Richard Shrobe is a Gestalt therapist in New York City, where he lives with his family. He is Abbot of Chogye International Zen Center of New York. Compiled from talks at Cambridge Zen Center, November, 1986, and Chogye International Zen Center of New York, December 1988 and January 198

Wu Kwang, Zen Master (Shrobe, Richard)

Biblioteca Digital de les Illes Balears

PRIMARY POINT
Stepping off a One-Hundred Foot Flagpole
byRichard Shrobe.JiDo Poep SaNim
An old kong-an says: "Before the donkey has left, the
horse has already arrived." lnis kong-an tells something about
ourminds, because itpoints to the fact thatmoment by moment
many different thoughts are occurring - horses coming, don­
keys going. Before this one has even left, the next one is already
on its way. In the Avatamsaka Sutra it says, "If you want to
understand all the Buddhas of the past, present, and future, then
you should view the whole universe as being created by mind
alone." The Avatamsaka Sutra is one of the major Buddhist
scriptures, a very vast, visionary work, and in one paragraph it
says the essence of understanding Buddha is just to view the
whole universe as being created by mind alone. How can we
understand this mind that creates a universe?
At the end of a one-day retreat recently, I told the story
of a man who encounters a genie, or supernatural being, who
says, "I will fulfill onewish for you." The man says, "I'd like to
geta view ofthe differencebetween heaven and hell." The genie
says, "O.K., I'll show you." He takes him to adoorand they enter
a huge banquet hall. On the table is everything you might wish
to eat, and if something is not there you only have to think about
it to make it appear. But there's one injunction in this setting:
You have to use special utensils. These utensils have aglove that
fits up to the elbow, and attached to this glove is a fork that is so
long that the food doesn't reach your face when you bend your
elbow. All these people are sitting at the table trying to feed
themselves, but they can't get the food to their mouths.
Then the genie takes thisman through anotherdoor, and
they fmd an identical setting. Again, the same utensils are being
used- so long that the food never reaches the people'smouths.
Butin thisparticular room thepeople are seated across from each
otherat the table, and the person on this side of the table picks up
a piece of food and extends it over to the person sitting across
from him. Because the fork is extremely long, it just reaches the
otherperson'smouth, and likewise theman or woman sitting on
the other side of the table picks up amorsel of food and extends
it across the table and the person opposite eats it
.
So, which one is heaven and which one is hell? Exact
same setting, exact same situation, exact same implements, but
the relationship to those implements and to the situation is totally
different One is a desperateattempt to feedoneself, and the other
is a perception of cooperation and interdependence between
beings who have similar needs, desires, wants, and interests -
heaven, hell. If you want to understand the realm of all the
Buddhasof thepast,present, and future, then you should view the
whole universe as being created by mind alone.
How does mind create this universe? When the Heart
Sutra talks about the five skandhas (form, feeling, perception,
impulse, consciousness), it indicates one way oforganizing our
perception of the world and of ourselves. The Sanskrit word
"skandha" literally means a heap or aggregate. Thus, we bring
October 1989
together these different aspects ofexperience and begin to relate
to things and experiences through them. That means at any
moment our experience of self and world comes into being
through the interplay of these five elements.
Imagine amoment of absolute clear space before any­
thing has occurred. The first thing that will happen is a sense of
something coming into being. This is the aggregate or skandha
of "form", the mind's tendency to form something out of the
primary openness of any particularmoment. Form .feeling : A�
form arises,youwill begin tohave a feelingabout it-good, bad,
orindifferent. Form, feeling,perception: Then youwill perceive
itin someway. Form, feeling, perception, impulse: Impulse here
means the tendency to go towards it or to pull away from it. And
consciousness: Final recognitionof the whole event. That's our
experience, and it's created through the interplay of those five
energies. It's just a way oflooking atmind and perception; it's
an organizing principle. Somebody dreamed up that set of
categories to talk about thewayweorganizeourexperience. You
Originalmind, mind which is
before thinking, is already
relaxed, already clear, already
radiant andperceptive.
could dream up any number of categories.
But the important thing about the Heart Sutra, and the
reason youwill never see a skandha face-to-face, is that itsaysall
five skandhas are empty. To perceive that they're all empty
means to perceive that none of the things that we take as our
experience is self-sufficient. These things don't have a perma­
nent, enduring self in them in any way. They're all dependent on
something else. Also, to see things as emptyof the names, labels,
and opinions we attach to them is to see the skandhas as empty.
There is nothing wrong with naming things. The
problem is thatwe take those names seriously and think thatifwe
name something it exists in that way. There's a Buddhist saying
that "all names are no names". What does this mean? That is a
kong-an. Names are no names; no names are names. That
doesn't mean that we have to get rid ofall names and labels. It
justmeans we shouldperceive thatnaming something isn't solid.
