MEETING THE ONE WHO SHOWS UP
by Josh Bartok

Meeting the one who comes, the one who shows up, is the fundamental practice of zazen, of sitting, what we do on the cushion and what we do and carry with us into our lives. Meeting the one who shows up is a practice of intimacy. And this is a word that I really never heard particularly until I started hearing it in the context of zazen - to practice intimacy, to practice sitting intimately, to practice intimately being present to your own experience. It initially struck me as very odd; for many years I was not quite comfortable with what that meant. But with time it has come to be a really really helpful description of what it is we’re actually doing, sitting open-heartedly, broken-heartedly, wounded-heartedly present to whatever is here for us. Meeting the one who is present when we sit down, when we come to practice for whatever reason. We want to be better, calmer, wiser, more enlightened, more relaxed, happier. And maybe once in a while during our zazen we have a moment of some side effect of niceness. Then the very next moment of the same period, we find it’s gone.
 
And it’s easy to get stuck in a mode of pursuing some state, some conditional state which is something that isn’t always here, something that – like all dharmas, all things – comes and goes, isn’t permanent. The Dharma isn’t that. Zazen isn’t that. Zazen isn’t conditional. It’s always available. And so what is it that is always there? That’s one path into your practice on the cushion. What’s here now? What’s here now, for me? Often what’s here for me on the cushion is an absolute certainty that I’m kind of sitting hunched-over somehow or crooked, I’m just sure that there’s something wrong with my back muscles, and that because of the way I carry my bag or something, there’s this feeling of lopsidedness that is present for me. One approach is to try to just straighten that out but that hasn’t really gotten me too far.
 
Another thing that’s often present for me is a sense of inadequacy. General personal inadequacy, Dharmic inadequacy, feelings of my own fraudishness as a Dharma teacher. There’re different places where things are present. Things are present in the mind, things are present in the body, things are present in the emotional body. And sometimes there’s a kind of striving that’s present, for me. And I feel this both in my body, there’s a kind of pushing forward that I notice in my body. Or there’s this striving in my mind where I think that I’m trying to clamp down on something. None of these things are bad. The one who is present is the one who’s got this body that’s kind of messed up, the one who’s experiencing striving. So what’s here? The practice of zazen is to just notice that.  Without trying to fix it, and without completely identifying with it, melding yourself with it. Being kind of deceived by it. We talked about Mara the deceiver – these are all the different maras , illusions that come up.
 
This is the practice of zazen, the practice of shikantaza, just sitting. I’m increasingly of the opinion that all Zen, all zazen is shikantaza, koan zen (at least in part, for me) is shikantaza, breath counting is shikantaza, following the breath is shikantaza, just sitting, choiceless awareness, as James sometimes calls it, is shikantaza.
 
I want to read a paragraph from James Ford’s book, Zen Master WHO?,   about shikantaza. I can remember editing this paragraph and I recall we went back and forth a lot, both adding some stuff to it—but what’s here in the book is quite lovely.
 
Just sitting shouldn’t be understood as mere quietism. Nor is it a way to dwell in a state of bliss, suppress our thoughts, or cultivate any kind of blankness. Shikantaza invites us to intimately be within this spaciousness that includes thought as well as the space outside thoughts and the very thoughts themselves. We are invited to simply experience the natural expansiveness of our mind and whatever it may reveal, even if what it reveals is an experience of contraction.
 
So one of the things about Zen, one of the glorious wonderful things about Buddhism in general and Zen specifically is the way that—in ways that we can’t even quite articulate—it starts to undermine our kind of either-or mentality. It’s either spacious or it’s feeling contracted. There’s a way that we can experience that, really just being intimate with that contraction, that narrowness of mind, that is spaciousness. Both of them are present.
 
Bodhidharma, the first ancestor of Zen, is reputed to have said in response to being asked, “What is the essence of Zen?” : “Vast emptiness, nothing holy.” I just read another translation of that which says, “Lots of space, nothing holy.” Which I like a whole lot more. Although it’s the same.
 
There’s a fascinating balance. Part of zazen is not striving. But sometimes striving is present. And so we practice noticing that the striving is there, that moving, that trying, and just again there’s opening the hand of thought and just seeing what is there, meeting the one who shows up, meeting you as you in fact are, not the idealized version of yourself, not the hypercritical one who’s comparing you to that other version, but whatever is there. Sometimes you’re meeting the hypercritical one.
 
