Enlightenment without compassion isn’t Enlightenment at all.
—Jun Po Roshi
In the second part of this book, we talk about Jun Po Roshi’s unique contribution to Zen: Mondo Zen. Mondo is a Japanese word that means, quite simply, “dialogue.” The Mondo Zen process is a thirteen-koan exercise that is designed to be a guided conversation between two people, one of whom has gone through Mondo Zen and experienced the insights for him or herself. The first ten koans give someone a sense of direct spiritual insight; the last three are to help integrate those insights into a student’s life with a clearer understanding of emotional maturity and its expression. Mondo Zen requires a dialogue between a trained facilitator and a student to be truly effective, a give and take of questions and answers.
Mondo Zen does three things. The first is to demystify Enlightenment, so that phrases such as “Enlightenment is closer to you than your own face” can be understood, instead of leading to confusion or resentment. Too often, we meditate without knowing what we’re doing, and as the years go by we may wonder what we’re doing wrong. Since Enlightenment really is right here right now, Mondo Zen allows a student to have this experience, however temporarily, so they can understand the paradox of their own practice instead of being continually frustrated by it.
The second thing Mondo Zen does is to offer a more sophisticated understanding of our emotions, so that things like anger (violence turned outward) and shame (violence turned inward) are understood to be reactions to deeper emotions like fear, sadness, and concern.
Last and perhaps most important, Mondo Zen helps to answer the question “So what?” So you have a deep spiritual insight. What difference does that make in your life? With Mondo Zen training, your emotional reactions can call to your newly discovered Awakened self, so that emotional angst becomes spiritual liberation—without bypassing painful emotions.
Jun Po and I are meeting today in his dining room, sitting across from each other at his dining room table. Beautiful golden Buddhas that he has collected over the decades look down on us from a shelf. Jun Po is wearing bifocals and has just finished reviewing a printout of what the two of us have covered so far. His mood is subdued and serious today.
KA: Ready to move into new territory?
JP: [Nodding, removes glasses.]
KA: We’ve covered a lot of territory so far, enough that I think we can jump into Mondo Zen and what it offers. Mondo Zen uses koans, those riddles that can only be answered by accessing a deeper state of consciousness. In traditional Zen, koans are given without the answer; the whole point is for the student to contemplate the koan long enough to have the penetrating insight required. You, though, not only give away the answers to the koans but explain them as well. Care to comment on what’s going on here?
JP: The classic Zen way is to let a student stew over a koan, sometimes for years at a time. I don’t have any hard statistics, but anecdotally I can tell you that many of the students who enter classical Zen leave long before they have any insight whatsoever.
KA: Some might say that’s a good thing. They weren’t serious enough.
JP: [Shaking head] We don’t live in medieval Japan. These days students have a realistic expectation that the truth can be presented in a way they can understand.
KA: And understood in a matter of weeks or months, instead of years, yes?
JP: [Laughing] Well, that’s the downside. People in this era don’t trust that if they sit with their discomfort in Zen, they will have the insight they desire. In a positive sense, these days we have theorists like Ken Wilber who have done a really brilliant job of explaining what was, for so long, unexplainable. People of my generation and younger, generally speaking, are not willing to sit and stew in our own ignorance until we crack open, probably because we’re awash in information.
KA: Maybe awash in some sense of entitlement, too.
JP: Yeah, I suppose that’s true. People believe they’re entitled to all of everything, right now. Regardless, the age of classic koan training is fading into history.
KA: Because it belongs in another era?
JP: I think so. Too many students don’t understand what’s being asked of them; they might begin koan training, and then get frustrated when no one is willing to give them a map of what they’re doing. It’s just not suited for our lives in the twenty-first century.
KA: And yet you were trained classically. You had to stew in a koan, didn’t you?
JP: [Raising an eyebrow] Most definitely.
KA: So it worked for you, but you’re giving it up. Why?