It's translucent, transparent; don 'thold it tightly. When you feel
your arms, there's a feeling in yourarms, there's just feeling your
arms. That's the moment before you give rise to calling it "my
body", as if it were something apart from you. That experience
is just that. It is emptyofself-nature, empty ofsome category. It
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just iswhat it is at thatmoment. Itdoesn'tmean there is nobody,
like it dissolves or is insubstantial, although, from a scientific
pointof view, an atomic physicistwould tell you the same thing
as an ancient philosopher: Everything is in flux. Your body is
ultimately just a mass ofenergy. You could say thatmeans it is
not abody, forit is notenduring, notpermanent There's no self­
nature to it, and it depends for its existence on many things
outside it.
Ifwe were going to philosophize, we would say your
body is dependent on the water, the air, the food you ate, the fact
that a farmer in Nebraska grew the food you ate; the list could go
on and on, until your body in this moment is only there because
the whole universe is there around it. If you talked about the
farmerwhogrew the wheat for the breadmade thismorning, then
you would have to talk about all the things the farmer is depend-
Richard Shrobe, Ji Do Poep Sa Nim
enton aswell; it goes on and on. Yourbody is notexisting in and
of itself. It's existing because ofmany other things. It's interde­
pendent. And, ifyou recognize interdependence, then you recog­
nize compassion, because you realize we're not in this alone. If
someone is hurting that means I am hurting, and the sense of
kinship and connection emerges.
In Zen training, we give rise to the question, "What am
I?"Zen practice is essentially understandingmy true nature, my
true self. What am I? Ifyou raise thatquestion, immediately you
are face to face with the state ofmind that does not know. What
is the essence of this "I"? All day long, I'm using the word "I"
this, "I" that, "I" the other thing, but what does theword "I" refer
to? As soon as you try to look for it, you're leftwith abigquestion
mark. Don't know. You have just that mind, that actual
experienceofthatmomentofnotknowing. And thatnotknowing
is your original self before thought, before words, before ideas.
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That notknowing is open. Why? "Clear like space" is clear like
amirror, so if red is coming at the moment, it totally just reflects
red. Ifwhite is coming, it totally just reflects white. From that
standpoint, the reflective mind is the mind that is responsive to
the situation at hand, themind that is involved in clear function­
ing. It is the mind that is capable of compassionate activity,
because it is not holding anything in a limited way. It's like a
mirror, reflecting and becoming one with the situation at hand.
Morality, or right and wrong, or good and bad, are perceived in
relationship to thatmoment. What is correct in the moment? If
you're not holding a limited notion of anything, then you can
perceive what is correct in this moment. What is my correct
function right now? What is my correct situation right now?
What is my correct condition right now? It doesn't come outof
apreconception; itcomes outofa responsiveness to the situation.
But that can only occur if you let everything go and have that
clear-like-spacemind, mirror-like, just reflective.
But this letting go ofknowing can produce a lot of fear.
One old Zen Master said, "It's like when standing on top of the
flagpole, 100 feet in the air, howwill you take one step forward?"
Lettinggoofall thisknowing feels like steppingoffa flagpole 100
feet high in the air,and- pkshhh! - that's the imagined sense
because the whole world as we know it is organized around our
experience andhow we've categorized it This is this, that is that,
or this in relationship to that, etc., etc., etc. The whole world
comes into being for us in relationship to categories thatwe have
developedovera lifetime, or ifyoubelieve in reincarnation, over
many lifetimes. If you let go and enter the realm ofunknowing,
at that moment fear arises because knowing is security.
If you think you know something, then you feel secure
at thatmoment. The world is as it should be, because you know·
what it is. But theminuteyouenter the realm ofnotknowing, you
give up thatsecurity andenterinto theborderlineofgoingbeyond
knowing. At thatpointvitality canemerge,because it'snotbeing
limited by what's known. But vitality that's not supported from
within turns to anxiety. The physical experience ofanxiety is a
kind of narrowing down of the chest and not getting enough air
at the moment. But if you can experience uncertainty without
narrowing down, by getting enough support from your centerof
gravity and recognizing that you have eyes, you have ears, you
have tongue, you have body, you have mind, you have orienta­
tion, you have all these things, then -POW! - you can just
perceive without having to know beforehand.
I'm talking ideally here. Obviously, this is an ability
that develops. But, we set up all these categories, all these
knowings, as a way of securing our ground. Of course, it's
necessary to have categories and to know things and to think
about things in certain ways. That's not the problem. Knowing,
or thinking, is not the problem. It's clinging to the knowing as if
our lives dependedon it, as ifwewere sittingon a flagpole 100 feet
in the air, clinging to the known and rejecting the possibility of
stepping beyond it at thatmoment. That's the difficulty. Cling­
ing. Attachment. Holding something and declining that step
beyond is the real issue at hand. The step beyond is the step of
non-knowing. It is beyond knowing. If you step beyond the
October 1989
PRIMARY POINT
categories of non-knowing and knowing, then what emerges?