I want to read a koan from the Gateless Barrier. This is Robert Aitken’s translation. This is my favorite koan in all of the koans.
 
A monk asked Ch'ing-jang of Hsing-yang, “The Buddha of Supremely Pervading Surpassing Wisdom did zazen on the Bodhi Seat for ten kalpas, but the Dharma of the Buddha did not manifest itself and he could not attain the Buddha way. Why was this?”
 
First let me tell you what a kalpa is. A kalpa is a unit of cosmological time measurement, a vastly long period of time. There’s a couple ways that it’s traditionally described. One is, imagine a valley roughly a mile wide, a mile long, and then a mile high, filled up completely with poppy seeds. Once every three years a sparrow comes and takes one poppy seed and flies away. The amount of time it takes for the valley to be emptied of poppy seeds is one kalpa. Or, imagine a block of iron, similarly a mile on each side, and once every three years an ethereal lady comes and brushes it with a string of silk . The amount of time it takes to erode that iron down to nothing is a kalpa. So you’re talking about a long time here. And this dude who is in fact the Buddha of Supremely Pervading Surpassing Wisdom, he sat on the Bodhi Seat, which is what we sit on. This is the Bodhi Seat. It’s the seat where enlightment is. Not the seat where enlightenment is going to be. Not the seat where we hope enlightenment might come. But in fact, the seat of enlightenment, the Bodhi Seat. He sat there for ten kalpas, but the Dharma of the Buddha did not manifest itself.
 
He could not attain Buddhahood. Why was this?
 
Hsing-yang said, “Your question is exactly to the point.”
 
Which I love. “Yes, that is an accurate perception.” And we’re this Buddha of Surpassing Wisdom. “I’m sitting here in zazen and nothing is coming and all I ever find is ME. It’s just ME and all of this ME.”  Yes.  That’s exactly to the point.
 
The monk says, “But he did zazen on the Bodhi Seat! Why couldn’t he attain Buddhahood?”
 
Here’s a monk after our own hearts, you know? I’m doing everything right. Where is all of this…?
 
And Hsing-yang said, “Because he is a non-attained Buddha.” 
 
The practice of sitting as a non-attained Buddha is what we all do here. This is the one we encounter almost all of the time, the non-attained Buddha. One of the teachings of Zen is original enlightenment. In Zen it’s the legend that Shakyamuni on his own realization said, “How wonderful! How marvelous! All beings and I simultaneously attain the Way.” All beings are enlightened already but they just haven’t noticed this.
 
What’s interesting about this koan is that you don’t hear about the Buddha of Surpassing Wisdom’s perspective on this. You don’t hear about if he was sitting there going, “God, I’m not getting it! I’m just not getting it!” Or, in fact whether it’s the monk from the outside, just projecting that there’s a problem, that this Buddha is anywhere other than dwelling in the Dharma of the Buddha. So Master Rinzai comments on this, “One does not attain Buddhahood, but the reason that this is the case is because the Buddha cannot become Buddha again.”
 
What does this mean for ourselves? If in fact we are already Buddhas, what would that mean for us? What would it mean if there’s no transformation that could come about?   In a way it’s kind of a rough teaching. This is it. This is it. This is all you get. This is as good as it gets, it’s never going to be any different than this. Whatever you’re encountering right now, see it. And yet. And yet. There is a shift in your relationship to that. Or not.
 
Pema Chodron gives us another perspective on this whole situation. This book, Start Where You Are, which is an excellent title, that’s also the practice of meeting the one who shows up. Start where you are – that’s the only place you can start. Start where you are. This body and mind. This set of defilements and harming karma and patterns and difficulties and histories. Start here. Start with you. Start with this. This moment.
 
In this she’s talking about the mind slogans associated with tonglen, the compassion practice of giving and taking which we talked about in one of the Dharma talks. And the slogan she’s talking about here is “Abandon any hope of fruition.” She goes on to say, “You could also say ‘Give up all hope’ or ‘Give up’ or just ‘Give.’ The shorter the better. One of the most powerful teachings of the Buddhist tradition is that as long as you are wishing for things to change, they never will. As long as you’re wanting youself to get better, you won’t. As long as you have an orientation toward the future, you can never just relax into what you already have or already are.”
 