JP: I’d say I’m modernizing it, not giving it up. My teacher, Eido Roshi, and I took the 1,400 or so classic Rinzai Zen koans and reduced them to just over a hundred for his students. We did this because many of the classic koans don’t make any sense whatsoever in the West. They can never be cracked, because they’re culturally foreign.
KA: Culturally foreign?
JP: Yeah, meaning unless you understood Japanese culture 300 years ago, the koans don’t make any sense. They’re pointing to culturally specific things.
KA: So why keep koans at all?
JP: Because they work, that’s why. But they have to evolve with the culture and the people using them. I have kept the classical Mu koan, the first koan used in our Rinzai tradition, to use in the insight part of our training. This honors my tradition, because it’s powerful and effective. So I kept it, only modified it to be more understandable to a modern ear and sensibility. I wanted to get the same insight that the Mu koan allows, but allow it to reach more people. Most Westerners have no idea what “Buddha nature” even means, so how to use the Mu koan itself, Does a dog have Buddha nature?, can be problematic. The words—the signifiers—don’t have clear meaning to us.
KA: Before we move into Mondo, can you talk a little about your experience with the Mu koan? Does a dog have Buddha nature?
JP: I focused on that koan for months at a time, relentlessly repeating it until I became completely absorbed in it. Eventually, for me, only mu existed—not my mu, but Joshu’s mu. I didn’t crack the koan, the koan cracked me.
KA: Meaning?
JP: What came to me, eventually, was the universal nondual realization of mu, which is the same for Joshu as it is for me, and for you, and for someone a hundred years from now. Is the same, not was the same or will be the same. Is.
KA: The timeless realization of this mind?
JP: Just so. Mu is how the Japanese say wu, and wu is how the Chinese say “no.” What came to me were the two “no”s of the koan—know a truth deeper than thinking mind; know your own true nature; know this mind. And “no”—no to dualistic thinking; no to the question itself; no conceptual understanding of Buddha-nature. Know-no.
KA: Mondo Zen’s first koan is designed to give your students the same insight that the Mu koan gave you?
JP: Yeah, basically. But I’d say that I break the insight of the Mu koan into a few different questions. The first koan I ask is: “Is it possible to just purely listen? Can you listen without an opinion?”
KA: That’s the first koan?
JP: [Nodding] The Mu koan, like all insight koans, works by using your thoughts as the object of concentration that breaks you through to Clear Deep Mind. However, we can concentrate on any of the five senses, plus thinking and feeling, to break us through from the surface mind to our deeper mind. The first Mondo Koan is, like the Mu koan, asking an essential insight question. Both are designed to stop your rational thinking and allow you to have the actual insight experience of your deeper consciousness, out of which your thinking and feeling arise. All I have done with mu is explain what we are doing, adding a correct understanding or correct view to what we are practicing.
KA: But you go on, in the Mondo Zen manual, to completely explain the koan. You do the same thing on retreats—you give away the answer. Why the explanation? Why rob the student of his or her own realization?
JP: By explaining I do not rob them. The clear philosophical understanding of what we are doing assists them. This can make a huge difference in the quality and experience of one’s concentration. Remember, right view, correct understanding, is the first step on the path—with right view, correct concentration and correct meditation naturally follow.
KA: You need to know what the hell you’re doing?
JP: Of course. Ignorance, in this case, is definitely not bliss. I’ve had, literally, dozens of students come to me after years in a classic Zen monastery, and for the first time they understand what they’re supposed to be doing, and actually gain some insight. It’s not that classic Zen is doing anything wrong—it’s one of the most beautiful systems and presentations of reality I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world. It’s beautiful, so beautiful that I followed it all the way to the end. It’s just that it’s, as I said, designed for a different time and a different culture. It makes it harder on Westerners, harder than it needs to be.
KA: The first koan is: “Is it possible to just purely listen? Can you listen without an opinion? Is there such a thing as pure listening?”
JP: I’d ask the reader, or listener, to consider the question for him or herself. Is it possible to just purely listen? Normally I ring a Japanese temple bell to instruct, seduce people in this koan, but it can work with any sound whatsoever. Is it possible to just purely listen, without valuation, without thought, without judgment? Follow the sound of the ringing bell to enter into pure listening.
