.

And as for how I now feel about fudging my true aspiration in that first interview with Yamada Rōshi, well, in the end nothing goes to waste. The very grit that this initially confusing and unsatisfactory brush with the matter of Realisation and its relation to suffering created in my practice—the shame, the doubts, the confusion—ultimately grew into bright pearl. It is this bright pearl that sparked my talk today. I hope you’ve found it helpful.