But don’t misunderstand that. It doesn’t mean that if you notice that what’s present is an orientation for the future, well, you’re screwed. Although, on the one hand, you are. And if you can really just acknowledge the truth of your screwedness, you can start there. But meeting the one who’s present is meeting that one who’s going, “Ah yes, let’s see, this is my orientation for the future, this is me striving, this is me waiting for the veils to be parted.” So wherever you are, you can start there. You don’t have to change it. You just have to notice it.
 
Back to Pema Chodron:
 
In one of the first teachings I ever heard, the teacher said, “I don’t know why you came here, but I want to tell you right now that the basis of this whole teaching is that you are NEVER going to get everything together.”  I felt a little like he had just slapped me in the face or thrown cold water on my head. But I always remembered that. He said, “You are never going to get it all together.”  There isn’t going to be some precious future time when all the loose ends will be tied up. Even though it was shocking to me, it rang true. One of the things that keeps us unhappy is this continual searching for pleasure or security, searching for a little more comfortable situation, either a domestic level or at the spiritual level or at the level of mental peace. You’re never going to get it all together.
 
And this becomes a particularly tricky teaching to practice because if you stick with zen practice long enough, and especially if you do a retreat or two, you will have a moment of “OH I REALLY GET IT! NOW I TOTALLY TOTALLY GET IT!” And even in that moment you’re never going to get it all together. Even that moment actually does nothing to alleviate the fact that you’re never going to get it all together. And so then the subtle demon becomes trying to recapture that actually deceived state of mind where you think you had it all together.
 
Pema Chodron goes on to say,
 
In Boston there’s a stress reduction clinic run on Buddhist principles. It was started by Jon Kabat-Zinn, a Buddhist practitioner and author of Full Catastrophe Living. [Another excellent title. And this is of course at the U Mass Medical Center where Melissa is co-director of professional development.]  Kabat-Zinn says that the basic premise to which many people come with a lot of pain is to give up any hope of fruition. Otherwise the treatment won’t work. The treatment is mindfulness-based stress reduction which copiously does work. It’s been extensively tested in controlled medical-style trials, and it works. It relieves suffering. But you paradoxically have to give up any hope of fruition. If there’s any sense of wanting to change yourself then it comes from a place of feeling that you’re not good enough. It comes from  aggression toward yourself, dislike of your present mind, speech, or body. There’s something about yourself that you feel is not good enough. People come to the clinic with addictions, abuse issues, or stress from work, with all kinds of issues. Yet the simple ingredient of giving up hope is the most important ingredient for developing sanity and healing. 
 
So there’s a way in which hope can separate us from meeting the one who is present, meeting the one who is here, because we’re hoping for that one over there. But that doesn’t mean that the arising of hope is a tougher problem. Sometimes it’s the hopeful one who’s present, and that’s the one you meet intimately.
 
Buddha is not someone you aspire to. Buddha is not somebody who was born more than 2000 years ago and was smarter than you’ll ever be. Buddha is our inherent nature, our Buddha Nature, and what that means is that if you are going to grow up fully, the way that it happens is that you begin to connect with the intelligence that you already have. It’s not like some intelligence that’s going to be transplanted into you. If you’re going to be fully mature, you will no longer be imprisoned in the childhood feeling that you always need to protect yourself or shield yourself because things are too harsh. If you’re going to be a grownup, which I would define as being completely at home in your world no matter how difficult the situation, it’s because you will allow something that’s already in you to be nurtured.
 
And then she goes on to comment on something that sounds exactly like it’s addressed in this koan of the non-attained Buddha.
 
 When we feel afraid, that’s fearful Buddha.  That can be applied to whatever you’re feeling.   Maybe anger is your thing. You just go out of control, you see red, and the next thing you know you’re yelling or throwing something or hitting someone. But that time you’re beginning to accept the fact that that’s Enraged Buddha. If you feel jealous, that’s jealous Buddha. If you have indigestion, that’s Buddha with Heartburn. If you’re happy, Happy Buddha, if bored, Bored Buddha. In other words, anything that you can experience or think is worthy of your compassion. Anything you could think or feel is worthy of appreciation.
 