KA: Of course, you ruin the koan and give away the answer.
JP: [Laughing] Giving away the answer hardly ruins the fun, Baba. The answer, of course, is “yes.” Right now it is possible to simply let sound arise within you, without effort or energy, without doing anything but receiving it. But remember, they must have the experience, not just the intellectual understanding and agreement.
KA: I’m curious what you tell someone who shakes their head and denies that pure listening is possible.
JP: Well, some people will be stubborn about it. They’ll tell me, “No, sound arises with thought,” or “It arises in my physical brain,” or just simply, “No, it’s not possible.” Then I like to tease them, ring a bell and tell them to stop the sound. “Go on—stop the sound. Try really, really hard—stop the sound with your brain, with your thoughts, with your ears.” Of course, they can’t stop listening. So I explain that if the mind has anything to do with creating the sound, then it could stop it.
Of course they can’t, any more than you can stop breathing. Incidentally, that’s because you’re being breathed, not breathing, but that’s a different play on the same story. [Laughing] Sound arises in the field of your awareness without any thought or feeling; you can simply witness sound arising in the larger field of your consciousness. This isn’t rocket science or graduate-level philosophy. Anyone can do it right now—just listen. Are you the listening, or is there an awareness deeper than your thoughts and feelings—deeper than your story of you—just sit back and simply listen?
Our ego awareness, our opinion of sound, our mental reaction to sound, is all at the surface of listening. Trying to keep sound out allows you to experience your ego’s superficiality and realize and experience a deeper mind, a mind in which sound, feeling, touch, taste, thought, feeling are experienced.
KA: This is meant to point someone to the experience that there’s a deeper awareness under the noise of the ego?
JP: That’s right. When you work with someone, you’ll see it in their eyes, and usually because a little smile will form at the sides of their mouth. Samadhi, after all, is quite delicious! With this koan, I get them to realize, then identify, and finally claim this awareness. It seems so simple, right? Just listening. Big deal. But no—slow it way down. Wherever you are, just listen for a moment. Notice. This awareness of sound—it transcends whatever is arising within it. The sound arises in a field of pure awareness, before thought, before anything, and is not separate from you. You and the sound are one, a single expression of consciousness. Deeper than images, sounds, thoughts, deeper than anything, yes. Pure awareness is deeper than this—it transcends and includes whatever is arising within awareness, this Clear Deep Mind.
KA: Simply listening to sounds—any sound—can point me to my full-blown Awakened consciousness?
JP: It can, but more likely it’s an excellent beginning. Remember, the koan is very simple: Is it possible to purely listen? In beginning a practice, that’s all we need someone to do—to get that it is possible. Is it possible to purely listen? If you at least philosophically believe the answer is yes, you have unlocked and cracked open the door to a bigger world. Now that you understand, all you have to do is shut your mouth and listen!
KA: I’ve used this koan not just with neutral sounds, but also when talking to someone. To purely listen to another human being, and not be in your own thoughts and feelings, biting on your lip to keep from interrupting them with your precious insight and oh-so-valuable advice—silence and deep listening can really create an interesting dynamic. I’ve found that if I am truly still and silent, and fully listening, people will open up in the most remarkable of ways.
JP: You got it, Baba.
KA: How do you confirm this with the person sitting in front of you? How do you know they’ve gotten it?
JP: The ego falls out of their eyes; I see pure awareness staring back at me. There’s also a release of the contraction, the barrier, that someone has when their ego is active. That drops, and it’s just pure listening, one empty mind, dhyana, Zen, shunyata. Understand?
KA: Sounds like you use your intuition.
JP: [Nodding] And I feel the resonance with this Awakened mind, this single expression of awareness. We are not two, not one.
KA: So perhaps we should move onto the second koan?
JP: Almost. I like to make one more clarification. Just listening is the difference between conceptual listening and pure listening. Pure listening just means that we don’t have to valuate, consider, judge, or otherwise do anything but receive the sound arising, in this moment. It’s a kind of surrender.
