Thanks, Bill. Those are GREAT teachers who you worked with.
I knew Maezumi, and he was our first teacher in Tucson, before the sangha here
early-on decided to become aligned with Aitken Roshi and the Diamond Sangha.
We became the first affiliate of the DS, and there are now about 21 such around
the world.
Maezumi came to Tucson once or twice and held sesshin here in the earliest days
of ZDS (Zen Desert Sangha).
But I was not here (in Tucson), then.
I knew Maezumi Roshi in New York City and sat with him at Bernie Glassman's
place when Maezumi finally came to visit Bernie after Bernie set up a place of
his own. Maezumi "kept away" from Bernie's for at least a year, so Bernie and
his sangha would not be distracted by a more experienced and older teacher. I
remember Maezumi Roshi fondly, although I did not have dokusan with him. I sat
with him on a few nights when he was at Bernie's first place in NYC, in
Riverdale (before they later bought the Greystone Mansion), while I was Sheng
Yen's student. It was 1980, and I was Sheng Yen's student since Feb., 1979,
and became Sheng Yen's Disciple in May, 1979, on a 7-day Ch'an retreat.
I became good friends with John Daido Loori, who, like Bernie, was also given
transmission by Maezumi. I did not join John's fledgling Zen Arts community at
Mt. Tremper NY because I was leaving the USA to do research in radio astronomy
in the Andes, but I was there at the start. My friend, the late Lex Hixon of
the Pacifica Network of radio stations, station WBAI-FM-99.5 in NYC was hugely
instrumental in getting Bernie and John lots of publicity on his weekly Sunday
3-hour radio program, "In The Spirit."
All the literature of ZCLA was very influential on me in the 1970s and very
early 1980s, and to this day. I continued to receive THE TEN DIRECTIONS
regularly when I lived on a mountain in Chile, through the Diplomatic Mailbag.
Koryu Roshi, I did not know, but I love his photograph which I saw in some of
the ZDS literature. I think in the ON ZEN PRACTICE series, by Maezumi and
Glassman, in 1978 and 1979. His kind face made a very memorable impression,
but I have not seen it in years. I think Glassman studied with him, too, and
said that Koryu Roshi only worked koans, and Bernie worked koans with Koryu.
You and I use "spiritual" in very different senses now. I consider everything
about our practice to be spiritual, even the most mundane and everyday things,
all the way up to and through realization. For you it seems to connote
something different, maybe something not noticed by Science or yet verified by
scientific instruments.
I'd say that "Chi" is not to me spiritual in the sense in which you say
understand spiritual: to me it is instead entirely empirical and physical. If
one has not experienced chi and its circulation and its effects, then perhaps
it is just magical talk. But even as a scientist I can assure you that it is
sensed by the practitioner. Not because we cultivate it, but because it goes
with the territory when we are practicing well. And it is *not* Makyo.
I think that by "spiritual", you personally may mean something like "magical",
and "manifestly-false", or "naive", for we Modern folk. I'd say that Chi is
not so. Nor are the powers that are often remarked on upon awakening. These
are experiences, not hidden suppositions.
On the other hand, I'd say that all of our practice is Spiritual, yes, all,
even the most mundane and "everyday" aspects. It's not that I am here trying
to trivialize the "Spiritual": it's that I am, with all respect, going about
elevating the mundane to the miraculous, ...but only because that is the way I
see and experience it, even after 60 years.
It's not an EFFORT of mine. It's an Appreciation: A word I learned from
your/our Maezumi!
Hail,
--Joe
PS By the way, "Mystical" means entirely Empirical and Experiential. This is
to distinguish it from "REVEALED" religion, which is through texts, scripture.
Mystics are Empiricists (or, Experimentalists).
> "Bill!" <BillSmart@...> wrote:
>
> Joe,
>
> All of it (zen/Buddha Nature) is not spiritual - IMO.
>
> > (If you will, who is/was that teacher who taught in such a way?)
>
> I've had 2 formal teachers in my life and neither taught me that zen was or
> was not spiritual. That topic just didn't come up to the best of my
> recollection. These teachers were first Koryu Osaka Roshi and second Taizan
> Maezumi Roshi. My involvement with these two roshis began in the late 60's
> and continued through the 70's, but I kept in contact with Maezumi right up
> to his death in mid-1990.
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