I would find myself in various states of mind and various moods, going up and down, going left and right, falling on my face and sitting up, just in all these different life situations, and I would remember, “Buddha, falling flat on her face. Buddha, feeling on top of the world. Buddha, longing for yesterday.” But I began to learn that I couldn’t get away from Buddha no matter how hard I tried.
 
You can’t get away from Buddha no matter how hard you try. And I invite you to take up this teaching, this practice, experiment, see what happens if you go a day or a week, and each time you check in with yourself, you tell yourself, “Well, okay, that’s Anxious Buddha. That’s Tense and Hurting Buddha.” Whatever state of mind, whatever one you find, name it that Buddha. In another talk I mentioned how I spent the greater part of the sesshin in which I was ordained, practicing as the Buddha of Worthlessness. That was the one who was showing up for me.
 
This practice of seeing that this is Angry Buddha, or whatever - to engage it you don’t even have to believe it. Disbelieving Buddha. Just play this game, just engage it, see what that does to your mind. See what that’s like. Because there’s really no escape. There’s not a single state of mind that’s not that Buddha, the Buddha of That. Experiment with it. Play with it. Let it annoy you.
 
I’ve often said that one of the purposes of some of the chants are to needle people. And one of the purposes of koan study, especially when we first engage koan study with Mu – part of it is when you’re just absolutely certain that you haven’t gotten sufficient instructions from the teacher and if only he would just speak a little more clearly you would have a better sense of what it is you’re supposed to be doing. That’s actually all part of it. Letting these things needle you. You can use that energy too.
 
Abandon any hope of fruition. Fruition implies that at some time you will feel good. There’s another word, which is “open.” To have an open heart and an open mind. This is oriented very much in the present. If you enter into an unconditional relationship with yourself, that means sticking with the Buddha right now, on the spot, as you find yourself. Right now today, could you make an unconditional relationship with yourself? Or we might say, could you meet this one intimately? Just at the height you are, the weight you are, the amount of intelligence you have, the burden of pain which you have, can you enter into an unconditional relationship with that?
 
So returning to just a little bit more on this koan, perhaps the monk who posed the question thought that zazen was a magic device that could transport him into nirvana. This is an error all zen students know about. Most of us have complained in interviews with our teacher. “It’s been ten kalpas since I began my practice, but I don’t have a single glimmer! I’m sitting hard, attending every sesshin I can, but I haven’t attained anything. Why is this?”
 
And in response, “Great! Keep up the good work! It’s wonderful stuff!”
 
One of the things I’ve said in a couple of Dharma talks is that zazen won’t save you. The Dharma won’t save you. Won’t save you from sickness, old age, death, loss, change. Won’t save you from impermanence, it won’t save you from the dissolution of your body and mind. It won’t save you from economic hardship, from natural catastrophe. It won’t save you at all. And it especially won’t save you from you. But… in that very one who isn’t saved, there is salvation that’s already here, freedom that’s already here. There’s the joy that is the ground of being, that is always there. And yet, you’re still going to get sick, grow old, die. Why is this?
 
Finally, priest Chingyong gives the coup de grace. “Because he is a non-attained Buddha.” And then Robert Aitken says, “By this time perhaps you see the point, even if the monk did not. But do you see it intimately? What is your own attainment? Of non-attainment?”
 
And none of us have to look too far to find it. Our own attainment of non-attainment is right here with us now.
 
One last quote.  Robert Aitken is talking about his friend Flora Courtois.
 
For years she suffered deep anxiety about life’s purpose. And then one day her anxiety matured. While gazing idly at a little desk, the universe turned on its axis and she found to her joy that she was all-right, that everything is all-right, from the beginningless beginning. The Buddha of Supremely Pervading Surpassing Wisdom himself was all-right.
 
All fine. The whole catastrophe that’s the world, that’s ourselves, that’s our lives—it’s all … fine.
 
Thank you everybody.


Josh Bartok began his practice under the guidance of John Daido Loori, and lived for eighteen months as a monastic Zen practitiioner at Zen Mountain Monastery. He was James Ford's first shoken student in Boston, and also currently studies with Jan Chozen Bays at Great Vow Zen Monastery. He works as an editor at Wisdom Publications, and serves as practice leader (tanto) at the ZCB affliate Spring Hill Zen in Somerville.