All we’re doing is helping deconstruct your habitual view. It allows you to just be, setting down your perspective and your view, just for a moment. Thoughts, feelings, and emotional reactions to feelings are at the surface of mind—but there is deeper mind, right now.
KA: That’s it?
JP: That’s it. As I said, this isn’t rocket science. Ordinary mind is the way to Enlightenment. I hope we can, in this conversation, explain why that’s the case.
KA: Okay, then let’s move on. The second Mondo Zen koan is “Where is this sound located within your body?” This is going to be interesting, in a book format.
JP: Well, let’s just talk about how this works. I’ll ring the temple bell. I’ll tell a student to slow way down. Let the sound arise; remember there’s such a thing as pure listening. So simply listen to the sound arising, be it a bell or a truck rumbling down the street. Feel your body. Listen as deeply as you can. It’s important to try this on your own. As you’re listening, is there a locus of awareness in your body? Is there an awareness of this sound in the body?
KA: As opposed to between the ears?
JP: That’s right. I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and it’s the damnedest thing. I would say that 95 percent of people I ask will immediately put their hand on their heart, without any prompting from me. It astounds me sometimes—
KA: Pardon my interruption, but these are people on retreat. You might get a different reaction in prison, or a board of directors meeting down on Wall Street.
JP: I’ve worked with prisoners. Hell, I was a prisoner. And CEOs and the like—yes, they tend to be cut off from their emotions, and a little bit stuck in their heads. Disembodied, if you will. They take more work, it’s true. Sometimes we’ll spend an hour on the first koan if that’s the case. It’s okay—there’s no rush—
KA: I should point out that this process, that takes an hour or less with Mondo Zen, is usually a few months of steady work in traditional Zen.
JP: [Smiling] Yes. Thanks for the commercial. So I’ve expedited things a bit. No need to bite a stick in our meditation for so long. So if someone doesn’t feel the truth of this, then I’ll ask them to try it. Try listening, right now, with your heart, as if you have ears deep within your chest. Can you notice the difference? Can you feel something different in the mind and body when you try this?
KA: And if they can’t?
JP: They need to go deeper into silence. If they can’t hear from the heart, I can say with 100 percent certainty that it’s their philosophy and psychology blocking this simple truth.
KA: You’re saying that someone who can’t hear with their heart—which is an actual physical impossibility, by the way—is blocking what is? They’re blocking a critical component of Enlightenment?
JP: Absolutely. In many important ways you and I have already covered, we only accept as real and true what our mind allows us to experience as real and true. So if a person can’t hear with their heart, they might have to come on Mondo retreat or find someone who can take them through the Mondo koan process. It’s a koan for a reason—its realization, its solution, has to be based on both insight and understanding. Intellectual understanding will help, but it’s not really enough. We need the experience of listening with our Clear Deep Mind and our Clear Deep Heart—there’s a qualitative difference in how the world sounds and how we feel when we make this transition. In other words, what is the feeling difference between surface head listening and deep embodied listening?
KA: I’ve experienced this, but I can imagine some of my skeptical East Coast friends still shaking their heads, thinking this is some kind of New Age mush. Listen with my heart? Oh, boy.
JP: [Laughing] The New Age, oh, Christ. Don’t get me started [rolling eyes]. It has some real problems in how it translates spiritual insight. But heartfelt awareness preceded the New Age by a few millennia, so I’m going to stick to my presentation here.
[Pause.] We’re not just conscious beings who live in our heads and spend our days driving our bodies around like cars. You don’t exist just between your ears. Understand this. You are not just your ego brain. We’re embodied; we’re fully embodied, and our awareness spreads through all of us, even if we’re paralyzed and can’t move or feel our bodies. We can, literally, listen with our hearts, not as a mental concept but as a felt reality. The locus of that experience is secondary to the feeling of heartfeltness—some people, like martial artists, feel sound and their heart in their bellies. One student found his heart in the soles of his feet.