Something thatis neitherknown,nornotknown. Something that
neither appears nor disappears. That's why in theHeart Sutra it
says no appearance, no disappearance, no purity, no impurity.
Stepping beyondalloppositecategoriesjustmeanscoming to the
realization of what is. And the most profound transcendental
experience is the most simple fact of what is.
How do we perceivewhat is, moment-by-moment-by­
moment? Do we perceive what we are doing, moment-by­
moment-by moment? Ifwe're resenting, do we perceive that in
this moment? Ifwe're pressuring ourselves, doweperceive that
in this moment? Ifwe'remaking ourselves afraid in some way,
do we perceive that in this moment? How are we killing
ourselves in thismoment? How arewehesitating from taking one
step forwardoff the flagpole100 feet in theair? Outofembarrass­
ment? Outof fear ofhumiliation? Out offear offailure? Outof
fearofbeingable tonegotiate thenext step? Little childrendonot
have the same difficulty. Watch them when they start to walk..
They getup, takeone step, then another. Theyplopdown, getup,
walk some more. That's it. It's no big deal.
That's why we have to perceive that "not holding"
mind, not holding so tightly to our ideas about what's going to
happen next. That's why in the Heart Sutra it says, ''When the
Bodhisattva perceives that all five skandhas are empty, he is
saved fromall suffering anddistress." Then there isno hindrance
and no fear. Ifyou see that all five skandhas are empty, that you
are not a self-sufficient independent being at war with your
surroundings, then there is not so much to guard here as you
thought. There is not so much to secure. Then you can more
readily go with what is without fear, without resentment.
That's why we practice, to get established and develop
somedegreeofrelaxed steadiness ofmind. But that isn't the end
that we're practicing for. That's just something you need in the
practice. Essentially, thepoint is that originalmind,mindwhich
is before thinking, isalready relaxed, isalready clear, is already
radiant andperceptive, so it isn't somuch amatterofdeveloping
those qualities as amatterof returning to ouroriginal self, which
is essentially thosequalities. That's thedeepermeaningof"even
before the donkey has left, the horse has already arrived." Even
to say it's "those" qualities is to put some label on it It's
something that is before labelling. But things such as relaxation
or calmness or clarity are not things that you're practicing to
develop, from theZen Buddhiststandpoint Those things are the
actual essenceofmind energy, and are there themoment you let
goofconditioning,clinging to a situation,clinging to an opinion,
clinging to ideas.
Ithelps tounderstand thatall this conceptual framework
- good and bad, right and wrong, should and should not -
comes from parental and authority figures. So Hui Neng, Sixth
Patriarch, asks, "When you don't make good and bad, at the
moment,what is youroriginal facebeforeyourparentswereeven
born?" Don't think that's something in the past, before your
parentswereborn. Ateverymoment thatwegethooked onto the
train ofmaking opposites, making conceptual referents, holding
opinions, that is giving birth to our parents. Time goes back-
October 1989
wards, not forward. It goes from present to past. Any moment
when we begin to get caught in some chain of associations, and
rights and wrongs, and shoulds and should nots, and judgments,
and seeing ourselves or the world in limited ways, then that
moment is giving birth to our parents. So Zen means becoming
an orphan.
At any moment, when you don't make good and bad,
what is your original face before your parents were born?
Original facemeans empty.Iike amirror. That'swhymanyZen
illustrations use this empty circle. That means empty and
simultaneously full. Empty and simultaneously complete, whole.
Totality is there in thatmoment. Meditation is to perceive that,
to be with that, then to use that. So how will you know when
you've seen the five skandhas face to face? You'll know when
you recognize your original face before your parents were born.
RichardShrobe is aGestalt therapist inNewYorkCity,where he
lives with hisfamily. He is Abbot ofChogye International Zen
CenterofNewYork. Compiledfrom talksatCambridgeZenCen­
ter, November, 1986, and Chogye International Zen Center of
New York, December 1988 and January 1989.
What is this?
Gray Dharma caterpillar
12 pairs of legs clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp
through the dharma room and out onto the deck
eating everything in sight:
thinking thinking legs hurting
kimchee cricket sounds
da wonderful soups of Do Won
branches stirring up the wind
sitting walking eating sleeping
through days and weeks and months
while leaves turn red and fall
and snow covers the ground
over and over again until nothing
but a Buddha in the night sky
that looks like a Pillsbury doughboy
that eats the dharma caterpillar
burps up - butterflies
with blue black wings and lapis lazuli spots
that skywrites:
WHAT IS THIS?
DavidJordan
DiamondHill ZenMonastery
SunvnerKyolChe,1989
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Stepping off a One-Hundred Foot Flagpole

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