Notes on ‘Keep Me in Your Heart a While’ by Dosho Port
Keep Me in Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri
by Dosho Port (2008)
Kyōshin’s Notes:
This recent book has become one of my favourite modern Zen texts. In fact if I were to recommend two 20th/21st century books on Zen I would offer this one for its honest appraisal of Zen training and Kosho Uchiyama’s Opening the Hand of Thought for its lucid account of zazen practice. Both books also share a common thread which is an appreciation of matters such as other-power, devotion, and prayer, that are often unfashionable and misunderstood. Furthermore, from a personal perspective, all of the points made in the paragraph quoted below could, I think, be said of the nembutsu way as I have been taught it:
Katagiri emphasized zazen as wholehearted surrender rather than using zazen as a means to psychological healing or even to become a buddha. He lived the precepts of conduct as the expression of wonderment rather than moralistic regulations. He taught a Zen that offered no sweet cookies rather than as a means to build personal or collective fame and fortune. And Roshi emphasized the central role of the teacher-student relationship.” (p.xiii)
The Teacher-Student Relationship
p.xiv – “To really see the buddha, to really see any teacher, is to see and actualize for oneself what the teacher teaches.”
BUT Dosho adds that to ‘actualize’ is not to agree blindly or parrot.
p.49 – “Your teacher might have smoothed out through the course of training but unless she or he is a dead horse (in which case, my condolences) your teacher has rough edges and will continue to grow. Growth requires blunders.”
On Zazen
p.10-11 – Dogen Zenji said “sanzen is zazen” – Katagiri Roshi interpreted ’san’ as surrender / submit’ and ‘zen’ as tranquillity / simplicity’ thus surrender to simplicity …
p.22 – “not a technique zazen”
p.32 – “the importance of the bodily process of wholehearted inquiry”
p.33/34 – overcoming self-consciousness – Katagiri Roshi: “‘pray’ means just pray. No object there. Just ‘help!’”
p.90 – people are sometimes uncomfortable with the word ‘devotion’ but the Japanese helps to clarify what is meant by ‘devotion’ in the Buddhist context Ki-e / Ki-myo => ki = to return & myo = original / ultimate state of life
(For interest Shinran Shonin’s own take is: “In the term to take refuge (kimyo), ki means to arrive at. Further, it is used in compounds to mean to yield joyfully to (kietsu) and to take shelter in (kisai). Myo means to act, to invite, to command, to teach, path, message, to devise, to summon. Thus, kimyo is the command of the Primal Vow calling to and summoning us.”)
Attitude and Stance (? Body-Mind Mudra)
p.81-82 – single, unmixed practice
p.106 – “put your body and mind in the appropriate place. Then you are supported and you are allowed to be realised. Instead of shutting yourself up in a small house – so-called discriminating mind – throw open your heart.”
The most important thing is the strength of the Way-Seeking Heart.” (p.124)
Training
p. 47-57 – development is not linear but more like a spiral. ‘Fruition’ often leads to ‘falling into a well’ but that shouldn’t stop us going forwards.
p.52 – Dosho: “Your friends in the spiritual community are also not reliable guides. They also have an investment in the outcome of your decision. In addition to wanting to avoid the loss of your sweet countenance, their secondary gain lies in having their choice to continue confirmed and supported by your choice. We are on our own here and as such this can be a wonderful opportunity to take full responsibility for our life.”
p.31 – “each thing has the wondrous power to be free from itself. As such, everything is broken, not even able to carry itself. Thus, our bodies and our lives are already free.”