KA: What is this koan trying to point out? What’s the bigger view of this?
JP: There’s a compassionate heartfelt physical location for your awareness.
KA: So, mind and heart?
JP: Yes. Too much mind, and you’re cold and cut off. Too much heart, and you’re emotionally overwhelmed and unable to be discerning between compassion and idiot compassion.9
KA: Is that why this matters? Why the focus on listening with heart, be it the physical heart or the heart in, as you say, some guy’s feet? Who cares?
JP: Because Zen, an Awakened life, is the marriage of wisdom (clear mind), and compassion (clear heart). Just wisdom can leave you cold and rigid. You asked me earlier about Zen and the Second World War in Japan. Without heart, without compassion, Enlightenment can be very problematic. We can hide out in the absolute, not feeling the incredible pain of the world, not allowing our heart to be broken open, again and again, by what we see. Think on the suffering in the world, just for a second. It’s so vast, so overwhelming, most of us have to shut it largely out in order to simply function day to day!
KA: I had a friend who, when he first visited India, went down a street with thousands of starving beggars on it, many of them children. He said he had to wall off his emotions to just get down the street, and then burst into tears the moment he turned a corner.
JP: Exactly. That’s because just heart alone can leave you soft and easily broken by the intensity of life. I’m a child of the ’60s, remember—the reason so many hippies didn’t create any lasting change was because they were all heart, all feeling, and that can’t move much in this world. Clear, deep heart/mind is the marriage of wisdom and compassion, and it’s not a truth that you get by simply studying philosophy, or by reading books like this.
You must feel this truth in your body, for yourself. That’s one of the secrets to this practice. People ask me all the time what it takes to Awaken. Awakening has heart; Enlightenment without compassion isn’t Enlightenment at all. Do you understand?
KA: Yes. Awareness, consciousness, is embodied. And often when we drop into our bodies, we find a lot of feeling there, a lot of heart, if you will. I’m curious: if this was a Mondo Zen session between us, we’d still be only be on the second out of thirteen koans. What would you be looking for right about now?
JP: Got off track, did we? [Laughing] Well, I’d be looking to see that you had experienced the insight of pure listening, and had felt that understanding in your body—specifically in your heart. I’d want to see that you understood it, and then have you articulate it back to me before we go on.
KA: Those three steps are necessary—experience, understanding, articulation?
JP: [Nodding] The student must deconstruct their perspective and experience from an egocentric level, and reconstruct it at a Buddha-centric level. It can’t be done without those three steps of experience, understanding, and articulation. For a long time, I didn’t use the articulation piece. But now I understand it like this: if you can’t at least articulate, and preferably demonstrate, your experience back to me, then it’s as if it never really happened for you.
KA: Why all this back and forth? Why not more satsang [spiritual talks], or talking to your students from your own insight and wisdom? Why don’t you give more lectures and talks, or have CDs with this stuff on it? Why do you insist that even beginners do this level of intensive work in a live dialogue, with you? It greatly limits your reach.
JP: Because my insight is of little value to you.
After a talk, I can’t come home with you and sit behind you while you meditate; I can’t step between you and your spouse when you become angry and show you how to slow it down; I can’t follow you to the grocery store and ask you how mindful you’re being about your choices and their consequences.
I cannot give you your seat, Kogen. You must take it. Not from me, but from and for yourself.
I cannot teach true compassion any more than I can teach Enlightenment.
I can show you how to cultivate your own insight, if you want me to. My experience is that when insight is clear and deep enough, compassion arises; Awakening and compassion are bound to one another. Why, I do not know. This is the deepest truth within all of us, within you, right now. [Pause.]
The world needs more Awakened souls living, playing, and interacting. I’m old and tired these days; my body is heavily damaged from my cancer treatments. It is up to you, you reading this, you listening to this, you who are concerned about a better future for our species; it is up to you to move the world forward.
And you start by listening.
Listen!
9 “Idiot compassion” is compassion for another person that makes you feel better while not helping the other person much at all.